THE BLACK STRETCH LIMO was halfway over the Brooklyn Bridge, the traffic denying them any speed though Eric Harke whooped as if they were doing a hundred. “I love this fucking bridge.” He rocked from window to sunroof to window again, like a dog sensing he was almost home. “How can you not love this fucking bridge? My absolute fucking favorite and I’ve been on some of the finest. The Alamillo. The Zubizuri. The Millau Viaduct. Great bridges, all of them, same with the classics. Ponte Vecchio. Pont Neuf. The Khaju—man, that’s a beautiful fucking bridge, a really beautiful bridge, almost makes me reconsider. By the way I think the Golden Gate is totally overrated. It’s a good bridge, an iconic bridge, and the color in that coastal light is genius, but it’s not a great bridge. A great span, I’ll give you that, but not a great bridge.” Richard and Jamie nodded. Jamie was more amused than Richard, even with his front tooth missing and his nose likely broken, while Richard was more anxious about the state of his brother’s face as well as Eric Harke’s pupils, which pointed at them like a pair of shaky .38s. “I think half the greatness of this bridge is the full story of this bridge. Those poor Roeblings, dad dying of tetanus, son getting the bends, wife taking over the project, thirteen years of absolute heartache and loss, absolute family disaster, yet here we are, a century later, driving across this cathedral of industrial design, whatever suffering long forgotten. If I were an hour younger I’d open up the fucking sunroof and give praise to the Roeblings.” Eric collapsed back onto his seat. Twitchy and sweaty, with a brand-new retro haircut, horn-rimmed glasses, a vintage suit, a bow tie, he had the vibe of early-to-mid David Byrne, and what with Richard’s and Jamie’s appreciation for New Wave music and their teenage days watching those first videos on MTV, what with the water flowing underground and this large automobile, what with the early evening sky and its remains of light, you may find yourself hearing the same song and asking yourself the same question: How did I get here?
Let the day reach back to lunch and their mother’s confidence in their father’s impossible tale, a hundred percent true, who knows how, who cares how, but the story was true, to the point where she started to tear up as if time no longer held her, and Richard and Jamie clamped down on their tongues and let reason go for the sake of mercy. Okay, okay, fine. Afterward, Richard walked Mom toward the park while Jamie cabbed it to Alice from Orso’s apartment on Tenth and 56th Street. He had an hour and a half before his 4:30 P.M. class. For the last few days he had been staying with Alice, not only because it was a more convenient commute to the New School but also because it was free of any incriminating evidence. No Sylvia. No boxes of videotapes. No reflections of his guilty face on the smudged surfaces. He was also surprised to find himself liking Alice more and more, appreciating her unexpected naïveté for a woman so often burned, taking comfort in her realistic optimism, the way a cheesy movie could make her happy, how she defined herself by the day rather than the month or the year or the decade. In fact, as he approached her front door, he was getting visibly excited to see her again, his hard-on hoping for clairvoyance, but alas, she wasn’t home. Jamie sat down and smoked a joint instead. He is me. That’s supposedly what his father told his mother. Was he Flaubert now and Andy his Bovary? But Mom, previously sensible if dangerously patient, seemed fortified by this story. “You really don’t have to believe me, I don’t care, but I know that boy is your father.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smoke entered Jamie’s lungs via a grimace. It was like a tide flowing in and washing over a feculent shore. On the surface was general exasperation at his deluded parents, but deeper down were his own feelings of worthlessness, of disgust, of morbid obsessions, of lifelong fantasies about superpowers, of early promise versus present circumstances, all churned from under those rocks and stones before being carried into the ocean in which we all belong.
Her face was still wearing her audition makeup.
“You look like a local newscaster,” he said.
Alice pantomimed a microphone. “Jamie Dyer, stoned in my apartment, story at eleven.” She reached for the joint in the ashtray. “I don’t know if I should be offended or not since this is my hooker look. Seven lines. Not a bad part either. A once classy hooker but now she’s older and desperate, mistaken for a cougar. It’s tragically not quite funny enough. And this,” she said, indicating her Price Is Right face, “is me trying to look like a young actress trying to look like an old hooker trying to look like a younger hooker who is really just an old actress. I tell you, it’s exhausting.” She plopped down onto the couch.
“So there are layers?” Jamie said.
“Like you can’t believe.”
“And how’d it go?”
“It’s between me and fifty other whores.” She tossed the lighter onto the coffee table and kicked away her high heels, her ankles showing evidence of blisters, the third eye for the disenchanted. “I think I did okay. But I’m dumb enough to enjoy auditioning.”
“You’re too wholesome to be a hooker,” Jamie said.
“Oh wow, thanks.” She sounded insulted.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Jamie said. “I’d pay good money.”
“That’s sweet.”
“But you’re more the nursery-school-teacher-who-dabbles-in-bondage type.”
“I hate kids.”
“That’s part of your masochism right there. Hating kids gets you all hot.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“I could go on.”
“So you can’t imagine me as a hooker?”
“I think that’s a compliment, perhaps not my greatest.”
Alice looked at him, her eyes starting to register the glassy effects, which to Jamie opened her up to girlhood, probably a tomboy with much older brothers, and a good Catholic mother who went to church every day, and a father who died when she was young, all of which Jamie knew was true but for the first time sensed the effects of this life on her face. “I bet you wanted to be a vet when you were younger.”
“Never,” she said. “Now whatcha got in your wallet?”
“What?”
“How much cash?”
A total of sixty-three dollars and forty-eight cents ended up on the coffee table.
Alice gauged the sum with a thinking hmm.
“You were probably voted most loyal friend,” Jamie said.
Alice swept the money into her handbag. “What time’s your class?”
The class in question was midway through a monthlong survey of docufiction, or cinema vérité, or fictive nonfiction, or narrative nonfiction, or any one of those terms as long as mockumentary was avoided. Over that time there had been discussion about the genre as a tool for satire, its effectiveness in this age of quote, unquote reality, its trickster role, its pitfalls of tired parody and lazy humor, its successful horror. They talked about what was true and what was camera true. War of the Worlds segued into Nanook of the North into Land Without Bread into Forgotten Silver into Dadetown. An entire period was spent on David Holzman’s Diary. A pleasant conversation about Zelig turned into a much nastier one about JFK, which circled around to Mao: The Real Man and concluded with an agreement on the use of reenactments in The Thin Blue Line. “History as an act of fiction,” Jamie riffed that afternoon, spent and woefully unprepared, “an insistence on a desired theme, a manipulation based on a series of plagiarisms.” The students were actually taking notes. “Like memory itself,” he went on, “which we know is far from truthful.” Jamie almost laughed at this nonsense. “Who we are in battle with who we want to be and then throw in how we feel on that particular day. What does that make us? A dishonest construction? A manufactured truth?” He paused as if this deserved sinking in, though really he had nowhere else to go. “Which brings us to Stage Fright and how we buy into the opening flashback because it fits within the parameters of classic Hitchcock and our collective desire to sit in that theater and watch a movie about a man wrongfully accused.” Best keep things short. “Hitch gives us what we want.” Better. “Our memory, our identity, is satisfied. That’s the beauty of genre. It’s a conversation. But the flashback in the film is a lie. It even exposes that lie with the tracking shot that moves through the door and we hear the door shut without shutting on the camera. The point of view becomes untrustworthy.” Wait, were they taking notes or texting? He really should have used Dr. Strangelove, but Stage Fright was a favorite (or a favorite of his favorite professor at Yale). “It’s all mirrors and doors in this movie, the public and the private. Let’s look at the flashback again.” Jamie cued up the DVD. “Notice the use of, of—oh, just watch the thing.”
He pushed PLAY, glad for the lull from his own bullshit.
He sat back and in the tired space between his eyes replayed an hour ago when he was with Alice on the couch and she had just finished her lovely show and Jamie was starting to move faster, chasing her orgasm, his toes curling until cracking, and Alice looked up and half-whispered, “I want you to finish on my face.”
“Finish what?” he grunted.
“I want you to come on my face.”
“Huh?”
“If you don’t mind,” she added, ever polite.
“Coming on your face?”
