Gary Shteyngart - Super Sad True Love Story

“She’s actually drawing?” I said. “By hand? Not on an äppärät?”

“Hell’s yeah, home-slice! Don’t you know your own gf?”

“She’s so modest around me,” I said. “FYI, no one really says ‘home-slice’ anymore, Grizzly.”

Joshie shrugged. “Youth is youth,” he said. “Talk young, live young. How are your pH levels anyway?”

She came out, blushing but happy, clutching a sketchpad to her chest. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s stupid. I’m going to tear it up!”

We raised the appropriate protests, outdoing each other with our thundering baritones, Joshie rapping his mug on the coffee table like some coarse fraternity brother. Shyly, but with a hint of flirtation probably borrowed from an old television series about women in Manhattan, Eunice Park handed Joshie her sketchpad.

She had drawn a monkey. A rhesus monkey, if I wasn’t mistaken. A bulbous gray-haired chest, long heart-shaped ears, perfectly dark little paws holding on tenuously to a tree branch, a whirl of gray hair on top, below an expression of playful intelligence and contentment. “How meticulous,” I said. “How detailed. Look at those leaves. You’re wonderful, Eunice. I’m so impressed.”

“She’s got you down, Len,” Joshie said.

“Me?” I looked at the monkey’s face once more. The red, cracked lips and rampant stubble. The overstated nose, shiny at the tip and bridge, the early wrinkles dashing up to the naked temples; the bushy eyebrows that could count as separate organisms. If you looked at it from a different angle, if you moved the sketchpad into half-shadow, the contentment I had previously discerned on the monkey’s slightly fat face could pass for want. It was a picture of me. As a rhesus monkey. In love.

“Wow,” Joshie said. “That is so Media.”

Eunice said it was awful, that twelve-year-olds could do a better job, but I could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced. We each hugged him farewell. He kissed her cheeks for a while, then slapped me quickly on the shoulders. He offered us a digestif and some Upstate-sourced strawberries for the road. He offered to go down in the elevator with us and deal with the armed men outside. He stood in the doorway, clutching on to the doorpost, watching the last of us. During that final moment, the moment of letting go, I saw his face in profile, and noticed the confluence of purpled veins that made him look momentarily old again, that produced a frightening X-ray of what burbled up beneath that handsome new skin tissue and gleaming young eyes. That stupid male shoulder-slap wasn’t enough. I wanted to reach out and comfort him. If Joshie somehow failed at his life’s work, which of us would be more heartbroken, the father or the son?

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” I said in the Town Car as Eunice put her sweet, alcohol-reeking head on my shoulder. “We had fun, right? He’s a nice man.”

I heard her breathing temperately against my neck. “I love you, Lenny,” she said. “I love you so much. I wish I could describe it better. But I love you with all I’ve got. Let’s get married.” We kissed each other on the lips, mouth, and ears as we passed through seven ARA checkpoints and the length of the FDR Drive. A military helicopter seemed to follow us home, its single yellow beam stroking the whitecaps of the East River. We talked about going to City Hall. A civil ceremony. Maybe next week. Why not make it official? Why ever be apart? “You’re the one I want, kokiri ,” she said. “You’re the only one.”

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: Hi, Eunice. It’s Joshie Goldmann. Whasss’uuuup?

EUNI-TARD: Joshie?

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: You know, Lenny’s boss.

EUNI-TARD: Oh. Hi, Mr. Goldmann. How’d you get my info?

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: Just teened around for it. And what’s with the Mr. Goldmann? That’s my dad’s name. Call me Joshie. Or Grizzly Bear. That’s what Lenny calls me.

EUNI-TARD: Ha ha.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: So I’m writing to remind you of our little date.

EUNI-TARD: We had a date?

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: We were going to take an art class together. Duh!

EUNI-TARD: We were? I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy this week. I should be applying for Retail jobs and stuff.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: A lot of our clients are in Retail. What kind of job are you looking for? The guy from Ass something just came in. That’s confidential, actually.

EUNI-TARD: Oh, I couldn’t impose.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: Stop! Who’s imposing? Ha! I’m sure we can hook you up with some mad-ass job.

EUNI-TARD: Okay. Thank you.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: So I got us into a summer drawing class at Parsons-Ewha.

EUNI-TARD: That’s very nice of you, but the summer session’s already started.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: They’re making an exception. It’s just the two of us. Although maybe you shouldn’t tell that to Lenny. Ha ha.

EUNI-TARD: Thank you so much but I really can’t afford it.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: WTF? I got it covered.

EUNI-TARD: That’s very kind of you, Mr. Goldman. But I think I need to concentrate on getting a job this week.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: What did you call me?

EUNI-TARD: Sorry!!!! I meant Joshie.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: Duh! Anyway, that rhesus monkey painting was so good I don’t want your talent to go to waste, Eunice. You’re super-gifted. This may sound weird, but you kind of remind me of me when I was younger. Except you’re sweeter. I was a very angry young man until I realized I didn’t have to die. Some of us are so special, Eunice, we don’t have to succumb to the Fallacy of Merely Existing. Maybe you’re special too, huh? Anyway, I can help you get a job, so you don’t have to worry about that part. And I’ll take a class with you. It’ll be so great!!!! You can make more animal drawings of Lenny and then give them to him for his birthday in the fall.

EUNI-TARD: I’ve been wondering what to get him actually.

GOLDMANN-FOREVER: Poifect! OK, gotta jet, but get back to me soon about the classes. They’re flying in some teacher from Paris just for us.

EUNI-TARD TO GRILLBITCH:

Dear Precious Pony,

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! Okay, you’ve got to help me, jizz-monkey. Okay, are you sitting down? So we go over to Lenny’s boss’s place and it’s this like adorable old-school apartment, like something out of Paris. So smartly decorated and not too typical Mediastud either, like he’s put a lot of thought into it. They even had the street closed off for him. And his boss is SOOOO adorable. He runs this huge company that makes people look a lot younger. And he’s in his seventies but he looks like he could be Lenny’s younger, handsomer brother. Remember those porns we used to watch when we were in kindergarten? With the old man who molests teens on the beach. What was it called? Old Man Spunkers or something? That’s sort of what he looks like, with the shaved head, but cuter and younger.

Anyway, Lenny’s boss says he has these micro-robots inside him that repair his dead cells, but that sounds like bullshit. I bet he’s just had a lot of plastic surgery and he also takes care of himself and works out three times a day (UNLIKE LENNY!). So when we hung out I drunk more wine than I’ve had since Rome, and I got a little tipsy, and this guy, Mr. Goldman, he kept looking at me with this kind of sweet, lustful face, like he wants to whore me out, but gently, like I’m his daughter and his sex toy at the same time. He’s so goofy and dorky (he had a one-man show on a live stage and he drew all these funny paintings of an old woman with massive pubic hair-SICK!), I just wanted to jump on his lap or something. It kind of made me a little wet, how disarming he was and how smart and easygoing and just plain old FUN, the way Lenny never really is anymore. I was starting to sweat a little, and I get SO self-conscious. It’s like my freaking thighs are so fat they’re rubbing against each other and making this wet kissing sound. MWAH! MWAH! TIMATOV!!!! I need to lose weight NOW, no excuses. I am so through with proteins and carbs, although Mr. Goldman was talking a lot about peak proteins. Anyway, this week I’m just going to eat those lo-cal red-bean icicle pops from the Korean mart and drink five cups of water for dinner.