Truth in Advertising (40 page)

It's a warm feeling that comes over me, the kind you experience in the moments before sleep, a lovely calm. But right behind it is a line of cocaine. I'm suddenly shaky and the words fall out before I've had time to think about them.

“My mark?” I say. “My mark?” I'm chuckling, but not in a happy-funny way. I also want to say more than “My mark” but don't quite know how.

Frank looks confused.

“My mark?” I say again. My eyes go wide. “Oh! I know! It'll be the thing I have carved on my tombstone! That's what you mean by mark. You mean like a life's work, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta or Gandhi or Neil Armstrong. You mean the thing I will be known for, the thing that people on the streets or in airports stop me about, recognize me for. They'll say, ‘
You're
the guy who won Petroleon, aren't you? You did that campaign that made that big, repulsive oil company look good.' Wait. I know! I could have my mark tattooed on my body; on my ass, my balls. I could have it tattooed on my scrotum. Better yet, I could have one of my balls removed, have my mark etched on it, have it bronzed, put in Lucite, and put it on my desk. People would come into my office and say, ‘Ohmigod! Is that one of your balls?!' And I'd say, ‘No. That's my mark.' Is that what you mean, Frank, you clueless, soulless douchebag?!”

Jill's mouth is open, her fingers frozen in mid-text. Alan looks like a wax version of himself. Frank has a look that suggests I've been speaking French. It's Martin who has the slightest hint of something that suggests pleasure.

Pam breaks the silence. “Dolan, I would fuck you right now.” She laughs and walks out.

I stand and walk out and hear Frank say to Martin, “Wait. Was he talking to me?”

•   •   •

Ian and Pam come by my office.

Ian says, “Well, that was interesting.”

I say, “Did I just quit?”

Pam says, “
Quit
isn't the right word. But I think you went a long way toward getting yourself fired.”

Ian nods. “I'll quit, too. A symbol of my loyalty. We're a team. We'll freelance. Even though there is no freelance. Or we'll get great jobs at another agency. Even though there are no jobs anywhere. Maybe I won't quit. You're on your own. I wish you the best.”

Pam stands. “I've got shit to do. But one of you is buying me dinner.”

Ian says, “Raoul's. Seven tonight. On Fin.”

•   •   •

I leave the office and go for a walk. I watch the skaters at Bryant Park. Are they tourists? New Yorkers taking the day off? They seem happy, skating on a Friday in the middle of the day. I walk across Forty-second Street and take a left on Fifth, make my way over to Grand Central. I go for a walk inside, I stand on the stairs and watch the crowds hustle through. Most walk while looking at their phones. Some wait by the information booth, by the famous clock. I watch them wait, watch as they look around, look at the ceiling. I watch as their friends or coworkers or ex-wife or brother-in-law arrives and says their name. I watch their faces change as they look up and see another human being they know. Watch their faces soften and animate. I watch a woman with a scarf on her head. It's not fashion, this scarf. It's something else. She is thin, pale. After a time I see another woman approach. They look to be about the same age, same height, similar features. They could be friends, but I get the sense that they are sisters. They hug and the woman wearing the scarf lays her head on the other woman's shoulder, the other woman gently holding her scarved head. They stand there like this for some time. I have to look away. It is too much. It is the opposite of quiet desperation. It is connection.

I keep walking.

On Fifty-second near Lex I pass an open garage. Men pull shiny silver carts out onto the street.
BEST COFFEE
it says on some. The wind picks up. Farther north I pass a homeless woman pushing a baby carriage with two dachshunds in it.

Up Madison Avenue to Sixty-fifth and then over to the park. I walk down the stairs, and sit on a bench in front of the zoo.

I have worked in the same office, in the same building, noticing the same stains on the carpet, using the same bathroom, with the same people, talking about the same things, for eight years of my life. And yet I remember next to nothing of the
detail
of that time. Eight years. That's 2,922 days. I recall a handful. Why is that? Why do we forget so much of our life? Of the morning shower and the subway ride, the coffee cart and the meetings, the slow, steady slippage of time? And as you're going through the motions, picking up a few things at the market on the way home, unlocking the mailbox door, pulling on the refrigerator door that sticks, you wonder,
Wasn't it just last night/last week/last year/five years ago that I did this very thing, felt this very same way?

