Truth in Advertising (8 page)

In our imagined commercial, the NVD would stand together, in what looked like a stomach, and talk to the camera about how horrible it was to be them. We'd use grotesque sound effects. We thought it was funny in an incredibly childish way. We thought the client might laugh and say, “Okay, where are the real ideas?” Except they loved it. They thought we were serious. They thought we'd found a window into the “soul of the brand.”

At the presentation, the head client leaned across the table, all but reaching out for our hands.

“You get it. No one wants to be nausea or vomiting or—God forbid—diarrhea. But they are. And we can help.”

The problems arose during casting. Nausea and vomiting were relatively easy to find. And the client loved our casting suggestions. Nausea (perhaps not surprisingly) was a balding, stocky guy with a mustache and very hairy arms. Vomiting was a tall, incredibly pasty guy with the most pronounced Adam's apple I'd ever seen. His mouth hung open and he had bad teeth. He was also balding. Diarrhea had a full head of slicked-back hair and an unnaturally yellow
tint to his skin. He was an oddly shaped man, like a pear, and he wore his pants quite high. Joey Beetie was his name. “No one beatie Joey Beetie, huh?!” he'd say, and then laugh like a hyena. “C'mon!” He hit on almost every woman at the casting session (including Pam, who simply stared him down). He was physically and emotionally repugnant. He was, to our minds, the perfect embodiment of diarrhea.

Except the client didn't like him. I know their exact words because I've saved the e-mails.

“While we like Nausea and Vomiting very much, we're having a problem with Diarrhea. We feel strongly that Diarrhea simply isn't aspirational enough for the brand.”

The account team responded.

“Our understanding of Diarrhea was that he should be repulsive. Obviously we'll continue to cast, if you feel strongly about it, but creatively we feel like we really have Diarrhea.”

The client e-mailed back.

“We feel you're missing the point of Diarrhea. While repulsive, Diarrhea is also very much part of the brand. Much like a family black sheep that is still embraced. Diarrhea is bad but Diarrhea is the reason for the brand. In that way, people should
aspire
to the brand. Thus Diarrhea should be aspirational.”

Agency: “Could you suggest guidelines as to what aspirational Diarrhea might look like?”

Client: “Young (thirties), clean-shaven, not too tall, wears sneakers maybe. If he weren't Diarrhea he might be in a beer commercial playing the part of the friend. We feel strongly that the audience should like Diarrhea as
an idea more than an actual symptom
. What about someone with a lisp or a harelip? You feel sorry for them in a small way, perhaps, as if being Diarrhea isn't necessarily their fault. Looking forward to seeing options.”

In the end, the client chose a boy-next-door type, bit pudgy, perennially lost look on his face, the kind of guy you see on a street corner in New York in the summer, looking down at a map, then up, then back down. Matt someone-or-other was his name. Nice guy. I asked him what he thought Diarrhea's character might say if he could
speak. The client was standing with me. Matt thought for a moment, as if I'd just asked him if he believed in the afterlife.

He said, “Well, like, if I were Diarrhea? I think I'd, like, say, ‘Uh-oh.'”

The client turned to me, smiled, and nodded. We knew then we had Diarrhea.

I tell Paulie it would be the highlight of my career to win an award for that spot.

Paulie says, “Hey, Fin man. You have to talk to Stefano. He's turning forty next month and he's wiggin' out. Maybe it's an Italian thing. Thinks it's the end of his manhood. He has this plan.”

“Why am I sure this is going to be a very bad idea?”

“He wants to break the four-minute mile.”

“Makes sense for an overweight smoker.”

Paulie puts his guitar down. “Have you decided on the vacation thing?”

“Mexico. Christmas Eve. Very excited. How about you?” I ask. “Where are you going for the holidays?”

“Wife's family in Westchester.”

I nod to his guitar and say, “Sounds really good, Paulie. Nick Drake?”

Paulie says, “You got that right.”

“Tortured soul.”

Paulie shakes his head slowly. “He felt too much, Fin. Saw beauty everywhere. Too overwhelming, ya know?”

I say, “I'm not that deep, Paulie.”

