Love In The Time Of Apps (16 page)

Responding to the blast of police sirens and the flashing squad car lights, the tightly jammed group of reporters, “the press of the press,” as Goodwin later described them, parted. Stupefied, Goodwin was led by Durksen to a lectern that supported about twenty microphones. He looked down blankly at the anxious reporters as television cameras focused on him.

“How’s your wife doing, Mr. Goodwin?”

Goodwin gazed at the microphones. “She’s in a coma.”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“Well, Doctor Kildare, the chief physician on the case, says that all of her vital signs are good, but that he couldn’t tell when she would regain consciousness.” This isn’t so bad, thought Goodwin. His momentary severe anxiety evaporated and in a more confident manner, he said: “Next.”

“Mr. Goodwin, we’ve heard that you were having marital difficulties and in fact you were happy that your wife was struck by lightning. After all, if she dies you will get to keep the entire estate. If you were divorced you’d have to give up at least half of that. We understand that your mutual net worth is quite high. According to confidential financial records your mutual net worth is exactly $50,860,000.28 as of 3 pm this afternoon. Of course that does not include the fair market value of all of your personal belongings such as paintings, jewelry, and the like. Hard data on that won’t come in until later this evening.”

Goodwin was shocked at this revelation, which appeared accurate to the penny. One of his cardinal rules about privacy, keeping his financial details secret, had just been violated through no fault of his own. This privacy breach coupled with the accusation that he was glad Sheila might die initially had a numbing effect on Goodwin to the extent that he could not actually perceive the volley of questions being fired at him. Numbness gave way to a mix of fear and rage. If his condition at the moment was stated as a formula it would have been: Fear + Rage=Loss of Control. Referring to the assertion about his death wish for Sheila, he screamed out, “That’s a fucking lie!”

A collective gasp issued from the crowd. A senior woman reporter, a Barbara Walters type, shouted from the back: “Sir. I speak for all of us in the Fourth Estate to say we are shocked and dismayed by your salacious outburst.” Goodwin could hear rumblings of “salacious,” “shocked,” and “dismayed” from the reporters. “Don’t you know that the news is PG? And now you’ve polluted the airways. Why, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Murmurs and harrumphs of approval of her message percolated through the troop of reporters.

Another reporter yelled, “What about this?” Standing in front of a television camera for all to see, the reporter was holding Goodwin’s altered house sign, which now read: “Harm House” and below that, “Sheila is not worth saving.” The sign was held directly in front of Goodwin’s face. “Why did you wish her harm? Why isn’t she worth saving? Isn’t every human being worth saving? Is that the way you feel now that this poor heroic woman is lying in a coma?”

“That wasn’t what I meant. It was a Freudian slip.”

A distinguished looking older man with grey hair, matching beard, and wearing a tweed suit, stepped up and said in a deep Austrian accent, “Sir, I’m the lead reporter for the Freudian Times and I can tell you that a Freudian slip is simply a verbal mistake emanating generally from the subconscious. It’s not something done with a magic marker. What our readers and I want to know is why you find it necessary to lie to the American Public?”

The Barbara Walters type, now directly in front of Goodwin and holding a small tape recorder said, “You would think, Mr. Goodwin, that at least you’d have the decency to call your wife.”

“But I did call her.”

The Walters type held up the tape recorder and pushed play. It was a recording of Goodwin’s phone call to Sheila earlier in the day, the one in which Goodwin said, “This is Philip,” and nothing more. “You call that a phone call? You could at least have said, “Hello. I hope you feel better, but maybe you didn’t want her to feel better. According to the tracking information on your internet activity, you did visit her avatar’s website. There were so many nice options that you could have linked into, like flowers or speaking with Sheila’s avatar. We understand that the avatar is very hurt that you didn’t contact her.”

Before Goodwin could reply, though he was essentially speechless, she added as a post script to her statement, “We also understand that you tied up the Host-Pital’s phone lines unnecessarily when you continued to push for further options knowing that there weren’t any. Hospital phone lines are for public safety, Mr. Goodwin, not your amusement. But you probably didn’t care. And to make matters worse when the Host-Pital’s wonderful electronic operator, Patricia, scolded
you for asking for more options when you knew they didn’t exist all you could say was ‘chill.’ Don’t you know that chilling electric wires basically turns off their power? In other words, not only did you have a death wish for the lovely Sheila, but for poor Patricia, as well. She was so upset that she temporarily short circuited.”

