Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (C. AD 2009) in a Large City

by Choire Sicha

  “Remember that guy Reed who was flirting with Edward very openly? Ugh, I hated that guy so much,” John said.

  “Oh, he had like an Afro?” Jason said.

  “Yes, and he was like, hi, my name’s Reed,” John said.

  “Oh, I didn’t like that person,” Jason said.

  “Ugh, I hated him. I was looking at him like I was going to kill him,” John said.

  “Do you know that person?”

  “No! I was like, don’t talk to Edward!”

  “People are allowed to talk to Edward,” Jason said.

  “I got very upset. Then Edward was like, oh you know, there’s also a Brazilian guy in the bathroom or whatever. And I’m like, a Brazilian man in the bathroom?”

  “They didn’t like me as much that time,” Jason said.

  “They did like you! Remember that guy who was staring at you? The Boy Scout?”

  “I’m just not that kind of pervo.”

  “But you have to be in a situation like that.”

  “Well, I was a pervo later,” Jason said.

  “I had never seen anything like it,” John said. “It was like ass in the air, everywhere you looked. It was packed. The cruisiest place I’ve ever been.”

  “I was so un-hot!” Jason said.

  “You were not un-hot.”

  “No, not me but everyone else.”

  “Oh my God, there were a lot of hot guys there!”

  “Were there?”

  “Oh, that was the other guy! Dave’s roommate was all over him,” John said.

  “Dave is the biggest whore in the world,” Jason said.

  “No, his roommate!”

  “No, I know!”

  “Oh, that one’s a whore?”

  “They’re both whores!”

  “You know how I know?” John said. “Because he Facebook friended me and I looked at the pictures of him.”

  “Oh, I know, he has those hungry eyes!”

  “He looks like Milhouse from The Simpsons,” John said. “He has Milhouse-without-glasses eyes. Like these beady little eyes.”

  “Edward looked great that night. He wasn’t wearing any costume. I got too dressed up,” Jason said.

  “So did I,” John said. “I was a bandit. Did I look okay?”

  “Yeah, no, you totally,” Jason said. “I was Sonia Sotomayor. Or Rachel Maddow. I kept changing it.”

  “And any time I smoked, or any time Edward smoked, I said, ‘This is Smokey and the Bandit,’ ” John said.

  The magazine party they went to first had allegedly cost 150,000 dollars.

  “But the open bar was, like, a pitcher of margaritas,” Jason said.

  “And Colt 45,” John said. “That party, it sucked. Sugarland was fun though. I was really drunk, I had to go home. Edward was so proud of himself. He was like, you know those nights when you have your mojo? I feel like I had my mojo. And I was like, yeah, I know. He looked great. What was Edward saying he was at the end of the night? Oh, he was like, ‘I’m Precious.’ ”

  “Yeah, no,” Jason said. “I dunno, it felt kind of depressing toward the end.”

  “Nobody knew what the time was. I didn’t know if it was two a.m. or four a.m., the time kept changing. Plus I was so drunk. I only had like four beers and I was so wasted. I had sushi! I was on so much medication because I was sick.”

  “Adderall?” Jason asked.

  “I had a Tic Tac or two,” John said. “But like. Speaking of! Do you have it?”

  “Oh yeah,” Jason said.

  “Oh, I’m not doing it tonight! I’m not doing it tomorrow,” John said. “But soon. Soonsies!”

  NOW THE OWNER of John’s company got married to a princess, of sorts, though technically she was becoming her own king. Family and friends and business associates came from far but particularly from near to observe the nuptials. John’s owner’s intended bride wore white, a rather recent tradition indicating purity, particularly—and this will sound vulgar!—intactness of virginity. That was something that wasn’t talked about; it was considered nobody’s business, except for the bizarre wearing of white. The former mayor of the City came. The Mayor did not. Various owners of enormous businesses attended—a very, very rich foreign man who owned newspapers and television stations around the world, and others like him. The groom gave the bride a ring of shiny rocks of a high price.

  They were married on property, a sporting grounds associated with her father, who had reinvented kingship in his own way. Once he had made buildings, but with the growing cachet of his buildings, he found a way to not have to make the buildings himself any longer, but simply to sell his name to other building makers so that these buildings carried his imprimatur and he got paid for the use of it. There was an incredible lesson about commerce in there. His name was a trademark, which was like a patent. So the bride’s father had perhaps the most inventively diffuse kingdom of them all: People paid him to allow them to build vertical kingdoms with his name on them, and then other people paid those builders to reside in them.

  It seemed very strange when you started to think about it all.

  In any event these two were in love, and so they pledged to spend their lives together until they died. Or until they didn’t want to be married anymore—that was currently considered legitimate as well. The whole “until you die” thing might have just been an old leftover thing that people said because they were supposed to.

  THE OWNER OF Kevin’s company, who was not at the wedding of his estranged cousin, threw a party on the night before the election.

