by David Shafer
Who the hell, thought Mark, chooses to drive out to the local book barn on a beautiful Saturday to hear people like himself and the weatherman opine on self-betterment?
But when Mark saw who came in next, the crowd was a little more explicable. That was Diane What’s-Her-Face, the single mother who had calmly lifted a small car off her son’s leg (sincerely unaware, it seems, of the steady-handed neighbor lady with the flip camera getting the whole thing). After that thirty seconds of footage had been viewed ten zillion times, Diane Carlifter wrote what Mark had to admit was a very good little book about the experience.
I Didn’t Do It Alone: Why a Connected World Is a Better World was one hundred and fifty pages and clear as a bell: “I discovered that I have so much more strength in me than I believed I had. And even as I felt Jimmy slip out from beneath the bumper of the car, I knew that I must never forget that it is my belief in my limitations that hobbles me more than my limitations ever will.” Also, it didn’t hurt that she was hot.
The moderator was the MegaBooks! founder and CEO. His own memoir—How to Build Something from Nothing—he had written five years ago without professional assistance and had published himself. It was such a deeply and essentially bad book and so roundly mocked by everyone who read it (Holy Shit, Look at All This Money I Have! was an alternative title suggested by one reviewer) that the CEO had attempted to buy back and pulp every extant copy, and had nearly succeeded. That, in turn, had made the book a very rare volume and given it a weird cachet among a tiny cult of book collectors.
They were on that dais for an hour, and for Mark it was a very long hour. The crowd really just wanted to hear from Diane Carlifter, and Mr. MegaBooks! did a crappy job of moderating. The Distressed Properties guy, having sat there unconsulted for forty-five minutes, actually got up to use the bathroom.
Mark mainly just sat there, an engaged and I-see look playing on his face. When the attention finally fell on him, he used one of his go-tos. A musing, Buddhist-ish parable he called Mistakes You Should Try to Avoid Making.
It was his ability to appear to be searching his soul that made Mark remarkable; that was probably what Blinc saw in him, way back when. It was easy for him. But now he felt like the guy who’d written one good jingle or whatever.
“Assuming that you’re smarter than the other guy,” he told the crowd, “that’s the mistake you should avoid making.” He said he used to make that mistake all the time, until he’d met a homeless man named Cecil.
“This was years ago. Every day, on my way to work, there was Cecil, sometimes asking for change, sometimes too plagued by his own demons even for that. I started spending so much energy trying not to give him any of my attention, because of the guilt he caused in me just by being there, you know? He was not easy to look at—he’d lost one foot to diabetes and the other was looking dodgy. He had this wet-wool-and-rough-sleeping-human funk around him like weather. After months of seeing him every day and trying not to, I just…well, I don’t know what I just, exactly, but it was bitterly cold that day, I remember, and I bought Cecil a cup of coffee. Pretty soon we were sharing a cup of coffee every morning. I’d pay a buck for the coffee and a quarter for the extra paper cup. And we’d take our coffee together there, outside the subway station.” Mark looked just as you would look if you were casting your mind back to the memory of a lost friend. “Cecil taught me so much,” he said meaningfully. “He taught me about eye contact. How to use it to protect yourself and to assert yourself. He had to do both, Cecil. He lived by his wits on the streets.” Pause. “Though in the end he also died by his wits, I guess.”
At the book-signing after the event, Mark regained some ground. He was an expert at the signing. Though the protect/assert stuff was bullshit, eye contact was important somehow, and Mark was naturally good at it. He might give a brotherly nod or a kind elbow touch in the handshake. Three times in the last year, a woman presenting his book to him had been broadcasting on a certain frequency, and he’d signed her book and then, with eye contact established, Sharpied his cell number onto the reverse of the dust-jacket flap. That method was two for three.
Which is why he got a special thrill when he saw that Diane Carlifter had written her cell phone number in his copy of her book. This depressing junket might have a consolation prize.