•   •   •

In my office, I open up
The New York Times
, turn to the obituaries. Whole lives, right there, in three hundred words. Full, rich lives. Exciting lives. Sad lives. Lives lived through war, depression, children, success, failure, ridicule, public embarrassment, famous patents, Nobel Prizes, moon landings, prison, Academy Awards, the invention of tubing, coils, rheostats, anti-lock brakes, the Kelvinator, the pilot light, lived in Paris/Taos/Mill Valley, supported passage of civil rights, textile imports, Holocaust survivor, Cold War spy, OSS. It's all there. A modern Shakespearean drama.

Also there, on the next page, is a gravy boat. It's in an ad for Bloomingdale's, for their fancy dinner plate collection. For the holidays. For families who get together and set the table with fine china. And who use a gravy boat. Or
sauce
boat, as I learned they are called. We got a sauce boat, Amy and I. For our engagement. We promised each other we wouldn't do the usual thing: the round of parties, the formal invitations, the registry. But we ended up doing all of it because Amy wanted it. And so did her mother. Amy said we had to register. I said we didn't need anything. She said I didn't understand, that people wanted to show us their love by buying us an ice cream scoop from Crate & Barrel. I said I found that hard to believe. We argued but mostly ended up laughing about it. Especially the gravy boat. She had registered for an eight-piece fancy dinner set, complete with gravy boat. She said it was essential to have a gravy boat. I asked her if she often made gravy, because I'd never seen the results. She finally admitted that she'd never actually made gravy but was eager to try. She said it felt old-fashioned, a thing married couples do. The more I ridiculed her about gravy and its accompanying vessel, the more I found I wanted it. Once set up, we followed the registry online, like a kind of video game, watching as the things she'd chosen were ticked off. We waited for “sauce boat—quantity 1” to disappear. I'd suggested we ask for ten. It all seemed unreal to me. But not to her. Amy could see the dinner parties we were going to have. With gravy.

Then there was the engagement party. This was about eighteen months ago. Amy's mother's apartment, Brooklyn Heights. A swanky neighborhood just over the Brooklyn Bridge. Looks like a movie set of old New York. The family bought their townhouse in 1980 for the then-princely sum of $275,000. I would never ask how much it's worth now. But I don't have to with Zillow.com, which says it's worth $4.5 million. Amy grew up there. Went to Saint Ann's, played squash at the Heights Casino. She could see us living there, she said. See raising our children there. Grace Church School had a wonderful preschool program. Two hours a day, two days a week, for just $7,000. And then either Saint Ann's or Packer or Brooklyn Friends,
each running about $30,000 a year from age five on. This wasn't taking college into account, mind you. A quick tabulation had the education bill, per child, at $500,000. Good. Excellent. All made perfect sense. I nodded and smiled. But who was she talking about? Who was this man named Fin who would be the father and do the things fathers do? Surely not me. Didn't she know I wasn't that man, that I would never be that man?

Amy's parents, Linda and Syd. Divorced, but friendly. He's a hedge-fund guy, she's a landscape architect for rich people. Amy's sisters, Cassie, short for Cassidy (God only knows why), and Celia. Cassie's a producer at Warner Brothers in L.A., and Celia is in “transition,” bouncing from job to job, trying to be a singer in a band, a model, an actress, and most recently (after seeing the Sean Penn/Nicole Kidman film
The Interpreter
) an interpreter. She flirts and feels the need to exude sexuality. She also drinks too much.

Despite the fact that it all seemed unreal to me, that it was as if I was watching myself in this tableau, there was something quite real and lovely happening. Amy's family and friends, happy people who knew one another, shared each other's birthdays and bar mitzvahs and first communions, soccer leagues and dance recitals. Big hugs, real smiles. I watched it all, not part of it. Watched Amy, the center of attention, radiant in a clingy black dress and boots. Me, next to her, a seemingly normal man, a decent job, no body art or criminal record. One after another I was introduced to Phil and Alice, “our old neighbors,” Glen and Miriam, “whose daughter Tammy was my best friend growing up,” Lindsay from the Heights Casino squash league, “who was bulimic and slept with everyone.” Presents piled up in a corner, large, beautifully wrapped decanters and flatware, blenders and All-Clad pans. And one gravy boat.

Then the toasts started. Amy's father first, lauding his ex-wife, who was standing across the room holding back tears as he talked about what a great mother she was, how Amy possessed her goodness, her relentless love of life and people. Then Amy's mother, telling stories of Amy as a girl, willful, confident, kind. How she was an early sharer, how she helped others. Cassie next, talking about what a great
big sister Amy was, Celia at her side smiling, three too many gin-and-tonics. They meant it. Every word. A round of applause to Amy.

