The Hazards of Good Fortune

by Seth Greenland

  Tackman had not touched his tuna melt.

  After the meeting at the league office, Jay’s insides were in an uproar. He had said hello to the club manager upon his arrival, and Jean-Pierre looked at him strangely, as if he wanted to say something but could not quite bring himself to do it. None of the other diners had called out to him as he made his way to the table—Jay believed they wanted to give him privacy. Now, this onslaught from the garrulous consultant was intensifying his already foul mood. Wasn’t it his job to be the dispassionate one? As Tackman continued to enumerate the ways the misadventure at the arena had made his job infinitely more challenging, Jay fought the urge to sack him on the spot. But he had dug a China-sized hole and the man’s services were required for him to climb out of it, so instead he listened and stewed.

  Tackman had concluded that Anderson Cooper offered the best platform from which to embark on what he referred to as “your apology tour.” He was friendly with the popular television host and thought Cooper’s ability to apprehend events in a nuanced manner would render him at least somewhat sensitive to Jay’s plight.

  “What if he asks me about the accident?”

  “I spoke with your lawyer about this. It’s his opinion that you insist what happened was entirely unintentional, and that on the advice of counsel you cannot say anything else. But you want the interviewer to ask the question. You can emphasize that it was an accident, one which you deeply regret, and will haunt you until—choose your time frame.”

  “Forever.”

  “Forever works. And once you’ve got that out of the way, what you want to do is apologize to everyone, to Dag and Dag’s family, the basketball community, the black community, and this is the most important apology of all: To everyone I have hurt.”

  “To everyone I have hurt?”

  “Do you have a problem with that? It’s essential.”

  For someone whose guiding principle was simply to be a moral actor, the idea of apologizing to “everyone I have hurt” was unspeakable. In a religious studies class, Jay had learned about the Jains, a group in India whose members swept the path in front of them with a broom as they walked so as not to harm any form of life with their feet. While Jay knew he was no Jain, the idea that he had hurt people on a scale this apology would imply was an assault on his core identity. Yet there it was. His version of accepting responsibility had resulted in a barrage of projectiles aimed in his direction. He had no choice but to trust Tackman, who, taking a break from his peroration, was finally forking a bite of the tuna melt into his mouth.

  “You have to understand, Jay, we’re living in a different time.” Tackman took a sip of his tomato juice and grew thoughtful. “No one cares about the tragedies of kings. Those days are gone. Now, it’s all about who’s the most aggrieved, who can whine the loudest. Heaven forbid someone like you has a complaint. It’s not allowed. No one is interested in your story anymore. It’s the Time of the Victim, and you are in no shape or form a victim. You know what else you’re not? A protagonist. You, old chum, are the villain in this tale. Our job is to make you the protagonist.”

  Jay knew this, but to hear it spoken aloud was unnerving.

  “You go on CNN Wednesday, the first playoff game is Sunday, right? If the interview goes well, I think you’ll get a reprieve from the league. Maybe you don’t have to sell the team.”

  The idea that going on television with Anderson Cooper might lead to a “reprieve”—and whatever form it took had to be better than what was happening now—lightened the crushing weight Jay felt. He surveyed the bustling dining room. Well-dressed men and women having lunch, they talked, they gestured, their voices rising in a pleasing din. Jean-Pierre greeted the diners. A waiter circulated with a dessert cart. An ordinary day, one in which Jay would have table-hopped. There was a network head having lunch with the president of a prominent advertising agency. And wasn’t that the woman who ran the Rockefeller Foundation? He would say hello on the way out, shake some hands, pat a few backs. Surely these people, his people, knew what had happened to him at Sanitary Solutions Arena. Surely, they would want to offer their sympathy.

  Jay was only able to finish half his lunch. He signaled for the waiter to remove his plate.

  “I’ve withdrawn from speaking at the Tate College commencement.”

