by Tommy Butler
Sasha lets her cigarette slip from her fingers. It drops through the slats of the fire escape and falls toward the ground far below us. She watches it go, then lets out a deep sigh and rests her head on my shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says. “In fact, let’s just decide that it is. No matter what happens from now on, let’s agree that this, right here, is our ending. The final page of our story.” She sits up and extends her hand. “Deal?”
We shake. “Deal.”
“Good,” she says, nodding formally. “Then, Elliot, let me say that I am grateful to have known you in this life, and I’m glad to be here with you, at the end.” She reaches her arms around my shoulders and hugs me, pressing her cheek to my chest. “My heart cares about your heart.”
“Me, too,” I say. “My heart cares about your heart, too.”
“Goodbye, Elliot,” she says, still hugging me.
“Goodbye, Sasha.”
11:08 p.m. I have sex with my girlfriend. It’s tremendous. A first-year lawyer at a huge law firm, Jennifer doesn’t get out of the office much, so when she’s able to make it over to my place, she doesn’t waste time. Her first move is to pour us each a shot of tequila from a bottle I keep for just that purpose. She asserts three reasons for this ritual. One, she likes tequila. Two, it burns away the bad taste in her mouth after a day of lawyering. Three, it is a small tribute to when we first met.
Which was two months ago, in a bar, after she spilled a tequila shot on me. Clearly inebriated, she told me she was a lawyer and that my shirt had committed a tort against her by absorbing her drink without permission.
“It’s larceny,” she cried. “A wrongful taking.”
“Does that mean theft?” I asked.
“Yeah, that.”
“I’m no attorney,” I told her, “but doesn’t that require an intent to steal?”
“Well . . .”
“It seems to me your drink trespassed on my shirt.”
She froze, her mouth hanging open in surprise. “Oh my,” she said theatrically. “You’re a clever one. I imagine you’ll be expecting damages to be awarded.”
“Oh, I’m damaged all right,” I said.
“Is that so?” She stepped back and looked me over in appraisal, searching for some injury other than the stain of tequila on my shirt. “You don’t look it,” she said. “Emotional distress?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Would you consider a reasonable offer of settlement?”
“Never.”
“Oh my,” she said again, with the same air of affected melodrama. She then turned to the bar and ordered two more tequila shots. “Damages it is!” she cried.
Maybe that’s the way to attract a lawyer—with cleverness—or maybe Jennifer was impressed with how quickly I complied with her request to throw back that slug of tequila, or the ones that followed. Jennifer’s tolerance seemed as boundless as her energy, which I found even more intoxicating than the alcohol. There’s a buzz in the air when Jennifer is in the room. You can feel it.
You can feel it in bed, too. I tend to think of sex as improvisation, but with Jennifer I get the sense there’s an elaborate choreography, and that I missed rehearsal. The composition is different every time. Tonight begins with Jennifer perched on the edge of the sink, pieces of our clothing garnishing the cupboards of the galley kitchen like so many holiday ornaments. From the sink, we make our way around the apartment, each new spot demanding a change in position, some of which I later have to look up. In totality, the evening’s program turns out as follows: iron chef at the sink, waterfall on the couch, and missionary in bed. It is, as I’ve said, tremendous. By the time we finish, I have barely enough energy to turn the light off before slipping into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Thus ending a day on the ascendant trajectory of Elliot Chance.
In the Future
Bannor says that in the future there’s a pill for everything.
Which is not surprising.
What is surprising is that the pills work. According to the scientists, it was just a matter of time. The body, they say, is essentially an electrified skin bag filled with an intricate mix of chemicals, bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, viruses, and other microorganisms. Though still eons away from deciphering the entirety of this human microbiota, the scientists have come a long way. Far enough, in fact, to be able to concoct biochemical potions—conveniently packaged in easy-to-swallow tablets—to alleviate (if not cure) any ailment.
