What in God's Name: A Novel

by Simon Rich

  “The End Is Near,” his sign read. “The World Will End in Fourteen Days.”

  Craig looked into Eliza’s eyes. “We’re running out of time.”

  Vince flipped through Craig’s research.

  “This Cliff guy seems pretty baller,” he said. “Cool beard, sick pickup lines. No wonder he’s rolling in pussy.”

  Eliza shot Craig a look.

  “We need to get him out of the picture,” Craig explained to Vince. “Otherwise Sam won’t have a shot.”

  The Archangel nodded. “We could just kill him,” he suggested casually.

  Craig coughed. “That might be a little much. I was thinking, maybe we could just get him to leave New York City?”

  Vince shrugged. “Even easier.”

  He slowly reclined in his chair and closed his eyes.

  “Eliza, take this down.”

  “I’m not your secretary.”

  “I’ll take it down,” Craig murmured.

  He took out a pad and pencil and watched as Vince Blake went to work.

  EARTH—ELEVEN DAYS UNTIL DOOMSDAY

  Cliff Davenport smiled proudly at his purchase. He’d never seen a prewar Underwood typewriter in such perfect condition. It was so sleek, so elegant, so authentic. It was just what he needed to finally start writing his novel.

  He’d tried to compose the work on a computer, but there was something so soulless about modern technology. It sucked all the romance out of the process. Literature wasn’t something you cranked out on a mass-produced laptop, like some corporate spreadsheet. He’d given up halfway through the first sentence.

  Now, after six months of searching, he’d finally found a suitable writing instrument. He could begin his novel at once. All he needed was some ink, some ribbons, a ream of soft French paper, a pleasant office, a comfy leather chair, a simple oak desk, a vase or two of fresh-cut flowers, and a bottle of overproof absinthe to stimulate his imagination. He hadn’t yet arrived at a subject for his novel, but he was sure one would come to him in time.

  “It’s four thousand bucks,” said the gruff-voiced clerk behind the counter.

  Cliff smiled sympathetically at the merchant. The poor man obviously knew nothing of art. His life was a coarse one, a moment-to-moment, animalistic struggle for survival. He spent his days among beautiful typewriters, but to him they were merely “goods”—inert pieces of metal to be bought and sold like any other commodity. The irony nearly brought tears to Cliff’s eyes.

  “Your Visa’s not going through,” the man told him.

  Cliff smiled. “There must be some mistake.”

  “I tried it three times.”

  “Huh,” Cliff said. “Well…here’s my AmEx.”

  He watched with some anxiety as the shopkeeper swiped his card—then reswiped it.

  “No dice,” he said. “Sorry, kid.” He picked up the typewriter with a grunt and lugged it back to the shop-window.

  “You must’ve done it wrong,” Cliff said. “Pressed the wrong button or something.”

  The shopkeeper folded his arms impatiently. “Do you want me to swipe it again?”

  “No,” Cliff said, collecting himself. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  He staggered outside and shakily lit a hand-rolled cigarette. After a few long drags, he worked up the courage to call his father.

  “Clifford, where the hell have you been?” the old man shouted. “I must’ve called a dozen times.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Cliff said. “Listen—there’s a problem with my credit cards. They don’t seem to be working.”

  “I know. I canceled them.”

  “What?”

  “Jesus, Clifford! Have you listened to any of my voice mails?”

  Cliff admitted that he hadn’t.

  “The company’s in shambles,” his father informed him. “My net worth has dropped eighty percent in three days. This fiasco has ruined us!”

  “What fiasco?”

  His father cursed under his breath. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  “I don’t own a television,” Cliff said proudly.

  “Well, I’ll fill you in when you get home. Just take some cash out of the machine and buy a ticket back to Michigan. And fly coach, for God’s sake! This bohemian lifestyle of yours isn’t going to cut it anymore.”

  Cliff gritted his teeth. “I see,” he said. “Because I’ve chosen an artistic path, I’m being cut off. Cast out.”