He met her that evening in a passable and nearly empty Italian place in the lobby of her hotel, which was nicer than his. He thought he was showing up for a date or an assignation, if that word meant what he thought it did. But a few minutes in, it started to feel like something else.
When they sat down, Diane Carlifter just drained a vodka tonic, which back-footed Mark a bit. He was going to try to keep to two drinks tonight. If the assignation thing happened, he wanted to be able to perform. He’d not actually gone there—like, with a real person—in months, and he had some concerns.
“You’re going to have to stop using the Cecil story,” she said after they had ordered.
“Is this professional advice? Because I’m open to that. I’ve been having a hard time coming up with new stuff lately. I loved I Didn’t Do It Alone, by the way.”
Oh, you little idiot, she pretty much said with her eyes. “I suppose it is advice, yes. Coffee hasn’t cost a dollar since 1989, and people named Cecil do not end up homeless. You should’ve called him Joe or something.” Damn. Mark had actually considered Joe. “But you don’t have to come up with new stuff, Deveraux. They provide the content; we’re just the platform. They certainly don’t want any more of that homeless-sage thing. Unless you can throw Synapsiquell in there somehow.”
“They?” asked Mark, signaling the waiter for another drink.
“Well, in our case, they is Straw, I guess, or the Conch Group. That’s who you’ll be under, I assume.”
“You know about…” About what? What should he ask her if she knew about? His deadline? Serve-whales?
“I know all I need to know, Mark, about you and this situation right here. You’re stalling; you’ve had four days to signal your intentions clearly, four days to pick up the phone and say yes, please, and, thank you, yes.” She made four days sound like an eternity. “Let me assure you that without Straw behind you, you would have been given zero time to mull things over. You don’t want people thinking that you think you’re too good for them.”
A teenage waiter arrived with their mains. When he’d retreated, Mark said to Diane, “Okay, Pope sent you, didn’t he?”
“Pope? If Pope wanted to convey his concern about you, he would do it more directly.” Then she softened a bit. “Tessa sent me.”
He just looked at her. How many masks?
“She said you should give up the menthols?”
Okay. Diane was from Tessa. Tessa was a friend, he was certain.
“Tessa said to tell you you’re on thin ice. You may have hurt Straw’s feelings.” Then Diane leaned in and loud-whispered the next part: “Take the fucking job, Deveraux. What’s the holdup?”
What’s the holdup? Now he leaned in and whispered loudly, “The holdup? You serious? How about the massive undersea vaults of stolen information? That beast just gorging itself with every minute detail of our lives so that one day the computer can tell the person what kind of day he had? We’re just supposed to look the other way on that?”
Diane sat back. “You’re supposed to change your perspective. Isn’t that one of your saws?”
Actually, it was Tell Yourself a Better Story, but he got her point. “That’s in the abstract,” he said. “Like, you apply that shit case by case.” It felt good to be the one at the table pointing out what was wrong with this model.
Maybe Diane saw him puff a bit, up on his (only slightly elevated) moral ground, because she sounded tough again when she said, “You must know by now that there are carrots and sticks in this game, right? Those computers have been gorging on every minute detail of your life. Don’t you want to keep that safe?” Only the tiniest lilt of sarcasm on safe.
He had no answer to that.
He’d done something at Nike a year ago; he’d knocked it out of the park, actually. Digging Deep and Finding Killer App.
“I’m not prepared for Nike,” he said.
“I told you—you’ll be supplied the content. But Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“You better bring your A-game. They’ll want to see that you can dance.”
“The Nike people?”
“No, you moron. Our people. You need to commit. You get a few of those Nike pooh-bahs behind SineLife and you will have earned your first paycheck. You phone it in, like you’ve been doing, you may just run out of rope.”
And as if she were on Diane’s team, a waitress who had snuck up behind Mark said, “Would you like me to wrap that up for you?” Mark hadn’t touched his food.
