Lurkers Page 14
‘So, what you need is a bodyguard. Someone who can sit there silently and direct the fanboys away from you.’
‘Think I could write one off?’
‘Doubt it.’
‘Then it’s redundant. The cops want taxes to maintain the peace? Then I expect them to do it.’
‘They maintained the gangies before.’
‘Two seconds before one shot me. That’s not prevention. That’s not maintaining peace: it’s diffusing a crime in progress and returning the world to a perceived state of peace in which idiots are allowed and possibly encouraged to assault me.’
She shrugged. ‘People have a right to say things. To some extent, you’ve just got to put up with that.’
‘I’m not talking about free speech; I’m all for that. But free speech has in fact got limitations. Prior restraint: you can’t use free speech to defame or threaten or defraud. And you can’t use it as an excuse to force me to put up with you in a restaurant. The gangies are a good example: loud, stupid, annoying little creatures; that was irksome, but arguably legal until one of them started talking to me directly. That’s when free speech ends and assault begins. Add the implication of real danger that I had to talk to the imbecile and be nice at the same time or I’d get shot, and...well, that’s when the cops did get involved, however coincidentally.’
‘We’ll get you a bodyguard,’ she said.
‘I don’t want a bodyguard. That’s a step toward becoming Rosie O’Donnell with her insane idea that no one should have a gun but the guy guarding her. It would certainly be a concession that, while I’m supposed to be living in a world with rules, those rules are ignored to the degree that I’ve got to pay extra for additional, actually enforceable rules. I’d be okay with a bodyguard; but, if I’m paying someone, what, at least fifty thousand a year to replace the police, then I don’t wanna hear from the police. They had their chance to do their jobs; they failed; I replaced them. No pulling me over for the unwritten crime of driving a car from the Reagan Administration in my neighbourhood of rich, elitist idiots.’
‘You’re already fixing that,’ she said, ‘You’re phonecamming them and exploiting them on your website.’
‘Only because those I’ve filmed to date presumed that they were being filmed live, or that I could upload the footage before they could get the phone away from me.’
‘You think a cop would take your phone and cover it all up?’
‘I think an idiot getting caught breaking a law will break more laws to ensure getting away with it,’ I said, ‘I think that cop before, trying to invent a circumstance in which he’d be allowed to search me, might invent a circumstance in which my phone could disappear. I think that, if I’d been filming him in front of a whole restaurant, he wouldn’t have suggested that I’d been acting suspicious enough to be searched.’
‘That’s probably true.’
‘Really sad is that, if I had a bodyguard, to whatever extent I’d deserve one apart from being able for whatever reason to pay for one, the cops wouldn’t fuck with him, if they’d even showed up before he’d handled the gangies they considered criminal enough to go do something about.’
‘So you’d be preventing a police state,’ she said, ‘You’d be helping to maintain civility without involving the cops. That’s implied in society, isn’t it? Apart from failing to commit crimes, aren’t we supposed to be doing our part to prevent them?’
‘Legally, yeah; socially, no. Remember Wapner’s little buttmuppet? “Don’t take the law into your own hands: take’em to court”? A couple generations of people took him too seriously.’
‘So take the law into your own hands anyway,’ she said, ‘At worst, an idiot sues you for it. And no judge is gonna take the people bothering you very seriously.’
‘So now I’m missing deadlines because I’m busy in court countersuing idiots for existing at me.’
‘And keeping the bookrights for each case. You could be, like, a really angry Ralph Nader.’
‘I’d never get the books written,’ I said, ‘Knowing people, they’d come over to fuck with me just to become famous.’
‘Well, probably.’
‘Evolution,’ I said, ‘Darrow explained Darwin’s natural selection: that it’s not the strongest of a species which survives, but the most adaptable to change. What I really need to do is to adapt to a world warholled into thinking it’s important enough to warrant my attention. Learn to write things at home. Or buy a restaurant and replace the bodyguard with a manager who’ll ban idiots trying to bother me.’
‘That might be a writeoff,’ she said.