It's cold but sunny, and when the wind dies down it's pleasant to sit on a bench in the sun. I could fall asleep. I could sit here all day. I close my eyes, play the film. I play it slowly, watch every detail. I don't try to push it from my mind this time. I don't try to rewrite it. I don't wince. I welcome the pain, a man who doesn't put his arms out as he's falling. I don't watch
the boy
this time. I watch me follow her on my bike. I watch the car speed up, turn sharply, rocket up over the curb, and hit the tree. I hear the noise, the sharp, fast crack. Time stops. Waits. I watch as I ride through traffic, watch, out of the corner of my eye, the car that had to skid to keep from hitting me. Watch as I run to the driver's-side door, try to open it. Watch as I stick my head in the opening of the shattered glass. Watch as I say . . . no . . . as I screamed
Mum, Mum, Mum!
Watch as I pull my head out fast, the small cut, the drops of blood, the woman with her hands over her mouth and nose. The cars stopping. The men running. The sirens. I wait for reality to begin again. But it is already far ahead of me. It's not all right. I won't beat her home.

I open my eyes and see a black woman pushing an older man in a wheelchair. He smiles at me. A toddler waddles past, looking like he will fall with every step, his mother a step behind him, arms wide, just in case. Two teenagers, maybe sixteen, a boy and a girl, sit a bench away, talking closely, making out.

This is it, then. Right here. This moment.

Let me go, Finny. Let us go.

I call Phoebe. She lives across the park, on the Upper West Side.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

“You're back.”

“I'm back.”

“How's the spot?”

“Have you ever been to the petting zoo?”

“What?”

“The petting zoo. In the park. They have a petting zoo. You can feed the animals. I was wondering, if you're not doing anything, if you wanted to go to the zoo.”

“It's thirty-nine degrees outside.”

“Wear a warm coat.”

She meets me at the entrance to the children's zoo and we feed quarters into a gumball machine that dispenses pellet food for goats. If you lay your hand flat, the goats lick the pellet off your hand. There's also a Purell dispenser.

We look at the pigs, the llama, the cow. The goats are the only ones that seem happy.

We leave and walk through the park, wander past frozen ball fields, bundled joggers. I tell her about the meeting, about blowing up. I tell her they'll probably fire me later today, when I go back. Near the Great Lawn there's a café and I buy two coffees. We keep walking.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“No idea.”

“Does Martin know? About your father?”

I say, “No.”

She nods.

“You seem okay,” she says.

“Could be sleep deprivation. I'll probably wake up in a massive panic attack tonight. I've got enough money to live for about a year. If I move to Angola.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I don't know. I feel good.”

She nods.

I say, “I'm sorry.”

“You already apologized.”

“I know. But I'm sorry.”

“You scared me.”

“I know.”

Clouds have moved in and covered the sun. It's getting colder.

Phoebe says, “Anyway. I think I'm going to head back now.”

I say, “Do you want to come on vacation with me?”

“Fin.”

“We could go someplace.”

She looks at me.

She says, “Give me a reason.”

I say, “Because I've got these two tickets. These two first-class tickets.”

“Not good enough.”

Two kids on skateboards go by. On the road, a hansom carriage pulled by a sad old horse clops along. I take a deep breath. It's not that I don't have the words. I do. I've had them for a long time. I just couldn't quite bring myself to say them.

Finally I say, “Because there's only you. Because I want to make you happy. Because I want to show you that I'm worthy of you.”

I'm looking at a tree and Phoebe is looking at me. I look at her now.

Phoebe, her voice different, says, “Why couldn't you have just said that in the first place?”

I step closer and take my glove off and put my hand on her face, her cheek. I lean in farther, put my face against hers.

I say, “I thought you knew.”

•   •   •

Time to get fired.

