So Yesterday (23 page)

We reached the sanctuary of the storeroom and squeezed
ourselves between high shelves of boxes ranked by size and make, Antoine
pushing a rolling library ladder out of our way.

"What's that smell?" he asked as the shoe
box opened.

"Jet engine," Jen said matter-of-factly,
unwrapping the shoe from its paper.

When it came into the light, Antoine's eyes began to
shine. He took it gingerly from her hands, rotated it to every side in turn,
checking eyelets, tongue, laces, tread.

A minute later he whispered, "Where did it come
from?"

"Bootleg," Jen said. "But they were all
destroyed. That's the last one as far as we know"

"Damn."

"The client will be doing
a version," I said. "But this is the original."

He nodded slowly, his eyes
never leaving the shoe. "They won't do it right. Not like this. Some
committee will mess it up."

"And it'll never have
that." I pointed to the anti-logo.

He laughed. "Guess I won't
be wearing them to work."

"There's no them. Only
one survived."

"Damn."

I swallowed. "The thing
is, I have to sell it. Serious money problems."

He looked at me, waiting for
the catch.

"I
have
to sell it, okay?" I
said.

"Huh. Never figured you like that, Hunter. But if
you need the money, you need it."

"I do," I said,
sounding like the groom at a shotgun wedding.

"How much?"

"Well, you see, I've got this credit-card bill,
and it's about a thousand dollars—"

"Done."

It wasn't until we were out on the street, cash in
hand, that I realized I could have asked for more.

************************************

The punch line to this tragic little tale is that the
client never released the shoe. They never intended to.

Instead, they pirate little bits of it every season.
Like Frankenstein's monster in reverse, the shoe is being slowly disassembled,
its beautiful organs transplanted into a dozen different bodies.

You've probably seen the shoe yourself if you've kept
your eyes on the ground, but only in pieces. It's easy to recognize, on the
client's products and a dozen knockoffs and bootlegs—that part of any shoe that
rewires your brain, makes you think for a moment that you can fly. But you'll
never hold the whole thing in your hand. It went up in smoke.

Still, you can't blame the client for following the
first rule of consumerism: Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream
into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package
our aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart.

At least Antoine got good value for his money: he got
the real thing.

************************************

And I got Jen.

We wound up kissing after the shoe was sold and gone,
out on the street in the Bronx, me a little bit nervous about the thousand
dollars stuffed into our pockets, big wads of small bills. (Try it sometime—it's
pretty intense.) And after that we went back downtown and back to work, me
knowing that I was following a compass whose needle swung toward trouble. Jen's
an impact player, a spoiled brat, a royal pain in the ass, and she rewires me
like nothing else. But things get better when she turns them inside out.

Which she usually does.

Chapter WHATEVER

SO JEN AND
I ARE STILL WATCHING THE JAMMERS, WAITING

for their next move. But don't
try this at home. They're cashed up, dressed to move, and if they catch you
messing with them, they will turn your head purple.

Don't worry, though. You won't be left out. They're
coming soon to a shopping mall near you. They have an agenda, and it includes
everyone.

The Jammers are all around you, even if you can't see
them. Well, okay, they're not exactly invisible. A lot of them have hair dyed
in five colors, or wear six-inch platform sneakers, or carry enough metal in
their skin that it's a hassle getting on an airplane. Pretty easy to spot, come
to think of it.

But they don't wear signs saying what they are. After
all, if you knew what they were up to, they couldn't work their magic. They
have to observe carefully and delude and confuse you in ways you don't realize.
Like good tricksters, they let you think you've discovered chaos on your own.

************************************

So you ask the question: What
can the Jammers do, anyway? Won't they just fizzle like any other fad, fail
like a million other revolutions, wind up useless and bitter, like an orphaned
pile of pet rocks in the closet? Or can a small group of well-organized and
charismatic Innovators really change the world?

Maybe they can.

By my reading of history,
that's the way it's happened every time.

_{INNOVATORS
HALL
OF
FAME}

First person to jump out of an aircraft (a balloon) with a parachute:
André-Jacques Garnerin (1797)

First person to roll on classic "two-by-two" rollerskates:
James Plimpton (1863)

First person to reverse initial letters of two words to amusing effect:
Rev.
William Archibald Spooner (1885)

First person to put ice cream in a cone:
Agnes
B.
Marshall (1888)

First person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel:
Annie Edson Taylor (1901)*

First person to tie shoelaces in the "double-helix" pattern**
Montgomery
K. Fisher (1903)

First company to produce canvas-top sneakers:
Keds (1917)

First person to cut clothing "on the bias":
Madame Madeleine Vionnet
(1927)

*Don’t try this at home.
 
Or at Niagara Falls either.

**Also known as “the usual way.”

First crowd to do "the wave":
Mexico City Olympics
(1968)

First person to make a cell phone call
from
a NYC street:
Martin Cooper
(1973)

First person to scratch a record
on purpose:
Grand Wizard Theodore
(1974-5)

First person to use the phrase
'Future Sarcastic":
Cory Doctorow (2003)