Truth in Advertising

THE CLEAVERS AREN’T HOME


I read somewhere that on average each of us is exposed to something like five thousand advertising messages a day. If you sleep for eight hours that’s something like 312 messages—commercials, print ads, Web banners, T-shirt logos, coffee-cup sleeves, sneaker swooshes—an hour. Where once you simply ran an ad in the local newspaper or on one of the three networks, now teams of people sit in corporations with their advertising and marketing and PR counterparts and talk earnestly about 360-degree branding. “Let’s surround the consumer.” I have been in meetings where people have suggested buying the space in urinals, in toilets—hotel toilets, airline toilets, the toilets at Yankee Stadium—for a Snugglies ad. We had someone mock up a board of both a toilet bowl and a urinal. We realized there was vastly more space to play with on the inside wall of a urinal. But then someone from the account group pointed out that our target was largely female and that “she’d be left out of the urinal creative.” (Should I ever start my own agency, I’ve found my name for the company.) Mine is a business wherein we—in the service of our clients—are fighting for every inch of emotional space available in a consumer’s increasingly crowded mind. Our brand managers and media strategists speak boldly of the new media, of guerrilla marketing. No physical or digital space is off limits. Sure, nature is beautiful, but couldn’t it be made lucrative with, say, a giant ad wrapped around the Grand Canyon? (You think this interior is roomy? Wait until you step inside the new Cadillac Escalade.)

Logos everywhere. What do they mean? Is anyone listening? While you’re thinking about that, have a Coke and a smile.

• • •

Day one goes off without a hitch. Okay, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration. There were problems from well before the opening shot. In the pre-pro meeting, for example, Flonz had said, “We’re going to do this old school. Film, none of this digital rubbish. We’re filmmakers, not digital makers. Digital is something a proctologist does to an old man. We’ll shoot thirty-five millimeter. We’ll cut it by hand on a Movieola. Who needs a computer to edit?”

Super. Why not just have the Amish do a flip-book?

Shoots are highly organized events. Every detail has been thought out and planned ahead of time by the hierarchy: director, first assistant director, line producer, agency producer. Every hour of the twelve-hour shoot day is accounted for. When you have a film camera and fifty union crew members working, you are spending large sums of money, so structure is crucial. There are only four things that can endanger that structure: solipsistic stars, insecure directors, animals, and, the most dangerous of all, babies.

Ours is a three-day shoot. And during almost every minute of those three days, we are shooting babies. To recap, the spot opens with our drone-babies walking through a hallway in a futuristic setting. We then see an auditorium where babies sit and watch a screen. Then our hero-mom comes running into the hall and throws a doodie diaper at the screen. Very simple.

At the moment we are trying to shoot the mothers sitting with their babies, all of whom are supposed to be mesmerized by the Big Brother–like character on the screen, who’s talking about the welfare of the planet and who—per the client’s in-house legal department—will not be Big Brother–like at all, as that’s A) legally far too close to the original Apple spot, and B) too scary for the babies. So Big Brother instead will be a she and she will be a bunny. Flonz felt strongly that we needed to shoot with as many babies as possible. “I want real. I want a thousand babies and their mothers. I want to feel it, smell it, and taste it on the film.”

Pam, on the other hand, did not want to feel it or smell it and especially did not want to taste it. She said we were asking for trouble, that surely we could shoot ten, maybe twenty babies tops and replicate them in post-production, much the same way crowd scenes are shot now, where you simply cut and paste a small crowd to fill a stadium. Pam had raised this concern again to Flonz’s producer as the pre-pro meeting was breaking up and all of us were headed to dinner. Flonz had made the terrible mistake of being both condescending and sexist to Pam in the same sentence.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he began, retying his kaffiyeh around his neck. “I’ve been doing this awhile, okay?” He chuckled but there was a hint of nastiness to his comment.

Pam had paused and then nodded a lot. Never a good sign with Pam.

“Grampa. You haven’t made a commercial since the Internet was dial-up, but if this is how you want to play it, be my guest. Also, call me sweetheart again and I’ll pull the hair off your balls.” (They were seated at opposite ends of the long table at dinner.)

But Flonz got his babies.

We arrive at a soundstage at Universal at 7:00 A.M., Pam, Ian, Keita, myself. A wide-eyed production assistant greets us, smiling.

