Notes From the Internet Apocalypse (8 page)

“Am I correct, Mr. Gladstone, that you wouldn’t want to talk to me about your wife, Romaya?”

I thought of Romaya in the hospital. An IV in her arm and red and wet eyes that dripped tears each time she blinked. Somehow, I got it in my head that pulling the IV could stop the tears, but I didn’t do it. I just held her in the bed and placed my face against her wet cheek so she could hear me whisper, “I’m so glad I married you.”

“Gladstone,” Rowsdower repeated. “Am I right, you don’t want to talk about your wife?”

“I’d prefer not to,” I said.

“And why’s that?”

“My wife is dead.”

A pulse rippled across Rowsdower’s face, beneath the skin.

“Right. That’s what I thought,” he said, zipping up my bag. “You’re free to go, Mr. Gladstone. I’m sorry for the disturbance. I’ll let you find your own way out.”

“Out of a prison?” I asked.

“Prison? You must have noticed this is just an office building. Under the NET Recovery Act, the government is empowered to commandeer private property for the purposes of interrogation.”

Rowsdower left the door open behind him. I was free to go, but I was alone.

6.

DAYS 29–31. DETOX

I stumbled out from the interrogation, searching for the closest landmark, but New York looked strange without my friends. And, of course, the world was still changing. Many businesses were closed and the streets were half-empty. Still, mailboxes overflowed with letters, and newsstands were overrun with porn. And not half-obscured brown-paper-bag-covered porn, but big stacking piles beside the gossip mags.

I hadn’t bought a dirty magazine in over fifteen years, but I felt compelled to flip through a
Hustler
in front of a newsstand by Water and Wall Street. I remembered the feel of high gloss beneath my fingers and the smell of ugly maroon inserts reeking of colognes I’d never wear. But now the girls looked like girls. No longer the dark and dangerous sex creatures I’d hoped to meet as a man, but the kind of lost young women I wanted to save. And I felt bad because that didn’t stop me from thinking of them exactly in the way I was supposed to. I put the magazine down and headed for the hotel.

*   *   *

Rowsdower had me thinking about Romaya. I held her behind the locked bathroom door, and tried to stay calm and strong while she hovered over the toilet and pissed on a pregnancy test. My law school suitemates were oblivious in the living room, and on this side of the door we weren’t discussing anything that didn’t need to be discussed until we knew what two weeks late meant. I fidgeted in the shower, and then it was there: two blue lines against a background of white.

“That means pregnant, right?” she asked, checking the box.

We hadn’t decided what to do. No point in making decisions without all the facts, but now there were facts.

“Marry me,” I said.

“Shut up.”

“Marry me.”

“You want to marry me?”

“Since the night we got drunk and turned Clue into a drinking game.”

“That was our second date.”

“I love you.”

I surprised even myself with how sure I was, but I was sure. Marrying Romaya felt right. It felt real. Law school was a delay from actual living. And if I kept going, in two more years I’d be a lawyer, and then what?

*   *   *

Tobey and Oz weren’t at the hotel when I arrived. That didn’t worry me at first. After all, Tobey probably didn’t want to return to his last known address with agents after him. I was more concerned about Oz. What if she were still detained? Deported? I wanted to go back to the interrogation office, to Park51, to Central Park, to anywhere I’d ever seen her. But even with the population leaving in droves, this was still New York City. How do you find just one person? I sat on the bed drinking, and trying to think of a plan. Occasionally, I’d flip the pages of the
Hustler
I didn’t remember buying and wonder why the twenty-first century seemed to prefer ass to the omnipresent tits of my youth.

And that’s when I realized Rowsdower had drugged my Scotch. I couldn’t think of a reason the government would do that, but I also couldn’t believe I bought a porno mag without remembering it. Maybe they wanted to follow me. See if I led them to clues in my compromised state. Guide them to Tobey or the Internet. I didn’t know. All I knew was that suddenly the room was too big, even when I pulled the covers and grabbed the pillows.

