Super Sad True Love Story

On June 12, Lenny writes a passionate lament to Eunice in his diary. Each day, he looks at his checklist to remind himself to “love Eunice” until she runs off with “some mindless jerk” (74). His own family, he writes, messages him regularly in broken English to call him home. He wants, he explains, “to feel a little more secure about [himself]” before visiting them “in their vibrant right-wing habitat” (74).

Lenny’s “AmericanMorning portfolio” (75), although attached to the yuan (as his salary is) instead of the dollar, is losing value. His asset managers invested in “ColgatePalmoliveYum!BrandsViacomCredit” (75) where they should have invested in high performing nations. Unrest in Russia, and America’s invasion of Venezuela, are also hurting his funds. Lenny recognizes that “money equals life” (75) in his world.

He needs Joshie if he can reverse the “demise” he “paved the toll road” (75) for with his indulgent Italian lifestyle. Lenny decides to work hard at the office. Although he has yet to complete an intake, he works to gain followers within the company. He leaves his books at home. He learns “to worship [his] new äppärät’s screen, the colorful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas [his] books only know the minds of their authors” (76).

Over the weekend, Lenny decides to meet up with old friends, one of whom, Noah Weinberg, will film the reunion for his GlobalTeens show. On his way out of the building, Lenny encounters an ambulance taking away “a body badly sheathed in an opaque plastic bag” (77). Lenny grows angry that the body sits in the lobby, abandoned by the EMT workers or any caretakers. When he confronts them, the workers tell him that “it’s just death” (78). Nothing helps him to “Celebrate What I Have” as he thinks about the “one possible end to [his] life” (78). Lenny works desperately to remind himself of the mission to “Care for Your Friends,” but he continues to hope for some way not to believe “that any life ending in death is essentially pointless” (79).

Lenny passes through the American Restoration Authority’s checkpoint on the way to Staten Island amazed that he is not stopped. Staten Island is now hip, but Lenny remembers how it was “once completely off the grid” (80). The bar where Lenny meets his friends, Cervix, “is exactly what you would expect from yet another stupid Staten Island old man’s bar cleaned up and turned into a hangout for Media and Credit types” (80).

Noah and Vishnu, who went to NYU with Lenny, greet him; they are already filming Noah’s live GlobalTeens show. Although their greetings, which involve “touching buttocks and flailing at each other genitally,” are familiar, Lenny notices that they are “surreptitiously sniffing one another for signs of decay” (82). Noah begins his show by asking Lenny about “the women [he’s] done in Italy,” repeatedly calling him “the Nee-gro” (83), a term the men use for one another.

Lenny notices that Noah’s caustic behavior is a “personal decline” that “paralleled that of our culture and state” (83). Even as Lenny recounts his time in Italy, in all its dirty details, he notices that “the world [his friends] needed was right around them, flickering and bleeping, and it demanded every bit of strength and attention they could spare” (84). As Lenny speaks, Noah encourages him to stop talking about Rome and shift to “humor and politics” (84) to please his fans.

The conversation takes a sexual and political turn. As Noah continues, dropping in mentions of companies that sponsor his show, Lenny observes his friends. Noah has aged the most, although he was once the most attractive and successful of all of his friends. In their “almost-forties,” Lenny and Vishnu had taken on “a time of exploration” (85). Lenny recognizes that he has grown distant, especially because he lives “all the way out in Manhattan,” and vows to “replant [himself] on native soil” (85).

Vishnu and Noah teach Lenny a new term, FAC, which means Form a Community. Using an äppärät, men and women can request to meet up based on how high a woman’s appearance raises the man’s heart rate. In teaching him about FAC, Vishnu also shows him the extent of the äppärät’s knowledge of Lenny’s background and dating history. The äppärät also shows how many books, or “nonstreaming Media artifacts,” Lenny has recently bought, which Vishnu tells him will “drag down [his] personality rankings” (88).

Through the äppärät, Vishnu works up rankings of the men’s personality, attractiveness, and sustainability rankings. Lenny’s ability to provide, or his Money and Credit, seem to be “about all” (89) he has. In looking at the rankings of the girls, especially Annie’s multimedia äppärät presentation of past sexual abuse, Lenny is filled with empathy. When he looks at her, his äppärät signals to “look away, dork” (90). The system of RateMe Plus seems to absorb all of the aging men in the bar. 

Lenny, increasingly drunk, pleads for Eunice publicly on Noah’s show. Noah pleads as they quickly begin “losing hits” because Lenny is “verballing” and “emoting” (91). Lenny escapes to the bathroom.

When Vishnu confronts a vomiting Lenny in the men’s room, he tells Noah to turn off his äppärät. Vishnu thinks Noah is working for the American Restoration Authority, or Bipartisans, even though Noah claims on his show to do just the opposite. Vishnu warns Lenny to be careful: they are both “poster children for Harm Reduction [because] [t]his city has no use for” (93) them.

Vishnu’s girlfriend, Grace Kim, arrives at the bar to take Vishnu home. Despite an offer for a nightcap, Lenny goes home, passing through the National Guard checkpoint by denying and implying everything. On the ferry home, Lenny wonders: “Is this still my city?” (94). Lenny insists to himself that it is: “And if it’s not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again” (94).