An Ocean Without a Shore

by Scott Spencer

  The week I’d arrived, Thaddeus offered to come to San Francisco and help me get used to my new city. “We can figure the place out,” he said. “It’s tough being in a new place, even for a seasoned traveler like you. Lonely, I bet. Are you?” I foolishly said—far, far too quickly—that I was fine and there was no need, and the offer evaporated. Time passed. We rarely spoke on the telephone. After the Bush-Gore election, there was a flurry of calls during the maddening week or so in Florida when it was still undecided which candidate had carried the state. The TV cameras were watching the election officials inspecting the iffy ballots, while throngs of young Republicans in blazers and khakis pounded on the doors, demanding that Florida be called for Bush. The fate of humanity was at stake, though of course we could not know that the winner would con us into war in the Middle East.

  “I blame Mrs. Gore for this entire mess,” Thaddeus said. It was three in the afternoon in Leyden, noon for me. Foggy and clammy outside, diamond bright and cool in the office. Hearing his voice, I hated San Francisco.

  “How is she responsible?” I asked.

  “Gore couldn’t embrace the Clinton legacy because Tipper is such a hard-charging prude and now we’re all going to have this incurious brat in the White House.”

  Maybe three months after I started in SF, Thaddeus had written me, Just to let you know, I am steadfastly resisting asking for any more of your—shall we say?—guidance. Even a relatively innocuous remark like that made me furious—and frightened. Did he not understand what peril he was putting me in? Had he missed the story in the morning paper about the insider-trading fool being perp-walked out of his office on Beaver Street and his partner busted in his showcase home in Greenwich, dragged out in handcuffs while his wife and his two children looked on? But if Thaddeus had missed the story in the Monday newspaper, there would likely be another similar one on Friday, and in case he missed that there would be another soon after. Doing jail time was to some people in my business merely a part of the job’s risk, bending the rules was how the alpha males played to win. Of course, as it was in domestic life, most people who cheated on Wall Street got away with it, but whenever I read about somebody getting caught at something as premeditated as a pyramid scheme, or as stupidly spontaneous as revealing privileged information at a bachelor party, my commitment to obeying the law only intensified.

  One cloudy cast-iron Tuesday—San Francisco without sun can be tough—I came to the office directly from a tedious breakfast meeting with a man named Michael Tischler. Tischler’s company was called PhoneClad, which designed and retailed protective covers for mobile phones. You could get your favorite sports team, your favorite breed of dog, the Mona Lisa, the Three Stooges, an Escher-like swirl of spiral staircases, polka dots, Saturn, and on and on. PhoneClad’s stock was flat and Adler was considering taking a position in it, but before Ken invested he wanted to be reassured PhoneClad wasn’t this year’s Tawk. I thought the product was of limited value and since I was paying for breakfast I was blunt with Tischler. “So what do you think is happening here?” I asked. “People buying a phone, that is rational, that makes sense as a sustainable income flow. But people buying smart little jackets for their phones, dressing them up like Barbie dolls? That’s where I get a little confused.”

  Tischler shrugged, feigned nonchalance. He was handsome, with smoochy dark eyes and a cleft chin. “Up to you. People want to protect their investment and for a lot of people out there the phone is a significant investment. You don’t see it? Others will. But I’ll tell you what, since you’re paying for the eggs Benedict, I’ll let you know I’m a sprinter not a miler and when Nokia makes me an offer to take over—which they are going to do, by the way—I will sell the company to them, and a lot of smart people are going to get very, very, very rich.”

  Oh, will they now, I wanted to say. I supposed he was just swaggering to save face, but we both knew he was coloring well outside of the lines to suggest there was an impending takeover of his company. Perhaps I was being hypervigilant, and I was still feeling that excess of caution when, later that day, I opened a long email from Thaddeus.

