That’s what we did then. We wrote important things down on nice paper. Or at least fed stationery into our cut-sheet feeders while we typed. Not because we couldn’t say these things in person. But because there was a feeling that some things should just be expressed in a way that you could hold on to. And if you really exposed yourself on a page and gave that to someone you loved, it was worth more than merely spoken words. Unlike texts and e-mails, which are somehow worth not even that. Here in my hand was tangible proof that I saw the soft girl inside the hard woman. That I loved her completely and could not bear a life without her in it, and I let myself see it.
Romaya must have slipped it into my coat before she left. Maybe it was meant to hurt me. Or maybe it hurt her too much for her to keep. But I hadn’t read it. Not while it rotted hanging in that closet and not all the times I’d held it these last few weeks. But I read it now because it meant something more than pain. I had something the Internet knew nothing about, and I jumped down from the window to show him.
“Where are you?” I screamed, chasing him in circles around the crown. I could see a glimpse of coat, a partial shoe, but no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch him. Finally, I stopped by Romaya’s empty flask. I put it away and spoke loud enough for him to hear no matter where he was.
“You don’t know me. How dare you presume to know me? Are you really so arrogant to believe you can sum up a man by his online presence? I have memories and feelings that have never seen the glow of a computer screen. Ideas that have never set foot online.”
I then proceeded to read him my letter to Romaya from start to finish, and when I was done, he was there. Crying.
He took a step closer and pointed to the letter.
“May I?” he asked, taking it gently into his hands. I watched him hold everything he had heard, letting the words enter like triggers to memories that pulsed and flowed through him, searching for the feelings that would make them real again.
“I remember that,” he said.
“No, you don’t. I wrote that in 1999 with just a pen, some nice paper, and no Internet.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know? You don’t know.”
“I mean, I know.”
“Who are you?”
“You know my name,” he said. “You just have to say it.”
He waited. He saw my throat go thick, my eyes blur until he was gone. He saw me see words I didn’t say.
“Say it!” he screamed, and when I jumped, the name escaped like a gasp. “Gladstone?”
“That’s not my fucking name,” he said. “That’s a Twitter handle. A name! I have a full name.”
“Wayne Gladstone.”
All his hate froze and faded, leaving only me. It sounded so strange to say out loud, but that was my name. He came closer and wiped my tears as gently as if they were his own. Then he placed the letter back in my pocket before I headed to the door. I walked toward the empty staircase that would greet me. To the solitary raft that would start my journey west.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“California.”
“You think you’ll find the Internet there?”
“Fuck the Internet,” I said. “I have a letter to deliver.”
Acknowledgments
This novel would never have been published without my agent Lauren Abramo. Lauren not only understood the novel’s goals, she challenged me to aim higher, confident that an audience would follow. Her editorial comments, perfectly pointed, yet vague, catalyzed action while leaving room for discovery. And, of course, Lauren was also smart enough to put the book into the hands of my editor Peter Joseph. Where else was I going to find someone who would get my jokes, get what wasn’t a joke, tell me when I was wrong, and let me tool on him like the little brother I never had? These two took something that could have easily died on my hard drive and made it a reality, offering far more support than an e-mail-writing lunatic like me deserves.
Of course, there might not ever have been an Internet Apocalypse without Cracked.com. I’m very grateful to editor-in-chief Jack O’Brien for his decision to give satirical fiction a home during this novel’s nascent, serialized novella run. And from a visual standpoint, I could not have asked for a better collaborator than the unfairly-gifted Randall Maynard who created so many startlingly good visuals that sold both the humor and pathos of the story. Thanks also to Robert Brockway for taking the time to share his experiences in publishing as I moved closer to this moment. I’m also grateful to so many of those Cracked readers who let me know I was onto something in their messages and comments. In many ways it was the support of those readers, Facebook friends, and followers that sustained the push toward a full novel and publication more than anyone else.
I was very lucky to have met Meaghan Wagner and Halli Melnitsky—two early readers of this manuscript who offered equal parts advice and enthusiasm that drove me toward a better completion.
Thank you to Matt Tobey, Dennis DiClaudio, Ian Carey, Christopher Monks, and Darci Ratliff—my five bunkmates at the Junkiness.com e-comedy camp. A better version of my comedy self was born and baptized in the fire of our high-speed e-mail chains and instant messages. Thanks also to Matt for graciously sharing the world with another Tobey, and to Dennis for that early read. Thank you to all the other e-comedy acquaintances and early publishers, some of whom became real people to me: Jason Roeder, Jim Stallard, Teddy Wayne, Ken Krimstein, Todd Zuniga, Brendan McGinley, Nick Leftley, John Warner, Adam Tod Brown, Ian Fortey, Josh Abraham, Nick Jezarian, and Geoff Wolinetz.
As I write this (and just about everything else I write) I hear the voice of my professor, advisor, and friend Dan McCall who taught with great love, delivered via sarcasm and smiles, and left us all so much to “feel in the white.”
Thank you Lindsay Thomas and Kandrix Foong for the wonderful Calgary and Edmonton Expos, and letting me spread word of the coming Internet Apocalypse novels to all the lovely Canadians. HBN sherpa Kate Weisgram has also provided invaluable support in maintaining the www.kafkamaine.com Web site and all things Hate By Numbers and Notes-related.
It occurs to me that, in some ways, thanking all the people who help you publish and promote a book is premature because first you should acknowledge everyone who made you what you are: Everyone who filled up your life with ideas, values, raw material, and love. I was blessed with a mother, father, and two brothers who are inextricably tied to everything I have done and ever will do. Mom, Dad, Cliff, and Doug are in this book because they are in me.
And then there is the family I helped create: my children Asher, Sage, and Quinn. I have many goals in writing, but there is always the ideal of trying to put something into the world that has half as much of the worth, intelligence, and humor they have. And to that end, thank you to their mother, Louisa, for being my cocreator and caretaker of our three magical weirdos.
About the Author
WAYNE GLADSTONE is a longtime columnist for Cracked.com. He is the creator and star of the Hate by Numbers online video series. His writing has appeared on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Comedy Central’s Indecision, and in the collections You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News and The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes. He lives in New York.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NOTES FROM THE INTERNET APOCALYPSE. Copyright © 2014 by Wayne Gladstone. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-04502-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4334-9 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466843349
First Edition: March 2014
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Notes From the Internet Apocalypse Page 16
