Super Sad True Love Story

by Gary Shteyngart

  To make matters worse, Shu was not unhandsome, and when he and Joshie high-fived each other, I felt the pureness of envy, an emotion that numbed my feet and shorted my breath. “Take care of Len here,” Joshie said to Howard Shu, with just a thimble of conviction. “Remember, he’s an OG.” I hoped he meant Original Gangster and not Old Guy. And then, before I could laugh at his youthful demeanor, at his easy ways, Joshie was gone, headed back into the open arms that would receive him wherever, whenever he felt the need of their embrace.

  I sat down across from Howard Shu and tried to radiate indifference. From behind the helmet of his lustrous black hair, Shu did the same. “Leonard,” he said, his button nose aglow, “I’m pulling up your file.”

  “Please do.”

  “You’re being docked 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars,” Shu said.

  “What?”

  “Your expenses in Europe. You flew first-class everywhere. Thirteen thousand northern euros’ worth of resveratrol?”

  “It was no more than two glasses a day. Red wine only.”

  “That’s twenty euros a glass. And what the hell is a bidet?”

  “I was just trying to do my job, Howard. You can’t possibly—”

  “Please,” he said. “You did nothing. You fucked around. Where are the clients? What happened to that sculptor who was ‘in the bag’?”

  “I don’t appreciate your tone.”

  “And I don’t appreciate your inability to do your job.”

  “I tried to sell the Product, but the Europeans weren’t interested. They’re totally skeptical about our technology. And some of them actually want to die.”

  The immigrant eyes glared at me. “No free pass, Leonard. No hiding behind Joshie’s goodwill. You get your act together or we’ll be conducting exit interviews. You can keep your previous salary level, we’ll put you in Intakes, and you’re paying for every last meatball you ate in Rome.”

  I looked behind me. “Don’t look behind you,” Shu said. “Your papa’s gone. And what the fuck is this?” A red code was flashing amidst the steady chrome äppärät data. “American Restoration Authority says you were flagged at the embassy in Rome. Now you got the ARA on your tail? What the hell did you do?”

  The world took another spin and then a tumble. “Nothing!” I cried. “Nothing! I didn’t try to help the fat man. And I don’t know any Somalians. I slept with Fabrizia only a few times. The otter got it all wrong. It’s all a scam. The guy videotaped me on the plane and I said ‘Why?’ And now I can’t contact Nettie Fine. Do you know what they’ve done to her? Her GlobalTeens address is deleted. I can’t GlobalTrace her either.”

  “Otter? Nettie what? It says here ‘malicious provision of incomplete data.’ Fuck it, another mess for me to clean up. Let me see your äppärät. Good fucking Christ. What is this, an iPhone?” He spoke into the cuff of his shirt: “Kelly, bring me a new äppärät for Abramov. Bill it to Intakes.”

  “I knew it,” I said. “It’s my äppärät’s fault. I just told Joshie that he should always have his on him. Fucking Restoration Authority.”

  “Joshie doesn’t need an äppärät,” Shu said. “Joshie doesn’t need a damn thing.” He stared at me with what could have been unimaginable pity or unimaginable hatred, but in either case involved perfect animal stillness. Kelly Nardl came huffing up the stairs with a new äppärät box that was itself a rainbow of blinking data and noise, a nasal Mid-Atlantic voice somehow embedded in the cardboard promising me “Duh berry ladest in RateMe tech-nah-luh-gee.”

  “Thanks,” Shu said, and waved Kelly away. Seven years ago, before the mighty Staatling-Wapachung Corporation bought Joshie out for a grotesque sum of money, Kelly, Howard, and I used to occupy the same rung of what was then called a “flat organization,” one without titles or hierarchies. I tried to catch Kelly’s eye, to get her on my side against this monster who couldn’t even pronounce the word “bidet” properly, but she fled Howard’s desk with nary a shake of her friendly backside. “Learn how to use this thing immediately,” Shu told me. “Especially the RateMe part. Learn to rate everyone around you. Get your data in order. Switch on CrisisNet and follow all the latest. An ill-informed salesman is dead in the water these days. Get your mind in the right place. Then we’ll see about putting your name back on The Boards. That’s all, Leonard.”