“Lot of babies,” he says.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Lot of babies. Never seen so many babies in my life. You’ll see.”

He asks if we want to get breakfast first or go to the set. We opt for the set. We have an hour before Jan and her team arrive and want to make sure everything is ready for the first shot. The plan is for Alan and Jill to escort them here from the hotel.

Keita says to me, “This is very exciting. I love Hollywood.”

The PA brings us to the set, a replication of the set from the 1984 commercial—auditorium-like, chairs facing a large movie screen. And it is there that my good energy begins leaking like a baby’s wee from a Snugglie. It’s not the set itself. It’s the sound, and, to a great extent, the smell. Babies. Everywhere. Smiling, happy, screaming, crying, wailing, teething, crawling, toddling, running, falling. Who’s to say how many. A million, perhaps? A huge section away from the set in the cavernous soundstage is dedicated to tables with baby formula, diapers, clothes, and rows of chairs for the moms. Makeup people try to tend to the mothers, who are also in the spot.

I look at Ian and Ian looks at Pam and Pam is shaking her head slowly. “This will not end well,” she says.

Keita is smiling. “So many babies!”

Ian says, “This is gay man hell.”

And then we all happen to notice our director, the once-famous Flonz Kemp, the man in charge, the man with the vision, the man who is responsible for our Super Bowl spot, our chance for greatness, a man who is earning $25,000 a day for the next three days. He looks confused. This is not the look you hope to see on your director’s face on the first day.

Unfortunately, the client arrives early. Jan walks up to me and says, “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

• • •

We are scheduled to roll film at 8:30 A.M. Our first shot is slated to be the babies walking through the hallway to get to the auditorium to watch the Big Brother–like character. By ten-thirty we are still setting up, as the babies keep falling or walking in the wrong direction. Some boycotted the idea of walking altogether and simply sat, looking around. A decision was made to reduce the number of babies, which helped a great deal.

By late afternoon we get the shots of the babies toddling, though some of them are crawling, and we all agree, after a twenty-five-minute discussion among the group, that this is adorable and, as Flonz says, “exactly the reason I love working with babies. You never know what you’re going to get.” His smile is not met with other smiles.

Not surprisingly, the shoot ran late. The overages cost the agency tens of thousands of dollars. Ian and I are supposed to be in charge. Martin will hear about this. Moods soured. A dinner had been planned and we all agreed that perhaps it would be best to postpone until the following evening. Everyone wants to go to their rooms, order room service, and hope to find Tommy Boy on Pay-Per-View.

Throughout the day I looked to Pam each time her iPhone buzzed. Is it my father, who never traveled to Europe or China during his life but managed to visit both shortly after his death? Have the gods of logistics—these movers of cargo and packages, toilet paper and salmon, legal documents and illegal drugs, and, occasionally, the remains of a World War II veteran from Boston—finally rerouted him the 7,254 miles from HKG to LAX, deep within the cargo hold, ashes class, 30,000 feet above sea level, one last time?

Each time Pam looks over, shakes her head.

• • •

My cold is getting worse and I stand in a hot shower for a long time. I can’t seem to get warm. L.A. is unusually cold, even for January. The news says something about strange winds from the North Pacific. The heat in my room doesn’t seem to be working, so I put on both bathrobes hanging in the bathroom, thinking I might be able to sweat out my illness. I’ve ordered a bowl of spaghetti from room service. I’ve also opened a half-bottle of red wine and a $15 can of peanuts, which I’m confident the finance department will reject. I’m lying in bed clicking through the channels on TV.

Ian calls.

I say, “I’m wearing two robes.”

Ian says, “Paulie just called me. Phoebe quit.”

The Mighty Ducks are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs on TV. A commercial comes on and it’s Snugglies’ main competitor. A guy with long hair plays guitar and sings a song called “Do the Potty Dance.” Toddlers dance. The man sings. “Let’s all wear our big-kid pants.” I feel jealous. Why didn’t we come up with that? I hate it but admire the thinking.

I say, “When?”

“This afternoon, late. She gave two weeks’ notice. Have you talked to her recently?”

The next spot is for soda, done by our agency. I press mute and watch with the sound off. The cool instantly dissipates and the spot without sound looks absurd.