“Yes.”
Jamie paused mid-thrust and propped himself on his elbow for a less pressing view. “Why would you want me to do that?”
“It doesn’t turn you on?”
“Maybe a little, but still.”
“No one’s ever done it to me.”
“And I think you should be congratulated for that.”
“Maybe I want to break new ground,” she said.
“You’re stoned.”
“It’s what they do in porn.”
“Oh yes, let us turn to porn for inspiration.”
“But it all trickles down.” Alice broke a bigger smile. “Poor choice of words.”
“Very.”
“Do you have a problem defiling my wholesome Midwestern face—”
“—with your world-weary spunk?”
“I never said Midwestern, that’s your own paranoia.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while actually.”
“Jesus, you make it sound like a mortgage.”
“I’ve done just about everything else.”
“That I can attest to.”
“And I like you, Jamie, a lot, and I want you to ejaculate on my face.”
Jamie frowned. “That’s so sweet.”
“No, no, no,” she said, restraining her smile, “I’m a hundred percent serious, or as serious as someone can be about this. It’s like an experience without all the travel. So cast a few lines across this unspoiled pond.”
“Please stop talking like that.”
“It would turn on a lot of guys,” she said.
“Call me old-fashioned but it strikes me as degrading.”
“Would you mind if I came on your face?”
Jamie considered this for a moment. “Probably not. I’d probably like it. Maybe even love it. But isn’t that about power or—”
“Shut up and fuck me.” Alice rolled him back on top and maneuvered him inside of her, reaching for his ass to really kick-start things, her ankles wrapping for leverage, her back arching, her mouth alternating between biting and sucking, her finger doing that thing that Jamie liked, which he considered wonderfully dirty and accelerated him into another gear as she started with her lovely groans, God knows if real this time, and Jamie was getting close, closer, closest, pushing up on his arms. “I’m getting close,” he told Alice.
“Yes, baby.”
“You really sure?”
“Yes, yes, yes, baby, do it.”
After a couple more rubs and grinds, Jamie pulled out and rushed up like he had an ember in his palm and Alice was the tinder. Straddling her shoulders, he perched himself over her chin; she was almost laughing now, mouth half-open, eyes squinting in anticipation, and Jamie would have laughed too but he was concentrating too hard, not only on coming but also on his aim, and here was his target, this enthusiastic woman, the audition makeup unable to conceal her decent good looks and honesty of character, that leaning smile that gamely said yes to whatever life proposed, and Jamie thought, I might love you, Alice, and more than anything this unexpected notion pushed him over the top.
“Oh, oh, oh, ahh.”
Or some such embarrassment.
But instead of bursting forth with ropelike vigor, his shot sort of crawled out in the style of an exhausted old man escaping from a deep hole, sliding down the side and ending up in a hard-breathing heap, just happy to be free.
After a second or two, Alice opened her eyes.
“Um,” Jamie said. “Maybe I could, I don’t know, flick it on you.”
And thank goodness she laughed, and his heart seemed to gain a door and became a house. Back in the classroom, Jamie blushed and covered his face with giddy shame as Richard Todd climbed that staircase, nervous about being discovered, carousel music chiming in the background, a nice touch. He let the scene play longer than necessary, both he and his students content with the use of time. Once the class was dismissed, he decided to subway to Brooklyn to pick up his mail and more clothes and maybe his laptop, maybe even his video camera, before heading back to Alice’s for the night. An idea was taking shape in his head, just a title really, Waiting, which latched on to the people around him, on the platform, on the train, on the street, in the windows, the solitary man who sat on the stoop of his walk-up, who, upon seeing Jamie, stood up and revealed himself to be tall and bearded and waiting no longer.
“Do I know—” Jamie started to say when a burst of electric black caught him square in the face, the effect followed by the slower-dawning cause, a fist, a punch to be exact, that landed just south of his nose. Jamie staggered before falling ass-first onto the stoop. The great symphony of consciousness reconfigured around a single kettle drum, and after a few seconds of dumb figuring, he leaned over and bled onto the steps. It seemed his nose was giving birth. Jamie tried to stanch the flow with his sleeve but that just made whatever was being born angrier.
“I’m sorry,” the assailant said.
“No.”
Jamie’s vision was fuzzy but the voice spurred his memory. “That you, Ed?”
“I wasn’t planning on hitting you,” Ed Carne answered.
“I would hate to see you with some intent.” Jamie’s tongue brushed against his forever-snaggled front tooth, which was now indented to the point of weirdness, practically dangling, and Jamie, without much forethought, reached in with thumb and index finger and gave a tug. Ta-da! He showed the prize to Ed. “You knocked my tooth out.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
Jamie spat more blood. “How big is your goddamn fist, Ed?”
“I always had heavy hands.”
“I think you broke my nose too.”
“Looks that way.”
Jamie tried to hold his head straight. “My calibration is all screwed up.”
“I don’t know what came over me,” Ed said, whatever the coming long fled.
“I haven’t been slugged like that since my brother.”
“I like to think of myself as a nonviolent person.”
“Hey man, I deserve it,” Jamie said. “Probably deserve a few kicks as well.”
Still looming overhead, Ed buried his hands in his pockets, perhaps in precaution. “I’ve been trying to call but you’ve been—I don’t know where you’ve been. Not returning my calls. So I had to track you down and I’ve been waiting here, sleeping in my car, and I’m tired and I hate this city and I finally see you and with all the scenarios playing in my head not one of them involved me hitting you.”
“It’s okay.” Blood started to shellac the back of Jamie’s throat.
“No, it’s not. It’s just, I hated all that filming but Sylvia, she was insistent, and she was so sick, and I saw you and I don’t know, I guess I just remembered all that stuff and I snapped.”
“Like I said, I deserve it.” Jamie spat some more blood onto the steps. He was almost thankful for the injury. It made him relax into the consequences, the abstract anxiety turning into concrete pain. And he was getting ready to apologize for jamming a camera into a place best left undisturbed. Her grave? What kind of ghoul does that? To give an otherwise decent project his own macabre ending, all because he was shallow and scared and had no idea what he wanted from life, death his only recourse. Before talking, Jamie pressed his tongue into the void of his missing tooth. The rawness was almost pleasant, like a childhood memory of being grown-up. “Ed—” he started.
“It’s not your fault,” Ed said. “You were just the cameraman.”
“Mostly but—”
“And I’m glad she didn’t tell me the whole plan, because I would have fought that for sure. Just too much. And the girls.” Down Kane Street, the sun was nearing its westward flush, the shadows at their longest. Last week this conversation would have happened in unsaved darkness rather than the melodrama of this light. Ed Carne even turned west as if the time were spot-on. “I never cared about the video,” he said. “Neither did the girls. We just missed her and wanted to remember her healthy and with us. Probably why I didn’t contact you earlier. I’m still—we’re still in mourning. I haven’t shaved since she died. But then my oldest saw the video on the Internet.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m still not sure how—”
“It’s quite something,” Ed said.
Jamie nodded.
“Just seeing her again. And the way it ends. Maybe you thought it wouldn’t reach us rubes in Vermont. Maybe you didn’t care. Maybe we never crossed your mind. But you stole her from us a second time.”
Jamie wondered if under the sidewalk there was dirt. “I am truly—”
“Over seven million views on YouTube,” Ed went on, “and growing a million every few days. Chances are right now someone is watching my wife die, watching her say that everything is fine, watching her, well, you know. And they have no idea who she is. She gets no credit. Not even a mention of her name. It’s like the whole thing is anonymous, like she’s just another woman with cancer. That hasn’t stopped the reporters from tracking us down. Hollywood people too, looking for the rights to her story. Talk of a movie or something. A book. I don’t know. The Carnes are suddenly the curiosities of Stowe. It’s crazy. At this rate she’ll die fifty million times by next month. I’ve talked to a lawyer in Burlington, a good one, and he said that since Sylvia was the primary creator of the content, we, meaning her family, are the ones in control, not you. You were just the cameraman, Jamie. So what I need from you is your signature on some papers and for you to hand over the original video, which is rightfully my property.”