  It was still the lunch hour by my calculations. I went over to the East River with the äppärät package continuously hollering under my arm. I watched unmarked boats bristling with armaments form a gray naval chain from the Triborough down to the Williamsburg Bridge. According to Media, the Chinese Central Banker was coming to take the lay of our indebted land in about two weeks, and security all over Manhattan would be profound for his visit. I sat down on a hard, wiry chair and stared at the impressive all-glass beta skyline of Queens, built way before our last dollar devaluation. I opened the box and took out the smooth pebble of the new äppärät, felt it already warm in my hand. An Asian woman of Eunice’s caliber projected herself at eye level. “Hello,” she said. “Welcome to äppärät 7.5 with RateMe Plus. Would you like to get started? Would you like to get started? Would you like to get started? Just say ‘yes’ and we can get started.”

  I owed Howard Shu 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars. My first stab at dechronification—gone. My hair would continue to gray, and then one day it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly like the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these data, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I’m talking about, would be gone. And that’s what immortality means to me, Joshie. It means selfishness. My generation’s belief that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.

  There was a commotion on the water, a needed distraction. With a burble of warm white spray behind it, a northbound seaplane took off so gracefully, so seemingly free of mechanics and despair, that for a moment I imagined all our lives would just go on forever.

  THE NEXT PLANE HOME

  FROM THE GLOBALTEENS ACCOUNT OF EUNICE PARK

  JUNE 9

  CHUNG.WON.PARK TO EUNI-TARD ABROAD:

  Eunhee,

  Today I wake up sad. But no problem! It will be OK! Only your father is very mad at you. He say you bohemia. What is this? He say you go to rome and you do not protect the mystery. He call you bad word in korean. He say you probably with black man. So shocking! He say only bohemia people go to Europe and bohemia people is bad people. He say maybe he stop being podiatrist and become painter which is always what he want but he grew up oldest son so he has responsibility to his parent and brothers. You are oldest sister. So you have responsibility. I say this already. We are not like American, don’t forget! Which is why now Korea very rich country and America owe everything to China people. Daddy say you should come home and take LSAT again but this time study, but maybe Daddy a little wrong because now there is army in the street and it is dangerous. Reverend Cho tell Daddy he is sinner and he must throw away of himself, to be empty inside, so his heart will be fill only with Jesu. Also he say he should see Special Doctor to talk to and maybe take medicine so that he don’t hit. But Daddy say it is shameful to take drug. Eunhee! Prepare yourself for LSAT to make Daddy happy and we can be good family again. Please forgive me because I am bad mother and bad wife.

  Love,

  Mommy

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: Sally, I’m taking the next plane home.

  SALLYSTAR: It’s not so bad. Don’t listen to Mommy. She’s trying to guilt you. I’m staying over at Eunhyun’s this whole week. I’m so busy studying for chem I don’t even have time to deal.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: If you can’t deal, then who’s taking care of mom? If we’re both out of the house he’ll start blaming her for EVERY LITTLE THING. He’ll say she drove us away and turned us both against him. She’s completely un-protected. You know she’ll never call the police or even Cousin Harold if he hits her.

  SALLYSTAR: D
on’t use that kind of language, please.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: What kind of language? That he HITS her.

  SALLYSTAR: Stop it. Anyway, I still have dinner there every night so I know what’s going on. He hasn’t done anything major.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: Not to her, you mean. What about you?

  SALLYSTAR: I’m okay. Chem is killing me.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: I know you’re lying to me, Sally. I’ll be on the next plane back and I’ll see what he’s done.

  SALLYSTAR: Stay in Rome, Eunice! You deserve to have a good time after college. One of us should be happy. Anyway, next week I’m going to DC for that thing so I won’t even see him. Don’t worry about Mommy. Cousin Angela is staying over while I’m gone. She has job interviews in the city.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: What thing in DC? The march against the ARA?

  SALLYSTAR: Yes. But don’t call it that. Some of the profs at school say we shouldn’t mention it on GlobalTeens because they monitor everything.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: Did Daddy call me a ghee jee beh?

