by Y. Euny Hong
Thor said, “Excuse me. This pretentious young man is Joshua Spinoza, my new stepcousin, my old lech of a grandfather having married Joshua’s grandmother just six months ago. Joshua is a philosophy Ph.D. candidate at Columbia. His family stands in firm defiance of the notion that education can help you break the cycle of poverty.”
Joshua nodded at me solemnly in greeting. I did the same.
I once saw a poster of the Soviet chess master Garry Kasparov from 1985, when he was in his early twenties. Joshua brought him so much to mind that I nearly swooned. Joshua had those same eyes that were at once paranoid and arrogant, the same large forehead that suggested a highly developed frontal lobe, and the same full lips that created a hint of a shadow just above the chin. Okay, fine, I didn’t just see the Kasparov poster; it hung in my bedroom for years.
At this point Zadie took me by the hand and announced to the room, “I’m borrowing Jude for a minute, everybody,” as if anyone cared. I glanced once more at Joshua, who raised his eyebrows at me as he drank from his glass.
Zadie pulled me into Thor’s bedroom, shut the door, and lit a cigarette.
The way Zadie smoked was so appealing that it would make an asthmatic want to start up, which is in fact what happened freshman year to some of the girls on our floor.
She had that red, red lipstick that all lady smokers should have; the kind that leaves a telltale stain on the cigarette, the sort of damning evidence that destroys a man’s alibi. And instead of simply expelling the smoke as other people did, Zadie let it crawl out of her mouth like creeping ivy. “What’s happening?” I said. “Are you in love with me?”
“No, you know I’m in love with Nat. You met him. He’s the roommate of the woman who shares my painting studio…. You seem confused.”
“Nat? It really has been a long time since I last saw you. You’re back to dating boys now?”
“No. Natalie is the full name, but she goes by ‘he.’”
“Transsexual?”
“No. Did you have a stroke? She goes by ‘he.’ It’s a choice.”
“Oh, right, I remember now. Your Bastille Day party.” I scrunched up my nose disapprovingly. Zadie had recently sponsored an exhibit featuring Nat’s artwork, consisting of found objects Natalie had cobbled together. It was so pretentious that I mistook a thermostat on the wall for being part of the exhibit.
I said, “She — he’s using you, you know. You’re using each other. He sponges off of you financially and in return offers you some sort of authenticity you feel you lack. Zadie, you’re not even gay.”
“Of course I’m gay. Why wouldn’t I be gay?” She looked insulted. “Do you really think a courtesan is in a position to accuse others of financial sponging?” She pursed her lips smugly.
“Aha,” I said, not sure whether I was pleased or annoyed that she knew. “Jung told you, I take it?”
She nodded.
“And what do you think?”
She said, “Your nails have never looked better. I guess anything that gets you started on a beauty regimen can’t be all that bad.”
“Can’t you be serious?” I said.
She patted the bed, urging me to sit with her. “Seriously, then, you’ve got to spend less time with your aunt and uncle. They wield far too much influence over you.”
I sat at the edge of the bed and leaned back on my hands. I said, “I’m having a hard time countenancing the fact that at this very moment I am being chastened by Miss January 1993.”
At the mention of her photo shoot, she spread her legs a little, as if by reflex. She said, “That’s different. I was just posing. Literally and figuratively.”
Zadie continued to puff away recumbently. She said, “I know this is a sore subject, but there are always your parents. If you’d just suck up and be nice to them once in a while you’d be surprised how generous they can be.”
“How kind of you to remind me that all parents are just an endless font of cash. But it’s not just about the money.”
“No, you’re right. It’s about deliberately throwing away your talents just because you’re pissy about not having serfs.”
“On the contrary, my talents have never been put to better use.”
“Why must you pretend to be shallow?”
“This is dreary, Zadie. Let’s go join the others.”
We were still on the bed; she sat up slowly, anchoring her arm on my knee for support. I moved my leg away from her hand, only to realize that in doing so I was exposing my undergarments. She said, “Oh, my God. Is that a garter belt?” Ignoring my protests, she lifted up the hem of my skirt. She snapped the strap that attached the belt to the stocking.
