THE WITNESS

He’s an older gentleman, with a spine that contorts his body into obtuse angles. He hunches at the edge of his seat, leaning far forward, eyes wide. 

"Have you ever been so scared that you tried to bargain with God?" he asks. Then, without waiting for a response, he says, "I've been there. I told God I'd never smoke weed again, if he'd save me." 

THE WITNESS laughs. 

I say, "What scared you? The crash?" 

He smiles, settles back into his chair, and begins his story.

Yeah. “The crash.” Plenty of people organize their life stories around that word. You know, like, before the crash and after the crash. 

I do the same thing. 

Except now, when I say it, I'm referring to the plane crash. 

It was late when it happened. Well after midnight. 

I’d gotten up to take a piss when I heard my son and his wife makin' a racket in the kitchen. 

They weren’t yelling, like they sometimes do. Just talking. 

But their voices were strained. 

I sorta eased down the hallway, drawing just close enough to hear their words.

My son said, “If this is real, oil is going to zero.”

My daughter-in-law scoffed, said, “Not zero. People will still drive cars. They'll need gas.”

"They’ll replicate their own gas,” he said. “Just print out new cans, whenever they want.”

She said, “They can't really do that. No way.” 

He laughed, said, “Maybe not, but we can’t wait to find out the hard way. We’ve gotta get out before the crash. We can't let ourselves get wiped out the way dad did.”

I thought, what crash?

--

I mean, obviously I knew my son was talking about the stock market. I spent my whole goddamned life dumping money into that thing. My brain pumpin' out endorphins every time the Dow hit a new high. I retired in '06, thinking I had it all figured out. Then '07 came along. Then '08. Half my life's savings were wiped the fuck out. I panicked, like a fool. Sold everything. Missed out on the comeback. I lasted about ten years on my own, then a health scare put me in the hospital and wiped out everything I had left. That's when I moved in with my son and his family. 

I spent a lot of nights hoping and praying that I'd die in my sleep. Just so I wouldn't be a burden any longer. 

(THE WITNESS pauses.)

Back in '07, '08, I didn't know shit about economics.

I mean, I still don't. But does anybody, really?

Isn't everybody just... pretending? 

Now, I see how you’re looking at me. Just hear me out, man. Look at the way most motherfuckers talk about the economy. Grown-ass men start talking like babies. Even when something complicated is happening, everybody's got a real simple explanation for it. 

Just listen to people talk. A lot of folks seriously think that it’s all about who the president is. They talk about the president the way a preschooler talks about his mommy. 

The president does stuff and the market goes up or down because of it. 

The president said a few words on camera, and now everything is three percent better.

The president is God.

Or maybe, if the president isn’t from your party, they only get credit for the bad stuff. 

But either way, the idea is that this person has all the power. 

Somebody is in control.

It’s baby shit. An infantile way of looking at the world.

The few people who manage to grow the fuck up realize that nobody is really in control.

That idea scares people. Don't think so? Just find any shmuck on the street. Ask him some kind of basic question about markets or economics. He'll get this look in his eyes. Almost... afraid. Like he knows he's about to be exposed. Then he'll say some vague shit that’s supposed to make you stop asking questions. (Laughs.)

Okay, you want a specific example? 

A couple of months into the '08 crash, I ran into this guy who said he was a financial news reporter. Worked for a big newspaper. They still printed it out on paper, back then. Every day! Very quaint. 

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So I ask him, "What does it mean when they say on TV that 'the yield curve inverted?'" Not a trick question. I just wanted to know.

The reporter kind of pauses. Then he says, "It's just something that tends to happen before a recession. Like a signal that rough times are coming."

I say, "Yeah, but what does it really mean? What is the yield curve?"

And that's when he gets that face. Like, uh oh. 

He says, "Uh... It's to do with bonds. Government bonds. The prices on 'em."

I say, "What about 'em?" 

And that’s when I could tell I’d gotten too close to the edge. To that border where his real understanding ended, and the protective wall of bullshit began.

Because he starts getting red in the face. 

His tone gets snappy. He says, "It's just... supply and demand. Bond prices change depending on demand, and their yields change...”