And then the pregnant silence when it was over as people looked around, waiting for my family to say a few things, share a few insights, tell the story of my life. I could feel myself turning red, smiling like a fool. I was about to say something that would have no doubt only added to my embarrassment when someone started talking.

“I have to apologize for being late,” Ian said, Jack Kennedy–charming. He was in the back of the living room where we'd gathered, near the front door. I hadn't seen him come in. I don't know how long he'd been there, but long enough to take in what was happening. He was shrugging his overcoat off, his boyfriend, Scott, taking it from him. They looked over at me, handsome, smiling faces, lifeguards swimming to a drowning man.

Ian said, “I was putting the final touches on my talk. But I was under the impression this was a roast, not a toast.”

Smiles and laughs all around as people craned to see him. Others near the doorway made space and he took a few steps toward the center of the room.

“So, hi. My name is Ian Hicks, and I am . . .” He pulled a face, looked over at me. “What am I to you, Fin?”

Scott jumped in. “You better not say boyfriend.”

Everyone laughed.

Ian said, “We won't go there. No. Finbar Dolan is my copywriter partner at work. But mostly Fin is the brother I never had. I don't mean to treat this as a therapy session, but when you grow up gay in Montana, you pray that there are people and places that are . . . different. Better. Accepting. That's what brought me to New York. And when I first met Fin, when I got partnered up with him, I thought, ‘Oh, Christ. A fag-hater.'” A couple of uncomfortable, polite coughs from the crowd. “I'm sorry, but I judged him on his bad clothes, which I've tried hard to fix. Except I was the one who judged. Because here was this remarkable person, this loving, funny, amazingly kind person.”

He talked for a few more minutes. I stopped listening, though, merely took in the tone, the reaction on the faces, laughing in the right places, moved at the right times. I thought of my family—Eddie, Kevin, Maura—whom I'd invited. Granted, it was a half-assed invitation, giving them an out if they wanted, saying I understood that it was a long way to come—especially for Kevin—for just a few hours on a Sunday night in Brooklyn. I said there was always the wedding. As it turned out, they all had plans that would have been tough to break. And I really didn't expect them to come.

Much later, after we canceled the wedding, we had to return the gifts. It took an entire day, Amy's mother coming with us. We spoke almost not at all. The clerks would inevitably ask if there was any reason for the return. “We've canceled our wedding,” Amy would say simply.

Late in the day, with one gift to return, Amy reached her limit. I told her I'd do it. I would have walked to Tierra del Fuego on my hands if it would have changed the expression on her face, lifted the gloom. All day I'd opened doors and gotten water and coffee, carried boxes and tried to smile, waited on them both like a beaten servant. And I was happy to play the role. I kept saying sorry.

We were standing on Fifty-seventh and Lex and it was getting dark. I wanted a movie moment, a smile, a hug. I wanted forgiveness. Her mother stood a few feet away, examining her hands.

I said, “I'll call you, okay?”

Amy stared. “No, Fin. You won't.”

I said, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it.”

Amy, with too much edge, her patience spent: “Stop saying you're
sorry
, Fin.”

It was loud on the street. Cabs honking their horns, a car alarm not far away. City noise wears on you sometimes. It had been a long day. Not enough food, too much coffee. I hadn't been sleeping well. The thing is, I'm not someone who raises their voice. It came on fast, out of control.

I said, “I didn't
plan
this! Okay?! The idea wasn't to
hurt
you! You think I like this? Hurting you? I don't! I'm just so fucking sorry, okay?”

My throat closed up and my eyes welled and my hands were shaking and I was pretty sure I was going to vomit. I bent forward, hands on my knees, like I was in a huddle, and a strange sound emanated from me, a kind of primal moan.

And just that fast whatever anger was there was gone, and in its place an overwhelming regret that I had created all of this. I stood up and put my hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath, my heart beating like I just ran the hundred-yard dash. I think in that moment, for the first time in weeks, Amy saw me differently. If the look on her face was any indication—though how can one ever know these things for sure?—I think she saw that she wasn't the only one in pain. Which is why she then sobbed harder than she had the night I said I couldn't do it, wailing away a block from Bloomingdale's.