Super Sad True Love Story

by Gary Shteyngart

  “Is he poor?” Eunice asked.

  “I guess so,” I said. “Middle-class.”

  “He’s a bus driver,” a woman said.

  “Was,” said another.

  “They cleared him out for the central banker dude’s visit,” said a third.

  “The Chinese Central Banker.” This was the first person, an older woman in an odorous T-shirt who clearly belonged to the marginal classes (what was she doing in this part of Manhattan anyway?). Several of her cohorts looked at Eunice, not in a friendly way. I wondered if I should declare to the gathering crowd that my new friend was not Chinese, but Eunice was absorbed by something on her äppärät, or pretending to be. “Don’t be scared, sweetie,” I whispered to her.

  “He was living by the Van Wyck,” said the marginalized know-it-all. “They don’t want the Chinese banker seeing no poor people on the way from the airport. Make us look bad.”

  “Harm Reduction,” a young black man said.

  “What the hell’s he doing in the park?”

  “Restoration ’thority not going to like this. Uh-uh.”

  “Hey, Aziz,” the black man yelled. There was no response. “Hey, brother. Better scoot out of here before the National Guard comes.” The man in the MTA cap continued to sit there, scratching and meditating. “You don’t want to end up in Troy,” the younger man added. “They’ll get your lady too. You know what they’ll do.”

  This Aziz guy must have been part of the new “bottom-up” Great Depression movement Nettie Fine was talking about. Only a few hours together, and Eunice and I were already witnesses to history! I took out my äppärät and started to take Images of the man, but the young black man yelled, “What the fuck you doing, son?”

  “A friend of mine asked me to take an Image,” I said. “She works for the State Department.”

  “State Department? Are you fucking kidding me? You better put that thing away, Mr. 1520-Credit-ranking got-me-a-bitch-twenty-year-younger Bipartisan motherfucker!”

  “I’m not a Bipartisan,” I said, although I did as I was told. Now I was completely confused. And a little scared. Who were these people all around me? Americans, I guess. But what did that even mean anymore?

  The conversation behind me was turning to the sensitive subject of China-Worldwide. “Damn China banker,” someone was shouting. “When he comes, I’m going to cut up all my credit cards and throw them at him like confetti. I’m gonna shoot his lo mein ass.”

  The Chinese tourists on the outer perimeter were starting to disband, and I thought it would be wise to move Eunice along too. I looped myself around her shoulders and gently walked her down the hill, away from anyone who could cause her harm, and toward the Model Boat Pond. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said, squeezing out of my embrace.

  “Some of those folks looked a little street,” I said.

  “And you were going to put your nerd moves on them?” Eunice said, laughing brightly.

  Some vestigial teenage memory ran up and down my gut, making me cramp. I was perhaps the least popular child in secondary school. I never learned how to fight or carry myself like a man. “Stop calling me that, please,” I whispered, rubbing my stomach.

  “Ha! I love it when my nerd feigns defiance.”

  I growled a bit, taking note of her use of the possessive. My nerd. Would she really take ownership of me?

  We walked slowly and meditatively, neither of us speaking, both of us a little unhappy and a little content. Early-summer evening was settling over the city. The sky was the color of ghosts. The atmosphere, warm but breezy, reeking of pollinated sweetness and baked bread. Crowding around the boat pond were young Euro couples, playful as children, amorous as teenagers, pressing devalued dollars into the hands of T-shirt and trinket vendors, excited by the twilight country around them. Asian kids, learning to be loud and impetuous, chased one another’s radio-controlled sloops across the still, gray waters of the pond.

  Up above, three military helicopters, evenly spaced, rumbled across the put-upon sky. The fourth, barely tagging along, seemed to hold a giant spear in its maw; the spear glowed yellow at its tip. Only the tourists looked up. I thought of Nettie Fine. I had to believe in her optimism. She had never been wrong before, whereas my parents had been wrong about everything. Things were going to get better. Someday. For me to fall in love with Eunice Park just as the world fell apart would be a tragedy beyond the Greeks.

