The Egg Code

by Mike Heppner

  “Oh, I’m sure you do.” Olden excused himself and used the washroom at the end of the hall. Pipes groaned between the walls. When he returned, he showed Julian his hands, which were wet and stained with rusty water. “Your plumbing’s shot,” he said. “I’ll fix it if you want me to.”

  Staring at the wall, Julian imagined a fat, snaking tube, bright metal leaking at the bends and joints. “Expensive?”

  “Yeah.” The electrician clipped his tool belt around his waist and started down the stairs. “But we can work out an arrangement.”

  Behind him, Julian clung to the banister; the loose rail shook under his hand. “More than a few hundred, I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Well, you’ve got my card.” Olden hit the landing and waited with his arms crossed. “How about a collaboration? Your work for my work.”

  Julian laughed. He gripped the newel and the turreted top bit into his palm. “I don’t do anything.”

  “Sure you do!” The young man tucked his hair behind his ears. His jaw was sharp, a steep drop. “I need an artistic director. For my Web page. The technical stuff I can handle. The rest is up to you. New format, new type.”

  “Well . . .” Julian touched his neck, panicked for a moment, then found a pulse. “I don’t know anything about the . . .”

  “Even better. We’ll stay out of each other’s way.” The phone rang in the kitchen—an electronic sound, different from the one upstairs. The even intervals imposed a time limit on the man’s words. “Full control, Julian.” He spoke slowly, thriving on the opposition. Keep ringing, you bastards. “Your design.”

  “Just . . . I have to—”

  “Your letters.”

  “—answer that.”

  He scurried into the kitchen and snatched the phone in mid-ring. T. Kenneth West’s voice sounded anxious, more desperate than before. “Gave you a few extra minutes to make that simple yet vital decision.”

  “Oh, with the . . . mmmm.” Julian traded ears, moving the receiver from the right to the left.

  “My intuition is telling me no. I’m hearing a kind of no implied by your reluctance to respond.”

  The old man went out into the corridor, stretching the cord, keeping an eye on his guest. “I certainly do thank you for thinking of me, sir.”

  “This is disappointment, Julian. This is the sound of bleak, steel-gray disappointment.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just . . .” The words ran out, and as the other man rambled on, Julian could hear another voice in his ear, a voice recognizable as the voice of his predecessors, those ancient artisans who’d created new alphabets out of circumstances, religious and political and personal. Some of them created because their lives were at stake; others, because they believed God had commanded them. For Julian, the reason was simple. His mother wanted him to do it.

  VII

  A Brief History of the Printed Word

  The Flow

  http://www.eggcode.com

  The following text was composed by the fifteenth-century German scholar Meister Weisskopf, a contemporary of Erasmus and one of the founders of Christian humanism, a Northern European branch of the Italian Renaissance. Weisskopf studied in Florence, and the classical form he employs reflects his travels abroad. Though he was a man of some intellectual skill, Weisskopf’s reputation has diminished over time, and little of his work remains. At the start of the fragment, the character named Hannah approaches her mentor, whom she finds gazing into an aqueduct. As their discussion progresses, they walk along a path until they encounter an urchin selling teeth to a cloaked patrol of brigands. At this point, the text breaks off.

  HANNAH: Herr Weisskopf, I am glad to see that you are well, but I regret your absence from our weekly convocation. I have longed for your presence, and I had almost lost all hope.

  WEISSKOPF: Hannah, my astute pupil, I knew that under your observation I could not remain hidden for long. May the God of all men preserve your judgment.

  H: But why have you come here? This is a foul and fetid place.

  W: Legal troubles have driven me from my chambers. The suit recently won against the technician from Mainz is a worrisome affair, and I find myself in need of a partner to help construct my argument.

  H: I am yours, my professor.