By this time, of course, the miracle of future medicine had already eradicated most purely physical conditions. Nevertheless, a handful of time-honored bodily complaints remained. Acne in your teenage years, say, or wrinkles in your later ones. Dimples in places you wished they weren’t. Malodorous flatulence from that high-fiber diet. Though such conditions proved resistant to any permanent cure, all could now be kept at bay with a pop of the appropriate capsule, so finely calibrated that there weren’t even any side effects.
The market boomed, and the fortunes of pill manufacturers soared. Yet the real money lay in the prevention not of physical aches but of emotional ones. Public enemy number one, and the first emotion to fall, was sadness. This venerable scourge of the human condition, this foil to the pursuit of happiness, this pillar of tragedy itself, was casually brushed aside with a glass of juice and a little yellow tablet (though in truth the tablet wasn’t so little, but rather the largest of all the emo-inhibitors, with scientists unable to shrink it down to anything smaller than a cashew nut). On the heels of the pill’s success, the manufacturers quickly announced a succession of varietals. Sadness, they proclaimed, comes in many flavors—so, too, would its remedy. Grief, anguish, heartbreak, despair? All vanquished.
At which point the manufacturers turned their attention to other hobgoblins of the heart and mind—everything from formidable therapy-session time sucks like anger, guilt, and loneliness to lesser evils such as boredom, shyness, and disgust. No disagreeable sentiment was too great or too small. People even started to coin new emotions. (Some said it was the manufacturers themselves who did most of the coining, in order to sell more emo-inhibitors.) Suffering from a wistful desire to return to a time in someone else’s past? That’s a condition known as proxtalgia. There’s a pill for that. Secretly jealous of your cat’s ability to clean itself? That’s ablufenvy. There’s a pill for that, too.
Dosage regimens varied. Some people chose the preventive route—small but steady doses at regular intervals to avoid the onset of unwelcome vibes. Others preferred a more palliative approach—only taking the pill when symptoms arose, or were likely to (performance reviews, weddings, Monday mornings). Regardless of technique, the effect was the same—when it came to undesirable emotions, if you didn’t want to feel them, you didn’t have to.
The results were predictable enough. More smiles, fewer tears. More laughter, less screaming and yelling. A decided increase in high-fiving, warm embracing, and other spontaneous acts of affection. Prison populations dwindled, a statistic quickly attributed to the suppression of rage, anger, and hatred. Even violence waned. Boxing, for example, fell to the bottom ranks of the world’s most popular sports, while synchronized swimming vaulted into the top ten.
All of which conspired to make life decidedly less unpleasant—which, in the minds of some people, was not the same as more pleasant. In defense of this contrarian view, they pointed to suicide rates. Despite the effectiveness of the emo-inhibitors, the number and frequency of suicides hadn’t budged. That is, until one more pill was introduced. The one for fear.
It had been a long time coming, due primarily to the controversy surrounding it, and the . . . well, fear . . . of what might happen. Unlike sadness (which many considered unnecessary) and anger (typically regarded as more detrimental than beneficial), fear was deemed essential for life, or at least for the avoidance of death. Without fear, what would keep people from walking across train tracks, or bicycling without a helmet, or otherwise putting themselves in harm’s way? Eve
n when it came to less existential matters, there was concern that people would stop doing things that were good for them. If they no longer feared the consequences of inaction, would they still do their homework? Meet their deadlines? Eat their vegetables?
As it turned out, the answer was yes, to the relief of parents and vegetable farmers everywhere. Rather than being driven by the fear of a bad outcome (getting sick, being chastised by the teacher), people were inspired by the desire for a good one (feeling healthy, learning). What now kept them from stepping in front of trains was the desire to live, as opposed to the desire not to die. Some say it was this change in motivation that was responsible for the precipitous drop in suicide rates. Others claim it was the elimination of fear itself. Either way, once the pill for fear hit the market, people stopped wanting to kill themselves.
Which is not to say they’re happier. In fact, sadness is as rife as ever in the future. So, too, are anger, and loneliness, and all the other difficult emotions. If the scientists thought that eliminating suicide meant that everyone would be blissful all the time, they were mistaken.