  The party was in a weird storefront that had been built out in the most elaborate way. There were like these portals, and angular walls, and weird little passageways onto the street. It was very futuristic and had many dark corners.

  “John, you’re going to get banned,” Edward said. John was smoking out one of the portals, but he had a beer so he couldn’t step outside onto the street either, because it was against the law to drink on the street.

  “I’m not going to get banned,” he said.

  Kevin had grown an enormous brushy mustache. “I was saying, does this tear off? And he got so upset! He was like, no, I just grew it,” John said. “I was like, it looks good, and he was like, okay.”

  “I’m going to take a vacation. I’m going to take like three days off next week. Whatever,” John said.

  Jacob at work—because they were still riding out their time in the office until at least the end of the year—had told a staffer that his own other part-time job was basically finding a new job, and so everyone in the office was of equal dispiritedness. They were taking the vacation days they could. And Timothy and Jacob had invited everyone over for dinner. Trixie had told them she was out of town. Sally told them she had plans. No one was going to come to dinner.

  “It sounds like the Kübler-Ross stages,” Edward said.

  “Are you going to grab another beer? If you could grab me one,” John said. Okay, Edward said. “Oh, you’re a good guy,” John said. “Tomorrow, Election Day!” John said to Jason. “I’m not voting. I have no time to do it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think I could get into law school,” Edward said. Apparently he was just considering his options.

  “Why does this party have to end at nine?” John said. “You have to eat.”

  “I do?” Edward said.

  “You’re wasti
ng away,” Jason said.

  “Why weren’t you online most of the day?” John said.

  “I was in the downtown office. It was a madhouse. It was totally crazy today,” Jason said.

  “Did John tell you about our dinner?” Edward said. He and John had gone out with Amy and Amy’s boyfriend. “Amy’s mom, who’s like the least fun person in the world, after she met him, she said to Amy, I really like your boyfriend, but let me ask you a question: Has he ever had fun in his life?” John didn’t really get along with Amy. She didn’t like to spend a lot of time with Edward and John together either. The real reason, which Edward and John didn’t really know or pretended not to know, was that she was horrified about how they were constantly groping and kissing each other. Also she thought John was too young for Edward and also too much of a player. “I didn’t even notice what a bitch she was being. It bounces off me,” Edward said. Also at the dinner, Amy was going on about how John’s boss, Timothy, was totally in the owner’s pocket. “And John was like, I don’t think so, and she was like, uh-huh. Also she was like, ‘Oh, you, you’re so naive,’ ” Edward said. So that had all of John’s hackles up. “I made really good cookies,” Edward said.

  “I think I pissed Chad off yesterday,” he said. “They were having their nightly phone wrap-up and I piped up from the background. I was revealing my presence and he was like, ‘I’ve gotta go!’ But I love Chad. He’s so cute. By ‘cute’ I mean very attractive. He’s a very loud talker. Former drama club member perhaps.”

  Edward was mad that he’d never taken advantage of his last relationship, apart from having had a nice apartment in the City and all that. Aric traveled constantly, for one thing. “He’s gone at least a week out of every month. He goes like amazing places. I was always like too poor to go. And he was always sort of discouraging about me coming. But I do regret it. He didn’t trust me to fend for myself. It’s probably fair. I told John the other day: Before we broke up, this girl was begging him for his sperm. And now I have this terror. Doesn’t that seem like a reasonable thing to do? In the wake of a breakup, to have a baby? And that’d be the worst thing.”

  Well, maybe not the worst thing.

  “One time I left the Cock,” John said, “and there was this cabdriver, and he was like, do you like that place? And I was like, no. And he was like, do guys go there? And I’m like . . . yeah. He was like, a lot of guys like to go there, right? Keep in mind he’s driving and turning around to look at me all the time. So I rolled down all the windows so it was like a noisy wind. And I kept being like, ‘I can’t hear what you’re saying!’ ”

  “How come cabdrivers never hit on me?” Edward said.

  “Oh my God,” Jason said, “it’s like the second time.”

  “Am I just fucking repulsive?” Edward said.

  “No comment,” Jason said.

  “It’s like the same as how I always get so mad about never seeing anyone have sex in the steam room,” Edward said. “I feel like it’s like I walk in and everyone’s like, oh God, he’s here. Halt!”

  “Never mind,” John said.

  “I always see it happen,” Jason said.

  “Everyone’s always complaining about it!” Edward said. “I mean I haven’t actually been to the gym in years, but back when I did, it was the Sports Club on Fourteenth Street.”

  “You belonged to the Sports Club at some point?” John asked.

  “I know it’s hard to imagine,” Edward said.

  “I remember,” Jason said.

  “I can’t imagine it, when did this happen?” John asked.

  “It was back in my—” Edward said.

  “Oh, your virile days?” John said.

  “No, not my virile days, my days of milk and honey,” Edward said. “When I was super rich. When I was just throwing money around everywhere.”