  W: Well put. As I am your instructor, it is only proper for me to begin with a summary of the events. In brief, then. The defendant called Gutenberg is a German subject of some advanced years, and a citizen of this town. Years past, a vicious dispute forced Gutenberg into a long exile, broken only by a brief trip across the border to beg at the coffers of a former partner, Hans Riffe. In 1438, the two men, along with the Andreases Heilmann and Dritzehn, drew up a mutual contract, keeping the terms unresolved. Within the year, the second Andreas had passed on to his true, unearthly duty, leaving a fleet of relatives to squabble over the inherited fourth. Gutenberg, destitute but never desperate, denied them their rights, and a trial ensued. In the course of the investigation, certain secrets regarding Gutenberg’s activities were brought to light. During the trial, lawyers produced one hundred guilders’ worth of receipts for the purchase of a new shop in town.

  H: A sizable allowance for a man in debt to put forth.

  W: Your comments, my dear, are largely without substance, but they do lighten the density of my sometimes abstruse text. Yes, a sizable allowance, and a strange purchase too, strange enough to warrant Gutenberg’s surveillance over the next decade. By 1448, he had acquired a new associate, Johann Fust, who agreed to loan first eight hundred and then another eight hundred guilders in exchange for a share of the business. But Gutenberg was a perfectionist—an artist, if we acknowledge such a thing to exist outside of the university. He was slow in his methods, and spent seven years working on his secret contraption. Fust’s motivations were the motivations of all patrons—to secure a quick return on his investment, and to create further glory for his family’s name. Gaining none of these, he brought the man to court, enlisting the aid of Peter Schöffer to help in the proceedings. The court agreed with his complaint and ordered Gutenberg to relinquish his property. The defendant known as Johann Gutenberg is alive today in this city of Mainz, and yet he is without credit and possesses no means of making a living. It is the rightness of this that you and I have gathered beside this channel to debate.

  H: It could be argued that Gutenberg simply received proper justice for his offense against mankind.

  W: Are you making this argument?

  H: If that is what you desire.

  W: Let me hear it first.

  H: The proposal is this. The mechanized press credited to Herr Gutenberg is an unnatural device, unnatural in that it violates the three-tiered principle of law first alluded to by the ancient Stoics and later confirmed by Saint Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas spoke of the law’s division into three parts: the law of the cosmos, the natural law of man, and the positive law, that is to say, the practical application of God’s will onto everyday matters of peace, war, and commerce. An ethical flow, downward in its grade, connects the three layers, and the path is always the same. The positive law will never influence the Way of God; ours is an eternal supplication.

  W: Your thesis, while pleasing in its rhythms, seems to dance before our senses like a young coquette tickling an old man’s nose with a feather. Its purpose is only to elude and annoy.

  H: Then hear this. This structure of three does not limit itself to the law of the Creator. All structures presume a multiplicity of layers. The stability of our layered society needs these definitions to preserve the flow of reason from the cosmos to the courtroom. Our learned men distinguish themselves from the ignorance of the crowd, and in so doing, they reinforce the divisions necessary to save the Christian people from the terror of chaos. The course of learning demands a sensible direction. Like coinage, it has no value unless rare. Gutenberg’s strange device will lend an unhealthy speed to what was once the slow duty of the cloistered hand, and in this way, the whole earth will drown u
nder a pool of unwanted words. The trusty aqueduct will balk at the demands of a rising flood. None shall benefit from this democracy.

  W: This is the policy you seek to bring before your tutor?

  H: Perhaps. There is another view. The defense maintains that Gutenberg is a hero, an icon of the times. This new tool has launched us upon the crest of a new era. At last, publishers may edit and duplicate documents in a uniform fashion. From one centralized location, a host of reproductions may flow across the land. No longer restricted to the quartered realms of the university, this fabulous wave of information may offer its riches to all interested men. Our culture, once defined by its concentricities of knowing and not knowing, now includes the lowly peasant, newly literate, able to obtain cheap books, printed by the thousands. The kingdom is a network of machines, and Gutenberg’s device is the transmitter of the flow.

