3

Over the next few days Manny Wilfred is everywhere.  His face is on every magazine, his words in every newspaper, his voice on every radio station; hell, even the girls at work won’t shut up about him (which is strange since he’s neither a Prada bag nor a miracle diet).  I can hear them now, shrill voices yammering on about how nice it is to see an “alternative” figure in power.  Alternative? Don’t make me laugh!  He’s just parading around in the same “Anarchy” T shirt he used to wear back in college.  I swear, if I’d known what nuisance that scraggly-haired little pot smoker would become I never would have given him that internship.  It’s not like he even did anything with it anyway, he always showed up hung-over and spent the rest of the day in the bathroom with his head over the toilet. It was plain to see he didn’t have much going for him, so I was always tried to give him a leg up when I could.  That slot in the R & D department was a mistake though.

It was ’92 and we were experimenting with a new digital database technology, but budget cuts were preventing us from completing the project.  When Manny came to me one day told me that he wanted to finish the system on his own I was delighted, the boy was finally making something of himself.  I didn’t even mind that he was taking half the R & D department with him; it saved me some effort on downsizing. After that I didn’t hear from him for a good long time, I figured he’d probably just given up and gotten a job in retail, sure enough though, there he was five years later on the cover of Popular Science with a system called “Knowledge.com.”

The point of the database as we were designing it wasn’t to let the general public submit their own facts, but rather to make life easier for the encyclopedia fact checkers.  By letting the people record their own history Manny has opened the door for articles like this: “JACKSON POLLOCK – died the way he painted, splattered everywhere.” I wish I was making that up, but it’s an actual entry in his database.  Do you see what I mean now?  Society needs Encyclopedia Men to save it from its self. Would you want someone fixing your sink without any prior knowledge of plumbing?  Then why entrust the recollection of your very history to those without the heightened impartiality and wisdom of an Encyclopedia Man?

I’ve created a monster, all I was trying to do was motivate that little Wilfred runt and he goes and takes everything from me! The encyclopedia was all I had left, I’d sacrificed everything for it without so much as a second thought, and now he’s come back to claim that. He has no right, no right at all!

“Why don’t you just kill him” Frank suggests over a dry martini at the Harvard Club.

“Could it really be that simple?” I ask.

“You’re the history buff here,” he says, “you tell me. Aren’t assassinations usually pretty effective?”

I thought about this for a while, he had a valid point.  Maybe this insanity could be solved with a simple coup.  All it would take is a single bullet to nip this falsified history in the bud before it gets any worse. The night before the public offering I call Frank up to ask for the conference center’s floor plans.

“What do you need those for?” he asks.

“I’ve got to put a stop to all this,” I reply, “I’ve got the weapon and everything, all I need now is an escape route.”

Frank goes silent for a second.  “Oh come on,” he says, “I wasn’t being serious about that!”

“Frank, if you’re not part of the cure here, you’re part of the disease.”

“YOU’RE the one who’s diseased, man.  You need help, seriously. I know a good doctor over in Orangeburg, you remember Steve Newmark, don’t you?  He can help you, he can . . .”

I hang up the phone.  I’m on my own now, an old man looking down at this ever-changing world below and feeling like a walking anachronism.

4

How the hell was I supposed to know there would be metal detectors here?  They never used to have these!  I need a place to stow this gun quick before I reach the front of the line, but where?  I notice the woman in front of me has left her purse open in preparation for the imminent security check; that should work perfectly.  I remove the Smith and Wesson from my pocket and quickly slip it inside. None of the guards seem to notice.  Neither does she.

“HEY WAIT A MINUTE,” she screams as she’s hauled off by a horde of NASDAQ security guards, “THAT’S NOT MINE!!”

I should probably feel bad about this, but I don’t. The only thought running through my head right now as I walk through the magnetic sensors is how unfortunate it is to see an antique revolver like that go without ever being fired.  I bought it years ago when Delores left, but never quite had the nerve to do myself in.  Since then it’s been collecting dust at the bottom of my desk drawer waiting for the day when I finally threw in the towel.  That day was supposed to be today.   We’d just finished the 47^th edition of the Encyclopedia this morning and handed our keys over to the building’s new owners.  They’re turning the place into a strip club, “a real classy joint” my lawyer assures me.  I tell him if that’s the case they probably won’t even need to hire a new staff.

This was to be my last stand, the showdown between good and evil.  I clutch a copy of the new Encyclopedia to my chest like a bible, its blinding rays of logic protecting me from the slings and arrows of the nonbelievers.  Today I save the world from its own stupidity, today I become a hero.

My enemy takes the stage to an uproarious standing ovation and raucous hollers from the crowd.  Through the auditorium’s sound system blares a cacophony of ill-formed power chords and off tempo drum beats, I believe the kids these days call this “punk rock.”  I can’t stand it; it makes my blood boil even more.  He just grins, grins like a Cheshire cat.  If I still had my pistol I’d shoot him here. Instead I wait.  I wait all through his insipid introductory jokes, through his self aggrandizing business lectures, and through his blatant plugs for local bands, until finally he opens up the floor to questions.  I’m the first to raise my hand; I even manage to beat the reporters.

A look of recognition flows across Manny’s face. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he announces, “we have a special surprise for all of you here tonight in the audience.  It’s my pleasure to present to you the man who made Knowledge.com a possibility, Jonathan Typesetter!”

“NO I DIDN’T!” I shout, but the crowd overpowers me as I walk towards the stage.  They’ll cheer for just about anything, won’t they?

Once on stage Manny comes in for a handshake, it takes all the restraint I can muster not to strangle him right there.  Instead I put the encyclopedia down at my feet and embrace him as though I hadn’t been planning his assassination for the last week or so. “How’ve you been?” he asks.

“Not so good,” I reply honestly.

“That’s a shame,” he says with all the sincerity of a ‘Get Well Soon’ card. “What’s wrong?”

“My encyclopedia closed down today.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, but let’s face facts; the people don’t want their history dictated to them by isolated intellectuals in office buildings any more.”

“The people don’t know what they fucking want,” I tell him. “When left to their own devices they make a mess of things. There are too many biases and opinions out there to ever get a truly impartial picture of historical events through your system.”

“And you consider yourself to be impartial?” he asks.

“Well, I . . .”

“NO ONE IS IMPARTIAL!” he yells, and the crowd goes nuts.

“At least we fucking try to be!”  I counter, pulling a scrap of printer paper from my pocket.  “Just look at this, this is an actual entry from Manny’s so-called encyclopedia: ‘JACKSON POLLOCK – died the way he painted, splattered everywhere.’”

The crowd roars with laughter.  Manny gives me a wink and turns to take a bow.  “Showbiz” he whispers.

I try desperately to yell out, to tell the people what he’s taken from them, but with a mere flick of the wrist Manny’s cut my microphone.  “Let’s hear it one more time for Mr. Typesetter!” he shouts, motioning for a guard to come escort me out.

Responding to this, a large figure in the back of the auditorium begins making its way towards the stage.  I have mere seconds left to act.  My arms fly out in front of me, hands curled tightly into claws, and my legs begin a process of accelerated locomotion.  “This is it,” I think to myself as I lunge at my former student, “this is the day I save the whole godforsaken world from its self. People are going to call me a hero. Maybe I’ll even get my encyclopedia back . . .”

Suddenly I’m on the ground with my arms pinned behind my back and two burly NYPD officers on top of me.  “Just imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t tripped over that book of his!” One says to the other.

“THE ENCYCLOPEDIA!” I shout.

“Yeah,” the other says, “the encyclopedia. You probably would’ve gotten what you wanted back there if that encyclopedia hadn’t held you back.”

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