BOOK ONE : LISTENERS AND READERS

:: WINTER 2001

27 :: perverts ::

[posted 2/12/01]

Janine mutes the commercials. The first time she did it Thomas must have glanced askance at her because she offered an almost apologetic explanation: —Oh, God, I have to. If I don't, I'll be up all night plotting out a revolution. And I have to work tomorrow.

She's invited him over to her place to watch the new season of Survivor. —I have to watch this show, she said. —If I don't, I'll go all season without knowing what anybody at work is talking about. Oh, don't be such a Richard. What? It's like they gave everybody a whole new packet of nouns except for me. Although, later, she confesses: —This show is a serious guilty pleasure. My one concession to pop culture. I was going to choose Temptation Island but those people. My God.

Commercials. A portion of a blue Volkswagen fills the screen. Reflected cityscape flows silently across its contours. During the last set of commercials, he told her about the e-mail he got from unseen_girl, and now Janine starts the discussion up again.

—So what's so special about this e-mail? she says. —I thought you said you got a lot of mail because of the site?

—This is different, he says. —Most of that e-mail is from people far away, and, most of it, is, um.

—What?

—Well, most of it is from men.

Now it's her turn to look askance at him. —You've got a crush on this girl? Tell me again what she sent you so far? Fifteen words and a link?

He stares down at the rim of his beer bottle. He feels flushed and embarassed, like he always does around Janine. (He likes it, the way she disquiets him: he intuits that it's somehow good for him.) —Hey, he says. —You can tell a lot about a person from a link. I can tell a lot about a person just from their visiting my site.

—Bah, says Janine. —I would never have taught you HTML if I knew you weren't going to use it wisely. (Thomas tries to interpret this statement: she sounds ironic, but the statement may be one of those that goes completely around the circle: so ironic that it reveals sincerity.)

He shrugs, takes a slug from his beer. (He often adopts the strategy of playing it cool and glib with Janine, as a way of masking his complete self-consciousness. He doesn't think this strategy actually works; he imagines his “coolness” comes off as completely forced and stilted. But she tolerates the illusion. She seems, in fact, to enjoy tolerating it, so despite the fact that everything he does seems utterly foolish to him he actually ends up feeling cooler when he talks to Janine than he does at any other time in his life. Even alone he tends to feel awkward.)

—It's true, though, he says. —People who like my site like difficult music. People who like difficult music tend to be intellectually formidable. And intellectually formidable women are...

—Sexy? Janine fills in. —Ha! What you're really in love with is a screen that talks back to you. (All sorts of weird images are pouring into the room through the TV here: while she banters with Thomas she is watching, through her peripheral vision, a clip of animal liberation activists breaking dogs out of cages, which in the end appears to be part of a Reebok commercial.) —You don't know anything about her. For Christ's sake, you don't even know that she's a woman.

—Well, Thomas said. —I'd thought of that.

—That, my friend, is because you suffer from Heterosexual Fear. I say, if you're going to love someone based on words and links, then love someone based on words and links. Hell, if you're going to love people based on their— what was it? —intellectual formidability, then love people based on their intellectual formidability. Get over this whole boy-girl thing. Gender's a fiction; haven't you heard?

—Well, Thomas says, —I don't know, I really think I want a girl—

—Hey, she says, —It's going to get harder and harder to tell. The Net is going to raise a whole generation of perverts. All that interlinking? The profusion of entrances and exits? The total play of permeable membranes, the absence of phallic unity, etcetera etcetera? You know what the whole thing smacks of? One big poly orgy. And you know what? I'm for it. I call for—more perverts!

She looks squarely at him.

He hardly knows what she's talking about.

—I'll see what I can do, he says.

—Ha! she shouts.

The commericals are over and she unmutes the TV. The room fills with grunting didgeridoo.

—Oh, God, she says. —I can't believe.