  W: Of course, I might suggest that the cause of the lower class should be of no interest to the successful monarch. That an ignorant and illiterate peasantry is best suited to serve the needs of our economy. The man in the field knows his scythe. He need not know how to forge the blade from iron. The issue that troubles me, Hannah, is that of choice. Who chooses these roles that society deems necessary for our survival? The one Church itself has acknowledged the free choice given to us by our common Master and Creator. To what degree, I wonder, does this mandate extend? Is our choice limited to a simple election of good over evil? Or does God intend, by granting us this liberty, to plant within our lives a tree of choice, with each branch revealing a new and crucial binary? Soldier or physician? Beggar or monk? Peasant or patrician? Informed or illiterate? Are these choices really ours to make? At what point does such social mobility mutate into sin?

  H: You seem troubled. I fear for the security of your convictions. W: A conviction is a guarded fortress, dear pupil. Slots designed to launch the shaft of an arrow are unlikely to accept a similar blow from the outside. It occurs to me that our discussion has strayed from its original premise. My concern, once reserved for Gutenberg alone, has spread to encompass all of mankind. As a nation, we should fear the impulse that causes human hands to supplant themselves with chains and pulleys. Left without this new device, languages will die; and as the language dies, so will the people. This thing that Gutenberg has done should both be welcomed and never trusted by any careful man. The truth of life is the truth of God. The machine has its own truth, and it must be censored.

  H: Your warning is not irrational, for already Herr Schöffer has taken to using sacred and traditional models for his letter-forms, drawing upon familiar examples such as the texture and recasting them as cuts of lead and brass. All of the old features are preserved, the ligatures, the florid initials. It is almost as if, knowing the time-trusted preferences of the reader, the new designs have consciously sought to cultivate these allusions. We believe the attractive word.

  W: Is this what we have done, Hannah? How do we represent such a grievous sin to our Father and only Maker? Jesu, Son of God, forgive us for our evil machine. Its sole food is politics, and it excretes only propaganda.

  H: If there is a penance best suited to the crime, Herr Weisskopf, then it lies in the just behavior of the vigilant man. You and I, sir, we are intellectuals. God bless us for our better judgment! We must serve as filters to the flow. Like a fine mesh, we handle the current, straining away poisons and delivering only the purest element to the garden beyond. The peasants know only their thirst; lacking discretion, they will gape and swallow at anything. Our alliance is with the invisible word. The truth has other children, but they are corporeal and therefore base.

  W: Your optimistic words cheer me, my sweet Hannah. Ah, but see this smudge-faced boy selling his goods by the edge of the river. Let me make a gift to you of his wares, and in so doing, reward the boy with the same transaction. If there is but a shred of flesh left on these teeth, you may take them home and boil a stew.

  VIII

  P.O.P.

  The Seedy Side of Office Politics

  1998

  T. Kenneth West hung up the phone. Alone in his office, he brought out a pack of cigarettes, peeled off the cellophane, then—annoyed at himself—put it back. T. Kenneth was a man of many addictions, each pursued with a meticulous dispassion that could be interpreted as a lack of involvement. One cigarette per day. One glass of Scotch. Once a day, whenever his receptionist left the building, he would cross the room and place his cock on her desk. Just long enough to feel the tip brushing up against the ink blotter. A relatively mild iniquity. No jerking off into her makeup bag, none of that. He wasn’t even particularly attracted to her—a rather squat woman with sandy brown hair and a taste for gigantic wooden earrings. Still, his need for this ritual surpassed mere sexual attraction, breaching the darker realms of compulsion and insanity. All afternoon, as the receptionist’s fingers flew from binder to folder to wastepaper basket, T. Kenneth West would stare across the partitions and imagine his phantom cock hovering over the desk, following her hands in a ghostly dance. A secret awareness charged the whole day with risk.

  Reaching for a cigarette, he struck a match and brought it trembling to his lips. Bits of tobacco sparked red and turned black. He drew in a mouthful of smoke, held it for a moment, then exhaled slowly, letting the cloud thicken between his lips. Better now. Stubbing it out, he threw on his suitcoat and virtually ran out of the office, pausing only to smile at the secretary on his way past the reception area. My cock was there, he thought, glancing at the neat piles of work on her desk. Just fifteen minutes ago. Right where her hands are now.