  Tackman finished chewing what was in his mouth, took a drink of water. “Giving a speech at a liberal arts college was a terrible idea. Frankly, I don’t know what you were thinking.”

  While they drank coffee, Tackman mentioned that he was still working on arranging an invitation for Jay to speak at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The minister was open to the idea, but apparently several of the deacons were opposed. In the meantime, Jay should keep a low profile and not do anything in public that might draw attention.

  Managed seclusion. This time Jay would listen.

  “If you do well with Anderson, maybe you won’t have to do anything else.”

  That did not sound likely. Penance involved more than getting your passport back into polite society stamped during a television appearance with Anderson Cooper. But he appreciated any words of encouragement. He signed the bill and walked Tackman out of the dining room, intending to return and greet several acquaintances. But while he stood with his guest at the coat check stand, Jean-Pierre pulled him aside. Jay expected some buck-up-we’re-all-behind-you words from the club’s manager and jauntily waved to the departing Tackman.

  “Several members have spoken to me, Mr. Gladstone,” Jean-Pierre began. “Please understand this is not my personal opinion.” The club manager paused. This task was causing him considerable discomfort. The pause got a little longer.

  “What is it?”

  “They believe that perhaps it is best for you to not come to the club now.”

  Jay’s mind raced as he tried to figure out who could be behind this. As far as he knew, he had no enemies at the club. Members of several other real estate families belonged, but they were friendly rivals. It battered his already wounded psyche to learn that hidden antagonists now threatened the one place he considered a refuge from what had befallen him. He had been a member for over thirty years.

  “Who said this?”

  “I can’t say. You understand.”

  “No, Jean-Pierre, I don’t understand at all.” Jay tried to keep his voice from rising. A man Jay knew walked toward the dining room without acknowledging him. “I’m being blackballed?”

  “Not blackballed, Mr. Gladstone. But we have African-American members.”

  “That’s who’s complaining? I’ll talk to them.”

  “No, please,” Jean-Pierre said. “The African-American members are not complaining. The people who have brought this to my attention are white. Please understand my position. A club is a friendly place. The executive committee is meeting to discuss it tonight.”

  Jay thanked Jean-Pierre for notifying him and said he would think about whether to stay away but knew he only said that to save face. When this whole tornado subsided, he would return and quietly find out who was conspiring against him. He chose to forgo the dining room handshakes and schmoozing and walk to the office. Perhaps there would be news on the fate of the Sapphire.

  As Jay walked east he began to experience an oddly claustrophobic sensation. There were too many people on the sidewalks. The sky he glimpsed between buildings looked like bars of cobalt. The temperature had dropped, and the wind had picked up. Wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses, Jay nestled into his coat as he walked to the office and tried to shake off the feeling. He had appeared on the local news several times talking to field correspondents and had been on Charlie Rose with two other real estate magnates to discuss urban development. He keenly anticipated the chance to make his case later in the week.

  When he rounded the corner, and began walking south on Park Avenue, he saw the demonstrators in front of the building
. Imam Ibrahim Muhammad was leading a group of about forty of them chanting: Hey, hey, ho, ho, we’ll be here till Gladstone goes!

  They were a mixture of black, white, and Latino, men and women, mostly young. Several bored-looking police officers stood to the side and watched. Sawhorses had been placed on the sidewalk to circumscribe the movements of the group, who paraded in a circle with the imam in the center shouting into a bullhorn. Reflexively, Jay retraced his steps around the corner and paused at the side of the building where he would be out of sight.

  It was an ordinary day on Park Avenue. Workers tended the flowerbeds in the median in front of the building. Well-dressed pedestrians ambled along the sidewalks. Jay was not sure he should try to run the hostile gauntlet without Dequan at his side. He already knew the speed with which people’s condemnation could manifest in physical violence. He heard Tackman’s voice telling him to keep a low profile and not do anything public. Was this public, the space in front of an office building his family owned? Unfortunately, he concluded, it was. As people passed him on the sidewalk, he faced the building and looked at his phone, so it wouldn’t appear to anyone who glanced in his direction that he was just standing there.

