The first two stories from the collection Brief Encounters With the Enemy by Said Sayrafiezadeh
Dial Press 08/2013
Said Sayrafiezadeh wrote a great memoir a while back called, When Skateboards Will Be Free. It is a wonderful package, enjoyed heavy praise, backlisting well. While on my search for Intel on the new Tom Rachman novel, I came across these stories, and in the opening moments of this love affair, I have welcomed butterflies.
There are whispers of dystopian bliss in these pages. Is it strange that I would find anything blissful at the end of the world? I am a rabid fan of The Road, the bleak desperation, often copied badly, but not here. SS has a hopeful sense of humor in the face of endlessly slow urban decay. People can’t get around because the buses stopped running, and the highways are laid out like spaghetti spilled from the box.
In ‘Cartography’, Rex, a cartographer is slinking around town, while war looms and a bus strike holds everyone hostage. His boss, the humorously named Ned Frost has been writing him love letters, and eventually this one-sided romance takes an ugly turn and Rex is jobless. The antiquated missives sent to Rex stand out as being painfully hysterical. An office is no place for Rex, and when he gets the courage to venture out into the world, walking great distances, he meets Ned once again, this time he doesn’t have job security hanging over him. I love the ending of this story; it is surprising and leaves you thinking about where Rex might be now.
With ‘Paranoia’, the second story in the collection, SS delivers a loud and callous muscle-bound illegal alien living in the peace and quiet of a pre-war heat wave. The temperatures keep Roberto well-oiled and allow him to fob off his hyperbole on the nearest friend or bystander, often racially insensitive, and that’s putting it lightly. His friend Dean weaves his way through this world cleaning up after Roberto, and supporting him too. Dean’s narration offers a genuine concern for Roberto’s well-being. Trouble arrives in the form of a fellow bench presser who punches Roberto in the face sending him to the hospital. This leaves Dean struggling to help his friend while watching in horror as fate pops up like freckles. Like Ned in the first story, Roberto’s interpretations of the world are obtuse and wildly out of step with his own vernacular. These men are followed by Rex and Dean who appear to be happy, but stressed out by the world at large, at least they are the sober clear-headed sides of this bent coin. There is a wrinkled corner in the first story that occasionally empties his bladder in a pan meant for cooking, and this guy makes Roberto look professorial. SS is very good at delivering a friendly ass kicking in the last moments of each story, a trick that is both satisfying and thrilling.
I loved loved loved When Skateboards Will Be Free. I had the awkward pleasure of meeting Mr. Sayrafiezadeh when he popped by McNally Jackson years ago and noticed I had put his book in the window. I was overly gushy and weird and he was very gracious, which shouldn’t matter, but as a bookseller when you are crushing hard on a book it can be devastating to not love the author as well (happens all the time, sadly). BUT, he is quite great and I had heard rumor of a short story collection. Thanks for the reminder of this beloved writer. I will be hunting it down tomorrow. As should everyone else.