  Fixing his collar, he grunted at a few interns, then turned left down a narrow corridor. Gray Hollows’s office was a tiny closet at the end of the main hallway, the remnants of an old darkroom. The door swung out into the corridor, leaving a foot-wide gap. T. Kenneth angled his body and squeezed through.

  “Christ, why don’t you turn some lights on?” He slapped the switch and the overhead panels flickered to life. Trying to be nice, he smiled cautiously at the young man. Gray was a pain in the ass, a poorly mannered, immature little jerk. But good at his job. After five years, T. Kenneth had grown to appreciate his talent for understanding the underlying crassness at the heart of any new marketing campaign. As a rule, clients detested Gray the person, yet almost always liked the work he turned in, and T. Kenneth certainly couldn’t fire a productive employee just for being a moron.

  “Hey, Ken, look, listen to this.”

  “No, you listen to this.”

  Gray wheeled in his seat, rocking back and forth, making the chair dance on its casters. The chair, it seemed, was a ride. A do-it-yourself roller coaster. He steered across the room, aiming for a stack of blueprint paper.

  “No, wait,” he said, out of breath. “This is brilliant, you’ll really dig it. Remember that radio spot I wrote last month for NCC Tech, with the idiotic music going on in the background, doo-doo-doo, and then the voice comes up, ‘Techno, it’s not just another dance craze.’ Figured these kids are so fucking stupid, who’d know the difference . . . remember?”

  T. Kenneth stopped the chair, blocking a caster with his shoe. “Gray.”

  Gray pushed with his heels and the chair shot back a few feet. “Come on, play along with me, pal,” he said.

  Peeved, T. Kenneth stared past the man’s head. “Yes. I. Remember.”

  Launching into it, Gray sputtered, “Great, I was thinking what we’d do is, we’ll hire some kid out of MU, have him interview his buddies— just interrogate the fuck out of ’em. What do they listen to? What books do they read? Who’s the big shit with the teenyboppers as of September the whatever-the-hell-it-is at one-fifty-eight in the afternoon? Then we make a list of everything these kids have ever cared about in their short and pathetic lives, every real attachment they’ve had, favorite songs, favorite movie stars, who cares, nothing is too important where we can’t use it to sell some idiotic product, and ultimately we get the whole process so refined that every time so
me poor kid hears something she likes on the radio—boom!—ten seconds later we’re throwing it right back in her face, and eventually she gets to the point where she can’t expend a single emotion before we’re using it to get her to buy lip gloss or a car phone, and she winds up staying in her room all day just totally paralyzed with fear and the sense that there’s nothing she can do or think or feel that can’t ultimately be corrupted and marginalized by consumerism and popular culture, which of course is the straight-up fucking truth and don’t forget it, bitch. HA HA! Isn’t that funny?”

  “You’re a . . . you’re just like a spigot, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know that word. I don’t know these fancy words you big people use.”

  Hefting a thin manila envelope, T. Kenneth dumped a stack of service requests onto the desk. Gray rifled through the pages and covered his head with the top sheet, making a bonnet.

  “Lovely, look.” T. Kenneth swiped the sheet and held it behind his back as Gray clawed at the air, pretending to grab. “I want you to know right off the bat that you weren’t my first choice to work on this project.”

  Turning around, Gray manipulated an invisible control and piloted his chair toward the exit. “If you were a car, what kind of a—”

  T. Kenneth blinked, shouting it down. “That said, you need to clean up and comb your hair and do all those nice things—”

  “I’d want to be a Jeep!”

  “—because you’re due up in Vega at three-thirty this afternoon, which is just ninety minutes from now.”

  “Ninety minutes,” Gray said, tapping his watch. “That’s, like, two hours, man!”

  Giving up, T. Kenneth crumpled the page and left it on the desk. “Just passing on the information,” he muttered, walking away.

  “Man, you already told me! This morning you said, ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna call Julian Mason,’ and I said, ‘Julian Mason is so fucking over the hill, he probably can’t even go to the goddamn bathroom by himself,’ and you said, ‘Fuck you!’ and I said, ‘Right now, dude!’ ”