REKT - Chapter 21
Reformation of Money
I cannot find Andy. He’s not at his apartment. He’s not at our WeWork space. There’s no sign of him in town. I’d message him, but I took his phone, his laptop, his iPad. Emails have been sent, but he has not opened them on his end. I slept the entire flight, overnight, over water, over half of the US and woke up as we touched down. There's jetlag to consider. Chicago is five hours ahead of Maui. When you sort the time zones out, I’m wide awake at 11 PM and my body thinks it’s dinnertime.
My mind is playing the blame game. It blames Deacon Joe first and foremost. He had no business coming out there and taking Andy. For all I know, he pulled one of his little reroutes and still has Andy. This is something I can figure out. You can track jets. I know this from college football, loony fans follow private jets anytime there’s a big coaching search going on. Flight Tracker. Only I don’t know the call sign of Joe’s jet. How do I get that? Think Ryan. Use that brain of yours. Pull up a picture with the jet, get the info off the tail of the plane. Joe posts hundreds of pictures. His life is a continuous Insta of exotic locations, crypto conferences, who’s who shots of ballers flying off to create the future of money.
There’s Andy and Joe. There’s Andy, Joe, and Willie. There’s Ram and Joe. Nothing since then. He’s gone silent for the last twenty-four hours. That’s not like Joe. That’s not good for me. He could be anywhere. He could be anywhere with Andy. Okay, further back, further back. There’s the jet, there’s its identification. Punch that into Flight Tracker. There he is leaving Maui. There he is landing at Chicago Executive Airfield. Four hours later he’s off to Miami. Fuck. Always Miami. Right back at it like a couple of assholes. I thought this whole Erskine thing was dead. Four hours is plenty of time to land, get to Andy’s apartment, collect a new bag and head back out on the road, back into trouble.
Of course, he’s not picking up his phone. Power up Andy’s phone. Check the lock screen, see if there are any messages that will help. Nope, nope, nope. Fuck. I’ve lost Andy again and this entire shitty process is going to start right back over. What do I owe this guy? Why am I putting myself through this shit? Do I need him anymore? No. I can close off Icarus by myself and move on. Grow up. Spend time with Niko. See if that is the next chapter in my life.
“Hello?”
She’s sleepy, groggy, I’ve woken her up. What time is it in Cyprus? Early, too fucking early to be calling. 5 AM. Nikola is not a morning person. She could have just gone to bed.
“Hey, it’s Ryan. Sorry, did I wake you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I’m uh sorry. I haven’t been thinking much. Have you heard from Andy lately?”
A pause on the line.
“Why would I have heard from Andy? It’s not like we talk much other than business.”
“Well, um, he’s gone missing.”
I swallow hard, stare out the window of my apartment, watch the joggers and the Lyft drivers shuffle on by.
“Missing? Well Maui’s not that big. I’m sure he’ll turn up somewhere. Check the bars. What was that triangle place we went out to?”
I can’t remember the name, but it doesn’t matter. Andy isn’t on Maui. Sorry Nikola. Let’s keep making this conversation suckier.
“He’s not on Maui. Joe came and took him when I was in New York doing that thing.”
“Joe came and took him,” Niko repeats my words.
“In his jet. They went to Willie Nelson’s to meet a reincarnated guru who fed them some prophecy and off they went. He’s supposed to be here in Chicago, but I can’t find him.”
“Well, he’s not here.”
She sounds pissy, a bit put off. Maybe she’s getting tired of all our bullshit. Maybe this is when she wants off the ride. Can’t say I blame her. Everyone has limits.
“I haven’t heard from you in days. Really since that thing with New York. Now you wake me up and tell me Andy’s gone and you can’t find him.” I can hear the exasperation in her voice. The click of a lighter, a drag on a cigarette.
“Sorry, shit has been out of control lately. I’m running here, I’m running there. What am I supposed to do about Andy?”
“Figure it out.”
She’s hung up on me. She’s tired of this. Tired of being the third wheel in a dysfunctional relationship. Tired of getting pulled in deeper and deeper. Tired of me. Should I call her back? No. Give her some time to absorb this. She’ll feel shitty about hanging up on me. She’ll call me back when she’s ready.
The phone is ringing. That was quick. Thank God she still cares.
“Ryan.”
That’s not Niko. That’s Deacon Joe. God fucking damn it.
“Joe.”
“Yeah, you called me. What’s up?” Joe asks.
“What do you think is up?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked. I’ll try this again. Ryan, what is up?”
Jesus this guy is dense. Pause, breathe deep, count back from ten.
“Where’s Andy?” I ask.
“In Chicago.”
“He’s not at his place.”
“Yeah, I know. He needs time to himself. He’s in a hotel,” Joe says.
“Which hotel?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Andy doesn’t want me to. Besides, I don’t either. You are bad production, juju eyeballs. Leave him alone and he’ll reach out to you when he’s ready.”
This little twat has finally managed to put himself between Andy and me. In my town, then he takes off for Miami. Sit down, slow down. Don’t blow your top. Joe doesn’t do confrontations. You need to seem aligned with him or you’ll get nothing from Joe. Let’s play a little game. Stop caring about Andy. Stop wanting him back. Stop worrying about him. See this world from Joe’s eyes and take a little trip with the Shaman of Crypto.
“Joe, can you tell me what you believe?”
