by Choire Sicha
“So, shall we?” John said.
“Uh, okay,” Edward said.
They walked the mile back to Edward’s place. Well, really: They went back to Edward’s boyfriend’s place.
SOMETIMES WORK WAS just what you clocked into while you were falling in love. Sometimes sex was just something you did while you weren’t at work. Drugs were something you did sometimes when you couldn’t deal with one of those things, or with yourself. The City was so expensive and so grueling sometimes that it was easy to be unsure why you were there. Many were there to make money, money that could largely only be made there, in the long spiny arms of industries that could never grow anywhere else or anywhere smaller. Some people just liked it, its loudness and crowdedness and surprises. Some started there for a reason and then couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, but maybe lost track of that reason along the way. Some people had a plan. Some were just chancing it. Either way the months flew by, and over the years you came up with something or you came up with not much.
WORK THE NEXT day was a disaster. John was exhausted. The office was tense. John went over to a bookshelf and threw everything on the ground.
Then he calmed down, went back to his computer, chatted with Fred.
Fred, you’ll never guess what happened. I slept over at Edward’s.
You crashed there?
No, I slept with him.
I don’t mean this the wrong way, but I’m actually really shocked.
John thought this was the meanest thing Fred had ever said.
Gee, thanks, Fred, John wrote.
No no no, Fred wrote, not because it doesn’t seem like the right match, but because Edward is religious about not doing anything with anybody.
And then . . . nothing happened. John was going nuts. Nothing was straight in his head and he checked Edward’s Twitter, which was like Facebook—people wrote things there on the Internet in public, but shorter. And it said something like, “Feeling gloomy tired and worn out today.” And John nearly burst into tears.
John talked to Chad about it. Chad was like, “Well, uh, he just cheated on his boyfriend?”
Well, if you want to think about it like that, John thought.
So John wrote Edward an email. Subject line: “Now.” Body: “That was fun.”
Edward wrote back, in total: “Yes it was. . . . xo”
And John thought, Oh crap. And then, kind of desperately, he wrote back something chatty and overtired and Edward didn’t even respond.
Later that day, after consulting with his work friends, he wrote an email to Edward.
“Hey, I don’t want to screw anything up for you but I’d love to see you again.” He wrote that he meant “just as friends.”
Half an hour later he got two emails. One said, Edward has added you as a friend on Facebook. The other said, yeah, I think that’s a great idea to be friends, my boyfriend’s an awesome guy, everything that happened—
John stopped reading.
NOT THAT LONG before, two businessmen perfected an idea that they had been kicking around for quite some time. They made a company that extended credit, on behalf of an individual, that was accepted at an array of stores. Since before the invention of money, it was common for people to delay the payment side of a transaction. For instance: He gives her a dead bird, presumably for eating, but doesn’t ask for payment right away; tomorrow, after being paid the shells due her for a woven basket, she gives him the shells that she owes him for the bird.
This was called credit, and in modern times, what these men invented was called a charge card. The card was a signifier that one held money; the holder of the card would pay the issuer of the card at the end of the month; the issuer of the card would pay the stores at which the person had received goods or services.
So people, particularly people who did not have many “dollars” on hand, could borrow automatically, through these cards, in exchange for paying the total amount due at the end of the month.
It was not long—not even ten years—after that that there came the credit card. With the credit card, the holder was not compelled to pay the money due at the end of the month. Instead, in exchange for allowing the holder to retain the money he or she had spent, the issuer of the card—a bank—would simply charge the card user “interest.”
“Interest” was such a funny word to be chosen to mean this. “Interest” was an old, old word, first meaning “to concern,” later meaning “to draw the attention of” and also “cognizance for one’s own earnings”—and in this case it meant essentially that, if there was an outstanding “balance,” then the issuer of the credit card would increase the amount that was owed.
Interest was usually expressed as a percentage; it could range from almost nothing to as high as in the hundreds. What kind of rate one was given was, at least in part, based on how well—but not too well—one behaved with other credit cards. For instance, never paying money owed was a very bad thing. Never borrowing money at all was a less bad thing, but still not a good thing, in the eyes of financial institutions. Always paying some was considered the best thing of all.
In a sense, interest was insurance for the bank. There would always be people who would not pay, after all, so the interest earned from others would offset those losses.
But also there was money to be made there. For instance, some cards had fees just for users to be allowed to have them. Some cards started with a very low “interest” rate that then jumped dramatically. There were also “late fees,” for any tardiness in payment.
Eventually it became necessary for the government to intervene on behalf of credit card users. Just then, laws were enacted that said credit card companies could not, for instance, dramatically raise the interest rates on cards without allowing people to continue paying off what they owed at the prior rate. The government had to mandate that monthly due dates for payments could not fall on a day on which mail was not delivered. The government had to declare that cardholders could, when they had multiple cards with the same issuer, first pay off the account with the highest interest; previously the credit card companies had declared that any payments would be applied to the lowest-interest card first.