“Ouch,” I said. “Those are a gift, sort of, from Madame Tartakov, the ogresse.”
Zadie traced her finger along the lace at the top of my stockings. She undid one of the snaps. Her hands were cold from the drink she had been holding earlier.
I clamped my legs together, accidentally trapping her hand between my thighs; then I leaped off the bed. I said, “If you really want to help me with my life, give me one of your ciggies, please. I’m out.”
I HAD MY FIRST real conversation with Joshua after he came out of the loo. I hid my cigarette behind my back as he spotted me. We were both embarrassed; I because of my cigarette, he because he’d just come from the toilet and the water was still flushing. He was much taller than he had appeared while sitting.
With feigned casualness, he began to chide, “Why are you hiding your cigarette? You’ve been smoking in front of all of us this whole time.”
“Promise not to tell?” I leaned toward him conspiratorially and continued, “I bummed a cigarette off Scheherazade, but it’s a Davidoff Light, and I loathe that brand. But etiquette requires that a cigarette, once poached from another person, must be finished. So I was about to flush it down the toilet to hide the evidence.”
He furrowed his brow, took the cigarette from my hand, and flushed it for me. How gallant. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble,” he said. “There shouldn’t be such elaborate etiquette s-s-surrounding a vice.”
My family had always regarded stuttering as a revolting defect, but I found it endearing in this case. It was an imperfection that suited him well, like a beauty mark.
“All vices have codes of etiquette,” I said.
Anyone in the employ of Tartakov Translation Services can tell you that.
There was an uncomfortable lull.
I said, “I can’t really take this conversation further until you introduce yourself. The man has to do it first, you realize.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Josh.”
I took his extended hand. “So I heard, Joshua of Morningside Heights,” I said. He glared. I continued, “And I am Judith.”
Pulling his hand from me, he crossed his arms in a hostile pose and said, “Am I mistaken in thinking that you have a very unforgiving nature? I shudder to think what opinion you might have of me.”
“And why should I think so ill of you, sir?”
“No reason particularly. But I’m also a grad student and a pauper, as Thor pointed out with his usual delicacy. I don’t play golf.”
“Golf!” I tittered in an affected manner, covering my mouth with my hands. “Of what consequence is golf?”
“I don’t know. It seemed as good a socio-economic determinant as any.”
“Golf is an ‘economic’ determinant, but not a ‘socio’ one,” I said. “Socio-economic is a misleading hyphenation of two totally unrelated concepts, like Greco-Roman.”
“Then what constitutes the right sort of person, in your opinion, if not money?”
I said, “Can I share with you something that Thackeray wrote on the subject?” I straightened my posture, preparing to recite. “It’s in his novel Barry Lyndon. Ahem. One of the characters, a nobleman, says, ‘ “My friends are the best. Not the most virtuous, or indeed the least virtuous, nor the cleverest, nor the stupidest, nor the best-born, but the best. In other words, people about wh
om there is no question.” And that is how I define good breeding, Joshua. That is how I define aristocracy. It isn’t any one thing; it’s the right combination of many things.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with forcing yourself to finish a Davidoff Light. But, in any case, you’re quoting from Vanity Fair, not Barry Lyndon. Do you just collect quotations?”
I blushed hotly. I have used that line many times in conversation and have never been called on it before.
He said, “I didn’t mean that as a barb. I mean that if you were…more familiar with your social satires, you would know that they’re all about how money and class are inseparably linked.” I noticed that his stutter seemed to disappear as he grew adversarial.
“Nonsense. My family hasn’t any money. And we are, if one can be forgiven for saying this, distinguished.”
“But at one point your family did have money, did they not?”
“Yes, but everyone can say about their family that they once had money.”
“Everyone? What utter rot.” He seemed genuinely offended. His mouth curled into an unattractive grimace.
“At any rate, it wasn’t like that for aristocrats in Korea.”
“I’m rather confused. Are we talking about Korea, or Britain during the Napoleonic wars?”