Jamie spat one last time. “Of course,” he said. After pocketing his tooth and reacquainting himself with gravity, he guided Ed inside and up the stairs. It seemed like a flood had hit his apartment, a bureau’s worth of clothes washed up on the floor, the furniture loosened from its moorings, the overall odor having only a brief memory of being dry. “I’ve kind of let things go,” Jamie said, picking up an old newspaper in a gesture of tidying up.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Something to drink? Not that I trust what’s growing in my fridge.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Give me a second.” Jamie popped into the bathroom and greeted his alternate self in the mirror: the Jamie who got what he deserved. A washcloth took care of his face but his shirt was forever ruined and his nose had a parenthetical bend to the left. But in general he liked this new look. He grinned. The gap was like a drunken tattoo.
“Really sorry about that,” Ed said from the door.
“I think it makes me look younger.”
“You should put ice on your nose.”
“Probably.” Jamie stepped past him and grabbed the RazorRam DVD and mini DV from the pile on the living room table. “I feel terrible that this ever got online. It was an accident.”
“I should probably thank you,” Ed said. “I would have locked it away in a drawer without ever watching.” He slipped them into his satchel, his hand returning with two ten-page documents. “If you could sign these.”
Jamie made a show of checking the legalese.
“Pretty standard stuff,” Ed said.
Pretty standard stuff, Jamie thought.
“You’re just affirming what is true.”
What is true? Jamie stopped reading. “I have one condition.”
Ed’s beard curled in the vicinity of his lips. “What?”
“You have to hit me again.”
“Huh?”
“You have to hit me again, as hard as you can.”
“I told you, I’m not a violent person.”
“I don’t care. You hit me and I’ll sign.”
Whatever Ed’s qualms, they passed—“Turn your head”—and soon he was out the door and back on the street while Jamie was back in front of the mirror watching his left eye shade from pink to purple. Pain echoed like a shout down a canyon, a curious hello rather than a cry for help. He couldn’t help smiling. You doofus, he muttered. He threw a slow-motion punch at his reflection. Then he had a shower and was briefly unburdened by memory or imagination, to the degree where he washed his face twice, unsure of the first time. Fresh-scrubbed, he looked even more like a mess. He sat at his computer and typed dying and woman and 12:01 p.m. into Google but held back from going any further. How are you? Jamie sat there waiting for an answer when the phone rang. It was his brother.
“Glad I caught you,” Richard said in an odd tone. “I got a pal looking to party.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re in a car, a limo actually, a stretch job, very sweet, and my friend’s looking for a little boom-boom—wait, he says a lot of boom-boom—so I guess we’re looking for boom-boom-boom and I thought of you, my Mr. Boom Boom.”
“You haven’t done anything stupid, have you?” Jamie asked.
“That’s open for debate,” Richard said. “But back to boom-boom.”
“It’s obvious you haven’t bought drugs in a very long time.”
“True.”
“You with Eric Harke?”
“Yep.”
“And what, you’re doing coke with him?”
“No, just helping a friend in need.”
“What a ridiculously bad idea, Richard.”
“It’s all good,” Richard said.
“I thought you were a trained drug counselor.”
“Oh baby, I am.”
“Baby and boom-boom? Is this really how you went about your business back in the day, because frankly it’s embarrassing.”
“Look, I’ll take what you’ve got.”
“All I’ve got is some weed.”
“Weed?” A pause. “Weed’s no good. We need the boom-boom.”
“Stop with the boom-boom, please.”
“That’s great. I knew you’d come through.”
“Richard, I don’t think—”
“Reminds me of our first deal. Remember that? An ounce of No Soap Radio.”
Jamie sat up straighter.
“You remember that?” Richard asked again.
“We can’t do that, and not to some Hollywood cokehead.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll know instantly.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Look, I’ve had a rough few hours.”
“Great, we’ll be at your place in twenty minutes.”
“Goddamn it.” But Richard had already hung up.
No Soap Radio was a particular specialty for the Dyer boys. The first one they pulled on me was a standard game of hide-and-seek except they just watched TV while I sweated in the topmost shelf of the linen closet. “Oh, we looked,” they swore. Then there were the times they ditched me in advance by making plans to meet somewhere, say a movie, and I’d save seats and they’d never show. “But we were at the theater on Fifty-ninth, where were you?” They would worship certain bands—Earth, Wind & Fire, Electric Light Orchestra, Styx—and when I would buy every album and memorize every song they would mock me for actually liking that crap music. No Soap Radio was always the taunt, the punch line to the non-joke, the two of them laughing until I laughed, which only made them laugh more. It seemed my fate to be in their crosshairs. The last No Soap Radio happened when I was fifteen and Richard and Jamie asked if I had any desire to come over and smoke pot with them. It was just after Christmas, and their parents were away for the weekend. It was a thrilling invitation. After a shower and a mad dash from Park Avenue, I found myself in their inner sanctum, in Jamie’s room, Discreet Music on the stereo, Jamie and Richard paired with two girls who were pretty in that postpubertal, prefeminine way. Maybe they were already stoned. Richard, grinning, brandished a baggie and packed me a hit in his two-foot-long bright red bong, which I recognized from those magazine and tobacco shops along Third Avenue. I lied and told them I only had experience with joints, and they talked me through the process, almost sweetly. The water started to toil and trouble and smoke filled the tube like a special effect until I carbed and the ghost column rushed up into my lungs. My coughing was treated as a joyous inauguration. I passed the bong to my new compatriots and after four more conjurings with far less coughing, Richard and Jamie and the two girls began to swat giggles back and forth like a game of badminton. They mentioned, again and again, how stoned they were. “Are you feeling it?” they asked me, “Are you like feeling it, Philip?” with a wild flamboyance in their eyes. I remember not feeling much, if anything, feeling a profound nothing, like a natural disaster that takes place in Malaysia. I knew what they were doing, knew it was just another joke, let’s get Philip Topping stoned on oregano. Just watch this loser, girls. And yet here they were watching, like they wanted me to sing, and in that moment I was both wise and all too foolish. It seemed the first time the Dyer brothers ever really cared. No Soap Radio indeed.
In the limo, Richard gave the driver Jamie’s address in Brooklyn.
“So he has some blow?” Eric Harke asked.
“I believe so.”
“And you think we’ve lost them?” Eric measured paranoid distances from the back window, his face a collection of minor anarchies. “Because this still feels pure,” he said, tapping his chest, “but if I get photographed I’ll just turn into another silly actor wearing another silly outfit.” He turned away from the window. “How much blow does he have?”
“Enough, I think.”
“Right on.” Back to the window. “God, how I hate the ones on scooters.”
As far as Richard could tell, Eric Harke was in the midst of a four-day binge, judging from the phase of half-moons under his eyes, as well as the overall state of his agitation, like a carnivore in a petting zoo, though Richard could have been reading his own history in that nervousness (there was a time when he believed every mirror was two-way). But regardless, paparazzi really had been chasing them when all this started.
Their meeting was scheduled for 3:30 P.M. After lunch Richard walked his mother to Central Park, checking his watch every few minutes. It was 3:17 P.M. when they crossed Madison. Every step was calibrated in terms of his own immediate timeline—twelve minutes now—which, while nerve-racking, focused him against the collective madness of his parents. He listened to his mother go on about how she’s surrounded by nature in Connecticut and yet Central Park was what she missed most about the city. At one point she placed her hand on Richard’s shoulder in a testing touch. “I know you hate being back here, but I’m glad Emmett and Chloe have had a chance to meet their grandfather, to lay down some memory even if that memory hardly does him justice.” They stopped at the light at 75th and Fifth. “He does seem so old,” she admitted.
Was she coming around to the obvious truth, that Dad needed help?
“Do I seem that old?” she asked.
“No, Mom, you look great.”
“You get older but you don’t realize just how old you look.” Tears clung to her eyes and the word meniscus fell into Richard’s head, an all-time favorite until he learned it was also part of his knee, the part he tore two years ago while fooling around on Emmett’s skateboard. “You’re still planning on Connecticut for the weekend?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Can’t wait to spend time with the kids.”
“It’ll be nice,” Richard said, dreading the trip.