Just six companies were responsible for issuing four out of every five credit cards. At around this time, all the credit cards in the country had about 950 billion dollars in debt piled upon them, spread between about 150 million people. In the year previous, all kinds of fees—late fees, over-the-“limit” fees, annual fees—were thought to total 20 billion dollars.
AT A BOOK party a week after Edward and John met—that is, a party to celebrate a book—a friend of Amy’s came up to John and said, hey, wow, Edward really, really likes you. And John was elated.
Later John would find out that Edward wrote that stupid thing on Twitter about being sad only because it was raining outside. Edward had actually never been happier in his life.
IN THE END, the elected members of the City Council, after hearing from the public, were compelled to decide whether the Mayor could run for the third time, and the vote went 29 in favor to 22 opposed. This was, apparently, legal, even if it seemed like it shouldn’t be. “Our City is facing the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression,” the head of the City Council said. The Great Depression was the last great contagion, eighty years previous. Her implication was that continuity in leadership would help prevent things getting worse. She planned on being the mayor herself after the current Mayor’s third term.
Most everyone felt dimly outraged—some more than dimly. In the council chambers, after the vote, people were actually screaming from the balconies. But then what? Not enough people were so outraged as to go and do—well, what? March on the Mayor’s house? People had to go to work, after all. Also there were so many good things on their TVs.
EDWARD WAS BEING cagey, but finally John convinced E
dward to get together for drinks, at the Nowhere Bar, a red-tinted basement bar, dark and campy and not far from Edward’s place, or, that is to say, Edward and Edward’s boyfriend’s place. It was more than a week but less than two weeks after they had met. They were having a lot of fun! John was so happy to see him. They sat next to each other in the dark, and the glow of their faces was all there was.
I may be moving back down to the Capital soon, Edward said, to my parents’ house. John grabbed his arm. You can’t do that, you can’t leave town, he said. And Edward said, you know we can’t do this, right?
And John said, why not? And Edward said, because I’m fucked up. And I love my boyfriend.
And yet. Edward was really effusive too. He said that he really liked John. But what were they supposed to do, exactly? Edward asked. He said he’d seen a number of friends leave their boyfriends for another person, and look what happened. It never worked.
So they went their own ways.
After this night, John kept harassing Edward online, flirting, chatting . . . but then he was faced with this chill, and he did back off. He didn’t want to be a complication, exactly, because actually he did like Edward. He didn’t want him in trouble or in torment.
John and Kevin and a bunch of others went to see Edward at a bar right before he left to go live with his parents for a while, to send him off. John intentionally didn’t look at Edward the whole night.
And at the end of that night, Kevin said to John, it is so hilarious how all you do is stare at Edward and all Edward does is stare at you.
I wasn’t even looking at him! John said. And Kevin said, please, all you do is stare at each other longingly.
So John came up to Edward right before he left. Well, I’ll be down your way pretty soon myself for a weekend, he said. I’ll come see you maybe. Would you like that?
THE CITY’S OWNERS were its engine, a kind of smaller city within the City, and they flatly served its purposes, to amass organizations that made and also spent capital. To do so they needed a few segments of population. So it served to have all these various layers of people: the people to work in the offices, the people to clean the offices, the people to buy and sell the offices, the people to feed the people within the offices, and the people to feed the people who owned the offices. Everyone else was a kind of gray noise while the credit card numbers bounced from tower to tower, transaction to transaction. Some people’s entire lives were nothing but the reverberations of this noise! “Leisure time” was spent consuming, handing over hours of one’s day to someone’s corporate entity. This was a fair trade. It must be said that people wanted it that way or they wouldn’t have been converting their dollars into products.
And also this was the attraction of the City: the proximity of the plates of classes grinding together, the corner office visible from the bullpen. When someone was young in the City, he couldn’t know what he would be, and that was an alluring mystery. Some days he might think he was bound for riches too. Some hours he might think he was slipping into a permanent disaster.
And everything else that was free, the people you spoke with and the people you slept with, those were strategies of filling a need you could not address in a system of capital. Which is to say, the good news was that no matter how hard the City tried, or the owners in the City tried, it could not make absolutely everything about profit and need.
People’s lives would always seep out toward freedom, trashy or hilarious or messy or sexy or whatever—toward things that lie beyond profit and loss and order and economy.
ONE NIGHT CHAD said, I’ll be downtown, let’s hang out. And John said, great, I’ll be with Fred. So they met up at the Magician, the worst place, a terrible plain little bar where John and his coworkers went after work and drank too much, where tonight Diego’s friends were hanging out. When John got there, one of Chad’s friends, Dan, was storming out of the bar. And Chad was running after him, yelling, wait, wait, Dan!
And John was like, whoa, hello. And: Slow down, can you explain what’s happening? And Chad said, it’s all my fault, but apparently one of Diego’s friends wanted a really low-key evening, where it was just her and her friends hanging out, and so I offered Dan a free table nearby so you guys could sit there.