  Hey man! I was trying to walk off today’s edition of Poor Poor Thaddeus’s Desperation and found myself on your corner of the property. Look, I don’t want to wave my own feelings as if it was a flag everyone is supposed to salute. But I have to tell you just being there made me realize what an amazing true blue friend you are. I just totally miss the hell out of you man if you want to know the honest truth. I’ve had easy access to you for a long time and I guess I got spoiled. You have no idea how many times I’ve gone onto the internet to see what it would cost to jump on a plane and come out to SF to visit you. You’re my best friend in this horribly imperfect world and there is no one in second place. I totally fucking miss you. . . .

  I read this a second time, and a third, and was getting ready to print it while maintaining what I hoped was a neutral expression in our open-space offices at 555 California. The conference room had a door you could close and the bathrooms were private, but other than that we were in a hive. Everything was shared. My face was scalding and when I glanced to check if I was being watched, I saw that CNN was broadcasting footage of a derailed Amtrak train somewhere alongside the Hudson River.

  Chapter 28

  The Segment

  REPORTER: As part of our ongoing series America in Depth, we are taking a look at what some are insisting is the work of one or two mentally unstable individuals, but what others are warning us may be the opening volleys in the next American civil war.

  Continue on Amtrak train. Shattered windows. Dented sides.

  AMTRAK PASSENGER—MALE, 50S: I heard some of the trains were experiencing attacks, but no I didn’t figure it happening to a train I was on. (Gestures half humorously, half helplessly.) I guess that’s just how we are, humans, you know. By the time we get things figured out, it’s usually too late.

  AMTRAK PASSENGER—FEMALE, 30S: I thought it was a landslide. I was on a trek in the Andes a month ago so I guess landslides were on my mind. (Laughs.) I guess I was sort of relieved it was just people throwing rocks. But the people on the train were very upset, even the regulars.

  Footage of Amtrak train heading north, following the river, pulling into the Leyden station. Uniformed Amtrak employees helping passengers disembark. Passengers have festive air, expensive luggage, are well-dressed, well-to-do urban types streaming toward camera. . . .

  AMTRAK OFFICIAL (V.O.): The safety and comfort of our passengers is our number one priority, and we take these incidents very seriously. It may be the case that whoever is responsible for the attacks on our Hudson River line is not aware that our trains are the property of the United States of America and acts of violence or vandalism is a federal offense. Be that as it may, I can promise you this—whoever is responsible for this will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  Shots of damaged Amtrak cars: shattered windows, dented sides, a completely collapsed roof interior. Amtrak headquarters, Washington, D.C., middle-aged man in suit and tie, 1890s-style mustache, muttonchop whiskers.

  AMTRAK OFFICIAL: I really don’t understand who would want to do something so cowardly as this. The trains belong to all Americans. And we love our trains, don’t we? At first, we thought it was just stupid kids, but, unfortunately, this seems to go a bit deeper. . . .

  Shots of river. Sailboats. Swans. Reflected sunset.

  REPORTER (V.O.): Historians tell us that the crucial battles between the British and the colonists during the American Revolution were over control of the mighty Hudson River.

  Shots of Broadway, Leyden, New York—the two-block main street, cute little shops, high-end coffee house, shoppers enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

  REPORTER (V.O.): But in this Hudson River town, one hundred miles from Midtown Manhattan, there has been a second battle for the Hudson River, largely unseen, unheralded, and unreported.

  Shot of storefront: the Rural Gourmet, with a
huge X made of tape, holding in the shattered storefront window.

  Shot of charred remains of a gazebo.

  Shot of dark green Jaguar, pummeled by cement blocks, the hood collapsed, the windshield destroyed.

  Shot of white stone driveway leading to an estate. An immense pile of shattered cement blocks has been dumped in front of the iron gate.

  REPORTER: And it’s not just the trains coming in and out of this once bucolic community that have come under attack.

  Shot of trailer park: proliferation of signs printed to look like American flags, with the word Jobs! superimposed over the stars and stripes.

  Shot of cloverleaf cul-de-sac lined with six-room ranch-style homes, lawn signs: Jobs! and Cement Plant = Rock-Solid Jobs. One handmade sign shows a serpent coiled on a hard hat and ready to strike: Don’t Effing Tread on Me.

  Shot of reporter—Cal Brunswick—telegenic in his blue blazer suit, youthful smile, standing in front of a Huguenot stone house across from the Leyden cemetery.

