Fakebook

by Dave Cicirelli

  “Be honest,” he said to me. “I don’t lie to people, and I don’t like being lied to. You can say whatever you feel. If you think they are pieces of shit, say ‘Freddy, these are pieces of shit.’ If you think I’m a piece of shit, say ‘Freddy, you’re a piece of shit.’”

  We both laughed. “I’m serious,” he continued. “I’ve heard it all. ‘Freddy, you’re shit. I hate you. Go to hell.’ I can handle it. I’m used to it.”

  “I think they’re pretty good,” I said. “I do. But there are things I would change…which I guess is why I’m here.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, these mice are really great. These metallic, pastel-colored accents really pop against the black body. It’s a really nice product.”

  “It’s our best seller,” he said with pride.

  “I believe it,” I said. “But look at the packaging. You have them sitting on a shiny silver backboard. It overpowers the color—it kills the contrast.”

  I took a mouse out of its packaging, along with the silver backboard. I placed them both on the black table.

  “See,” I said, holding the mouse over the silver insert. “Your eyes are drawn to contrast, so against the silver, you mostly see the black.”

  I then removed the silver so the mouse was sitting against the dark wood conference table. “And now, your eyes mostly see the color—and it’s these colors that make this product unique.”

  “Yeah, I do see,” Freddy said.

  I felt really good about what I saw. I could see us making decisions together, rather than throwing my work out to account staff proxies who then sent it to brand managers who then sent it to lawyers I’d never speak to. I could have a say here.

  “I think we could use a guy like you,” Freddy said. “We’ve been outsourcing all of our design work, but we’re a growing company. We have products selling like popcorn. We want to build an art department. We’re investing in it—spending lots of money.”

  My ears perked up a bit.

  “We want LiveWired to have a singular vision, from the product to the packaging. All of it. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds exciting.”

  “Now, I want to be totally honest with you. And you can always trust me. I never lie. But for the short term, you would be the art department. But we’re building, and it would be building underneath you.”

  “That sounds like an opportunity,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t want to keep you, but we’ll be in touch.”

  “Thanks, Freddy. Great meeting you.”

  I hopped on the subway and returned to Handler from my “lunch break.” An opportunity to build something, and it would be mine. That was tempting. When I walked back into the Handler PR graphics bullpen, I saw a reminder of how much was possible.

  Public relations is a unique place to be a designer. We’re not a known quantity the way a studio is in an ad agency, and it’s not why a client comes to a PR firm as if it were a proper design firm. But the big mission statement of PR is “get people talking,” and within that is an unrecognized opportunity for design.

  I started as an unpaid intern without a desk—landscaping three days a week so I could afford the train ride to the city. I did nothing but trim and file.

  Before the summer ended, however, I had a new art director who wanted to push things. Following her lead, we did. Design became part of how Handler did PR. We became a proper studio that won business and won awards. We built portfolios in an industry where it shouldn’t have been possible.

  I was proud of my part in that. It was a long road from cold-calling art directors and inventing an internship to the graphics bullpen with a wall full of awards. It was a long road indeed.

  But it felt at its end.

  “Wait? Now you’re hooking up with a girl from jury duty?” Mark said with surprise.

  “Well, yeah, I guess,” I answered back into my phone, as I rotated my living-room chair and caught a glimpse of my superhero shipper—compounding my sense of pride.

  “And the last girl…you met her on the JFK Air Train? I thought you were bad at this!”

  “Government infrastructure, it seems, is my sweet spot.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Your tax dollars at work.”

  “I thought what I was about to tell you would cheer you up, but doesn’t sound like you need it.”

  “I could always be happier. What’s up?”

  “A project came up at Lisa’s work, so she can’t make it to Jackson Hole. Want to take her place? Four days of skiing and eating game meat—leave Thursday night, come back Monday. It’s already paid for.”

  A free trip to the Rockies…that sounded pretty great. And lord knew I could use a vacation. But man…I’d spent a lot of time out of the office. The perception was that I’d had a month of half days. Asking for time off this soon after wouldn’t go over well, especially with short notice.

  Listen to me. A group of people used the phrase “pulling a Cicirelli,” but the real Dave Cicirelli was worried about taking a long weekend? Screw it. I was expecting an offer from LiveWired anyway.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sounds great.”

  The whole flight over, we were calling it a “bro-cation.” This, we decided, was like a normal vacation, but with a lot more high-fiving. The trip was off to a good start. But during the lulls in conversation on the flight there, I began to write.

  I was in a different place than at any other point of Fakebook. The end no longer felt a long way off, but almost imminent. If Fakebook crashed now, so be it. I was comfortable with my life, with its opportunities and its challenges. I felt capable, more sure-footed than I had been when I started this. I felt like I had some clarity.

  So when I wrote the long-awaited explanation of how Fake Dave ended up in Mexico, I wrote it uninhibitedly. It was long; it was insane; it was highly implausible.

