Year Zero Read Online Free PDF Page A

and, “NICK just called United Airlines!” and, most embarrassing, “NICK is listening to ‘Bye Bye Bye’ by ’N Sync!” 4
    However awful this sounds, the reality is far worse, and I soon quit the service. I’d since uninstalled its diabolical software a dozen times, but somehow it kept reappearing. Thistime I thought I’d finally foiled it—by quite literally buying a new phone. But now, after a month’s sulk, Phluttr was baaaaaack. It had apparently matched the address that I’d looked up on my phone to Eatiary (a faddish restaurant, it seemed).
And once my GPS signal indicated that I was actually heading there, it had informed my breathless public.
    When I got to the texted address, I found a cheap, bustling, overly lit restaurant. Outside was a gigantic mural of several figures raising a Greek flag in poses cribbed from the Iwo Jima Memorial. I faintly recognized them as the cast of an old sitcom set in a Nazi prison camp (isn’t it amazing what they used to get away with?). The sign above them said Hogan’s Gyros. No hint of anything called “Eatiary.” Inside, the restaurant was packed with
pierced kids in ball caps ironically touting mideighties metal bands. As I puzzled over this, a six-foot goddess of the night strode through the front door. Dressed for Miami weather, she was barely of the same species as Hogan’s crowd, and made a beeline for an unmarked green door toward the back of the tiny dining area.
    Could it be …? I opened the door myself, and entered a darkened oasis of LED lighting, leggy models, and thirty-dollar appetizers. All the young dudes in the Twisted Sister caps stayed out with the short-order pita chefs—this side of the green door was for bosses, hotties, and investors. Years ago, my jaw would have dropped at the drastic shift in scenery. But these days, Manhattan is late into a romance with ironic speakeasy entrances from incongruous premises. I
had entered a throbbing nightspot through a shabby taqueria’s kitchen closet, a high mixology temple via a phone booth in a hot dog hut, and even a boutique hotel through a unisex bathroom in a bowling alley.
    My path was blocked by a towering hipster whose ironic,midcentury math teacher glasses were thick enough to stop bullets. “And we are joining …?” he asked, with an arch mix of deference and disdain. Clearly a lowly suit like me was somebody else’s plus-one in this postmodern nightscape.
    “Paulie Stardust,” I said, feeling like a complete ass.
    He squinted at his list. “I see. The Stardust/Carter reservation. Walk this way.”
    He led me around an intricate series of waterways. Some rushed under Lucite beneath our feet, others along shoulder-high aqueducts hammered from distressed iron and brushed steel. The water flowed above, around, and under the diners, setting each table apart from its neighbors, and drowning every sweet nothing, deal term, and harsh ultimatum in its busy murmur. It was all just some Tiki wood and a barnacle-covered treasure chest short of god-awful tackiness. But the
goth-industrial fixtures and the steampunk plumbing made for a masterful effect. Every table was full.
    “No music?” I asked. You’d think the place would be pulsing with smooth Euro-beats, but there was nothing but the sound of running water.
    The host shook his head. “The birds don’t like it.”
    As if on cue, a bright red parrot landed on a nearby railing. “I’m sustainable,” it chirped. Then, “Biodiesel!”
    Another free bird zipped by overhead, then another—and I got it. Eatiary was a dine-in aviary (I could barely see the soaring ceiling), and home to dozens of chattering birds of paradise. Several seemed to be entertaining diners with their stock phrases. And all of them were brilliantly trained—none were swiping any food, and their bowel control was a marvel.
    The host took on the air of a bored tour guide. “All ofthe winged fauna at Eatiary are rescues. None were bird-napped from the wild. Many were