Notes From the Internet Apocalypse (13 page)

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.

“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 would 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.

The two lattes and giant M&M cookie I devoured all helped obliterate any trace of the noir private eye vibe I’d perfected. I wiped the last of the foam from my lips before realizing I hadn’t touched my flask all day. It was just me and the world outside, and these journal pages were the only things creating any structure to my life. My spine, now one with the Starbucks pleather, dictated movement, but I still had no intention of going home, so I kept my profile low by heading to the safest place I knew: the New York Public Library.

Troops were evacuating young lovers and salad-eating secretaries from Bryant Park for yet another terrorist spot check, but I didn’t let that distract me. I was already feeling the library’s comfort. Maybe it was a comfort that came from eight tons of marble, but it always seemed like something more. The library stood virtually unchanged for 125 years during good times and bad. Unaffected by war or peace, swing jazz, punk, or disco. It was hard to imagine anything could alter it for the future. Probably a naïve thing to say in a city that suffered 9/11, but it felt true. The faint echo of voices and footsteps, the smell of leather and paper, and the rush of cool air all raised that vague feeling to a religiously certain conviction. This is a sanctuary, at least until a renovation no one needs fucks it up.

I spent a fair amount of time just walking the halls until I felt ready to check out a book, and then I realized I’d never done that before. Not in this palace. I wasn’t even sure if it was a reference library or what. That wasn’t its point, it seemed to me. It was more a monument to learning. A repository for history. Like the Library of Congress in D.C., but closer to a decent slice of pizza. Besides, what book could I possibly check out that would help me find the Internet? So I went to the third-floor reading room to peruse my now-updated journal in the hopes of seeing something I’d missed before.

I was greeted by Milton’s familiar quote carved above the door in golden leaf:

A GOOD BOOKE IS THE PRETIOUS LIFE-BLOOD OF A MAFTER FPIRIT, IMBALM’D AND TREAFUR’D UP ON PURPOFE TO A LIFE BEYOND LIFE.

And right below that quote, there used to be a sign touting the room’s free Internet access. No longer. But the vaulted ceiling of a painted heaven remained, intimidating as much as it inspired. I felt pressure to find a seat quickly. To quit being the gawking spectator and become one of the dozens of people already hard at work. I chose space 117 at the end of a long table, trying to make my chair screech as little as humanly possible along the floor. I failed, and the woman on the opposite side of the table looked up from her copy of
Tender is the Night
with something that could only be called a kind reprimand. In my rush, I’d chosen poorly. She was beautiful, and no one would believe I had picked this chair at random. Instead, I seemed like one of those guys on the subway who cozies up to the one pretty girl on a half-empty train.

“Sorry,” I said as non-provocatively as possible.

“It happens,” she said with just the slightest trace of an accent, but I wasn’t sure. Even her face wasn’t completely revealed. Only her thick brown hair and cobalt eyes appeared over the Fitzgerald.

I wanted to say something like, “I didn’t know you were so hot when I chose this seat,” but I decided it would be best just to sit quietly and smile.

I laid my journal out before me and started at the beginning. Sometimes, I thought I felt her looking at me, but when I’d sneak a peek, she seemed at peace with her novel. Sometimes, she’d ease it toward the table, and I could see her bite her full lower lip in a way I found impossibly arousing. I kept making my way through pages, looking for missed clues almost as intently as I wondered if the rest of her were as effortlessly attractive as her face. After about twenty minutes, she put down her book and leaned forward over the table. I cringed in embarrassment, waiting to be called out for all my impure thoughts.