Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel

by Peter Cameron

  “Oh,” said John. He sighed, as if I was making things very difficult for him. “Get me the ginger lemonade if they have it. If not, the mint iced tea. And will you go pick it up? When they deliver it takes forever and all the salads get mushed together. I hate it when they get mushed together.”

  “I’m going downtown,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “It will only take a minute. Please. And carry it carefully so it doesn’t get mushed.”

  “All right,” I said. “But I’ll have to leave early.”

  “Go whenever you want,” said John.

  It used to be very easy to visit my father at his office: you just walked through the lobby, got on the elevator, and took it up to the forty-ninth floor. But since 9/11 you have to stand on a line in the lobby and then show a guard a picture I.D. If your name is on the list of expected guests, you can then proceed to the elevators. If it isn’t, you have to go to another line and tell that guard who you are visiting and wait while he calls that person and gets permission for you to enter. My father invariably forgets to put me on the list of expected guests (“I’m too busy to remember things like that,” he told me; I asked him if he could instruct his assistant to put me on the list, but his assistant has worked for him so long—about twenty years, I think—that he no longer thinks of himself as an assistant and refuses to do any petty clerical tasks, and since basically his job is composed of only petty clerical tasks, he does very little), so it always takes me about fifteen or twenty minutes to get from the lobby up to his office, and then I have to announce myself to the receptionist and wait until my father appears to collect me, for I am not trusted to walk unescorted down the hallway to his office.

  I sat in the reception area, and while I waited for my father a woman appeared from the interior and signed herself out at the reception desk. She looked at me and smiled.

  “Are you Jim Bigley’s son?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m Paul Sveck’s son.”

  She immediately stopped smiling as if I had said I was the son of Adolf Hitler. I wondered what my father had done to alienate her. While I was pondering this, Myron Axel, my father’s so-called assistant, appeared and beckoned for me to follow him. Myron Axel is a strange man. In the many years he has worked for my father he has never revealed any aspect of his personal life. One might assume this is because he is a private person, but it seems much more likely, upon meeting him, that he has no private life to reveal. Myron Axel walks very strangely, sort of keeping his body stiff and only moving his feet, as if any more movement might have been unseemly. I followed him down the long hallway, past big windowed offices on one side and small windowless offices on the other. I don’t think I could ever work in such a blatantly hierarchical corporate setting. I know that everyone in this world is not equal, but I can’t bear environments that make this truth so obvious. My father’s sun-filled corner office has an amazing view, a Diebenkorn (thanks to John Webster), a vintage Florence Knoll desk, a leather sofa (Le Corbusier, of course), and a saltwater aquarium, while Myron Axel works in a fluorescently lit closet across the hall.

  My father was on the telephone but motioned for me to enter. “Thank you,” I said to Myron, who did not acknowledge this remark. I went into my father’s office and looked out the window at the view, which is always changing with the season, with the light, with the time of day. It is the only time I’m aware of living in a big city, when I visit my father’s office—the rest of the time, being down in it, at ground level, the notion of it somehow disappears.

  “I know you’re lying and these are stupid, time-wasting lies,” my father said. “They’re not even interesting. When you’re ready to talk sensibly, call me back.” He hung up the phone.

  “Hello, James,” he said. “I’m glad you’re wearing a jacket and tie. Even though it looks as if you slept in them. I thought we might pop up to the partners’ dining room.” My father much prefers to eat in the partners’ dining room because it’s quicker and cheaper than any of the restaurants downtown, but he always pretends he is doing it to please me: as if eating in a room full of suits is a big thrill.

  But I like my father, even though he is annoying and silly. It is hard not to like him: he is so handsome and charming. He grew up in a working-class family in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and he has never grown inured to his success. He goes to London once a year to buy his suits, his shoes are made in Italy from a plaster cast of his foot, his underwear comes from Switzerland, and his shirts are custom-made by a tailor in Chinatown. He takes great delight in all these extravagances. He is happy and generous.

  He drummed on his desk and stood up. “Shall we go? I have to be back here for a conference call at two.”

  I followed him out of the office. He stopped outside the door to Myron’s closet and said, “If Dewberry calls get an address we can FedEx the papers to.” He didn’t wait for Myron to reply, but I suppose that is because Myron rarely does. He walked briskly down the long hallway, and I followed behind him.

  We were given a table along the windows, looking out at New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Governors Island. There was a big empty place in the sky to the right of us, and we could see parts of New Jersey and the Hudson River that had previously been obscured. I tried not to look out that way.

  “Have you heard from Mom?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Why would I hear from your mother? Isn’t she on one of her honeymoons?” My father always likes to imply that my mother marries frequently and indiscriminately, although she has only married thrice.

  “No,” I said. “She came home yesterday.”

  “I thought she was away until the twenty-ninth.”

  “Supposedly. But her plans changed.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Mr. Rogers stole her credit cards and gambled away about three thousand dollars.”

