Book of Numbers: A Novel (12 page)

I’m proud of myself for not mentioning until now that she was
Asian. She was. Now hatless. Braless vest and culottes.

“It was you on the phone?”

Nothing.

“Or at the library—but isn’t there a library closer
to home? Like in your lap or whatever?”

Or in her vest. She took from its midzip pouch the house pda, a
Tetheld.

“Your guestwork is paltoguest0014,” she said. “For
access you will
have to create a uname/pword, each a min of eight
alphanumerics, the pword to contain a symbol and CAP.”

“I’ll try,” taking the Tetheld from her, klutzing the
keying, creating both out of my former accounts.

Her Tetheld informed: that uname is not available, and I said,
“That uname is not available,” and she said, “What does it suggest?
Can you follow the prompt?”

It suggested Jcohen19712, which was also to become my email.

I chose the dollarsign to close my pword—$ finishing
what’d been my pword for all.

In other accommodations the bellhop points for his tip to the thermostat,
or offers to lead you up the lilypad slates toward the saunas, but here the orientation
was only: how to get online.

She took back her Tetheld, “We have been instructed to apologize.
Today will be busy.”

“It will? What’s the schedule?”

“Party prep. Invasion and occupation. Caterers. Florists.
Amusements. Petting zoo.”

“I don’t understand—party for what?”

The face she purged was disgusted.

“His birthday?”

“His?”

Principal’s, she informed me as she flicked, finalized my account.
His 40th, tomorrow.

Was I supposed to have mindread? or have been previously briefed?

She had an @ bud pierced above her lip. Her Tetheld shook, “You are
affirmed.”

“Confirmed?”

“Affirmative.”

“Confirmative?”

She buttoned again, “May we have a moment with your
computer?”

My computer—two years old? two generations and an operating system
defunct? A present from Rach from my own birthday past, a generous provocation to earn.
As I dug through my bag for my laptop, I considered the immediate gift
politics—what to give a quadragenarian
who has everything?
besides donating to a favorite cause? Besides myself, I mean.

“We have been instructed to transfer everything—your .docs,
your contacts—all will be the same.”

“Why?”

“There is a requisition order.”

“Requisitioning what?”

“A new laptop.”

She left, I pottered, lasers raved across the windows and mariachis tuned.
I’d only just unpacked and was resting on the cot when there was a knock at the
door, and without me responding she entered, “We are sorry for keeping you
waiting, Mr. Cohen.”

I took the slab from her, “Thank you, Miss?”

“You are welcome, Mr. Cohen.”

“Miss?”

“Myung.”

She turned to go so I went grasping: “It’s
smaller.”

“.72″ / 1.8 cm × 12″ / 30.4 cm, ×
8.2″ / 20.8 cm the depth.”

“Lighter too.”

“2.4 lbs / 1.08 kg.”

“Brand?” because none was evident.

“Tetbook prototype.”

“You’ve moved into computers?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Prototype.”

Drop it, rather—don’t, “But everything’s still
on it?”

“Everything.”

“You sure?”

“Even the apps you will never use are on it.”

“Appreciated—but where’s my old unit?”

“Excuse me?”

“Larger, heavier? My oldie?”

That flustered. “Most guests do not want theirs back.”

“Most everyone hasn’t a clue what they want.”

“Please,” resetting herself, “you
are also completely backed up to servers. Clouded. Nubified. Nephed. Your files are now
protected online. Accessible to your account only.”

“Jcohen19712 then my password?”

“Precisely. If that is what it is, precisely.”

“So this is mine to keep?”

“All yours.”

“As for the oldster?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve trashed it already, haven’t you?”

“Do not worry. We recycle.”

It was only when my deliverer had departed, when I was alone with this
foldable tablet where all my files, or copies, were nestled nicely again, or anew, into
folders, that I realized just how much they had the goods on me, how much intel was
available on my preferences, vice. I had no secret, I was no secret, to be
Principal’s guest was to have nowhere to hide—not just the laptop but,
beyond the panes, the surveillance outside, the tall strong stalks of spyquip planted
amid the birch and cedar, the sophisticated growths of recognizant CCTV, efflorescing
through my bungalow’s peephole, getting tangled in the eaves. I bawled myself
out, got cotted, covered my face with the dresser’s doily and scrolled schiztic
for what to disclaim, for which self to accuse of what inclination: the offlabel
oxycodone and hydrocodone ordered scriptless from British Columbia, the minoxidil
reliance legal though mortifying, all that screengrab analingus. Meanwhile, vans and
trucks were offloading dusk—a carousel clattered from a trailer, ferris wheel
assembly clamor, a log flume hosed, trampolines inflated.

