Outside, the street was filled with ambulances and police cars, and I assumed there was yet another terror alert. It was becoming a familiar scene in the city. Soldiers on bullhorns directing pedestrians away from certain public buildings. Closed subway lines. Instant congestion by sudden road closings. For many, city life had become incredibly difficult. But those were mostly people with jobs and places to go. We were just trying to get a burger. And it wasn’t terrorist activity we were seeing after all. Just a really bad car accident.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t sit around and gawk, but I did. And Oz did too, despite her arse-munching hunger, because new salacious details kept flowing. We learned the driver was drunk. There was opened booze in the car. And while he’d been killed, his passenger was still alive. She said they were late for an anti-abortion rally. Others said they must have been going over seventy when they crashed into that limo. And that was the other thing. There was a dead limo passenger too. Bill O’Reilly.
9.
DAY 55. IDOLATERS AND THE DEVOUT
O’Reilly’s death tore through the television media with all the right/left jabs of grief and dark humor you’d expect. But the surprising part was that even without the clip-circulating power of the Internet, it was only hours before people started reporting that Jeeves’s prediction had come true. O’Reilly was dead within three days of the interview. In the next twenty-four hours, Jeeves went from a local celebrity and national wingnut to a legit psychic. The New York Times reported: “Local Psychic Predicts O’Reilly Death.” The New York Post headline was less subtle: “O’Reilly? Oh, Really! Crackpot Jackpot!”
It didn’t take long for people to turn to Jeeves’s other prophesies. He’d become the man with the path to the messiah of e-salvation. Fortunately, he didn’t know who I was, and only fifty or so zombies had seen my face. People were just looking for the Messiah, not necessarily me. Jeeves told the media he still felt my presence in New York, but could give no details. Still, he was taking blind walks through the city with half-closed eyes and arms outstretched, and an increasing number of zombies and people with too much free time had started following him. I wasn’t sure how he got lucky on O’Reilly, but whatever psychic powers he was claiming to have were leading his ass all around the Upper West Side, so I wasn’t overly concerned.
I was more troubled by my lack of progress. Almost two months into my journey, and I was no closer to finding the Net than when I started. I turned to my list of “suspects.” Corporate America, Terrorists, the Government. My investigation was more pathetic than I’d imagined. I’d spent more time jerking off, drinking, and fucking than gathering clues. I sat alone with my journal, which was nearly devoid of information, while Oz showered, and thought about my one lead: the detection of Internet activity somewhere downtown and/or on Staten Island. I needed Tobey. Yes, he sniffed leads without discretion like an overzealous puppy, but that was something. And even rejecting his ideas carried some worth in itself. Got the wheels turning. I needed him.
And then he was there. A knock at my door answering my deepest wishes. I opened it without even checking (which was probably a good idea, since I still hadn’t recovered from the time Tobey managed to drop his pants and do a handstand for the sole purpose of giving me a peephole full of his fish-eyed junk).
Tobey looked good. Eyes not all dilated and bloodshot. Clear-headed and focused right when I was so lost. I dragged Tobey into the room with a hug that was as hard as I missed him, because I knew neither of us was stupid enough to say “no homo.”
“I’m sorry, Tobey,” I said. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Yeah, me too, G-Balls.”
He started eating from a bag of pretzels on the dresser.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Tobes.”
“Fuck, you mean you’re not the Internet Messiah?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Gladdy. I’ve been on the job. Guess where I’m working; you’ll never guess.”
Tobey kept staring and waiting.
“What? You said I’d never guess!”
“You’re useless. The United Nations.”
“How the hell did you get a job at the UN?”
“Told you you’d never guess. Well, one of us had to be a detective. What about foreign governments? You been investigating those?”
“No, but I would think the UN would have, like, a huge background check.”
“Have you listened to anything I’ve been telling you, Gladstone? We’re off the grid. We can be who we want. Don’t you know that every single disgraceful thing I’ve ever done has happened online? I don’t rob liquor stores. I make tasteless jokes about how I’d rather skull-fuck Demi Moore’s eye socket than let Miley Cyrus blow me. I download pornography weeks away from being criminal. Or just a thumb away from criminal if we’re talking amazing penetrations and the purity laws of some of our southern states. But in real life, I’m clean. I mean, look at me.”
