Four New Messages by Joshua Cohen Read Free Book Online Page A

his hand.
    From the floor the ringing continued.
    A CCTV camera awning a deli two blocks east caught him on the run—add that to the testimony of Em’s neighbor, a spooked Korean grad student Enver thrashed past on the stoop, spilling the kid’s bachelor cold groceries: fruit and cereals, sprouts, soy yogurt.
    Ludicrous to go back to campus—cameras, everywhere, had him everywhere, running between surveillances. Cutting between frames.
    He was as big as a movie to the cops, who had him in custody within three hours (picked up hiding in a basement playpen at his cousin’s in Plainsboro).
    At the Biergarten I paid for Mono’s beers then checked my phone. I’d missed a few calls, had a few messages. Parents, delete. My landlord wanting to make a final Prussian inspection of the premises once my duffels had been shipped then get my keys. Girls, including one Amsterdam video artist with whom I had one unfilmable night. Do not del. The more attractive waitress, the Turk, was attempting Russian with the Russian, saying their do svidaniya. A foosball careered across its tabled pitch. A slot machine clanked from the interior dank.
    Mono said, Naomi.
    She was Mono’s cousin on his mother’s side.
    They hadn’t spoken in years—Mono had last seen Naomi at his mother’s grave—yet it was she who saved him.
    Both sets of parents had emigrated together, had already settled into Jersey and Ph.D. programs by the time they were Mono and Naomi’s age, both had graduated together (1982), had bought their houses and had their children at the same time (Mono and Naomi were born the same month, 1984), bought their BBQs, bought their inground pools, opened their email accounts—Mono related the success of this parental relocation, especially successful when compared with ours.
    Though Naomi, unlike Mono, was said to have matured.
    She was to marry a man so incidental to even his own self let alone to this tale that his name shouldn’t be recorded—let’s have tact, let’s try for it.
    About two months before Mono’s exploits went viral Naomi’s mother called to announce the nuptials and guilt him into being there—New York—the tacky boathouse in Central Park.
    She jotted his address for a formal invitation, said, We’ll catch up at the ceremony.
    Mentioning, There’s a girl I’d like to introduce you to. She’s a nurse. She looks like A. Jolie.
    I’m excited, was all he could say.
    She said goodbye with: I called your father for your number. Don’t worry, the Poz is not invited.
    Poz being Armenian.
    Mono, who did not speak Armenian, knew it meant dickhead or equivalent.
    Imagine gripping the back fat of that nurselet for the slow dances or having to replay the act behind his meme fame for his smuttier uncles in the bathrooms between the entrée and dessert—Mono didn’t want to go, but he had to go: he’d already RSVP’d.
    Still he procrastinated, waited until the Friday before the event to ball his only suit into his backpack—the suit black crisp funereal, bought for his college interview—and drive out to find the drycleaner’s.
    He remembered a cleaner’s adjacent to a tanning salon or ye olde historic sandwich shoppe.
    Or else adjacent to both.
    He didn’t google, wished to locate by memory alone.
    An hour later returning, having stopped at a diner to park a reuben in his gut.
    His suit would be ready only on Sunday, they opened at noon. He’d have to crawl into the suit in the car on the way to the bus or the train.
    Out on the patio it’d become a clear summer night—not cloying anymore but breezy perfection—I couldn’t believe I had just a week of this left.
    The smoke of our cigarettes the only clouds of the moon—closing time.
    We were the only customers.
    I wanted to offer Mono to pick up his suit, send it to him—airmail? or boat rate?
    On me.
    We haven’t been in touch.
    Mono said:
    Squadcars surrounded his building. He knew they were idling for him. For dealing, for whatever Marjorie