“And Emmett’s good, health-wise?”
Richard was weary of the question. “Yep. He’s gotten really tall.”
“That’s great. Knock on wood.”
There was always that apotropaic addendum.
The light turned green.
“I can’t join you in the park,” Richard said. “I have a meeting.”
“Of course. One day at a time.”
He didn’t bother disabusing her.
“Well, honey …” She gave his shoulder a squeeze.
“I’ll see you soon,” he told her.
“You’ll take the train to Dover Plains.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve been over this.”
“Saturday morning.”
“Like we planned.”
“And we’ll pick you up at the station.”
“Great.”
“Any kind of food the kids want?”
“Whatever you have will be great.”
“I’m proud of you,” she said, without obvious reference but squeezing harder.
“Okay, Mom.”
The light started to blink red. What does that mean? Ten seconds?
“You were a hard boy to love but you’ve grown into a wonderful man,” she said.
Her eyes still gripped those tears, almost stubbornly, it seemed.
“Your father, he was the opposite.”
How many more blinks? Two? Three?
“I should have been on your side more. That was my mistake and I’m sorry. But spend time with Andy and maybe you’ll see what I saw all those years ago.” The light was now solid red and Richard was ready to hold his mother back but she dashed across with just enough native speed and tiptoe charm that the cars and bus seemed to fall in behind her like dancers in a Busby Berkeley routine. Safe on the other side, she waved before heading into the park.
Why was it harder to love than to hate?
Or was that a stupid question?
Or worse, a naïve question?
A block from the Carlyle Richard’s own phone for once chimed with a text. It was Eric Harke—Runnels late, be Thebes soon. Runnels? Thebes? And how soon Thebes? They were having afternoon tea at the hotel—I’m few in he afternoon—to discuss things, in particular Ampersand—Imam edge meat—though Richard was certain these things would angle toward an invite to meet his father—How’s tour gather doing btw?—and while this gave Richard blunt-force indigestion—Need to Amir this happen—he was willing to entertain the notion—Gong to be awesome—for the sake of conversation. He scrolled through these texts while sitting in the upper gallery of the Carlyle—Still trapped—trying to appear at ease in a large velvet chair, sipping Earl Grey tea. The room appeared based on a Turkish bordello and the longer Richard had to wait the more he questioned which side of the exchange he was on. The entire Carlyle seemed a theme park where people paid vast sums of money to feel rich. At 4:27 P.M. Candy and Chloe strolled in, Chloe disappointed to find an empty seat instead of (insert scream here).
“Still not here?” she said as if she were Richard’s boss.
“Maybe he’s stuck on L.A. time,” Richard said.
“And you’ve just been like waiting?”
“Yup.”
Chloe shook her head like she was on the verge of giving him a pink slip.
“How was the Statue of Liberty?” he asked.
“But I really want to meet him.”
“And hopefully you will. So the Statue of Liberty?”
“Smaller and bigger than expected,” she said. “It’s built on top of a fort, which is interesting. And Ellis Island was interesting too. It reminded me of like a concentration camp but like a concentration camp in reverse, like the immigrants were the bread that comes out of the oven.” It was the year of Anne Frank and unfortunate analogies.
“Anyway,” Candy said, smiling.
“But fun?”
“Sure,” Candy said.
“Exhausted but good.” Candy frowned. “Your meeting?”
“Who knows?”
He could see Candy trying to gauge the level of his frustration, which was always a concern for her and added to his own frustration, that he was so fragile in her eyes, which just compounded his impatience with himself.
“That’s a movie star for you,” she said.
“Yep.”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You should just leave,” Candy said.
“I will soon.”
“But I really want to meet him,” Chloe said.
“Chloe, enough.” Candy stepped closer and gave the nape of Richard’s neck a scratch. His constant stream of thoughts, never pleasant company, redirected into a single command: please don’t stop. He lowered his head, closed his eyes. “I think we’re going to walk to the restaurant,” Candy told him.
“Long walk,” he said.
“Too long?”
“Doable. Go through the park.”
“Time-wise?”
“Should be fine.”
“Good.”
“Oh, keep going,” Richard begged when she stopped scratching.
“We gotta go.”
“Please.”
“Emmett’s up in the room,” she said.
“Yeah, okay. Great.”
The girls were having a girls’ night out—Joe Allen, the musical Wicked, a carriage ride—while the boys had hazier ideas—maybe listen to jazz, or go to a comedy club, do something downtown, in the Village, near Washington Square Park—Richard wishing he had planned better.
“Have a good night,” Candy said.
Chloe looked around. “So you really don’t think he’s going to show?” she said to nobody in particular, meaning her father. She picked up a spoon. “This could’ve been Eric Harke’s spoon.” Her voice had the pitched flair of her favorite TV shows, as if the origins of humor came from canned laughter. “I almost want to steal it,” she said. “Oh Eric Harke’s spoon.” She kissed its oval shallow.
“Chloe?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Put the spoon down.”
She smiled honestly, which was enough to forgive any behavior.
A kiss and a wave and Richard was back to sitting by himself, though sitting was hardly the right word, taking up space maybe, wasting space, judging by the waiters who circled. Richard stared at the crumbs on the tablecloth like they were evidence of a lost civilization. He took a certain amount of pride in his honest opinion of himself. I am bitter; I am competitive; I am cheap; I am proud to a fault. No blind spot here. I pretend to be pessimistic though I am secretly optimistic. I am tired. I am nothing. He thought he understood this better than most, which was a strange kind of arrogance. A wonderful man, his mother called him, a good father, said his brother, this for a person who often imagined Emmett and Chloe dying a terrible death, murdered, raped, missing forever, as if his redemption could only come via a tragedy. What a narcissist. As if his children were put on earth for his own absolution. And it was bullshit too. Because Emmett had been sick, had dipped into those mortal percentages, and Richard discovered no redemption whatsoever, just misery and fear and powerlessness. But really that was bullshit too. Because there is pride when the world aligns with your inner muck and another person’s worst fear is your basic math. I have lived through your nightmare. I have survived. His posture turned into the slump of somebody lifting his limit in weights, and Richard thought about finding a meeting somewhere, a true meeting. He needed similar company. Because right now his only stance against himself was isolation masked as purpose, a scarecrow’s attitude. This is who I am. This is what I do. I am frightening and I am alone. Richard shook his head. What bullshit.
Emmett, nicely dressed, stood before him. God, how Richard wanted to hug the boy.
“Still waiting?”
“To be honest I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You think he’s still coming?”
Richard checked the time. “No.”
“Has he called or anything?”
“No. You want some cold tea?”
“No thanks.”
“You look well put together,” Richard said.
“Yeah?” Emmett placed his hands on the back of one of the chairs and did the kind of casual stretching that usually presaged a parental request. Richard watched him with amusement. He could guess what was coming but he wanted to see how limber Emmett could get.
“So you excited about tonight?” Richard asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
“We’re going to have lots of fun.”
“Okay.”
“I was thinking we go downtown and hear this famous jazz violinist.”
“Cool.”
“And there’s a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant I want to try.”
“Um, Dad …” Emmett finally broke from the chair and went into solicitation mode, explaining how Andy had invited him to a book party nearby and how he had said yes without really thinking because it sounded interesting and Andy was a really good guy, like totally excellent, and well, Emmett wondered if maybe he could go with his uncle instead of doing the jazz violin thing, unless of course the jazz violin thing was a super-big deal and then absolutely no problem.
“Wait,” said Richard, “you’re turning down a night of jazz violin with your dad?”
Emmett straightened earnestly. “It’s not that—”
“I’m joking. Go and have a good time with Andy.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“I’m sure. Just be back by, how does eleven sound?”
“And don’t do anything stupid. Stupid can happen easily in this city.”
“I won’t.”
“You have money?”
“Forty dollars.”