  REPORTER: This house, known locally as the DeWilde Tavern, was first constructed in 1721 and is now the unofficial headquarters of Windsor County Greenwatch, an organization that has been fighting the construction of a cement plant in their community since plans were first announced five years ago.

  The reporter sits with Latham Winters, a praying mantis of a man, in the Greenwatch offices—low ceilings, cast-off furniture, not a penny wasted. Gorgeous photos of the river everywhere—sunsets, waterfowl, sailboats, reflections. . . .

  WINTERS: I think it comes down to this—why are we here, and what is our responsibility? Are we here to put up satellite dishes and feed our own faces, or are we here as custodians to unparalleled and irreplaceable natural wonders?

  Shot of Amtrak train running alongside the river. As it nears the Leyden station, the train whistle emits a series of sonic blasts.

  The blasts are slowly replaced by the music of birdsong and the bucolic sight of a man strolling through high grass. A hazy smudge of mountains in the background, the silvery flash of the river. The reporter and a couple of bounding dogs follow along—and the unseen camera crew.

  REPORTER (V.O.): Some residents find themselves caught in the middle of a fight over historic preservation and economic growth. I spoke with Thaddeus Kaufman, a riverfront dweller for the past twenty years.

  Shot of Thaddeus Kaufman—in his late 40s, maybe early 50s; graying hair. He wears jeans, a Yankees baseball cap, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses dangling from a colorful eyeglass cord.

  THADDEUS KAUFMAN: I see it from both sides. My wife and I—she’s an amazing painter—moved up here because of the natural beauty. But we have a lot of friends who would love to see that cement plant and there’s no question but that its existence would be something of an eyesore. But you have to ask yourself—does an eyesore outweigh giving people decent jobs? I love the river and I love the people of this town and what I really would like to see is for everyone to get what they want.

  Thaddeus Kaufman crouches, scratching a dog behind the ears.

  Shot of Thaddeus Kaufman walking back toward his house, a large Hudson River mansion with one of its shutters dangling and a pile of roofing shingles standing on a pallet on the front lawn.

  REPORTER (V.O.): Later, I had a chance to ask Thaddeus if his house or land had been the target of any of the recent attacks. He shook his head and waved off the question, but he did say that he had taken steps to ensure his family’s safety. This is Cal Brunswick reporting from Leyden, New York.

  Chapter 29

  About Face

  By the time the segment was over and the ad for Lipitor was running, I was standing at the center of the office with tears streaming down my face. When I realized I might be making a spectacle of myself, I reversed my steps and retreated to my work area, dabbing at my eyes with the heels of my hands, doing my best to regain my composure.

  A few moments later, Stephanie Buchsbaum was standing before me, her eyes calm and kind behind her squared-off black and turquoise eyeglasses. Stephanie was Midwestern—Des Moines—and knew how to express and perform concern while maintaining strict personal boundaries. “Hanging in there, Kip?” she asked.

  “Ah,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “Aging parents.”

  As soon as she left, I reached for my phone. I listened for a moment to the dial tone and took a deep, steadying breath. Just as receding floodwaters can reveal a radically altered landscape, the intricate network of barricades and blind alleys with which I had for virtually my entire life hidden my nature had been upended by the shock of seeing Thaddeus on TV, and I knew with a certainty that shared a border with mania that today was the day and this was the hour, the minute, and the moment I would say to Thaddeus what I had been thus far unable to say. I dialed the first digit of his number, the second, the third, and then I hung up the phone, no more able to make that call than I was twenty minutes ago, twenty months ago, or twenty years ago.

