“Uh, Tobes?”
“What the fuck did you do?!”
“Nothing. You saw me. I just hit refresh. Maybe they’re still working the kinks out?”
“Can’t believe you broke my porn,” Tobey said, heading to the kitchen and grabbing us a couple of beers.
“Give it a minute,” I said and accepted a can of PBR, my first drink in two months. Dr. Kreigsman noted that I’d used alcohol as a depressant, a bad way to deal with panic, but he never claimed addiction.
“So what brings you to L.A., Gladballs?”
There was a silence more awkward than the penetration I’d just witnessed, and we looked at each other. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “That sounded weird out loud.”
“Yeah, save clever nicknames for IMs and texts, Tobes.”
“Yarp.”
“Anyway, um, this is gonna sound a little weird,” I said. “But I’ve spent the last two months institutionalized.”
Tobey could not have been less thrown.
“Did you try to kill yourself or something?”
“No, but they thought so.” He just waited for more. If this were an online conversation, he would have typed “.…”
“Well, I jumped off the Staten Island Ferry,” I said.
“But not to kill yourself?”
“No, I was looking for the Internet.”
I was aware none of this would make sense and I was too tired to figure out the most palatable chronological order.
“Y’know, I don’t think I have the strength to go through it all again,” I said. “But I did write it down. Some things are too difficult to say out loud.”
“Like ‘Gladballs’?”
“Exactly.”
I handed Tobey my journal and he held it with more reverence than I was expecting.
“So that should explain it all, if you want to check it out while you’re waiting for your porn to come back,” I said.
“Answers everything, huh?”
“I think so.”
Tobey looked me up and down and then back at the journal.
“One question,” he asked. “Will it explain why you’re dressed like an Argentinian child-prostitute pimp?”
* * *
Tobey thought it was weird to go off and read my journal in his bedroom while I sat in his apartment alone, but I insisted. It would be better to tell it all in one go, even if it meant waiting. Like taking the time for the full download instead of trying to stream and deal with the buffering. I sipped at the PBR, occasionally hitting refresh on Tobey’s laptop, but mostly I just sat. It was good to sit in the world with a real person. This was a safe place. So safe I even fell asleep.
“Is the Internet back?” Tobey asked a few hours later.
I clicked refresh. “Sorry, Tobes,” I said, still waking up. “No porn yet.”
“Ah, that’s okay. I don’t need it anymore.” He held up my book.
“You jerked off to my journal?”
“Oh, shut up,” he said. “Like you didn’t.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? That was supposed to be a chronicle of my search for the Internet.”
“Yeah, nice investigation.”
“Still, it wasn’t meant to get you off!”
“Yeah, but Oz is hot.”
I laughed. “Yeah, pretty hot.”
I have a theory, and it may be self-serving, but I think you can’t truly be arrogant if you can laugh at yourself, and I did laugh, because it was funny, and Tobey was funny. And laughing feels like love.
“So you gonna find Romaya?” he asked.
“That’s the plan. Can I crash here for a bit?”
“After all your hospitality? Of course. I have work tomorrow, but you can borrow my car if you want.”
“Work?”
“Yes, asshole. I work at the Kinkos. Well, FedEx Office now. Anyway, the point is I’m not quite the piece of shit you made me in your book.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, yeah, and another thing,” he said before pulling off his baseball hat. “Look.”
His hair was as messy as I expected, but also jet black.
“You dyed your hair like some sort of Goth loser?” I asked.
“First of all, it’s emo, not Goth, you incredibly old man, and second, no, asshole, this is my real hair color. The fuck did you make me blond in the book for?”
“Huh. Weird,” I said, still seeing him as a blond. “Sorry.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” he said with a wave. “You still gave me the best jokes.”
3.