  “What? No—I just can’t pay your rent anymore.”

  “I don’t need you to support me,” Cliff declared. “All great artists go through periods of poverty. All I need to survive are a few blank sheets of paper, a brush, and a little loft to store my canvases.”

  “Your little loft is costing me twenty-nine hundred bucks a month. I’m sorry, kiddo. You’ve got to come home.”

  “But Dad, I want to stay!”

  Cliff bit his lip, embarrassed by his childish outburst. “I’m sorry for ranting,” he said, in as deep a voice as he could muster. “It’s just, when I think about my art, I get so fired up. It’s like a flame inside my heart that won’t stop burning.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Cliff sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “I told you it’d be easy,” Vince said, kicking his feet up onto Eliza’s desk.

  Craig scrolled through the figures in shock; in just three days, Vince had practically bankrupted Cliff’s family. The Davenports were so financially destitute that Cliff would have to live at home indefinitely. There was even a chance he would have to find some kind of job.

  “That was fast,” Eliza conceded. “But I still think the way you handled it was pretty crass.”

  “It’s not crass if it works.”

  They both glanced at Craig, clearly waiting for him to take a side.

  He flashed them an awkward smile. “I think it’s time for some more coffee.”

  He hurried off to the break room, threw on a pot, and waited for it to percolate. He agreed with Eliza; Vince’s miracle was one of the most tasteless things he’d ever witnessed.

  That said, he couldn’t fault the Archangel’s reasoning. The Davenport fortune was almost completely wrapped up in Americo Pastries Company stock. If you wanted to bankrupt them, you had to devalue their company’s shares. And the only way to do that was to tarnish the company’s image.

  For over thirty years, Regis Philbin had served as the official spokesperson for the Americo Pastries Company. He was the public face of the brand, even more than Cliff’s father. Vince had zeroed in on him immediately.

  “We’re gonna use Regis good,” he pronounced ominously. “We’re gonna use him real good.”

  Regis Philbin had recently agreed to plug APC on his live morning show. The company was launching a new product—Banana Bread Bonanza—and was counting on him to unveil it to the world. He began the promotional segment by extolling the new product’s taste (“It ain’t too sweet—or too sour!”). Then, to prove that his praise was genuine, the elderly talk show host happily swallowed a sample. Within three seconds he began to vomit. The look of shock on Regis’s face, coupled with the intensity of the vomiting, turned the incident into a YouTube sensation. After 23 million views, Philbin had no choice but to release a statement.

  For the past three decades, it has been my great privilege to serve as the North American spokesman for Americo Pastries. I would just like to make clear that the sickness I experienced on my show this morning had nothing to do with the quality of that company’s product. Americo has always produced top-notch pastries that are delicious, nutritious, and fun for the whole family. Their taste and value can’t be beat. Tomorrow morning on my show I will repeat the segment so that everyone can see there is nothing to fear.

  The following morning 2.8 million viewers were watching as Regis took his seat, surrounded by an array of Americo muffins and Danishes. After reading and responding to a few get-well cards from celebrities, he tried one of the
Danishes and immediately started vomiting again. This time it was the velocity more than the volume that astonished viewers; the vomit arced out of his mouth in a perfect parabola—landing on the other side of the stage. It was almost as if it had hit some kind of invisible wind current.

  Regis’s next statement was shorter:

  In my rush to clear the good name of Americo Pastries, I did not take into account the severity of my illness. I have decided to take a day off from work, during which the network will be showing “The Best of Regis,” featuring all the stars and segments you’ve come to love. When I return, I will complete the Americo Pastries segment so that we can all move on from these unfortunate events.

  Over 9 million Americans woke up early to watch Regis’s return, making it the highest-rated morning television broadcast since the coverage of Princess Diana’s funeral. Regis, clearly anxious to get the segment over with as quickly as possible, chose to forgo his customary introduction. Instead, he walked straight out onto the set and took a seat in front of the pastries.