He sort of trails off. Then he says, "Hey man, I just report the news. Go ask an economist if you want a real answer." And then he makes some excuse about needing to be somewhere. Nothing more to say about yield curves. 

That’s when I really became convinced. That everybody is full of shit. That people talk about things without really knowing what they’re saying. Even the ones who are supposed to know. They fake it. Just repeat stuff they've heard from other people. Nodding along with each other and saying shit like, “Geez, Fred, did you see the numbers on the Dow today? Crazy times, huh?” Maybe they crack some joke about needing to buy gold. 

But they probably don’t go and buy gold. 

Most of 'em wouldn’t even know where to go to find it.

And despite the jokes—inside, they’re full of fear.

So they just try not to think about it too much. Like little kids, they say to themselves: Well, probably somebody out there understands all this shit. They’ve got it all figured out. So I’ll just play along and do what I’m told, and it’ll all work out for me.

- -

The night of the crash, my son and daughter-in-law had that fear in their voices. Talking about the stock market, and what it might do. 

I snuck back into my bedroom. 

Quietly shut the door. 

And then cracked my window and lit up a joint. 

My daughter-in-law had said, over and over, "Not in my house." She had a real hate boner for the devil’s lettuce. Don't ask me why.

So whenever I lit up, I was careful about it. I’d lean right up against a window and blow smoke out through the crack. 

I always liked the feeling of the cool glass on my forehead. Looking out at the stars. That's what I was doing when I saw the plane.

It was a small aircraft. Big enough for just a couple of people. And flying low. At first I thought it had a bright light on its tail. But then the light spread, and I realized it was a fire. 

It all clicked together, then. 

The plane was coming down. 

Fast.

I thought, holy shit, am I really watching a plane crash?

It felt sort of unreal, like the window was just a screen, and I was watching a movie. 

But then my attitude changed pretty quick.

Because slowly I was becoming aware that the plane wasn't just crashing.

It was coming toward me.

In the next ten seconds, I went through all five stages of grief. 

First it was denial. I was like, "Nah man, I'm just stoned. This weed is fucked up, why do they make it so much stronger these days?" 

But the plane kept coming.

So then it was anger. "The fuck man, did somebody lace my weed?" 

The plane got closer, so I started in on the bargaining stage. I closed my eyes and prayed to God. "I will never smoke again if you just stop this plane from hitting this house."

The last two stages—depression and acceptance—hit me all at once. I started remembering all the bad shit I've done in my life. Like how I fucked up my marriage. Fucked up my retirement. Fucked up my son's life. I closed my eyes and thought, "Damn, I probably do deserve to get hit by this fucking plane." 

And that's when it crashed into the backyard. 

It was loud as a motherfucker. Not like a big explosion. Just this unbearable, high-pitched metal screeching. Like that sound when two MacBooks rub up against each other, times a thousand. I'd always thought a plane crash would be pretty cool to see firsthand. But this shit was not sound cool at all.

The plane had come in low, like it was trying to land. So when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a bunch of trees snapped in half. And the plane itself was right below my window. Huge fire burning in the back, but with the front half almost totally intact. 

Suddenly, the cockpit sprang open. And out came this bloody, beaten-up dude in a white button-down shirt. He sort of half-climbed, half-fell out into the grass. 

He laid still for a second, and I thought he was dead. But then he popped back up and ran over to the side of his aircraft. Dangerously close to the flames.

He pulled open a compartment. Reached in. 

And from the burning carcass of the plane, he managed to haul out a machine about twice the size of a microwave. He had to drag it, like it was way heavier than it looked. 

When he got it far enough away from the fire, he just sort of sat down on the grass and crouched there, looking at the wreckage.

Somewhere in the house, I heard my son yelling my name. Wanting to know if I was okay. I came out in the hallway, reeking like weed, but he didn't seem to care. We ran out together to check on the pilot.

He was dead. Hunched over that machine he’d pulled out of the wreckage. It was a replicator. The first I ever saw.

THE WITNESS falls silent for a moment, then begins fishing around in his jacket pocket. He withdraws a thick joint, flashes a lighter, and takes a drag. As he exhales, a smile spreads across his face.

What, you thought I’d really quit? 

Don't be naive. 

I’m full of shit like everybody else.