Truth in Advertising (13 page)

The reaction of the oily-nosed clients suggests profound confusion. In fact, it looks like one of them is on the cusp of saying something. But Dodge gets there first.

Dodge says, “You're Babe Ruth. That's right. I just said Babe Ruth. We all know he hit the most home runs”—Dodge is unfamiliar with Barry Bonds—“but do you want to know a little something else about the Babe? He also holds the record for most strike-outs. Now I'm not saying you've struck out or that you're a portly, cigar-smoking, dead baseball player. I'm saying that you get up there every day and swing the bat, do amazing things, and sometimes miss. Let's celebrate that. Let's celebrate the courage of
effort
, the nobility of
trying
. Some fish died. They died in a noble cause. Some beaches were soiled. They were soiled in an effort—granted, a failed one—to bring the world energy. Think about that. To bring the world energy. To make it run. To make
lives
better. What's wrong with that? Can someone please tell me what's wrong with that?”

And just like that, as if someone threw a switch, Dodge loses his energy, sits back in his chair. The silence roars. It's the moment at the end of the car chase where the car is hanging off the edge of a cliff. Will it fall?

One of the senior executives says, “I think that is a remarkable perspective.” And he smiles.

Frank is a giddy schoolgirl. “That's why I love this man. If I weren't happily married . . .”

Martin cuts him off. Then he reels it in.

“Television. Print. Social media. We can envision a sweeping campaign. A campaign about Petroleon's courage.”

Look at their faces. You can see it all.

•   •   •

“What are you doing with your life, Mr. Dolan?” I hear the woman behind the American Airlines counter at JFK ask me.

“I beg your pardon?” I say.

“Where are we going today, Mr. Dolan?” the woman behind the American Airlines counter at JFK actually asks me.

“Well, Betty,” I say, looking at her nametag, “we're going to Bhutan, to the Kingdom of Bhutan. Have you heard of it? They have something called the Gross National Happiness. They measure people's happiness, not just their productivity.”

Betty gives me a fake smile. “Says here you're going to Cancún.”

“Must be some mistake. Come with me, Betty. Do you have plans for the holiday? We'll pop over, try some local food, feel the happiness. It'll be great.”

She types quickly and hands me my boarding pass.

“I'd go, but I've got these family plans.” She smiles again. “Gate forty-six. You're all set. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Betty,” I say.

I make my way to the Admirals Club and wait.

I am one of the only people left, I think—certainly after 9/11—who still enjoy airports. Airports to me—after the near strip search and often less-than-confidence-inspiring security staff—are places of possibility, of new beginnings. You've got a ticket on the red-eye to New York. Or do you? What about walking up to the ticket counter at British Airways and buying a ticket to London instead? What about connecting through London for service to Marrakech? What about LAX-Johannesburg, Johannesburg-Mumbai? Imagine waking up in Mumbai! Because it's possible. Because you
can
. I'm convinced, possibly by the glossy photos I see and the persuasive copy I read (photos and copy manufactured by my very own colleagues), that in these places—these St. Barths, these Kenyan safaris, these Bali beaches, these happy-obsessed Kingdoms—are the keys, the experiences, the visual and emotional stimuli that would bring happiness. I'm sure of this. And airports are the gateway. Don't think of a flight delay as a hassle. Think of it as an opportunity.

Have I myself done it? Have I found myself killing time in JFK or OHR or CDG, leafing through a swimsuit issue, drinking a coffee, staring at the crowds, and then changing my trip, my destination, my future? No. Never. Only a crazy person would do that. I'm just saying it's possible. Because I have these two tickets. These two first-class tickets, and I can go anywhere.

My phone rings.

“Hi,” I say.

“You're a jerk,” Phoebe says.

“Merry Christmas.”

“That was really sweet,” she says. “Thank you.”

I put a gift on her chair before I left today. A hat and scarf from Barneys. It sounds boring but they're cashmere and she's been talking about wanting a new hat.

“Your fashionable warmth is my concern.”

Phoebe says, “Where are you?”

“Airport.”