  We were walking hand in hand now along the vast grassy Sheep Meadow, which felt comfortable and familial, like a worn rumpus-room carpet or a badly made bed. Beyond it, on three sides, lay the constellation of once-tall buildings, the old ones mansard-topped and stoic, the new ones covered with blinking information. We passed a white-and-Asian couple enjoying an early-summer picnic of prosciutto and melon, which made me squeeze Eunice’s hand. She turned around and brushed my graying hair with her moisturized hands. I prepared myself for a comment on my age and looks. I prepared myself to become Chekhov’s ugly merchant Laptev again. I knew this hurt so well, it actually had left a strange foretaste in my mouth, that of almonds and salt.

  “My sweet emperor penguin,” she said instead. “You’re so beauticious. You’re so smart. And giving. So unlike anyone I’ve met. So you. I bet you can make me so happy, if I just let myself be happy.” She kissed me quickly on the lips, as if we had already exchanged a hundred thousand kisses before, then ran into a passing field of green and did three graceful somersaults—one after the other after the other. I stood there. Delirious. Taking in the world in tiny increments. Her simple body parting the air. The parabola of her spine in motion. The open mouth breathing hard after the light exhaustion. Facing me. Freckles and heat. I steeled my chest against what it expected of me. I would not cry.

  Gray clouds bearing some kind of industrial remnant moved into the foreground; a yellow substance etched itself into the horizon, became the horizon, became the night. As the sky darkened, we found ourselves enclosed on three sides by the excess of our civilization, yet the ground beneath our feet was soft and green, and behind us lay a hill bearing trees as small as ponies. We walked in silence, as I sniffed the sharp, fruity facial creams that Eunice wore to fight off age, mixed in with just a hint of something alive and corporeal. Multiple universes tempted me with their existence. Like the immutability of God or the survival of the soul, I knew they would prove a mirage, but still I grasped for belief. Because I believed in her.

  It was time to leave. We headed south, and when the trees ran out the park handed us over to the city. We surrendered to a skyscraper with a green mansard roof and two stark chimneys. New York exploded all around us, people hawking, buying, demanding, streaming. The city’s density caught me unprepared, and I reeled from its imposition, its alcoholic fumes, its hubris, its loud, dying wealth. Eunice looked at some shop windows on Fifth Avenue, her äppärät crawling with new information. “Euny,” I said, trying out a shorter version of her name. “How are you feeling right now? Are you jet-lagged?”

  She was looking at an alligator skin stretched into a meaningfully large object and failed to answer me.

  “Do you want to go to our house?”

  Our house?

  She was busy scanning the dead amphibian with her äppärät as if it contained an answer. Her lower face was now covered with a smile that was a smile in name only. But when she turned away from the store window, when she appraised me, there was nothing on her face. She was looking into the smooth white emptiness of my neck.

  “Don’t rub your eyes,” she said into that emptiness, sucking the words through her lips, shredding each syllable. “You’re killing the cells around your eyes when you rub so hard. That’s why there’s so much dark skin. It makes you look older.” I was hoping she would add “nerd-face,” so that I would know it was all right, but she didn’t. I didn’t understand. What had happened to the somersaults? What had happened to “my sweet emperor penguin”? To that wonderful, utterly unexpected word: “beauticious”?

&nb
sp; We walked back to the subway without a syllable between us, her stare covering the ground ahead of her like a beam of negative light. The silence continued. I breathed so hard I thought I would faint. I didn’t know how to bring us back to where we were before. I didn’t know how to restore us to Central Park, to Cedar Hill, to the Sheep Meadow, to the kiss.

  Back in my apartment, with the hollow “Freedom” Tower glowing extra bright behind the thick curtains, and the sound of an empty M22 bus lowering itself for an elderly insomniac, Eunice and I had our first fight. She threatened to move back with her parents.

  I was on my knees. I was crying. “Please,” I said. “You can’t go back to Fort Lee. Just stay here with me a little longer.”

  “You’re pathetic,” Eunice said. She was sitting on my couch, hands in her lap. “You’re so weak.”

