Frank Exit Gets the First Last Word
by Eugene Lim
Last night, in a fiction, I met [in8 ID] at a secret bar in the secret city in order to celebrate their impending move out of the unsecret country. They had just packed their last box and were planning to leave in a few days.
Over the past year we had spoken both implicitly and explicitly about the reasons for their move, to wit: that predatory and cruel forces had organized enough xenophobic and racist fools into a political force powerful enough to take over and weaponize the country’s government. Simultaneously it felt like the 11th hour of history where ecological and technological disasters felt imminent. More concretely and practically, [in8 ID] was a scientist, and there was no way for them to reliably proceed with their research and teaching with an empowered plutocracy increasingly extending its tentacles into the academy.
They felt fucked and had to leave.
Though it was a Friday night, we were able to get a table and, since we were celebrating their escape, ordered fancy cocktails.
Holding up my dry Manhattan I asked, “What do you say in Italian?”
“Cin cin,” [in8 ID] said, “but it’s very important you look each other in the eyes when you do. ‘Occhi!’ they’ll tell you. Otherwise you’ll be cursed with seven years of bad sex.”
“Ah, I see,” I said and was careful.
Just then Frank Exit arrived, happily surprising us, typically late. After he had ordered and received his drink (a “Last Word”), and we’d performed the salutary ritual as [in8 ID] had taught us, Frank said, “I’m thinking of starting a substack.”
“Oh god, why,” said [in8 ID].
“I’m not sure what reading and writing are becoming,” Frank said, “in the era of digital amanuenses and an economy built on attention precarity. It’s difficult to say what writing a novel would mean if it requires a wealth of attention to read one. Perhaps serial writing, like blockchains or terrorist organizations, will benefit from decentralization, from a modular structure -- not to mention the benefits of improvisation and the ability for more timely reactions.”
“But you may be then sacrificing overall coherence and vision,” I argued.
Frank waved his hand. “The era of grand narratives is long over,” he told us, “We’re in a land of fractals at best. At worst a sea of incoherent noise and chaos. Salvage the bits! I say.”
“What about the platform itself,” [in8 ID] said, “its fundamental corporate structure and thus an irreplaceable fealty to the corrupting bottom line -- not to mention the pressure and rhythm and expectation of production the platform demands? Aren’t these insidiously corrupting?”
“First of all,” Frank said, “let’s not be too pure. I mean let’s not fool ourselves into thinking we are outside the general culpability. I mean, c’mon.”
I interjected a phrase I enjoyed interjecting. “Real talk,” I said.
“Secondly,” Frank said, “I’ll announce to readers upfront and say production rhythm will be whimsical, irregular, and without guarantee.”
“Will they buy it?” I asked.
“Thirdly,” Frank said, ignoring me, “the most important declaration, which I’ll also say upfront, is that its entire content will be fiction. The substack is 100% fiction.”
“Will they buy it?” I repeated.
Frank shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said.