Sometimes, it’s easy to underestimate the hospitality of the poor. Wealthy hosts offer treats, but can’t match the comfort you find in a humble home where there’s no fear of breaking crystal or leaving fingerprints on overly polished furniture. I lay down that night on a couch so shitty and filled with experience that I knew there was no chance of staining what wasn’t mine. But sometimes influences flow the other way, and my dreams were visited by the spirits of all the nachos, beer, and bud Tobey had consumed there.
I woke almost too eager to be productive. I wanted to sit in a hard chair and work, but the work I had to do didn’t involve sitting. I had to get to Romaya and I didn’t even know where she was. I mean, she wasn’t hiding from me. I had a forwarding address somewhere at home maybe. If I hadn’t thrown it out, which I probably had. I didn’t keep a spam folder for unpleasant reminders in real life. I hit refresh on Tobey’s laptop again, and this time the silent naked women in the margins started to animate. If I wanted, there was an “amazing penetration” embedded in the middle of the screen, all teed up for viewing.
But like any stalker or cut-rate private eye, I went to Spokeo and typed in Romaya’s name. Then her maiden name. And there she was. In L.A. A fractured image returned to me, but it wasn’t like a reclaimed memory. Just information I knew existed somewhere, untethered to anything concrete. The computer screen was shedding faint light on details left in the dark to starve and die.
MapQuest told me that she was in Brentwood, only four miles away, and seeing the partial street name reminded me it was an address I’d seen before. I didn’t need to pay Spokeo the fee for her full information because I remembered now. 59572 Gorham Ave.
It was 6:38 a.m. Given L.A. traffic, I figured there might be enough time to get to her before she went to work. I wrote down the directions, knowing there was no chance of Tobey having a printer, and then carried his now-working laptop to his room so he’d have it when he awoke. Tobey was sleeping on his stomach, hugging his pillow, and his legs were bent at the knees with his feet in the air. I snapped a picture with his laptop like those ridiculous N.Y.C. tourists who take pics with their tablets. Once his stupidity was captured, it also became important to document it, and for the first time since the Apocalypse, I posted something to Facebook. “I just arrived, but does everyone in L.A. sleep like an asshole here or just my buddy Brendan Tobey?” Then I pushed down hard on his arm.
“Wake up,” I said.
Tobey was startled. “What?!”
“Nothing. You’re sleeping like an asshole.”
“What?”
“Well look at you,” I said. “Who sleeps like that?”
Even I couldn’t believe how annoying I was being, and I wondered if maybe more of Tobey’s spirit had entered during my sleep than I’d imagined.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just need your car keys.… but you do sleep like an asshole.”
Tobey pointed to his desk where I saw his keys and Altoids box of weed resting on top of my journal.
“Now, leave me alone,” he said. “I’m not getting up ‘til 8:45.”
“Won’t you miss work?” I asked.
“Nah, I can leave later. I’m walking.”
I went to take back the journal.
“Could you do me a favor and leave that?” he asked. “It’s boring at work.”
“There are other books you could read.”
“See any in this apartment?”
I found some unused wire hangers in Tobey’s hall closet and hung my clothes in the bathroom before taking a shower. Not quite like doing laundry, but I hoped the steam would at least get rid of the wrinkles. I suppose I could have borrowed some of Tobey’s clothes, but his legs were longer, and I thought it was unlikely he owned anything other than profanity-riddled T-shirts.
Before leaving, I made sure my letter to Romaya and directions were both still in the inside jacket pocket of my L.A. ensemble. I knew I’d need to get clothes at some point and wondered whether there was a Target, or at least a medical supply store, in the neighborhood. When I got down to the garage level I realized I’d forgotten to ask Tobey what he drove, but the ‘01 Toyota Matrix parked right across from the staircase door looked familiar. Another clue was the dirty laundry pressed against the back glass and the bumper sticker for VaginalBloodFart.com—his failed start-up that never progressed beyond the merchandizing phase.
