Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (C. AD 2009) in a Large City by Choire Sicha Page A
Authors: Choire Sicha
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twisted to the side and
supported on one elbow.
“God!” Chad shouted in disgust.
LATER THAT NIGHT, they went to Sugarland. Somehow, John started dancing with the little twenty-year-old,
the one who was seeing Fred. It got very flirty, for no good reason. He was drunk.
Well, they were all drunk.
And then that weekend John and Fred were in the park and John had gone to show some
picture on his mobile phone to Fred, but the phone was open to Facebook, and there
was a friend request from the twenty-year-old.
“What’s that?” Fred asked. “Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, that’s so weird!” John said.
IT WAS EASIER to not have a home in the summer than to not have a home in the winter, due almost
entirely to the weather. Not having a place to live wasn’t “bad” in itself. But people
wanted to know why, and then they could say, “That is why you have no home, because
you did that thing”—went to jail, or hurt someone, or became addicted to drugs, or
went crazy—and then they could think that reason was why such a thing would never
happen to them.
JOHN HAD A week of vacation. This was rare for him. As an employee, he was guaranteed a certain
allotment of vacation days, something like ten of them a year. But it was pretty common
practice for employers to discourage workers from actually using them. An employee
would put in a request to use them on certain dates, and sometimes the boss or owner
would tell the employee that they couldn’t be spared then. It was also common for
these earned vacation days to expire: that if you didn’t use them within a certain
amount of time, like within the calendar year, they were no longer available. There
was also an arcane process through which, when employees worked on extra days, such
as weekends or holidays, they were to accrue “comp time,” and then they could use
this to not work on workdays. In practice, this rarely happened. In any event, with
the tension of the last two months, John hadn’t had a vacation in ages, and Timothy
did not deny him.
Instead of going somewhere out of the City, as was the usual practice, John stayed
at home. Kevin took a night off from staying home to come out—he and Fred and John
went to see an orchestra play for free in a park, and this night proved so much fun
that they went to the Phoenix after.
At the bar they got beers, and Fred was flirting with some guy from overseas, and
then Fred came over and whispered in John’s ear: Tyler Flowers is here, with some
guy. So John grabbed Kevin and threw him in the corner, and they started kissing urgently.
I think Tyler saw us, Fred whispered into their joined faces. All night they ignored
Tyler, and later, from home, John sent Tyler a message. Do you wanna get together?
Yeah, that sounds like fun, what day works for you? Tyler asked. And then John realized
he had no money to go out on a date and didn’t even write him back.
In fact, John had run out of money quite completely. But he finally wrote back and
told Tyler he was going to watch a tennis event on TV, at Sally’s, with Rex and maybe
some other people from work. It would be a “Wimbledon party.” It wasn’t so much a
Wimbledon party as just them sitting there watching the Wimbledon men’s finals on
TV. Wimbledon was a prestigious annual tennis tournament held in another country,
in which two very rich players would face off for a trophy and two checks: one big,
for the winner, and one less big, for the loser. The winner got more than a million
dollars. And Tyler said that sounded good. So the night before, Saturday night, John
got a Facebook message from Tyler, and it said, I don’t know if you were pulling my
chain, but I’d really love to see you again and to go to your Wimbledon party. By
then John had forgotten all about it. So John made up some excuse, saying he had to
watch his nephew or something. But he texted Tyler afterward,
supported on one elbow.
“God!” Chad shouted in disgust.
LATER THAT NIGHT, they went to Sugarland. Somehow, John started dancing with the little twenty-year-old,
the one who was seeing Fred. It got very flirty, for no good reason. He was drunk.
Well, they were all drunk.
And then that weekend John and Fred were in the park and John had gone to show some
picture on his mobile phone to Fred, but the phone was open to Facebook, and there
was a friend request from the twenty-year-old.
“What’s that?” Fred asked. “Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, that’s so weird!” John said.
IT WAS EASIER to not have a home in the summer than to not have a home in the winter, due almost
entirely to the weather. Not having a place to live wasn’t “bad” in itself. But people
wanted to know why, and then they could say, “That is why you have no home, because
you did that thing”—went to jail, or hurt someone, or became addicted to drugs, or
went crazy—and then they could think that reason was why such a thing would never
happen to them.
JOHN HAD A week of vacation. This was rare for him. As an employee, he was guaranteed a certain
allotment of vacation days, something like ten of them a year. But it was pretty common
practice for employers to discourage workers from actually using them. An employee
would put in a request to use them on certain dates, and sometimes the boss or owner
would tell the employee that they couldn’t be spared then. It was also common for
these earned vacation days to expire: that if you didn’t use them within a certain
amount of time, like within the calendar year, they were no longer available. There
was also an arcane process through which, when employees worked on extra days, such
as weekends or holidays, they were to accrue “comp time,” and then they could use
this to not work on workdays. In practice, this rarely happened. In any event, with
the tension of the last two months, John hadn’t had a vacation in ages, and Timothy
did not deny him.
Instead of going somewhere out of the City, as was the usual practice, John stayed
at home. Kevin took a night off from staying home to come out—he and Fred and John
went to see an orchestra play for free in a park, and this night proved so much fun
that they went to the Phoenix after.
At the bar they got beers, and Fred was flirting with some guy from overseas, and
then Fred came over and whispered in John’s ear: Tyler Flowers is here, with some
guy. So John grabbed Kevin and threw him in the corner, and they started kissing urgently.
I think Tyler saw us, Fred whispered into their joined faces. All night they ignored
Tyler, and later, from home, John sent Tyler a message. Do you wanna get together?
Yeah, that sounds like fun, what day works for you? Tyler asked. And then John realized
he had no money to go out on a date and didn’t even write him back.
In fact, John had run out of money quite completely. But he finally wrote back and
told Tyler he was going to watch a tennis event on TV, at Sally’s, with Rex and maybe
some other people from work. It would be a “Wimbledon party.” It wasn’t so much a
Wimbledon party as just them sitting there watching the Wimbledon men’s finals on
TV. Wimbledon was a prestigious annual tennis tournament held in another country,
in which two very rich players would face off for a trophy and two checks: one big,
for the winner, and one less big, for the loser. The winner got more than a million
dollars. And Tyler said that sounded good. So the night before, Saturday night, John
got a Facebook message from Tyler, and it said, I don’t know if you were pulling my
chain, but I’d really love to see you again and to go to your Wimbledon party. By
then John had forgotten all about it. So John made up some excuse, saying he had to
watch his nephew or something. But he texted Tyler afterward,
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