  Make the call, you coward, make the call. And yet I waited. I was used to calling myself names. Self-loathing barely fazed; I had self-loathing for breakfast. I picked the phone up again. Put it down. Waited to get back to my apartment. Tried to make the call from there, a little vodka, a little Verdi to ease things along. Failed. Almost tried it again the next night, but had forgotten to factor in the three-hour time difference, and hung up mid-dial. A month passed. I tried to force myself to make the call. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it drunk and I couldn’t do it sober. A year passed. Ken persuaded me to stay on in the Bay Area. The Twin Towers had been turned into a crematorium. I was more than glad to stay where I was. Now that I wasn’t calling Thaddeus, I couldn’t help noticing that he wasn’t calling me. It made me wonder if I’d been supplying all of the fuel for our friendship all along. We’d had a few jokey emails, but no conversation. When I had to go to New York, either to meet with the team, or deal with my sublet apartment, I didn’t try to fit in a dinner with Thaddeus, or even call him. You’d think obsession would simply wither and die, but you’d be wrong. Hopeless love thrives in silence and darkness. Silence and darkness are its food and water, its soldier’s joy.

  There was work, of course, and often work helped. While many in the business succumbed to panic trading after 9/11, AA had kept its powder dry and now a year later we were in better shape than ever. Feeling flush and on top of his game, Ken was looking to make a much larger investment than had been his long-standing strategy up until now, and he was soliciting all of us for ideas. To my annoyance, Ken was still interested in PhoneClad, a company I found absurd, run by that hot-air factory Michael Tischler. Tischler had already told me Nokia was one of its suitors, but now there seemed to be others.

  And then, on October 9, 2002, at 3:15 Pacific Daylight Saving Time my intern buzzed through to tell me that Thaddeus Kaufman was on the line.

  Chapter 30

  Seconal

  I knew from the moment he said hello that he was suffering, though he made every effort to sound calm, even a little remote. “How are you, Kip? How’s San Francisco?” San Francisco was okay. “Good. Good good good. Sorry to call you at the office.” He ought not to worry about things like that. “Right. Right.” And what about you? I asked. And that’s when he got around to telling me. Libby was dead.

  “She took her own life,” he said. Here, he pressed on, but in a sideways direction, reverting to literary references—Camus insisting that suicide was the only philosophical question worth perusing, Woolf filling her pockets with stones, the powder burns left on Hemingway, Plath turning her kitchen into her own private Auschwitz, the whole condolence card catalog of writers ending their life. When I asked him what had happened, meaning, of course, how did she accomplish the end, he fell silent for a moment, and another moment after that, and another.

  “Sleeping pills,” he finally said. “They found her there, in fucking Four Freedoms, right on the floor. But the little pharmacy bottle—what are those things called? It’s not a bottle. It has a name. The
little amber plastic . . . Well, whatever. But what is it called? It’s driving me crazy. You don’t call it a bottle. Oh, never mind. It was in her hand. She wanted everyone to know. My guess is she was trying to make sure there was no autopsy. She really didn’t want to be cut open. That’s Mom for you, right? Very private to the end. A closed book. A locked door. You knew her. Isn’t that how you saw her? Or did I just somehow miss the whole thing?”

  “Oh, Thaddeus . . .”

  “No, it’s okay. It was what she wanted. She didn’t suffer, that’s what I’m telling myself. The thing about sleeping pills is if you don’t fuck it up, it’s a pretty good way to go. And she didn’t fuck it up. She did a good job. And if you’re that unhappy? Who’s to argue? I guess she didn’t have anything to look forward to. And with Dad gone . . . I guess she was done. She was completely done.”

  What about her son? Did she not have grandchildren? Was her situation really so desperate? Could she not put food on her table and a roof over her head? But of course I could not, would not, would never say these things to Thaddeus. “When did this happen?” I asked.

  “Saturday night.”

  “Saturday night?”

  “I’m just now finding out about it, Kip. It took this long. They found her Monday morning. Someone peeked in and saw her feet and then they came back a little later and saw them again, and put it together and called the police. I don’t know anyone who knows her and no one who knows her knows me. She brought a note with her to the fucking store. Instructions about what to do with her. Which was to bring her body to this place called Chicagoland Cremation Society. Which I know all about because she was really upset that we had Dad cremated out here. Which was her decision, too, mainly because of the expense and the incredible hassle of shipping his body back to Chicago. She sent me a copy of the contract they’d signed with the place. It was all prepaid. She even underlined the part about the urn. Mom was very urn-est about things like that. About not wasting hard-urned money.”