  “All I said was ‘I’d like to meet your parents someday.’ You’re more than welcome to meet mine next week. In fact, I want you to meet them.”

  “Do you know what that means for me? To meet my parents? You don’t know me at all.”

  “I’m trying to know you. I’ve dated Korean girls before. I understand the families are conservative. I know they’re not crazy about whiteys like me.”

  “You don’t understand anything about my family,” Eunice said. “How could you even think …”

  I lay in my bed, listening to Eunice teening furiously on her äppärät in the living room, probably to her friends in southern California or to her family in Fort Lee. Finally, three hours later, the birds picking up a morning tune outside, she came into the bedroom. I pretended I was asleep. She took off most of her clothes and got in bed next to me, then pressed her warm back and behind into my chest and genitals, so that I ended up spooning her warm body. She was crying. I was still pretending to be asleep. I kissed her in a way that was consistent with my being supposedly asleep. I didn’t want her to hurt me anymore that night. She was wearing those panties that snap right off when you press a button on the crotch. Total Surrender, I think they’re called. I held on tighter to Eunice, and she pressed deeper into me. I wanted to tell her that it was okay. That I would bring her joy whenever I could. I didn’t need to meet her parents right away.

  But it wasn’t true. This was another thing I had learned about Korean women. The parents were the key to Eunice Park.

  SOMETHING NICE IS GROWING INSIDE ME

  FROM THE GLOBALTEENS ACCOUNT OF EUNICE PARK

  JUNE 18

  EUNI-TARD TO GRILLBITCH:

  Dear Precious Pony,

  Sup, my little Busy Bee-iotch? I’m baaaaaaack. America the beautiful. Wow, I still can’t believe that everyone’s speaking English and not Italiano around me. Well, in Lenny’s ghetto neighborhood it’s mostly Spanish and Jewish, I guess. But whatever. I’m home. Things are quiet over in Fort Lee, at least for the time being. I’m seeing my parents soon, but I think my dad just quiets down when he knows I’m across the river. I get the feeling that I’m never going to be able to be more than a couple of miles away from my family, which is sad. Also, I think my dad has this radar, and anytime something good happens to me, like meeting Ben in Italy, he starts acting up and I have to drop everything and come back home. I am so sick of my mother saying “You older sister. You have responsibility.” Sometimes I try to picture myself without them, just as my own person and doing things on my own, the way I tried to in Rome. But I don’t really see it happening.

  And now that Sally’s getting all Political I feel like I have double responsibility to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. To be honest, I kind of think it’s all bullshit. She never cared about Politics before. When I left for Elderbird it was all Reverend Cho said this, and Reverend Cho said that, and Reverend Cho said it’s okay if Daddy dragged Mommy out of bed by the hair because Jesu totally HEARTS sinners. This Politics crap is just another way to act out. Her and my mom and my dad, they all want attention like a bunch of little brats.

  I miss Ben a lot. There was something so compatible about me and him. Like we didn’t have to say much to each other, we could just lie there in bed for hours, doing whatever on our äppäräti, with the lights turned off. It’s different with Lenny. I mean there are so many things wrong with him, and I guess I just have to fix them all. The problem is he’s not young, so he thinks he doesn’t have to listen to me. His teeth are in so much better shape since I got him to brush correctly and his breath is fresh like a daisy. If only he would take care of his gross feet! I’m going to make him set up an appointment with a podiatrist. Maybe my dad. JBF! My dad would freak if I told him I had a very old white, um, “friend.” Ha ha. And then he dresses awful. This Korean girl pal of his named Grace (I haven’t met her but I already hate the bitch) goes shopping with him once in a while and she finds all these like old-school hipster outfits with the wide collars and these awful acrylic shirts from the 70s. I hope there’s a smoke detector in our apartment cause he just might set himself on fire one day. Anyway, I told him from the start: Look, you’re THIRTY-NINE years old and I’m living with you, so now you’ve got to dress like a grown-up. He got all pissy, my little nerd, but next week we’re going shopping for stuff actually made out of ANIMAL PRODUCTS like cotton and wool and ca$hmere and all that good stuff.

