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In Said Sayrafiezadeh's short story, “Minimum payment to be paid,” the main character is trapped inside credit card debt and desperate for a way out.
Because the experience is common—more than a third, or 38%, of adults in the U.S. have credit card debt, according to Bankrate—making it less scary for the reporter.
Collection agents won't stop calling it. At the same time, he can't even admit how much it means to him a developer.
“He waited while I calculated the figure in my head, the different principals, the late fees, the penalties, the other costs,” Sayrafiezadeh writes. “Then I did what all people do when they are consumed by rejection and shame: I gathered down and put down the figure. The lower ball was still a lot.”
The narrator turns to self-help books, therapy and even cults for advice, but it's too deep. No matter how much he directs towards the debt each month, it will not go down.
Sayrafiezadeh is a fiction writer, memoirist and playwright living in New York City. CNBC interviewed Sayrafiezadeh this month about his story, which appeared in the New York in November, and his choice to use fiction to investigate credit card debt.
Annie Nova: You won't tell us exactly how much credit card debt the reporter has. I'm curious, what was the point of that omission?
Sayrafizadeh said: It's like Jaws: You don't want to show the monster too much. I thought it would be better for the reader to think about it, and create a figure in their mind, rather than giving them a hard number.
AN: You say the debt is going up from “four figures to five.” So we know a lot. But that could be $10,000, and that could be $99,000.
SS: It's ok.
AN: In the story, you mention that the compound interest is compounding daily on his credit card debt. We feel that the character will never be able to get out of this. It is described in a very scary, vivid way. I was wondering if credit card debt is something you have dealt with.
SS: I'm really against this guy. I'm not even waiting for my statement to pay off. Knowing that I owe nothing to anyone brings me joy.
AN: Did you research credit card debt for this story?
SS: No, I didn't. I put myself in the position of someone who was in this situation. I think I just have to feel it. We all probably feel it, in a way. Even if you are not in debt, it is always there, moving. What if I couldn't pay my bills? Maybe something about 2008 when we had the recession, and everyone was losing their homes. Don't know. It didn't seem like it was difficult to imagine what it would be like to be in this character.
AN: In the opening scenes of the story, the narrator is informed. He seems to be an old friend, but at first he is convinced that it is another call from a collector. Is the credit card debt so overwhelming for the reporter that he can't see anything else?
SS: Yeah, absolutely. Everything he sees, he sees through the colored glasses of debt. Everything is his debt.
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AN: His therapist is the only person in the story the narrator confides in about his debt. But even to him, he is a liar, saying he owes less than he really does. Why can't he tell the truth?
SS: There is a measure of shame that he carries around with him. There may be some denial about it, too. Saying the real amount to the developer would be true, and that's not something he can face.
AN: I thought it was an interesting detail that the reporter is a software engineer at a tech startup. He is in debt even though he seems to have a good job that pays well. Why did you add this detail about it?
SS: I wanted it to be about the algorithms that work on, and on, our society. He says something about how a Tony Robbins book appears in his Instagram feed. There are these algorithms that target us with advertising that we are susceptible to. But I also wanted to make him someone who creates that type of algorithms, so that he is part of this circuit. I wanted him to have the irony of writing code, but also a sensitivity to the code he writes.
AN: So how does this character end up with so much credit card debt? Is it a consumption problem?
SS: That's a good question: Why is he in debt? The only thing he says is that he is liable. So that's what he knows. And that's not a real answer. But what it means is that it is vulnerable; it is vulnerable to being plundered. The story doesn't really get to the main reasons why it works the way it does. I wanted it to be more of a mystery. He doesn't know why he is who he is, why he came to all this, with all this debt.
AN: Do you think your story will make people feel a little less alone with their own debt?
SS: That would be great. I will try to write about specific things that bother and bother a lonely character. But yeah, the story might make someone feel, Oh yeah, this isn't just me. Maybe that's how the story ends, with readers not feeling alone.