Tobey’s car drove well enough, but as I made my way to Brentwood, I became painfully aware that I had no firm comprehension of what “L.A.” was. How could a cobbling of suburbs be a city? And wasn’t Santa Monica, where I was coming from, its own thing? I wasn’t sure and I guess it didn’t matter if I understood unless I was staying. I pulled over when I reached Gorham Avenue and parked outside the building that my piece of paper said was Romaya’s. I stared at the rows of two- or four-unit apartment buildings, one right after another, all with garages. I’d never understand this place.
It was 7:53 and I thought about knocking on Romaya’s door, but I needed to see her first. Or at least I wanted to. I sat watching the garage, hoping the Prius was hers, and wondering if she could really afford it. I was nervous I’d already missed her, but not so nervous that I got out and rang her bell.
At 8:15, she came out, wearing slacks and a blouse like a full-blown businessperson. She was still fit and her dark brown hair was tied up into the same functional bun like it usually was for work, but she was different. She moved like a woman, knowing where she was going, undeterred by daydreams. I watched her fumble for her keys from behind the safety of a framed glass window. And then, just like that, she drove away. Fear had cost me my chance to make this less awkward. With no cell phone or e-mail, how was I to tell her I was coming? I was forced to surprise her, and that was okay. But now I was following her, and there was no way to pretend that didn’t look creepy.
The traffic meant it took twenty-five minutes to go about three miles before we arrived at a nondescript office building in some town that may or may not have still been Brentwood. I’d seen L.A. traffic before, but this was worse. The city had still not compensated for all the traffic signals controlled online, and many intersections still relied on police personnel pulling traffic duty to get the cars where they needed to go. When we reached our destination, I saw the parking lot was lined with palm trees along one side. I parked first so I could exit my car while Romaya was still in hers. After another thirty seconds, she got out, swiping at her iPhone in frustration. Something was wrong. Soon I would say hello and then there would be two things.
“Babe,” I called out.
She flipped around, doing a whiplash inspection for the sound so quickly, she passed right over me before returning to see what she’d overlooked. I waved. She didn’t speak, and I stepped into the silence.
“Hello,” I said, now only a few steps away.
I saw the word “Babe” form behind her lips, but she didn’t speak, and when we were close enough to touch, she didn’t touch. She just said “What?” almost involuntarily. Nothing made sense, and although a warmer greeting would have been welcomed, it was fun to see her revert back to her younger self as she was thrown out of the familiar and into the new.
“Hi,” I said again, and placed my hands gently on her shoulders before leaning in for the politest of kisses on her cheek. For a dead woman, she smelled great, and a thousand tiny hands poured from me, swiping desperately at her wafting pheromones without a trace of dignity. I used to kiss her at the very top of her cheekbone where those scents lived, over and over, soft and tender, and I never had to stop because something entered me with each kiss. Something that grew and floated up into another. I leaned in again to kiss her correctly, but saw the faintest flake of dry skin around her earlobe piercing and remembered how toward the end, the kisses went out like ripples on a pond, expanding further and further without return.
“Why are you dressed like that?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Sonny Crockett’s podiatrist?”
I didn’t have a succinct explanation, but it was a fairly rhetorical question.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just I’m incredibly late.” She looked at the entrance of the building. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting Tobey,” I lied. “But I wanted to see you.”
Romaya accepted the answer easily, the way you do with strangers in an elevator, when you won’t be around long enough to disagree. But then she didn’t.
“Why now?” she asked, and I remembered there was a time when a visit would have seemed less strange. She’d wanted to see me when she returned to New York to finalize the divorce, months after she’d left, but I insisted all communications go through lawyers. I signed the papers in a shitty little office on Court Street and avoided her during the stay. I didn’t want to see her look at me as something other than her husband. Things got cloudier after that.
“Why now?” she repeated.
But I didn’t answer because “I’m ready now” wasn’t an answer.
“Can we talk when you’re done with work?” I asked.