  So on my first day back we went to the park (Lenny paid for business class on the subway! he can be so thoughtful) and there were all these like little shacks for the homeless people in Central Park. It was really sad. These people are getting kicked out of their homes along the highway because the Chinese central banker is coming and Lenny says the Bipartisans don’t want us to look poor in front of our Asian creditors. And this poor black guy was just sitting out front of one of those shacks and he looked like he was so ashamed of what he’s become, like when my father thought he was going to lose his practice because now there’s no more medicare left. It just takes away dignity from a man when he can’t take care of his family. I swear to god I almost started bawling, but I didn’t want to give Lenny the impression that I cared about something. And they had this old computer in the shack, not even a real äppärät, I could even hear it starting up it was so loud. I’m not going to get Political on you, Pony, but I don’t think it’s right that our country doesn’t take care of these people. That’s one thing about our families, even if things get really bad, they’ll always take care of us because they lived through much worse in Korea. You know what’s funny. Lenny keeps a journal of all the things he’s “celebrating.” It’s dorky, but I wonder about all the things I should be celebrating and maybe it’s the fact that I’m not living in a tin can in Central Park and that you love me and maybe my sister and mom love me too and maybe I have an actual boyfriend who wants a HEALTHY, NORMAL, LOVING relationship with me.

  Anyway, then me and Lenny kissed in the park. Nothing more than that for now, but it felt really good, like something nice was growing inside me. I’m trying to take it really slow and get to know him better. Right now I still see us as this mismatched pair. Honestly, I’m afraid to see our reflection when we pass by a mirror, but I think the more time I spend with him the more it feels right. He already told me he loves me, and that I’m the one for him, the one he’s been waiting for all his life. And he takes his time with me. He’ll listen to me talk about what my father did to me and Sally and Mom and he’ll take it in, and sometimes he’ll even cry (he cries a lot), and after a while I just start to trust him with everything and I open up the way I would to a girlfriend. And he kind of kisses like a girl too, all quiet and with his eyes closed. HA HA. So far my favorite thing is just walking down the street with him. He’ll tell me all these things I never even learned at Elderbird, like that New York used to be owned by the Dutch (what were they even doing in America?), and whenever we see something funny like a cute weenie dog we’ll both just totally break out laughing, and he’ll hold my hand and sweat and sweat and sweat because he’s still so nervous and so happy to be with me.

  We fight a lot. I guess it’s mostl
y my fault because I don’t appreciate his great personality and just keep focusing on how he looks. Then there’s the fact that he desperately wants to meet my parents and there’s no effing way that’s ever going to happen. Oh, and he said he’ll take me to Long Island to meet HIS PARENTS! Like next week. What is wrong with him? He just keeps pushing me and pushing me on the parents issue. I told him I was leaving him and going back to Fort Lee and then my poor sweet nerd got down on his knees and started crying and saying how much I meant to him. He was so pathetic and so cute. I felt so sorry for him that I took off all my clothes, except for my TotalSurrenders and just got in bed with him. He felt me up a little but we fell asleep pretty fast. Damn, Precious Pony. I’m just one chatty ass-hookah these days. I’m going to sign off, but here’s an Image of me and Lenny at the zoo in Central Park. He’s to the left of the bear. Don’t gag!!!!

  GRILLBITCH TO EUNI-TARD:

  Dear Precious Panda,

  Welcome back, sticky bun! OK, I gotta run to the Pussy sale again, but really quickly, um, I saw the Image you sent and I really don’t know about this Lenny. It’s not like he’s the most disgusting guy I’ve ever seen, but he’s just not the kind of person I pictured you with. I know you’re saying he has all these other qualities but, like, can you imagine how your parents would react if you brought him to their house or to church? Your father would just stare at him, clearing his throat all night long, “ahem, ahem,” and then when he left he’d call you a whore or worse. I’m not saying one way or another, I’m just saying you’re really beautiful and thin so don’t settle. Take your time!