Fishbowl (21 page)

‘I'm not arguing with you, Jerry. I'm just saying that we need to get that across.'

‘That I agree with. We need to build it up like that. We need to find speakers who will make that point. We need to make sure we get all that across.' Glick paused. ‘So what are we saying? Are we saying this is it? Are we saying we're with Bill? We organize a march to commemorate the victims?'

‘And defend our constitutional freedoms,' said Rikheim. ‘The best way we can commemorate those people is to defend our freedoms.'

‘Right. So that's what we're saying?'

‘We should talk to our lawyers,' said Mike Sweetman.

‘Sure, we talk to our lawyers, but apart from that … is it a yes?'

Someone nodded. Then someone else.

‘Andrei,' said Glick, ‘what about you?'

Andrei nodded. ‘Fishbowl's in. We'll help organize. We'll do anything.'

‘Mike?'

‘I've got to talk to my lawyers.'

‘Sure, but … yes or no?'

Everyone in the room waited on Sweetman's answer. His network alone had more than double the number of users of all the others combined. Homeplace's involvement would be critical both to give credibility to the marches and to stimulate turnout. He was, by some measure, the most important person in the room.

And Sweetman, who knew it, didn't want to have anything to do with Andrei Koss or anything in which he was involved. Just allowing Koss to be associated with him, he felt, gave Koss a status he didn't deserve. But Sweetman also had a very clear understanding of the needs of his business, and he felt that his network, in the current fevered environment, faced a genuine existential threat from Diane McKenrick. Even if the full extent of her absurd proposals wasn't implemented, Congress might compromise on constraints that would severely impede his growth and profitability. And the idea they had just come up with to counter her, he had to acknowledge, was smart. There was almost a touch of genius to it.

At length he turned to Jerry and nodded.

Glick gave a smile of relief. ‘So what do we call it?'

‘Just what you said, Jerry,' said Rosenstein. ‘We're defending freedom. July 4. Let's call it the Defence of Freedom marches.'

Rikheim smiled. ‘Let's see McKenrick oppose that. Let's see her stand up and say she's opposed to defending freedom.'

‘You know, there is a risk,' said Sweetman. ‘There is a way this could actually work against us.'

‘Which is?'

‘We're sitting here all excited in this room, we think it's going to be another Selma, and then we do it, we organize it, we hype it, we build it up – and no one turns out.'

There was silence.

‘We'll look like idiots.'

‘People will turn out,' said someone.

‘Let's not kid ourselves, it's high risk. We're upping the ante. Just so we're aware. If the turnout's low – McKenrick wins.'

25

THREE-QUARTERS OF
a million marched in Denver. The city that had lost so many of its sons and daughters two months previously gave itself over to a great sighing catharsis of grief. It wasn't the biggest rally in the country, but it was by far the most emotional.
Denver Honours Its Martyrs
proclaimed one banner stretched behind the podium in City Park where the march ended.
Denver Says No To Senator McKenrick
said a second.

The nation joined with Denver. Over a million wound their way through Central Park in New York, while 800,000 converged on Washington, bussing in from all over the country. Los Angeles saw an estimated 600,000; San Francisco a similar number. In Chicago, a million descended on Grant Park. Houston saw 400,000. In Oklahoma City, where the wounds of Timothy McVeigh's bombing were never far from the surface, it was estimated that 40 per cent of the city's population thronged the area around the Oklahoma City National Memorial. In cities and towns across the country, Fourth of July celebrations were transformed into Defence of Freedom gatherings. Speaker after speaker on podium after podium, in parks, in stadiums, in fairgrounds, in front of town halls, said that the only fitting memorial for those who had died in Denver – people whose basic and most fundamental constitutional right, the right to life, had been snatched away by Buckett and Hodgkin – was a reaffirmation of the constitutional freedoms guaranteed to all Americans.

Around 300,000 turned out in Papago Park, in Diane McKenrick's home town of Phoenix, to affirm that message. Combatively having accepted an invitation to speak, she was listened to in stony silence until a wave of slow handclapping built up and drowned her out.

That day marked the turning point of public opinion. The sight of 20 million or more Americans marching in avenues, malls and parks across the country had an impact, and not only on soccer moms and judo dads. Politicians from the left who hadn't distinguished themselves for their courage began to find their voices on podiums from which the sight of people who had come out in their masses emboldened them to say more than they had intended. The president, being given reports of the numbers descending on Washington, suddenly found time in a schedule that had been too busy for attendance at the rally to speak live by videolink to the crowds in the Mall. At a pre-scheduled press conference with a visiting head of state the next morning, he described the day as one of the proudest in American history, when the American nation had affirmed both its deep compassion and its unshakeable fidelity to the constitutional foundations that were still as right and relevant as when the Founding Fathers had first enunciated them.

