Los Angeles by Ling Ma, 2015
The magic trick:
Summarizing the dynamic of an entire relationship without using a word
We have three stories this week that use self-consciously surrealist situations or descriptions to couch former romantic relationships.
Up first, Ling Ma. Her protagonist in “Los Angeles” lives in a giant house with her husband and children … and 100 ex-boyfriends. It certainly is a concept.
Most important to the story is the way it focuses on two specific exes, including a physically abusive one named Adam. But I will highlight one detail along the way that I will most remember. When the narrator talks to her husband, all he says is “$$$$$.” It’s funny and cute and damning and is a really original way to create an entire relationship’s dynamic without even using a word.
And that’s quite a trick on Ma’s part.
The selection:
The house in which we live has three wings. The west wing is where the Husband and I live. The east wing is where the children and their attending au pairs live. And lastly, the largest but ugliest wing, extending behind the house like a gnarled, broken arm, is where my 100 ex-boyfriends live. We live in LA.
Our house has the nicest view in the Hills. From our Spanish-tiled kitchen, I can see where I used to live down the hill, a coral stucco motel converted into an apartment complex. The burned-out sign says El Paraiso. Another girl lives in my old one-bedroom now. In T-shirt and slip, she drinks a glass of juice, stands hunched over the sink of the kitchen that I painted seafoam green. It is three in the morning, it is three in the afternoon.
She is there, I am here, and all my ex-boyfriends who used to date me there are also here. Aaron. Adam. Akihiko. Alejandro. Anders. Andrew. Those are just the As.
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