I walk back into the office, going through the revolving doors as others are leaving. I need my
bag. There is a FedEx package on my desk. I am instantly unnerved. I open it and inside there is a small box and a note.

Fin. Time is what you make of it. I hope what I mean is coming out with my words. Also, I bought one for myself so we both have the same one. Like brothers. Your tomodachi. Keita.

Inside the box is a Rolex Submariner watch.

•   •   •

The office is quiet. I grab my bag and leave. I step off the elevator and walk through the lobby. Martin is on his cell phone. He ends the call and looks at me for what feels like a long time.

He says, “There are four hours every lunar cycle when I am not an egotistical, heartless jackass. You happen to be catching me on the last hour. So I'm going to ask you this once, and only once, and, no matter what your answer, I'm then going to walk out of this building, get into a new Jaguar XJ, drive to Per Se, have dinner with a twenty-eight-year-old woman of mind-altering beauty, and, by my second sake, forget you exist. Do you want this job?”

Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know the answer. I do know I wish I'd studied harder in college. I wish I had a calling. I wish I was remarkably good at one thing. Just one thing that I could point to and say, “I am superb at this. I know this.” Badminton. The violin. Carpentry. Organic farming. Litigation. Geology. Animal husbandry. The Hula-Hoop. Something. But I am not good at anything. And the little voice reminds me of that every chance he gets. “Hey, Gary. Gary? You suck.” And always, for so long, I have believed him. It's habit. It's easier. There are times in my life when I look for experiences I can be proud of, things that might define me: the winning goal senior year, the acceptance letter from Harvard, the big account win, the wedding, the house, the first-born, the good father, the good husband, the good brother, volunteering at the hospice, jumping onto the tracks to rescue the fainting victim as the subway car pulls in. The stories of a life well lived. Little monuments we all need to sustain us during those long stretches where nothing quite so memorable occurs, when life simply passes by. I scan
my memory for something to hold on to. I can find almost nothing. And then I think of the ashes.
Hey, little voice. Fuck you. I did that.

I say, “Is it enough? What we do?”

Martin stares for a time. “No. It's not enough. Relative to a trauma surgeon or special ed teacher or UN AIDS worker in Uganda, no. It's not nearly enough. But I'm not any of those things. And I'm okay with that. I like what I do. I think what we do has value. Good companies matter to people. Their products matter to people. Do they make a difference in their lives? Probably not. But it does matter. By the way, in the time I've been here, this agency has worked on campaigns to get teenagers to stop smoking, bring inner-city children to camp for the summer, a battered women's shelter in Queens, and the New York chapter of the American Red Cross. For free. And we've changed people's lives as a result. I think that's a pretty good way to make a living.”

I'm waiting for him to fire me, waiting to be humiliated because I do not understand basic things sometimes.

“Do you know how many portfolios we receive each day? Copywriters, art directors, people who want to make their living here? And yet here I stand with you, a person who wants to throw a good job away. I mean, if I could show you a photo of the woman I'm dining with . . . and yet here I stand. Why? It's rhetorical, so don't try to answer. I stand here because although I have thought about firing you many times with great relish, I don't. I don't because I think you could be good. But you have to want it. People like you, Fin. That's not a small thing in this business. You want to hug me now, I know. I have that effect on people.”

Then he says, “I'm sorry about your father. And although it's none of my business, I was very sorry to hear what happened to your mother. I know it was a long time ago but . . .”

I feel myself color, feel instantly uncomfortable.

Martin says, “I had an older brother. A god to me. He died twenty-four years ago, November seventh. Drunk driver. Not a day goes by that . . . well . . . you know.”

He looks beyond me, out the windows onto the street. I assume he's seen someone or something, but he doesn't react for several seconds.

He looks back at me. “So, I'm sorry. The job gets in the way sometimes. But that's life, isn't it? Come by the office sometime and I'll show you the rejection letters I received from London's finest publishing houses in regard to my book of poetry sixteen years ago. I keep them in a drawer. A reminder of who I am. We can be many people, you see. Good to keep in mind in this business.”