Lake Success

by Gary Shteyngart

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS early morning. Raining. The spires and crenellations of the Midtown buildings had taken on a gothic cast in the gloom. Barry carried his sorrow before him. “So I think it’s time for me to shove off,” he said.

  Jeff Park was eating nuts for breakfast and sipping on a macchiato. “Okay,” he said.

  “Got to head to old El Paso. See an old friend. An ex-girlfriend.”

  Jeff Park smiled. “Props to your wanderlust.”

  Barry sat himself up on the counter. “This is going to sound embarrassing,” he said. Jeff Park audibly swallowed a nut. “I’m going to need a tiny bridge loan to get me to El Paso and set me up for the first few days. I don’t have access to my funds at the moment. Maybe two thousand.”

  “I can’t do that, Barry,” Jeff Park said.

  That hurt Barry right away. “Why not? You’ve accommodated me for this long. This is just a loan.”

  “You’re welcome to my house. Always. But I can’t stake you.”

  “Who’s talking ‘stake’? Two thousand dollars. That’s four percent of the cost of your Sky-Dweller. I feel like I’m getting mixed signals from you.”

  Jeff Park looked down at his lap. “You fired me, Barry,” he said.

  Ah, so there it was, finally.

  “It wasn’t me,” Barry said. “It was Akash Singh. Everything at that place happens because of fucking Akash Singh.”

  “You were there. You invited me out to breakfast at the Casa Lever. And when I got there it was just you and the lawyer. What did the lawyer say? I’m afraid we’re going to have to part ways.”

  “But that’s how it’s done. That’s just—the legal way.”

  “You didn’t say one word.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to say one word.”

  “And I thought of you as something like a mentor almost.”

  Barry sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was nothing personal. I wanted to be a mentor.”

  “I know,” Jeff Park said. “I fucked up. I still have dreams about that Excel sheet. I’m not making excuses. And this is nothing personal either. I like you, Barry.” Their eyes locked, until Barry had to look away.

  “I’m in genuine pain,” Barry said. “So much of the time. Doesn’t that deserve something?”

  “ ‘Attention must be paid,’ ” Jeff Park said.

  “What?”

  “Death of a Salesman.”

  “Not right now,” Barry said.

  “I wish you had been straight with me,” Jeff Park said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t have any credit cards. You don’t have a cell phone. You travel on a bus where you can pay for the tickets in cash. Is it that GastroLux trade? I mean, have you been subpoenaed? Did you get your Wells notice yet?”

  “That’s not why.” Barry wanted to cry. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” He thought briefly, angrily, about that yacht off of Sardinia. The nebbish. The fucking nebbish. What did he say? It all led back to him. But even if the nebbish had said something and then Barry’s fund had traded on that “material nonpublic information,” where was the proof? So many funds had shorted GastroLux in size. It was the most shortable stock ever.

  “I really don’t care about GastroLux,” Jeff Park said. “Even though your compliance department was always a joke.”

  “It’s a witch hunt,” Barry said. “They’re after anyone who makes money. Anyone who has friends.”

  “My father used Hydroandetone. The diuretic. Frankly, he can’t live without it.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Valupro.”

  “Huh?”

  “A month’s supply went from thirty bucks to seven hundred as soon as Valupro bought the company that made the drug.” Jeff Park paused, as if to let that figure register, but Barry had heard it all before. Prices went up. Shareholders profited. What part of “capitalism” didn’t Jeff Park understand?

  “And I’ve got money,” Jeff said. “So I got my dad covered. But that’s how I think of people like you. I always have the same visualization. I start with a row of middle-class houses like the one my dad lives in. And then I see you. You go from house to house, from family to family, and you take money from their wallets, from their purses, from under their sofa cushions, and you put it in your pockets, and when your pockets are full, you put it in a duffel bag with the logo of your fund. You don’t sneak in. You don’t break in. You just walk among these people as if they’re invisible and you take the money they’ve earned. And then you go home and you buy a watch or whatever.”

  “Said the owner of a Patek 1518.”