Richard reached into his wallet and counted out sixty. This kind of generosity was not his habit. He wanted his children to appreciate their role as earners with chores and jobs, unlike his own upbringing, where he had a no-strings-attached allowance, his mother tossing him cash whenever he asked, even giving him a credit card in high school, just in case, those cases often involving dinners for him and his friends so Richard could pay by credit and collect their share and then go buy weed or blow. But Richard was determined that his children should avoid his path, that they should in fact wipe his path clean. But today he handed over the money. Maybe it was the Carlyle and its blithe wealth, or maybe it was a desire to see the boy’s smile, an affecting piece of sleight of hand.
“Wow, thanks,” Emmett said.
“Call me on your phone if you need anything.”
“Yeah, okay.” And before Richard could pardon the lie, Emmett came clean. “I sort of left my phone back in L.A. Probably stupid of me, definitely stupid, but I wanted electronic silence while here, New York without any L.A.”
Richard nodded in total, if compromised, agreement. “I get that,” he said, Emmett’s phone giving consequence to his pocket, like a clapper to a bell. He could have handed it over right then and explained how he saw it in the car and assumed it was left behind by mistake, but the date on that particular explanation had gone past due, and perhaps more problematic, Richard liked receiving those vibrations from the faraway land of his son.
“I’m not looking forward to the emails and texts when I get back,” Emmett said.
“A lot, huh?”
Emmett stared at the ground. “I hate to imagine.”
“Girls?” Richard asked, instantly feeling like a foolish television father.
“A few probably.”
“I always liked Emma,” Richard pushed.
“She’s okay. Kind of young.”
“Isn’t she your age?”
“She’s just young. Her sweetness makes me want to act like a jerk.”
“Yeah?”
“And so then I feel like a jerk.”
“You’re my son all right.”
“Shut up, Dad.”
“Okay,” Richard said. “You can always call me on a pay phone or use Andy’s.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“And do me a favor and give me a tap when you get back to the hotel.”
“Will do.”
“Eleven.”
“Got it.”
“Eleven-thirty at the latest.”
“Sure.” Emmett turned to go but then stopped. “I just finished Ampersand,” he said.
“Yeah. And what’d you think?”
“Not a masterpiece, but still great. The ending surprised me.”
“I haven’t read it in a long time,” Richard said.
“I knew it was heading toward a dark place, but the way he twists the reader into being an accomplice, like you’re the voice in Edgar Mead’s head, that was pretty cool, like the reader affects what’s being read, kind of a Schrödinger’s cat-and-mouse game.”
“Like I said, it’s been a while,” Richard said.
“Why do you hate him so much?”
Richard touched his chest as if accused. “I don’t know that I hate him, I mean, I hated him when I was younger. He was a …” The right word seemed impossible. “Look, neither one of us was suited to the relationship. I would have hated any father, even the world’s greatest, and he did his thing to the exclusion of everything else, which is probably why he’s such a great writer. The only time I ever had that kind of focus was with drugs.” This was what Richard wished he had said as he thought about this conversation later in his head, and weeks later, still thinking back, he would remove the drug reference and put in something about fatherhood. “Unlike him I’m happiest as a dad.” Yes, that seemed perfect. But in reality Richard said, “We’re just different.”
“Oh.”
“Very different,” like this clarified his position.
“Oh.”
“Two very different people,” the final absolute clarification.
“Oh,” Emmett said.
“You know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
They both stood there, or Emmett stood and Richard sat, a pause opening onto a longer silence that grew in length and pulled at whatever briefly connected them, an uncomfortable force not rendered until goodbye.
It was 5:15 P.M.
Richard signed his room number to the insanely large check and wandered down to the lobby. Its slick black and white interior, its expanse of marble, begged for a Fred Astaire number. God knows the yearly budget on shine. People, mostly foreign, wandered in from the street with their afternoon purchases, the bags held aloft like they were crossing a finish line. It was also cocktail hour, so while the elevators carried the weary shoppers up, they also brought down the newly refreshed, their fog wiped clean. With nothing pressing and feeling conspicuously without purpose, Richard began to spot small housekeeping duties, like the lampshade that was crooked and the flower petals that had dropped on the table. There was a stubborn stain on one of the upholstered chairs. Richard often controlled his annoyance by cleaning things up. A joke around their house was that a screaming match with Dad often resulted in a reorganization of all the DVDs. But here Richard limited himself to straightening the lampshade near the fireplace. The gas fire briefly fooled him since the wood was strikingly real, right down to the embers. He imagined a forest of flame-retardant trees. In his jacket pocket was a small notepad for jotting things down, and he ripped out a page—an office building in New York put under quarantine forever, the workers making a new life of this world—and balled it up and was getting ready to feed it to the fire, to feed the whole notepad, page by page, into the fire, when Richard heard a voice nearby,
You can never really know something.
He turned and saw Eric Harke staring at him, hair tight along the sides, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a dark suit with a bow tie. Before Richard could say anything, Eric squinted with self-engrossed schoolboy charm and continued:
My father was a bona fide war hero. He saved lives. He won medals. He got shot. Twice. He died eleven years after my Shearing graduation and a mess of unknown soldiers showed up at the funeral and gripped my hand like a handshake was an essential part of American industry. “A great man,” they told me. How could I answer but yes? This great man who hustled insurance and never made a decent dime, not like the silver dollar dads of my classmates. I’m sure all those stooped GIs carried full policies, even flood. I think my dad wanted me to look at him the way those men looked at his coffin, with brief but undying love, like a drop of dye that colors an entire glass. But I wasn’t in his war. When I was suspended from school he picked me up, a terrible expense coming all the way from San Francisco. In my room he grabbed my suitcase with a point of showing its lightness, either as a reflection of his strength or of my emptiness, I’m not sure. The man was hardly wider than his hat yet stood like the Lone Ranger. In the hallway all the doors were closed, pencils scrabbling math problems or dissecting lines from Tintern Abbey, but I knew ears were listening near the seams. I played up my footsteps and gave them my best Alec Guinness in Kwai. To the oven indeed. My father walked a few paces ahead and with clumsy effort unjammed the always jammed red door. I could see past him, to the quad lit by the moon and the desk lamps of studying boys. All was quiet for a second longer until all was quiet no longer. The fire alarm sounded. Its endless echo pulled us forwards and backwards as doors opened and heads turned in speculation. All of those boys, my father included, none of them saw a goddamn thing.
Eric broke character and grinned. It was obvious he was accustomed to being happily seen. “Tell me I am not Edgar Mead.”
“You’re late,” Richard said.
“That’s being generous. Try really fucking absurdly late. I did get here almost on time but I suffer from poor vestibular function, and I needed some space to settle my head so I got a suite here, and the attacks always drain me so I ordered room service for some protein and my iPhone’s dead and I don’t have your info on my Droid so I couldn’t get in touch.”
“You could’ve called the restaurant.”
“You know what, I didn’t think of that.” His pupils bled like a felt-tipped pen pressed too long on paper. “I try to do these everyday human-function things all by myself but maybe I’m incapable. Just call the fucking restaurant. Ridiculous.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Richard said.
“No, it’s ridiculous. I get all excited about something—look, I got dressed up, got a haircut, I mean I really got into it, you know, and then I start getting all neurotic and self-conscious and vestibular and I drop the fucking ball. It’s a hell of a way to impress somebody. And I’m glad you’re calling me on it, Richard. Not many people do.”
“You’re just late, that’s all,” Richard said.
As they talked, Eric Harke, the famous actor, started to take magnetic shape, rearranging the compass of the lobby. People came up with reasons to loiter. Checking phones. Inspecting guidebooks. Falling into deep conversation as if whatever they said Had To Be Said Right There. A few bolder ones inched closer as if climbing a fraying rope. All of this residual attention squeezed Richard and reminded him of those enjoyable moments in thrillers when the veteran agent realizes the room is a trap. Even the concierge seemed to be playing along, leaving his station and marching toward them like he had a pistol in his pocket. “Looks like we have company,” Richard said to Eric.
“Excuse me, Mr. Mead?” from the concierge.
“Yeah?”
“Your car has arrived.”
“Okay, great.”
“And Mr. Mead, the doorman has informed me of photographers outside.”
Eric wiped his mouth. “Shit.”
“At both entrances, I’m told.”
“Any other option?”
“Unfortunately, they know all the other options.” The concierge spoke with extra formality, perhaps thinking his character should be MI6. “We could try a decoy.”
