Adam Sternbergh - Shovel Ready

Dirty fingers disembowel a white dinner roll. Stuff it in like it’s medicine.

Looks like you could use a manicure at least.

Fuck you. You sleep three weeks in a park, see what it does to your cuticles.

Just an observation.

You’re a beautician too?

I dabble.

Quick smile. Despite herself.

Then I’ll take a mani-pedi both, if you’re offering.

Well, that I can’t promise. But I do have a clean bed. An extra bed, I mean.

Wait, don’t you work for some kind of shelter? For wayward teens?

I thought you might be tired of sleeping in open spaces with a bunch of people you don’t know. I have a guest room at my place. Door locks too.

And where are you?

Hoboken. I’m a Jersey boy. Like Sinatra.

On her second roll, eating quickly.

Who’s Sinatra?

I don’t usually do it this way, just so you know. I don’t track people down and then take them out to dinner. I prefer if it works the same way on both ends of the job. The less interaction, the better.

But whatever you think of me, which by now may not be much, I’m not going to cut a woman open in Bethesda Fountain. Or a diner bathroom. I prefer when I find them dreaming in their beds.

And yes, I’m sorry to bring that up, but that is what I’m here to do. It’s a real conversation stopper, I know. You may say, how can you do it? That’s not a question I usually entertain. But remember what I said.

I don’t know these people.

I’m just a bullet.

Rolls, soup, cheeseburger, cake. Tears through it like she’s eating for two.

Two bills to the waitress.

We’re about ready to head out.

I want to ask her how old she is. Though I haven’t had much luck with that question today. Truth is, I realize there’s a small chance she’s too young. Too hard to tell anymore. Every fourteen-year-old a supermodel, every forty-year-old still trying to pass for a teen. My Little Pony backpacks used to be a reliable indicator. Same with heels and belly piercings. No more.

Maybe the voice on the phone lied. And if she’s not eighteen, that means I take her home, set her up with a hot shower, maybe bus fare, let her sleep eight hours for the first time in weeks.

If she is eighteen, same thing, except no shower or bus fare, and she’ll sleep a lot longer than that.

Waitress brings my change.

It’s silly, I know. This fixation on birthdays. But tell that to a kid with a learner’s permit. Or a kid signing up for the draft.

And as much as I’m starting to maybe hope it’s not the case, if she is eighteen, she’s an adult. And deserves to be treated as such.

So I spill it.

How old are you anyway?

Why? Are we going to vote?

Hostel regulations. Overnight guests. Children-adults. You can stay either way. It’s just for bookkeeping purposes. Head counts. That kind of thing.

She shifts in the booth. Like she’s wondering which way to play this.

Swipes back a dirty curl.

Proudly age of majority. Just had my eighteenth a few weeks back. That’s partly why I headed to New York.

Happy birthday.

Figured it was time to blow out my candles, New York–style.

Greatest city on Earth. Once upon a time.

She squirms a little in the booth.

I think I might take you up on that extra room after all. If the offer’s still open.

Of course.

I watch her dirty face. I’ll let her have the hot shower, at least.

And the door locks, you said?

Of course.

Well, then so should we get going?

You’re not lying to me are you?

She smiles. A glimmer of trust.

No, I’m not. I’m eighteen. Freshly minted grown-up.

I leave a fat tip on the tabletop. Some kind of penance, I guess.

She shifts again, restless.

Damn, I just can’t get comfortable. And it’s so hot in here. Are you hot?

She slides out of the booth. I sit still.

She stands. Empties out her hoodie pockets. Lays an underfed coin purse on the table, looking skinny. Next to that, a five-inch bowie knife in a stained leather sheath.

Parting gift from my father. Don’t worry. I know how to use it. But I won’t.

I sit still.

Girl alone in the big city. You understand.

She slips the knife in her boot. Unzips her hoodie. Flaps it back like a cape.

God, that’s better. Sorry, I get these flashes.

Hands on hips. Leans back.

Baby bump.

The way it happened was, it started as business software. Some kind of fancy teleconferencing gimmick. Clunky helmets, silly goggles, but once you plug in, it was pretty amazing. 3D around a table. Avatars that look surprisingly like you. Pick a tie, any color. Your choice. Dreams really do come true.

That was maybe ten years back.

And if we’ve learned anything in this once-proud world, it’s that once someone figures out how to do something as miraculous as that, it’s only a matter of time before someone else soups it up so you can use it to suck a horse’s cock. In pretend land.

Or run a brothel. Or be a holy Roman emperor.

In pretend land.

Soon people were running around, half-centaur, or space-alien furry, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or what have you. Fucking Chewbacca.

Literally fucking Chewbacca.

Then they got rid of the helmets and goggles and made the whole thing about a thousand times more convincing and all you had to do was get in a bed. But beds are expensive. From basic model to deluxe silver bullet. The basic ones are just tricked-out cots, but the top end are like shiny half-coffins, personal escape pods, with a bunch of touch screens to guide you into the dream, sensors to put you under. Full immersive experience.

As real as real.

That’s the pitch.

As for the specs, I can’t tell you. I’m not an IT type. And I’ve only been in a bed a few times.

Not the deluxe kind either.

Anyway, they figure out that this is clearly where the money is. But the bandwidth required is huge. So they build another network, call it the limnosphere, everything shifts, and they leave the boring old Internet for the rest of us. Internet goes to seed, of course, but the rich don’t care, because the rich are now lost in the limnosphere. It’s like the Internet but better, much better, because it’s an Internet you can live inside. Or the rich can. The costs are astronomical, of course, but then again, that’s why they call them the rich.

After that, the math is pretty easy. Thirteen hours in first class from New York to Tokyo, or slip into a bed and hold your meeting in minutes, with you at the head of the board table, glowing like a gladiator pumped up on steroids and Cialis. Drop twenty thousand on diminishing returns at the plastic surgeon, mending the same old curtains, or spend it on a month-pass to the limnosphere, sashaying down Park Avenue like Marilyn Monroe’s prettier sister. With a leopard’s tail.

In pretend land.

Still, it was just part of life for the first while. An addictive, maddening, seductive, destructive part of life, but part of life. They called it limning, or tapping in, or going off-body, or whatever, and most people dipped in and out. For the first while.

But after the second attacks and the dirty bomb? Then the rich just up and disappeared. White flight, except they didn’t go anywhere. They just drew the curtains and retired to their beds full-time. Hire a nurse to check your vitals, sign up for the weekly feed-bags, station armed guards to watch the gates, and goodnight moon. Goodnight stars. Goodnight world.

That was maybe five years ago.

My point being, usually how this works is I get a name, find an address, let myself in quietly, and introduce myself politely to an old man’s atrophied body in a coffin that’s already half-assembled. Even if the old man is only thirty. Feed-bags will keep you alive, but they won’t help you keep your youthful glow. Or your hair. When you start limning full-time and go on permanent bed-rest, you pretty much leave your body behind.