Moving on from this brief excursion into political philosophy before the profundity grows too deep, what remains to be said is this: things happened. History happened. It does not stop happening. Seemingly frozen moments are transient, they break up like the spring ice, and then change occurs. So: individuals, groups, civilization, and the planet itself all did these things, in actor networks of all kinds. Remember not to forget, if your head has not already exploded, the nonhuman actors in these actor networks. Possibly the New York estuary was the prime actor in all that has been told here, or maybe it was bacterial communities, expressing themselves through their own civilizations, what we might call bodies.
But again, enough with the philosophy! And please do not because of this quick list of transient political accomplishments conclude that this account is meant to end all happy-happy, with humanity’s problems wrapped up in a gift box accompanied by a Hallmark card and flowers. Why would you think that, knowing what you know? This story is about New York, not Denver, and the city is as ruthless as an otter. Its stories will always convey that awful New York mix of hypocritical sentimentality and stone-cold ambition. So sure, a leftward flurry of legislation got LBJed through Congress in 2143, but there was no guarantee of permanence to anything they did, and the pushback was ferocious as always, because people are crazy and history never ends, and good is accomplished against the immense black-hole gravity of greed and fear. Every moment is a wicked struggle of political forces, so even as the intertidal emerges from the surf like Venus, capitalism will be flattening itself like the octopus it biomimics, sliding between the glass walls of law that try to keep it contained, and no one should be surprised to find it can squeeze itself to the width of its beak, the only part of it that it can’t squish flatter, the hard part that tears at our flesh when it is free to do so. No, the glass walls of justice will have to be placed together closer than the width of an octopus’s beak—now there’s a fortune cookie for you! And even then the octopus may think of some new ways to bite the world. A hinged beak, some super suckers, who knows what these people will try.
So no, no, no, no! Don’t be na?ve! There are no happy endings! Because there are no endings! And possibly there is no happiness either! Except perhaps in some odd chance moment, dawn in the clean washed street, midnight out on the river, or more likely in the regarding of some past time, some moment encased in a cyst of nostalgia, glimpsed in the rearview mirror as you fly away from it. Could be happiness is always retrospective and probably therefore made up and even factually wrong. Who knows. Who the fuck knows. Meanwhile get over your childlike Rocky Mountain desire for a happy ending, because it doesn’t exist. Because down there in Antarctica—or in other realms of being far more dangerous—the next buttress of the buttress could go at any time.
Over the next few hours, the skyline vista suggests, we will follow one such story—but we might well have turned to some other window and there found another, equally interesting story to watch. Next time, perhaps. There are, the skyline proposes, millions of stories to choose from—a whole city of stories, all proceeding at once, whether we happen to see them or not.
—James Sanders, Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies
h) Mutt and Jeff
Later that year, in the depths of winter, Mutt and Jeff go downstairs from their hotello on the farm floor, where they have stubbornly remained despite the fact that a hotello is very difficult to heat properly. They join a little party welcoming Charlotte back home from D.C. She is threatening to be a one-term wonder, and some people want to talk her into re-upping, while others want her to come back to New York. No doubt there are those who would like to see her disappeared at sea, but most of the occupants of the Met are proud of her and want to tell her that, and celebrate. There’s a big crowd in the common room, and Mutt and Jeff sit against a wall watching the action and behaving like the wallflowers they are. Mr. Hexter comes over and sits with them.
“Nice party,” he says.
Mutt agrees; Jeff squints. “But where’s Charlotte?”
“She was delayed, she just got in. She’ll be here in a minute, she said.”
And in fact she comes out of the elevator that very moment, with Franklin Garr. They are laughing, and Garr steps back and holds out his hands to present her to the crowd. People cheer.
“So those two are a couple now?” Jeff asks Mutt.
“So I’m told.”
“But that’s absurd.”
“How so? She kept saying he’s a nice young man.”
“But I thought she was supposed to be smart.”
“I think she is.”
“And yet.”
“Well, tastes differ. And besides, he’s been good on the crash. In fact you could say he managed to actually do what you tried to do. What you just waved at with your graffiti hack.”
Jeff grumbles some kind of objection to this characterization, but Mutt is having none of it.
“Come on, Jeff. Your sixteen rules of the global economy, remember? Turn the key on those, you said, and we could fix everything. And now our young comrade here has not only called out the fixes for Charlotte, he also designed the crash that allowed the key to start turning.”
“Okay, whatever, but nice young man? No. Only a shark could do what he did.”
“But Charlotte is kind of a shark too.”
“Not at all. She’s just someone who gets things done.”
“Like sharks do! Because she has good judgment!”
“Usually she does.”
“So she’s probably seeing something in this guy we don’t.”
“Obviously.”
“Shut up, she’s coming over to say hi.”
Which she does. She looks tired, but happy to be back home among friends. Stefan and Roberto are running around serving drinks to people, and it’s looking like they have filched a few too many sips, as they are glassy-eyed and perhaps might have to do like Romans and go spew and then carry on.
Charlotte regards them. “Boys, don’t get drunk. You’ll regret it.”
They nod like owls and shear off to get more.
She sits down wearily beside Mutt and Jeff and Mr. Hexter. “How are you guys?”
“Cold.”
“I bet. Don’t you want to be the quants who came in from the cold?”
They shrug. “It’s nice to be outside,” Mutt explains. “I think it may be a while before that feeling goes away for us.”
“Like forever,” Jeff adds.
“I understand. So, other than that? How’s work going?”
The two men shrug again. They are like a synchronized shrugging team.
“We’re trying to light up the dark pools. Build a little spoof-catching program.”
“It would stop front-running too.”
“Good to hear,” Charlotte said. “Have you spoken to Larry Jackman about it?”
“He knows. It’s one of the outstanding problems. Of which there are many.”
“What are you going to do with all the money coming in?” Mutt asks her.
She laughs. “Spend it!”
“But on what?”
“We’ll find things. Maybe just up the living wage. Free people up to work on what they want. Like you guys.”
“Some people like to fuck things up.”
She nods. “Like about half the members of Congress.”
“So how do you deal with them?”
“I don’t. I yell at them. Right now we’ve got the momentum, so I do my best to steamroll them. Introduce a bill a day. Like a flurry in boxing. So far it’s been working.”
“So you can’t quit, right?”
“Oh yes I can! I want to come back here. There’s things to do here. And D.C. will take care of itself. It doesn’t need me.”
“I hope that’s true,” Mutt says.