Under ordinary circumstances these insane comments and in fact the very concept of hospital avatars would have been great fodder for Goodwin’s humor, but at this moment he was totally befuddled.

Another reporter shouted, “Well, let me repeat for the benefit of the American public your horrific email, which the very fine Doctor Sydney Maxine gave to us. You remember Doctor Maxine don’t you? He’s the man who tried to save your marriage and as payback for his efforts, you tell him that you want him to die a horrible death. Let me refresh your recollection and I quote: FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING GIRLIE, GIRLIE, GIRLIE MAN LOVER. I PRAY THAT YOU GET STRUCK BY LIGHTNING AND THAT SYDNEY MAXINE HAS THE LIFE SUCKED OUT OF HIM.”

Because of the airing of Goodwin’s prior use of ‘fucking,’ the networks had already slipped into their time delay mode. Hence, when the reporter’s statement aired, “fuck” was replaced by “beep,” with a resultant “Beep you, beep you, and your beeping girlie, girlie, girlie man lover.” Goodwin later observed of this interplay that despite multiple use of “fuck” by the reporter, the other members of the press did not criticize him. He could only attribute this to professional courtesy.

All of this was very intimidating to Goodwin, who was accustomed to public adulation, even though this was limited to his country club admirers. He was never taken to task by anyone, let alone by members of the press, who Goodwin later said, “were task masters.” He was completely overwhelmed, unable to come up with a coherent thought, let alone speak, and for a moment thought of hightailing it into his house without responding, but he didn’t have to say a thing. A man wearing a very shiny, almost fluorescent, blue pin-striped suit, stepped in front of him and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, Mr. Goodwin has been through a great deal of stress this evening. He needs to call
members of his and Sheila’s family. Please show a little respect. That’s all for tonight.”

Ignoring the hisses of the reporters, the man guided Goodwin to his door, arm over his shoulder as if protecting him. When they entered the foyer of Goodwin’s house, Goodwin said, “I don’t know who you are, but I really appreciate the help. By the way how’d you get to me so quickly?”

“Max Schnell’s the name. I actually heard about your wife from a client in Mongolia. I forgot about her, but then my Mental Note App went off and here I am. I think you can use my help. I’m a professional licensing agent and manager. I manage the press, manage interviews, negotiate license deals, public relations and stuff like that. When I heard the story about your poor wife, I said to myself this is a guy who needs a loyal friend, one who can help him with situations like this. And, for a 10 percent licensing agent’s fee, I can be that loyal friend. Look, I know this is abrupt, but your wife is becoming famous very quickly, so it’s really important for you to remember what Andy Warhol said.”

“Everyone is famous for 15 minutes?”

“Most people make the same mistake as you do. That’s only the first half of his saying. The second part is, ‘And it doesn’t mean a thing, if you don’t cash in on it.’ Look, here is my card. Call me the next day or so and we can work out a program for you and your wife. Believe me, she will be much more than a person now. She’ll be a brand. Remember, make hay while the sun, or should I say, bright light shines. One word of free advice: don’t answer your phone because the calls will be either members of the press seeking to harass you or solicitations.” As Schnell walked out the door, Goodwin could hear the reporters booing and Schnell’s rejoinder, “Shoo, shoo.”

Schnell, looked a little bit like the original Yoda from Star Wars, though he was taller and had capped teeth. He ultimately turned out to be a real professional and a good and loyal friend to Goodwin. Goodwin learned later that Schnell ran a one-man licensing and talent agency called, “Schnell, Schnell, Schnell & Schnell World Wide” despite the fact that there was only one Schnell. Schnell admitted that
his company name was a bit deceptive, but explained, “I developed it while I was having a bout with schizophrenia, multiple personalities, and never bothered to change it back.” Actually, Schnell’s business really prospered during his multiple personality period because the third Schnell was a financial genius.

The phone messages awaiting Goodwin were mostly from worried friends, his parents, Sheila’s parents and, just as Schnell had predicted, solicitations. The strangest of these was a hard sell from the Cremation Society, which offered a free subscription to Cremation Magazine. Goodwin wondered about the content of a magazine devoted to cremation. Endorsements from satisfied customers? Recipes? Designer Urns? Do it yourself cremation kits? He imagined that the last of these would carry a sales pitch like, “And when you are done your home made cremation device converts into a pizza oven. Just reheat your loved one’s ashes.”

