Sixteen

Here came the international teens with their embossed leathers, their cashmere hoodies and pimpled excitements. They had traveled from China, Japan, Russia, Kuwait, just to squeeze into the lone Mediocre elevator car and delay my arrival at work. The international teens studied English in the language program down the hall from our suite. Who knew why they bothered? Maybe someday Business English would be the only trace of our civilization left. Bored youth across the global globosphere would memorize its verb tenses, concoct filthy rhymes in its honor. Maybe they'd speak Pig English to trick the oldsters. Pig English would be Latin.

Rumor had it the whole deal was a scam, that the students were gaming us. We sponsored them for visas, and when the paperwork went through, they transferred to one of the online universities, lit out for the territories, Vegas, Miami, Maui. No classes to attend, all their assignments written by starving grad students and emailed for grading to shut-in adjuncts scattered across the North American landmass, the international teens would have a whole semester for the most delightful modes of free fall. Daddy's Shanghai factories or Caspian oil pipes would foot the bills.

But rumor also had it that Mediocre had to somehow benefit, or the practice would have been stopped long ago.

The international teens wore jackets and carried handbags worth half my monthly paycheck, back when I received a monthly paycheck. They clutched cell phones and cigarette lighters shaped like postmodern architectural masterpieces. The international teens rode to the roof to smoke. Later they would gather in the lounge area, nap. One boy, a handsome kid in rumpled club wear, could often be glimpsed snoozing on the suede divan outside Dean Cooley's suite. No other disco napper dared claim this inviting nest, and I never discovered who the boy was, or why he merited this dispensation, but sometimes I found myself unconsciously bowing my head in his presence.

Now the international teens jammed me harder up near the button panel, chatted in their conquering tongues. Their giggles, I concluded, regarded shabby me. It felt good to be colonized, oppressed, a subaltern at last.

You reactionary scumbag, I upbraided myself. But I'm just being honest, I replied. Your so-called honesty is a weapon against the weak, I said. Fuck off, I retorted, I am the weak. Look at my dollar! It's shriveling in my hand! It's like a vampire caught out by the sun. My dollar is exploding into dust. I'm not the bad guy anymore! Han brothers and sisters have the wheel of this wreck now!

"Excuse me, sir," said one of the Chinese students. "I must ask once again, I do not mean to offend. Is this your stop?"

Another nodded, held the door. How long had they been waiting for me to leave the car?

"Yes, thanks,xie xie," I said, slinked past them into the lounge area.

The receptionist had gone to lunch, left Horace curled up in one of the Eames knockoffs with a twist of pemmican and a paperback book.

"What up, kid?" he said. "How's my home slice?"

A devout ageist, Horace frequently mocked me with antiquated slang.

"I'm okay, thanks."

I took a seat nearby.

"You passing the dutchie, or what?"

"I don't know what that means, Horace."

"Sure you don't."

"What are you reading?"

"This book my sister got for one of her college seminars. It's called The Unfortunate."

Horace held up the book. It was called The Infortunate.

"You sure?" I said.

Horace flipped the book around.

"What the fuck are you talk-Ah, good catch, Meister Po. Anyway, it's an awesome book. It's about this dude back in pre-revolutionary times. Like his memoir. He was in law school and living on the family dime in London, but really just partying and shit. Listen to this sentence here: 'In my Clerkship, I did little else but vapour about the Streets, with my Sword by my Side; as for studying the Law, little of that serv'd me, my Time being taken up with pursuing the Pleasures of the Town…' He's like the first slacker. Just saying you're not the boss of me to his whole world."

"Like you."

"Hardly," said Horace. "There are no slackers anymore. Your generation murdered the dream. You guys were lazy pigs. We're more like highly efficient pleasurebots. But this guy, he really sparked something, in his way."

"Sounds interesting."

"Don't be a phony, Judge Holden."

"Your references are all over the place. You know that, right?"

"That's the point," said Horace.

"Oh," I said.

"Got it, Francis Gary Numan Powers? William of Orange Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?"

Our grandchildren would be steeped in some other nation's trivialized history. It would be their salvation.

"Got it."

"So anyway, this guy, Moraley is his name. He's a real joker. Does no work, gets kicked out of school. Finally gets cut off by his mother after his father dies, and he gambles and whores himself into serious debt. As only a true vaporing dude could."

"Wow."

"That's just the setup. He basically ends up with a choice: go to debtor's prison or become an indentured servant in the New World. Ends up working for a watchmaker in Philly. Young Ben Franklin is hanging around there, too. But Moraley isn't the same kind of self-starter, I guess. Plus he's like a slave."

"So what happens?" I said.

"Nothing really. He goes on a little trip in the wilderness and describes what he sees, though my sister said he made most of it up. Total drunk liar."

"Awesome."

"Actually it kind of sucks. It's pretty boring."

"You seemed so excited about it."

"I was excited by the idea of it. But now that I'm talking to you, it's boring the shit out of me."

"I have that effect."

"I know you do. Or, well, it seems that way, anyway. Or well. George Orwell. That's funny. I never thought of that before."

"His real name was Eric Blair."

"Nobody likes a pedant, Milo. How's your ask going?"

I told him some of Purdy's give ideas.

"Digital art shop sounds smoking," said Horace. "And the brilliant thing about that is the whole point of digital art is you don't really need a ton of real estate to do it. So, of course we should build a huge digital art studio. Cooley's really into counterintuitive moves. Like, for example, people will always need to go to the toilet, so let's not have public toilets. It's different, exciting. The global stuff could be golden. We definitely need to get something hotshit live in the Emirates. I've heard Varge and War Crimes talking. We may have some prince's kid in the film program next year. But you'll have to rip this one. Parking lot jack. For real. Varge and Crimes have both said so, in their ways."

"What do you mean? And since when is she Varge? And how do you know all of this stuff?"

"May I answer your queries in reverse order?"

Horace's swerves in diction always amazed. He once explained that like many in this country, he spoke several dialects: Standard American English, Black American English, American Television English, East Coast Faux Skater English, Foodie French, and Drug Russian.

"Sure," I said.

"Okay, let's see," said Horace. "I know all of this stuff because unlike you, I've been taking this career seriously. I don't sit around dreaming of a parallel universe where everybody's speaking about my artistic vision in hushed voices on public radio and I'm home in my Brooklyn brownstone half listening while my young assistant with the bee-stung lips and gesso-smeared wifebeater gives me a world-class perineum-polishing with her chrome-studded tongue. No, I concentrate on the mission of this office and the mission of the arts at this university. Actually, I try to make your public radio rimjob fantasy come true for young people with the talent and drive and, yes, the moral character to realize it, to walk through the door of life's opportunities and seize the future by the ponytail and yank the future's head down to their crotches and just fucking demand satisfaction, not dream about it while sitting in a cubicle. I listen. I learn. I sit at the feet of the masters, soak up their toosh dev wisdom."