*   *   *

I’ve spent the last three days in my hotel room. Too anxious to write. Too anxious to do anything other than take comfort in the
Hustler
that speeds my heart and then slows it with release. There’s a girl on page forty-two with a dolphin tattoo beside her absurdly coifed pubic hair who particularly excels at that. But then the fear returns, and I remember I still don’t know where Tobey and Oz are or what to do without them. All I know is that if the government were hoping to find dirt on me in my altered state, they lost. For three days, it’s been just me, the
Hustler,
and order-in food. Except once, I did leave to hit the corner liquor store for more Scotch. And even though the dude behind the counter asked if I was all right, I think the effects of the government’s drugs have worn off by now. I think it’s safe to look for Oz without compromising our operation. And even if it’s not, I can’t be alone any longer.

I figured if she were free, she’d be looking for work, and that would narrow the search, that is, unless she’d found that friend she was looking for, but I didn’t know who that could be, and I couldn’t think about that. I showered and shaved, but I still couldn’t rid myself of the
Hustler
Drakkar Noir samples that had entered my pores by osmosis. I wasn’t worried though. There were worse smells in Times Square.

DAY 31–37. PORN IN THE APOCALYPSE

When you manage worker compensation claims for over ten years, you start to know people. Which wounds can heal, and what breaks someone forever. I said from the beginning that losing the Net wouldn’t mean returning to a simpler time. Shatter both of a man’s kneecaps in an industrial accident, he won’t take comfort in crawling. He’ll undergo extensive surgeries, splints, physical therapy, and, ultimately, walk with crutches if that’s the best he can manage.

And it’s the same with porn. We need it back. But not the peep shows and smut peddlers of the ’70s and ’80s. We want all the ease, variety, and anonymity of the Internet. So sure, within weeks all the DVD and sex toy stores that Giuliani had pushed to Ninth Avenue in the ’90s crept back to Times Square proper, but there was more. Capitalism has risen to the challenge of creating Internet porn in the real world, because drunken frat boys and men in raincoats will always buy movies and mags from smiling Pakistanis in brightly lit stores, but the real money to be made was in servicing the millions who indulged in the privacy of their homes.

In addition to the proliferation of standard porn stores, a surprising number of costume shops have popped up. Seemingly legit Halloween stores, but since this is June, it doesn’t make sense. And though I was supposed to be looking for Oz, I had to investigate. I walked inside one on the corner of Forty-third and Eighth and was struck by its size. There were a few anemic shelves with cheap masks, despite the handful of quality costumes that had been in the window. An Orthodox Jewish man purchased a pirate disguise, and then a business-casual dude bought a plastic Spider-Man mask held on by a stapled rubber band. But instead of exiting with their purchases, both men headed toward a back door. The Jewish guy removed his yarmulke with one hand while reaching for the door with the other. I followed.

“Sir, you need a mask?” an employee asked.

“I’m not sure.”

I caught the door before it closed and ventured inside only to find a much bigger pornography store filled with men of all shapes and sizes. All wearing masks, and free to peruse the aisles without any fear of being seen or recognized. And if they’d been caught in the store’s antechamber before purchasing their disguise? Well, the shops were still good enough for plausible deniability.

Other than that, though, the store was pretty standard. Movie aisles were separated by categories. Big circular antitheft mirrors hung in the corners next to surveillance cameras. Aside from the masks, the only other difference I noticed was the proliferation of fetish porn and the disproportionately high clusters of men in those aisles. Businesses were adapting. Anonymity was profitable, and the more I cruised, the more women I saw too. All in disguise. After a few hours and several visits to similar stores, I went home—without Oz, but with several cheap masks and a variety of porn I would never admit to purchasing in real life. I almost wrote that down as “IRL,” but no need. This is the only life we know.

*   *   *

The morning came and the piles of magazines and DVDs didn’t make my bed any smaller or quiet the razor as it roared across my stubble. I was conscious of my toothbrush. Even the corduroy of my sports jacket. Every sound of morning was deafening, clearly defined and unmuted by another body to soften the tin-can room. A tree that falls alone in the forest still makes a sound. It just wishes it didn’t.