‘I’d do it if the laws didn’t still prevent me from smoking in it,’ I said, brandishing what little remained of my cigarette.
SIXTEEN
I sat down at the laptop again: the cursor blinking meaninglessly, a harsh but tiny vertical line amidst a sea of whitespace on the screen, I saved the book I was no longer writing and clicked the laptop shut again, slumping a bit in my seat.
‘Again?’ Leslie asked.
‘Still,’ I said.
‘You got stuck?’ Chuck asked.
I shrugged. ‘I’m just not in the mood, I guess.’
HippyGuy glanced at me, then turned to HippyChick, mumbling something I couldn’t make out—probably about me. Pusillanimous fucktard. Beyond, Hutch snuck a peek in my direction, saw me see him, and turned to face George across 74 again. No one spoke for a moment—not even George, whose attention for the sprinkler above his seat was bordering on stalkerdom.
‘The problem...,’ I began, then paused, trying to figure out precisely what the problem was; then: ‘The alienbook is fucked; it’s just not working. So I’m thinking about this other thing: writing about, like, this—sitting in a restaurant and...that’s not working either.’
‘The more realistic thing,’ Chuck said.
‘Yeah. And reality kinda sucks. I mean: I could have written about people lurking all night in a restaurant, ten or twenty years ago, when people still did that; today, that there are, what, four of us here? Four tables, I mean. There’s whatever’s over there in the vestigial smokefree section; but they never really counted anyway. But look at this place: one twenty—one twenty-one in the morning, and no one’s here. To write a book about people in a restaurant, I’d have to set it not in two thousand nine, but nineteen ninety-nine; maybe nineteen eighty-nine. Today, reality is boring and sad.’
‘So do that,’ Chuck said.
‘It was boring then, too,’ I explained, ‘That’s why there were people here: they had nothing better to do. We’re talking about a time when the most advanced electronic gadget on the market was the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original NES, with its weird, cubic controllers, before the Super Nintendo in nineteen ninety. We’re talking about a time when one in a million of us had mobilephones; more people today have satphones. Russia was massive and soviet and not evidently imminently moribund. Things were different, but not entirely better.’
‘Maybe you could write a modern, fictional version,’ Chuck suggested, ‘Change the facts: create an America where people can smoke indoors. One of those alternative history things. You could have, like, a President McCain or something.’
‘I doubt he’d have led to smoking indoors,’ I said, ‘His people still support the bans: republicans don’t as a habit hate corporations enough to castrate their freedoms of policy, but their makebelieve makes them fear smoke and fire and brimstone.’
‘They’re not exactly people persons, either,’ Chuck said, ‘So you’re doomed either way. Democrats prevent corporations from allowing smoking; republicans prevent people from smoking as a matter of choice.’
I smirked. ‘It’s funny, if you think about it. Really funny. You know what I notice most? Just sitting here like this, I kinda wanna smoke simply because I want to smoke. Not because I need to. To whatever extent I chainsmoke—and the case could probably be made—it’s not really about that. I don’t quite care enough to bother getting up
and going outside all that often. And that’s now, while it’s warm out there; winter would really suck. Which of course is part of the whole deadline process: the simple fact is that, if I can’t at this point in history go outside for a cigarette without freezing off the fingers I’ll need for typing once I get back inside, trying to write a book in a restaurant—something I kinda need to do, for better or worse—it’s not gonna get done by the end of the year; I’d have to take the winter off, shelving a novel from about October until around May. And that’s just me, where I’m a minority within a minority. You know what I have to wonder about? Cripples. Or, if you like, “persons with mobility issues”. I’m impressed by how much the antismokers must hate the cripples, forcing them to limp their handicaptastic carcasses the hell outside. Ever seen that? It’s deplorable. They look like bums. Not the happier, more potential homeless, but bums. Broken, pathetic derelicts littering the walkways outside restaurants and offices: huddled masses not unlike those refugees this country was once known for taking in, discarded to the status of human biohazard in the twenty-first century. They could smoke in here, the apotheosis of gaiety and eutopia; I’m actually a little surprised that provisions aren’t in place for them—they get crippled parking spots, so why not crippled sections with ashtrays and other things within handy reach. But, no: people hate cripples, allowing for the moment that they can have good parking spots and ramps up to the door; but, once inside, they don’t count to the degree that healthy yet fragile chickenlittle types whose fear of all things smoky count. Republicans might like businesses over people, but democrats seem to hate the streetlevel citisenry to minimally the same degree as the quoteunquote “neocons” reportedly do.’
