Page 22 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run
To: T. Sparrow
From: Drew
Subject: Sticky
Hi Dad,
Didn’t you once tell me that “the Net” created revolutions for all different types of people? In those 1990s chat rooms folks felt safe enough to be themselves.
Deaf people could type, queer people could flirt, nerds could geek out… everyone had their own kind of safe space to find like-minded souls. And folks kind of watched out for harassment. If you did that, you were out! Am I being too idealistic about this?
Love,
Yer kid Drew
TOOBE ENTRY
To: Toobe
From: Jabbathehut
Subj: Time wasters
What have you been up to, mischievous one? Is this your doing? These are some messages I’ve scanned in chat rooms in the space of a single hour:
Warrior Net: Scratch Wincs, Winc Scratches, the coolest dudes in the universe. They Rule!
Cheating Husbands: Scratch is the most popular girl in our area, I cannot believe she is being pursued by cyberpolice. I wonder if we can help?
Black Men on Black Men: Of course Winc’s been gone for a while. Now I get it. Damn, what’s he gotten himself into? Must have put it to an Eye ::evil grin::
This idol-worship is disgusting, to say the least, Master Toobe. Do these “people” not have anything better to do than speculate on the whereabouts of persons of no import?
—J.
To: Jabbathehut
From: Toobe
Subj: My friends
Those two persons are important to me, Jabba, but I get what you’re saying. No, it wasn’t me. It’s a fucking epidemic. It’s all cuz of some newspaper announcement.
—T.
To: Toobe
From: Jabbathehut
Subj: Friends
Ah, I see. (Must your prose be so purple so often? There are other words—many, in fact—in our English language.) Thank you for the explanation. How predictable.
—J.
To: Jabbathehut
From: Toobe
Subj: Swearing
I’m sorry, Jabba, I’m just upset now. Catch you later.
—T.
Well, I am. I am way freaked out. I haven’t heard one word from Scratch or Winc.
They don’t even know what’s going on out there, what with the govt going after anyone who isn’t a Registered user.
Worse, their names are out there! There was an announcement to turn in anyone who is known to be a Scratch and/or Winc!
And what have they been doing? Playing “getting to know you.”
END TOOBE ENTRY
NARRATIVE ENTRY, JABBATHEHUT
Wally Budge is getting a lot of mail, some useful, most of it not so much.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subj: Way sorry…
Hi Lieutenant, it’s me, Winc. I want to make a deal—I want amnesty, the witness protection program thing, whatever you can give. I know how to get in touch with Scratch. I’ll give hir up in exchange for leniency.
I’ll probably always hate myself for doing this.
Scratch will hate me a whole lot more, but I have my reasons.
So please, send an officer. I’ll come peacefully.
My name is Donald Garner, and I live at 3624 Baltimore Avenue, Apt.
8, in Philadelphia. Only this time, send an earthling.
I *beg* you. The last officers to come to my apartment were from Alpha Centauri, and I…
Budge punches DELETE in disgust. Kooks, how many kooks out there are going to show up now as “Winc” or “Scratch”?
END JABBA NARRATIVE ENTRY
TOOBE ENTRY
The law may be after “Scratch” and “Winc,” but all these people are “confessing” so there’s no way to know who the real ones are.
Poor cops are all dazed and confused (love that movie).
Of course there were fakes but now it’s gotten serious.
People were uniting just to cause trouble—“I am Spartacus.” (Jabba loves that movie)
I’ve been trying for days with no luck to reach Winc. When I finally heard back, ze was taking the government search about as seriously as ze takes anything.
END TOOBE ENTRY
ANONYMOUS CHAT ROOM LOG
Online Host
*** You are in room “The Tavern” ***
FredMan: No, I never met them but people aren’t talking about anything else.
Frankie: Pour me a strong one, bub.
Bartender: You got it.
Frankie: ::winking at you:: Thanks.
Johnny: Make that two, barkeep.
Frankie: ::glancing over at the stranger::
Johnny: ::scratching my head:: How ya doin’ doll.
Private Message to Johnny
Frankie: I am *so* discombobulated!
Johnny: Me too. Feel like I just got out of bed.
Frankie: ::purring:: Well, you did.
Ted: Me too. I’ve never met them. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.
BarBun: Oh, I dunno, I’ve had a few dealings with Scratch. He’s a real cutie.
Johnny: ::almost dropping drink::
Frankie: Hey, steady there, handsome.
Johnny: Thanks, doll.
Private Message to Johnny
Frankie: Scratch?
Johnny: What?
FredMan: What’s the big deal, anyway? What’d they do?
Ted: They say trafficking in porn, but that’s just a rumor.
BarBun: ::patting hair:: That doesn’t sound like the Scratch I know.
Ted: ::quietly:: nor the one I know, either.
Private Message to Frankie
Johnny: Oh, gawd, BarBun. From some chat room…
Frankie: Uh, huh… and ::blush:: Ted’s somebody I know, too.
