Love In The Time Of Apps (29 page)

When Goodwin arrived back at the Plaza he found his bags, packed and stacked in the hall next to his room. Several attempts to use his
key card to regain entry failed. The Plaza had changed his door’s key code. An elegant embossed note was taped to one of Goodwin’s bags.

By the time Goodwin had finished reading the note, a bellboy had his bags in hand. It was Andre the orderly from the Meditainment Center. Goodwin was surprised to see him and, momentarily forgetting his predicament, asked, “Andre, what are you doing here?”

“Unfortunately, I was fired. My supervisor heard me telling a visitor that a patient was en route to a hospice, and I was fired on the spot. I should have used “comfort zone.”

With Goodwin’s bags in hand, Andre escorted him to an elevator that opened to the narrow alleyway he had used when he first arrived. Andre said, “Thank you for staying at the Plaza, Mr. Goodwin. We hope to see you again. Just between you and me, I think that this Low
Life stuff is a lot of crap.” Goodwin thanked Andre but neglected to tip him. He thought he heard a disappointed Andre say under his breath as he walked away, “Lousy Low Life.”

Within a period of less than an hour, Goodwin went from an affluent entrepreneur to a homeless person with two bags in hand and with no place to go. In a way, he was like Sophie, but he didn’t have the courage to inhabit a furnished room in a department store. Though wearing a bespoke suit, he felt like one of those ragged people who he encountered from time to time when they approached him for a handout and to whom Goodwin, to his credit, always gave some money, an act that generally provoked a reproachful grunt from Sheila. He wondered if others would now be as charitable to him.

Goodwin called Peter Kass and heard a recorded message from Kass’ wife: “If you are attempting to reach Peter Kass, he no longer lives here. If you wish to reach him, please call him on his cell phone, 561-456-9090.

Kass picked up on the first ring. “Peter Kass.”

“Peter, what’s going on? I just received this weird message from your wife.”

“To use the vernacular, Donald, Charlie, and me have been screwed by your dear wives.”

“My wives?”

“Your wives. As you know, we’ve always stood by you against all this bullshit. So two weeks ago we go on one of these stupid talk shows to defend you and to set the record straight. The host asks, “How could you defend anyone who is a five?” At that point, Charlie loses it and yells, ‘If Philip Goodwin is a five then we are fives, too.’ The TV host asks if we agree and Donald and I respond, ‘Hell yes!’ So the Two Sheilas who have a Twitter following of about 40 million, bigger than virtually anyone with a Twitter account, immediately send out a Tweet which asks everyone to send ratings in for us that are fives or lower in all categories. Two days later, we are fives, Low Lifes. That’s how fast it happened. We get thrown out of Harborside and people start picketing our houses wanting us to leave the neighborhood. Our wives
divorce us on the ground that we are Low Lifes and, on advice of counsel, transfer all of our money to their accounts.”

Naturally, the first thing we do is call our lawyers. And guess what? They won’t represent us because they have a policy against representing Low Lifes. Two weeks before this happened they were kissing our asses. So right now we each have about $10,000. That will last a while, but I don’t know what will happen after that.”

“Holy shit, I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. I think everyone has simply gone crazy. So, what’s up with you?

Goodwin related what had happened to him over the last few hours to which Kass replied sardonically, “Welcome to my world.”

“Where are you now?”

“We are in the land of the Low Lifes, our ghetto. Catch the number 10 bus on Broadway and 48th and get off at the last stop, the SoLo district. There is a reception area just inside the first building by the bus stop. I’ll tell them you’re coming. Check in. They’ll find you a spot for now and then hook up with us at the Persona Non Grata bar.” Despite everything, Goodwin had to laugh at the name.

For the first time, Goodwin looked at the other passengers on the bus, presumably all Low Lifes. The only word that came to mind was refugees. “No” he thought, “the more accurate term is social refugees.” The bus came to a hard stop. He and his fellow social refugees had arrived. The only difference between Goodwin and the other passengers was that everyone else on the bus had someone to meet them. In a matter of moments, Goodwin stood alone by the empty bus.