There he was. Oversized sagging shorts, t-shirt, and baseball hat. Twenty-nine and looking nineteen. An almost-angelic baby face of soft skin smiling out from under shaggy, dirty blond hair.
“This is bigger than some ’clear private data.’ We’re free from our cookies in a way I still don’t think you understand.”
“So the background check…”
“What could they find? Nothing.”
“Yeah, but what did you say you did? What qualifies you to work at the UN?”
“Well, first off, take it easy. I’m just an intern. But I have been writing a blog for the last few years on third world debt forgiveness, rape in Darfur, the rain forest and—”
“And there’s no way to call bullshit.”
“Right, and it’s kinda true. I had some rape in Darfur jokes on my site. But enough of that. We have an Internet to find. So, y’know, grab your crocodile huntress and let’s start walking.”
Oz emerged a few minutes later, wearing tight cutoff jeans, Doc Martens, and a t-shirt. They smiled politely at each other and took inventory, making sure there were no hidden dangers in this reunion.
“It’s nice to see you, Tobes,” she said. “You look well.”
“You too. Quick question, though. Did you get a boob reduction?”
“No, but thank you.”
“Hmm … well something’s different,” he said. “Why do I want to fuck you less?”
Oz was diplomatic. “Well, you can only suppress your latent homosexuality for so long, Tobes. But I’ll tell you what, if you help us find the Internet, I’ll be sure to wear something sexually retarded for you really soon.”
“Deal!” Tobey exclaimed, and extended his hand to shake on it.
“So, we got everything we need?” Oz asked. “We good to go?”
I checked my flask.
“Maybe we should hit the bottle-o?” Oz suggested.
“The fuck is a ’bottle-o’?” Tobey asked.
“It’s a liquor store,” I said.
Tobes looked at me.
“Oh fuck. I’m turning Australian.”
Despite Oz’s suggestion, we walked on without drugs (or much of a destination) and were rewarded for our fearlessness. There was no sign of Jeeves or any would-be disciples of the Internet Messiah. I was still free to walk the streets as unnoticeable as my companions. It was like living online: seen by all and still unknown. And perhaps because we had no destination, we ended up at the center of it all in Midtown. Or maybe that’s just where the streets became unwalkable.
Hundreds of people filled Madison Avenue in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral for a demonstration I couldn’t identify. A giant red banner containing the letters “CAM” towered over an empty podium on a makeshift stage.
“What does CAM stand for?” I asked.
“No idea,” Tobey replied. “Caucasians Against Mexicans?”
“That’s retarded.”
“What?” Tobey protested. “Do you see how white this rally is?”
I shook my head.
&nbs
p; “Well, you guess then.”
The crowd burst into applause, and a woman I recognized but could not name took the stage. She wore a smart red business suit and had long, straight black hair. Each of her features was overly defined: her eyes lined in black, her red lips rising to sharp points at the corners, and a game show hostess nose that could easily take out an eyeball during the kinds of passionate sex she clearly never had.
A somewhat rotund but prancy man followed behind her, leading with his hips and waving to the crowd with more wrist action than was absolutely necessary. Context dictated that he was her husband, but appearances would suggest that that should have been impossible. Their three children followed: two girls and a boy, all in blue, and all in a row, smiling, waving, looking happy in a way I never have been. Maybe because my happiness has never been superimposed over the frozen expression of some witnessed atrocity.
“I was gonna go with Chlamydia-Afflicted Mothers,” I said. “But I’m just not feeling it now.”
“What is wrong with you?” Oz asked. “We’re outside a cathedral. It has to be something like Catholics Against Masturbation.”
“Better,” I said, “but I can’t believe that would get this good a turnout. Besides, I know this chick. She’s not Catholic.”