“All the soccer-playing nations of the world are in agreement on this matter,” I said.
Joshua gave me the hairy eyeball. “Meaning, everyone except America, I presume. Droll, but not accurate.”
“Fine. In Korean terms, then. My ancestors were among the intellectual elite. We had to take exams to hold our place as the king’s royal advisers. Like a whole fleet of Henry Kissingers, but not geniuses. While it is true that we were related to the king —” At the mention of that last word, Joshua shifted his eyes to the right, as if looking to an imaginary friend for succor. I continued, “Nonetheless, we couldn’t have amounted to much without passing those exams. Money played a minimal role in it, really.”
Joshua said skeptically, “Fair enough. Do you consider yourself an intellectual, then?”
“An intellectual? God, no! Blech! I’m the opposite of an intellectual. I’m an aesthete. The only thing worse than being a racial minority in this country is being an intellectual. American intellectuals are the most bitter, humorless, self-segregating bunch of whiners. They’re always in cahoots with the working classes against the aristocracy. I suppose it’s not really their fault, either. How could they possibly turn out to be well-adjusted when the moment they say something important, everyone looks at them as if they’ve just farted. Do you not find this a hostile environment?”
“Is there nothing you admire about America?” he asked, his grimace deepening.
“Yes, like, it’s bad to peach on people.” I was completely serious. I was relieved that no one had told Joshua what I did for a living.
“ ‘Peach?’ This isn’t Eton. I assume you mean ‘tattle.’” Joshua began to chew aggressively on an ice cube he had in his mouth. I shivered.
“Right-o,” I said, which made him put more ice in his mouth. “In Anglo-American culture, it’s considered a sin above all other sins to rat someone out. No matter what the person you’re peaching on has done, it is far more ignoble to be the one to expose him.”
“You must be very unhappy here, if that’s all that ties you to the land in which you make your home.” He tipped his glass to his mouth, sucked in another ice cube, and began to chew on it.
I startled him by exclaiming, “Cup holders! The movie theaters in America have cup holders. American cars have them, too. That’s a nice feature, don’t you find?”
Joshua said cryptically, “If you studied your Greek tragedies, you would know that whatever it is you are pushing away with your flippancy will come back to bite you on the ass.”
I nearly smiled, but stopped myself by pressing my tongue against the inside of my cheek. I was finding this man’s abuse irresistible. Before I could ask Joshua to explain himself, however, Thor stumbled over to us, smiling smarmily. “Am I interrupting something?” he said.
“No, I’m glad you happened by,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you why you are serving a Napa Valley sparkling wine with the word unfiltered emblazoned diagonally across the label? It bloody well better be unfiltered. Presumably the wine doesn’t contain paint chips either; why not just mention that, while they’re at it.”
Thor said, “That’s what happens when your wine industry doesn’t have an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée. But I’m not the one who provided that bottle. Joshua did.”
I was deeply embarrassed.
Joshua said coolly, “For a minute there, I was beginning to wonder how you two could be friends; now I understand.”
Thor chuckled. “Young stepcousin, it’s very easy to offend you, I find. It’s like clubbing a seal.”
“Clubbing a seal?” said Joshua, cringing slightly. “I don’t think I like the way you people talk.” He looked in his glass for more ice, but he had already consumed the last of it.
“What do you mean, ‘you people’?” I asked.
“I mean, people who are addicted to elitism and cruelty.”
I was more deeply affected by his comment than I wanted to admit. “Excuse me, I think I see someone over there I know,” I said abruptly, leaving a disapproving Joshua in the corner with Thor, who was already developing that nail-polish-remover smell of someone who’d started drinking the day before.
As I walked away, I turned my head slightly to look at Joshua, who was wiping Thor’s spit off his face. Thus distracted, I tripped on the edge of Thor’s Oriental rug. My knee buckled; my drink spilled. “I’m fine!” I yelled, my voice cracking as I straightened out my gait like a newborn colt.
Joshua recited with a strong tone of sarcasm: “ ‘She walks in beauty, like the n-n-night.’”
Thor guffawed wetly.