Ian says, “Fin.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you talked with her?”

“No. I left her a couple of messages.”

Ian says, “You should call her.”

I’m not hungry and I regret ordering the $25 bowl of pasta. For a moment I think about taking a red-eye home to New York. I flip the channel and watch as a man puts petroleum jelly on his nose, dips his nose into a bowl of cotton balls, and then runs to another bowl, where he shakes the cotton ball off with some struggle. He then repeats this task several times as a clock counts to sixty seconds. I have the TV on mute but watch as the audience shrieks with delight; whether this is an honest reaction or the result of aggressive, unseen prompting by flashing signs and eager producers, one can’t know. The host, a fleshy man with dyed, spiky hair and who, if he hadn’t landed this job, looks like he might be tending bar at a convention, watches with a smirk. It comes out quietly and surprises me, a private thought expressed out loud.

I say, “I think I’m in love with her.”

Ian says, “I know. Everyone knows.”

“Why didn’t I know?”

“You really want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

“Because you lie to yourself. Because you keep everyone and everything at arm’s length. What happened to you as a kid . . . I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But at some point . . .”

He stops. Then says, “Look. What the hell do I know. I just want you to be happy. She makes you happy.”

It’s past midnight in New York. Too late to call. A text message seems weird. She’s not responded to my e-mail yet. The doorbell to my room rings.

I say, “My room service is here.”

Ian says, “I’ll see you in the lobby at six.”

“My father’s ashes are lost,” I say, not wanting to hang up quite yet.

“What? What happened?”

“FedEx lost them. They were supposed to arrive yesterday. They’re in Düsseldorf. Or Hong Kong. Maybe.”

“Jesus. So wait. Does that mean you’re going to do it? If you find them?”

It’s strange and embarrassing to admit, but I hadn’t really thought that far. I just knew I didn’t want Eddie to hurl them off the Tobin Bridge or into a dumpster. But actually getting on a plane to Hawaii, finding a boat, spreading the ashes . . . I hadn’t thought that far. The doorbell rings again.

“Yes,” I say. “I am.” The words surprise me.

Ian says, “Okay.”

I say, “Okay. See you at six.”

I open the door and can’t figure out why the room service waiter is looking at me strangely. Until I remember that I’m wearing two bathrobes.

• • •

This is the forty-second commercial I’ve made in my career. I know this because I keep the pre-production books from each shoot and number them. There’s a name for that and that name is “sad.” You have to understand that I never thought I’d get to go on a shoot. A shoot was what you strived for, it was achievement and success. When I started out I was mostly working on direct mail letters, coupons, and in-store banners. I took it seriously. I would fight the client hard on the use of exclamation points (they pro, me con). I worked the copy to death, convinced, somehow, that despite the fact that it might have been for diapers, the likes of Aaron Sorkin and Jeffrey Katzenberg would see it and demand to know who wrote it. Sorkin: “There’s a voice beneath the mail-in rebate copy that feels very fresh to me. Who is this guy?”

Those first few times on a set are unforgettable. The crew and the energy and the actors and the little magic that happens when the camera rolls, when the light hits the film and leaves a perfect inverse image. I wrote this, I would think. Millions of people will see this on TV.

I wanted to be great.

So you try. You throw yourself into it. You learn. You learn the difference between writing and shooting. You learn the difference between how you hear a line of dialogue and how an actor says a line of dialogue. The line you thought was so funny turns out to be hackneyed and expected. Later, in the edit room, the takes you thought were great turn out to be not so great. You try harder next time, work longer on the script, on cutting the superfluous, on saying it better, funnier, more . . . real. You read plays and screenplays. You study them. You try to understand how they work. You take a writing class at the 92nd Street Y. You see plays at an off-Broadway theater. You read the scripts of award-winning commercials. You realize that advertising, at its best, tells a story. It closes the gap between the thing being sold and the person watching. The really good work, done by the best people, makes you feel something. It tells the truth. It elevates the business, transcends a mere ad to something better, more valuable. It connects with another human being, breaks through the inanity and noise to find something essential and real and lasting. Like art. Not always. Not often. But sometimes. You have seen it done. You have admired the people who do it. And you have come to the realization, in spot after mediocre spot, that you are not that good.

• • •

Day two.

