Joshua Cohen: Four New Messages

He found a forum dedicated to cybersecurity that counseled a girl whose exboyfriend had uploaded a sex vid to contact a lawyer and sue for removal plus compensation.

One chatroom included a comment from a genuine lawyer—“A Verified User”—advising a man whose wife had put up a website accusing him of being a compulsive gambler and not paying child support to contact him, he’d send a Cease & Desist for cheap.

That must have worked because the link www.myexhusbandrandyisalyingdegenerate

teenfuckinggamblerwhosbadinbedanddoes

notpayforhisonlychildsfoodandmedication.com was no longer functional.

Also the lawyer advised him to pay his child support: Buddy, that’s just Christian.

Mono searched for lawyers in his area by typing “lawyers in my area.” The number one result was a website called “What Is a Good Web Site to Find Lawyers in My Area.” Like digging a hole to find a buried shovel to use to dig a grave.

Then Mono typed in “how to get people to take down libel from online,” adding the local zipcodes.

At the bottom of the first page of results, the tenth hit, was a link to a digital paralegal.

That’s what the header said, Da Digital Paralegal.

Mono didn’t hesitate, his connections did: B4UGO Network gave two bars, Chuck’s Den gave three, Sally Sally Wireless Home — finally full strength.

He arrived at a site either terribly lowtech or trying to keep the lowest of profiles: a page all blank white like paper with only a single address centered, the contact, dp@dadigitalparalegal.com , not even clickable — it had to be typed into the To: line of an email.

What Mono sent this address was tentative, vaguely worded: Hello, my name is Richard and I am inquiring after your services, and though it was very late at night — though these were his normal working hours, beginning around midnight when, if Methyl had called, he’d be commuting the speed limit down U.S. 1 South between campus and the stripjoints of Trenton — the DP wrote him back within the minute, before he had the chance to signoff, amid a last reloaded scan of the news:

Climate change was being called a sort of temperature socialism — it redistributed warmth to the colder months. This winter had set records. A woman gave birth to triplets, her twin to quintuplets. The father of all — the nondescript fertility doctor.

Elections don’t end wars.

The DP’s email, terse:

U still up — just call me, then it gave her number. Her name, appearing not as a signature by dully fonted macro but as if by regular typing, was Majorie.

Hello, Majorie?

No reason she’d let it ring ten times.

Yes, the voice lidless, up, what time is it?

You asked me to call.

No I know. I’m aware of my email.

This is Dick.

Dick who?

Reluctance then because he’d have to say it anyway, Richard Monomian, and then he spelled it out.

It’s good to meet you M-O-N-O-M-I-A-N.

Behind her voice he could hear a toilet flush.

How does this work?

You were rather unclear in your initial query. But let me tell you to start, investing in taxi medallions is 100 % safe and legal — a burgeoning business. I myself own ten I’ve leased at absurdly favorable terms.

You’ve lost me.

I have a comprehensive information packet if you’ll only give me your mailman address.

My mailman’s address? I’m calling about the internet.

A pause and then, mailman’s address is just a code, of course — if you were active in the Celebrity Privacy movement you’d have answered my mailman has no address, then we’d be talking business. I take it you’re no technophile.

No I’m a courier.

A courier. Is that your only problem?

Now after the toilet a sink ran. Majorie might’ve been washing her hands. Which Mono chose to take as the mark of a professional.

And you’re a paralegal?

In the interests of disclosure I’m a paraparalegal. It’s the same difference pretty much.

And where are you located? Could I come by your offices and talk?

Majorie gave a cough or burp, an unforthcoming eruction.

Excuse me, she said, I’m out of state.

Don’t you realize we have the same area code?

I prefer to do business over the phone.

Why?

Security.

Are you recording this?

It’s a federal law that you have to tell someone when you’re recording their conversation.

Are you telling me that you’re recording our conversation?

No.

Mono suspecting now that her office was her residence, which was a disaster, had to be. He heard — suspected he heard — junkfood wrappers crunch under slipper as she stalked around, as if testing the echoes of a floor’s worth of partially furnished rooms in an old drafty inherited house: from the reverberant bathroom she, they, seemed to be now in a larger room or long hallway.

She told Mono she could help him, she did this type of freelance all the time.

Her voice was backed by clacking keys or particularly strident cicadas.

Do what?

First I customize a letter for your situation then I email it to the webmaster or mistress of the originating offending URL — that’s uniform resource locator.

What does this letter say?

It’s your standard-issue unequivocal demand: remove the original post from both website and cache and post instead a short retraction.

Saying?

This post has been removed. Or would you prefer a public apology?

I think the less said about it the better.

Then I’ll ask the webmistress to sign her name to another email acknowledging the site falsified its information before sending that around to every linking site asking them to likewise take down content and threatening suit if they refuse to comply.

Every linking site?

Tell me this: Is what Em wrote true? Did you really spray all over that girl?

Mono, stymied, asked, We can’t be sure that Em’s her real name, can we?

Doesn’t matter.

How long is this going to take?

There’s no guarantee — the web’s like sweaty footwear: stuff lives in there forever.

Mono imagined the smell of her slippers — sweat: ammoniac, uriniferous, vinegar, chipotle sauce.

How much do you need?

I won’t accept payment in narcotics.

Could you get started tonight?

I’ll get started the moment you transfer $1000. Paypal to my email.

I’m on it.

Don’t worry, she laughed, I won’t fall asleep on the job, and only the next morning did he realize she was making a joke about him splooging all over women in their somnolence, which wasn’t funny.

hey kidderoos guess what Mama got today?

Re: that salacious stroking tidbit of earlier last week? … Just a note, below, after the jump.

Toward week’s end the Emission posted not any scripted retraction but a screenshot of the retraction request itself, accompanied by Em’s commentary:

This type of coercion has no legal basis whatsoever, Im not even prelaw and I know this.

So let me make this as clear as clear as clear can be, which on the internet MEANS CAPS:

I WILL NOT PUB A RETRACTION, Online Fidelity Fixers or whatever your ridongculous company is called that has no history anywhere, I dont think has ever been incorporated or registered or you get what Im saying and certainly has never filed taxes in the State of New Jersey [this hyperlinked to a state taxation page that said, “terms: ‘Online Fidelity Fixers’: No Record(s) Found”].

This story Richard Monomian told me is TRUE. He knows it is TRUE.

That he knows it is TRUE and nothing but the TRUE is why he hired you, Online Fidelity Fixers.