Agents of the Internet Apocalypse (15 page)

“Careful with that jacket,” she said. “I gave you back the letter.”

I pulled it out and there it was. Again not where it belonged. I didn't understand.

“Well, what did you expect?” she asked. “You thought you could just sneak it into my Google shit and everything would be all right?”

I certainly couldn't argue with that, but I didn't have to. I had something better.

“But last night…”

She took a step outside so we were no longer in the same space.

“I had a really nice time,” she said, “but…”

I walked outside and shut the door behind me, jiggling the handle to make sure it was locked.

“But?” I asked.

“I had a really nice time,” she said again, and got into her car, and it didn't make me feel one bit better that she lowered her window and kept waving good-bye until she was completely out of sight.

*   *   *

Tobey found his tatted waitress friend Jynx and she sat us over at a reserved small side table, giving us a couple of Anchor Steams on the house. That was our reward for helping to fill the place with people. After about twenty minutes, she took one of the two mics set up on straight stands.

She was enthusiastic. “Welcome to The Hash Tag and the first official meeting for fans of
Notes from the Internet Apocalypse
!”

There was a giggle, and a twenty-something with those horrific ear plug things booed.

“Boo?” Jynx asked, unaccustomed to negativity.

“Just
Notes
,” he said correcting. “It's cleaner.”

“Oh, is that what we're calling it now?” Jynx asked, and looked over at Tobey and me. We shrugged. “Fair enough,” she said. “So let me introduce one of your two hosts for the night—but before I do, I just want to remind you we got our liquor license back, so in addition to the flavored tobacco and beer, we're also selling booze! And now without further ado … Tobey!”

Tobey took over Jynx's mic, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Before I bring up the man you might know as Gladstone or the Internet Messiah let me just say a few words … Butterfly. Earring. Frogurt.”

The room was silent. I was silent. Then I got the joke. He had said a few words. Then some people in the audience got it too, but still, no one laughed. You couldn't have asked for a more awkward, moment-killing introduction. I stood up and straightened my white fedora. Tobey took the lifeline.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Internet Messiah!”

About fifteen to twenty people in the crowd of fifty clapped enthusiastically, and I noticed a woman with cartoonishly long lashes, a short skirt, and horizontal striped stockings applauding with the kind of girlish fun that doesn't always accompany women with a bohemian fashion sense.

“Hello,” I said and paused, unsure how to give my name. Back at the hospital, I'd learned to be a whole person again. More than a screen name. But I also knew that nothing about recovery required me to give everything of myself to strangers. And even though this was the real world, it was still very much like an online experience. Here was a group of like-minded strangers congregated around something they didn't fully understand. Something they had very little desire to fully understand, but something they wanted to be part of. Raised on the Internet, they were less trusting of television. Anderson Cooper couldn't tell them what the next thing was. It was the congregated buzz that told them I was it. They wanted to see it, be part of it, and it had to be a group decision. They wanted to be part of that herd.

“I'm Gladstone,” I said, “and I'm looking for the Internet.”

It wasn't until after the crowd applauded that I realized I'd just quoted myself from the book. But whereas 4Chan met that assertion with derision, these folks welcomed the possibility. Their applause faded with my smile and then there was nothing except the waiting for more good news. But I had nothing for this group of twenty-somethings yet except the Internet phone book in my backpack over at my table. And that was too important to divulge freely. Not everything is meant to be a tweet or Facebook post. Some details deserve private messages.

“So,” I said. “I have some things to share, but I'd really like to get to know you all a bit first so—”

“Question,” said the guy with the plugs. He raised his hand, keeping his arm straight and rigid while the rest of his body slumped in his chair, seemingly ashamed of that appendage's effort.

“Yes?”

“I read your book, journal, diary, whatever.”

“And?”

“So, like, is it true?”

That was the obvious question and yet not the one I was expecting. “Well, it was the truth I knew at the time. I wasn't well,” I said.

“Right, so no disrespect dude, but what part of being batshit makes you qualified to find the Internet?”

“That's the ‘no disrespect' version?” Tobey asked. “What's the rude one? Same thing, but with more anal fisting?”

The crowd liked that. It was the Tobey they knew.

“I don't know,” I said, talking directly to the kid, without anger. “I can't explain that to you. I just know that I've been in contact with Anonymous and gotten Jeeves' blessing. Tobey and I have been up to Google and UCLA recently. We're investigating, but we need help. If you believe in the cause, we'd like that help to come from you. I have nothing to sell.”

A woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties was sitting off to the corner alone. Maybe it was her glass of white wine or her stylish glasses, but she seemed impossibly intelligent. “I have a bigger problem,” she said, not quite raising her hand. It was more of a point.

“First of all, I'm sorry about your marriage and isolation and all that.”

“Thank you.”

“But there's something no one's talking about. Why do you even
want
to find the Internet?”

I didn't understand the question.

“I mean now,” she clarified. “Why are you looking for it
now
? You're still the same guy who dumped all over the Internet in your journal, right? Just a way for millions of sad people to be alone together? You focused on every single negative, disgusting, dirty part of the Net, and now you're trying to bring it back?”

It was an interesting point, but interrupted by a pudgy kid at the front of the room who called out, “Hey, Tobey has black hair,” he said pointing to the shag escaping Tobey's baseball hat.

“Yeah, I got that wrong in the book,” I said.

“You don't even know your own friend's hair color?” he asked.

“Wait a second,” a college girl two tables away interjected. “I thought Tobey was fake. Y'know, made up.”

“No, that was Oz,” pudge said.

“Listen,” I said, with arms raised. “This isn't a book-club discussion. I need recruits. People to help with the investigation.”

“I'm all for that,” plugs said. “But why you? Just because you thought of it first?”