Richard nearly laughed. “Really? The Carlyle provides a decoy service?”
“We get some boys from the kitchen.”
“And dress them up?”
“To a degree. Not saying it’s perfect.”
A woman near reception brazenly lifted her phone to take a picture.
“Dammit,” Eric Harke said, turning his back like the situation was getting hot, too hot. “I’ve got to get out of here. The longer I wait, the worse it’ll get.”
The concierge suggested an overcoat, or an umbrella, or maybe Mr. Roomer over there, gesturing toward an oversized slab of beef who stood near the entrance. “He’s part of our security team. Very capable in these situations. That ring on his finger is from Super Bowl XXXI.”
“Or you could just wave and leave?” Richard suggested.
Eric Harke placed his hands on the mantel and lowered his head, Kennedyesque. “I can’t get photographed,” he said. “It might sound stupid since my picture’s been taken at least a hundred times today. What’s a few dozen more, huh? Just smile. But I’m done. I’ve reached my fill. Those natives in Fiji, or wherever they’re from, they were right about it taking away your soul, but it happens slowly, like a chisel.” Eric turned his marmoreal head. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Super Bowl.”
The plan was for Mr. Roomer—“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mead”—to use his old offensive-lineman skills and peacock his three-hundred-pound frame into a shield, and Eric would hang on to the big man’s overcoat and press his mug against the wool and rush into the waiting car. A celebrity sneak. Richard was unsure how he figured into the scheme, but somewhere in the discussion it was decided that he would join Mr. Mead—how they loved calling him Mr. Mead—in the car. Why not? He had nothing else going on tonight. On the count of three the doors of the Carlyle sprang open and Roomer cut a path toward the waiting car with Harke holding on and Richard covering the rear. Flashes lit like mortars. Voices yelled for Eric! Hey Eric! Just one, Eric! C’mon, Eric! Fuck you, Eric! Roomer slid into the back, then Harke, then—Richard saw Emmett leaning against the building, waiting for Andy. Richard waved, but Emmett didn’t see him. A few pedestrians waved back, though, seemingly thrilled.
“C’mon!” Eric yelled.
In jumped Richard and the car sped away, stopping at the light.
Some of the paparazzi pursued.
A scooter pulled up and snap-snap-snapped.
Eric went near horizontal. “I appreciate the help, Roomer, but unless you’re holding narcotic or know someone holding narcotic, I suggest you roll out before we go green.” Eric handed him three bills, all hundreds.
“I can’t help you there, Mr. Mead. Enjoy your stay at the Carlyle.”
Roomer opened the door, blindsiding a photographer’s knee.
The light changed.
“Where we going?” from the anxious driver.
“Just do whatever fancy jujitsu driving you specialize in.”
The driver—“Yes sir!”—obliged but the traffic was heavy and it took nearly a half hour for him to lose the scooter, the scooter lampooning the concept of chase, pulling up alongside at every red light and giving them a wave. “Just one shot, Eric, please.” Finally, either from boredom or other prey, he abandoned them with a playful beep-beep.
“Fucking scooters,” Eric Harke said. Sweat collected along the ridges of his face, which he wiped away with extreme discomfort, and Richard thought of another scene from a thriller, where the hero tugs the skin around his neck and peels away the latex mask, revealing, well, in this case, an obviously coked-up young man. The particular humidity, the nictitating eyes, the sniffing about for deposits of binge-bundled snot, were all very recognizable. Words no longer tried to pollinate but tumbled into groans, gurgles, sighs, and his breathing was too loud, right, you could hear that, the heavy nose-breathing, which was way too loud—Eric suddenly held his breath as if all that noise was on the verge of capturing him. Yes, Richard knew this movie well.
“Gaaaaaaaaaah,” Eric exhaled.
Richard nodded like Gaaaaaaaaaah summed things up nicely.
“My fucking iPhone,” Eric said, holding up two phones. “My assistant said she was going to transfer my contacts to the Droid, but nobody’s in here, so I guess not, and I’m not someone who knows phone numbers, not like that’s a Hollywood thing, just a regular thing, I mean who knows phone numbers anymore, that’s just a normal phenomenon, right, because my whole message is to stay away from—message? My whole goal, just goal, a goal, the goal, for me, is to be real, and not keeping-it-real real, just real real, a real regular person, particularly when I’m acting.”
“Must be difficult,” Richard said, thoroughly confused.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m on your side,” Richard said.
“My side?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m on your side too,” Eric Harke said, offering his hand for a slap.
“Okay,” Richard said, obliging.
“You and me.”
“Sure.”
“You’re from here, right?”
“A long time ago.”
“But you know people here.”
“But do you know anyone who likes to have a good time, like go out and have a good time, like hey, let’s have a good time and party, like—”
“You’re looking for cocaine?”
A quick “Yes” followed by a relieved if guilty grin.
It was almost charming, Eric’s timidness, as if he had no idea how to be famous. C’mon, man, the world was his drug dealer. Drive in front of any random club and ask the bouncer, troll any happening spot, just show up and in thirty minutes Eric Harke would find his nose kneeling and in an hour his Droid would be thrumming with news from a hundred friends who could provide whatever needed providing. But he was young. Richard thought maybe this was his first independent foray into lose-my-soul New York, alone and desperate and seeking the only known cure. And maybe it was his age, his dressing up as Edgar Mead, his celebrity that endeared him to Richard, who was maybe thrilled to be back in the old whirlwind, in a limo, like he was cruising his past, and maybe Richard wanted to try to keep Eric safe, or expose him as a hard-core fool, or maybe more than anything wanted to dabble in his nastiest fears and fall without consequence, maybe that’s why he called his brother and put in an order of No Soap Radio. But as the limo stopped in front of Jamie’s walk-up and Richard got out and buzzed the front door, he began to think this was a bad idea, maybe his worst ever.
Jamie finally came down.
“Holy shit,” Richard said, seeing his face. “What happened?”
“Got into a fight.”
“Yeah.”
Jamie smiled, teeth first.
“Fuck,” Richard said.
“Nice, huh?”
“How’s the other guy?”
“Maybe fight’s the wrong word.”
“About a girl?”
“In a way.”
“You know you’re not seven anymore. Teeth don’t grow back.”
“Aren’t half yours fake?”
“And look at your lovely smile.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Richard said. “But seriously, are you okay?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Jamie showed him the baggie with an udder of whitish powder.
“What is it?” Richard asked.
“Good old-fashioned cocaine, like you requested. My neighbor had some.”
Richard’s pulse hit the gas instead of the brake.
“No Soap Radio,” Jamie said. “What we have here is a mixture of Arm & Hammer, Advil Cold & Sinus, a handful of Ambien—I thought you needed some controlled substance in there—Altoids for their curiously strong flavor, a dousing of Anbesol dug up from the bottom of my dopp kit, all of it chopped up and mashed together. It’s over the top. That’s why I call it—wait for it—Michael Caine.”
“That’s insane,” Richard said, pleased.
“In keeping with your request.”
“Kind of yellow too.”
“That’s the Anbesol, possibly a mistake. Either way, this Michael Caine isn’t fooling that Michael Caine.” Jamie looked toward the limo. “He in there?”
“Yep.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jamie tried to shoot his brother a look of genuine concern, which ended up hurting his head. “It’s got to be a slippery slope. And do you really think he’s going to do your movie if you supply him with pretend coke?”
“It’s not that at all,” Richard said.
“I realize you’re the addiction expert here, but this”—Jamie shook the baggie—“cannot fall under any standard drug treatment practices, even by Hollywood standards. This shit ain’t methadone, it’s just shit with a minty aftertaste.”
“I’ll be fine,” Richard promised. “It’s not like it’s real.”
“Yeah, but we Dyers can get pretty fucked-up on imitation real.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Just abandon ship and come up to my place.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m having fun.”
“What, are you a star fucker now?”
Richard gripped imaginary lapels. “That’s a stupid thing to say.”
“Says the man pushing an ounce of Arm & Hammer.”
“Shut up.”
“Says the man with the history of profound drug abuse.”
“Enough.”