The voice from behind him asked, “Mr. Goodwin?”

He turned to see an attractive, well dressed, woman in her forties. She held out her hand and said, “I’m so happy to meet you. We’ve all been following your battle with the evil twins.”

“I like that name for them.”

“I thought you would. We’ll get you a temporary room and help you settle in and then get you over to the Persona Non Grata bar to meet with your friends.”

“You seem particularly upbeat for a Low Life.”

“I’m actually a 26, though I think the whole concept is preposterous and clearly dangerous. There is a group of us who come down to help out, but we need to keep a low profile. Those who help Low Lifes are now labeled ‘Abettors.’ Helping Low Lifes is frowned upon and, if you can believe it, there is a large nationwide organization dedicated to outing Abettors. Anyone who outs an Abettor successfully is given a reward of $100.00. Once you are outed, the organization arranges through its network to have very low ratings sent in to Pragat. Twenty-four hours after that, you’re a Low Life. It can happen that fast.

“What comes next, armbands?”

It was a sarcastic question, but the woman gave it a serious answer. “That’s only a rumor,” she whispered.

The room he was assigned was a studio apartment which, to Goodwin’s surprise, was furnished rather nicely. Its former occupant was an interior decorator who ran for her life upon learning that her neighbors on both sides and across the hall, neighbors she had over for dinner many times, were Low Lifes. Goodwin was about to leave for the Persona Non Grata bar when his cell phone rang. Before he could even say “hello,” he heard a sharp clipped, almost squeaky, unfamiliar, voice that spoke in a rapid fire fashion:

“Goodwin, that you? Goodwin?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

Speaking at the speed of light, with a voice two octaves above that of a castrati taking a cold shower, the man replied, “You don’t know me. My name is Speedy Lazar, the great grandnephew or distant fifth generation cousin; I still don’t know which, of the great agent, Swiftly Lazar. Listen, Goodwin, I work for the American Broadcasting Company and The Sheila and I have an offer that you can’t refuse. Well, you could refuse it. It’s a free country, but you’d be ‘shmazy’ if you did. Like that word? I made it up. It’s a shmuck that’s crazy. I will have a car pick you up at 9 am sharp and I’ll take care of picking up Schnell.” Before Goodwin could say, “wha?” Lazar hung up.

Two things surprised Goodwin when he entered Persona Non Grata bar, its size and the raucous upbeat nature of the crowd. The
atmosphere didn’t seem appropriate for a place housing Low Lifes. Low Lifes, Goodwin thought, were supposed to be downtrodden, beaten. But this noisy group seemed to be just the opposite. They were having a good time.

A man approached, “Philip Goodwin?”

“Yes.”

He took a spoon and banged on a glass to signal for quite. “Hey everyone, I am pleased to introduce you to our latest resident, Philip Goodwin.” With that the man slapped a “TEN BELOW” cap on Goodwin’s head to the cheers of the bar’s patrons.

“Just because the outside world calls us “Low Lifes” doesn’t mean we have to follow suit. The connotation itself marks you. Ten Below is much better and has a little cache. Your friends are in the booth at the back of the bar.” As Goodwin made his way to the back of the bar, people patted him on the back and shook his hand as if he were a celebrity. After celebratory hugs, downed scotches, and cursing the Two Sheilas and their respective wives, Goodwin said, “This is not at all what I expected.”

“Well about half of the people here are not Ten Belows. They come down here because it’s now an edgy neighborhood. The rest are from our ghetto. Most of us come here in a state of shock and despair, but that soon turns to anger. We support each other and are attempting to organize and get rid of the PPRs. Every single person we’ve met is decent and hardworking. Like us, they’ve simply been screwed by circumstances and the ratings.”

Graves piped in, “We’ve been in touch with SoLo groups all over the country and I think there are close to two million of us now. What we need is a spokesman, a champion to help us unravel this mess, to do away with the whole PPR system. That’s step one in getting our lives back. We need to show people that a system that rates people mainly on the basis of data from the Internet is artificial and wrong.”

