I came back to Philadelphia for a week every month, at least at the beginning. Zach seemed fine with it, safely ensconced in the flurry of activities his mother had planned for him. Caleb, nine at the time, always had a little bit of Hollywood pixie dust in his eyes and thought the whole thing was cool; he too was well taken care of by his mother.
But Gerry, a junior in high school, was livid with me. We had been inseparable. Now he was being transplanted to his mother’s house with the wretched angst of college looming. The change could not have come at a more pivotal moment in his life. He never told me at the time—he was too loyal a son.
I was devoted to my three boys. Despite the two divorces, one of them was always with me, although I was never quite sure who it would be because the advance planning needed a slide rule and abacus. But I was buoyed by the universal encouragement of going to work for NYPD Blue. Because my whole life pivoted on success, how could I resist another dose of it? In my mind of constant misinterpretation, I assumed the only reason people liked me was because of my success; I had to keep it up. Whatever somebody said, however it was said, the only thing I ever heard was What have you done for me lately?
I remember a Sunday when Lisa was making waffles and bacon for the family. Earthy and sugary smells filled the kitchen. A liquid stream of gold sunlight poured through the window. It was a perfect morning when the house is a womb. Zach was there and for the first time in his life a friend had slept over. Yet I ignored all of it. I had pathetically stopped reading the New York Times Book Review five years earlier because of my raging jealousy of other writers getting rave reviews. Without hyperbole, the nonfiction bestseller list sent me into hours of depression and bitterness so I could not look at it either. I did take a peek at the cover that morning and without reading the review railed at the writer. Lisa pointed out the success of Friday Night Lights as an antidote to my insecurity.
—I wrote that fucking thing close to twenty years ago. All I do now is write shit. I am shit.
It went on some more. Lisa tried to be patient. But she had heard too much of it during our marriage to be patient. The refrain of my marital history. Zach was there with a friend. And I was going off in front of them.
“We have no fun,” she said. “That’s what really bothers me. You suck the joy out of everything, and then you die, and what’s the point?”
I forced myself to be cheerful. I still seethed.
III
I worked for NYPD Blue for eleven months before I returned to Philadelphia in April of 2001. Shortly afterward, I was given an assignment by Vanity Fair that took me to Daytona Beach. I stayed in one of those hotels built with high ambition but gone shabby, eaten away by salt and sea. I was on a high floor with a view of the ocean, tired waves barely making the shore. The Atlantic looked so impotent.
I couldn’t get out of bed the first day because of my twin feelings of Hollywood failure and father failure. I had left like the bon voyage of a brand-new ship and now I was returning in a life raft. Nor was I even sure of what I was returning to. Would I be the same father I once was, just pick up where I left off? I finally got up naked and tried to get dressed but lay curled up on the floor with my nose pressed against the algae-colored carpet. The sodden smell of mildew filtered through my nostrils. I felt it was what I deserved, a naked man on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest. My heart pounded with fear, the moment when a professional writer realizes that he has been caught, his fraud discovered, success always accidental, failure always inevitable. Whatever words I had within me, and we all have a finite amount, had run out. A writer has no chance of survival if he has no confidence. I had no confidence anymore. NYPD Blue had killed it. I lay naked on that algae-colored carpet for an hour. I wanted to stay there forever. I finally got dressed. I did the reporting I had to do to get the story done. It turned out well enough to make me think that perhaps I was not professionally dead.
Gerry settled back in with me in Philadelphia. There was quiet between us, friendly-fire quiet: he finally shot out that he’d hated what I had done, felt abandoned. He was a junior in high school; the prospect of finding the right college was terrifying to him. Where the hell was I? Three thousand miles away prospecting for gold.
Why had I done it? I thought I would make millions. I thought I would create shows and then write seven-figure screenplays. What would I have done if I had succeeded? I would have stayed, which may have made me rich but consigned me to hell. So failing was fortuitous. I rediscovered what was vital, fatherhood, the best part of me.
I talk about much of this to Zach in Arizona as we pass Sun City, the epicenter of retirees with excellent natural tans. On a paved path next to the road, a little man drives a little golf cart, fast and furious. Bocce ball beckons.
—I get nervous when I think of getting to California.
—Why?
—I just do. I have bad memories of it. Working at NYPD Blue was very hard.
—Why?
—I didn’t do very well. They didn’t like me. I failed.
—Oh you did.
—Yeah, I did. They didn’t like the work that I did. It was very humiliating.
—Yeah.
—I realized they didn’t give a fuck about me. I was just a piece of meat. You know what that means?
—What?
—It means that people just don’t care about you. It means that you’re disposable. If they don’t like the work that you do, they just fire you.
—After like you live in a place do you care to like remember your way around?
—Not really. I’ve always had a hard time there. And it’s been only harder after NYPD Blue.
—Did you miss me when you went to work in LA?
—Yeah, I didn’t see you very much then. I shouldn’t have gone. I missed you guys terribly.
—But what you had to?
—I thought I had to but I really didn’t. I was selfish I guess. I thought I was gonna have a new career but I didn’t.