\

Waiting to be collected by dark. Waiting mopey for Myung. As the
helicopters chopped my sleeping into naps. As the gusts balmed in chatter between the
blinds.

Finally I got up, showered and shaved and toweled over to my wheeliebag to
formally decide (wrinkled old City Hall ceremony suit? wrinkled older bookparty suit?),
ineluctably jeansed it below a tshirt Rach’d
gotten me from
the Mark Twain House in Connecticut: black, “Mark
This
Twain” in
graffiti white, an arrow pointing dickward.

My presence aside, I still hadn’t come up with anything as
tribute—again, what do you get the Founder of everything? besides flattery?
Beautiful. It was just beautiful. The trail to Principal’s back 40 acreage had
been redcarpeted, a door policy was in effect.

At trail’s terminus was a cupreous voluptuous Chicana. The thing in
her hand must’ve been an unreleased Tetheld, judging by how it disturbed
attendees into fussing with their own models, noting equivalencies, compatibilities,
breathing screens and wiping them clean.

The Tethelds were scanned—touchless mating of machines—the
attendees were admitted, returned their devices to their pockets, patting, reassuring:
like it was the last time they’d make love to a spouse they’d have to
abandon.

The invites were surveys, apparently—digi.

Waiting for approval, I recognized: the chairman/cofounder of
America’s most popular eTailer, a crowd theory academic from UC Berkeley, the COO
of a premier iConometry site, a venture capitalist/immediate past California state
controller, a Congressperson who’d been advocating for the establishment of a
Department of Online (DO) within the next president’s cabinet (the president of
the United States), and then—far in the front, past cyberpunkadelic bodimodis,
transdermally implanted proboscideans, vulcan jedis with diversified portfolios and
freshly filed teeth—was the alternative to the alternatives, was Finnity.

I wanted to sign off, I wanted to sign out—whichever had the most
hits, or provided the least traceable exit.

Which flight had he been on? the red eye or brown nose? The rest of him
was a ruddy blond—and perfectly unfolded, with not an extraneous
crease—tweeded like a lordly hunter.

I might’ve guessed: Finn never missed parties—he
would’ve hitched if he’d had to.

He scanned, was admitted, indifferently seamless, but because I
didn’t have a pda or even a rotary dragging an oinker’s cord all the way
from NY, the Chicana guided me under the privacy of a willow, “I’ll have
to take this actinally.”

“Take what?”

“Your dietary requirements,” clicking her
screen. “So: vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, lactovo, or macrobiotic?”

“Are you serious?” but as her thumbs huddled I answered
myself, “I’m an omnivore.”

“Now do you mind eating out of the Greater Bay? Or do you insist on
zipsourcing—94/95000s?”

“Anything goes.”

“Any allergies?”

“Just to being interrogated.”

She put me down for seconds of testiness, “This is only because you
didn’t respond online.”

“You asked this on an invite?”

“It’s just protocol.”

I was Table
^πi
e
—which was
difficult to remember atechnically. But if the seating arrangements were what I
suspected, that would be the one to avoid.

The festivities were centered on a capacious bullfighting ring patio
flanked by Moorishish fountains reviving ponds. Hubs of eager earnest convo, politics
too optimistic for opinion. Mass delusion. Mass hydration.

The patio: La Korto—every notable architectural element was
labeled, was to be referred to, in a slurred Spanish that was just Esperanto. La Trovita
Lando, the compound—the main house above us (La Domo), the guest huts beyond (La
Domoj), enshrouded in fog.

The xeriscaped rear descended into the vast gape of a wildlife refuge: a
semiofficial preserve and so another tax dodge to Principal, a religious
life—mission farmland and clergy R&R—to the Spanish, but originally
a religion itself—animism, totemism, dendrolatry—to the indigenous
Indians, whom the Spanish called the
Costeños,
or “coastal
people,” but who called themselves
Ohlone:
Ohlo
= “western,”
ne
= “people.”

