Hot Pink (25 page)

Nancy was just pulling out of the parking spot when we got to the car. Some of the sickos from the barbecue ran out onto the street, and one of them was shouting, “We'll call the police!”

We still didn't know Sensei Mike's right address and the girls decided it was probably better to get out of Glen Ellyn, so we headed back to Chicago. When we got to the Christamesta house, Tina and Joe went inside and I followed Nancy around the neighborhood on foot, not saying anything. I don't know how long that lasted. It was dark, though. We ended up at the park at Iowa and Rockwell, under the tornado slide, sitting in pebbles, our backs against the ladder. Nancy opened her purse and pulled out a Belgian beer. I popped it with my lighter and gave it to her. She sipped and gave it back. I sipped and gave it back.

I've told a lot of girls I was in love with them. There's some crack-ass wisdom about it being easier to say when you don't mean it, but that's not why I didn't say it to Nancy. I didn't say it because every time I've said it, I meant it. If I said it again, it would be like all those other times, and all those other times—it went away. And silence wasn't any holier than saying it. Just more drama for its own sake. All of it's been done before. It's been in TV shows and comic books and it's how your parents met. And there's nothing wrong with drama, I don't think. And there's nothing wrong with drama for its own sake, either. What's wrong is drama that doesn't know it's drama. And what's wrong is doing the same thing everyone else does and thinking you're original, thinking you're unpredictable.

I said, “Maybe it's cause he wanted racing stri—” and the sound cut off. My throat was killing me from the yelling and it closed up.

Nancy said, “Your voice is broken.”

And that was an unexpected way to put it, drama or no.

I swigged the beer again and told her, all raspy, “Maybe it's racing stripes. The guy wanted racing stripes.”

“What?” she said.

“Don't ‘what' me,” I said. I gulped more beer. I said, “He wanted to paint racing stripes and the city wouldn't let him. There's a code against painting stripes on city vehicles. So every day he ties the balloons on the grille. And maybe that's a half-ass way to have racing stripes, but then maybe he figures stripes on a garbage truck aren't really racing stripes to begin with, so he doesn't mind using balloons. Or maybe he does mind, but he keeps it to himself because he's not a complainer. Maybe he just keeps tying balloons on the grille, telling himself they're as good as racing stripes, and maybe one day they will be.”

“That's a sad story,” Nancy said. She carved
SAD!
in the pebbles with the bottle of beer.

“How's it
sad
?” I said.

Under
SAD!
she carved a circle with an upside-down smile.

“It's not sad,” I said.

She said, “I don't believe that.”

“But I'm telling you,” I said.

She said, “Then I don't believe you, Jack.”

And did I kiss her then? Did Nancy Christamesta close her eyes and tilt her head back, away from the moon? Did she open her mouth? Did she open it just a little, just enough so I could feel her breath on my chin before she would kiss me and then did I finally kiss her?

Fuck you.

Many of the stories in here were begun—and a couple or three of them finished—while I attended the Syracuse University MFA Program in Creative Writing. My time there was invaluable to me, and to this collection. It was also inexpressibly joyful. Thank you, teachers: George Saunders, Arthur Flowers, Mary Karr, Mary Gaitskill, Christopher Kennedy, Mary Caponegro, and Brooks Haxton. And thank you, early readers, workshopmates, and alumni pallies: Christian TeBordo, Salvador Plascencia, Eric Rosenblum, Phil LaMarche, Thomas Yagoda, Erin Brooks Worley, Keith Gessen, Ellen Litman, Laura Farmer, Miciah Bay Gault, Stephanie Carpenter, Rebecca Curtis, Adam Desnoyers, Jeff Parker, Nina Shope, Christian Moody, Sarah Harwell, Courtney Queeney, Chris Narozny, Christopher Boucher, and Daniel Torday.

Thank you, Eli Horowitz, for always showing me—or at least trying to show me—what I've been failing to see. This book is better than it was before you read it.

Thank you, Adam Krefman, Juliet Litman, Michelle Quint, and the rest of the McSweeney'ses for all the energy you've put into making this and the last one happen.

Thank you to the editors of those publications in which stories from this book originally appeared: Jodee Stanley, Jordan Bass, Rob Spillman, Danit Brown, Elizabeth Hodges, and Michael Archer.

Thank you, Adam Novy and Sid Feldman, for not telling me to go away when I was young and annoying(er) and didn't know what to read.

Thank you, family, Atara and Lanny and Paula and Rachel Levin, for way too much to even pretend to begin to name—for all those things that make you the second-hardest people in the world for me to properly thank.

Thank you, Leslie Lockett, Leslie Lockett, Leslie Lockett, Leslie Lockett, Leslie Lockett, Leslie Lockett, Leslie Lockett.

Adam Levin is the author of the novel
The Instructions
, a finalist for the 2010 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction and winner of both the 2011 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the inaugural Indie Booksellers Choice Award. For his short stories, Levin has won the Summer Literary Seminars Fiction Contest, as well as the Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize. His fiction has appeared in publications including
Tin House
,
Esquire
, and
New England Review
. He lives in Chicago, where he teaches Creative Writing at the School of the Art Institute.

…Except, if I allow that between the ages of 70 and 80, D's potential contribution to A's glory was not significant enough to warrant A's extra 1% investment (over and above investing in ages 0–70), though between the ages of 60 and 70 the extra 1% was warranted, it might imply that the effect and/or importance of a person decreases as that person's age increases. And if I allow that, I should also allow that the extra 1% could have been detrimental. Maybe if you stick around for too long after you've peaked, you retroactively lessen the importance/ effect of what you did before and during your peak: Maybe A knew that if D lived past 70, D would have—either by means of wrongdoing or even simple inefficacy—besmirched the memories others would have of him after his death, thereby marring any reflections that would be cast on his earlier accomplishments, which would leave him less cherished overall, and finally decrease the sum of the glory he'd have otherwise added to A's legacy. ?So then D was made to die when he did in order to save his and A's story from being sullied? ?Too ugly not to think so?
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