—Oh.
—And I was selfish and I forgot what was important.
—Yeah.
—Being with my boys was much more important and I regret what I did.
—But I remember you lived there from like Memorial Day you got there on Memorial Day of 2000 and you got back on April 30 of ’01 I remember Dad when you had first got to LA on Memorial Day you lived in a hotel I guess for a little while.
—The Residence Inn. It was pretty awful.
—What wasn’t good about it?
—It just wasn’t homey and it was just awful.
—It didn’t look very nice?
—No.
—And I remember Dad you got Goldfish ’cause you thought of me and you got Goldfish I guess the crackers that I liked ’cause you got Goldfish to think of me that day.
Zach loved Goldfish. I would buy a big box of them and lie on the flower-patterned bedspread of the hotel. I would cram Goldfish in my mouth, not to savor them but to savor my son.
IV
We are closing in on Lake Mead with Las Vegas roughly an hour away. A wedge of lightning blazes across the sky. A shield of mountains in the background provides cover.
—We’re almost there. Excited?
—Yeah.
—I hope we get a break in the weather.
—But the pool’s outdoors at the hotel?
—Look how pretty the scenery is, Zach. Look at this.
—But the pool’s outdoors right?
—Look at this, isn’t this beautiful?
—Is the pool outdoors?
—This is so beautiful.
—I can swim all I want?
Waiting for Godot . . .
Several minutes later we get to Hoover Dam and wait in a traffic jam to pass through the tunnel that burrows through the dam. I am awed in the presence of the greatest engineering project in history.
—What do you think?
—It reminds me of the Lincoln Tunnel.
He says this because
of the waiting traffic and in a certain sense he is more right than wrong. Although I also believe he is the first person ever to compare Hoover Dam to the Lincoln Tunnel.
We pass Boulder City, about half an hour away from Vegas. Zach is fidgety. He is out of focus. He is folding the map in his hand at magician speed.
—I know you’re getting antsy because you’re gonna fold and unfold that map so much it’s going to rip into two.
—Dad Railroad Pass Hotel Casino.
—Should be less than half an hour.
—Railroad Pass Hotel Casino.
—That’s right.
—It’s called Railroad Pass Hotel Casino.
He’s fishing for a wordplay game with the added ingredient of a pinch of pestering. He is bored. He wants to get there. I am bored. I want to get there. I won’t fall for the bait.
We first glimpse Vegas over the crest of a hill. Xanadu in the desert. A city spawned from a secret meeting of frustrated architects required to take LSD. We arrive in the city about 4:00 P.M., its garish, giddy, goofy Sodom-and-Gomorrah glory going strong despite uncharacteristic gray skies and the threat of rain. Zach sees the restaurants Morton’s and Roy’s and gets excited because they also have outlets in Philadelphia. Just like his excitement over the Embassy Suites, this concrete connection with home putting more cement in his mental mixer. He sees the Westin and reminds me that we stayed at a Westin in Chicago. He sees the Luxor Hotel, or the Luxari as he calls it, and says that is where Brian Chavez stays when he gambles. He points out Harrah’s, or Hurrah’s as he calls it. I point out the Bellagio. Zach goes to movies, even though he understands so little of them, so I ask him if he has seen Ocean’s Eleven. He has not. I point out Treasure Island. Zach doesn’t respond. We see where we are staying, the Wynn, a gleaming black curve rising forty-five stories.
—I want to give you the night of your life tonight. We’re going to go out for dinner. We’re going to a show. Then we’ll hit the casino.
—When?
—Tonight.
—Oh tonight.
—Yeah, we’ll stay out late. You’re gonna have a beer.
—In Las Vegas you stay out late?
—Oh, yeah. Like ’til midnight or ’til one o’clock.
—Oh.
—Would you like to do that, have a real nice night out?
—Yeah.
15. Viva Las Vegas!
I
OUR SUITE AT the Wynn is exactly what I hoped it would be, a two-bedroom spread of classy design, with just the right dollop of sinful beurre blanc to remind you that you are in the home of the rococo.
The entryway is covered in creamy white marble that extends into the living room, in whose center lies a red patterned carpet of muted hue. A pair of white couches face one another, each flanked by two lamps with glass bases and red shades on side tables. There is a flat-screen television perfectly centered between the picture windows. The TV is one of four, including another one in the living room, which only plays music. There is a bar behind the white couches with two high-backed chairs color-coordinated with the lamps and carpet. Opposite the bar is a white L-shaped couch with a table for dining. Elegant framed prints hang on the walls. The ceiling has a mirror with recessed lights. There is a master bedroom and a smaller one. There is a massage room, an opulent surprise even for Vegas, nothing like having your muscles kneaded after you’ve lost your life savings and what you further embezzled. The bathroom is bigger than any New York studio with a shower bigger than any New York studio to the right and a tub bigger than any New York studio to the left. On each of two sinks are four brown-ambered bottles of the finest shampoos and shower gels.
Back in the living room, Zach is gazing out the expansive picture window, which displays many of the city’s glitziest casinos. He surely must be impressed.