The rain has stopped but it is overcast and cold. Still dark on our way to the set. Pam gets a call while we’re in the van. Jan wants to meet before we roll. Probably not a great sign.

My phone rings. I hold it up for Pam, Ian, and Keita to see.

I answer. “Martin.”

“What’s going on?”

“Well, we had a good day yesterday . . .”

“That’s not what I heard. Jan called last night. Had concerns, she said. Worried, she said. Too big to screw up, she said. What the hell is going on?”

His voice is low, angry.

I revert immediately to my go-to mode when confronted by angry, displeased superiors: frightened child. Pam, Ian, and Keita are watching me. We pull into the Universal lot, past security, to our soundstage.

I say, “We can handle this. Yesterday was a little rough, but . . .”

We come to a stop.

Martin says, “Listen carefully, Fin. Don’t f*ck this up.”

I say, “I won’t.” But he’s already hung up.

We get out of the car and there, standing at the door to the soundstage, is Martin.

• • •

More babies.

We’re shooting the wide shot of all the moms and babies sitting in the auditorium, facing the screen. Try getting one hundred babies to look at the same place at the same time. I dare you.

Martin’s anger has turned to endearing British charm as he air-kisses Jan, Euro-style, both cheeks.

“Martin.” Jan beams. “What a lovely surprise. You didn’t have to do this, but thank you.”

Ian and I don’t look at each other. But I feel him not looking at me.

“I have a meeting here tomorrow but figured I’d come out a day early and observe,” Martin lies. “Pretend I’m not here.”

“I’d certainly like to,” Pam says.

Karen comes over. “Jan? Sorry to interrupt. But we need to get on that call.”

Jan excuses herself. Martin says, “Come with me.”

Pam, Ian, Keita, and I follow him to the camera, where Flonz is looking through the lens.

Martin says, “Mr. Kemp. Martin Carlson. A great honor. Fan of your work.”

Flonz smiles, “Hey, Marty. Glad you could make it out.”

They’re shaking hands but Martin’s not letting go.

Martin, still smiling. “I’m not sure what kind of arseholes you’re used to working with but if the next two days don’t go flawlessly, and I mean flawlessly, I’ll see to it no one ever wants to work with you again. Clear?” Still smiling. “And it’s Martin, not Marty.” He takes his hand back.

You can see remnants of the old Flonz temper. His eyes narrow, his cheeks color. But his fame and power are long gone. He needs the job. Welcome to the new world, Flonz old boy.

Flonz says, “We’re going to be fine.”

“So glad we had this little chat.” Martin turns and walks away.

Pam, looking at Martin walk away, says, “Wow, I like him so much more now.”

• • •

Martin sits in video village with Jan. Ian, Pam, Keita, and I stand a few yards back from the camera, watching on a monitor. Martin’s chat with Flonz seems to have inspired him. He’s moving faster, the shots coming more smoothly. The baby gods are kind to us and we get the wide shot as well as several tighter shots on moms and babies looking to the screen. Now we’re shooting extreme close-ups of moms and babies, just babies, just moms. Everyone on the set with access to a monitor can’t help smiling. The perfect little faces fill the frame in close-up, wide-eyed and gorgeous.

There’s a break as they reset. The moms stand and stretch. Some change their babies.

Ian and Pam find a space to sit and open Pam’s laptop to log on to the website of a digital design company in New York. They’re the ones who will create the not-Big-Brother–like bunny figure on the screen. We will then fill that image in during post-production. It’s art-related, which means Ian’s in charge. Keita mingles with the crew.

One of the moms comes over. She says, “What do you do?”

“I’m the writer.”

“Oh, wow. That’s cool. Seems like a neat spot. I’m Cindy.”

“Fin. Thanks. We’ll see how it turns out. Do you remember the original?”

“Original what?”

“The original spot. Apple 1984?” I’m speaking Russian, if her expression is any indication. “This is a spoof,” I add, instantly ashamed at using a word I loathe, sounding like something from A Prairie Home Companion.

Cindy says, “Oh. No. I didn’t know that.”

She’s smiley, maybe thirty, thirty-one. Athletic looking. She’s cradling her son—I think it’s a boy—on her chest, his back to her, her arm across him like a seat belt, holding him under his well-padded crotch. He’s staring at me.

I say, “What’s his name?”

