Fakebook (28 page)

Prior to Facebook, we would have had an entirely different and thinner relationship. He'd be a fading memory—someone I knew within a context that long ago expired.

But the image in my mind of who Elliott is remains sharp—it's constantly updating on my news feed. Photos remind me what he looks like; posts reflect his sensibility; details give me a bullet-point list of what he is doing, where he is living, who he hangs out with.

The version of Elliott who inhabits my perception of the world—that character on my personal stage—is a new type of relationship. He's a memory rooted in real life, in real interactions, in real shared experiences he and I had a long time ago, but that memory has been updated and largely replaced by content offered through his own discretion.

So rather than fade, Elliott Askew, the memory, has been digitally fossilized, as bit by bit of what was real has been replaced by the 0s and 1s of information—until Elliott Askew has become a digital projection.

Figuring out what that meant—that's what Fakebook was originally all about. It was a reaction to this new type of relationship. It was born out of the disconnect between people and the images they broadcast. But right now, Elliott, not his profile, was on the other end.

“Is this Dave?” His voice was energized. I recognized the reaction from my own—from the surreal moments of Fakebook, like texting my secret foil on the Williamsburg Bridge three months ago. It sounded as if Elliott couldn't believe any of this was happening. I'd had almost six months to prepare for this, and part of me couldn't believe it, either.

“Yep,” I said with a fair amount of fear. “So…you caught me, huh?”

“So it is all bullshit? You're still in New York?”

“Well…my last post was true, actually. I'm in Wyoming, skiing. Heh.”

“You son of a bitch!”

I wasn't sure how serious his anger was. He sounded angry, but not exclusively. Like he couldn't decide what he thought of it all. His entire context of me was shifting. He was bridging the gap between what he'd experienced on Facebook and what was happening in real life.

“And Ted's in on it too, isn't he?”

“Some people are in on it, but I'll leave it up to them if they want to be revealed or not.”

“Ted's definitely in on it.'”

I laughed a bit. His anger seemed to subside a little, giving way to amusement. He was solving a mystery, uncovering the twist of this story he'd been following daily. And this conversation—the satisfaction of uncovering the truth—was a payoff.

“I mean—listen,” I said. “I just want to apologize if this caused you any trouble…That was never my intention. Just the idea for doing this…well, it just seemed inevitable. It just felt like someone was going to do it, and I thought I'd make it funny. I didn't expect this to be anything more than harmless entertainment.”

“Oh, it was entertaining. It was so damn amusing. I checked it every day, just to see what was happening next,” he said. “And you're right. People took it seriously. You were a hero—people would say, ‘Man…work was rough. I want to pull a Cicirelli.' And I'd be like…‘
He
almost
just
died!
'”

“Hahaha…I'm sorry. But things like that, I love hearing that. I'm sorry, though.”

We talk for a while longer. I could hear in his voice how he was wrapping his head around it. He told me that he'd been pacing around his apartment all day, trying to reconcile my dream quest and the cult and all the oddities with the reality he was clinging to. He told me that he found himself explaining away any discrepancies he noticed. And to my immense satisfaction, he compared himself to a kid who was trying to still believe in Santa Claus.

I told him that I wouldn't have doubted a thing if our roles were reversed. It was true.

“Listen, man,” I said. “I was going to end this thing on April 1 no matter what. I was really cautious at first. To be totally honest, I was scared shitless of getting caught. But I'm past that point now…This thing is coming to an end. I wasn't going to be able to do it forever, and I'm not willing to dovetail it back into my real life…That feels too dishonest.”

“Have to draw a line somewhere…” Elliott said.

“Well, yeah,” I replied. “I mean, that's what's interesting to me—the complete separation of real life and Facebook. Otherwise it's just a pointless hoax.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“So, I guess what I'm getting at is…thank you. You helped make this ride so interesting. You, Joe Lennon, Matt Campbell—the whole gang who followed from the beginning.” I look at the mountain again and the trail heading down it. “A bunch of individual posts kind of added up into something, didn't they? We did something pretty cool, I think.”

“Yeah…” he said. I could almost hear a sense of loss in his voice. Fakebook was ending. And he was losing it—first he was losing the adventure he'd followed, and now he was losing the adventure he took in unraveling it.

The conversation ended. I leaned against the faux rustic wood fence and stared out at the landscape. I could feel my legs ache a little from the morning's excursion. I took a breath of mountain air. The biggest project of my life was ending. But I was glad it had happened here, two thousand miles from my criminally expensive 250 square feet under the Williamsburg Bridge.

My brother and I went out for a couple of beers. We toasted the end of Fakebook and the return of my life—whatever that was going to be.

Even though I was mostly at peace with it ending, enough of me was too reluctant to watch it break down. I turned off my phone and retreated to reality. After all, even though Fakebook was essentially over, real life kept going. Tomorrow was Monday, and I'd fly back to the city and go back to my old life. But it wasn't really my old life. The week ahead was going to give me an answer about a new job. I had dinner plans with a new girl. Chapters close, but the story goes on.

A bit later, with a few beers giving me courage, I turned on my phone to see the end of Fakebook.

What? Apparently, Fakebook wasn't over just yet.

On Monday morning, I looked over at Mark sitting in the waiting area of the Jackson Hole airport. He looked a little insane, gnawing at a piece of duty-free elk jerky in a futile attempt to wean himself off elk steak.

It seemed a good time to begin the next chapter of Fakebook—one last big push into absurd character assassination.

This was, of course, all set up for the horrible twist. The second chance to continue this story made me go at it with reckless abandon. Every weird, cruel, and humiliating idea that I found funny but unacceptable to implement was now back on the table. I was living my fake life on borrowed time. And, I figured, if Elliott was willing to throw Joe Lennon under the bus, I should be willing to throw Fake Dave under the bus headfirst.

So a few hours later, as I touched down in Dallas for a connecting flight, I did.

It was one of the more messed-up posts of Fakebook. Hell, it even gave me pause. But damn it, it made me laugh. It had taken nearly all of these six months for me to get comfortable enough with myself to completely destroy my reputation, and I felt…okay about it.