Notes From the Internet Apocalypse

by Wayne Gladstone

  “Well that would be one way to find out, right?”

  “No. Not right, and more importantly, fuck you. When did you become my recruiter? I’m not looking for a job. I’m off the grid. Free. The disability payments keep me alive, and I answer to no one. All I have to do is nothing.”

  “Y’know,” Tobey said. “Most people hate their job. You know that, right?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You think you know what a job is? You blog for a living. You work in your boxers, cruising news reports you can add blowjob jokes to, and then scrape the ad revenue for rent. You’re gonna talk to me about work?”

  “Easy, Gladstone,” Oz said.

  “No, I’m not going to take it easy. You were so disgusted by the notion of a job you let strangers watch you shower for money. Congratulations. Well, unlike you, I put in my time, and I’m fucking done.”

  Tobey and Oz did not reply. They did not look at me, but there did seem to be some sort of unspoken understanding between them.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You go to work for the UN and now suddenly me cooperating with foreign governments is a good idea?”

  “Look, I’m just—”

  “Shut up, Tobey,” I said, and turned to Oz. “And you. You go visit your friend. Your little friend who works for the government, the one you came to New York to meet in the first place, and suddenly I should go to work for the government? Who is this guy?”

  “I never met up with him. I can’t find him.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t know what happened to him!” she insisted.

  “I don’t even know who you are. I can’t trust you. You’re not real. Either of you. Fucking Internet people.”

  They didn’t move for fear of scratching up against the sharp ugly words I had put into the world. And I didn’t move either, realizing I might not have escaped the enemy after all. So we sat tight for the moment, feeling the rumble of the tracks. Oz put her pain only partially on display. Hiding the ancient scars while flaunting the fresh wounds I’d just inflicted. Tobey feigned indifference and started rolling a joint in plain sight as the doors opened on Bleecker Street.

  “Fuck this,” I said, and jumped out onto the platform before they closed again.

  Oz rushed to the doors, now closed, slapping against the glass and saying something I could not hear. She started to cry as the train took her away.

  11.

  DAY 57. HAMILTON BURKE

  A whole life in New York and I still can’t navigate the Village. I’m useless south of the city’s right-angle grid, and I really didn’t feel like getting lost, so I just walked south. I’d hit the water eventually, and then there’d be nowhere else to go.

  I sat on a seaport bench for hours, drinking and watching the boats go nowhere. I killed the Jameson within an hour, but I didn’t move. Not even after the sun set. Not until my nerves cut through the fog of liquor and darkness, demanding motion to distribute the energy. The financial district had gone home. It was always dead at night, stockbrokers having left for the day, but in the Apocalypse it was especially dead. More than half the city was now simply gone all the time. Many were tired of waiting for the one terrorist threat that turned out to be true. Some were just tired of the warnings. Even the mosquitoes that don’t bite can drive you away.

  I tried to enjoy the surreal calm of being completely alone in New York, suppressing the nagging thought that perhaps a bomb had dropped while I wasn’t paying attention or that I was already dead. I passed the charging bull at Bowling Green Park and then meandered back to Wall Street before taking it up all the way to Broadway. The towering cross of Trinity Church guided my way, framed in the sky by the hard lines of Wall Street’s rooftops. So overt you’d call it forced perspective if it weren’t real.

  A few cabs passed when I got to Broadway, breaking the silence. I crossed and headed down Rector along the iron spiked fence of Trinity’s courtyard. Someone was on the sidewalk staring inward. The silhouette of an older man: bald, stout, and, upon closer inspection, wearing a three-piece suit. Something of an accomplishment in a New York summer.

  As I got closer, I grew more excited, because I knew exactly what had captured his attention: Alexander Hamilton’s grave. It was impossible to believe that one of our founding fathers was close enough to throw a rock at. Just ten feet through a fence on a tiny side street unwatched by police or soldiers. Hell, during the day, you could even enter the courtyard and touch the thing. An impressive stone monument in the backyard of a two-hundred-year-old church, now overlooking a cobbler’s store the size of a closet and a place for truly mediocre bagels. The architect of America’s economy was resting in peace just a block from a C-minus strip club once known for five dollar handjobs.

  “Hamilton?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “Oh, Alexander Hamilton. Yes,” he said, returning his gaze to the headstone.

  I stood by his side and stared along with him. Robert Fulton was one plot over competing for attention, but only Hamilton’s grave stirred our imagination.

  “This is one of my favorite parts of the city,” he said.

  “Mine too. I mean, the monument to Washington down the street is great. It’s cool to think that’s where he took his oath, but this is Alexander Hamilton. Right here.”

  “I come here sometimes,” he said. “Think about things. Think about what he would have thought about things.”

  I nodded in agreement, although I knew already this man’s connection to Hamilton went beyond my love for preserved antiquity.

  “Are you a stockbroker, Mr…”

  “Gladstone. No. No I’m not.”

  “Ah, me neither. I’m retired. Met quite a few though. I’m Hamilton Burke,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Hamilton?”

  “Yeah, that’s my namesake.” He pointed to the grave, and took off his steel-rimmed glasses before cleaning them on his red silk tie.