  SALLYSTAR: He had this crazy night where he thought you were sleeping with a black man. He said he had a dream about it. It’s like he can’t tell the difference between dreams and reality anymore.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: Did you tell Daddy I help out at the shelter in Rome? Don’t tell him it’s for trafficked Albanian women. Just say it’s for immigrants, okay?

  SALLYSTAR: Why?

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: I want him to know I’m doing something good.

  SALLYSTAR: I thought you didn’t care what he thinks. Anyway I’ve got to go scan texts for Euro Classics. Don’t worry, Eunice. Life only happens once. Enjoy it while you can! I’ll keep Mom safe. I’m praying for all of us.

  SALLYSTAR: BTW, that pewter Cullo bathing suit is on sale at Padma. The one with the chest guards that you wanted.

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD: I’m already bidding on it on AssLuxury. I’ll tell you if it goes over 100 yuan-pegged, and then you can buy it at Padma if it’s still on sale.

  JUNE 11

  EUNI-TARD ABROAD TO GRILLBITCH:

  Hi, Precious Pony.

  I know you’re in Tahoe so I don’t want to bother you, but things have gotten really bad with my dad and I think I’m coming home. It’s like the further away I am from him, the more he thinks he can get away with. Going to Rome was SUCH a mistake. I don’t know if I can handle Fort Lee, but I was thinking of crashing in New York and going over there on weekends. Remember that girl you were friends with, the one with the really old-school perm, Joy Lee or something? Does she have a place for me to crash? I don’t really know anyone in NY, everyone’s in LA or abroad. I think I might have to stay over at that old guy Lenny’s house. He keeps sending me these long teens about how much he loves my freckles and how he’s going to cook me an eggplant.

  I broke up with Ben. It was too much. He is so beautiful physically, so smart and such a rising star in Credit that I am completely intimidated by him. I can never reveal who I really am to him because he would just vomit. I know a part of him must be disgusted by my fat, fat body. And sometimes he just stares off into space when I treat him badly like “I think I’ve had enough of this crazy bitch.” It’s so sad. I’ve been crying for days now. Crying over my family and crying over Ben. God, I’m sorry, Precious Pony. I’m such a downer.

  The weird thing is I’ve been thinking about Lenny, the old guy. I know he’s gross physically, but there’s something sweet about him, and honestly I need to be taken care of too. I feel safe with him because he is so not my ideal and I feel like I can be myself because I’m not in love with him. Maybe that’s how Ben feels with me. I had this fantasy that I was having sex with Lenny and I tried to block out the grossness and just enjoy his very serious love for me. Have you ever done that, Pony? Am I selling myself short? When we were walking down this pretty street in Rome I noticed Lenny’s shirt was buttoned all wrong, and I just reached over and rebuttoned it. I just wanted to help him be less of a dork. Isn’t that a form of love too? And when he was talking to me at dinner, usually I listen to everything a guy says and try to prepare a response or at least to act a certain way, but with him I just stopped listening after a while and looked at the way his lips moved, the foam on his lips and on his dorky stubble, because he was so EARNEST in the way he needed to tell me things. And I thought, wow, you’re kind of beautiful, Lenny. You’re like what Prof Margaux in Assertiveness Class used to call “a real human being.” I don’t know. I keep going back and forth on him. Sometimes I’m like no way, it’s never going to work, I’m just not attracted to him. But then I think of him going down on me until he could barely breathe, the poor thing, and the way I could just close my eyes and pretend we were both other people. Oh God, listen to me. Anyway, I miss you so much, Pony. I really do. Come to New York please! I need all the love I can get these days.

  RATEME PLUS

  FROM THE DIARIES OF LENNY ABRAMOV

  JUNE 12

  Dear Diary,

  God, I miss her. No messages from my Euny yet, no reply to my entreaty to move here and let me take care of her with garlicky carcasses of eggplant, with my grown man’s practiced affections, with what’s left of my bank account after Howard Shu docks me 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars. But I’m persevering. Every day I take out my handwritten checklist and remember that Point No. 3 implores me to Love Eunice until the dreaded “Dear Lenny” letter pops up on GlobalTeens and she runs off with some hot Credit or Media guy, some mindless jerk so taken with her looks he won’t even recognize how much this miniature woman in front of him is in need of consolation and repair. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, the Abramovs keep leaving all these desolate messages on GlobalTeens with illiterate subject lines reading “me and momee sad” and “me worry” and “without son laif lonely,” reminding me that Point No. 5, Be Nice to Parents, has almost come due. I just need to feel a little more secure about myself and my life and especially my money—a sore subject with the thrifty Abramovs—before I head off to Long Island to visit them in their vibrant right-wing habitat.

