Gary Shteyngart - Super Sad True Love Story

Could I really punch this man?

I had waited too long. Joshie was gently removing my remaining hand from his T-shirt. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God. I can’t believe I did that. It’s the stress. I’m stressed. My cortisol levels. Jesus. Trying to put on a brave face. But of course I’m scared too.”

I backed off. Moved to the edge of the room like a punished child, felt the alpha rays of Joshie’s fiberglass Buddha stroking my being. “Okay, okay,” Joshie was saying. “Go home for the day. Give my love to Eunice. Tell Joe Schechter outside I can take him back at half-pay, but Darryl is finished. Come back tomorrow. We’re got so much work ahead. I need you too, you know. Don’t look at me like that. Of course I need you.”

I stopped by the A-OK Pizza Shack, and cleared out the few things they had left, three precious pizzas and calzones warm to the touch, all for sixty yuan. As I stepped outside, the light hit me, the Noah light, the light that floods the city and leaves nothing but itself, the urban rapture. I closed my eyes, thinking that when I opened them the last week would simply fall away. Instead, what I saw was that abominable creature. That fucking otter , right in the middle of Grand Street, chewing on something in the asphalt. I grabbed a heavy calzone, ready to club my furry antagonist. But no, it wasn’t an otter. It was just someone’s escaped pet rabbit enjoying the new solitude, feasting on his street meal while spasmodically brushing back his ears with one paw, reminding me of Noah enjoying the fullness of his hair. The clouds came, and Noah’s urban light turned to shadow the density of slate. My friend was gone.

A pair of shoe-filled suitcases awaited me by the door, but Eunice herself was in neither the living room nor the bedroom. Was she finally moving out? I searched 700 of the 740 square feet that constituted my nest-nothing. Finally, I was clued in by the running water in the bathroom and, once I strained my hearing beyond the whir of a passing helicopter, the soft wailing of a broken woman.

I opened the door. She was shuddering and hiccupping, two bottles of spent Presidente beer by her feet and the remainder of a half-drained bottle of vodka. Do not give in to pity, I told myself. Hold the anger of the past week, hold it tight in your chest. Rise above the ritual humiliations. You’re the richest man in Chinatown. She has done nothing for you. You can do better. Let the world fall apart, there is more to be gained in solitude now. Untether yourself from this eighty-six-pound albatross. Remember how she wouldn’t comfort you after Noah had died.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to drink anything grain-based,” I told Eunice, nodding at the spent alcohol, the most I have ever seen her drink.

The “fuck you” I had expected didn’t come. Her shaking continued, steady as a dying animal thumping against the cheaply tiled bathroom floor. She was whispering in English and Korean. “ Appa , why?” she beseeched her father. Or maybe it was merely her non-functioning äppärät. I never realized the similarity between the device that ruled our world and the Korean word for “father.” The T-shirt she was wearing, an ironic “Baghdad Tourist Authority” tee, was my own, and that strange connection-Eunice covered in my own garb-made me want to fold my own arms around her, made me want to feel myself on her. I picked her up-even the small weight of her pinched my prostate, but the rest of me felt blessed-and carried her to our bed, catching a whiff of her alcohol breath along with the strawberry integrity of her just-washed hair. She had washed for me. “I brought pizza,” I said. “And spinach calzones. That’s all that’s out there right now. Nothing organic.”

She was shuddering with such intensity that I grew worried from a medical standpoint. Her body, that nothing , shook in little round motions of spent energy. I touched her blazing forehead.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Have some Motrin. Eat a pizza. Drink water. Alcohol makes you dehydrated.”

“I know that,” she whispered in between shudders, and I hoped that maybe it was a sign of her displeasure returning. But she continued to quiver, her face a pale freckled mask twisted to the left as if by seizure. A child, just a child. “Len,” she spoke. Water pooled inside the dimple of her chin. “Lenny. I’m…” She was sorry. Just like Joshie. A decision was drawing upon me. A final one. My lips pursed to form the first words of a fateful sentence. I held them pursed for now. I suppose I could have started telling her about all the different ways in which she needed to change in order for us to be happy together, but it would be pointless. I had either to accept the girl cradled in my arms, or to spend the rest of my time searching for something else.

Her trembling increased, and she turned around in my grasp, letting me feel the heavy beating of her spine against my chest. I could see her bones draped within my T-shirt, and in her convulsions I made out the dynamic aspects of her skeleton. She wailed from a place so deep that I could only connect it with somewhere across the seas, and from a time when our nations were barely formed. For the first time since we’d met, I realized that Eunice Park, unlike others of her generation, was not completely ahistorical. I cradled the softness of her behind, her one concession to being a woman. It steadied her, my open-palmed touch. I moved down and popped off her TotalSurrenders. The taste was the same as always-not sweet like honey, as urban musicians may claim, but musky and thick and vaguely urinary. I put my mouth around her, and just lay there motionless, waiting for the tremors to subside, for sleep to come to both of us, forgetting the pizza-hunger gnawing at my center. I was thinking about the word “truth.” Whatever else could be said of Eunice Park, she was perfectly true.

EUNI-TARD TO AZIZARMY-INFO:

David, are you there? Oh my god! I saw the last Media streams. You were bleeding. Your face. And your arm. My poor David. I almost passed out. I tried to get to Tompkins Square, I swear I did, but I just couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me through. Are you okay? WAS MY SISTER IN THE PARK WITH YOU??? I know she goes on the weekends sometimes. Please get back to me as soon as you can. I still believe in you. I still think of what you taught me about my life and about my father, your Object Lessons and your Observations. You were right about everything. I’m not going to give in to High Net Worth thinking. I’m going to do things to make you proud. I’m a fighter and I’m never going to stop fighting. David, talk to me!

Love, Eunice

GLOBALTEENS AUTOMATIC ERROR MESSAGE 01121111:

We are SO TOTTALY sorry for the inconvenience. We are experiencing connectivity issues in the following location: NEW YORK, NY, U.S.A. Please be patient and the problem should resolve itself like whenever.

Free GlobalTeens Dating Tip: Guys love it when you laugh at their jokes. But nothings less sexy than when you try to outdo them by being a laff-hog yourself! When he makes a joke, smile so that he can see your teeth and how much you “want” him, then say, “You’re so funny!” You’ll be sucking crotch in no time, betch.

EUNI-TARD TO GRILLBITCH:

Pony, are you there? What’s going on? I’ve been trying to verbal you for a week, my äppärät can’t connect on TALK or STREAM, all I get is some error message which is freaking me out. Write me back. I miss you. I’m worried about you. I miss you SO much. What’s happening over there? Was there shooting in Hermosa too? What happened to your dad’s factory? Write to me NOW! I’m worried, Jenny Kang. Talk to me, sweet Precious Pony. All I’m doing now is crying. I don’t know what’s happening with my family. I don’t know what happened to my friend David. I think Lenny doesn’t want me anymore. I think we’ve totally broken up, only he can’t send me packing because of the situation. Please write or TALK me back. I don’t want to be alone and I’m scared. You’re my best friend.