Free Fakebook by Dave Cicirelli

the many East Village faux dive bars, with my hand extended out to block the camera’s line of sight. I was at a birthday party for one of my coworkers at Handler, and it had only been a few hours since I branded myself a hate-criminal farmhand.
    â€œDamn paparazzi,” I said.
    â€œAre you serious?” the confused birthday girl asked.
    â€œYeah, I am—I can’t be tagged in photos at some bar. People think I’m living on a farm.”
    â€œYou’re so weird.”
    â€œNo, he’s brilliant!” Joe stepped in. “And so is Fakebook.”
    â€œThank you, Joe.”
    â€œIt’s also kinda fascinating.” Christine joined the fray. “He’s discovering what people are willing to believe—how much of what they see online they’re ready to accept.”
    Joe rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
    They debated for a bit, and I let them have at it—I was on both sides of the argument. The conversation eventually moved on, but my thoughts lingered.
    I’d been well accustomed to the thrill of a successful prank, but this one was different—the sense of danger was weirdly divorced from the moment. There was no grand catharsis, no single instant for me to realize that I’d “gotten” them. I was never in the room to watch my audience’s reaction. I had almost no sense of whether I was fooling everyone or even fooling anyone.
    Meanwhile, the usual suspects were posting on my wall, but they only made up a fraction of my hundreds of Facebook friends—so what did that mean? How far down had the hoax taken root? How many people were falling for it? I just didn’t know.
    A large part of me was on that farm with Fake Dave, keeping tabs on the timeline, making sure his story unfolded at the right pace. Another part of me was back in Red Bank, wondering how my hometown was reacting to Fakebook. There was only a little bit left of me in the moment.
    After a few minutes, my phone vibrated, rousing me from my thoughts. It was a text from an old friend, Jason.
    â€œI don’t do Facebook…but that doesn’t mean I’m not following you. Hang in there. People love you.”
    Jay and I had been close friends back in grade school, but I hadn’t seen him since his wedding a year earlier. I didn’t know how to respond, so once again, I just ignored it.
    I ended up leaving the birthday party early and started walking home along Avenue B, checking my profile at every street corner. Jay’s text made it clear that my wall was a poor indicator of exactly who was paying attention. Were people just hesitant to get involved? Were they embarrassed to admit to being audience members? Whatever the reason, this was bigger than it looked. People were talking about it. If not over the Internet, then over beers.
    I felt completely cut off and needed to check in. So I gave Ted a call, but he didn’t pick up.
    A beat later I got a text. “Not safe 2 talk. Call you later.”
    It’s funny how Ted quickly became my closest confidant. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have looped him into the hoax if he hadn’t been part of the conversation that inspired it. He was one of my oldest friends, but our interests didn’t entirely overlap. Based on fifteen years of going to Mets games but never to the Met, I’d wrongly assumed that creative endeavors like Fakebook were out of Ted’s wheelhouse.
    Besides, he was a notoriously dull Facebook poster. As I write this sentence, his actual status is:
    Ted Kaiser
Freehold Mall for some shopping, stopping by the Monmouth-Nova game, Birthday Party for a bit, then out in RB for some Reggae Night.
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    Guh. What makes him think my wall is his to-do list? His was exactly the type of profile I was trying to parody, and yet he’d turned out to be a tremendous asset—mostly due to his status as the “mayor” of Red Bank.
    I can’t say that I