‘I suppose that’s a point worth making,’ Chuck said, ‘Put it in the book, at least as an element, if not the whole thing—the moral, or whatever.’
‘No one would care anymore,’ I said, ‘The war’s over. We were on the losing side, if not necessarily the wrong side.’
‘The browncoats,’ he said.
‘As it were.’
‘You know,’ Leslie said, ‘You could just combine the two. Stick with the alienbook, using it to make the point. Maybe, given the stuff you’ve written to date, pull one of your trademark’ unhappy happy endings: the aliens invade, kill the majority, leaving Our Antiheroes in charge of the world.’
‘Meh.’
‘I know: “Don’t tell you what to put in your book”; but, you know—it’s an option. Or something.’
‘I guess,’ I said, glancing at my watch: 1.23 now.
‘Maybe it’s just one of those nights,’ Leslie said, ‘The kind where you can’t get anything written, and really shouldn’t try forcing it. It happens.’
‘It shouldn’t,’ I said, ‘It’s just about typing, really. I know the story—the alienbook story. The most I’d have to come up with during the process itself is the minutiae of dialogue and shit. Stuff you don’t really plot out in advance while thinking through the overall concept. Stuff doing little more, really, than adding to the total wordcount.’
‘Dialogue’s what you’re good at,’ she said.
‘Maybe. But...yeah: maybe I’m just in the wrong mood. Not that there’s a right mood. That I’m functionally thinking about two different books now...that always fucks me up. If I try to focus on one thing, I get this sneaking suspicion that I’m neglecting the other one. Like Child Services are gonna come after me, or something.’
‘There’s probably a book in that, too,’ she said.
‘Oh sure: give me a third one to neglect.’
‘Or to merge in with the other two.’
I thought about it for a second. ‘Wouldn’t work. Now you’re talking about a book about a guy in a restaurant—probably a writer, since that’s kinda my perspective of the world—in a world being invaded by aliens, all while the, like, Book Police are bugging him about...I dunno: it’s too goofy to think about.’
Leslie shrugged. ‘Good. That only leaves you with two.’
‘Two and a half,’ I said, ‘I might not rule out a book about cripples being closed out of the world by those who used to champion for them before getting all selfabsorbed.’
‘A human disinterest story,’ Chuck said.
I frowned a bit. ‘Also kinda stupid. I don’t even know any cripples; maybe none of them smokes. Hell: the only cripple I can even think of is, like, Greg House. And that doesn’t really count. Though, thinking about it, I guess he does smoke.’
‘He does?’ Chuck asked.
‘A little,’ I said, ‘The occasional cigar, at the least. He’s got an ashtray in his flat. Not that it matters: given how much shit I get for being me, where I’m arguably less abrasive, I don’t see that guy getting away with a tenth of the shit he’s magically able to do, crippled or not.’
Chuck laughed shortly. ‘So get a cane and find out: you might be surprised.’
‘I’d probably be disappointed,’ I countered, ‘If people suddenly made concessions for me, including leaving me the hell alone, simply because I had a limp—a limp I could for all they knew be faking—I’d...I get that people are meaningless morons now; that would push me over the edge I’ve been uncommonly gravityfree next to all this time.’
‘Is this still about a book?’ Chuck asked.
‘Probably not,’ I said, ‘It’s more about my plans for global suffering the instant I do in fact become Oligarch of the Universe.’
‘That could be an interesting day,’ Chuck said, ‘If a short one for pretty much everyone alive at the time.’
