Joshua Ferris - To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

She walked away in frustration. I went around and sat down next to Connie. I showed her the comments and postings by YazFanOne. “That’s me,” I said. “Who else would complain about Francona like that?” Then I showed her the newest member of the message boards and the most recent poster to all the blogs, Dr. Paul C. O’Rourke, D.D.S. “That’s me, too,” I said, “but that’s not me posting. ‘Great third inning’? ‘Go Ellsbury’? That’s some dumb bullshit. I don’t post dumb bullshit.”

“You say this is you?” she said, pointing at my name on the me-machine.

“My name, yeah, but that’s not me posting, because I would never post dumb bullshit like that, and certainly never under my real name.”

“Why never under your real name?”

“For the sake of privacy,” I said.

“And so you post under this other name here, this YazFanOne?”

“Right, YazFanOne. That’s me. This Dr. Paul C. O’Rourke, D.D.S., he’s someone else. Except not, because that’s also me. I’m Dr. Paul C. O’Rourke, D.D.S.”

“So for the sake of your identity,” she said, “you avoided using your real name, which effectively allowed someone else to use your real name and steal your identity.”

She looked at me as blank as a stapler while waiting for my response.

“You don’t seem to be getting the point,” I said.

“Oh, I think I get it,” she said.

“First it was the website. Now it’s this. I know you think I’m paranoid when it comes to the Internet, but look at this. Does this not justify everything I’ve been warning you about? This is a revolution, Connie. Everyone assumes that the new world order will be benign, but it won’t be. Just look at what they’re doing to me — and who am I? I’m a nobody.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. She was scrutinizing the screen. “Your name is Paul C. O’Rourke?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the C stand for?”

“What?”

“The C. What’s it stand for? I thought your middle name was Saul.”

“Paul Saul O’Rourke?” I said. “That doesn’t sound very likely.”

“Then why did you tell me that that was your name?”

“I seriously doubt I ever told you that my name was Paul Saul O’Rourke,” I said, laughing understatedly at the absurdity so clearly on display.

“But you did.”

“If so,” I said, “I must have been joking.”

“You weren’t joking,” she said.

“Can we please, please focus on what’s important here? Someone is impersonating me. They’re posting to the blogs and message boards using my real name. They’re pretending to be me, but it’s not me.”

“And who are you, exactly, if not Paul Saul O’Rourke?”

“Paul Conrad,” I said.

“Your father’s name?”

“It was my mom’s doing. He would not have thought enough of himself to want anyone to have his name. Except when he was manic, when he probably would have happily named me Conrad Conrad Conrad.”

“Let me see that thing,” she said. I handed her my me-machine. “What are these links to?”

“One’s an article in the Times about Israel and Palestine, and the other’s, I don’t know, something about endangered peoples or something.”

She started clicking around.

“You’ve commented on this article,” she said.

“I’ve what?”

“The one in the Times . You’ve commented at the end of it.”

We read it together:

Dr. Paul C. O’Rourke, D.D.S., Manhattan, New York

At the turn of the millennium, they were just one of many mystery cults, almost indistinguishable from Christianity, which was being heavily persecuted at the time. But unlike Christianity, they had no apostles, no campaigns, and none of Paul’s passionate intensity walking the footpaths of the Roman empire. They were a people risen out of the ashes of the exterminated Amalekites, and when the tide of Christianity broke over the world, their message was drowned and their people destroyed. The Cantaveticles reads as one long serial extinction. They die out, “a portion weeping, a portion smiling, a portion on their knees refusing to pray.” And yet a remnant always reappears, to be hunted down and extinguished totally in some later, more distant episode.

July 18, 2011 at 8:04 p.m.

“That’s a weird comment,” she said.

“It wasn’t me!”

“Calm down. I’m not saying it was. I’m just saying it’s weird. It doesn’t have anything to do with the article.” She read the comment once more. “I know the Amalekites,” she said. She typed the word into Google. “ ‘Name of a nomadic nation south of Palestine,’ ” she read. “ ‘That the Amalekites were not Arabs, but of a stock related to the Edomites (consequently also to the Hebrews), can be concluded from the genealogy in Genesis, chapter thirty-six, verse twelve, and in first Book of Chronicles, chapter one, verse thirty-six. Amalek—’ ” She stopped herself. “Amalek,” she said, turning to me. “You know who that is, don’t you?”

“Who’s Amalek?”

“The ancient enemy of the Jews,” she said. “The most enduring enemy. He never dies, he just reincarnates.” She turned back to the me-machine. “ ‘Amalek is the son of Esau’s first-born son Eliphaz and of the concubine Timna, the daughter of Seir…’ ”

“Seir?” I said. “Like Seir Design?”

“ ‘That they were of obscure origin is also indicated in Numbers, chapter twenty-four, verse twenty, where the Amalekites are called “the first of the nations.” The Amalekites were the first to come in contact with the Israelites… vainly opposing their march at Rephidim, not far from Sinai.’ ”

“Sinai, Amalekites — this has nothing to do with me,” I said. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

She handed the phone back. She didn’t know, and shrugged.

Identity theft was intended to separate a man from his money. When and how did they come for my money? Was it Anonymous, or someone beyond even his malignant skill set? Or was it something else altogether, something yet unfathomable, taking shape behind a firewall securely blocking my view of things, to make me not the victim of some nefarious online activity, but the perpetrator?

The things written in my name seemed to carry significance, some ancient charge. If I didn’t turn away with rage, I would have turned away with… what? Embarrassment, I guess. An absurd sense of responsibility. It wasn’t the real Paul C. O’Rourke talking. It was an impostor, a more determined and mysterious Paul C. O’Rourke who, unlike me, had something urgent to say. I didn’t comment on the Internet, with the exception of my remarks about the Red Sox, because, to be perfectly honest, the real Paul C. O’Rourke didn’t have anything to say.

“Found my comment on the Times, ” I wrote Seir Design.

Also found my posts on the Red Sox message boards. I got news for you, pal: I don’t post dumb bullshit. Your impersonation attempts aren’t going to fly. Everyone who knows me knows that when I post, I post gold. They also know that I don’t give a damn about mystery cults, Sinai, or the Amalekites, fun as all that sounds.

I went back to work. I never wanted to go back to work. That’s not to say I didn’t like work, but that getting back into work, sitting down chairside again, receiving the explorer from Abby, restarting the machinery of diagnosis and repair — no. It was all too familiar. But then, five or ten minutes into it, something clicked, and again I was focused, moving from patient to patient — making patter, replacing a tooth, designing a new smile for a bride-to-be. Trapped inside all day telling people to floss didn’t always eliminate the fleeting sensation of being alive. Beyond the oppression of my familiar surroundings, the irrepressible persistence of self among my staff, and the accusation in the eyes of many of my patients that I was at best a colossal inconvenience, there were reasons to cheer. Widows interested in braces. Children overcoming terror. And all those who had brushed, flossed, and water-picked according to schedule, who needed little work and no lecture, and who left with the smiles they deserved. Work wasn’t a struggle then. It was a gift, really the best defense I knew against the chronic affliction of my self-obsession.