by Amor Towles
HT slapped the table once. “What do you say, Sam? Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Then let’s do it!”
Projection One
Grabbing the thick green file, HT leaped from his chair and led Sam down the hall, waving to colleagues as he went. Somewhere in the middle of the building, he opened a door and motioned for Sam to enter. Inside, there was a well-appointed screening room with sixteen upholstered viewing chairs in a four-by-four grid.
HT noticed Sam raising his eyebrows at the number of chairs.
“Sometimes our clients bring family or friends to the viewing,” he explained. “But between you and me, I’m not sure it’s a great idea. I mean, it’s hard enough debating with your family and friends what you’re going to name your kid, right? Never mind getting into nuances of personality and potential.”
A young man appeared dressed in the black pants and white shirt of a waiter at a catered affair. HT turned to Sam.
“You sure you don’t want something to drink? A cappuccino? Some water? A gin and tonic . . . ?”
At the words “gin and tonic,” Sam must have expressed surprise, because HT smiled a little slyly.
“That’s your drink, right?” By way of explanation, he raised the green file, then he shifted to a more serious tone. “I know it’s not quite five o’clock, but we find that having a drink can be very additive to the experience. It relaxes you a little, so you can sit back and enjoy the process—which is important. Because you should enjoy this process.”
“One gin and tonic,” said Sam.
“Make it two, James!”
James returned a moment later with two gin and tonics in crystal highball glasses—not unlike the ones that Annie and Sam had registered for when they were married. Sam wondered if that was in the file too.
For the third time in an hour, Sam was offered a seat and he took it. Just as in the conference room, the screening chairs swung and tilted, and, once again, HT made the most of their engineering.
“Cheers!” HT said.
“Cheers.”
The two clinked glasses, then HT tilted his head in the direction of the projection booth. “Okay, Harry. Let her rip.”
As the lights dimmed, Sam took a swig from his drink and leaned back in his chair, having to admit that it was surprisingly comfortable. As before, the Vitek logo filled the screen, but this time it began shrinking as if it were fading into the distance until it finally disappeared. After a suitable passage of time—just long enough to forget the logo but not long enough to become antsy—a single word appeared center screen: Daniel.
A little startled, Sam turned to HT, who smiled and nodded. Right from the beginning, Sam and Annie had decided they would have a boy, but there had been some debate over his name. Annie had wanted to name him after her father, Andy, and Sam had wanted to name him after his uncle, Daniel—both of whom had died in recent years. Sam was touched that Annie had settled on Daniel without saying anything.
The opening shot of the projection was a brand-new baby swaddled in a light-blue blanket. Though the person holding the baby was not in the frame, it was clear from the hands that it was a man, presumably the father. The baby was not crying. He wasn’t squinting or squirming. Rather, as the female narrator observed: From the day he was born, Daniel had a smile on his face.
As the narrator went on to describe young Daniel’s good nature and his positive outlook, there were clips of him at the age of eight giving a hand to a friend at the playground, at the age of fifteen setting the table for dinner, and at the age of twenty-two on the quad of an old New England college surrounded by friends, tossing his cap in the air as his parents looked proudly on.
Sam felt something of a jolt when he realized that the parents, whose backs were to the camera, looked like an older version of him and Annie. But of course they did. This was supposed to be their child. And the hands in the opening shot hadn’t simply been “the father’s” hands, they’d been his hands. The realization made Sam sit up a little in his chair.
Daniel is now behind the wheel of a beat-up station wagon with a pretty young blonde in the passenger seat and cardboard boxes in back. As they come over a bridge, the two lean forward and look up through the windshield at the skyscrapers of a metropolitan center. They pull up in front of a narrow six-story building, the sort of low-rent walk-up in which young urbanites begin their adult lives. With a box in his arms, Daniel holds the door open with his shoulder to let his girlfriend inside. Next, Daniel is standing before the entrance of a modern office building called Century Tower. After double-checking the address in his hand, Daniel gazes at the building’s gleaming facade, then gamely goes through the revolving door.