  But it was more than that. It was an expression of all I’d done. It felt personal and, in its own way, completely honest. A couple hours after touchdown, from a hotel lobby in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I sent out the note that sent Fakebook toward its final, absurd conclusion.

  March 6: I’m Free…Free Falling

  I’ve always loved my country, but I’ve never had the opportunity to miss it. I miss it now, living in its shadow.

  I was so vulnerable when the Center recruited me. I was empty, desperate, and in pain. I was physically weak from the hospital, emotionally drained from Kate, and spiritually drained from the failures of my travel.

  I went to the Center with outward skepticism and arrogance, but deep down yearned for what they promised—belonging. But while they promised a path towards acceptance, they withheld its fruition—creating a sick dependency which controlled me.

  We were allowed to look no further than the Center. How could they build a paradise without quarantine from the wicked? We were told that outside influence created dissent, and dissent created conflict, which is what pushes us towards imbalance.

  But somewhere deep down I couldn’t quite commit to the idea, and I was caught posting to Facebook and the outside world.

  I only have a vague sense of what happened after that. I know there was isolation and sleep deprivation. Dream and reality meshed together, and the impossible things I saw looked and felt so real. During this time I had…almost a vision.

  I was back in my old life, walking down the street in New York. I realize I’m caught on something. It’s a web…no, more like a fabric that all of humanity is woven into, and it’s suddenly visible to me. Once I have this glimpse, I’m overcome with the urge to unlock its secrets. I begin to pull at the thread that holds me.

  As I loosen the stitching, I begin to float above the world, seeing more and more, gaining a deeper and deeper understanding of life, as I become less a part of it. Soon only a single, hair-widt
h thread anchors me. I can see almost everything. I’m so close to the epiphany that I yearned for, that clarity that I seek…to finally know the world and how it works…to finally understand…

  When I free myself of that final thread, for a moment, I float above the world and see everything.

  But then, like a bolt of lightning, I realize that I’m not floating. I never was. I’m falling. I am falling without any control, and the entire world is spiraling above me, spiraling out of reach. Finally, after an eternity of free fall, I see something far away, but falling with me.

  It is Kate.

  I yell for her, and she yells for me. But we continue to fall separately but together.

  She was just like me. We both sacrificed the lives we had for an empty promise. We were the only two people that could possibly ever relate to each other, and I pushed her away.

  ***

  When I woke up, I was in Mexico.

  Whatever the Center did to me was meant to break me down—turn me into a blank slate for the Center to write over. It sort of worked. I was purged, but purged of the Center.

  I feel clear. I’m in a bad spot, but it’s going to get better. I befriended people in the temple who got me in touch with a network of border crossers. If all goes well, I’ll soon be back in the States.

  I’m not sure what happens next, but for the first time in a long time, I feel prepared for it.

  Jay Patterson This sh!t is unreal man.

  less than a minute ago via mobile · Like

  Greg Cicchelli You need to write a book.

  less than a minute ago via mobile · Like

  Elliott Askew Am I the only person following this that thinks Dave’s story is bullshit? I mean…this stuff just doesn’t happen…

  just now · Like

  Uh oh.

  Last night, I created a post that could destroy Fakebook—but I didn’t know it yet. Instead I had breakfast on my mind.

  “I’ll have the duck sausage,” Mark said to the waitress, “and the bison bacon.”

  “Two sides?” the waitress at the Snake Creek Lodge asked.

  “Oh right. I guess eggs and toast as well,” Mark said.

  My brother’s gluttony is one of his most endearing qualities…if only because he enjoys it so damn much. He approaches each meal with such an unbridled, child-like sense of wonder and enthusiasm—like a kid who realizes he can have sprinkles on his ice cream.

  “I’ll just have the oatmeal,” I said, looking at the prices.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mark said.

  “No, I’m all right,” I said. “That’s all I want.”

  “You got it,” the waitress said, and began walking away.

  “Actually…” my brother called to her, “can you swap the eggs with…elk sausage?”

  Mark and I are very similar in a lot of ways, but we’re still separated by the lifestyle distance you can achieve between your midtwenties and your midthirties, and with an Ivy League MBA versus a state-school art degree. And more often than I’m comfortable with, when we get food together, he’ll pick up the bill.

  “Bro,” Mark said to me while I was scraping the last bit of oatmeal from my bowl. “Listen, I know some of these meals are expensive. But I got it. I won’t enjoy the trip as much if you just eat oatmeal.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But Mark, I don’t know…It’s like when I order something, I’m appealing to your generosity. I don’t want to assume things, you know?”

  “Of course not,” Mark said. “And the moment you act that way is the moment it ends.”

  “Ha. Fair enough,” I said, “but still. I don’t feel right about it.”

  Mark cut a slice of elk sausage and put it on my plate.

  “You pick up the beer,” he said, “and I’ll pick up the game meat. Take a bite.”

  So I did. “Holy shit!” I exclaimed. That was a rather inappropriate thing to yell out in a crowded family restaurant, but I stand by it. My god…why don’t we have more elk in the world?