“What do I believe? I believe in so many things. I believe in people. I believe in Andy. I believe in the future. I believe it’s my job to fight for the future.”
“Tell me about the future Joe.”
“No one knows anything about the future. The future is unwritten. That’s why we have to fight for it,” he says.
“Tell me about the future you are fighting for.”
“Oh man, really?” Joe laughs, he’s taken aback. I’ve never expressed interest in Joe’s beliefs.
“Really. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong.”
“Ryan, you are looking at it all wrong. We are on the edge, on the verge of the most colossal change. We are nearing a tipping point. This bubble…”
I cut him off. “Bubble?”
“Yeah, this is a bubble man.”
“I thought you were a true believer. I thought this was it.”
“Oh, it is Ryan, but it’s not the way you think it is. It’s the POP! that matters, not the bubble.”
“The pop?”
“Yeah man. Andy, he’s a false messiah. He needs to show everyone how rotten it is. That’s why he needs to be in position on the field. That’s why he had to get out of Maui. We are sheep, all sheep. We’ve got our heads in the sands, our heads in the clouds. Our heads are up our ass. They are everywhere but where they need to be, which is on the lie.”
“What lie is that?” I ask.
“The lie of money. The lie of commerce. Everyone is focused on the money, but it’s the decentralization that matters. Andy needs to burn everyone so hard on the money that we’ll want nothing to do with it anymore. Money needs to become dirty. It needs to be tainted. Only then can we look at the crooks behind the money. We can look at the gatekeepers and how they manipulate us. We need to break free of the banks, the governments, the idea of haves meaning that there are have nots. If we have a decentralized system, if we can have a distributed system where anyone can transact with anyone else privately without asking for permission from a central authority then we can free people. We can achieve a reformation of commerce.”
“Jesus.” I mumble into the phone, trying to absorb where Joe is going here.
“Yes, yes, exactly. Jesus. The golden rule. Don’t you understand? What’s my name?”
“Deacon Joe.”
“I’ve never stopped preaching Ryan. I’ve never abandoned my ministry. The POP! is going to trigger the reformation. Someone is going to come after the bubble. Someone is going to deliver us from this awful system, restore us to brotherhood.”
“Joe, you are conflating two different things. Cryptomania doesn’t have a spiritual dimension to it. The collapse of an alternate financial system is only going to strengthen the dominant one. You are not John the Baptist.”
“I am John the Baptist. What did Ram tell you about me?”
Whoa. This isn’t good. This is getting really weird. Why did I ask Joe what he really thought? Why did I ask him what he really believed? I’ve always known this was a risk. I’ve always avoided this risk. Now, when everything is going to shit, I turn around and ask the man what he really believes. Turns out Deacon Joe has some very dangerous ideas. Here I was just chalking it up to eccentricity, personal branding, a marketing stunt with nothing underneath it, but he’s a fanatic. An actual honest to God fanatic. And a really fucked up one too. Does anyone else believe this?
“Ram told me that Andy would kill you. That your death would be the founding murder that the future of money is built on.”
“YES.”
Wait what? Did he just scream YES? Joe has a death wish. This is so fucked up. This can’t be happening. What the hell am I supposed to do about this? Everything is so farfetch'd, so unbelievable. I don’t even know what to think. Let’s try parroting this back to him and make sure I understand what’s going on. “Joe, this is a lot. An awful lot. Just so I am clear. You believe that Andy needs to kill you in order for the bubble to pop in a way where we all see how rotten capitalism is?”
“Yes.”
“And you believe that if the bubble pops that way, someone will emerge who will carry out the mission of decentralization. That this person or organization will lead us back to the teachings of Jesus.”
“Yes. Jesus was a socialist. We need to kill capitalism to get back to the truth of Christianity.”
“If you are John the Baptist, then Andy is Herod.”
“Andy is Herod.”
“Is Nikola our Salome then?”
“No.”
“Who is Salome? It’s not me, is it?”
“No. I can’t tell you.”
“Joe, you need help.”
“Ryan, you need to let people live their lives. You don’t control Andy. You don’t control me. You don’t understand anything that is happening right now. You are being left behind. This future isn’t for you. The rapture is not for you. Look man, I know I sound nuts. I know I sound crazy, but I believe this, and it isn’t for you to say whose beliefs are right and whose are wrong. That’s gatekeeper talk. You’re like this moral gatekeeper holding up a status quo, resisting change because it sounds weird and radical. All real change is radical. Revolution comes about because of the existence of a dedicated few who wait for the moment and then seize the moment. Carpe Diem isn’t a motivational tool. It’s not a screensaver you use to get your meaningless hustle going. It’s how the course of history is altered for the better. Ask yourself this, are things good? Are they going in the right direction? Do you feel good about the future?” Joe asks.
“I don’t know.”
“No shit you don’t. That’s why you hold no water with me. Don’t talk to me about what I am or am not. Don’t talk to me about my beliefs until you have some of your own. Next time you want to talk, bring a real person to the conversation. This Ryan is being left behind. Grow a new one.”
Joe has hung up on me, again. How hard is it to get a simple goodbye from people? So, Joe wants to bring on revolution. He wants to destroy capitalism and he’s willing to die for it. He’s willing to let a man he liberated from a mental health treatment center kill him so someone else can change the future of money. I’m starting to see the problem with my decision making. I’ve been relying on a complete fucking loon to backstop me.