“You excited about your lonely trip?”

“Lonely? Maybe you're unaware that most of my relatives are Mexican?”

She says, “You're an odd man.”

“Where are you?”

“On the Acela to Boston. I just got a beer. I'm wearing my new hat and scarf. I'm very happy.”

Three, four seconds of silence. I think about telling her about Eddie's call, about my father.

I say, “Okay, then.”

Phoebe says, “You good?”

“Never better.”

“Don't miss me too much, okay?”

“I'll try not to.”

I leave the Admirals Club and walk through the airport toward my gate. Businessmen hustle past awkwardly, holding briefcases, garment bags, pulling wheelie suitcases that won't stay steady. Families camp out eating makeshift dinners. I look for a seat alone but the gates are crowded with holiday travelers. I sit against the corridor wall and watch people pass. The wardrobes of many people strike me as aggressively casual. Teenage girls wear pajama bottoms and UGGs and oversized sweaters, pulling the sleeves down to cover their hands. They walk in pairs, laughing, bad posture, unsure of their bodies. A wave of sadness sweeps over me watching them, and I call home. My phone number growing up in Boston. I have done this a few times over the years. I usually get an answering machine but twice I've had to hang up on a real person.

A woman answers. “Hey, did your cell phone die?”

I say nothing, confused for a moment.

She says, “Steve?”

I'm about to hang up when I say, “Is Fin there, please?”

It's my house. I can picture her, where she's standing, if the phone is at the same jack. The small kitchen with the windows looking out onto our small backyard. She's in my house. I should have asked for my mother. A quick word. What time's dinner? Is Dad home?

“Who?” she says.

“Fin Dolan. He used to live there.”

“No, I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name. You've got the wrong number.”

It's not the blatant, drunken screamer who does the real damage. Give me the father who beats you, who's always angry, any day of the week. At least I can learn to hate him. At least you know where you stand. It's the mood shifter who's the real danger. He's your friend, the mood shifter.
How was your day, dear? Really? No pork chops at the market? Oh, well. Hot dogs and beans is just as nice, isn't it, Finny? Maura? How's that homework coming?
She tiptoes through a mine field with harmless answers, my mother. She can see the other side, safety. It's going to be a good night. She can feel it. I'm sitting there. It's almost dinnertime. Maura is at the dining room table, in the next room, doing her homework. I can see her. We all feel it. All is calm. Except then he opens the cupboard and sees that we're out of Barry's Tea. His favorite. The only tea he drinks. No coffee. Never coffee. Tea. Barry's Tea. Two bags, two sugars, a lot of milk. Big cup. His hands are searching for it, moving packages and boxes, Saltines, Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, baking powder, peanut butter. The hands moving faster now, violent hands no longer just moving things but knocking them over. He's mumbling, “Where's the Barry's Tea? Where is the . . . it has to be here. We
have
to have Barry's Tea. I asked you for the Barry's Tea, this morning, before I left. What was the
one
thing I asked before I left the goddamned
house
this morning before I went to work and put on a bulletproof vest for this family?! I asked you to get some Barry's
Tea
!” I turn to Maura, who's put her hands over her ears, to my mother, who's trying to say something—that she forgot, that she
can go now, that she can be back in ten minutes, that it's okay. But it's not okay, he says, his voice louder. It's not okay. Kevin at the back door, just having gotten home, staring in at the scene.

I try to remember a specific Christmas Eve but it's a Thanksgiving that comes to me. Him blind drunk, trying to take the turkey out of the oven, falling, the bird skidding across the kitchen floor, Kevin and Eddie carrying him up to his room. My mother putting us in the car, stopping at a convenience store for turkey sandwiches and chips, driving in silence through “rich” neighborhoods west of Boston, big houses set back from the road behind tall old trees and stone walls, no one drunk, no turkeys skating across the floor, everyone happy, heads bowed before the feast, giving thanks for life's riches.