“Yeah, Mark,” said Diane, “you could bring yours to your nice homeless friend.” The waitress cleared their plates and retreated. Diane wrote a phone number on a piece of paper. “This is Tessa’s direct line. About nine people have it. She said you should call her if you need any more help making this decision.” She gave him the piece of paper. “But Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“You do not need any more help making this decision.” And then she was gathering her purse and getting up.
That was it? He was supposed to walk back across eight lanes of traffic to his shittier hotel? There was only one chance at relief here. So as she stood up, and without giving himself time to consider it, he said to her, “Invite me up.” He looked at her hard, but with his mouth a little open, his eyes saying Please but also Come on, you know you want it. “You can tell me more about the thin ice.”
She smiled. Some encouragement in the smile.
But she was digging in her purse. “Wow,” she said, “I’ve only ever heard about people like you.” She put three twenties neatly on the tablecloth and walked away.
And so he was sitting alone in Fontana di Trevi in Creekville or Rockville or Rocky Creek, Illinois. He looked around to see if anyone was witness. Only a busboy, bringing him his boxed Alfredo on a tray the size of a shield.
His hotel room did turn out to have a minibar and Mark made maxi use of it. There was a Law & Order marathon on. If he stayed in the middle of his bed, sucking from the little bottles and clicking up and down during the commercials, he was able to avoid thinking about the situation.
Then, in the opening segment of the next Law & Order, a fruit vendor was found dead in his store, prone over produce, and, Lenny, the older detective, delivered his zinger: If this is the carrot, I’d hate to see the stick.
You must know by now that there are carrots and sticks in this game, Diane had said. Mark was filled with dread and panic again. He clicked around. Shane was playing on a high-up channel. His dad loved this movie. He switched from dark liquor to clear. He opened a seven-dollar box of Junior Mints.
Later, when the alcohol had smoothed the turbid seas and blurred his vision, he had an idea. It came to him in the bright light of the plastic bathroom. You know who would love this shit? he thought to himself, focusing hard on a far tile. Leo Crane would love this shit. Leo was always the first to see the patterns beneath the surface. He was always talking about sifting data. That summer they pretty much lived together on Mass. Ave. They shared that motorbike. There was a beautiful girl who worked at the deli. Leo came over every day after his shift at Widener. Widener still had that little rabbit-hole door to the stacks. Leo would come in and he’d say, Data sets, Deveraux! Great data sets today.
Yeah, Leo would love this shit. Leo was in Portland. Nike was in Portland. Of course!
This was such an excellent idea that Mark had to begin executing it at once. He stood, but forgot (1) that his underpants were still around his ankles, and (2) that he was holding a box of Junior Mints. Falling, he scattered the minty rounds about the bathroom in a wide arc. His humerus made hard contact with a corner of the plastic bathtub. The pain was so sharp he could only yell, Gah!
Then, recovering on the cool tile, he remembered that he had insulted Leo Crane in his stupid book and then totally dumped him and then stolen material from his weird blog, which had gotten weirder, until, when last Mark looked at it, it seemed like Leo was headed toward the Crane curse. In that big kitchen on the garden level of the Riverside Drive place, Leo’s mom used to tell tales about her husband’s “eccentric” brothers. Barking mad, they sounded.
But you never know. Whose genotype is without booby traps? And maybe Leo would let him borrow some material, for old times’ sake.
He erected himself and left the bathroom, stepping on the scattered Junior Mints and mashing them into minty brown squidges. He found his computer. Using one hand to cover one eye, and one finger to carefully depress keys, he navigated his SineMail and composed the following:
Leo, old friend. It’s been so long and that’s all my fault. I will be in your city this weekend. Let’s have dinner. friday or saturday or brunch. If brunch too gay then drinking.
Chapter 20
California
So what’s the deal with your being two days late?” Dylan asked her as he took her bag out of the car. It was midnight. Dylan had been waiting for her on the street, smoking by the garage, when she pulled up.
He embraced her before he said anything. The sweet stink of his cigarette was overpowering, but she was so glad to see him that she found it delicious.
“And whose car is this?” he asked, checking out the vehicle.
