Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,88
wires.
But Compton hits the enter key again.
It’s a thing we do all the time for kicks, blue-boxing through the computer, to Dial-A-Disc in London, say, or to the weather girl in Melbourne, or the time clock in Tokyo, or to a phone booth we found in the Shetland Islands, just for fun, to blow off steam from the programming. We loop and stack the calls, route and reroute so we can’t be traced. We go in first through an 800 number just so we don’t have to drop the dime: Hertz and Avis and Sony and even the army recruiting center in Virginia. That tickled the hell out of Gareth, who got out of ’Nam on a 4-F. Even Dennis, who’s worn his OCCIDENTAL DEATH T-shirt ever since he came home from the war, got off on that one big-time too.
One night we were all lazing around and we hacked the code words to get through to the president, then called the White House. We layered the call through Moscow just to fool them. Dennis said: I have a very urgent message for the president. Then he rattled off the code words. Just a moment, sir, said the operator. We nearly pissed in our pants. We got past two other operators and were just about to get through to Nixon himself, but Dennis got the jitters and said to the guy: Just tell the president we’ve run out of toilet paper in Palo Alto. That cracked us up, but for weeks afterwards we kept waiting for the knock on the door. It became a joke after a while: we started calling the pizza boy Secret Agent Number One.
It was Compton who got the message on the ARPANET this morning—it came over the AP service on the twenty-four-hour message board. We didn’t believe it at first, some guy walking the wires high above New York, but then Compton got on the line with an operator, pretended he was a switchman, testing out some verification trunks on the pay phones, said he needed some numbers down close to the World Trade buildings, part of an emergency line analysis, he said, and then we programmed the numbers in, skipped them through the system, and we each took bets on whether he’d fall or not. Simple as that.
The signals bounce through the computer, multifrequency bips, like something on a flute, and we catch the guy on the ninth ring.
—Uh. Hello.
—Are you near the World Trade Center, sir?
—Hello? ’Scuse me?
—This is not a joke. Are you near the World Trades?
—This phone was just ringing out here, man. I just… I just picked it up.
He’s got one of those New York accents, young but grouchy, like he’s smoked too many cigarettes.
—I know, says Compton, but can you see the buildings? From where you’re standing? Is there someone up there?
—Who is this?
—Is there someone up there?
—I’m watching him right now.
—You what?
—I’m watching him.
—Far out! You can see him?
—I been watching him twenty minutes, more, man. Are you…? This phone just rang and I—
—He can see him!
Compton slaps his hands against the desk, takes out his pocket protector, and flings it across the room. His long hair goes flying around his face. Gareth dances a little jig over by the printout table and Dennis walks by and takes me in a light headlock and knuckles my scalp, like he doesn’t really care, but he likes to see us get our kicks, like he’s still the army sergeant or something.
—I told you, shouts Compton.
—Who’s this? says the voice.
—Far out!
—Who the hell is this?!
—Is he still on the tightrope?
—What’s going on? Are you messing with me, man?
—Is he still there?
—He’s been up there twenty, twenty-five minutes!
—All right! Is he walking?
—He’s going to kill himself.
—Is he walking?
—No, he’s stopped right now!
—Standing there?
—Yeah!
—He’s just standing there? Midair?
—Yeah, he’s got the bar going. Up and down in his hands.
—In the middle of the wire?
—Near the edge.
—How near?
—Not too near. Near enough.
—Like what? Five yards? Ten yards? Is he steady?
—Steady as shit! Who wants to know? What’s your name?
—Compton. Yours?
—José.
—José? Cool. José. ¿Qué onda, amigo?
—Huh?
—¿Qué onda, carnal?
—I don’t speak Spanish, man.
Compton hits the mute button and punches Gareth’s shoulder.
—Can you believe this guy?
—Just don’t lose him.
—I’ve seen SAT questions with more brains than this one.
—Just keep him on the line, man!
Compton leans into the console and takes the mike again.