Anyway, I had to accept it. What choice did I have?
I was time-poor.
Chapter Two
We went straight into battle mode. First there was the publicity; we had to whet the public’s appetite. Oscar was smart; he didn’t mess around. The very next day, before we’d even properly discussed how this ludicrous scheme was going to function, he put my picture on the front page of the daily tabloid with the headline “This Man Wants to Make You Rich.” A little clunky, not very elegant, but effective. And that was it for me. The official end to my life as the invisible man.
There was the briefest outline of my idea, without specifics, but most infuriatingly, I was introduced to the Australian public as “Brother of Iconic Outlaw Terry Dean.”
I tore the newspaper into ribbons. Then the telephone started ringing and the lowest forms of human life were on the other end- journalists. What had I gotten myself into? Becoming a public figure is like befriending a rottweiler with meat in your pockets. They all wanted details on how I planned to do it. The first to pick up on the story was a TV producer for a current affairs show, wanting to know if I would be interviewed for a segment. “Of course not,” I said, and hung up. This was just reflex.
“You have to publicize your scheme,” Anouk said.
“Fuck that,” I said weakly. I knew she was right. But how could I speak to these journalists when all I could hear in my head, drowning out their questions, was noisy echoes of an old rage? It turned out I was the kind of person who could hold a grudge for a lifetime. I was still fuming over how the media had relentlessly harassed my family during Terry’s rampage. What was I going to do? They called and called and called. They asked me about myself, my scheme, my brother. Different voices, same questions. When I walked outside, I heard them calling from somewhere within the labyrinth. Helicopters circled overhead. I went inside and locked the door and climbed into bed and turned off the lights. I felt my whole world was on fire. I’d done this to myself, I knew, but that didn’t make it any easier. It made it worse.
The current affairs show ran the story anyway. Oscar Hobbs gave an interview. Apparently he wasn’t going to let my misanthropy ruin everything. To my horror, they dug up footage of me from the time of Terry’s rampage; because I wasn’t watching television then, I’d never seen it. There it was: our town that no longer exists, that I’d burned down with my observatory, and right there on television everyone was alive- my mother, my father, Terry, and even me! Even seventeen-year-old me! It’s impossible to believe I was ever that young. And that skinny. And that ugly. On the television I’m all skin and bones and walking away from the camera with the steady steps of someone moving toward a future he doesn’t know will hurt him. I instantly formed a love-hate relationship with my former self. I loved me for moving so optimistically toward the future, and hated me for getting there and fucking it up.
The following morning I made my way to the Hobbs building, a hushed, seasonless fortress in the city center, seventy-seven floors of soundproof, smell-proof, and poor-proof offices. As soon as I stepped into the lobby, I knew I had grown old inside my nanosecond of eternity. The people racing past me were so young and healthy, I had a coughing fit just looking at them. This was a new type of working man and woman, wholly different from the breed of worker who waits in a fever of impatience for five o’clock to release him from bondage. These were pathologically stressed-out consumers who worked all the time, in industries called new media, digital media, and information technologies. In this place, old methods and technologies were not even remembered, and if they were, they were talked about fondly, as if discussing the death of embarrassing relatives. One thing was certain: this new culture of workers would have baffled the hell out of Marx.
Contrary to expectations, neither Oscar’s nor Reynold’s office was on the top floor, but somewhere in the middle of the building. Entering the stark yet stylish reception area, I was all ready to put on my waiting face when the secretary with cone-shaped breasts said, “Go right in, Mr. Dean.”
Oscar’s office was surprisingly small and simple, with a view of the building opposite. He was on the phone with someone I assumed was his father, who was giving him an earful and doing it so loudly I heard the words “Are you completely stupid?” Oscar raised his eyebrows, waved me in, and motioned for me to sit on a beautiful and uncomfortable-looking flat-backed antique chair. I went to his bookshelf instead. He had an impressive collection of first editions- Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (in German), Tolstoy (in Russian), and Leopardi (in Italian)- that called to mind some lines of the last’s uplifting poetry:
What was that acid spot in time
That went by the name of Life?
Oscar hung up the phone with an expression that was not entirely clear to me. I launched my attack. “Listen, Oscar, I didn’t give you permission to start bandying around my brother’s name. This has nothing to do with him.”
“I’m funding this scheme. I don’t need your permission.”
“Hey- that’s true. You don’t.”
“Listen, Martin. You should be thankful. Your brother, while he was, in my opinion, a dangerous maniac that Australia has no business celebrating-”
“That’s just what he was!” I shouted, thrilled to my bones. For it’s a fact that nobody had ever expressed this very obvious opinion.
“Well, blind Freddy can see that. The point is, he is plain adored by this country, and your close association with him gives you the credentials you need to be taken seriously.”
“OK, but I-”
“You don’t want us to go on and on about it. This is your scheme, this is your turn in the spotlight, and you don’t want your long-dead brother overshadowing you from beyond the grave.”
“Mate, that’s it exactly.”
“After this first week, Marty, you’ll come into your own, don’t worry.”
I had to admit, Oscar Hobbs was a real gentleman. In fact, he was charming me more each time I met him. He seemed to understand me right away. I thought: Maybe people need to grasp that nepotism doesn’t necessarily mean the ascension of an idiot.
“Anyway, let’s get into details. What’s your scheme?”
“OK. It’s simple. Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
“OK. Listen to this. With our population of roughly twenty million people, if everyone in Australia mailed just one dollar a week to a certain address and that money was divided by twenty, every single week of the year twenty Australian families would become millionaires.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it!”
“That’s your idea?”
“That’s my idea!”
Oscar leaned back in his chair and put on a thinking face. It was the same as his regular face, only a little smaller and a little tighter.
The silence made me uncomfortable. I gave him a few more details to fill it.
“Now what if, after the first week, the people who have just become millionaires from the previous week put in a one-time payment of a thousand dollars as a thank-you. That means after the first week we’ll always have a weekly budget of twenty thousand dollars to support the administrative costs of the enterprise.”
Oscar started nodding rhythmically. I pushed on: “So by my calculations, at the end of the first year 1,040 families would have become millionaires, by year two 2,080 millionaires, by year three 3,120 millionaires, and so on. Now 3,120 new millionaires in three years is pretty good, but at that rate it would still take roughly 19,230 years for every Australian to become a millionaire, not even factoring in the rate of population growth.”
“Or decline.”
“Or decline. Obviously, for the number of Australian millionaires to grow exponentially, we need to increase the payment each year by a dollar, so in year two we put in two dollars a week- that’s 40 millionaires a week, or 2,080 millionaires for the year; year three we put in three dollars-60 millionaires a week, or 3,120 millionaires for the year; and so on until every Australian is a millionaire.”