Despite knowing perfectly well that this entire production was a contrivance, Sam felt a certain sense of optimism, maybe even pride, when he saw Daniel looking through the windshield with his pretty girlfriend, when he held the door open for her, and when he entered his shiny new office building. These feelings harmonized with the warm buzzing that he had begun to feel in his head from the gin.
Upstairs, Daniel is shown by his boss to his cubicle, where he is introduced to a colleague—another young man in his early twenties who, you can just tell, is going to be Daniel’s first friend in the city. And as Daniel sits down, ready to get to work, the narrator confirms that Daniel is beginning his new life with the same good nature and positive outlook that had characterized him since the day he was born.
But even as the narrator completes this sentence, there is a shot of cumulus clouds rolling over Century Tower in accelerated motion, and the background music takes on a more ominous tone. Then the narrator qualifies her previous remark by observing: Not everyone in Daniel’s circle was as happy-go-lucky.
A quick series of scenes reveals that some of Daniel’s peers are, in fact, more ambitious, more focused, more cutthroat. The sequence culminates in a shot of Daniel’s “first friend” stopping by Daniel’s desk to drop off a stack of files for processing. The camera closes in on a clock on the wall, the hands of which start spinning faster and faster until they blur and then come to a stop at six o’clock. The camera pulls back to reveal Daniel at the same desk but in his early thirties. Another pile of work to be processed is dropped off by a different colleague, who is noticeably younger than Daniel.
It wasn’t lost on Sam that as these scenes unfolded, Daniel was still smiling. But his smile was now a little weary, a little apologetic, perhaps even a little embarrassed. It was almost painful for Sam to watch.
Later that night, Daniel arrives home at the same six-story walk-up. He climbs the stairs and enters the apartment, which is cluttered with a bike, a crib, toys. Dropping his backpack on the floor, he enters the small kitchen, where his wife has one child in her arms and another at her knee. There is suddenly loud, thumping dance music coming from overhead. Daniel looks at his wife as a tear of exhaustion falls down her cheek.
Cut to the following morning in Century Tower, where Daniel walks past the warren of cubicles, enters the corner office—now occupied by his old friend—and simply says: “I quit.”
The music swells with the sound of cellos or violas, Sam wasn’t sure which. But it was definitely the swelling of strings.
Daniel and his wife are in the same old station wagon, but this time with their two children in the back and their belongings on the roof. Heading in the opposite direction, they cross the same bridge, which leads them to a highway and then a series of increasingly rural roads. Again, Daniel and his wife lean forward to look out the windshield, but now it’s to admire the foliage. In a small town—somewhere in Vermont, perhaps—they pass a white church and a firehouse and then a local elementary school, where a posted sign reads NOW HIRING. When they climb out of their car in front of a modest little home, Daniel puts his hand around his wife’s waist as their two-year-old toddles across the grass.
Fade to black.
When the lights came up, HT was already looking at Sam.
“Terrific, right?”
Sam didn’t know what to say. His head was reeling a bit. Maybe it was the gin. But there was also something profoundly unnerving about watching thirty years of a life—of your own child’s life—condensed into a matter of minutes.
“What was that?” he ended up asking. “A law firm? An advertising firm?”
“Does it matter?”
“Doesn’t it?”
HT spun in his chair to look at Sam more directly as he clarified his remark. “It’s not like we have a crystal ball, Sam. This is just a projection—a carefully engineered and statistically supported projection—but a projection nonetheless. It’s designed to give you a sense of the contours of Daniel’s life, not the exact specifics. So is it a law firm or an ad firm? We don’t know. But given his genetic makeup and likely upbringing, we’re fairly confident that, after attending a competitive midsize liberal arts college, this Daniel would become a young professional in a leading urban center. So, yes. Working in a law firm or ad firm or consulting firm. In Chicago or Atlanta or San Francisco. These are basically variables, and regardless of which ones Daniel chooses, he will probably end up with a similar life experience. But let’s not get too bogged down in the weeds. What did you think more generally?”
