All This Life

Another feature of Twitter that Paul hasn’t known about is direct messaging, a way for users to talk privately, one on one. Lo and behold, he gets a bunch of DMs, a bunch of solicitations from local news programs. TV. Radio. Web. They want to be the first to talk to @Paul_Gamache and get his story. These vultures even make it sound like they’re trying to do him a favor. As if they’re not frothing for the carrion. As if the scavengers don’t need a new carcass to devour. They all take the angle that telling his story publicly will help get more people involved in the case. Crowd-sourcing: The greater number of people who know about Jake’s disappearance increases the chances of somebody spotting him on the street, and don’t you want to use every resource at your disposal, don’t you want to find you son?

He hates all of them, but they’re making some good points. His phone rings, a number he doesn’t recognize, but on the off-chance it’s Jake, he answers.

“Mr. Gamache,” the female voice says, “I’m Lauren Skelley, a producer with Channel—”

Paul hangs up.

His phone rings again, a different number. He rejects the call. It’s all happening so fast, from all angles, from both worlds. Paul is suddenly being constricted, encroached. More and more users tweet at him and Jake, and his phone keeps ringing, and if all these people are so interested in the case, why is Esperanto being so standoffish? So what if Paul has watched too many police procedurals, has soaked up all the detective movies? So what if he has opinions? If the police aren’t willing to exhaust all avenues, it’s up to Paul. He has to champion this, has to try and alert everyone.

Though that seems to be somewhat happening on its own. The virus doing the only thing it knows how: snaking from existence to existence. From user to user. Paul watches his son’s number of Twitter followers multiply. Even @Paul_Gamache gains new followers every second. He had none an hour ago. Now he has 822. His son has over 5,000, and every time Paul refreshes his feed it jumps by at least twenty.

The next vulture to call gets the story. It doesn’t matter, he suspects. One is the same. And the initial report will lead to follow-ups and he’ll end up talking to multiple hubs and Jake will be spotted, he will be saved, he will be home soon.

But a text catches Paul’s eye. It’s from his cousin, Kyle, who is a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s an easy relation to forget about because they haven’t seen each other in five years. No bad blood, just busy lives. It says: Heard about Jake. Call me first.

In the game of Choosing-a-Vulture, a blood relation is better than an unknown scrounger. At least Kyle has had Thanksgiving with Jake; granted, that was 2003, but still. At least Kyle has an emotional investment in his son and isn’t simply fueled by his byline, or so Paul hopes.

He dials Kyle, who answers the call by saying, “Can I come see you?”

Paul thinks of Esperanto not even wanting him to stay at the precinct, treating Paul as if his ideas are the most absurd ever offered up. And if that’s how the detective feels on this day, if he’s unwilling to work with the motivated attitude that Paul thinks will benefit the search for his son, so be it: He has no choice but to improvise.

He’ll invite the press. He’ll rev up the real world so it’s as excited about finding Jake as the virtual one is. There’s no reason both these manhunts can’t happen at the same time, until they’re both discovered and merged back into one boy.

“I’m at the police station,” Paul says.

“Which one?”

Paul tells him, starts bitching about Esperanto’s bedside manner when Kyle interrupts him: “Me first, okay? You talk to me first.”

“Hurry.”

“Already in the car.”

TheGreatJake has 8,309 followers. Paul has 901. Almost a thousand people follow Paul, and why, for what? Because his son is missing? Because these voyeurs are feeding off of today’s story?

That’s why Jake posted the brass band, for one reason, one simple reason: People will watch. Paul is wrong to single out the media as scavengers. Everyone is. And if everybody subsists by eating dead flesh, there have to be enough decaying bodies to go around.

Paul sits in the empty waiting room, surrounded by all those police posters on the wall. His cell keeps ringing.

The officer at the front desk gets up and walks into the back, leaving Paul by himself. It reminds him of the therapist’s office. Being alone. Waiting for his son to come out. Waiting for his son to be okay.

He tweets this to his boy: I am coming in there to save you.

Paul keeps refreshing his feed, but TheGreatJake is gone.