So John said, come sit with us, Dan, who cares. He didn’t even want to sit with Diego and his college friends. Fred joined them at their side table, away from everyone, and they spent most of the time talking about how they thought Diego was bizarrely mean to them. John said so first, and Dan said, oh, you too? Hmm! Every time they’d get into it, Chad would come by and they’d quickly start talking about sports. Diego had what John thought was a crazy new haircut that was shaved on the sides and long on top, and John went by to say, hey, nice haircut.
The night wound down. Diego’s friends were walking out. And Diego stopped by their table and said, John, what’s going on with your hair?
What do you mean? John asked.
And Diego said, it’s just really ridiculous right now. And your five o’clock shadow? And your hair? It’s really, really disconcerting.
John’s whole face tightened and he said, well, you look great. And Diego said, I dunno, John. And then: Well, I hope you’re coming to this Saturday birthday party we’re having.
Oh, we’ll definitely be there, John said. Chad was all aquiver in anxiety. They left. Thank God you were the bigger man, Dan and Fred said. Really? John said. Because I found his gut disconcerting.
The following Tuesday, he had drinks with Chad. How’s your capacity for a difficult subject? John asked. Well, I dunno, said Chad. Okay, here’s the deal, I never want to see your boyfriend again, John said. Chad was really good about it. Diego really likes you! Chad said. I will listen to whatever you tell me, John said. If you tell me I’m an overly sensitive asshole, that’s fine. Let’s table this, Chad said, and I will talk to him subtly. And I’ll do whatever you want, John said. John actually hated Diego at this point, but he was making something of an attempt. Maybe he was a little mad that he was thinking about Edward all the time, and Edward was floating there just out of reach, and here was a pair of lovers, and it was nowhere near as good, or so he thought.
JOHN WAS ON the highway, on his way down to the Capital, and he got an email on his phone. It was from Edward: “Are you still coming down?” He was driving down with his coworker Rex. And John asked Rex, do we even have time? And should I even see him? Well yeah, you should definitely go see him, Rex said. Rex was secretly deep, John thought.
So John had dinner with his friends that night, and afterward went outside to smoke and wait for Edward, who eventually showed up wearing a purple deep-V shirt and torn jeans, a very funny outfit. John was in a suit. He jumped into Edward’s parents’ white minivan. Where are we going to go? he asked. And Edward said, well, we can go to the sports bar or we can go somewhere else. Somewhere else, John said. No, I’m taking you to the sports bar, Edward said. It’s called Nellie’s and it has an outdoor smoking section. John had already turned off the part of him that was into Edward, he thought, but they spent an hour at the bar and had so much fun and fast talk and it was all corny, laughing, brain-chemical crush. They went from one side of the bar to the other. Every guy is checking you out, Edward said. But there’s only one guy I’m here with, that I’m interested in, John said. Then it was two a.m. and the bar was closing. John had been drinking seltzer all night. Edward was drinking though. Well, alright, I guess I’ll drive you back to where you’re staying, Edward said. And it was time to say good night. So what are you doing now? John asked. Oh, I’m going to go watch movies in my parents’ rec room, Edward said. Well, I wish you’d told me that earlier, John said, I would have watched movies in your parents’ rec room. Well, you can if you want, Edward said. How about this? John said. I have to go back to where I’m staying, I have a ton of work stuff to do down here, and I have to get up early, but tell you what,
why don’t you pick me up tomorrow and we’ll go watch movies in your parents’ rec room.
John got through the next day and a long night of work. John messaged Edward: Wanna come pick me up? So Edward showed up in the dark in the white minivan. John got in. Hey, kid, it’s good to see you, John said and touched the back of his head. His hair was wet. Did you just take a shower? John said. Well maybe, Edward said. Oh okay, John said. They went off to suburbia, a fifteen-minute ride, and Edward made him laugh. They passed a girl not wearing very much walking down the street, and Edward said, oh, this town’s really in transition. They got back to the dark house and they smoked in the backyard. Edward’s parents and his grandmother were asleep upstairs. They went down to the basement. There were wood-paneled walls and a little TV. So we can watch one of two movies, Edward said. We can watch Back to the Future or Real World: Season One.
Real World: Season One, John said. John took his tie and his coat off and spread across the couch. I’m so tired, he said. And John turned and Edward was staring at him. Look at you, he said. Then Edward pounced on him.
They fell asleep on this couch. Suddenly Edward was shaking him. It was five twenty in the morning.
“Well, we can do one of two things. You can stay over, though I don’t know what my dad would think of that, or I can drive you back,” Edward said.
“How long was I sleeping for?” John asked.
“Like forty-five minutes,” Edward said.
“Were you asleep too?” John asked.
“No,” Edward said.
“Were you just sitting here paranoid, staring out the window?” John asked.
“No, I was just sitting here in a total reverie. I’m so happy,” Edward said.
“Well, you can drive me back,” John said.
THE OWNER OF John’s company fired the cleaning lady who came around each night and emptied the trash cans and vacuumed and did everything. Who would clean now?