  The crackle of the bullhorn, the shouts of the pack, bored into his skull. His hand reflexively traveled to his nose. These people could attack and get him on the ground before the police restored order. Who knew what harm they could do? He needed to reach his office if for no other reason than to be in an environment with people who were on his side.

  The protestors maintained their rhythmic chant. Pedestrians walked past the hubbub, most of them barely glancing at it, another obstacle to be navigated in the course of a city day. Jay realized he could not remain where he was. He either had to force his way into the building or gain access through a service entrance. He could not bear the thought of sneaking into a property his family owned, but neither could he see barreling through the demonstrators to get to the lobby.

  Cautiously, Jay stepped around the corner to reassess the scene. As the imam led the chant, he thrust his fist into the air. To Jay, it felt like each thrust was punching him. Boom! To the body! Boom! To the chops! His nose still delicate, Jay had no appetite for confrontation. Once again, he thought about what had occurred at the arena, turned around, and began walking north on Park Avenue.

  “Gladstone!” a voice shouted. Someone had spotted him. Another: “That’s him!”

  Jay glanced over his shoulder to see several of the demonstrators had broken from the circle and were running in his direction chased by a collection of slow-footed cops. Jay broke into what he hoped would be a run, but it had been years, and he instantly felt his left hamstring scream in protest. In seconds, they caught up. Several demonstrators encircled him, shouting insults. They were black, and white, and both genders, and although none of them laid a hand on him, their anger was blistering. Jay turned this way and that but they had blocked his egress. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

  He shouted: “What do you people want?”

  A white man wearing a knit Rastafarian hat said, “You people?”

  “Racist motherfucker,” from a black woman in oversized sunglasses.

  The cops shoved the demonstrators away from Jay. A Latino officer whose name tag read Ortiz asked Jay if he was all right. Jay nodded and requested an escort into the building.

  Officer Ortiz rode up in the elevator with Jay to make sure he got to the office safely.

  “Is that protest lawful?” Jay asked.

  “Some judge gave them a permit,” Ortiz said. On a Monday morning? That judge, Jay reflected, must want to destroy me.

  Jay’s effort to reach Mayor Bloomberg resulted in an exchange with a deputy. “The permit,” he carped, “was probably issued by some rogue judge, and I want it revoked.” The deputy assured him he would look into it. This did not satisfy Jay who insisted that his friend “Mike” call him back as soon as possible and to punctuate his displeasure slammed the phone into the cradle. He then retreated to the couch and assumed the prone position Bebe found him in a few minutes later.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t come into work for a few days,” Bebe suggested.

  “I should let this goddamn imam chase me away?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  To be pursued by a mob up Park Avenue and have to be once again rescued had taken a baleful toll. He glanced at the model of the Sapphire, its exquisite geometry a reliable source of serenity. Today it seemed nothing more than a meaningless agglomeration of cardboard, wood, and paste. There had still been no word from the Planning Commission, further curdling his mood. But he didn’t want Bebe to see him in this condition, so he roused himself, sat up, and briefed her on his meeting with the commissioner and the upcoming television interview. He predicted they would shortly receive the approval for the Sapphire. He asked about their mother, who he had not seen since the Seder. Jay’s relationship with his sister comforted him and helped to render the chaos manageable. When it was just the two of them alone, high in their steel tower, the world was more logical, pliant, and forgiving. Still, what she said next surprised him:

  “I’m going to that fundraiser Franklin is hosting for Christine Lupo tonight.”

  “He invited me, too, but it might be problematic if I went,” Jay said, which made his sister laugh.

  “I’m going so I can size up your adversary.”

  “Can you believe that conniving worm is holding an event for her in his home?”

  “In fairness, he was cultivating her before.”