—What do you see out there?
—The highway.
He wants to go swimming at one of the outdoor pools. I ask him twice if he’ll be able to find his way back to the room, given the Wynn’s size and maze of tunneled hallways. Zach has simply become dismissive of such questions: he’s already memorized the floor plan. He puts on his baggy bathing suit hanging below the knees, obviously a new line of sportswear from the Amish. Off he goes.
I go into the living room and turn on the flat screen dedicated to music. A song comes on, Nat King Cole’s rendition of “The Very Thought of You.”
I stare out the window toward Treasure Island and the unfinished skeleton of the Trump casino. The trip is winding down, and I already miss Zach terribly. My friend was exactly right: when I stopped looking for epiphanies, I found something far better. Just as the song says, it is the very thought of you. Like the moment of the indoor pool at the Holiday Inn in Phoenix, I want to be near him. He doesn’t want me to intrude, and I have learned to honor that. I go downstairs just to watch him.
The pools cascade into one another, nine of them in all, a seamless surface of aqua. Zach is on a white lounge chair. No one is near him. There is the tall glass of an empty nonalcoholic drink on the table next to him. He is reclining in his bathing suit. A towel covers his legs. A server comes by and asks if he would like another drink. He says he would. Per usual, he gives the room number. He could stay there forever, charging drinks to the room, maybe escalating up to a sandwich, then a 100 percent cotton Villa towel for $159. Who knows, maybe even another belt. I leave knowing he is king of the world. At 5:00 P.M., the exact minute I told him to return, I hear him insert the key. Time to prepare for our dream date.
II
We walk through the Wynn casino toward Corsa Cucina, an Italian restaurant known for re-creating the “heart and art of the Mediterranean.” Its setting tries to re-create a homey Italian trattoria, but it’s more Wild West brothel. Overdone chandeliers speckle the ceiling and the carpet is meat-eater rare. While dress is casual the price is not, but at least nobody is wearing shorts. Zach has on khaki pants and a yellow polo shirt, having carefully dressed for the occasion; it is his most flattering look and he is adorable. We find the restaurant along the periphery of the casino floor. He is holding a dining guide to Odessa—Texas Burger, Watts Burger, Whataburger, Wingstop, Whatever. I ask him why he is holding a dining guide to Odessa when we’re in Las Vegas. He says he doesn’t know.
Our table offers a view of a nearby blackjack table with high-backed chairs of red and green and blue. The color scheme is meant to add vitality, but there rarely is much vitality in the blackjack gulag of a casino floor. Gamblers lift their cards and glance at them without expression, fold or place bets with assembly-line repetition. Glumness rules, winning chips slid back into color-coordinated stacks and losing chips swept away with nothing more than a shake of the head. At a high-stakes table, where the minimum bet is a hundred dollars, there is only one man. He is playing two hands at once at five hundred a hand. His arm is propped on his elbow on the table and he’s leaning on his hand as if listening to a convention seminar on the newest trends in vacuum suction. He absently sifts the remaining chips in his hands, a mini accordion. He looks like he is about to drift off. He places his five-hundred-dollar bet anyway, knowing he is going to lose.
A syncopated salsa beat plays over and over. Slot machine bells go off incessantly, like the high-pitched honking of false car alarms. In what seems like four or five miles away because of the casino’s size, there is the occasional collective yell at a craps table where the shooter has hit his number. At a roulette table in what must be a different time zone, a cry goes up when the ball clicks into a number that somebody has sprinkled his chips on. A gambler at a blackjack table that has gone cold pockets his chips with arthritic slowness. He seems totally defeated. He finds another table and gives the dealer a thousand dollars for another round of chips. The dealer spreads out the ten one-hundred-dollar bills like a bank robber tallying an easy score. This is not going to end well.
It becomes quite depressing, but nothing will get in the way of Zach and me tonight. We have come too
far in miles and emotions. We sit at a corner table, a perfect setting for my dream date vision. I go over the menu with him, point out what he might like—spaghetti maybe, or veal Parmesan, or calamari for an appetizer.
We order drinks. I have a white wine. I ask Zach if he wants a beer, but he says no. He just wants water. The drinks come, and we clink our glasses together.
—Cheers to Las Vegas. Cheers to us. I love you. What do you say back?
—Cheers.
—What else do you say back?
—Cheers to Las Vegas.
—Do you love me or not?
—I love you.
—Are you sure?
—Yeah.
Zach’s arms jerk back and forth. It is a minor tic. But it is also a possible sign of being lost in Las Vegas.
—Do you find this overwhelming?
—No.
—You’re very ticcy.
—DAD I don’t find this overwhelming.
—Are you all right? I hope you’re not having an attack. Do you find this fun?
—Yeah I find this very fun.
—It’s different. Remember what Gerry said before we left?
—That it’s something new to learn.
—Something new to do. That’s what life’s about.
We order our dinners. He is glassy-eyed at this point. I hand him a hundred dollars to gamble with, hoping it will perk him up. The money is meaningless to him.
Father's Day Page 20
