In Persuasion Nation Read Free

York.
    As
we entered the magnificent lobby of the Eisner Theatre, I was in good
spirits, saying to Teddy, "The size of this stage will make that
little stage I built you behind the garage look pathetic." When
suddenly we were stopped by a stern young fellow (a Mr. Ernesti, I
believe) who said, "We are sorry, sir, but you cannot be
admitted on merely a Promissory Voucher, are you kidding us, you must
take your Voucher and your Proof of Purchases from at least six of
our Major Artistic Sponsors, such as AOL, such as Coke, and go at
once to the Redemption Center, on Forty-fourth and Broadway, to get
your real actual tickets, and please do not be late, as latecomers
cannot be admitted, due to special effects which occur early, and
which require total darkness in order to simulate the African jungle
at night."
    Well,
this was news to me, but I was not about to disappoint the boy.
    We
left the Eisner and started up Broadway, the Everly Readers in the
sidewalk reading the Everly Strips in our shoes, the building-mounted
mini-screens at eye level showing images reflective of the Personal
Preferences we'd stated on our monthly Everly Preference Worksheets,
the numerous Cybec Sudden Emergent Screens outthrusting or
down-thrusting inches from our faces, and in addition I could very
clearly hear the sound-only messages being beamed to me and me alone
via various Kakio Aural Focussers, such as one that shouted out to me
between Forty-second and Forty-third, "Mr. Petrillo, you chose
Burger King eight times last fiscal year but only two times thus far
this fiscal year, please do not forsake us now, there is a store one
block north!" in the voice of Broadway star Elaine Weston, while
at Forty-third a light-pole-mounted Focusser shouted, "Golly,
Leonard, remember your childhood on the farm in Oneonta? Why not
reclaim those roots with a Starbucks Country Roast?" in a
celebrity rural voice I could not identify, possibly Buck Owens, and
then, best of all, in the doorway of PLC Electronics, a life-size
Gene Kelly hologram suddenly appeared, tap-dancing, saying, "Leonard,
my data indicates you're a bit of an old-timer like myself! Gosh, in
our day life was simpler, wasn't it, Leonard? Why not come in and let
Frankie Z. explain the latest gizmos!" And he looked so real I
called out to Teddy, "Teddy, look there, Gene Kelly, do you
remember I mentioned him to you as one of the all-time greats?"
But Teddy of course did not see Gene Kelly, Gene Kelly not being one
of his Preferences, but instead saw his hero Babar, swinging a small
monkey on his trunk while saying that his data indicated that Teddy
did not yet own a Nintendo.
    So
that was fun, that was very New York, but what was not so fun was, by
the time we got through the line at the Redemption Center, it was ten
minutes until showtime, and my feet had swollen up the way they do
shortly before they begin spontaneously bleeding, which they have
done ever since a winter spent in the freezing muck of Cho-Bai,
Korea. It is something I have learned to live with. If I can sit,
that is helpful. If I can lean against something, also good. Best of
all, if I can take my shoes off. Which I did, leaning against a wall.
    All
around and above us were those towering walls of light, curving
across building fronts, embedded in the sidewalks, custom-fitted to
light poles: a cartoon lion eating a man in a suit; a rain of gold
coins falling into the canoe of a naked rain-forest family; a woman
in lingerie running a bottle of Pepsi between her breasts; the
Merrill Lynch talking fist asking, "Are you kicking ass or
kissing it?"; a perfect human rear, dancing; a fake flock of
geese turning into a field of Bebe logos; a dying grandmother's room
filled with roses by a FedEx man who then holds up a card saying "No
Charge."
    And
standing beneath all that bounty was our little Teddy, tiny and sad,
whose grandfather could not even manage to get him into one crummy
show.
    So I
said to myself, Get off the wall, old man, blood or