‘I’d hate to be boring,’ I acknowledged.
George dropped his vigil of the sprinkler. ‘Two, four, six, eight; one, two, four, eight; sixty-four, thirty-two, sixteen, eight; forty ninety-six, five twelve, sixty-four, eight. Damn.’ He shook his head sadly, mumbling, ‘Seven, eight, nine...nine, eight, seven. Eight, nine, eight? Nine, eight, eight; eight, eight, nine; damn.’
‘Counting something? Hutch asked George.
‘Four thousand, ninety-six,’ George said, then pointed at Hutch, wildeyed, possibly guessing his weight: ‘Five hundred twelve.’ He looked at the sprinkler again. ‘Sixty-four. Eight. Eight, eight, nine. Damn.’
I opened the laptop and punched the numbers George was obsessing over into Word, just to have them there:
889
4096
512
64
8
16
32
64
1
2
4
8
Apparently, he was just going through factors involving eight. And 8/8/9, presumably 8 VIII 9: 8th August 2009, which had become the date as of midnight. I saved the list to lizardpeople.doc and looked up again.
Leslie was watching me. So: ‘I think he’s upset that it’s not seven eight nine anymore.’
‘Huh?’
‘August the seventh, two thousand nine,’ I said, ‘or, seventh August two thousand nine: seven slash eight, slash nine. Zero nine, I suppose. He’s probably autistic, or just schizophrenic—arrested by numerical anomalies.’
‘He wants eight slash eight slash eight,’ she said.
‘That was a year ago,’ I said ‘Maybe he’ll be happy on September the ninth.’
‘Nine slash nine slash nine,’ she decided.
‘Yeah.’
‘So, what’s five twelve,’ she asked.
‘Eight to the third.’
‘Oh.’
George wasn’t done yet. ‘Five twelve,’ he said, ‘Five plus twelve is nineteen. Forty ninety-six. Four plus nine plus six is nineteen. Sixty-four. Six plus four is ten. Plus eight. Eighteen. Nine, eight, eight. Six plus four plus nine.’ And he grinned victoriously at the sprinkler.
I looked at the numbers in lizardpeople.doc again, adding to the file:
8/8/9
4+0+9+6=19
5+1+2=8; 5+12=17
64
8
16
32
64
1
2
4
8
‘Huh,’ I said, ‘He got it wrong. Five and twelve are seventeen. Though five, one, and two are eight again. So, I dunno.’
George was looking at me. And, while I doubt he could have heard me talking to Leslie while he’d been mumbling numbers, he nodded. ‘Five plus twelve is seventeen; four plus nine plus six is nineteen; five plus one plus two is eight; one plus seven is eight; one plus eight is nine.’ And he grinned again, having won something.
I looked at the file again, adding that in:
8/8/9
4+0+9+6=19; 1+9=10; 9-1=8
5+1+2=8
5+12=17; 1+7=8
64
8
16
32
64
1
2
4
8
And I looked at George again, thinking of correcting his math. Before I had a chance, though:
‘Four plus nine plus six is nineteen; nine minus one is eight! Five plus one plus two is eight! Five plus twelve is seventeen; one plus seven is eight!’
‘I guess he got it,’ I said.
Then, this happened: ‘Six plus four is ten, plus eight is eighteen, plus one plus six is twenty-five, plus three plus two is thirty, plus six plus four is forty; one plus two is three, times eight is twenty-four; four minus two is two, times four is eight, plus four is twelve, times forty is four eighty, minus sixty-four, minus eight, minus sixteen, minus thirty-two, minus sixty-four, minus one, minus two, minus four, minus eight is two eighty-one. Divided by sixty is four hours and forty-one minutes! They’re coming!’
I looked at the clock in the lower right: 1.27 AM. ‘It’s one twenty-seven now,’ I said, ‘So...a little after six in the morning, I guess.’
‘We’ll probably still be here,’ Leslie added, rolling her eyes.
‘Not really planning on it,’ I told her, ‘Not at this rate, anyway.’