Johnny: Winc, we gotta ask.
Frankie: ::gulp:: Go ahead, you’re the butch.
Johnny: $@#%!
Johnny: ::scratching chin:: what’s all the talk?
Frankie: Yeah, fill me in too.
FredMan: What?! These Scratch and Winc people, it’s been all over the news.
Frankie: I steer clear of the news.
FredMan: Well, they were simply doing what we’re all doing, only they got caught.
Frankie: Sounds like a government with too much time on its hands.
FredMan: You got that right.
Bartender: And they call it “breaking the law.”
BarBun: Makes you want to show them how many of us “break the law.”
FredMan: Yeah! What would they do if we all sent a letter to the govt, signed by all our other names!
Ted: A good idea, but I’m beginning to think they’re tracing us all to our original accounts.
FredMan: ::snorting:: like they have that much time, or that many brains?
*** All private and public online services ***
A Public Safety Announcement
from
the United States Government
Bureau of Census and Statistics
presented with the cooperation of your local Net service provider
?
This is to alert all citizens
to the presence of two suspected criminals
and known Registration evaders.
Their most common aliases are “Scratch” and “Winc.”
Suspected activities constitute a grave threat to the safety of all Net users.
As true identities are as yet unknown, an all-nodes, all-database government search is underway with the full cooperation of the private sector, to affect apprehension and questioning.
Your government requests your cooperation as follows: Forward exact date, time, and Net location of any encounter with “Scratch” or “Winc,” under any alias.
Forward any and all evidence linking “Scratch” or “Winc” with illegal trafficking of Net access bypass codes, child pornography, or copyright infringement.
If you have participated in online commerce or exchange of any nature with “Scratch” or “Winc,” forward details and scan your hard drive for potentially damaging computer viruses.
We apologize for interrupting your service temporarily, and we thank your local service access provider for their assistance in making this public safety announcement available to you.
End: PSA #309
FredMan: Jesus, it *is* true!
Frankie has left the room.
Johnny has left the room.
Ted: Did it say to forward our own chats with these people?
BarBun has left the room.
FredMan: It did say that. Hey, didn’t you say you’d met one of them?
Ted has left the room.
FredMan: Nothing exciting ever happens to me.
END ANONYMOUS CHAT ROOM LOG
TOOBE ENTRY
To: Toobe
From: Winc
Subj: Natural born chillers
Don’t worry, dude. ::throwing my head back with a pirate laugh:: har-r-r-r! They’ll never take us alive! ::savage outlaw grin::
—W.
END TOOBE ENTRY
NARRATIVE ENTRY, JABBATHEHUT
Why, I ask you, why, did Toobe have to click on that strange little wiggling icon?
And now a too-cute giggle from his computer screen interrupts the detective’s daydreams.
Looking up, he sees Typhoid Mary sashaying across his screen, her eyes positively aglow with a cyber-rendition of triumph.
“Hel-l-l-l-o-o-o-o-o, Missy Budge,” she says brightly. “Look what *I* found!”
Before he has a chance to reply, the hippie chick opens her duffel bag and withdraws a… magic wand? She waves it over her head and giggles. “Presto,” she says, “you are now connected.” And Budge’s screen is suddenly filled with a graphic image: the unfortunately bad high school photograph of Toobe.
At the same instant Budge is staring at the unbelievably young face of his only perpetrator, a similar stare-down is happening on a teenager’s screen.
Halfway across the world—or is it only across town?
—Toobe is swallowing hard, gawking as suddenly into his own screen.
For there he sees the unforgiving federal photo ID of Lieutenant Wally Budge.
Neither stirs. They stare at each other’s photos, the detective and the kid, their hands frozen over their keyboards.
As one, two hands flash out toward two keyboards. The nicotine-stained finger wins, punching CAPTURE before the younger hand reaches ESCAPE .
And two photos vanish from two computer screens, leaving Budge with his jaw hanging open and an unsmoked cigarette burning between his fingers.
“He’s a little kid,” says Wally Budge aloud to no one. “Just a scared little kid.”
“Got him, Boss,” says Typhoid Mary. “Tracking sequence initiated and sustained. He can’t get away now.”
To: Henderson, Enforcement
From: FBCS Investigations
Subj: Top Priority/Scratch and Winc
Attaching electronic signature to this memo. Follow it down, will you? This Toobe guy? He’s a minor. Keep me posted on every step. I’ll have a warrant by the time you’ve got him.
—Wally
Lieutenant Wally Budge, senior investigator for the U.S. Federal Office of Internet Intelligence, Bureau of Census and Statistics, watches his message vanish from the screen, and whispers,
“A little kid.”
A note: Predictably, law enforcement memos escalated because for a long spell, Toobe went offline. Yes. Frustrating to me as well. I will elaborate when the time comes.
END NARRATIVE JABBA ENTRY