“Says the man hanging with the cover of Tiger Beat.”
Richard shoved Jamie, an instinctive shove and without much force, but Jamie’s balance was already compromised and he stumbled and fell, finding mostly humor in the fall, like he was on roller skates.
“Crap, I’m sorry,” Richard said, reaching down.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Jamie got up. “Like old times.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Seriously.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
This minor piece of violence hardly registered within the history of their fights, but a certain nostalgia trailed behind, a mutual rhythm of regret and blame. One of the limo’s windows rolled down and Eric Harke appeared like a worm eating its way through black fruit. “Everything all right? Because I’ve got a party I’ve got to go to.”
“Everything’s fine,” Richard called back.
“Not to rush you guys.”
“No, everything’s fine.”
The worm wiggled back.
“What’s with the bow tie and the glasses?” Jamie asked.
“I have no idea,” Richard lied.
“The Ambien might help.”
“Yes, a genius addition.”
“You promise you won’t touch this stuff?”
“I promise.”
“I can’t help feeling this is bad news,” Jamie said.
“Have you looked in the mirror?”
“Do me a favor and do not go near whatever party he’s going to.”
Richard patted his shoulder. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Please do.”
“You might want to see about your nose.”
“You too.”
The brothers shared a brief unsaid moment before going their separate ways, an appreciation of the long day and all the parts they had played and how they had looped back together again, here in Brooklyn, practically different people, Richard turning for the limo and breathing in a familiar odor, as if the eighties burned in an alley somewhere, while Jamie heard the reverb of a dozen more unsaid things as Richard opened the door and slipped in, but before the limo could pull away, the door opened again and in scooted Jamie, who took his place across from his brother, his smile a keyhole in search of a key.
“I just need a lift into Manhattan,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” from Eric Harke, a more-the-merrier kind of guy.
Jamie feigned astonishment. “Hey, you’re Eric Harke.”
“Shh, don’t tell anyone.”
“Very cool to meet you, man, very cool.”
“And you are …?” Eric asked.
Jamie turned toward Richard. “You going to introduce me?”
“Um, this is Jamie James.”
Jamie frowned at his brother.
“Nice to meet you, Jamie James,” Eric said.
The limo drove from Kane onto Clinton toward the Brooklyn Bridge. From Richard’s unfortunate christening, Jamie mined a personality: lawlessly fey. And the busted-up face? That was the price of doing bidness in this town. It was no surprise that Eric Harke wanted to sample the product first thing, though Jamie begged him to go slow since this was like nothing he had ever snorted before. “This is haute couture for your nose,” Jamie said, rather enjoying his persona, “artisanal shit.” Eric dipped the corner of his American Express Black Card into the baggie, not before apologizing for having an American Express Black Card, something his manager got him, absurd but feel the weight, fucking titanium. The black gained a pile of ugly-looking white. Eric leaned over and the brothers parroted his body English. After a quick, hard sniff—always an amazing disappearing trick—the hand inside Eric’s puppet face turned into a fist. Jamie James clapped his approval. “Tell me that shit’s not something?” It took Eric a minute to recover before he agreed, his buzz helped along by the sight of the Brooklyn Bridge, hands down his favorite bridge, which bounced him from window to window, the suspension cables strumming like harp strings. “I love everything about this fucking bridge,” he said as they gained Manhattan. “I even look like Washington Roebling.”
“I can see that,” Jamie went along, “in the eyes.”
“Exactly.”
“And the set of the jaw.”
“Precisely.” Eric exhaled. “I’m getting a weird taste in my throat.”
“Yeah, right,” Jamie confirmed.
“Almost refreshing.”
The limo turned up Centre Street.
“You should have a drink.” Jamie grabbed a bottle from the minibar.
“Maybe some water,” Eric said.
“If by water you mean tequila.” Jamie handed him a half-full glass.
“I was thinking water.”
“It’s Patrón.”
Jamie clinked his glass and they both drank.
“You know what,” Jamie said. “You’d be great in a western.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely.” Jamie refilled their glasses. “But you should be the bad guy.”
“The guy in the black hat.”
They clinked glasses again and drank.
“I do love me a good antihero,” Eric said.
“Travis Bickle.”
“Tom Ripley.”
“Ooh, good one. Michael Corleone.”
“Edgar Mead,” Eric practically shouted.
“Edgar fucking Mead,” Jamie seconded, his eyes raised. “How about you, Richard?”
“Do you have a favorite antihero?”
“Um, Tony Montana.”
“Tony Montana!” Eric definitely shouted this time and in went the Black Card. “You want some?” he said to Jamie.
“I’m good.”
“Richard?”
“I’m okay,” Richard said, sounding unconvinced.
Eric recovered quicker after this snort. “I have to say, this is weird stuff.”
“Totally,” agreed Jamie.
“Not much of a pop.”
Jamie poured another shot. “It’s all about subtlety nowadays.”
“I certainly prefer”—down went the tequila—“subtlety.”
“Hell yeah—fuck yeah.”
The music, up till now a low-fi presence, bounded onto their laps as Jamie heard an old favorite and turned up the volume loud enough that Keith Richards seemed to be playing their lower intestine.
Let’s drink to the hardworking people, sang Keith.
“ ‘Salt of the Earth,’ ” Eric said, ever the eager student.
“That’s right.”
“Beggars Banquet.”
“Exactly.”
“Nineteen sixty-eight.”
“I guess.”
“Last song on the B side.”
“Wow, that’s some deep knowledge.”
Raise your glass to the good and the evil.
“I do love this song,” Eric said.
Jamie clinked glasses. “Because it’s a great song.”
“A masterpiece of ambiguous irony,” Eric said.
“Okay.”
“So crazy cynical too.”
“You are wired, my friend.”
“I suppose I am. It’s all about the fucking subtext.”
The song’s slow open gained momentum, now driven by Mick, with Jamie and Eric and even Richard joining in, not with singing so much, though there was some of that, but with a sense of ownership, like they were an essential part of its creation, members of the eternal present right there in the backseat—They don’t look real to me, in fact they look so strange—the limo cruising up Park, climbing above Vanderbilt, curling around Grand Central, coming through the dark vault onto the more Technicolor aspects of Manhattan—Let’s drink to the hardworking people in full chorus—and finally after a left and another left and a final left stopping somewhere between the past and the future.
“Here we are,” Eric said.
Richard and Jamie knocked eyes.
They were in front of their father’s apartment.
“Um, what’s happening here?” asked Richard.
“A big book party at the Frick,” Eric said, “hands down my favorite museum. It’s for The Propagators. You heard of it? Because it’s going to be huge.” Eric scooped himself another Black Card bump of Sir Michael. “Fuuuck!” he said, pinching his nostrils. “It’s like my nose is getting kicked in the groin.”
“That’s funny,” Jamie said.
“I’m thinking of playing the gorilla in the film adaptation.”
“Of what?”
“The book.”
“A gorilla! No way!” Jamie was getting drunk.
“A bonobo actually. All CGI. It would be motion capture.”
“How many movies are you attached to?” Richard asked.
“Just the ones I’m interested in. And the character’s a girl too.”
“A girl gorilla,” said Jamie, impressed.
Eric took a deep minty breath, then said, “Let’s roll.”
Outside the entrance none of the smokers recognized the celebrity in their midst since they were too busy interviewing themselves with their tiny filtered microphones. Up the steps and the sound of the crowd inside pushed past them with the current of a single crowd creature, a giant luminescent jellyfish that floated and pulsed, floated and pulsed, tentacled by a hundred dazzling conversations, and Richard and Jamie had the brief sensation of being buoyant. The woman manning the list gave Eric Harke a wide, lovely smile that without question included Richard and Jamie. Into the Frick the three of them glided, or Eric Harke glided, though glid might be the better word, he glid into the Garden Court and accepted his position as the most famous person in a room already packed with self-regard, those nearby throwing down tongues instead of rose petals. Eric remained guarded while his watery baby blues signed autographs and shook hands, his smile smug yet warmhearted. Richard and Jamie wisely followed—or flid—close behind.
“You guys have got to meet Chris Denslow.”