“Nathan.”

“How old?”

“Ten months next week. Do you have kids?”

“I don’t.” I feel I should say more, explain why a man of almost forty doesn’t have children. The hair and makeup woman comes over.

She says to Cindy, “Excuse me. Hi. Sorry. You’re up soon and I just need to do a touch-up.”

Cindy turns and holds the baby out toward me. “Would you hold him for a sec? I don’t want the powder to get on him.”

Before I have time to answer she hands him to me and then focuses on the makeup woman.

He’s lighter than I imagined, despite his pudginess. His face is close to mine. He takes his hands and grabs fistfuls of my cheeks, which does not feel great. A primal noise emanates from him.

I say, “Hi.”

He opens his mouth and puts it on my nose, leaving a great deal of slobber in the process.

I pull back. “What are you doing? You can’t eat a nose. Who eats a nose?”

He laughs.

I say it again. “Who eats a nose?”

He laughs again.

He doesn’t blink. He just stares and waits, smiles.

Pam comes up next to me.

She says, “What are you doing?”

“Holding a baby.”

“I can see that. I guess I meant why are you holding a baby?”

I say, “I’m helping. His name is Nathan. He likes me.”

Nathan puts his mouth on my nose again. I could get used to it. His breath is remarkably pleasant.

Cindy says “Thanks,” as she takes him back and heads back for her close-up.

I watch them walk away and turn to see Pam looking at me.

I say, “What?”

“What am I going to do with you, Dolan?” She shakes her head and walks away.

• • •

Later, a major problem arises when one of the junior clients notices that the industrial-size box of diapers made available for the baby changings throughout the day is the leading competitor and not Snugglies. This caused no small amount of consternation and a trip by two PAs to the nearest Ralph’s. A small uproar in response by the moms, fully seventy-five percent of whom complained that they preferred the leading competitor’s brand and refused to use Snugglies. This provoked a call to the Snugglies legal department, asking if a baby not wearing a Snugglies diaper, but a competitor’s, could legally appear in the spot. Several lawyers were consulted and a conference call was scheduled thirty minutes later, wherein four in-house attorneys, Jan and her team, and several team members back at the New York headquarters took forty-five minutes to decide that the babies had to be wearing Snugglies, even if you couldn’t see them. The moms were told to change their babies or forfeit their day-rate and residuals. Every one changed their own baby’s diaper.

• • •

My cell phone is buzzing. I must have fallen asleep.

I answer.

Pam says, “They’re here. They landed at LAX thirty minutes ago.”

It takes me a second. It’s just after midnight and I’d only gone to bed a half hour ago. Keita arranged a dinner at Matsuhisa, a well-known sushi restaurant in Beverly Hills. Jan, Pam, Ian, Martin, Alan, Jill, Flonz. Keita was a star, the perfect host, ordering, translating. Somehow we were all friends. Flonz made Jan the center of attention. Flonz and Martin were fast buddies after the first bottle of wine. By the third they were praising each other’s greatness.

“You’re kidding,” I say to Pam.

“When it absolutely positively has to be there.”

“Jesus.”

Pam says, “FedEx wanted me to let you know they’re profoundly sorry and as a gesture of their appreciation of your business would like to offer you free shipping next time you send internationally.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the next relative who dies.”

Pam says, “They’ll be at the hotel soon.”

She made calls. She lit into people, people’s managers, shift supervisors. She spoke with people in Boston and Memphis and Düsseldorf and Hong Kong. She made it her mission. Of this I am sure. Just as I am sure she would never, ever admit it to me or share the backstory. She forces you to read between the lines. Who knows, maybe she’s a distant Dolan relative.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Good luck with this, Fin.”

“You never call me Fin. Are you falling for me?”

“F*ck off.” She laughs and hangs up.

I call the front desk and ask if they could send the package up as soon as it arrives. Thirty minutes later, after a knock on my door, I accept a squat, surprisingly heavy well-handled FedEx box with my father’s remains—Boston to Los Angeles with stops in Memphis, Düsseldorf, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong—handing the kid who brought them up $20. Then, for the first time in twenty-five years, my father and I sleep under the same roof.

• • •

Day three.