Turns out there was a reason she looked familiar. According to the announcement, it was Pennsylvania’s junior senator, Melissa Bramson. I’d seen her on news shows, garnering praise from both the Tea Party for her down-homey appeal and the Moral Majority for her Jesus-love/homosexuality-hate combination platter. Her husband, in fact, was a preacher of some kind whose foundation “cured” gays through Bible study. And while I’m sure he preferred to close his eyes and think of Jesus while procreating with his wife, I’m not sure that’s technically a cure. Melissa took the podium and her family sat in the seats behind her.
“Welcome,” she said. “Welcome to the first rally of Christians Against the Messiah!”
The crowd exploded with applause.
“Wow. I did not see that coming,” I said.
“Why would Christians be against the messiah?” Tobey asked.
“The Internet Messiah, jackass,” Oz replied.
“Still,” I said. “They really didn’t think that one through.”
Melissa gripped the edges of her podium. “Friends, thank you all so much for coming. I’m so happy to see you all, but I’m here to remind you that these are serious times. Not just because we’ve lost the Internet, which—gotta tell ya—I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing.
“Y’see, that loss just presents a challenge. God has taken away that crutch that we’ve clung too tightly to and asked us to begin again. To return to a simpler time. You don’t need the Internet to play with your kids. You don’t need the Internet to take a walk with your spouse. You don’t need the Internet to—”
“—pretend your husband isn’t jerking off to old Ricky Martin videos,” Tobey interrupted.
“You went with Ricky Martin on that one?” I asked.
“Yeah, so?”
“Little too on the nose, I think.”
“Yeah, probs.”
Melissa continued. “The Internet is not our God. There is only one true Lord and it’s not a bunch of wires and buttons. He was here before the Internet and He’s here now without it. In this time of darkness, lost jobs, terror threats, I turn to the Holy Father and find my balance. I find my friend. I find—”
“—my husband sodomizing a young man during Bible therapy?” I added.
The tall, middle-aged woman standing in front of us turned around with fiery military precision and glared down. She looked not unlike a well-fed Ann Coulter.
“Y’know, I can hear everything you’re saying.”
“Wow. Just like Jesus,” Oz gasped.
“Yeah, about that, ma’am,” Tobey interjected. “Why did Jesus let the Net go offline?”
The woman wasn’t sure if she was being mocked, but she wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to talk about the majestic mysteries of God’s plan.
“Who knows? But when God shuts a door, he opens a window.”
“I see,” Tobey said. “So God’s pretty clearly getting high in his dorm room.”
I laughed harder than maybe ever.
“Real nice,” she said, as if her words were somehow more insulting, and moved closer to people of finer moral character.
And then the crowd grew quiet. Something had changed in the air. Melissa was taking a dramatic pause, looking up at the heavens as if her old bowling partner lived there, and then gazing out over the settling mob.
“But in these dark times, my friends, there is another distraction. One who would turn our eyes from heaven. A false prophet.”
Boos rose forth from the masses. Actual “boos.” It was one of the scariest things I’d ever heard.
“You know who I’m talking about. This so-called Internet Messiah. He would have you turn to him during crisis. He professes to lead the way. To bring back the Internet of pornography and gossip. To return the Facebook of adultery. The Myspace of pedophilia … “
“The Craigslist of consensual fisting?” Tobey offered.
“And what of this charlatan Jeeves?” Melissa asked. “As surely as he feels the Messiah’s presence in New York, I feel this Messiah’s bad intentions.”
Oz turned to me with feigned indignation. “She feels your bad intentions? And you told me no one ever gave your junk a nickname!”
Now the crowd was getting antsy, distracted by a catalyzed hatred for a man who not only never asked for followers, but who didn’t exist. Jeeves had made me a savior. Melissa had made me a devil. I was neither, and it just did not matter. The truth was too ambiguous.
I’d often said that trying to make a point online is like playing a game of telephone with fifty friends. All of whom are deaf. And neurologically impaired. But, in truth, the problem wasn’t the Internet; it was people. And even in a crowd of like-minded followers on the receiving end of a simplistic fairy tale, the point was being missed.