  “I’m not blameless. But I have my limits. And I know who I am.”

  “See,” Barry said, “that’s what I’m trying to find out on this journey.”

  “Sure,” Jeff Park said. “And then when it’s over, you can tell people about it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You can tell them the story of how you once took a bus across the country. You can tell them about your ‘journey.’ ”

  * * *

  —

  THE BENTLEY entered the exciting world of Atlanta’s Downtown. They passed Red Eye Bail Bonds and the Atlanta DUI Academy. A group of men had gathered outside the bus station to stare one another down with maximum malice. Several of them looked to Barry like the rapper Snoopy Doggy Dogg. “Be careful,” Jeff Park said. “This bus station has a bit of a reputation.”

  The men outside were whooping it up about the car. “Bentley!” they shouted.

  “I hope you find your southern belle,” Barry said.

  Jeff Park stuck out his hand and Barry shook it. “You’re going to turn out better than me,” Barry said. He grabbed his rollerboard and got out of the car before Jeff Park could say goodbye.

  SEEMA WAS in battle mode. The whole team was gathered around her at the dining room table, their case notes out, phones shut off, bare feet on the herringbone floor. Two occupational therapists, a physical therapist, and two behavioral therapists, as well as the mega social worker who supervised them. All this was paid for by the city through its early intervention program, a fact she had mentioned to Barry several times, goading him to call it socialism. “Shit, with what I pay in taxes, this is the least we deserve,” he’d always say, but her point was clear. The government, the city, to be exact, was providing the best care for their son.

  Half of Shiva’s caregivers were pregnant themselves, even though they were only in their midtwenties. Most of them hailed from uptown, Inwood, and beyond. They were sheer loveliness, the first in their families to be exposed to college and grad school, and they worked their asses off. Seema had gathered them to answer one question: how to conduct a playdate with Shiva and a child who was not on the spectrum. They batted around ideas. A quiet space. Plenty of his favorite Goldfish crackers, the ones without the cheddar. Lots of breaks. Playing the “C Is for Cookie” song on a loop.

  Sitting at the head of the table surrounded by her team, Seema imagined what could have been. A partnership in a Midtown law office, associates flanking her on both sides, a heavy cloud of roast coffee over a table covered with briefs.

  “Would it make sense to tell the other mother that Shiva’s on the spectrum? To establish some ground rules?” This from Bianca, the occupational therapist who was Shiva’s favorite.

  Seema remained quiet, just nodding her head.

  “Obviously, it’s your decision,” Bianca said. “Just it might be easier for Shiva. And for you.” The new girl brought out the chocolate babka from a Union Square bakery that was Seema’s most guilty weekly indulgence and shared it with the therapists. Bianca’s pregnant belly was nearly as large as Seema’s. She held Seema by her elbow. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “Whatever happens, it’ll be a learning experience.”
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  Seema had the Barry-like urge to give her some money in exchange for her kindness. The first thing he did right after their initial visit to Cornell last year was to call up an esteemed researcher from Yale and have him pay a house visit to Shiva in exchange for a two-hundred-thousand-dollar gift to his foundation. The Yale man spent twenty minutes with Shiva and essentially told him the same thing the Cornell woman, emphasis on the woman part, had said. Shiva was very much autistic. At the time, Seema thought it had been an impressive and caring gesture on Barry’s part, but eventually she stopped thinking that. If only he could love his son as much as he wanted to control his own pain. She leaned over and hugged Bianca, who was licking her chocolate-babka-covered fingers. They both laughed at their hungry, pregnant selves.

  * * *

  —

  THE PLAYDATE was Saturday. Luis had thankfully absented himself. Shiva was put into his favorite soft cashmere clothes that did not provoke his sensory issues. He stood there in the middle of his light-choked room as Novie and his mother fussed about him, looking like the tiny version of a pouty wealthy preppy from an eighties movie. “So beautiful,” Novie said. “Such a handsome boy. Say ‘Thank you, Mommy, for such nice clothes today.’ ” This was a strange Novie throwback to her native country, where children might have actually been expected to thank their parents for things.