Whatever the actor’s absurdity in private, in public blossomed into majesty, and Jamie was struck by the transformation and found himself smiling, which was like a palate cleanser for the crowd.
“Chris is a big fan of your father’s work,” Eric told Richard. “He thinks it’s very cool that we might work on Ampersand together, fingers crossed. He has a couple of interesting ideas about how you might structure the screenplay, stay in Edgar Mead’s head without doing the whole voice-over thing. Drink?” Eric had effortlessly guided them through the muddle and straight to the bar.
“Sprite,” said Richard.
“What’s this about working on Ampersand?” Jamie asked.
“You want a drink?”
“I’ll stick with tequila. What’s this about Ampersand?” Jamie repeated.
“You’re a fan?” Eric asked, sipping a beer. “Because Richard—”
Richard put down the Sprite. “I’ll have a bourbon actually.”
“A bourbon?” from a whiplashed Jamie.
“Why not?” Richard said, taking the proffered drink and holding it close to his chest, like it was wired to that grenade tattoo. “It’s a fucking party.”
Eric tapped Jamie. “Do you know who his father is?”
Jamie James showed his street side. “Some asshole like his son?”
“No, man, he’s”—Eric Harke yawned—“A. N. Dyer.”
“Wow,” Jamie said as flat as possible.
“And I’m”—another yawn—“I’m Edgar Mead. It’s going to be awe”—yawn—“some.” Eric lifted his drink for a ratifying clink, and Richard complied without taking a sip, quickly returning the pin to his chest. He tried to intercept Jamie’s glance before the full weight of criticism could fall on his shoulders, in hopes he might convey through a series of facial tics the whole story, and that maybe Jamie would understand, both from the inside and the outside, without clumsy explanation, and perhaps with this knowledge could forgive Richard, though forgive was too strong a word, especially since Ampersand was hardly his to give, but Richard, feeling exposed, yearned for those telepathic fantasies of youth.
“You’d be a perfect Edgar Mead,” Jamie told Eric. He reached over and took Richard’s glass and downed the contents in one gulp. “Fuck, I hate bourbon.”
Eric yawned again. “Shit, I’m exhausted. I think I might need another bump.”
“Good idea.” Jamie gave his brother the empty glass, and Richard said thanks without saying a word.
Before Eric Harke could leave for the confines of the nearest bathroom stall, a pair of thick-fingered hands docked on his shoulders, part in greeting, part in massage. “Up past your bedtime, little boy?”
Eric turned around. It was “Krebs!”
Rainer grinned, his cheeks a curtain rising. “Look at this ragtag crew.”
“You been here long?”
“Long enough to wonder where you’ve been. So this is the big surprise.” Rainer sized up the new look. “I like it. Very then and now.” Then he cast his eye on Richard. “Hello, Richard.”
“Rainer.”
“Nice to see you again.”
“Likewise.”
Rainer Krebs turned to Jamie, and before Jamie could decide between truth or fiction, Rainer thrust his hand forward. “And you are Jamie Dyer. I’ve been an admirer ever since Telluride all those years ago. Lord God blew me away, blew everyone away. I even have a bootleg copy that I push onto my friends. Why wasn’t it ever released?”
“Music clearance issues,” Jamie said.
“Of course, the songs he sings on the corner.”
“That plus no one really cared.”
“A shame.” Rainer leaned his head toward Jamie. “Have you ever thought about putting it online? I have a site, a cult film site, and I think we could create a nice following. You were ahead of your time with what you were doing.”
“Rainer’s a film producer,” Richard explained.
“Lord God would play very well in this day and age,” Rainer said.
“You think?”
“I do. We should have a talk at some point.” Rainer removed the mustard-colored pocket square from his suit jacket and handed it to Jamie, who regarded it like a new form of business card. “Your nose,” Rainer redirected.
“What?”
“It’s bleeding.”
“Oh.” Jamie dabbed his left nostril.
“Wait, you’re a Dyer as well?” from a fading Eric Harke.
“We’re brothers,” Richard said.
“Why didn’t you guys tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Are you involved in Ampersand as well?” Jamie asked Rainer.
“Well.” Rainer turned toward Richard. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Still in the preliminary stages,” Richard said.
“So the three of you—” Jamie started to say.
“Could be the four of us,” Rainer said. “What are you working on now?”
“Teaching mostly.”
“Where?”
“At the New School.”
An almost apologetic “Oh.”
“Being brothers is just something you’d tell a person,” Eric said to the growing void.
“We should find Chris.” Rainer glanced around, and seeing no evidence of the man of the hour, became the prow for forward progress. This kind of New York scene was familiar to Richard and Jamie from when they were boys and went to dances and coming-out parties, events where the Upper East Side groomed its young. Toss any of us into a benefit or gala and we can survive. We are all functionally charming. We all have decent names to drop. And walking with Eric Harke was almost an act of memory for Richard and Jamie. In their day they had the fame of their father. Maybe A. N. Dyer was a cold and distant light but he gave them a shine they parlayed into a swagger. Time, of course, is linear, but as they made their way through this crowd it seemed as if they were ants tunneling through an hourglass. In the packed East Gallery Krebs pointed: over there, Christopher Denslow, standing by Goya’s The Forge with two other young men. The three of them seemed stuck in a fit of laughter, particularly the two other young men—not men, but Andy and Emmett, hunched over as if each might collapse without the other’s support. Rainer and Eric Harke walked over, desperate to know what was so funny, but Richard, startled to see his son, held back, and so did Jamie, who was approaching drunk and was suddenly daunted by the idea that his father could be this son. Those eyes and mouth expressed a lunatic joy that he hoped once existed in the man. Christopher Denslow accepted the hellos and congratulations, but Andy and Emmett remained trapped in hilarity. Whenever they tried to surface—deep breath—they slipped further back. People started to notice. It was becoming unseemly. Nobody wanted drunk, perhaps stoned, teenagers at this party. The boys sensed this growing unease and repeated “Okay, okay, okay,” as if propriety involved an act of daring. Finally, Andy and Emmett straightened, socially restored. Rainer and Eric and Christopher, Andy and Emmett, clustered into a tighter group. Introductions were made. This Dyer-rich crowd no doubt flabbergasted Eric Harke, who pointed to where the Dyer brothers stood. Jamie, thus identified, walked over, unsure of what he might say or do, but Andy was caught up in the wholehearted vibe of his family, greeted him with an extended “Hey man” that stretched his arms wide. Jamie perhaps accepted the hug a little too keenly after his long, strange day, his injuries standing as proof. Andy called him a madman, which Eric Harke seconded with a yawn. Richard watched this group like the last player to be picked. Richard could read Emmett’s expression—Oh shit, my dad—no telepathy required. It was obvious the boy was buzzed. And so what? He was sixteen, a near-perfect student, vice president of his class. Christ, the life Richard had led by the time he was sixteen. But what with the combined genetic material of father and mother, Emmett was likely ill-suited to these effects, not to mention his already compromised medical history. Richard and Candy had had their conversations with Emmett, starting when he was twelve, about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and their own struggles with the disease (that word shamed Richard after what Emmett had been through). And here he was, drinking. And having fun. And let the boy have fun. Have fun, Richard wanted to communicate from across the room, but please be back by eleven. He decided to give Emmett an as-you-were salute and then turn and leave, but before Richard could raise his hand, he noticed Andy. It seemed like he was signaling him over. If Emmett was buzzed, then Andy was flat-out wasted. But something about his appearance shimmered. He wore a bulky pinstripe suit and a pair of scuffed wingtips, a gray and burgundy tie. A chill raised on Richard’s skin. Think of a warm bath draining. The water removing and carrying away. A sort of tremulous blue haze. Andy swayed like the distance between them was a span, and Richard noticed the pimple burning bright between those dark anthracite eyes. A mirage of his possible father played. It wavered between the absurd and the slightly less absurd, the one and the same, as Andy made his way across the room, careful with every step as though a chasm loomed between the gaps. “Come on,” he said after reaching Richard. His breath reeked. Just another drunk kid. He started to lead Richard toward the group, his grin forging its own truth. “We need you, man,” he said.