Even more surprising to the scientists, those who take the pill to extinguish their fear invariably stop taking the other emo-inhibitors—a trend that has sent the manufacturers into utter panic. Worldwide pill sales have tanked, and no amount of marketing wizardry appears capable of reviving them. In a desperate attempt to salvage their profits, the manufacturers have even convened focus groups to try to understand what happened.
“Why did you stop taking the pills?” they ask people. “Do you like feeling sad? Do you enjoy being angry?”
“No,” say the people. “Of course not.”
“Then why would you choose to experience these things?” the manufacturers ask, wringing their collective hands.
“Because we’re no longer afraid to.”
Elliot
(1999)
If the burgeoning frenzy of our office is any indication, it looks like the internet is going to be a thing. Seems like everyone and their second cousin is drafting a business plan, writing some computer code, and forming a Delaware corporation. Why Delaware? I have no idea, but the lawyers have their reasons, and the venture capitalists seem to like it. Start-up companies are raising money faster than you can say “new paradigm.” A million here, five million there. Twentysomething founders aren’t worried about getting funded. In fact, they don’t seem to worry about much of anything. To their apparent surprise, however, investors aren’t keen on them applying this nonchalance to the balance sheets, which means these newly flush corporations suddenly need an accountant and, as often as not, a financial audit.
Which leads them to us—or, more precisely, to Dean. Or, even more precisely, leads Dean to them. If my brother had previously been an excitable golden retriever, he is now a Tasmanian devil, a whirling dervish, a compressed cyclone of salesmanship. Whether it’s an international business conference at the Javits Center or a booze-addled bash in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, if it has “dot-com” in the invitation, Dean is there—drinking appletinis and gesticulating with his new BlackBerry mobile email device as if it were a golden phallus and nobody else had one (which, for the most part, they don’t, since most employers only get them for select employees).
Dean now wears vintage sneakers and knit polo shirts with the collar popped, though Matt and I still reliably come to the office in suit and tie. “Audit needs to look professional,” says Dean, which is actually one of his more astute pronouncements (or would be, if either Matt or I ever actually met with clients). It’s also one of the more intelligible. Over lunches, brunches, and lattes, Dean has acquired a small thesaurus of new phrases, and isn’t afraid to use them, correctly or otherwise. A single Dean flyby might incorporate gems such as “bandwidth,” “value-add,” “leveraging resources,” and “plug-and-play.” Possibly in the same sentence. It’s all good, as Dean would say. He’s far too busy for anything as outdated as established rules of grammar. If new tech clients were falling leaves, he’d be unable to fit them all in the pockets of his designer jeans.
Dean is hardly alone in his newfound passion for the World Wide Web. Tech stocks are booming. The NASDAQ composite index is surging to unprecedented highs, with no sign of slowing. An eight percent annual return has become quaint. If you’re not doubling your money every two years, you may as well be lighting it on fire, at least according to the tech investment newsletter that circulates through our office each week. I’m a bit late to the party, but by trading online and also investing in some of our firm’s clients, I’m finally able to move my savings into the future—undersea computer cables, optical network switches, and other foundations of cyberspace, along with more prosaic but no less surefire ventures like online pet supply stores.
My coworkers and I check our stocks religiously—watching the dough rise, so to speak. With every click of the refresh button, our portfolios get a little fatter. It’s addictive, and intoxicating, like winning a small lottery every day. More importantly, my robust new investment strategy has expedited my progress toward starting my own business, though I’m no longer convinced that consulting for small mom-and-pop shops is the way to go. Instead, I’m working on a high-tech business plan of my own—an internet start-up focused on education. “Giving students around the world the online tools they need to learn more effectively.” I even have a name—Socrates.com. I’ve talked to Dean about it, and he’s in. No one wants to get rich quick more than Dean, and it’s a perfect team—me on the inside developing the website, my brother on the outside drumming up investors and end users. All we need is a little nest egg to build a prototype, which is where my web-fueled savings come in. At these rates of return, we’ll be out of here in twelve months.