They're calling a flight to Honolulu. They're calling a flight to Tokyo. They're calling a flight to Sydney. They're calling my flight to Cancún, where a car service will be waiting to whisk me an hour south to a small hotel on the beach. Twenty rooms. Clean white sheets. Highs of seventy degrees during the day, cool breezes at night. A fireplace in every room. Ocean waves lull you to sleep. Santa comes this evening bearing gifts. And I, in the great Christian tradition, head to Mexico alone. Just a few hours ago this plan seemed cool and independent and exciting. It suddenly seems pathetic, sad, and lonely. It's time to go. But I don't move. And it's then I know I'm not getting on that plane. I don't know when I decided it. It comes as a bit of a surprise to me as I stand a few yards from the gate, listen as they make the final boarding call, watch a few stragglers hustle past me, hand the gate agent their tickets. The two agents say good-bye to each other, safe flight, Merry Christmas, and one walks down the jetway while the other closes and locks the door with a key. I watch as the plane pulls back from the gate, turns, and taxis out toward the runway, to the line of waiting planes going to wonderful, exciting, exotic locations around the globe, as well as Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Muncie.

I turn to see the empty waiting area. The LCD sign above the check-in desk at the gate has changed from
CANCÚN
to
SÃO PAULO
. That flight's not leaving for three hours, though. I picture Phoebe on the train, a camera dollying down the aisle to find her staring out
the window at the Connecticut coastline. She does this thing where she bunches her hair up and pushes it back, but it falls right back to the front of her face again. I picture Ian at home with Scott, getting ready to host their big dinner tomorrow. Paulie with his wife in Mamaroneck, putting the kids down so he can put toys together. Stefano and his wife in the West Village, making dinner. He mentioned that his mother was flying in from Italy today for the holidays. Malcolm, as always, spending the holidays with Raj and his wife. I pick up my laptop bag and my knapsack and start walking. There's a part of me that wants to go home but it would be empty and sad, too much of Amy left there in the silence. I walk hundreds of yards through the airport, past Sunglass Hut (two of them), past Cinnabon, past Sbarro, where a man looks at me for a long time, having just taken a massive bite of pizza, a comical look that says he wants to harm me, past a woman slowly mopping the floor, to the gate for the flight to Hyannis, Massachusetts, with brief layovers in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. I buy a ticket on a half-empty flight to spend Christmas with my father, a stranger I have not seen in twenty-five years.

•   •   •

He's dead.

This is what I think when I look at him from the doorway of his hospital room. His eyes are closed and he's not moving and his face and hands are an unnatural color for a human. It looks like him but it doesn't. I can't believe he's dead. Except he's not. The sheets are pulled tight around him and you can see his chest rise and fall slowly, hear the beeps and blips of the machines that signify he's alive.

And just that quickly I wish I hadn't come. Why am I here? It's not for him. It's for the idea that it seemed like the right and noble thing to do. It's something one might see in a commercial:
Open. An airport. Night. Tired businessman about to board a flight when his cell phone rings. “Hello?” Long pause. “Where? No, it's just . . . we haven't seen each other in a while. No. Okay. Thanks.”

He walks to the jetway, is about to hand the ticket to the attendant, when he turns and runs.

Cut to him pulling up to the hospital in a cab.

Cut to him in his father's room.

Cut to a tight shot of him holding his father's hand.

Cut to a nurse, buxom, leaning over the bed . . . wait . . . lose the nurse.

Cut to his father opening his eyes, the surprised look. “Fin. I'm sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “Don't leave me.”

United Airlines.

I like it. It works. It works because we can imagine it, because we've seen it or something like it hundreds of times. It's emotional comfort food, a known narrative, like the ABC Sunday Night Movie or Leno jokes.

Except here, now, someone's not following the script. My father's not waking up to say his lines. Even if he did I wouldn't really care. I want to leave and head as fast as possible to New York, to the Ear Inn, to the White Horse Tavern, to Corner Bistro. I want to call Ian, call Phoebe, call someone. Yes. I will do that. I do not want to be here. It's Christmas Eve, for Christ's sake. I want to be home. Or at the very least on a plane to Mexico. I don't know whether to stand or sit.