  “He founded the Bank of New York, y’know.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “So what kind of work do you do, Mr. Gladstone?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Burke, right now, nothing. I’m on disability.”

  “You seem able-bodied enough. I’m sorry if that’s too personal.…”

  “I am, it’s just … well, it’s complicated.”

  His frown was almost discernible, and I felt the need to break it before it became undeniable.

  “What are you contemplating with Mr. Hamilton’s help tonight?” I asked.

  He smiled and removed a cigar from inside his pocket. “Well, that’s complicated too.” He clipped the end with an elegant device he took from his front vest pocket. “Cigar?”

  I refused, but removed my flask so I wasn’t the only one without a friend. “I’m sorry I don’t have a glass to offer you.…”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I have my own. And mine’s filled with Beauté de Siècle by Hennessy.”

  That was probably a good thing, considering my flask was kicked. He placed the cigar between his teeth while he unscrewed his flask. Then he poured some of the brandy into the cap.

  “Would you hold this for a moment?” he asked, handing me the flask. Then he took the cut end of his cigar and dipped it into the brandy cap, letting the leaves soak up the alcohol.

  “I guess I’m thinking about this Internet Apocalypse. And, of course, its effect on business.”

  He accented his words with a flame that flowed from maybe the nicest lighter I’d ever seen, and it was hard to believe that something as elegant as the ritual being performed before me could make you die in tremendous pain, consumed from the inside out. I’d never wanted a cigar more, but I took my swig, pretending my flask was still filled and all I needed.

  “I have to tell you, Mr. Burke. I’ve been thinking about that too. Even conducting a little investigation with my time off. Y’know, in my own small way.”

  For the first time, his attention was fully on me, and the former Secretary of the Tre
asury became just some bones in the ground.

  “Really, and what have you found?”

  “Not an awful lot, I’m afraid.”

  The frown I’d preempted before now returned twofold and suddenly his cigar grew distasteful to him. “Dominicans,” he said, and tossed it in the street behind him. “You’d think I’d learn by now.”

  I shrugged, not knowing what to say.

  “So, what was your business before becoming an ineffectual detective?”

  “I was a claims manager for the New York Workers’ Compensation Board, and I’m sorry you’re not impressed with my investigation. I’ll reduce the rates I’m charging you immediately.”

  He laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “I guess I sound like some Internet commenter complaining about the quality of free content.”

  That was not a reference I was expecting. “You know a lot about that, do you?”

  “The Internet? Well, why not? I had to figure out how to monetize that just like everything else.”

  I could tell I was dealing with another adult who had a job I didn’t understand, and if I didn’t get it now I knew I never would. When I was a little kid, I pretty much thought there were only six jobs in the world: doctor, lawyer, teacher, fireman, policeman, and astronaut. The rest were a blur of things I never took the time to know.

  “Did you enjoy your work, Mr. Gladstone?” he asked pulling another cigar from a different pocket.

  I couldn’t help staring at the replacement.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “This one’s a Cuban. You were supposed to smoke the Macanudo.”

  He had not even the slightest trace of embarrassment admitting the inequity of his generosity, and this time, he lit up without the assistance of brandy. Apparently Cubans didn’t require such a boost.

  “No, sir. I did not enjoy my work.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well, I was studying to be a lawyer, but my wife and I got pregnant so I took the claims job.”

  “Oh, I see.” He nodded and pulled his face down at the corners in faux consideration. “And do you think you would have liked being a lawyer?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure I would have hated that too.”

  “And why is that?” He seemed to know the answer already.

  “Well, in theory, the gig’s okay. I liked torts. The human story behind the injury, the analysis of fault, the concepts of compensation. Somewhat engaging in a vacuum, but when you put it in practice…”

  I paused, looking for the right words.

  “The business gets in the way?”

  That was about as elegant a description of the problem as I’d ever heard, and Hamilton had nearly suffered an aneurysm waiting for me to get to the point where he could drop that gem.

  “Yes. The business gets in the way.”

  He smiled and exhaled up into the New York City night. The cloud dissipated as it wafted toward the grave.

  “Mr. Gladstone, I know it might be hard for a twenty-first-century man under forty to believe, but you are not special. Your story is common, and I guess I was just lucky. Somehow, at a very early age, I realized that at the heart of every occupation, every job, every identity is business. Very few people can procure an existence devoid of business. So why not cut out the middle man? I decided to be in the business of business. I made money for a living.”

  “Well, I guess you’re truly blessed. And this knowledge made you happy?”

  “Happy? Oh, I don’t know. But I can tell you I was never unhappy because I wanted something I couldn’t have. I was never unhappy because I could not give my children the enjoyments and opportunities I thought they deserved. I was never unhappy because my existence was in the control of another man. That’s the kind of unhappiness that makes men crawl inside bottles. Put shotguns in their mouths. I’ve dodged those bullets, but a deeper happiness? It’s hard to say. Were you happy with your choices?”

  “I told you I wasn’t. And I would think a man as successful as you would have learned it’s bad form to gloat.”

  “I apologize. If it makes you feel better, it’s not all your fault. It’s a rigged game. And the Internet was behind your misery as much as anything else.”