  “Don’t defend him.

  “I’m going to see if I can get her to drop the indictment.”

  Now it was Jay’s turn to laugh. Bebe promised to share her impressions of Christine Lupo the next day.

  Alone at his desk, Jay turned on his computer. A casual perusal of the Internet was all Jay needed to understand the degree to which he had damaged himself. Only right-wing sites defended him. There he was a “victim,” a “hero,” a “sacrificial lamb.” He ventured into one comments section and was treated to the usual invective, which he read out of sheer perversity but quickly fled when it seemed as if the level of vitriol that bleached the screen would cause his eyes to melt. Hundreds of ordinary citizens had somehow accessed his private email, and although a few people offered words of support, waves of animosity drowned out their voices. The cumulative effect left him physically weakened. Jay returned to the sofa where he curled up on his side, drew his knees up, and waited for the pounding in his head to subside.

  Mayor Bloomberg did not return Jay’s phone call but several hours later the protesters dispersed and Jay, accompanied once again by security guards, was able to leave the building without incident. A car service brought him to his apartment, and again there was a crowd carrying signs in front. Jay slumped in his seat. Rather than get out, Jay told the driver to cruise slowly past. These people were not there to protest his attitudes or his right to exist. The Service Employees International Union was on strike.

  Jay was on the ropes and Gus Breeze, the union leader whose corruption he had threatened to expose, had decided to take advantage of the opportunity and pummel him. Breeze was daring Jay to call him out.

  He told the driver to take him to Bedford.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  The weekend had been taxing for Nicole. She spent most of it holed up in the hotel suite frantically trying to figure out who had hacked her. She still had no idea. Her friend Audrey called on Saturday to commiserate and invite her to Nantucket, but Nicole declined. She felt safer in the city. As far as Nicole’s vague plan to somehow repair her marriage, the release of the tape rendered the degree of difficulty nearly insurmountable. Not only was it humiliating for all the obvious reasons, but she had inadvertently added another layer of stress to Jay’s life, and knew her chances of getting him to reverse his decision existed in inverse proportion to his a
nxiety. She surmised it was still DEFCON 4 in her husband’s head. She wanted to talk with him but not enough time had passed. Yesterday afternoon she contacted Bebe. To Nicole’s relief, Bebe did not sound angry on the phone, nor was her affect in any way chilly. Jay’s sister made sympathetic noises and when Nicole asked if her sister-in-law would join her for a drink after work the next day Bebe was game.

  They met at the Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel. Nicole was in a corner, nibbling mixed nuts, nursing a glass of chardonnay. Bebe sat down and ordered a vodka martini. Nicole thanked her profusely for coming, a crumpled a cocktail napkin in her hand. Nerves. When Bebe asked how she was doing Nicole looked down, shook her head, and moaned. She put the napkin on the table and with and proceeded to smooth it out. It was around six, and the bar was starting to fill up with after-work pleasure seekers and several tables of tourists. The waiter placed Bebe’s drink in front of her, glanced at Nicole—did he recognize her? She hoped not—and departed. Bebe took a sip and gazed into Nicole’s watery eyes.

  “What possessed you to make a tape?”

  “I was drunk; it was idiotic. I was mad at your brother.”

  “You were going to show it to him?”

  “No. I don’t know. I wish I could unwind everything.” She told Bebe about their fight before he left for Africa, her desire to have a child, his unwillingness, and her resentment. “I keep telling myself I’m going to call my therapist who I haven’t talked to in five years, but I don’t want him to judge me.”

  “He’s a therapist. They’re not allowed to judge you.” One of the many reasons social success accrued to Nicole was because she exuded a potent mixture of refinement and aplomb that captivated men and women alike. She operated in a matrix of hints and signals. Her default mode was one of surpassing subtlety, but with the decision to take Dag to bed she had precluded that approach and the luxury of indirection was no longer hers. Too much was slipping away too quickly.