So as soon as I could leave, I fled to Times Square again. It was a good and loud distraction, and looking for Oz forced me to talk to people. I wish I could have Googled “NYC strip clubs” and “peep shows,” but, instead, I just wandered the city following the smut and trying to avoid the Apocalypse’s newest Internet zombies. Unlike the others who moved in circles re-creating their departed websites, these men roam the streets in file like a string of suddenly naked Rockettes, their flapping dicks as overt and nonsensical as their desire. Of course, I’m talking about the Chatroulette zombies. I could call them flashers, and I guess that’s all they are, except I’m not sure they would have come to this if not for the Internet. The website was like a gateway drug to their perversity. But at this point, who am I to judge?

I keep pretending I’m making progress, but when the Scotch runs out, the panic fills its place. Without Romaya, without a job, without the Internet, or even my companions, I have become too aware of time. And too aware of my attempts to kill it by describing a post-punk Aussie to random smut peddlers and strip-club bouncers. No one has seen her, and I wonder if she’s found a real job. A place to live. Her friend. But then why wouldn’t she leave word at the hotel desk? Could I really just be forgotten, defriended, blocked like some random name on the Internet?

For the first time as a New Yorker, I’m accepting the things people are trying to hand me because I don’t want to miss a lead. I gobble up the useless fliers being fed to me, but the barkers don’t know the girls, and the bouncers think I’m a cop so they don’t talk much. The girls talk, but only when you drop a twenty for a dance, and they’re too used to telling men what they want to hear to be helpful.

In one place, a blue-haired girl named “Osiris” approached me for a dance. Cleopatra eye makeup, torn fishnets, and Doc Martens. Maybe buds with Oz. It was worth a shot at least.

I set my fifteen-dollar Scotch aside in safety and offered up my lap.

I instantly got a dirty look from the black stripper I’d rejected minutes earlier, and it made me feel racist, but I didn’t have twenties for everyone, and I had to pick the girls I thought Oz would know. (That kind of makes Oz sound superracist.) In any event, Osiris turned her back, and bent to the floor so I could see what was about to be ground into me. Then she went to work.

“I’m looking for a girl,” I said.

“Well, you found her.”

“No, I don’t mean like that.”

My words were lost into the back of her head. She was sensing the pulse of the music with her outstretched arms while feeling for my rising erection with her ass. It was important to get proper alignment to facilitate the grind.

“What?” she asked.

“Could you turn around?”

She did a quick mental calculation. “Okay, but no touching.”

“No touching.”

She turned to straddle me, her thighs over mine.

“I’m looking for an Australian girl,” I said.

“I can be Australian,” she said in quite possibly the worst accent ever.

“No, you don’t understand—”

She took my hat and placed it on her head. “Crikey! Wanna come to the champagne room with me, mate?”

“You want to be an actress, don’t you?”

“I am an actress,” she said defensively, then returned to character. “And a crocodile hunter! Whaddya say? Champagne room?”

“No. I didgeridon’t, love,” I said. (She didn’t get it.) “But I’m looking for a real girl named Oz. About your height. And build. Actually from Australia. Have you seen her?”

And that’s pretty much the way it went for days. A barrage of twenties, overpriced drinks, and considerable chafing. I will never understand the appeal of strip clubs, and part of me was hating Oz for making me go on this search in the first place. I was at the end of my rope at FlashDancers today after the latest failed exchange with a Welsh stripper named Misty. I was already doubling up on locations. I headed for the exit as quickly as I could without creating any more friction than necessary in my stripper-grinded jeans.

“Brother, hold up a sec,” the bouncer called as I passed.

He was studying me in a way I was not accustomed to. I guess you have to go where you don’t belong to feel unique.

“What you after, man?” he asked, chewing on a toothpick.

“I’m looking for a girl from Australia. I can’t find her in any of the clubs. She calls herself Oz.”

“Shit. Who gave her a dumbass stripper name like that?”

“She’s not a stripper.”

“Not a stripper. Well, that right there might be your problem.”

“I don’t know where else to look. She was a webcam girl. I thought she might be looking for work.”

“Webcam and strippin’ not the same thing. Some of these girls have mad acrobatic skills.”

“Right. No offense intended,” I said. “Seen anyone like that? Ever-changing punk rock hair colors. Chain-smoking. And, y’know, from Australia?”