“It’s a pretty tall order.”

“Yes,” Riques interjected, “but we’ll find a way.”

Goodwin related the story about the odd phone call.

Kass said, “My guess is that he wants you on some sort of TV show, which would be great since you can talk about the evils of the Pragat
ratings. You could be the spokesman for our cause. Maybe you could be our champion.”

While Goodwin’s mantra was to never get caught up in unpopular causes, he thought, “Why not? I have absolutely nothing to lose.”

“You are going to go aren’t you?”

“I’d be shmazy if I didn’t.”

His friends looked at him quizzically.

Divorcing With The Stars

G
oodwin, along with Kass, Graves and Riques, were escorted into the large office of Speedy Lazar, the Director of New Programming Events for ABC. Midstream into drinking coffee and chomping on a big cigar, Lazar introduced Goodwin and his friends to a number of colleagues and began speaking at an even faster pace than the night before.

“Phil, I can call you Phil, right? Phil, you are presently having some, let’s say, personal difficulties. Very able lawyers represent your wives, you are facing a major divorce case and you have no money. So, unless you hire yourself some damn good attorneys, which always translates to damn expensive attorneys, whom you can’t afford, you’re up the creek owned and named after the famous Mr. Shit. The lawyers for The Sheila will be able to drag out any litigation for years, maybe decades. You being homeless will have to live on the street. You know I am right about you. What you don’t know is that I can help you, Phil. How would you like it if we paid all of your attorneys’ fees for the divorce, and we get you the best lawyers that money can buy? We’ll put you back in the Plaza, on us, and even give you $50,000 in cash. Sounds great, right? Of course it does. And all you have to do is have your divorce on national television.”

Lazar’s high-speed speech was interrupted by the entry of Schnell, who he introduced to his associates in a matter of seconds. Having completed that task, Lazar signaled to one of his associates to give Schnell a proposed contract and resumed his pitch, “Let me explain,
Phil, while you and Schnell peruse our proposed agreement. It’s our standard 45 page single- spaced contract. Besides the vague and unintelligible terms all contracts have, it is one of the most amazing legal documents of all times. You know the expression, ‘A thousand monkeys, typing on a thousand typewriters every day for a thousand years will eventually type the entire works of William Shakespeare.’ Well we tried it and guess what, no Shakespeare, but we did get this really good contract. We saved thousands in legal fees. Now, if we can only teach these monkeys to take depositions.” Goodwin began to think at this point that this was another elaborate hoax concocted by the Two Sheilas to embarrass him. He looked around for hidden cameras.

Lazar was not deterred by the skeptical expression on Goodwin’s face and continued his fast paced pitch. “Look, Phil, what I’m about to tell you is the most brilliant idea since they fixed the television quiz shows in the Fifties. Let me explain. What is America obsessed with? One word: ‘celebrities.’ Go to your newsstand and more than half the magazines are devoted just to celebrities and the content of regular magazines always carry features on celebrities. There are at least twenty television shows just on celebrities. People gobble up celebrity news. America is addicted to celebrities. We’re all celebrity-holics.”

Goodwin thought for a moment about what a twelve-step program might be for celebrity-holics. He imagined men and women in a church basement and someone saying, “Hi I’m Gary and I’m a celebrity-holic. I haven’t looked at People, Us, or In Style for six weeks.”

“Great work, Gary.”

“Hi. I’m Lois and I’m a celebrity-holic. I’m afraid I slipped this week. I bought a copy of the National Enquirer because it had a headline I found irresistible, “Madonna Has Three Breasts,” and to add insult to injury when I looked at the photo inside, it showed her eating at Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

Lazar interrupted Goodwin’s reverie. “Are you with me, Phil?”

“Yes, sorry.”

“As I was saying Phil, what’s even of greater interest to America? Two words: celebrity scandals. And what’s even of greater interest than
celebrity scandals? Two more words, celebrity trials. And what’s even of greater interest than celebrity trials?”