“It was very satisfying in the beginning,” Sam admitted after a moment. “I liked the picture it painted of him. But it was hard to watch him reach his thirties with so little to show for his efforts. Professionally, I mean.”
“Sure,” said HT, nodding and shifting his expression to a sober acknowledgment. “It’s a classic second-act setback.”
HT kept nodding.
Sam furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“You know. A second-act setback—in which, having started confidently along a particular trajectory, we come face-to-face with our own limitations.”
“Is that necessary?”
HT shrugged in the manner of one who didn’t make up the rules. “To some degree it’s unavoidable. We’re all born with certain strengths which, ideally, are fostered by our parents and positively reinforced through education and peer interaction. But our strengths don’t serve us well in every circumstance at every phase of our lives. As we grow and enter new contexts, our longer-term strengths can suddenly hamper our worldly progress, which in turn can create dissonance at home. When we find ourselves in that situation, eventually we have to confront the fact that the way we’ve approached life in the past is not effective in our current situation. Just as Daniel has to recognize that his good-natured predisposition, which served him so well in his youth, may not serve him as well when he is an urban professional in a competitive field.”
HT’s tone shifted back to enthusiastic.
“Now, there are some personalities who, faced with this realization, might try to transform themselves into someone they are not. What I love about Annie’s choice is that, in this version of Daniel, he embraces who he has been from the start. Rather than changing his behavior, he changes his context. He picks up his family and moves to a world where his virtues are more closely aligned with a path to happiness. We are who we are, right? There’s no point in pushing our personalities uphill.”
Pushing our personalities uphill . . .
Upon hearing this pithy phrase, rather than thinking about it in relation to Daniel, Sam found himself thinking about it in relation to his wife. Annie had attended a competitive midsize liberal arts college—not unlike the one depicted in the projection—where she had majored in English and written a thesis on divine ambiguity, or something, in the poetry of Emily Dickinson. And though she had gone on to graduate from law school and land a position at a white-shoe firm, recently she seemed to be taking more pleasure in her pro bono work than her corporate practice. In choosing this projection, was Annie expressing some sort of regret about the life they had chosen to make for themselves in the city rather than in some small bucolic town?
HT was watching Sam, studying his expression. “What do you say? Are you ready for number two? Or do you want to take a break?”
“No, I’m good,” said Sam. “I’m ready.”
“Great.”
Projection Two
When the lights dimmed, Sam drank the rest of his gin and tonic. Once again, the Vitek logo receded and the name Daniel appeared, then the projection began. This time the narrator was a man.
From the day he was born, Daniel marched to the beat of his own drum . . .
After a shot of a swaddled baby with a furrowed brow, there followed a series of clips. At the age of four, Daniel explains rather earnestly, as if he’s put some thought into the matter, that he doesn’t actually need a nap right now. At the age of fifteen, Daniel asks his English teacher: “Isn’t the only reason we’re reading Tom Sawyer and The Great Gatsby in high school because you read Tom Sawyer and The Great Gatsby in high school?” At the age of twenty-two, Daniel is in the office of a college dean who wants to know why he missed his political science exam.
“Because I was writing poetry,” he answers matter-of-factly.
“Couldn’t that have waited?”
“Waited for what?”
On the screen the dean frowns, but in the theater Sam laughs.
Daniel is sitting now in the same station wagon from the first projection, but in place of a pretty blonde, there is a beat-up Smith Corona in the passenger seat. As Daniel pulls away from the curb, in the near distance can be seen the rest of his classmates in graduation gowns throwing their caps in the air. Daniel drives over the same bridge into the same city. He enters the same six-story walk-up with his typewriter under one arm and a duffel bag under the other, holding the door open for no one. Once again, Daniel arrives at Century Tower and double-checks the address in his hand. But this time, after looking up at the building’s gleaming surface, he says: “Fuck that.” Tossing the address in a trash can, he continues down the street with his hands tucked in his pockets.