“It’s kind of a rental, I guess.”
He gave her a bullshit look. “From where? Planned Parenthood?” Leila saw what he meant: the faded and peeling pro-choice stickers on its rear bumper.
“Yeah, well, I guess I kind of borrowed it from some friends, then,” said Leila.
“Intriguing,” said Dylan.
“Oh, yeah, brother. Most intriguing. But maybe pointless, after all. So I don’t want to get into it tonight.” She saw that Dylan was even looking a tiny bit old, like the ledge of his shoulders was less straight than it had been a year ago. She saw it then for the first time: he looked like their father.
“Is Dad up?”
“Probably not. He’s pretty checked-out at night, actually. I don’t see why he has to be on that much stuff. But Roxana says it’s okay.”
“Is she pretending she’s a doctor?”
Dylan smiled. “No, the actual doctors put a stop to that pretty quickly. But she’s liaising with that half of the situation.”
“And you’re legal?”
Dylan gave the faintest nod. “That’s the idea.”
“But then what do I get to do?”
“Just do some of your magic.”
“Right. My magic.”
“Well, you can help me with the legal stuff. Or you can take it over, actually. It’s not going great on that front. The FBI is just canvassing everybody who ever came through that school to find any dirt on Dad. And, you know, even Dad has enemies. Someone’s gonna make something up soon. Yesterday, one of the lawyers said maybe we should see what kind of deal they’re offering. I didn’t even tell that to Dad. If this sticks to him…” Dylan was at a loss for words. “We can’t let that happen.” He dropped her bag by the front door and hugged her again, but the other kind of hug, the kind where the hugger lets go of his own strength for an instant and sort of hangs off the huggee.
“How about Mom?” said Leila, partly to bring the hug to a conclusion.
“Yeah, that’s what you can do, actually.”
“Is she totally wigging out?”
“Well. No. I mean, she’s wigging out. But not about the right things. She tore into a checker at Safeway the other day, for double-bagging or not double-bagging or something. But she’s pretty much ignoring the actual situation. She hardly noticed when I got back from the airport two days ago and you weren’t with me. I told her you
were hung up in London, and Roxana told her you had to stop in New York. She never investigated either claim.”
Shit, thought Leila. “Is she up now?”
“She’s not home. She’s out with Peggy.”
“Peggy Pillbottle? Hasn’t that old wagon tripped over a golf tee yet?”
“You know that Peggy quit drinking ten years ago, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” Peggy Pilkerson was one of the few non-Persians in the small crew of friends Leila’s mom had run with since she arrived in America. But Leila was forgetting that Peggy Pilkerson was also Bobby Pilkerson’s mother, and Bobby Pilkerson had been Dylan’s best friend growing up and then had died, presumably accidentally, by autoerotic asphyxiation at seventeen, which tragedy had a few extra layers of pain on it and had been six months’ worth of local gossip and had led to Peggy’s divorce and then to her spectacular collapse. “Maybe Peggy’s a great one to handle Mom, under the circumstances,” said Leila.
“Yeah, maybe,” said Dylan, in a way that meant “probably not.” “I think they’re playing blackjack right now.”
“What’s blackjack?” said Leila.
“The card game,” said Dylan. “Like, they’re at a casino. That’s where they end up when they go out. Last week they drove to Vegas.”
“Mom can’t play cards.” This was a known fact. She was always calling jacks jokers and folding when it turned out she had a killer hand.
“Well, then let’s assume she’s losing,” said Dylan.
“Or maybe she’s been hustling us all these years.”
“That would be a very long con, sister.”
Leila slept in the little room off the kitchen, beneath the stairs. It had once been Dylan’s room. But now their mom used it to stack cases of President’s Choice diet cola and to hide all the real-life things that housewives need to hide in order to make their houses look spotless. But there was still a narrow bed in there. Dressing in the tiny space, Leila was put in mind of Cinderella or Anne Frank. But then she remembered that one of those was a fairy tale and the other a girl murdered by Nazis.