I made myself a strong something-or-other at Thor’s bar, and took it to the kitchen, where I slurped it quickly and listened in on the various conversations taking place in the sitting room.
THOR: Okay, any music requests?
ZADIE: Do you have “Mmm Bop”?
JUNG: “Ring of Fire.”
THOR: Any music requests from someone who isn’t a complete ass-clown? No? Okay, then I’m putting on the Bach Nuremberg Concertos.
KEY: Brandenburg, you moron, not Nuremberg. Bach did not write the soundtrack for the Nazi war-crime tribunals.
ZADIE: Hey, Jung, I heard you know a lot about knives.
JUNG: (testily) What’s that supposed to mean?
ZADIE: I’m deciding between Henckels and Wüsthof. Do you have any suggestions? Someone told me that with Henckels you never need a sharpener. But I assume a gourmand like you would find that an abomination.
JUNG: A knife you don’t have to sharpen is one for which you will never develop affection and therefore pointless.
JOSHUA: It is socially irresponsible to make puns. A pun is a trivialization of the instability of language. (Awkward silence, then) I was just kidding.
ZADIE: (awkward silence, then) Anyone wanna see a picture of me with short hair?
JUNG: (whispering) Joshua has the worst sense of humor, Thor. And for fuck’s sake, he stutters. I’m no longer sure this was such a good idea. Did Joshua say anything about Judith?
THOR: (not whispering) Yeah, he said, “You told me she was pretty, Thor. Imagine my disappointment.”
JUNG: Shit, why would you go and tell him something like that (hits Thor in the arm). Judith’s sort of plain-pretty, like a governess. Those who are told that she’s pretty in advance of meeting her are always disappointed. It’s better to understate it a bit.
THOR: Don’t yell at me. I never said Jude was pretty, exactly. I said she has a face that a gay man would call very beautiful.
JUNG: Joshua is gay?
THOR: No. It’s just a manner of speaking. At any rate, it was a losing proposition. They’re both too high on themselves to no
tice each other.
At the point in the evening at which Thor and Key began raiding through the medicine cabinet to find things to pulverize and snort, I prepared to slip out of the party.
Joshua, the only sober person in the room, intercepted me. “Help me with my coat,” I commanded.
“Why, are you too drunk to put it on yourself?” he asked, bewildered.
I stomped my foot. He held up my coat, turning it this way and that, not quite sure what to do with it. I had to coach him: “I can’t get my arm in the sleeve if you hold it like that. No, you can’t just let one side drop to the floor. Now straighten out the collar.”
“Can I drop you off somewhere?” Joshua said.
“Do you have a car?”
“No, I meant, I meant that I could walk you to the subway station. It’s not far. I could ride alongside you on my bike.”
I stared at him motionlessly for a moment before realizing that he was taking the piss out of me. To stop myself from smiling, I said, “You are so tacky I can hardly breathe.”
But he smelled wonderful, like tea and cumin.
He looked confused. I shook his hand nimbly and said, “Good-bye, Joshua. I doubt very much that we will meet again.” I made an about-face and departed very stylishly, waving at him with the back of my hand while my back was turned to him, and closed the door. Fine exit. But I realized I had to go back. I knocked on Thor’s front door, and Joshua opened it. “I’m wearing someone else’s coat,” I muttered, avoiding eye contact.
*Incidentally, the correct answer, which took us about an hour to get, is as follows: Man A must wear two condoms simultaneously to have sex with Woman X. Then Man A removes the top condom and gives it to Man B. Man A is now wearing a condom that is clean on the outside, and that has touched only his own fluids on the inside. Man B then has sex with Woman X, putting the clean side of the second condom on his penis, and inserting it into Woman X, since the outside of that condom has touched only her fluids. Simultaneously, Man A proceeds to have sex with Woman Y. Then, Man A removes his condom, which now has two soiled sides. Man B then puts the soiled condom over the one he is already wearing, ensuring that the side of the second condom that has touched Woman Y remains on the outside. Man B then has sex with Woman Y. Have fun. Amaze your friends.