Suddenly, we hear the unmistakable opening chords of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” As the music plays, there is a montage showing Daniel’s life in the city: washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant; drinking in a run-down bar with a ragtag group of friends; typing in his one-room apartment late into the night; and sending off a manuscript, which, after landing on an anonymous desk, is stamped with the single word REJECT.
As Dylan’s anthem plays on, the series of images repeats itself: dishes, drinking, typing, rejection. The third time the series begins, the music fades into the background so we can hear Daniel being reprimanded by his boss in the restaurant’s kitchen. “Fuck this,” Daniel says, throwing his apron on the floor. In the run-down joint where he hangs out with his friends, there is now a group of yuppies crowding the bar. When one of them tells Daniel that smoking isn’t allowed, Daniel pops him in the nose. And when, a moment later, Daniel is thrown into the street by the bouncer, Daniel shouts back, “Fuck you.”
Sam couldn’t help but note with a touch of parental concern that since dropping out of college, this Daniel has only said three sentences and fuck has been the verb in each one of them.
Cut to a beleaguered Daniel sitting motionless before his typewriter with a cigarette hanging from his lips, a bottle of bourbon close at hand, and another finished manuscript on the table. After an uncomfortable wait, Daniel types a few words and pulls the page from the typewriter. A close-up shows the title of his new book: Fuck You, America. But this time, on the anonymous desk the manuscript is stamped with the word BUY.
Here the sequence of images accelerates. Presses run. Copies of the book are stacked in a bookstore with signs referring to the “runaway bestseller.” At a Beverly Hills hotel, Daniel shakes hands with a movie star to whom he has just optioned the book. At the premiere, he exits the theater on the arm of the lead actress. In the Hollywood Hills, a broker hands him the keys to a striking Mid-Century Modern home. When Daniel walks inside, the camera pans the landscape to a billboard for Fuck You, America. In the bac
kground, the clouds begin speeding by. Night comes and goes several times, and the image on the billboard transforms to announce the sequel: Fuck You Too, Europe.
The camera now shifts to Sunset Boulevard, where Daniel is driving in a roadster late at night, weaving in and out of his lane. On a winding canyon road, he crashes into his own mailbox and stumbles up his driveway past an array of luxury cars as blood trickles down his forehead. Inside the house there is a chaotic party that looks like it’s been going on for days. Daniel grabs a bottle of bourbon from the bar, retreats into his room, sits on his bed, and takes a healthy swig.
Morning. A close-up of Daniel’s face, hungover and ill shaven with a little dried blood on his brow. The camera pulls back to reveal that he is lying on the floor. When his bloodshot eyes open, he sees a bulky shape in the shadows under his bed. As he squints, the shape comes into focus. It’s the Smith Corona. A knowing smile begins to form on Daniel’s face.
Cut to black.
This time when the lights came up, it was Sam who was already looking at HT.
“Are you kidding?”
HT was taken aback by Sam’s tone. “Kidding about what?”
Sam pointed at the screen. “Annie saw this?”
“Of course, she saw it. She chose it. It really struck a chord with her.”
“Struck a chord!”
HT turned a little in his chair. “What is it, Sam? What’s on your mind?”
“The clear implication at the end of this projection is that Daniel is miserable.”
“Okay,” said HT, nodding. “But I’d put it a little differently. You’re absolutely right that, given the nature of Daniel’s success, his life seems to have become adorned with empty luxuries and false relationships. But it’s the very hollowness of these adornments that allows him to see his situation for what it is.”
“And I’m supposed to take heart from that.”
“Absolutely!”
HT turned more in his chair to look back at the projection booth. “Hey, Harry! Bring up the closing shot.”
