BooksBarbecue
Back Grime Save as PDF
Chapters (69)
  1. Copyright Notice
  2. THE MILLENNIUM
  3. DON
  4. HANNAH
  5. KAREN
  6. DON’S MOTHER
  7. PETER
  8. THE MOTHER
  9. DR. BROWN
  10. HANNAH’S FATHER
  11. SERGEJ
  12. MOTHER
  13. THE RUSSIAN
  14. THOME
  15. THE RED DEER
  16. THOME’S FATHER
  17. WALTER
  18. KAREN’S BIG BROTHER
  19. PATUK
  20. OLD WOMAN
  21. POLICEWOMAN
  22. BEFORE THE INTERMISSION
  23. INTERMISSION
  24. HUMANITY
  25. SIR ERNEST (EARL)
  26. COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
  27. PROGRAMMER
  28. MA WEI
  29. CARL
  30. THE FRIENDS (BEN, KEMAL, PAVEL, MAGGY, RACHEL)
  31. BODYCAM MAN
  32. MAGGY
  33. MR. M.
  34. ROGER
  35. THE AVERAGE ENGLISHMAN
  36. THE LAB DIRECTOR
  37. HONEST MAN
  38. JOB NOMADS
  39. COURIER
  40. BOXER
  41. ATTACKERS
  42. THE EIGHT-YEAR-OLD PROSTITUTE
  43. KEVIN
  44. SWEATING MAN
  45. BERTA AND HENRY’S
  46. RACHEL
  47. YOUNG MEN
  48. ARTHUR
  49. STUDENT
  50. ROB
  51. A WOMAN
  52. PHILOSOPHER
  53. THE MATTRESS SELLER
  54. ABDULLAH B.
  55. THE PRO-LIFERS
  56. PROFESSOR DR. KUHN
  57. JON
  58. PROFESSOR
  59. MIDDLE-AGED TEACHER
  60. WOMAN WITH THE THINNING HAIR
  61. BANKER
  62. THE CHILD
  63. THE NEW PRIME MINISTER
  64. MADAME CECILIE
  65. THE JOURNALIST
  66. THE WORLD
  67. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  68. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  69. Newsletter Sign-up

The young man looked into her eyes, and his face was a little too close to hers, she could smell some sort of product in his hair; he asked if she’d like to see him again. Karen nodded, she might have thrown up out of excitement, staggered into the stairway, ran up what felt like 678 flights, entered the apartment, where it stank, where the idiots were lying on the couch, and for the first time Karen thought: Fuck you guys.

Then

Followed weeks set to a soundtrack of violins. During which Karen thought about every inch of the young man. His ears, his hands, his skin, his pants, his voice, and then she started over again, and at night she hoped to dream of him. That didn’t happen though, such dreams are never delivered on demand. Karen walked through the apartment she had nothing more to do with, it just didn’t affect her anymore, this apartment, and she saw the place for the first time, with its torn shower curtain, the stove with burned-on stains, the ochre carpeting where various people had apparently bled out, and the view out over nothing nice at all. It didn’t matter. She had. A boyfriend. A boyfriend. It was so unreal that Karen felt as if she’d suddenly lost her mind. As she went about all the daily activities life entailed, teeth brushing, getting dressed, being insulted by her brothers, Karen said Patuk’s name to herself, and the adrenaline rush followed, causing her heart to skip a beat, and hormones flooded her body in such concentrations that she would be immobilized. Not even her big brother’s announcement that he was converting to Islam so he could marry four women was enough to upset her, that’s how absolutely she didn’t care about what happened at home. As if seeing it out of the corner of her eye she noticed briefly that her brother seemed to have a problem that expressed itself in his constantly scratching his body parts.

KAREN’S BIG BROTHER

INTELLIGENCE: it’ll do

TEMPERAMENT: out of control

CONSUMER INTERESTS: porn, weapons, drugs

HEALTH PROBLEMS: toenail fungus

Never thought: Man, my limited intellect is depressing. He was.

Bored from head to toe in his too powerful body.