“I’ll have to call you,” she said. “I don’t know when I’m getting off.”
“I didn’t bring my phone. I haven’t used it since the Apocalypse.”
That felt good to say. I wanted her to know.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, holding up her iPhone. “It’s out again. That fix didn’t last long.”
“I could meet you here at, I don’t know, six, seven?” I offered.
“I’m usually done by seven, but I can’t promise. If I can’t get out, I’ll come out then and tell you, okay?”
She was already turning toward the entrance when I said, “Okay, Romaya.”
“‘Romaya’ sounds weird,” she said.
“Would you prefer Babe?” I asked.
“Probably not.”
“Hmm,” I scratched my chin. “What if I lose the hat?”
“You’re still funny,” she said without laughing and hurried in to work. “So late.”
I sat in the parking lot because there was nowhere I needed to go. A few landscapers worked on a row of palm trees, getting rid of all the dead brown leaves and overgrowth, ensuring the trees maintained their cartoon appearance. Soon the parking lot would be fenced in with perfect, brown, swirly sticks inserted into green pom-poms. Such a ridiculous city. They worked diligently, making their way toward my car, tree by tree, until everything less than perfect had fallen to the ground. When it was over, the head guy, taller and more slender than the other two, took a step back to survey the work, standing an arm’s length from my open car window.
“Nice job,” I said.
“Oh, didn’t see you,” he said with a start, and then followed with a more conversational, “Gracias.”
“Yeah, very pretty.”
“Ah, fuck pretty,” he said. “Keeps the rats away.”
“What?”
“Yeah, they nest up there unless you shave them.”
“Rats nest in palm trees?” I asked.
“Yeah, you didn’t know that?”
“I’m not from around here. In New York, we keep our rats in the subway.”
“Yeah, well welcome to L.A., amigo.”
I watched him get in his truck while his crew hopped in the back along with all the underbrush I hoped had been cut before nesting. They drove away, and I considered doing the same be
cause it didn’t matter if I had nowhere to go, I couldn’t wait here until seven. But then I heard a crash followed by what sounded like Romaya screaming, “Fuck!”
I ran to the sound and saw her bending over a cardboard box of books and spilled papers. Her trunk was open. As I got closer, I saw a broken picture frame on the ground. She was pulling her papers out from underneath it, taking care not to be cut by the scattered shards.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They fired me,” she said.
“For being late?”
“No for … well, y’know, they didn’t really say. But I’m fired.”
“I’m sorry, Babe,” I said without thinking. She didn’t seem to mind.
“Fuckers did it by e-mail,” she said, putting the last of her papers in the box.
Now, all that was left was the shattered frame. The picture, a photo of her under a giant redwood tree, had been scratched by the glass.
“I’ve had that frame since my first job,” she said.
Behind the damaged tree photo was another picture I recognized, and I slowly pulled it out, letting the top photo act as a buffer against all that was sharp and damaging. It was our wedding photo.
“Well at least this is still safe,” I said, handing it to Romaya.
She looked down at the redwood photo instead, so I handed that to her too while I piled the glass slowly with the side rubber of my sandal. Then I took a manila folder from her box and got most of it on there before encasing it with a reverse flip. I folded the top and sides over.
“A little care package of glass,” I said. “Want me to deliver it to your old boss?”
“I didn’t even get the e-mail,” she said. “They sent it as soon as the Net came back last night, and when I walked in they’re looking at me like, ‘oh, hey, uh,.… aaahhhh, hmmm.’”
“Ouch.”
“And I’m such an idiot. It took me forever to get it. They’re all like ‘oh, after the e-mail, we didn’t expect to see you.…’”
“Painful.”
“Yeah. So I’m just standing there silent, and Ken, that’s my boss, is like, ‘Well, um, we sent you an e-mail last night.…’”
“Did they give you severance?” I asked, and she laughed. “What? No severance?” I asked.
Agents of the Internet Apocalypse Page 3