The manager of Vogue left a message in which he said that he hoped that Sheila would recover within 20 days because after that, she would not be entitled to return the dress she was trying on at the time of her accident. An aggressive escort service left the most tasteless message, “Now that your wife is out of the picture, our girls will put you in a coma.” The service followed up with an email, but with what Goodwin perceived to be a typo, “Our girls will put you in a comma.”

When Goodwin read the service’s email message, he replied, “I don’t use escort services and in any event would never go to one that didn’t know the difference between a coma and a comma.” The escort service responded immediately: “Your comment simply reflects your sexual naiveté. Just for the record, a ‘comma’ within the context of a sexual reference is the newest position for certain sexual acts. Go to www.comma-sutra.cum.” Goodwin reluctantly admitted to himself that the web’s address was rather clever. Yielding to his curiosity, he entered the site and found photographs of couples in various comma positions. Had his next moment been depicted in animation there would have been an image of Goodwin with his eyes bulging and his jaw dropping 18 inches to the table.

The final message was from Sophie. “I’m so sorry about Sheila. I hope she comes out of this okay and that you’re okay, too. Oh yes, one more thing, I know it’s very early, but I think I’m pregnant and I know that you are the father. I still love you. Call me at...” The message ended with Goodwin saying plaintively, as if Sophie was with him, “No. Don’t go. Please don’t go.” Any hope that he harbored that he was over her was destroyed as soon as he heard Sophie’s voice.

Goodwin’s mumbled assumption that “It can’t get any worse than this” was dispelled immediately when he put on the news. Sydney Maxine, dressed somewhat androgynously, was holding a press conference. Behind him was a phalanx of angry looking attorneys, some of whom seemed to be actually growling. Maxine was speaking from his living room. “Of course my main concern is for Sheila. I have been praying for her. There is nothing more important to me than her well being. I just wish I could be at her side, but I cannot leave the house. Tragically, I’ve been diagnosed with a severe case of agoraphobia brought on by an uncontrollable fear of dying a horrible death by having the life sucked out of me, as Mr. Goodwin had wished in his despicable email.”

A young lawyer handed Maxine a tissue to wipe away a tear. The lawyer reminded himself to bill Maxine one dollar as a disbursement for the tissue and to add to his billing for attending the conference, “pulling out tissue box, selecting an appropriate tissue, handing the tissue to client, and putting tissue box away, six minutes, subsequent memo to file regarding handing client a tissue, ten minutes.” The associate’s boss billed: “Review of Memo to File re: Tissue extraction and delivery to client, six minutes.” In total, Maxine’s tears cost him $186.00 in legal fees and disbursements.

Maxine continued, “So here I am, alone, stuck in my house with only my glass figurines to keep me company and to console me.” He was going to cry hysterically at this point, but held back because he couldn’t afford the legal fees.

A stern looking man, a senior attorney, stepped up to the microphone. “In view of the outrageous and genuinely malicious behavior of Goodwin, we are exploring our legal options against Goodwin as
well as the possibility of filing a criminal complaint against Goodwin.” The omission of “Mister,” Goodwin thought, probably had its intended effect of portraying him as both culpable and less of a person.

“While I don’t know the legalities involved in this,” Maxine piped in, “I do have a message for Philip Goodwin. Mr. Goodwin you have totally ruined my life. I hope you’re satisfied.”

A reporter asked, “Mr. Maxine, besides your understandable fear brought on by such a horrible and vicious death wish, how exactly has Philip Goodwin ruined your life?”

“For the short time that we were together, Sheila and I had a deep and loving relationship. As you all know by now, Sheila and I suffer from a rare condition called Hypo-Humoresque. People afflicted with this heartbreaking malady, whose only symptom is not having any sense of humor, often feel terribly alone. That was certainly true for Sheila. For most of her marriage Sheila felt isolated and in ways humiliated by Mr. Goodwin’s unrelenting daily barrage of jokes, puns, and wisecracks all at her expense. Think about how a person with a sense of humor would feel in a world inhabited only by HH people. When we found each other, it was quite wonderful. We realized that we could live our lives within our humorless cocoon. We would never have to go to a comedy again. It was perfect. She was perfect. Our life together was perfect.”