Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (C. AD 2009) in a Large City Read Free Page A

everyone’s earnings
     that paid for everything the government bought or built or wanted to maintain. And
     as well, he didn’t have to be anywhere, didn’t have to get up early and go into the
     office, any office, every day.
    Except he’d also really messed up. Because that freelance situation had been the first
     time he’d really worked, and because the taxes weren’t taken out of his checks that
     summer as they were for full-time employees.
    John had somehow reported only 3,669 dollars in income. The state had corrected this
     to 13,134 dollars in income. The government had said he owed something like 3,000
     dollars.
    When he started working full time, the company started setting aside the taxes for
     him, sending that portion of his income directly to the government. For most workers,
     the job would take out “too much,” and so when people filed their taxes with the government,
     in a great wild flurry of forms and mathematics, people would then get a “refund.”
     But John didn’t get his “refunds,” which would have been about 600 dollars each, because
     they went to pay off those old taxes.
    Also the number that he owed kept going up because the government assessed “interest,”
     as a “penalty.”
    He took home 2,200 dollars a month.
    His expenses were 800 dollars for his half of the monthly rent—his cousin lived with
     him—and about 100 dollars for “utilities,” which were the electrical power for the
     appliances and the lights and such, and water, and cable television. And then there
     were his debts. He didn’t like to think about that. So after paying some of that,
     as much as he could face, he had about 900 or 1,000 dollars to spend each month, which
     was about 33 dollars a day. The subway to work every day took a little. Food took
     a little. Beers were 3 dollars. Every two weeks, he’d run out of money, and have just
     20 or 40 dollars to last through Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
    SEX WAS A very unsatisfying practice at this time, considered animal and messy, and also dangerous.
     It had been dangerous for a long time, but now most nonlethal diseases were treatable,
     and also women could largely control whether they became pregnant. Pregnancy was the
     most lethal byproduct of sex. But there were still diseases that were not curable.
    Sex itself was hard enough. Some people could achieve sexual satisfaction through
     only very specific means. For instance, dressing up in pirate hats, or as lions or
     puppies, or as corporate brands and characters. Some people couldn’t achieve sexual
     climax without being punched in the stomach. Some people could achieve sexual intimacy
     with only one particular gender. Most people at this time believed there were two
     of those. And many believed these two genders were very distinct—almost separate species—and
     so they should have different roles in life. Many, though, found this ridiculous.
    People made great and complicated arrangements to satisfy their urges.
    But many people had less elaborate sexual structures—or “preferences”—so it was often
     easy, at least at first, for them to mate, or have sex, without even much of a thought
     to a prolonged commonality with a partner.
    Sometimes people refused to acknowledge their sexual selves, leading to later trouble
     with mates. They hadn’t been doing what they wanted, but they hadn’t known it. For
     instance, many people wanted to have sex with a number of people, but they, by habit
     or by pressure, ended up in agreements that they would have sex with just one person
     only. But then their desires won out over their agreements.
    Others, in various minorities of taste or persuasion, obsessed over their choices.
     If they were excited only by violence, or if they had to gaze upon pictures of, say,
     lesser mammals before sexual activity, they sometimes had to go to great lengths to
     solicit willing—if not even compatible—partners.
    The arrival of the Internet—in