“FIRST!” another college kid shouted, raising his beer bottle with the label half off and flapping.

“Yeah, so why?” said plugs.

I didn't have an answer, but more importantly. I didn't want to give one. I didn't want to prove myself. I was me. I was here. Like jokes and love, my worth would be ruined if it had to be explained.

“So, no reason, then?” plugs concluded, and the room seemed to feel that was a fair conclusion. It was the shitty statement that would change the entire tenor of the comment thread. There would be piling on unless someone changed the flow again.

“Yeah, why you?” someone else called out. It was happening.

“Because he helped me,” a woman said.

It was the long-lashed girl. She was standing now, and holding a blue copy of
Notes
under her arm like a Bible. I could see the black Cleopatra eye makeup creating the illusion of larger eyes. She might have dabbed some white in the corner, extending the sclera. That trick usually makes you look a little cross-eyed, but because her eyes were already set slightly further apart, it seemed to work out. Regardless, it wasn't the makeup that made her eyes look so huge. It was because she could hold all of me in her sight. She was seeing the man I'd hoped to be and wouldn't explain. The room went quiet, and I looked at her along with everyone else.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“You helped me,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Do I know you?”

“We were Facebook friends.”

That didn't help. I had become Facebook friends with lots of people I didn't actually know. Mostly with people I didn't know. It's much better that way when you have no good news to post.

“I'm Alana,” she said. “And I don't usually look like this. I'm dressed as Oz for tonight…”

She smiled, and I could see her now, even if I couldn't remember her last name. She saw me scanning drunken late-night memories for more.

“We met online like two years ago,” she said. “Anyway, I was pretty depressed. I don't want to get into it, but you helped me, and I wanted to thank you. Although I guess I would like the Internet back, too.”

If you're a functional alcoholic, it's easy to find the start of a lost weekend. It's usually Friday night. But e-addiction is more subtle. They used to call BlackBerrys crackberrys because of how often we'd check them, but by the time the iPhone rolled around there was no cute name for this affliction. Now, it was just something we did. And it was like that for me. A way to unwind devolved into a way to see the world. I don't know when it went from a hobby to a way of life, but if you could somehow quantify the mess of my dropout, virtual life, Alana probably existed somewhere toward the start. The period shortly after Romaya left, when I was no longer going to work but not quite yet the near shut-in I'd become. She was a voice looking for help at the moment I threw my Scotch-laced self into comment threads and social media.

“I'm not sure how I helped you,” I said. “But I'm glad.”

“You listened,” she said. “And you heard me when no one else would. When even my friends wouldn't listen.”

I wondered if I were really that wonderful or if her friends were that awful. Probably neither was true. The Internet deserved the credit because in real life, the hardest part about being there for someone is knowing once you extend the effort to make something right, once you take someone from sad to happy, from suicidal to safe, they might ask you to do it again. And again. And surely you run that risk online, but it's easier to say good-bye. People get blocked. They have their chat privileges removed. There are more buffers between you and a real connection, making it easier to say hello and good-bye. Distance makes it easier to answer cries for help, knowing the Internet will never let your good deeds trap you into a pattern of selflessness.

Another man stood up. He was about my age, but had a much kinder face than I do. “You helped me too,” he said. Standing there in his cargo shorts and T-shirt, ten pounds too small, he didn't look familiar at all.

“I posted an adoption profile on Facebook when my wife and I were almost out of hope, and you shared it and even linked it on your Twitter.”

I was not (as truly sad people call themselves) “Twitter Famous” but my steady stream of puns and off-color tweets mocking dead celebrities had amassed me a following of about seven thousand. Compared to someone with an actual life, that meant a lot more exposure, so I understood why he was grateful, even if I didn't remember the posting.

“Did that lead you to a baby?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “The baby came about six months later, totally unrelated, but you have no idea how much it meant to my wife and me. Sometimes a kindness from someone you don't even know can mean the most.”

“I'm glad.…” I lingered for his name.

“Ed.”

“I'm glad, Ed. Will you help me bring back the Net?”

“Yes.”

“Alana, will you help me bring back the Net?”

“Yes.”

I addressed the whole room. “Do we have people here tonight who will help me find the Net?”

It wasn't a unanimous response by any means, but there was enough of a communal “yes” to be encouraged. I looked at Tobey, and he smiled back at me.

“Okay,” I said. “Here's what's going to happen. As you might have guessed, and as my friend with the hideous body scarification earrings mentioned, Tobey and I are a couple of fuckups. Nevertheless, we've learned more than you'd think possible. We've obtained information we believe narrows the field of possible suspects. As you can understand, that's not something we're going to share freely to a room full of unknown drunken Californian assholes like you. We want to know you better, so if you came to help, I'd like to ask you line up over here toward the left wall.”

People started to gather their drinks

“If, however, I dunno, you came to be part of some book club/cosplay fun and possibly have sex with Tobey, then hang to the right.”

“Thank you!” Tobey said earnestly, like I'd finally remembered the key point of tonight's gathering.

“Not at all, sir,” I replied. “So, I'm gonna leave it to you guys to police the lines, but Tobes and I are gonna sit at that bar there and drink and get to know you. You can come take a stool beside us one by one while we get your contact info and skill set. Cool?”

I didn't wait for a response. Spools and the smart lady had already thrown me enough with their questions. Now it was time to make executive decisions and hope others followed.

I took a step off the riser and as I headed to the bar made sure to pass by Alana's table. When she stood up I gestured, and she followed me to the bar, sitting beside me. So did Tobey.

“Be cool, man,” I said, nodding to empty seats further down the bar, and he slid a few down, proud that he was being empowered as an equal to do the canvassing of new talent. The spools guy was the first person to sit next to him.