All This Life

His phone is also his DJ. He never walks down the street with all his senses. He still has vision and smell and taste and touch, but Jake is intentionally audio-impaired, his soundtrack blaring from ear buds, deaf to the noises of the world. Jake likes the randomness of putting his iTunes on shuffle and seeing how well Apple’s algorithms know him. Sometimes he even thinks that it can sense his mood, as crazy as that sounds. But more often than not, if he’s sad, all his sad songs miraculously play, and if he’s feeling sort of reckless — like he is now — blaring rock and roll provides the necessary accompaniment. It’s a transaction of sorts: He downloads these songs and somehow they upload his moods and, thus, they are synced somewhere deep inside of him.

But a powered-off phone means no music. Which makes Jake feel vulnerable. You’d think it would be the opposite: He is less susceptible to his surroundings with all his senses working, but everything feels too visceral. He likes being locked away. Likes listening to the voices he’s bought or pirated. Likes to be in charge of his own hypnosis, conjuring his own singing ghosts.

What he likes doesn’t much matter with only 5 percent battery life left, so he has no choice but to let his ears pick up every sound. Every combustible engine. Every bird. Every scattering conversation. This is Sausalito, California, his hometown. Tourist season. Everywhere he turns is another foreign language or a Midwest accent, macerating English into moaning vowels. He is downtown, waiting at a bus stop. He needs to travel to Corte Madera, a couple towns up; that’s where the closest Apple Store is located. The bus ride won’t take that long once he’s on the road, most of the trip on the freeway. Being stuck here, however, without a soundtrack, without Twitter, is tough. Especially considering his newfound status. He wants to interact with his followers. He wants to be the sort of celebrity who is accessible, treating his audience with respect. Not the high and mighty pretenders who keep themselves sequestered from their fans. Be real. That’s the secret. Jake is real.

IT’S AN AMBUSH as soon as he’s through the front door. Four or five overly eager employees, all wearing the same long-sleeved red shirt with an Apple insignia in the center of their chests, like hearts, all storm up to him with their iPads and smiles and scripted hospitality. They have earpieces and khakis and Nikes and new school credit card machines dangling from clips connected to their pants, and one of them says to Jake, “Welcome! And what can we do for you today?”

Neil Armstrong would hate Apple stores.

“Browsing,” he says, trying to seem nonchalant, trying to channel some poker-face cool, the non-threatening face that would never incite suspicion.

“We can help with that,” the employee says, motioning to his coworkers, who all clutch their iPads like Bibles.

There’s also a security guard, leaning against a wall by the door. She is black, only a few years older than Jake. She’s wearing a navy uniform, with a jacket that would fit someone seven feet tall. There’s a badge that’s really just a patch, sewn onto the breast. She looks disengaged.

“You can help me browse?” Jake says.

“We can help with everything,” he says, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses all nod behind him.

“I’ll let you know if I need anything,” says Jake.

A mother and daughter enter the store and the zealots turn their attention to them, leaving Jake the chance to case the joint. It’s set up like a big rectangle. There’s a table running through the middle of it, with every Apple device you can imagine — computers and tablets and phones, all tied to the table with security chains — ready to be taken for a test drive. The floors are a bleached wood, and crappy corporate pop plays softly.

Jake approaches a laptop, opens a browser, but at the same time he’s looking around the store for chargers. He spies them on the back wall. He’s going to need to retrieve one, conceal it, walk through the store, and exit without any zealots noticing.

For inspiration, Jake takes the laptop to YouTube, searches for lunar landing. Any astronaut has nerves before a big mission. There’s so much that can go wrong.

One of the videos cued for him is entitled Magnificent Desolation. It’s a documentary and he watches the beginning, learns that one of the astronauts had called the moon “magnificent desolation” after seeing it up close, and copyright be damned, Jake poaches it and brands his own mission with the same moniker.

Jake’s moon won’t have any parents or bullies or hanging meringues or almost-dead batteries. They are persona non grata, or whatever the plural is. Jake would know the god-damn plural if Latin hadn’t jumped off a bridge, too. Siri has the answer. He’d ask his friend if the battery situation weren’t so dire.

That will be his next live-tweet: This is my magnificent desolation.