The sentiment spread in the following days. While the more extreme elements of the right wing of the Republican Party and their media sympathisers sneered at the lefties who had turned out to provide aid and comfort to terrorists, more moderate Republicans sensed that the time had come, if they had ever been on McKenrick's bandwagon, to jump off quietly. In sight of the sheer number who had turned out, it just wasn't tenable to say this was a loony minority. Just about everyone in the country had a friend, relative, workmate or acquaintance who had marched.

In private, Diane McKenrick began to get apologetic calls from people who, only a fortnight previously, had been encouraging her to push ahead. In public, their silence was deafening.
But the thing that really did for McKenrick, more than the number of people who turned out or politicians on the left finally finding their voices, was a single image – the image of her standing on a podium, a suddenly small, impotent figure with a look of confusion on her face, struggling to be heard. Those who saw footage on the news that night heard the rounds of slow handclapping reverberating like thunder in the natural amphitheatre of Papago Park. Those who didn't see the footage saw the image, which was carried on the front page and website of just about every newspaper the next day. Some papers carried it as part of a montage of images from around the nation, others displayed it in isolation. The paper edition of the
New York Times
had it in a six-column box, judging that it summarized the upshot of the marches better than just about any other photo that had been taken that day.

Sometimes an image is so powerful, so evocative, that it tells not only what has happened but what is about to happen. Comparing it to the ‘Ceausescu moment' of 1989, when the Romanian dictator, who would survive only another four days before being summarily executed along with his wife, was photographed staring in perplexity at the unprecedented sight of a crowd of his downtrodden people jeering him to his face, the
Times
editorialized that it would be surprised to see Senator McKenrick's bill last another week and that, to all intents and purposes, her presidential bid was over before it had begun.

Her bill, in fact, lasted another two weeks before it was formally withdrawn. Her bid, as she knew herself, was finished before she had even stepped down from the podium in Papago Park and the sound of the slow handclapping had stopped echoing in her ears.

The CEOs who had come together with Jerry Glick to organize the marches on that Fourth of July didn't speak at the rallies. In the runup to the day, hostile voices from the right of the political spectrum had, as expected, accused them of exploiting the
tragedy of Denver to garner publicity for their businesses. As part of their strategy to defuse the claim, they stayed in the background and allowed the event to speak for itself. The message came from others, from local leaders impassioned to speak out. But the CEOs did march, not in Silicon Valley, but dispersed across the country, back where they had come from, in the places where they had grown up.

Andrei marched in Boston, his home town. It was the culmination of two weeks of frenetic activity, during which he and half the Fishbowl organization had taken on the responsibility of organizing the marches in fourteen states.

Sandy Gross marched with him. They were at the front, in a row with Boston celebrities and Democrat politicians who were leading the march. Andrei's presence hadn't been publicized in advance for fear of alerting disgruntled Fishbowl users who might want to stage some kind of protest at his compliance over the investigation of Buckett and Hodgkin, but as the march went on, news began to spread that the Fishbowl founder was in the crowd.

As the march moved into Boston Common, where a stage and screens had been set up for the speeches, order began to break down. The front rows, flanked by security guards, were overtaken by others pouring into the common. Someone yelled that he could see Andrei Koss. Suddenly there were people all around him. Sandy grabbed hold of his arm to keep from being separated from him. Two of the security guards who had accompanied the front row of marchers were with them as well; they managed to hail over a couple more guards, who came pushing and shoving their way through the crowd.

Andrei and Sandy came to a stop, surrounded. People were holding up phones trying to get a picture of Andrei.

‘Talk to them,' said Sandy.

Andrei looked at her uncomprehendingly.

‘Talk to them, Andrei!'

She pushed two of the security guys slightly apart, reached out
a hand and pulled someone through. He put up his hand towards Andrei for a high five. Instinctively, Andrei hit it.

‘Andrei Koss! You rock!'

Someone else came in. Then someone else. Then a couple of people together. Soon the security guards were moving people through as if they had planned to do it all along. Most of the people just yelled, ‘Hey Andrei,' or something like it and took a photo or grabbed his hand. There seemed to be no ill will over his policy after Denver – on the contrary, everyone just seemed excited to see him. Some wanted to talk, trying to tell him what Fishbowl meant to them as the security guys tried to move them on. They had stories about someone they had met, a connection they had made. Others had an idea for what they wanted from the site. Sandy was the master of ceremonies, holding the security guys back until they were done, then reaching out a hand for someone else.

Andrei didn't know what to say or do. Mostly he nodded and shook hands and bumped fists and said it was great to meet them and tried to smile as they took a photo on their phones. There were students, office workers, stay-at-home moms, off-duty cops – a kaleidoscope of the city passed in front of him, all wanting to touch his hand, say a word, hear his voice, make some kind of connection.