Until then, it’s audits and more audits. Despite the promise of the internet to save us time, I seem to have less of it than ever. Dean likes having me on the team for his clients whenever possible. “Blood is thicker than the phlegm I coughed up into the sink this morning,” he says. As a result, I get into the office earlier these days, and leave quite a bit later. What had been a lunch break is now a rapid infusion of sustenance, still administered at my desk, still composed of a sandwich and soda, but no longer accompanied by ponderings in the Vade Mecum or prolonged efforts to solve Sasha’s advertising ciphers. I had so little attention to spare for her last one, I never managed to crack it at all.
Which, come to think of it, was several months ago. Odd that she never gloated over my failure. She’s been writing ads for that particular brand of cereal for a year, and never fails to include a secret barb somewhere in the text. And Sasha rarely misses an opportunity to give me shit. But then I’ve been so buried, I can’t recall the last time I saw her. Wanting to check in, I leave her a voice mail, then an email. Days pass with no response, which is also not like her. Though Sasha unapologetically mocks the tech craze, she’s no Luddite. I ask Bannor, who tells me that Sasha hasn’t been to group in the past few months. I refuse to ask him whether she’ll be there in any future ones.
I start to worry. On Tuesday night, I climb the fire escape of Sasha’s building. The rungs are cold with the first hint of autumn. When I reach Sasha’s landing, the window is dark and the curtains drawn. My soft taps on the pane scatter into silence. Though I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, my uneasiness grows. Our Tuesday-night rendezvous isn’t etched in stone, nor even penciled in. Still, it’s been an unspoken tradition for so long that I’ve come to expect it, despite my own recent run of truancy.
I return the following week, but the fire escape is once again empty and lifeless. No lighted window. No Sasha. Not even a trail of cigarette butts to mark whatever path she may have taken.
Saturday morning finds me at the window of my own apartment—my new apartment, the one that I share with Jennifer. She and I moved in together a few months ago. After two years, it seemed like the thing to do. Plus, I thought it might help me save money, though it turns out I’m spending more now. Jennifer
wanted an “upgrade,” which to her meant a dishwasher and a second bedroom on the third floor of a West Village brownstone. To me, it meant being able to see even a small piece of the sky from my living room, which I can just about do if I press my face to the window and peer over the top of the ginkgo tree gripping the sidewalk outside our building.
At the moment, however, I am not seeking the sky. I’m using my reflection in the glass to adjust my tie—part of the expected attire for someone else’s wedding. There have been a rash of these recently. “Welcome to your late twenties,” says Jennifer, who seems to genuinely enjoy them. I thought I would, too. The first few times, I looked forward to witnessing the magical bonding of two people in love, until it dawned on me that these affairs had all degenerated into a formulaic sameness, where everyone seemed to be playing a role. Now only Jennifer’s enthusiasm makes them bearable—the way she lights up when she sees the bride, her ritual at the reception of touching each table’s centerpiece for good luck, the zeal with which she drags me onto the dance floor, where I wouldn’t normally go but where I must admit I have fun, at least until I’m too exhausted to keep up.
Today’s ceremony features a coworker of Jennifer’s who she doesn’t particularly like and a man she’s never met. No matter. Jennifer has yet to decline an invitation, and we dress accordingly. Though it’s the weekend, I wear one of my three business suits. “The least dour one,” according to Jennifer, who brushes the lint off my shoulder before commandeering the bathroom. From behind the closed door, the sound of the shower resonates with a dull hum.
By now I could put on my tie with my eyes closed, but I use my reflection in the window anyway. September’s morning light slants just so, and there is something about my image—precisely manifest yet completely insubstantial—that captivates me. I stop and stare at it, drifting into reverie, until a hail of small stones pelts the glass. I jump back, biting off a yell, then open the window and look down to see Sasha. She is standing in the street with a fistful of pebbles, bracing herself for another salvo. I call down to her.