All information offered by my employer, sin costo.

The info both explained, and became, my surroundings: The darkness was
cypress, juniper, madrone. The trailside eruptions were of manzanita and sage. The
interfaces scattered around the property obtruded with names, in English, in Spanish,
their Native American names and
Genus, species
. I trackballed one: “Tell
me more about
chaparral
.”

The interfaces served dual functions: to educate, sure,
but for the more curious—to mark the perimeter of the wild. No Trespassing. Be
content with what vantage you have. Go beyond, get a foot stuck in a conquistador
helmet, a tomahawk wedged in the head.

I had the sense, though, that those woods were where the real party
was—the real debauchery, I mean. Those woods were made for culty fucking, if not
for fucking then for fireside circlejerking, critter sacrifice—who had the coke?
what’s a Cali dally without pot (without unrefined hemp utensils, dishes, and
stemware)?

I was about to make a break for them when the apéritif/hors
d’oeuvres sampling was called by the perky MC, Conan O’Brien (
Late
Night with Conan O’Brien
)—the only chair vacant was mine. I had
to either leave or confront—a round table, Finnity counterclockwise from me,
lagging always a moment behind.

“Yo,” he said.

“Eloquent,” I said. “Yo back.”

He took it, he grimaced but took it. Perspiration down my crevice,
already.

“So,” he said, “a surprise?”

“I think our host knows it’s his birthday.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure, my life’s been nothing but surprises—for
what’s it been for us? A decade?”

“10 years Aar’s filled us both in on.”

“What’s left to say then?”

“That ever stopped you before?”

“It wasn’t you I was avoiding in line, it was definitely
Gwyneth.”

I didn’t mean to be so rude, just I felt—cornered, even at a
circular table. Babysat, boosted.

“You want to know why I’m here?”

“I want to know why you think you’re here, Finn.”

“I thought it would be nice to talk.”

“I was going to say frequentfliers, I was going to say
points.”

“I trust you’re keeping your receipts.”

“You came to intimidate me into getting to work—but
you’re staying for the favors, the swag?”

Conan (
The Tonight Show with Conan
O’Brien
), loosened tie, hair swept up like someone had jizzed it, told a
joke about some Silicon Valley Social Media PR summit happening now “at the Best
Western in Menlo Park,” but empty, unattended—not because everyone was
here, but because it hadn’t been publicized.

“One dork, one geek, one nerd, all male, just hanging around
polishing the icecubes.”

He told a Gwyneth joke funnier than mine—when Finn leaned in:
“You might’ve made time for me in NY.”

We got sommeliered by a guy with a cowbelling tastevin. Finn went white, I
went red, both of new autochthonous vintage.

His cheers: “To your book,” mine: “To your
book.”

To ours, to theirs, earthy, hints of bile.

“Josh—this is us doing the mending, OK? Healing up?
It’s enough. No more grudges. No more blame.”

“Sure, why not? How to argue that? Edit away—you’re
the editor.”

“Keep lying to yourself—you’re the
writer.”

“Finn, you can return to your prixfixe friends at Café Loup
in peace. Your ambush was successful.”

“Enough, Josh? What did you expect me to do back then—take
out a fullpage color ad in
The New Yorker
saying ignore the tragedy and read
this book?”

“I get it.”

“Fuck it, I tried for you—OK? I had the
Times
chasing you for a feature, didn’t I?”

“The angle was like author victimized.”

“OK?”

“Wasn’t exactly dignified.”

“Nothing was dignified then except to shut the fuck up. Still I
leaned on them to let you write it.”

“Promote myself—not exactly tactful either.”

“That was the choice—whore or be whored. But you went
lofty.”

“But there could’ve been a rerelease. There could’ve
been a goddamned paperback.”

“That was shit luck—it’s not like I landed so
smoothly either. The quarterlies came around and we all had to explain our no sales and
why
we hadn’t been signing up Islam books all through the
summer like we had warning. The publishers were acting like they’d all known
about the attacks forever—why didn’t we know? Why weren’t we
prepared with books on how to cope with jihad or the infrastructure of hawala or a
comprehensive history of the House of Saud, or, fuck it, a Guantánamo tellall by
the fucking 20th hijacker, OK?”