Then a big man of around thirty with a blond goatee came through the ring, grinning widely.

‘I'm Barry Diller, man!'

For a second Andrei didn't make the connection.

‘Barry Diller, Andrei!'

Andrei got it. The Dillerman.

‘Andrei Koss!' Diller put both his hands around Andrei's head and planted a kiss on his forehead, then grabbed him in a hug.

‘Hey!' yelled one of the security guys.

‘It's OK,' said Andrei.

‘Giving data to the Feds,' said Diller, standing back from him. ‘That was a dangerous thing, Andrei.'

‘It was only—'

‘I know. I stood up for you. You had to do it. I know you'd never betray us.'

Suddenly Diller reached into his jacket. For a split second Andrei remembered the warnings he had had about disgruntled users. He had an intimation of danger. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Diller's hand clasped something in his jacket. Out of the corner of his eye, Andrei saw a security guy lunging at him. Then Diller's hand was out and the security guy had an arm around his neck and Diller held up a … phone.

‘Hey!' he yelled angrily at the security guard. ‘What the fuck are you doing?'

The security guy let go of him.

Diller put his arm around Andrei's shoulder, thrust the phone out in front of them and took a photo. He looked at the screen. ‘Cool.' He looked back at Andrei and clenched a fist, second and fifth fingers raised as if at rock concert. ‘Fishbowll! To me, it's always got two
l
s!'

‘OK,' said the security guy. ‘Come on. Let's move.'

Barry Diller held up his hands. ‘I'm going.'

He took a step, then looked back into Andrei's eyes. The two fingers of his fist were extended again, pointing straight at Andrei's chest. ‘Don't betray us, Andrei.'

That day in Boston was the first time Andrei had come across the users of the service he had created in any number. He knew better than anyone that Fishbowl had 300 million registered members, but that was just one number in a long series of ever-increasing numbers on the Fishbowl growth curve. The people on the streets of Boston that day were only a tiny minority of that membership – thousands, not millions – but they were real people, right there, in front of him.

He had known they were out there, but he had never
felt
what that meant. Fishbowl was a real, living thing in their lives. Their passion for it was palpable. To see it was humbling. Fishbowl
wasn't his, Andrei felt – it was theirs. He was its custodian. He felt an enormous sense of responsibility, so overwhelming that it was scary. Ensconced within the office in Ramona Street, he had never been confronted by the extent to which he had, like it or not, become a public figure. He had never intended to be one. But now he saw, like it or not, how his deeds were watched, scrutinized, evaluated, by the people into whose lives he had put the connectedness of Fishbowl.

It had been the most powerful experience of Andrei's life.

That night, he rang Ben, who had marched in New York and had been equally swept up by the extraordinary sense of community he had felt in Central Park. Andrei told him that what had been most striking was the way people had been desperate to speak with him, if only for a second, the way they had wanted physically to touch him. What could they possibly have got out of that?

To Ben, who actually knew something about human psychology, it was no surprise that people wanted to have some kind of contact with Andrei, no matter how trivial. He could hardly believe that he had to explain it. But, then, Andrei was Andrei. ‘You've done something important in their lives,' he said. ‘You've given them something that's meaningful.'

‘Sure, but what difference if they shake my hand?'

‘They crave a sense of personal connection. Some of these people will remember this for ever.'

Andrei shook his head. It still made no sense. ‘I met a friend of ours, by the way. The Dillerman.'

Ben laughed. ‘Really? What's he like?'

Andrei thought back over the incident. ‘He's … intense.'

‘That's a surprise.'

‘He said a funny thing,' said Andrei, suddenly remembering. ‘To him, “Fishbowl will always have two
l
s”. What do you think that means?'

‘I don't know. Two
l
s? I guess he wants it to be pure, like it was.'

‘He told me never to betray them.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't know. “Us”, he said. “Don't betray us.”'

‘The greater the love, the greater the danger,' said Ben, laughing. ‘They're the ones you have to watch.'

‘He said he understood about sharing the data after Denver.'

‘There you are. Come on, it sounds like it was a great day.'

‘Ben, it was awesome. It was totally, totally awesome. The people … I mean, I still don't know about this personal contact thing, but Fishbowl … it's alive, Ben. What we've done … I don't think I understood it until today.'

‘Sounds like it's made an impression on you.'

‘Ben, it's beyond an impression.'

Andrei knew that he couldn't ignore what he had experienced. He had never wavered in his commitment to bringing the greatest possible depth of connectedness to his users, but now he felt this commitment to be even more rooted, as if it had fed and hardened on the zeal of the people he had met.

With that, something else changed for him as well.