Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart Page A

left the Soviet Union for America. Oh God, I thought, let there still be such luck in this new world.
    “Please wait underneath the ‘security shed,’” one of the stewardesses sobbed to us. We walked toward a strange outcropping, amidst a landscape of forlorn, aging terminals heaped atop one another like the vista of some gray Lagos slum. We surveyed the tired buildings of a prematurely old country; in the far distance, away from the tanks and armored personnel carriers, construction cranes loomed over the half-built futuristic complex of the China Southern Airlines Cargo Terminal. A tank rolled over to us, and the nine first-class Americans instinctively raised our hands. The tank stopped short; a single soldier in T-shirt and shorts popped out of the hatchand planted a highway sign next to it, black letters against an orange background:
    IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE EXISTENCE OF THIS VEHICLE (“THE OBJECT”) UNTIL YOU ARE .5 MILES FROM THE SECURITY PERIMETER OF JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. BY READING THIS SIGN YOU HAVE DENIED EXISTENCE OF THE OBJECT AND IMPLIED CONSENT.

—A MERICAN R ESTORATION A UTHORITY ,
S ECURITY D IRECTIVE IX-2.11
“T OGETHER W E ’ LL S URPRISE THE W ORLD !”

    The Italians, convinced that the worst was behind them, had already started talking about the last ten minutes as if they had been through a thrilling geopolitical adventure; the women among them were already discussing handbag shops in Nolita where they could take particular advantage of the ailing dollar. And then I realized the fat man’s smell of fear had never left my nostrils, had become embedded in my trunk-like nasal hairs, the ones Eunice had gingerly pulled upon in my Roman bed while whispering, “Ugh,
so
grodacious.” And then, before I knew exactly what had happened, I was sitting on the floor of the security shed, my legs sprawled out beneath me, useless, my arms prodding the new American air, as if I were a sleepwalker or an athlete doing his stretches. My passport had fallen out of my hands. The Italians were saying something sympathetic in my direction. They were quite alert to illness, those gentle ancient people. The sounds Eunice called “verballing” were escaping from my mouth, but even if you cupped my mouth with your ear you would not be able to understand a thing I was saying.

THE ONLY MAN FOR ME

FROM THE GLOBALTEENS ACCOUNT OF EUNICE PARK

    JUNE 5

    Format: Long-Form Standard English Text
    GLOBALTEENS SUPER HINT:
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    EUNI-TARD ABROAD
TO
GRILLBITCH:
    Dear Precious Pony,
    Sup, slut? I really wish you were here right now. I need someone to verbal with and Teens just ain’t cutting it. I’m so confused. I went up to Lucca with Ben (the Credit guy) and he was so super nice, paid for all my meals and this gorgeous hotel room, took me for a walk around the city walls and to this insanely good osteria where everyone there knew him and we had a 200 euro wine. I kept thinking about how he would be the perfect boyfriend and I sweated his hot skinny bod. But all of a sudden I would tell him like for no reason that his feet smelled or that he was cross-eyed or his hair was receding (which was a total LIE), and he would get all intro on me, turn down the community access on his äppärät so that I wouldn’t know where the fuck his mind was, and then just stare off into space. It’s not like we didn’t do it. We did. And it was all right. But right afterwards I started having this major bawling panic attack and he tried to comfort me, told me I looked slutty and that my Fuckability was 800+ (which it’s so NOT, because I can’t find anyone in Rome who can do Asian hair) but he couldn’t. I feel so much shame. I feel so undeserving of being with someone like Ben and whenever we walked down the street together or somethingI just kept picturing him with some