  “Third time’s a charm!” he said, prompting polite laughter from the studio audience.

  The studio fell into a hushed silence as Regis inched his hand toward the plate. He started to reach for a Danish, then hesitated, clearly traumatized by his recent experiences. After a lengthy pause, he selected a simple corn muffin from the tray. He was smiling when he bit into it, but as many YouTube commentators would later point out, there was an unmistakable look of terror in his eyes. The first bite went down cleanly, and for a moment Regis seemed to relax. No sooner had he leaned back in his chair, however, than a torrent of vomit spewed volcanically out of his screaming mouth.

  The next official statement came from Philbin’s lawyer.

  Regis Philbin has decided not to renew his contract as North American spokesman of the Americo Pastries Company and will be moving on.

  FDA scientists could find nothing wrong with the pastries. Regis had simply gotten spontaneously sick on three separate occasions, a random victim of various airborne pathogens. But it was too outlandish a coincidence; everyone blamed Americo. The company had no choice but to issue a mass recall of its pastries to allay consumers’ fears. The stock fell nearly 85 percent.

  Craig hid in the break room for as long as he could, but when he returned to his cubicle, the air was still thick with conflict.

  “He’s an old man,” Eliza was saying. “Can you imagine how frightening all this must have been for him? One moment he’s fine—the next moment he’s vomiting?”

  Vince grinned slyly. “Come on,” he said. “You’ve got to admit it was entertaining.”

  “It was revolting!”

  “Guys, please,” Craig interrupted. “What’s done is done, and we don’t have time to argue.”

  He pulled up Raoul on his computer, and the prophet’s cardboard sign made him gasp.

  “‘The World Will End in Eight Days,’” Eliza read. “I can’t believe this—we’re down to single digits!”

  “Huh,” Vince said. “Then I guess I better stop holding back.”

  Craig put down his coffee mug and rose to his feet for the first time in twelve hours. He’d been working for so long that his dress shirt had adhered to his chair. It made a disgusting sound when he stood up, like a Band-Aid being ripped off a wound.

  “Did you crack it?” Eliza asked hopefully.

  “Not quite.”

  She nodded. Two Chance Encounters in two weeks was a lot to expect from any Angel, even one as brilliant as Craig.

  “What’s tripping you up?” Vince asked.

  “I don’t know. There are just too many variables.”

  He grabbed a pad of paper from his desk and drew a rough map of the Lower East Side.

  “Sam’s apartment is here,” he explained, drawing a stick figure at the corner of Ludlow and Delancey.

  “And Laura lives here.” He drew a long-haired stick figure on the corner of Forsyth and Stanton. “That means, technically, she’s on his way to work. Should be easy, right? But here’s the thing—they never cross paths.”

  “Why not?” Vince asked.

  “Two reasons. First, Laura almost never leaves her apartment. Sam could sit on her front stoop for hours and still not run into her. Second of all, Sam never walks to work. He always takes the subway.”

  “But it’s only eight blocks away.”

  “I know,” Eliza said. “He’s incredibly lazy.”

  “What if the weather’s nice?” Vince asked.

  Craig sighed. “It doesn’t matter if it’s seventy-two degrees and sunny. He won’t do it.”

  “Wow.” Vince wrinkled his nose. “I’m surprised he isn’t fatter.”

  “We gave him salmonella,” Eliza explained.

  Vince raised his eyebrows, impressed, and Eliza smiled proudly in spite of herself.

  “Anyway,” Craig said, “I’ve figured out a way to get Laura outside.”

  He pulled up her apartment on his computer and zoomed in on her crumpled jeans.

  “She wears these same filthy jeans every day. And the pockets are falling apart.” He clicked his mouse a few times, zeroing in on her left buttock.

  “See?” he said, pointing at the tattered fabric. “It’s full of holes. All I have to do is force some contact—make her slip on the sidewalk or something—and her keys will fall right through.”

