The American Dream!
Chang and I have never done those things.
Our lives came, we got them, and sadly we still have them. We endure them.
We have completely avoided the American Dream.
The American Dream requires a lot of ambition.
Between Chang and I, there probably isn’t an ounce of ambition.
“Chang, are we dirty commies?”
“I’m in a bathtub and I don’t have a job.”
“You’re right.”
“You wash dishes.”
“I know.”
“Is there anything to live for?”
“I’m not sure. We never get laid.”
“No, we don’t.”
“We suck.”
“Nobody wants to fuck us,” Chang says.
“You would think after a year of not getting laid your balls would explode and you would die, but you don’t. You keep going on, still not getting laid.”
“There is global warming and two wars, and we are sitting around talking about not getting laid.”
“I’m sure the soldiers in Iraq are thinking about their balls too,” I say.
“Balls.”
“Balls.”
“You’re right,” Chang says.
“I know, we’re in our twenties and we can’t get laid. Girls even tell us we’re attractive. And we still can’t get laid.”
“They know about us.”
“What about us?”
“They know we’re weird.”
“They know we don’t pine,” I say.
“I can’t pine. I must bathe. That shit smell never goes away. Maybe girls don’t like me because I smell like shit.”
“Let’s not talk about not getting laid anymore. It depresses me.”
“Yes, it’s a sad subject.”
“Have I told you about my $10,000 bill?”
“No.”
“Well, the student loan people sent me a letter saying that since I didn’t make any of the payments, now I owe them one installment of $10,000.”
“That’s wild.”
“Yeah, no fucking shit.”
“I don’t understand, if you couldn’t pay small amounts, how do they expect you to pay $10,000 in one installment?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should write a proposal to a video game company.”
“Do what?”
“You like video games.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Well, make up a plot for a game and send it to the companies. And they will give you money and probably let you work with them.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
“I don’t have any other ideas.”
“That’s it. Write a video game.”
“Yeah.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, I’m not the one who owes $10,000.”
“You’re saying I have to do this myself. This requires some kind of drive, some kind of like motivation.”
“You like being in a shithole?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that motivation?”
“I don’t know. I’ve gotten used to being in a shithole.”
“You like living in a shithole?”
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“I should just die,” I say.
“No.”
“No?”
“If you die, who will sit with me?”
“I don’t know. Your mom?”
“My mother spit on me to clean off the shit.”
“I’m not very good at doing things that matter.”
“The water is getting cold. I’m getting out.”
That is the sign for me to leave the bathroom.
I don’t know what to do.
It just seems like the world is heavy. That it is like a big cement monster that is crushing me, that is pummeling me with scorpion claws, stinging me, biting me, throwing bricks at my head, slamming cinder blocks on my nuts, eating me alive, showing me that I am worthless, that my life on this planet is a futile little pile of meat that ends in immobility, death, then I’m sent underground with a shitty tombstone that doesn’t signify who I was, what I was about. It just states my name, year of birth and day of death. I don’t feel lucky at all to be alive.
3
I’m standing in the dish-tank at work.
The dish-tank is my hole.
There is a giant dishwasher next to me. It is made of metal and makes a lot of noise when dishes are run through it.
The dish-tank area smells like garbage. At night I throw bleach everywhere to try to get some of the smell to go away. But it never does. It always stinks like hell. It makes me stink like hell too.
I’m standing at the dish-tank. Gina brings dishes to it, drops the dishes, and goes back to serving tables.
I watch Gina walk away.
I think, Gina.
Gina has expensive pants and shoes on. She is flashy. She comes from a world where being flashy is appropriate.
I’m a Russian immigrant working as a dishwasher.
I still think she is cute.
She is half-Greek and half-Irish. She has pretty Greek hair with freckles on her cheeks. I think she is beautiful.
I’ve had a crush on her since the first day I met her. We got hired together. The manager sat the new hires at a table and I was sitting next to Gina.
I was nervous sitting next to Gina.
I couldn’t speak.
I hadn’t worked in over a month. I put out fifty applications and no one would hire me. My life at that moment was not going well. I was a pizza boy before but my car broke then I was unemployed. I applied at many places to be things that paid more and required less work. But my life sucks and I could not get any of those jobs. So I applied to the steakhouse as a last resort and became a dishwasher.
I remember sitting next to Gina. She was no more than a foot away from me. I was staring at that pretty face I’m sure with a look of terror on my face and she said, “What did you do last night?”
I said something stupid, like, “I read a book.”
I’m not good with people. I should have said that I went out and had lots of fun, with lots of friends, that I’m cool and all kinds of shit like that.
Instead I said, “I read a book.”
She knew I was a nerd then. Not only a nerd, but a poor nerd.
I hated myself so much at that moment. I kept thinking that something was wrong with me, that I was like a plague, inept, faulty, defective, that I needed to murder myself in cold blood.
I’m not good with people.
Gina didn’t ask me any more questions after that, and I didn’t ask her any either. I kept silent during the training process.
That is the story of my life.
I always keep silent.
I like Gina though.
She is really cool.
She is always really nervous and high-strung, pissed off, and says things like, “I hate people.”
Gina always has this look of terror mixed with hate on her face. I find that very attractive.
I’m afraid though.
I always think after I say something that it is wrong, that somehow I have fucked up, that the person I’m talking to will hate me.
I’m always convinced that people hate me; it makes for an uncomfortable existence.
And now five months later I’m still standing in the dish-tank, thinking of Gina.
I should win an award for self-destruction, self-mutilation, and self-loathing.
The award will be presented by Tom Cruise. There will be an audience of several million. Tom Cruise will say, “And now, the award for the most self-loathing human alive goes to…Vasily Krymov.”