  “I’ve heard about these days,” John said.

  “They were really fun,” Edward said.

  “We were both so rich,” Jason said.

  “I bought so many videogames,” Edward said.

  “I bought so many suits,” Jason said.

  “Oh, I didn’t go that far,” Edward said.

  “Everyone’s poor,” John said. “Maybe I’ll be able to change that soon, hey.”

  “Jason came up with the best Halloween costume after the fact,” Edward said.

  “What what what,” John said.

  “Brooke Astor,” Edward said.

  “Oh, that’d be brilliant but you need a dachshund or three,” John said.

  “I was thinking more of a pee-stained nightgown,” Jason said. “Because everyone wants to see Mrs. Astor. Even in a nightgown covered in urine. Did she have dachsies?”

  “Oh my God, I think she left like millions of dollars to her dachshunds,” John said.

  “Didn’t Leona leave all that money to—”

  “Oh, Leona did that too,” John said.

  These were the names of rich people who they didn’t personally know.

  “Wait, didn’t someone tell me that story about Leona,” Edward said, “that she would do laps in the pool every day. In her, you know, personal indoor pool. And she would have a servant standing at each end and when she came up for air at the end of the lane, they’d drop a shrimp in her mouth.”

  “That cannot be true,” Jason said.

  “This sounds like an embellishment by the person telling the story, but I think she would also say, ‘Feed the fishie.’ ”

  “That sounds wonderful,” John said.

  “It sounds a little less than believable to me,” Jason said.

  “Isn’t there a bit of a problem with eating and swimming?” John said.

  “Maybe it was only at one end of the pool,” Edward said.

  “Maybe they were baby shrimp,” Jason said.

  “I guess you would get full pretty quickly,” Edward said.

  “Kevin! Say hello!” John said.

  “I’m working!” Kevin said.

  “Take a load off!” Jason said.

  “I’m the point person at this thing! I have a clipboard!” Kevin said. “I’m administering!”

  Jason started hacking. “I’m going to the doctor on Election Day!” he said. “I stopped smoking. It’s really bad. I’m going to my allergy-asthma doctor tomorrow.”

  “Why do these cigarettes taste so bad?” Edward said.

  “Here, let me see,” Jason said.

  “It’s really like metallic. I came up with the best idea,” Edward said. “When I go back home, I’m going to drive in my parents’ car and get cartons and cartons of cigarettes.”

  “And then sell them?” Jason asked.

  “And then sell them,” Edward said. “They cost like two dollars there.”

  “You’re going to be so rich,” Jason said.

  “It’s the kind of thing I’m probably too lazy to do,” Edward said.

  Chad wandered in. Everyone screamed. He went to get a beer.

  Then a crazy man wandered in too and started ranting about the Mayor, and how awful the Mayor was, and how the Mayor secretly had a boyfriend.

  “I haven’t heard this!” John said.

  “Is this a surprise?” the crazy man said. “In terms of his character, I mean, is this a surprise?”

  “Well, he is such a bitch,” Jason said.

  Jason martyred himself for the group and let the crazy ma
n isolate him from the rest. The guy said a lot of stuff about how the Jews were messing everything up, and how the Mayor was in league with Israel, which Jason didn’t really enjoy. So then Edward very kindly took a turn.

  Edward couldn’t vote—he wasn’t registered there. Chad was registered at his old address, and it would take him hours to get there, so he probably wouldn’t go vote. John definitely wasn’t going to vote tomorrow. Though maybe he was going to do a write-in. “I got really mad at him today,” Jason said about John. “He nearly COL’d! Cried out loud! I am mad. Chad, are you going to—?”

  “I actually might not vote,” Chad said. “I’ve done a great deal to work for—”

  “I’ve done a great deal as well!” John said.

  “What!” Jason screamed. “What!” and started hacking.

  “I’ve had a really long couple of weeks,” John said.

  Edward came back from the crazy man. “He told me if he was going to die tomorrow, if I was going to die tomorrow, my last, like my dying thing, my last—I have completely lost—” Edward said.

  “Maybe you need more Adderall,” Jason said.

  “I have completely lost my capacity for language,” Edward said. “Basically he told me he would take a vial of sulfuric acid and throw it in the Mayor’s face.”

  “If you only have one day, there’s only so much you can do. You have to find the Mayor, you have to find the sulfuric acid . . .” Jason said.

  “He wouldn’t want to kill him. He just wanted the Mayor to look in the mirror and see the ugliness inside every day,” Edward said.

  They discussed this for a while.

  “And he’s so hideous as it is!” someone said. “Why hasn’t he had more plastic surgery to make himself more attractive? Or at least a D enlargement.”

  “I bet he has a big dick.”

  “No way.”

  “Well, he’s so small that at least—”

  “Yeah, I bet it looks bigger than it is. Because he is a big dick.”