  My father guffawed, tried to turn it into a cough, and drank from his water glass.

  “It isn’t funny,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “Of course it isn’t funny. It’s just that—well, this is why you should never get married, James. There’s no reason for a man to get married anymore. Women will make you think so, but believe me, there’s not. No goddamn reason whatsoever.”

  “Well, I don’t plan to get married,” I said.

  “Good,” said my father. “Glad to hear it.”

  The waiter came over for our order. My father ordered steak and I ordered penne with basil and heirloom tomatoes.

  “You should have ordered a steak or something,” my father said. “You should never order pasta as a main course. It isn’t manly.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  “No, you won’t,” said my father. “And listen, while we’re talking about this, let me ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “Are you gay?”

  “What?” I asked. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Why? Why not? I just want to know.”

  “Why? Do you get to take an extra deduction on your taxes or something?”

  “Very funny, James. No. It’s just that we’ve never talked about your sexuality, and if you are gay I want to be properly supportive. It’s fine with me if you’re gay, I just want to know.”

  “You wouldn’t be supportive if I were straight?”

  “Of course I would. But not—well, the world supports heterosexuals. It’s the norm. Heterosexuals don’t really need support. But gays do. So I’d have to make a special effort. That’s all I want to know. Should I be making a special effort? Should I not say things about pasta being faggy?”

  “I don’t really care what you say,” I said.

  “Be that as it may, I would still like to know what is right and wrong for me to say.”

  “Dad, if you’re homophobic I don’t want you to change for my sake.”

  “I’m not homophobic! James! I just said I wouldn’t care if you were gay. It wouldn’t bothe
r me a bit.”

  “Well then, why can’t I eat pasta as a main course?”

  “Because that’s not gay—I never said it was gay. I said it was not manly.”

  This inane conversation was interrupted by one of my father’s colleagues, Mr. Dupont, who stopped by our table on his way out of the dining room. I had met Mr. Dupont a few times over the years.

  “Hello, Paul,” he said to my father. “Hello, James.”

  “Hi, Mr. Dupont.”

  “So your dad tells me you’re headed off to Yale.”

  “Brown,” I said. “I think.”

  “Oh yes—Brown. Fine school, Brown. Huck’s off to Dartmouth. Turned down a full hockey scholarship at University of Minnesota. Imagine what that would have saved me.”

  “A bundle,” said my father.

  “A bundle and a half,” said Mr. Dupont. “Well, gentlemen, enjoy your lunch. I hope you’re getting the steak. It’s excellent today.”

  We sat for a moment in silence, and then the waiter delivered our meals. My father glanced at my plate of pasta, but said nothing. He cut into his nearly raw beef and smiled at the blood it drooled. “So,” he said, after he had taken a bite, “you’re not going to tell me?”

  “Not going to tell you what?”

  “Whether or not you’re gay.”

  “No,” I said. “Why should I? Did you tell your parents?”

  “I wasn’t gay,” said my father. “I was straight.”

  “So, what, if you’re gay you have a moral obligation to inform your parents and if you’re straight you don’t?”

  “James, I’m just trying to be helpful. I’m just trying to be a good father. You don’t have to get hostile. I just thought you might be gay, and if you were, I wanted to let you know that’s fine, and help you in whatever way I could.”

  “Why might you think I was gay?”

  “I don’t know. You just seem—well, let’s put it this way: you don’t seem interested in girls. You’re eighteen, and as far as I know you’ve never been on a date.”

  I said nothing.

  “Am I wrong? Or is that true?”

  “Just because I’ve never been on a date doesn’t mean I’m gay. And besides, no one goes on dates anymore.”

  “Well, whatever—normal kids hang out. They go out. Maybe date isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean.”

  “You don’t think I’m normal?”

  “James, both of us know you have never been normal. We don’t need to argue about that. Now let’s drop the subject. I’ve obviously struck a nerve. I’m sorry. I was only trying to help you.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  My father attacked his steak with virility. I daintily ate my pasta. After a moment he said, “What do you mean, ‘I think’?”

  “What?”

  “You told Mr. Dupont that you’re going to Brown, ‘I think.’”

  “Oh, well, I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure? Of course you’re going to Brown. We’ve already sent them money. You can’t switch schools now.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of switching schools,” I said.

  “Good,” said my father.

  “I’m thinking of not going to college at all.”

  My father put down his knife and fork. “What?” he said.

  “I’m not sure I want to go to college. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t want to go to college? Of course you want to go to college. What do you want to do, run away and join the circus?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I just don’t want to go to college.”

  “Why? Why not?”

  “I think it would be a waste of time.”

  “A waste of time! College?”

  “Yes,” I said. “For me. I’m confident I can teach myself everything I want to know by reading books and seeking out the knowledge that interests me. I don’t see the point of spending four years—four very expensive years—learning a lot of stuff I’m not particularly interested in and am bound to forget, just because it’s the social norm. And besides, I can’t bear the idea of spending four years in close proximity with college students. I dread it.”

  “What’s so bad about college students?”

  “They’ll all be like Huck Dupont.”

  “You’ve never met Huck Dupont.”

  “I don’t need to meet him. The fact that his name is Huck and he got a full hockey scholarship to the University of Minnesota is enough for me.”

  “What’s wrong with hockey?”

  “Nothing,” I said, “if you like blood sport. But I don’t think people should get full scholarships to state universities because they’re psychopaths.”

  “Well, forget Huck Dupont. He’s going to Dartmouth. You’re going to Brown. I doubt they even have a hockey team.”

  “Whether Brown has a hockey team or not is not the point. The point is I don’t want to spend a huge amount of your money doing something that has no value or meaning to me. In fact, I think it’s obscene to pay thousands of dollars for me to go to college when there are so many people living in poverty in the world.”

  “James, the fact that poverty exists is not a good reason for you not to go to college. And the existence of poverty does not prevent you from doing other foolish and extravagant things, like eating an eighteen-dollar bowl of pasta.”

  “This didn’t cost eighteen dollars,” I said.

  “It would if we were paying market rate.”

  “Well, if that’s foolish and extravagant, why isn’t going to college foolish and extravagant?”

  “Because college is an investment in your future. It doesn’t pass through your digestive system in twenty-four hours. But, James, you’re just being silly. You’re going to college. You’ll love college. You’re a very intelligent young man. I know high school has been a bit difficult and boring for you, but college is different. You’ll be challenged and stimulated, believe me.”

  “Why must everyone go to college?”

  “Not everyone goes to college,” my father said. “In fact, very few people go to college. It’s a privilege to spend four years in the pursuit of knowledge. I would think it would be just the thing for someone like you.”

  “I don’t see it that way. I think I can learn all I need and want to know by reading Shakespeare and Trollope.”

  “So what do you propose to do? Sit at home and read Trollope for four years?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to buy a house.”

  “A house? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what houses cost?”

  “I don’t mean in New York City. I mean in Indiana. Or Kansas. Or South Dakota. Someplace like that.”

  “And where will you get this money to buy a house?”

  “If you gave me a third of the money you’re going to spend sending me to Brown I could easily make a substantial down payment on a very nice home.”

  “And what would you do in this very nice home in Kansas? Read Trollope?”

  “Yes,” I said, “among other things. I’d also want to work.”

  “At the local McDonald’s, I presume?”

  “Maybe. Why not?”

  “James, your mother and I did not raise you to work at McDonald’s in Kansas. We raised you to be an educated and accomplished person. If after four years in college you feel you would like to move to Kansas and work in a McDonald’s, that is your decision to make. This is one thing about which both your mother and I agree. So we will stop talking about this now, because you’re going to college, where you will flourish and be happy and read Shakespeare and Trollope.”

  I said nothing. We ate for a few moments in silence and then my father said, “So how is your mother? Is she okay?”

  “I think so,” I said. “She’s just upset. And sad.”

  “Well, the good thing about your mother is she won’t be sad for long.”

  I hate when my father makes remarks like this about my mother or wh
en my mother makes them about my father. I think that when you divorce someone you forfeit your right to comment on her actions or character. “What are you doing this weekend?” I asked my father. “Are you going to be at the beach?”

  My parents had owned a house in East Hampton when they split up; my mother got the apartment in Manhattan and my father got the house at the beach. For the first few years Gillian and I had spent both July and August out there with him, but the last couple of years the arrangement was more informal, and we came and went as we—and my father—pleased.

  “No,” he said. “I’m staying in town this weekend.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Nothing, really. I’m having a bit of minor surgery.”

  “Surgery? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then why are you having surgery?”

  “It isn’t really surgery. It’s outpatient surgery. A very simple procedure. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Well, what is it? What are you doing?”

  My father said nothing.

  “Dad, what are you doing?”

  “I’m having eye surgery,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. “Laser surgery?”

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  “Then what are you having?”

  “I’d rather not say, James. Suffice it to say I will not be at the house this weekend. You and Gillian are free to use it if you wish.”

  “Are you having plastic surgery?”

  “No,” said my father.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Why good?”

  “I don’t know. I’d just feel very weird if you altered your appearance for reasons of vanity. I think you look fine, Dad, and you don’t need any surgery.”

  “What about these bags under my eyes?” he asked.

  “What bags?”

  “These,” he said, indicating the dark slightly protuberant bag beneath each of his eyes.

  “Those aren’t bags, Dad. Just get a good night’s sleep. And stop eating meat. That’s all you need to do.”

  “Well, they are bags and I’m having them fixed on Saturday. And it’s none of your business.”

  “Wow, Dad,” I said. “Plastic surgery.”