The Nix(71)

“Occupy Wall Street.”

“That’s the one. Pretty grandiose name, if you ask me. They are not occupying Wall Street so much as a small rectangle of concrete about a thousand feet away from it.”

“I think the name is symbolic.”

“It’s a revolt against things they don’t understand. Imagine our hominid ancestors protesting a drought? This is like that.”

“A rain dance, you’re saying, this protest.”

“It’s a primitive tribal response to godlike power, yes.”

“How many people?”

“More every day. It started with a dozen. Now several dozen. They try to engage us in conversation as we go to work.”

“You should try talking to them.”

“I did once. This kid, maybe twenty-five years old. He was down by the drum circle, juggling. His hair was in white-boy dreads. He began every sentence with the word ‘Well.’ It was a tic he had. But he pronounced it like wool. I literally could not hear anything else he said.”

“So not a true dialogue, then.”

“Have you ever protested anything?”

“Once.”

“How was it?”

“Unsuccessful.”

“A drum circle. Jugglers. They’re a living, breathing non sequitur in the middle of the financial district. But what they don’t understand is that there is nothing capitalism loves so much as a non sequitur. This is what they need to learn. Capitalism gobbles up non sequiturs happily.”

“By non sequitur you mean…”

“You know, the fashionable. The trendy. Every trend begins its life as a fallacy.”

“That maybe explains Molly Miller’s new video.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“Real catchy,” Samuel said. “?‘You have got to represent.’ What does that even mean?”

“You know, there used to be a difference between authentic music and sellout music. I’m talking about when I was young, in the sixties? Back then we knew there was a soullessness to the sellouts, and we wanted to be on the side of the artists. But now? Being a sellout is the authentic thing. When Molly Miller says ‘I’m just being real,’ what she means is that everyone wants money and fame and any artist who claims otherwise is lying. The only fundamental truth is greed, and the only question is who is up front about this. That’s the new authenticity. Molly Miller can never be accused of selling out because selling out was her goal all along.”

“The point of her song seems to be, like, be rich, have fun.”

“She’s appealing to her audience’s latent greed and telling them it’s okay. Janis Joplin tried to inspire you to be a better person. Molly Miller tells you it’s okay to be the horrible person you already are. I’m not making a judgment about this. It’s just my job to know it.”

“But what about the juggler?” Samuel said. “The guy down at the drum circle? He doesn’t want to sell out.”

“He’s doing an impression of a protest he saw on TV once, many years ago. He has sold out, just to a different set of symbols.”

“But not to greed, is what I’m saying.”

“Are you old enough to remember Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf? And Scud missiles? Yellow ribbons and the line in the sand and Arsenio Hall going woof-woof-woof for the troops?”

“Yes.”

“There is nothing capitalism cannot gobble up. Non sequitur is its native language. Did you call me or did I call you?”

“You called.”

“Right. Now I remember. I heard you met with your mother.”

“I saw her, yes. I went to her apartment.”

“You were in the same room with her. What did she say?”

“Not much.”

“You were in the same room and you heroically overcame years of resentment and she opened up to you in a way she’s never opened up to anyone before, spilling out a dramatic life story that ideally concludes after two hundred and fifty pages of easy reading, give or take.”

“Not exactly.”

“I know I’m asking you to process your feelings quickly. But we’re on a schedule.”

“It didn’t seem like she wanted to talk. But I’m working on it. I’m doing some research. It might take some time.”

“Some time. Right. You remember that big oil spill in the Gulf last year?”

“I do.”

“People cared about that for, on average, thirty-six days. They’ve done studies on this.”

“What do you mean ‘cared’?”

“For the first month, people expressed mostly indignation and retarded anger. After about five weeks, the average response was ‘Oh, right, I forgot about that.’?”

“So you’re suggesting we have a window here.”

“A very small and shrinking window. That was the worst environmental disaster in North America ever. Compared to that, who cares about some lady who threw rocks at a guy most people acknowledge is sort of a douche bag?”

“But what do I do? What’s my alternative?”

“Bankruptcy. Jakarta. I already explained this.”

“I’ll work fast. I’m actually in Iowa right now, collecting information.”