Wendy searches for images of people at work looking happy and fulfilled. She finds photos of guys playing ping-pong like the ones in a corner of her office. When she refines her search to include terms like “manual labor,” she gets unsmiling people working obsolete jobs. Finally, she comes across a cowboy brushing a horse. As far as she knows there are still such things as cowboys. Still such things as horses. It’s a start.
After less than an hour of focused googling, Wendy finds herself on Ricky’s Facebook wall, which has filled with memorial posts: condolences, scanned Polaroids, RIPs. Someone’s made a GIF of the deceased hoovering coke on a cloud. Wendy searches through dozens of tagged photos until she finds what she wants: the three of them on Coney Island, eating hot dogs. Michael’s burnt everywhere but a rectangle of chest where his book must have been. Wendy wears a bikini and looks tan. She laughs at something Ricky’s said and a tiny piece of hot dog missiles from her mouth toward the camera. She clicks share.
“You knew him?” says Lucas, who’s appeared by her side. He wears high-waisted dress pants, chalk-striped and suspendered. A patterned silk tie stops halfway down his torso. Blond hair gelled into a side part. The same beautiful shoes as yesterday. On any other man, this would look like a costume.
“My husband’s best friend.”
She could have said old friend or close family friend, but Wendy feels the need to establish a remove. Perhaps out of guilt. Perhaps to explain her presence in the office. To make it clear that grief will not affect her work. As a woman, she feels she must make this case.
“I didn’t realize that,” says Lucas. “I’m sorry.”
He produces a handkerchief and offers it to Wendy. The item is silk. Wendy waves it away. The handkerchief must be for show. She can’t imagine Lucas having tear ducts. Can’t imagine him carrying, in his pocket, something tainted with snot.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t exactly get along.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t love him.”
No, Wendy thinks, I didn’t love him, and now I must live with that.
“I feel like an asshole. My husband’s home alone.”
A normal human would tell her to take a personal day. He’d say that work can wait.
“I’m going to ask you to do something,” says Lucas. “It might seem strange, and outside your job description, so I need you to understand that my intentions are noble.”
“Okay.”
“People are going to say a lot of horrible things about your husband’s friend. They’re going to dredge up a lot of shit. I want to give you the opportunity to catch that shit and turn it into gold.”
“Shit into gold,” says Wendy. “Copy that.”
“Nøøse is going to try to use his murder to shape the narrative around Basic Income. They’ll say that the violence that occurred is the consequence of an unfair society. That people get angry and then people get hurt. And the only way to change that is to placate the people.”
“By passing the UBI.”
“They’re going to say that your husband’s friend—well, they’re not going to say he deserved to die—but that his death should be a wake-up call. That people like us should be scared. That we should do what they want if we don’t want more violence.”
“By passing the UBI.”
“Lillian will brief you on the details.”
“You’ve discussed this with Lillian?”
“We’ve discussed it,” says Lucas, like she’s naïve for asking, so grief-blind and domestically consumed that she can’t grasp the urgency of their predicament. Hasn’t she established that she left Michael crumbling toast on the floor?
“And what about this product?” Wendy says. “How long until I’ve entered the circle of trust?”
“Take care of this,” he says. “And come in tomorrow with a concept for the billboard. After that we’ll talk.”
“You want me to come up with a billboard for a product despite not knowing what that product is?”
“Exactly,” says Lucas. “We’re in a bit of a time crunch. We hadn’t originally planned to launch for another four months, but this vote on the UBI changed our timeline. We’re pushing the launch to next week.”
“And why is that?” Wendy asks, but Lucas is already walking away.
She closes Facebook in order to focus, but not before checking the photo she shared. It’s received sixteen reactions, a mix of hearts and cry-face emojis. Two people, accidentally or not, have ticked like.
8.
Instead of heading home after hanging his flyers, Michael finds himself crossing the Gowanus Canal. The area is mostly unaugmented, though a dozen iridescent 365™-branded moons orbit the Whole Foods roof-deck. Otherwise, the landscape is uncommonly bereft of added flair, the former industrial wasteland now filled by fast-casual condos, with their slab marble lobbies and patio balconies, their blindingly reflective facades. The tech bros who’ve bought here must be too busy for Shamerican Sykosis, and their wives aren’t gamers, and their kids are still too young to play.
Michael’s almost forgotten that he’s wearing his helmet when he enters Prospect Park. He moves briskly, passing the usual cyclists and joggers, plus some weed-smelling Rastas heading down to Drummer’s Grove. Michael pauses by the entrance to the Third Street Playground, standing as close as is societally acceptable for an unaccompanied adult male to stand. He feels he’s earned the luxury on this mournful afternoon: to close his eyes and listen to the playground chatter, its exultant human hum; and to allow himself the daydream of what might be, for him and Wendy, maybe, one day.
On the nearest bench, a pair of parents wrangle shoes onto their reluctant toddler’s feet. The kid was playing in his socks before, practicing walking from the edge of the swing-set to dad’s outstretched arms. He must be one or slightly older, and he walks pretty well, arms raised for balance in a kind of chicken-wing posture. But he’s resistant to shoes, which Michael senses must be an ongoing issue, the mom reassuring the crying kid that sneakers are a