  Speaking of money, I went to my HSBC on East Broadway, where a pretty Dominican girl with a set of dying teeth gave me a rundown of how my financial instruments were performing. In a word, shittily.

  My AmericanMorning portfolio, even though it had been pegged to the yuan, had lost 10 percent of its value because, unbeknownst to me, the idiot asset managers had stuck the failing ColgatePalmoliveYum!BrandsViacomCredit albatross into the mix, and my low-risk BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China]-A-BRAC High-Performing Nations Fund had registered only 3 percent growth because of the April unrest near Putingrad in Russia and the impact of America’s invasion of Venezuela on the Brazilian economy. “I feel like I’m going to shit a BRIC,” I told Maria Abriella, my account representative.

  Ms. Abriella bade me look at an old computer screen. I ignored the flickering capricious dollar amounts and focused on the steady yuan- and euro-pegged denominations. I had something like 1,865,000 yuan to my name, a figure that had been close to 2.5 million yuan before I had left for Europe. “You got top credit, Mr. Lenny,” she said, in her husky, pack-an-hour voice. “If you want to be patriotic, you should take out a loan and buy another apar’men’ as an inves’men’.”

  Another apartment? I was hemorrhaging funds. I turned away from Ms. Abriella’s beautiful seagull-shaped lips as if slapped, and let death wash over me, the corned-beef smell of my damp neck giving way to an old man’s odor rising from my thighs and armpits like steam, and then the final past-due stench of the Arizona hospice years, the orderly swabbing me down with detergent as if I were some sickly elephant.

  Money equals life. By my estimation, even the preliminary beta dechronification treatments, for example, the insertion of SmartBlood to regulate my ridiculous cardiovascular system, would run three million yuan per year. With each second I had spent in Rome, lustily minding the architecture, rapturously fucking Fabrizia, drinking and eating enough daily glucose to kill a Cub
an sugarcane farmer, I had paved the toll road to my own demise.

  And now there was only one man who could turn things around for me.

  Which brings me back to Point No. 1: Work Hard for Joshie. I think I’m doing all right on that front. The first week back at Post-Human Services is over and nothing terrible happened. Howard Shu hasn’t asked me to do any Intakes yet, but I’ve spent the week hanging out at the Eternity Lounge, fiddling with my pebbly new äppärät 7.5 with RateMe Plus technology, which I now proudly wear pendant-style around my neck, getting endless updates on our country’s battle with solvency from CrisisNet while downloading all my fears and hopes in front of my young nemeses in the Eternity Lounge, talking about how my parents’ love for me ran too hot and too cold, and how I want and need Eunice Park even though she’s so much prettier than I deserve—basically, trying to show these open-source younguns just how much data an old “intro” geezer like me is willing to share. So far I’m getting shouts of “gross” and “sick” and “TIMATOV,” which I’ve learned means Think I’m About to Openly Vomit, but I also found out that Darryl, the guy with the SUK DIK bodysuit and the red bandana, has been posting nice things about me on his GlobalTeens stream called “101 People We Need to Feel Sorry For.” At the same time, I heard the ticka-ticka-ticka of The Boards as Darryl’s mood indicator fell from “positive/playful/ready to contribute” to “annoying the heck out of Joshie all week.” His cortisol levels are a mess too. Just a little more stress on his part and I’ll get my desk back. Anyway, all this passes for progress, and soon I’ll be hitting the Intakes, proving my worth, trying to corner the market in Joshie’s affection and reclaim my big-man-on-campus status in time for the Labor Day tempeh stir-fry. Also, I’ve spent an entire week without reading any books or talking about them too loudly. I’m learning to worship my new äppärät’s screen, the colorful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors.