And what had been Bill’s response? Revulsion? Indignation? Even a small, appropriate amount of anger? No, he had obeyed, because not only was he good (oh, don’t ruin that word, too, he thought, he wasn’t good, he was glib: glibness was both his gift and his downfall; it allowed him to make a living and buy a house ninety miles north of New York City and it had ruined his serious writing career and it had driven his wife away, for he excelled at a facile, talented imitation of truth, the kind of thing that ruins novels and ends marriages but makes one a—albeit under-praised—star in advertising) not only was he good (glib) but he was scared. His superiors always succeeded in scaring him, even though he knew better: he always feared for his future even as he knew they were faking; he was the best, he had nothing—or as close to nothing as anyone working for two (no, four) corporations could have—to fear.
He was scared because he wanted their approval, because he was weak and so he obeyed and so he was glib and so he did brilliantly, even as he hated himself for being scared and weak and glib and doing brilliantly and thereby saving a job that wasn’t in jeopardy in the first place and then feeling—for a fleeting, disgraceful moment, before he got in his car to go home—proud of how he’d done!
The world on his right, off the road, was pitch-black now—“pitch”: cliché!—and he knew this was where it all fell away, where the highway began to climb a mountain; he could feel his ears pop. For a second, deafened—before he mimed a yawn and cleared his head—Bill heard only the scream of his own thoughts, which were the words of the campaign that he had written.
They had wanted truth, profundity, reality, and he had given them those things. On a white background, the ad said, “You only get out of it what you put into it.” Then, in a different, lighter, ghostly type-face, three words, “Save,” “Your,” and “Life,” floated, as if at once disconnected and connected to each other, at once self-sufficient and dependent on each other for meaning. Finally, in the lower corner, centred, minding its own business, merely playing host to these words but not, of course, benefiting from them (if letters could say, “Who, me?” that was how he conceived it), the logo for Cedar-High Landing was placed: CHL.
Bill was a clever boots, all right! It had a little bit of mystery and, above all, meaning. The ad was a truism both for living and investing: “Save Your Life” referred both to putting your money where it would grow and remaining existent, pulling yourself back from the brink. Remember, it said—he, Bill, said, for he was responsible—without your contribution nothing can occur, whether you’re living in the world or putting your money in a high-yield IRA or secure government bond or whatever the hell Cedar-High Landing (CHL) was offering.
This was what he had written and he knew from the minute he wrote it that it would succeed, that it would be exactly the new kind of non-ad they desired—that it would fulfil every shallow, underhanded need four corporations had to insinuate themselves completely into people’s lives, to co-opt and befoul their language in the process, to replace their art, their philosophy, even their religion. Bill had been their handmaiden, their henchman in this, and for it he was both rewarded (with a hearty handshake and the implied promise that he would not be fired—for now—though the look of sweaty sweet relief on his frightened superior’s face was transparent) and damned.
At the highest point of the highway, his headlights the only illumination, he started his descent in the direction of the exit that would lead to his home. Then his eyelids began to droop. The drinks fogging his mind, Bill turned his wheel toward the flimsy guardrail that would be insufficiently strong to keep him from bursting through and crashing to his death down miles of mountain onto the black earth below.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes and turned the wheel the other way. Right before it hit the rail, he brought the car back from the edge, back onto the deserted road. Shaking, sweat streaming from his face, pits, and back, he managed to keep the vehicle steady and stay in lane. Soon his breath slowed, his heart rate eased; he even hit the brights to see his way ahead. Then, fearful of falling asleep again, he turned on the radio to keep him alert through the rest of the ride.
It had been nuts to drink so much after work—he had never done it before. But then Tony Hooker had never been laid off before, left high and dry by a liquor store that was being replaced by a chain store, a Drugall’s. If a man couldn’t get a little tight then, well, when could he? Still, look what had happened—or almost happened. Had he even wished it to happen? That was crazy, wasn’t it?
It was worse than crazy—cowardly. What would Connie and the kids have done without him? Still, strange to say, he wasn’t slowly being revived now by thoughts of them. It was something else that was sobering him up.
As he climbed the highway—the fastest, most familiar, and at night most death-defying way home—Tony passed the same old billboard he always did. Only this time, it wasn’t that hot Spanish chick from Coco’s who had been there for so many months. (He doubted any girl who looked like that would ever go to that crappy dump, and he’d long since grown tired of that dumb joke once his boy, Baylor, twelve, had explained it to him.)
No, tonight there was a new sign.
The sign was white, which got his attention right away. Pure white, as white as—well, as the driven snow, what else, he was no wordsmith! And it said, “You only get out of it what you put into it.” Then he saw the words “Save Your Life.” They weren’t put together, they were set apart; he had to be clever to connect them, and he had been.
It was no ad. It was a message, it had meaning, one that he understood. It was all up to him, this life, and without his effort there would be nothing. Though Tony knew someone must have written those words, they seemed to just exist without having been invented by anyone—to have been formed naturally, like a rock face or a river—and he saw something in them the way people see meaning in those shapes in nature and never forget.
Die? Those words made him want to live! As he got closer to home, now driving at a normal speed, Tony felt empowered by them, as if the future—no matter what he had hopelessly thought an hour before—was not out of his control.
He was strong; he was himself. He felt it physically now as his big hands gripped the wheel: it was what the sign made him feel. He couldn’t blame his store now; blame was for weaklings. He was sure they had their reasons, and they had to make money—if he was at their level, maybe he would have done the same thing. If? He would be at their level one day—he was going to be past it, goddamnit! That was what the sign made him feel, too.
Tony took the exit that led him home. He remembered one more thing from the billboard, right at the bottom: the logo CHL. He knew it represented the people responsible for those words. As he pulled into his driveway with a deep sense of gratitude and relief, he vowed that the first chance he got, he would find out what it meant, who they were, and what else they might be able to do for him.
THE HAPPY HOUR
This was the worst part, waiting for the sentence. The trial had been excruciating enough—all of Bruce’s unhappiness hung like underwear behind his house—but the spectacle of it had diverted him, as funeral services do survivors of the dead, before the solitude and silence of interment brings the truth and their tears. Now the eulogies (evidence) and songs (cross-examinations) and prayers (something else? the verdict? whatever) were over, and he was about to be buried: the judge might as well have carried a shovel with him back into the courtroom. How far down he planned to plant Bruce was the only question left: would it be under one layer of earth so a wind would reveal him? Or so far down it would take a rope and pulley to bring him up again? What difference did it make? Either way, he would be dead.
“All rise.”
As Bruce stood, he suddenly felt light-headed, as if he had pushed up through clouds, past planes and even planets, and could see another place. Not heaven, if it existed—he would not be going there—but somewhere just as unattainable: his past.
In fact, the past was slapping him in the face, hard enough to get his attention. Soon it was his wife, Cora, who was putting her palm against his cheek, pulling her punch at the last minute but landing enough of a blow to let him know that, if she wished, she could really haul off and hit him; she had the strength but lacked the nerve.
“What am I going to do with you?” she had said, as she often did.
Cora paid their rent, running a successful business that catered to companies on the verge of collapse, advising them on staying solvent, increasing assets—he didn’t know the details, couldn’t stay focused on what she did; his mind would always wander, as he had physically his entire life before they married. He knew she’d been attracted to him because he was emotionally on the edge of oblivion, and she’d been inspired to save him. He also knew he’d been her most unsuccessful client, unwilling to heed her advice, never able to recover. Instead of quitting, she had always hunkered down harder, providing him with more plans, drawing up more blueprints. And when he still lingered as it were near liquidation, she sometimes lashed out, with the back of her hand or, on this particular day, her palm.
“What am I going to do?” The question was not an expression of despair but a way for her to begin imagining more options, to jump-start more great ideas. Since Cora couldn’t stop and he lacked the will to wander again—he had settled into this routine as he had the one of restlessness—they internally and silently accepted that they would repeat their pattern forever.
Tonight, though, for the first time, Cora had grazed his face with the edge of her first finger nail. The slight sting of pain—and the drawing of a drop of blood beneath his right eye—had shocked them both, causing Cora to cry out, “Sorry, Bruce!” in a cracking voice and Bruce, holding a stanching napkin against his face, to leave their house, get in their car (which was under Cora’s name), and drive.
The wound healed almost instantly—though was briefly opened again when, trying to scrape free a piece of napkin stuck to it, he pushed his own nail in. Looking in the mirror to do so, Bruce lost sight of the road and swerved his car to avoid one oncoming. Panting, he pulled over to the curb of the suburban street and stopped outside a bar, the name of which he hadn’t noticed.
He had driven farther than he expected. Had he actually been leaving forever and looking for a highway? His intention had been unconscious, yet maybe he had reached the end of his rope (as maybe Cora had done by cutting him—he was open to considering that, was clear-eyed, almost unemotional about it). Whatever he had really wanted, Bruce had ended up on the slightly shady side of their expensive town, on the few blocks that appealed to appetites unsated by foreign furniture outlets and frozen yogurt shops. The bar before him—and he saw the name now, dim in blown-out neon: The Happy Hour—was such a place.
He had heard of it, of course: it was whispered about at local barbecues and black-tie benefits that Cora dragged him to. Sometimes a daring and drunken guest—almost always male—would even brag that he had been there, though he’d be conspicuously short on the details.
Bruce had never shown great interest or even casual curiosity in the place; however, maybe he’d been intrigued by it all along and his unconscious had caused him to come. He turned off his headlights so that the only illumination on the empty block was what little light escaped the bar’s closed curtains.
As he entered, Bruce couldn’t help it, he checked behind and around him—though he suspected that few who knew him would be surprised to see him “slumming”: those in Cora’s circle secretly dismissed him as a deadbeat, her failed and private project, her problem.
A burly bartender glanced up as he walked in, but didn’t linger looking at him and went back to pouring shots. There was a small crowd, maybe twenty people, equal amounts of men and women, talking loudly on wooden barstools or cracked red leather banquettes. It could have been any shabby suburban bar near a highway exit; they could have been any customers. He knew it was irrational to have expected different, yet he had. Was he relieved or disappointed? Maybe a bit of both.
The door squeaked shut and Bruce felt sealed inside, though whether to be entombed or kept viable he didn’t yet know.
“What’ll it be?”
Bruce was about to order his usual red wine, then blurted out, “A vodka, straight up, please.” The kind of hard drink Cora complained about him having. He suddenly felt free and weirdly welcomed, though he had yet to make eye contact with any member of the cast-off, maligned minority around him.
Then he turned and saw her. She was about ten years younger, small, slight even, dressed—wrapped—in a tight black leotard, her eyes the biggest things about her. Her crude and close-cropped hair gave her a feral look—no, furtive, like a woman shaved as a collaborator in a faraway war and hiding out. Yet she seemed cheerful. Was her haircut an ironic comment on the prejudice against her group? Or just a current style? He had never paid much attention to fashion.
“New in town?” she asked.
“No. I mean—”
“But you’ve never been here before.”
“If you already know that, why should I answer?”
“Good point.”
He knew he sounded hostile, but her aggression had unnerved him—perhaps because he enjoyed it? She took no offence and spun around on her barstool, snapping her fingers to music from a flat-screen TV that Bruce could barely hear above the laughing chatter of her kind.
“Well, maybe we could celebrate your showing up then,” she said. And with that she revealed a tiny phone and took his picture, the taciturn barkeep suddenly waving two fingers foolishly behind his head.
“You want to dance?” she asked.
Bruce didn’t, hadn’t for years; it would have required bestirring himself. Yet before he could reply, she had pulled him to his feet. Immediately, she moved dreamily, somehow finding an actual melody in the shard of song still floating in the talk-polluted air. (Was this a special gift that she and others like her had? No, Bruce told himself, stop it; that was silly.) He managed a few tentative steps but soon they weren’t needed: the woman was in his arms, clutching him as if he were a stone monument that anchored her in a storm.
“I’m Jane,” she said.
Even her name was normal. “I’m Bruce,” he answered and drew his arms about her like a cloak. He saw a few patrons shoot them a glance and smile: was it always Jane’s way to wrap herself around a stranger? Probably. Yet there was a tradition to their kind of chemistry—between the skittish and the solid—and if Jane had announced it instantly rather than after an acceptable period of time, what difference did it make? Life was short.
Bruce smiled sadly to himself. Life was only short for Jane and the others in the bar; only they would die, not Bruce or Cora or the vast majority of others on the Earth. He knew now he had been lured to their hangout by a feeling of kinship with them, a sense that he himself was dying, was living as if he were. He held her tighter, swaying to a tune he now swore he could hear as well.
“Come home with me,” she whispered, and he agreed after he had kissed her, the music rising, the bar becoming black as he closed his eyes, burying them both.
“Be seated.”
Bruce turned his attention to the judge now sinking into his chair, fussing with his robes like a small girl wearing her first fancy dress. He was stunned at how few seconds had elapsed since he’d started to remember, how many things had happened in his past. He wondered how much more he could recall before his sentence was passed down. It would have to be accomplished quickly, a race—a real one—against time.
The phrase had occurred to him as he had gently picked a piece of pillow feather from Jane’s brow as she slept later that night. It had been stuck there by sweat, for she had made love as if every moment counted, which, of course, for her, it did. How different, Bruce thought, from his and Cora’s cavalier encounters—on the rare occasions they deigned to have them: why move so much, after all, wh
en you’ll always be around? Jane’s eyes were squeezed shut and her lips moving slightly as she deeply experienced a dream. It was Bruce who couldn’t sleep, the one with all the time in the world.
He wandered to reach the balcony of her small apartment, which faced a shabby street a few blocks from the bar. No one was out and the bulbs in the street lamps had blown and never been replaced; it was as if everyone was already dead. Bruce’s eyes adjusted quickly to the total darkness. He felt at home, and that made him look suddenly at his watch. Cora would be concerned—or maybe not. Either way, he wanted to stay as long as he could.
“Get out.”
Bruce turned quickly. Jane was standing there, agitatedly, already in a T-shirt and shorts, her right hand rolled into a fist. With her crew cut and jaw jutted out, she looked like an angry seventeen-year-old boy. Her appearance was endearing, yet she was clearly beyond angry and poked the thumb of her left hand behind her, toward the front door.
“I said—”
She didn’t have to repeat herself. Bruce saw where she was staring: at his own right hand, the fingers of which held a cigarette. The smoke had drifted back into the bedroom, awakening—and informing—her.
“What,” she said, “this was just a way to get your kicks? To tell your friends what it was like with one of us? Can you be that bored?”
She was right: who else would smoke except someone who would never suffer its ill effects, never die of a disease but only by force, from his own or someone else’s hand? Had he been lazy or complacent lighting up? No: he had just been at ease, and that, he was aware, was always risky.
“Please,” he said. “I can explain.”
The Family Unit and Other Fantasies Page 13
