Sydney Jin Choi
from Suburban Love Song
All We Live for Is Love and Money
I.
I’m fairly certain that this is the only place in the world where you can drive to the grocery store, surrounded on all four sides, by four different colored Teslas. My car was a 1997 Honda Accord with a tear on the back bumper that flapped around when I drove above 45 miles per hour. I mended the tear with silver duct tape that matched the faded paint. On the highway, I’d check my rearview mirror to see if the tape had unstuck. Often it had, so I’d drive slower, watching a piece of my car wave at me in the wind. Often, I’d hear it screaming as we made our way over a bridge.
II.
On May 17, 1985, Fry’s Electronics was founded in Sunnyvale, California. The chain retailer shares a birthday with my father. It sold products ranging from holiday chocolates to refurbished printers to discount perfumes. Having locations in and beyond the Silicon Valley, Fry’s was frequented by programmers, gamers, and parents searching desperately for Christmas gifts for their children at half-price. I never really understood the appeal until H— took me there after our fourth date. He wanted to look for parts for the computer he was building. I was dazzled by the aisles of blinking lights and sale tags. When we left, I had two new power strips and a bag of candy.
III.
I often think about the different Fry’s I’ve been in because I was fascinated with their poorly executed themes. Each Fry’s was equipped with a collection of plastic sculptures and paintings that were either unrecognizable or offensive. The Fry’s in San Jose was masked in a plaster façade that resembled an indigenous temple. The Fremont Fry’s was described as “The World’s Fair”; at the center of the store, there was a working Tesla Coil marked “Tesla Coil” in colorful neon lights. The walls of the Palo Alto Fry’s were painted in tasteless images of the Wild West. There was a Roseville Fry’s and a Sacramento Fry’s. One of them was themed after the Gold Rush, and the other, a railroad. I can’t remember which was which.
IV.
The first time I saw the falcon wing doors of a Tesla was in a Fry’s parking lot. H— wanted to buy lightbulbs for our new apartment, and I wanted to find out what the nearest Fry’s was dressed in. A blond man in a Google t-shirt strapped his toddler into his Tesla. He kept his head ducked down as he emerged from the car, so he wouldn’t hit his head on the bottom of the door. When he got into the driver’s seat, the doors lowered automatically. The best way I can describe how I felt in that moment is “not great.”
V.
When I was particularly depressed, I had spells of vertigo. We walked through the Gold Rush Fry’s, and I was dizzied by the largeness of the store, the smell of printer ink and computer fans. H— grabbed my arm when I started stumbling in the coolant aisle. He carried me on his back to the parking lot and drove us home.
VI.
I don’t remember the last time I was in a Fry’s because, like many great lasts, I didn’t realize I would never buy a panettone in an electronics store again. I don’t remember if H— was there or what I was looking for or how many times I got distracted by some strangely placed decoration.
VII.
Last winter, Fry's closed permanently and began the long process of liquidation: real estate, merchandise, public image. I thought of H— after I heard the news and found myself returning to the long process of mourning: regret, questioning the future, an obsession with the word “defunct.” “No longer existing,” “no longer functioning;” which means, if a thing ceases to function, it ceases to exist. This is, perhaps, more true than I'd otherwise thought. Food rots until it is no longer recognizable as food. Computers degrade to electronic junk. When the relationship ended, there was a shift in my material reality. When the people and the stuff were removed from the premises, the stores were no longer stores, but odd shells of architecture. When I say “defunct,” I mean “no longer existing as it once did.”