  Shiva flinched and wailed softly as his hair was softly brushed back by his mother, her palm lightly touching his warm and hard forehead. She knew not to wear perfume around her son. The air in the room was tense. Shiva’s gaze was fixed entirely on the big hand of the Met Life clock tower, which would soon eclipse the smaller hand. When it did so, the two hands becoming one, the child exhaled.

  Julianna brought her own nanny, who seemed like an old woman beside the vibrant Novie and the fire spirit that was Arturo. While the women shyly discussed the heat of the day and Shiva stood bewitched by the now-separating big and small hands of the giant clock, Arturo did a quick survey of the room, as if evaluating the wealth it contained. “Mommy, look!” he cried. “They have all the Elephant and Piggie books.” His bright voice radiated toward Seema’s silent son. A complete sentence. Subject, predicate, the works.

  “Don’t just grab things, ’Turo,” Julianna said. “Ask Ms. Cohen if you could use them.”

  “Please call me Seema. And feel free to take anything.”

  “They have Should I Share My Ice Cream?” Arturo yelled. Shiva flinched and issued a rumbling warning from a lower depth.

  “He napped very poorly today,” Seema said to Julianna. “He’s a bit out of sorts. Ain’t that so, Mr. Grumpy?”

  The Filipina nannies stood on the sidelines of the room, watching the action unfold, carefully evaluating each other.

  “Why don’t you read Elephant and Piggie with Shiva?” Julianna said. Her voice was authoritative but kindly. Was this her doctor’s voice, even though she was probably the kind of doctor who didn’t have real patients? “Shiva’s your new friend,” Julianna said.

  “Well,” Seema said. “I think at this age it’s more like parallel play.”

  Arturo made a circle around Shiva and then finally came to a stop about a foot away from him. He looked at Shiva in a way that brought to Seema’s mind the word “scrutinize.” She remembered the way Luis looked at her. The three-year-old already had so many of his father’s worst qualities. “Hi, Shiva,” Arturo said. He waved his hand professionally. And then in a cloying, cute, raspy voice, “Do you want to read Should I Share My Ice Cream? with me?”

  Shiva made another sound deep from within. Novie stepped behind her charge, alarmed. “This is so cute,” Julianna said. She took out her phone and started snapping a current of photos of her son gesticulating in front of the immobile Shiva. The Sesame Street “C Is for Cookie” song ended and started again.

  “Put on the next song!” Arturo yelled. “D is so delicious!”

  “Shhh, maybe just speak a little softer,” Seema advised the friendly child, but it was too late. The scratching noise within Shiva increased. And then, with the speed of an injured tiger, he lunged at Luis’s son and pushed him directly onto his back, even as Novie leaped forward to stop him. Shiva squeezed out of her grasp and ran right into a wall that had already been dented many times with his pain. Seema felt the impact inside her. Her son was lying on the floor, then he was up again, then he was headed for the wall one more time.

  * * *

  —

  ARTURO WAS crying. Shiva was looking at the world with his dark eyes, seemingly oblivious to the other child’s distress, as Novie applied an ice pack to his new bruise. “I’m so sorry,” Seema was saying to Julianna and Arturo. “He didn’t mean that. He really didn’t.”

  “That’s true, ’Turo,” Julianna said. “He’s a nice boy. It was a misunderstanding.” To Seema she said, “Is that a horsehair brush on the shelf? I have a nephew in Hong Kong who uses it.”

  Seema nodded. So that was that. Julianna knew what a horsehair brush was used for. And her first worry: Would she tell Luis? And her second: Was this what she wanted all along? For someone to know.

  Julianna, now holding the brush, knelt beside Shiva. The child looked at her with either abject terror or complete hate; it was hard to tell which. She began to stroke the inside of his arms and then the back of his legs in long velvety motions. Seema was reading the Elephant and Piggie book to Arturo in her brightest voice while the nannies orbited the scene in confusion.