“Let’s get this Messiah,” someone shouted. “He stole the Internet!”
A magnetic rage flowed from that rallying cry, dragging every last scrap of metallic pain and anger from the crowd. They set forth like good Christian soldiers hell-bent on destroying something they had never seen.
10.
DAY 55. PRIVATE INVESTIGATION
When the Christians started storming, we stood to the side and watched them go. Not just because it was fun to see the collected hive mind get grated to pieces by New York’s intersecting streets, but because we were scared.
“They fucking hate you,” Tobey said when the last zealot disappeared from sight.
“What if they find you?” Oz asked.
“How could they? Jeeves is walking blindly uptown and none of these clowns know who I am. They’ll probably lynch some Satanist in Alphabet City.”
Tobey twisted his mouth in vague disapproval. “You mean SoHo.”
“Fuck, you’re right. Just for the alliteration alone.”
“Yeah.”
“Excuse me, Messrs. Fitzgerald and Hemingway?” Oz interrupted. “These Christians are alarming. I think we should go back to the hotel and get Gladstone out of sight.”
“Until when?” I asked.
“Until we know the seriousness of the threat. Jeeves is looking for you. These Christians. Fucking zombies. Who knows who else?”
“That’s true,” Tobey said. “Could even be an international thing. I mean, if Koreans can celebrate Christmas, who’s to say the reach of an Internet Messiah?”
“I can go undercover with the Christians,” Oz said, and we looked at her long and hard.
“Well, not dressed like this, obviously. I’ll change.”
Tobey agreed. “I know somewhere you can buy a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Follow me!”
“Go undercover with the Christians. What does that even mean?” I asked.
“I dunno, but any information w
ould be more than we have,” Oz said. “And maybe I can even meet up with my friend. He might know something. I think he works for the government or something.”
Only surprise can make your stomach sick with the weight of something hollow. “Your friend works for the government? As what?”
“Some cog somewhere. I don’t know your departments. In Aus, we just do whatever the guy with the most koalas tells us to do.”
“Look, I’m all for making fun of Australia, but it doesn’t suit you. Especially when you’re deflecting. Your mystery buddy’s gonna solve all our problems, is he?”
Oz smiled. “Aww, don’t be jealous,” she said, scratching the stubble under my chin. “He’s nothing like you. Just some guy in an office. Not the savior of all e-humanity.”
Tobey became the voice of authority. “Gladballs, just get unseen and let Oz and me do some poking around while you update the journal or whatever.”
I waited for the pit in my stomach to fill with calming rationalizations.
“Two days,” I said. “I don’t want to be alone longer than that.”
“Done,” Oz said.
“Promise you’ll come for me in two days.”
“I’ll come, but will you be there when I get there?” Oz asked.
“Where else?”
“I don’t know. Just be there.”
I kissed Oz good-bye and punched Tobey in the arm before watching them go off. I felt a bit guilty about them facing the unknown, if not danger, while I returned to a room with a bed and a TV. I knew I wasn’t a messiah, but, ultimately, hiding was just too unmessiah-y, so I decided to just be careful: avoiding Jeeves uptown and remembering not to say “Hey, I’m the messiah!” to any crusading Christian looking for a crucifixion.
The basement Starbucks at 30 Rock was only a few minutes away, and I took Tobey’s advice, spending the next few hours updating my journal while listening to Paul McCartney, Neko Case, and even the Indigo Girls. Romaya used to have some Indigo Girls CDs in her collection, and though not a big fan, she admitted to liking a few songs before I ruined them for her. Sitting on the edge of our bed with my acoustic guitar, I deconstructed what she enjoyed, exposing it for what it was. The 6/8 strums and third harmonies revealed and repeated. I harassed her until she picked letters from A to G, which I rearranged into the chords of simple songs, and strummed in a folk rock waltz, showing her anyone could do it. And I was right. She liked it. And then she felt stupid for liking it and didn’t like it anymore. Thinking of it now, it’s hard to recall why knowing how to make her happy was something so worthy of ridicule.
Notes From the Internet Apocalypse Page 10