  I may not have amassed Hamilton’s fortune, but I was smart enough to know that the best way to get him talking was not to speak. I placed my flask inside my coat pocket and gave him my full attention.

  “Alfred Nobel,” he said. “The peace prize guy. Know what he invented?”

  “Yeah. Dynamite.”

  “Correct! They thought it would end war. That big violent explosion. Who would subject their troops to such a creation? They said the same thing about the machine gun. And the nuclear bomb. But man has never invented a weapon he failed to use. You can see where I’m going with this.…”

  “Y’know, Mr. Burke. I think I will take one of those cigars. A Cuban. If you’ve got it. Y’know, to give me something to do while you’re schooling me.”

  He took out another cigar, even cutting and lighting it for me. After three puffs I could almost see the chemicals dancing on my tongue.

  “There has not been a piece of technology designed to save labor that has not increased labor,” Burke said. “Word processors allow you to do what your secretary used to do for you. The Internet, BlackBerries, iPhones, yes they keep you tethered, but that’s not the main problem. It’s that along with increasing personal productivity, they increase the expectation of productivity. It no longer becomes a bonus to do the work of one and a half men, but the norm. And then when everyone’s working at one hundred and fifty percent capacity, they can fire a third of the workforce and still maintain output.”

  Perhaps it was the hours of drinking or the way the Cuban had escalated the chemical reactions, but I took out my journal to take notes. I’m still not sure if I was trying to mock him or actually learn something.

  “You cannot change business. Business is a maniac in a hockey mask. In 1920, an anarchist exploded a bomb in a horse-drawn carriage two blocks from where we’re standing. Right in front of the House of Morgan. He killed thirty-eight. He injured four hundred. There’s still the shrapnel marks in the side of the building. But what did he change? Nothing. You can’t tame business. Only remove some of its tools for mayhem. Monopolies were one tool. The Internet was another.”

  Hamilton stared at my pen flashing across paper.

  “So you’re a reporter now?” he asked.

  “Don’t mind me,” I said. “All for the investigation.”

  “The one that’s not going so well?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “But you did say that.”

  “Maybe some of us are modest?”

  He laughed. That would have been a good time for me to stop speaking. But I didn’t and now I can’t write this without cringing because I did something I wouldn’t have normally done. And it wasn’t the smoke or the liquor. It was the proximity to success. It was the unbearable reflection of my failure in his eyes.

  “Right now, there are thousands, maybe millions, who are looking for the Internet Messiah,” I said.

  “Yes, I am aware of that.” Then an unbridled joy broke out across his face. “Mr. Gladstone, are you saying that person is you?”

  “Don’t be silly, Mr. Burke. I’m just someone who never understood the business of the world the way you did. An ineffectual detective out on disability. Someone who’s made too many unhappy choices. But thank you for the cigar and the company. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” he said while inspecting me like a new commodity on the exchange. “I hope we speak again.”

  I put two fingers to the brim of my hat and walked back toward Broadway.

  “Mr. Gladstone,” he called out while his words could still reach me. “Forget about past misfortunes. Is the Net what you must find to be happy?”

  Fortunately, a truck hit a pothole on Broadway and Wall, and I kept on walking as if I hadn’t heard every word
.

  Return to 4Chan

  I walked as fast as I could, pretending my speed was more than just flight from Hamilton. I wanted to believe I was racing toward success. But I was all alone and there wasn’t a single person to help or hide me. The only place I’d learned something even close to useful had been at the Bowery Poetry Club, so that’s where I headed. It was even Thursday night. Perhaps I could find Anonymous there still integrated and apart from the mindless 4Chan rabble.

  And while a destination quickened my pace, I had to hold up when I hit the Bowery. A group of ten CAM members were marching in two rows of five, looking for the Messiah and stopping only occasionally to spit at perceived homosexuals. Some zombies were also milling about on corners, but most of them were mellower these days, having come down from their antsy Net cravings with ever-increasing amounts of weed. I only had to wait a minute for a clearing before I headed for the door. Once again, white shopping bag guy was holding his clipboard.

  “Sup, newfag? You sure you’re in the right place?” he asked through his poorly cut mouth hole.

  “Fuck off, pedo.”

  I handed him a five and headed inside. The party was a bit thinner than last time, but already in effect. Some dude in a cheap Guy Fawkes mask was clicking through his projected PowerPoint presentation of new memes he’d created. They were all just still images he’d snapped off his TV with boldfaced writing superimposed via MS Paint. I didn’t get a single one. Of course, I wasn’t paying much attention either. Just sipping my Jameson at the bar and scanning the room for Quiffmonster42 or any other possible Anonymous members amid a sea of 4Chan pranksters.

  Some dude drinking a vodka and cranberry next to me poked me on the shoulder.

  “Hey, you wanna see, like, the dirtiest porno ever?” he asked, pointing to his open laptop on the bar. There was a big red X through the Wi-Fi icon in the bottom right corner.

  “Not really.” I punctuated with a tilt of my head that killed my drink.

  “Oh, come on! It’s like super dirty. Just press play.”