  “That’s perfect!” Eliza said. “She’ll have to call her super and wait for him outside the front door.”

  “Exactly. She’ll be set in a specific location.”

  “What about Sam?” Vince interrupted. “How do you get him to walk by?”

  “I don’t know,” Craig admitted. “Like I said, he always takes the F train to work—one stop, from Essex to Second Avenue. It’s not like we can tell him to stop doing that.”

  Vince grinned. “What if we stopped the train?”

  Eliza squinted at him suspiciously. “How?”

  The Archangel shrugged. “I don’t know. A crash, maybe? Or an earthquake?”

  Eliza rolled her eyes. She was about to change the subject when Craig interrupted her.

  “We could easily crash the F,” he said. “Just a couple of brake jams, and we could knock it right out of commission.”

  “Easy peasy,” Vince agreed.

  Eliza stared at her colleagues in shock. “You’re actually considering crashing the F train?”

  Craig nodded glumly. “We might have to. You know what a fat ass Sam is. As long as that train is running, he’s going to ride it.”

  “I know,” Eliza said. “But if there’s a crash, won’t that cause other problems? We’re talking about fire trucks and ambulances—hundreds of vehicles descending on the Lower East Side. What if some cop barricades Sam’s path?”

  Craig sighed. “You’re right. It’s too risky.”

  The three of them sat for a minute in silence.

  “You know,” Craig said cautiously, “there is another way to stop the train. But it would take some real doing.”

  He pulled up a recent New York Post article. The MTA was right in the middle of contract negotiations with the union, and the annual budget was due in thirty-six hours. Both sides were “optimistic” about reaching an agreement. But if talks broke down somehow, and the deadline passed, every train in New York would be grounded.

  “A transit strike could work,” Eliza said. “But how can we cause the sides to disagree?”

  “Yeah,” Craig said. “It’s not like we can control their thoughts.”

  “That’s true,” Vince said. “But maybe we can control their moods.”

  He slid his swivel chair over to Craig’s computer and grabbed the mouse.

  “Why don’t you two take a coffee break?” he said. “I’ve got this one under control.”

  Vince scanned the globe. People everywhere were flipping through newspapers, asking tough questions, debating the issues of the day. He laughed to himself. The humans believed that they were rational creatures,
governed by their values and belief systems. In fact, almost all of their choices were based on what they had eaten for breakfast, whether or not they had slept well, and how long it had been since their last satisfactory orgasm.

  In Vince’s opinion, these three factors—breakfast, sleep, orgasm—accounted for most events in human history. Benedict Arnold was a naturally sour person. But he never would have betrayed his country had it not been for the mosquitoes in his bedroom, depriving him of sleep for weeks and stripping his mind of reason. The Magna Carta might have been an ingenious document. But King John never would have signed it had it not been for his teenage mistress and the generous mood she engendered in her aging ruler.

  An undercooked sausage, a snoring spouse—these were the events that shaped the world. Governors were three times more likely to sign a death warrant if they hadn’t had their coffee yet. And surgeons performed best when they were in love. There were other factors at play in human decision-making—allergies, bowel regularity, and headaches, for instance. But almost all were biological and remarkably easy to manipulate. Any Angel worth his wings could do it.

  He stared at the screen. A dozen lawyers from the MTA and the Transport Workers Union had gathered in a City Hall conference room. Neither side wanted a strike, but Vince had done his best to make everybody as ornery as possible. His first move was to break an overhead steam pipe. The room’s temperature was eighty-six degrees and climbing fast. None of the lawyers wanted to remove their jackets—taking off one’s clothes could be interpreted as a sign of weakness. But the heat eventually became unbearable. At the ten-hour mark, the lawyers came to a mutual agreement to remove their coats. Four hours later, they agreed to strip to their undershirts. At the twenty-hour mark, one of the junior counsels became so overheated that he pulled his superior aside and asked if he could remove his undershirt and go naked from the waist up. When his request was denied, he walked into the bathroom and passed out.