  Julianna’s bedside manner was impeccable. She knew not to hold Shiva while still letting him know she was there. “What would you like?” she asked him, following his gaze over to the Met Life clock. “Twelve-twenty,” Julianna said. Shiva made a motion with his head. Was he nodding? Was he fucking nodding? Was that a gesture? No, it could not have been. Seema could never elicit such a thing. The brushing went on for minutes, both Julianna and Shiva settling into a kind of Buddhist hum, Mmmmmmuh­mmmmmmuh. Seema robotically read one Elephant and Piggie book after another to Arturo. The neurotic, bespectacled Elephant bought an ice cream, but it melted before he could share it with the rambunctious Piggie. Elephant worried that Piggie had a new best friend and that he would no longer be the light of her life. Piggie bought a toy, and Elephant thought he broke it, and the two of them got mad at each other before realizing their friendship was more important than a toy. The two animals each expressed a range of emotions, which Shiva was supposed to copy, and which Arturo naturally, if not exaggeratedly, dubbed at will. Although he and Shiva were on opposite ends of a very large room, peace and calm were soon established.

  “Is that a bouncy ball?” Julianna asked Shiva. His mmmmuh sound increased in tempo. “Would you like to bounce some?” Novie, wanting to be useful, quickly brought the ball over. Julianna picked the child up under his arms. He let her! With the same loving docility he directed toward Bianca, his favorite occupational therapist, Shiva let himself be held in the air and then deposited on top of the magical red ball. Slowly, Julianna began to bounce him and then, with a surprisingly well-tuned voice, to sing:

  Hop, little bunnies, hop, hop, hop.

  Hop, little bunnies, hop, hop, hop.

  They’re so still. Are they ill?

  No! Wake up, bunnies.

  Arturo upon hearing the song began to pretend he was also a rabbit, even using his fingers to replicate large rabbit teeth. He ran to his mother and Shiva. “I want to hop on the ball, too!” he shouted.

  “Shhh,” Julianna said. “Let’s talk gently today. Take the little bunny by his arm here and let’s bounce him together.” Shiva flinched just a bit as Arturo’s sweaty little hand touched his arm, but the bouncing motion was too pleasurable to deny. Without wanting to crowd them, Seema came up from behind and touched her son’s shoulder. Hop, little bunnies, hop, hop, hop, they all sang as they bounced the boy, the nannies following along in their staccato accents, Arturo smilin
g with the same smile he had brought to their door. He was such a sweet kid. He didn’t deserve Seema’s jealousy. “Hop, little bunny,” he whispered to Shiva. Bunny. Barry had always called Shiva his rabbit. She wished he could be here to see this, truly hated him for his absence for the first time since he had left.

  “I want to give Shiva a hug!” Arturo said, speaking very softly.

  “I think he’d rather you just stroke his arm and foot with this brush,” Julianna said. She was, what, eight years older than Seema? A professional woman. A curer of Zika. What were her faults? She wanted too much for her son. Worried too much about him. Needed him to get into the HYPMS, Harvard, Yale, whatever.

  Arturo was giggling and brushing Shiva. “You’re such a soft little bunny,” he said. Seema couldn’t imagine that her child was in such close proximity to another child. She took out her phone and took a couple of pictures for the early intervention team.

  When it was time to leave, Novie stayed behind to bounce Shiva some more in case he would melt down. “I want to get that bouncy ball, too,” Arturo was saying. “And all the Elephant and Piggie books. And that brush!”

  The part about wanting Shiva’s therapeutic brush made Seema sad. But all she said was “You’re welcome to come over and play with Shiva anytime.”

  “You have such a wonderful apartment,” Julianna said. “And such a wonderful son.”

  Seema did not know how to respond. She shrugged. “Can you do me a favor?” she said. “Could you not tell other people? Not even Luis.”

  “Of course,” Julianna said, although Seema immediately doubted her. What was the point of marriage if not to gossip before turning in for the night? “But let me ask you,” Julianna said, “are you getting all the support you need?”