  “Holy shit,” I whispered, looking somewhat sheepishly around the restaurant and eventually at my laughing brother.

  I’m a novice skier. This trip was just my third trip ever. But I’m halfway decent, considering. I spent the morning on my own, going down a few of the less challenging slopes. I felt pretty good.

  As early afternoon came around, I thought it time to join my brother on a more challenging trail, so I hopped on the gondola. It wasn’t a ski lift like the others, where your feet dangle. It was an enclosed tram car and I felt a little cheated of the open-air views. Still, even through the window I could appreciate the sheer aesthetic of Grand Teton looming over us and the skiers below.

  There’s just something about the scale of mountains that moves me.

  I’ve spent my whole life going through seven-foot doorways into rooms with eight-foot ceilings. Even living in New York, a city built for a staggering volume of people but still scaled for people. It’s a dense sea of doorways and chairs and windows and taxi cabs. And for all the chaos of a city, it’s still an environment that has you and me in mind.

  Not true of mountains. Mountains are indescribably big. And riding a gondola to the top of one is a great reminder of our place. Looking out the window, I just marveled at it. How the ski lodge that I and a thousand other people were staying in looked small and pathetic from there. How the canopy of towering trees and gigantic boulders were suddenly small—nothing more than a texture that carpeted the landscape, made with total indifference toward our convenience.

  Just then, it dawned on me…I’d been on this gondola way too long. I was supposed to ski all the way down? That was insane. It was a fucking mountain!

  I felt my phone vibrate as we finally approached the top. I took a quick look—it was Ted calling. I lifted my gaze from my phone and noticed the curvature of the earth falling away below me.

  If this is the last chance I ever have to talk to another human being, I thought, I didn’t want it to be Ted.

  I put my phone back in my pocket and took my first cautious, terrified push down the mountain, trying to ignore the flock of birds flying below.

  When I finally got back to the ski village at the base of the mountain, I was exhausted and relieved. I wobble-walked back through the ski lodge’s impressive entrance—something that had looked so small from that mountaintop—and headed toward my room. I tossed my clothes off into a lump and took a shower.

  Only after I fished my phone out of the pockets of my terror-sweat-soaked pants did I see the real reason to be alarmed. I had five missed calls from Ted. Something was up.

  I give Ted a ring—still too relieved to be back on earth for the implications of his frantic calling to really register.

  “Where were you?” Ted exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon!”

  “I’m sorry, Ted,” I said. “I had more pressing concerns.” Like fast-approaching cliffsides.

  “Have you been on Facebook today?”

  “Nah. Hey, you ever wonder why no one invented skis with brakes yet?”

  “Look. Now.”

  So I did.

  Elliott Askew

  Am I the only person following this that thinks Dave’s story is bullshit? I mean…this stuff just doesn’t happen…

  Like · Comment

  Ted Kaiser Who knows, Elliott. It is a mystery of our time like Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. What is there to say about Dave? He has been delusional for a while now. He could be in Mexico or just laying in a gutter somewhere in Arizona and just thinks he’s in Mexico. I gave up trying to help him. Dave wanted to see this through, real or not.

  39 minutes ago via mobile · Like

  “I see,” I said.

  Elliott’s accusation scared me and surprised me a little. It even excited me a little. Was this it? Was this the moment I had both
dreaded and courted for all these past months: the moment I would finally be called out as a phony for the whole world to see?

  “Well, Ted, I like what you wrote.”

  And I did. It was a perfect response. Ted’s ability to never challenge anyone’s suspicions but instead deflect their curiosity had been really effective in getting people to accept the uncertainty of Fakebook with a shrug of their shoulders.

  And suggesting that I may not be a reliable narrator was a stroke of genius. It was savvy and clever and something I frankly wish I’d thought of. It compounded the mystery rather than dismissing it—suggesting that there might be a complex alternative to the whole thing falling apart. It’s like when your mom tells you that the mall Santa works for the real Santa.

  I left the room and went in search of my brother, who was sitting at a table in the outdoor deck under a heat lamp. He’d ordered lunch—we were splitting a gourmet bison burger and each having a glass of wine. I couldn’t wait to take a bite.

  “This is it,” I told him. “Someone called Fakebook out. I think I’m at the end of the road.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Mark asked.

  “What else can I do? Confess.”

  Elliott Askew

  Am I the only person following this that thinks Dave’s story is bullshit? I mean…this stuff just doesn’t happen…

  Like · Comment

  Ted Kaiser Who knows, Elliott. It is a mystery of our time like Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. What is there to say about Dave? He has been delusional for a while now. He could be in Mexico or just laying in a gutter somewhere in Arizona and just thinks he’s in Mexico. I gave up trying to help him. Dave wanted to see this through, real or not.

  46 minutes ago via mobile · Like

  Dave Cicirelli You caught me. I’m actually enjoying a long ski weekend in Jackson Hole. Last night I had a $46 cut of free range Elk steak after a first course of duck sausage. Currently I’m taking a break from the slopes with a glass of Malbec wine at the Four Seasons.