It’s early and the crew is setting up for the first shot—our hero-mom running from the guards. It’s our last big shot. The remainder of the day will be used for shooting the green screen—that is, the movie screen at the front of the auditorium that the mom/babies are looking at so that the image can be put in by the computer artists later. A minor legal issue derailed us briefly late yesterday when the Snugglies lawyers urged us to avoid shorts and thus any potential infringement issues. Working together with several members of the marketing team back in New York, they drafted a memo (subject heading “Shorts v. pants issue”) reminding us that “our target audience is, according to research, very uncomfortable with their thighs.” Their italics, not mine. The marketing team, with the lawyers’ blessing, went on to strongly suggest that we consider “a nice pair of beige-colored slacks.”

Jan told us to ignore the memo and stay with the loose-fitting Snugglie-blue shorts-cum-gauchos.

One senses a change on the set. The excitement of day one, the camaraderie of day two have evaporated, been replaced by something heavier, more fatigued. People want to go home.

For me—and I sense for Ian—a mild panic has set in, expressed through moist palms, a mildly upset stomach, an all-encompassing fatigue. My career (such as it is) could use help. Indeed, I could use a significant boost to my fortunes at the agency, a Best-of-Super-Bowl spot, a much-deserved promotion, a new account. It would change my life and make it better. I would achieve happiness. In theory, anyway. I have believed this same thing for many years, that each commercial I made would somehow change my life, catapult me to the next level, whatever that level is. A happier level. Of this I am sure.

Some of that nervousness could be due to the fact that I’m carrying around my father’s ashes. I stared at the box as I was about to leave my room this morning and paranoia overtook me. What if the exceptionally efficient Four Seasons housekeeping staff mistook the FedEx box for an outgoing parcel? What if they mistook it for trash? What if they stole it, thinking it was drugs or money or jewelry? What if it disappeared again? I arrived in the lobby to meet Pam, Ian, and Keita. They looked at the box.

Ian said, “Bring Your Father to Work Day?”

I said, “He’s never been on a shoot.”

Keita said, “This will be fun.”

Pam said, “I still intend to smoke and yes, there will be ashes and no, I’m not going to feel bad about it. Let’s go.”

We shoot our hero-mom, who’s carrying a comically (one hopes) large doodie diaper. Initially there are problems with that as well. Some of the toddlers saw the guards (all female, by the way) don their masks, which we tried hard—with the production company’s art department—not to make scary in any way. But some of the kids screamed, setting off a chain reaction of screaming. It took forty-five minutes to calm everyone down (graham crackers, juice boxes, Elmo movie).

Flonz began to trust Ian to the point where he relied on him. Ian knows lenses, focal length, understands what we’ll need in the edit room. We shoot hero-mom in close-up and in a wide shot. We shoot her rounding corners and on straightaways. We shoot the drone-guards chasing her. We shoot her at twenty-four frames per second—the way your eye sees the world—and we shoot her at forty-eight frames per second—slow motion.

At some point during every shoot the moment comes when I see the idea as dog shit. On this shoot that moment comes when Flonz shouts, “Cut!”—a huge smile on his face—having just watched our hero-mom throw a giant doodie diaper (we used dozens of Baggies full of chocolate Jell-O pudding for heft) at the screen. I video the woman running and throwing the diaper with my phone and send it to Phoebe. No answer. Normally she’d text back right away.

I imagine the post-Super Bowl Monday-morning reviews online, in the trade magazines. “Lauderbeck, Kline & Vanderhosen strike out again.” “Pooperbowl losers.” “Derivative. And mind-numbingly stupid. Finbar Dolan should be shot.”

• • •

I have little to do so I walk to video village, check on the team of clients surrounding Jan. We’re in between shots so no one watches the monitors. They’re typing on laptops, tapping on phones, speaking into headsets. There’s a table set up with snacks, coffee, bottles of water. There is a gravitas to their expressions, their tone of voice, their frantic typing and texting. I stand there holding my box. Everyone is working. There can be no stopping in the new world. We take pride in our busy-ness, our relentless workiness. You hear it every day.

I’m swamped. I’m incredibly busy. I’ve never been busier. Work’s insane.

It validates us. Helps us feel important. Helps us feel alive. If we were to stop, stand still, not do anything, we’d burst into flames.

“Dad,” I say to the box. “This is my client, Jan, and her team, whose names I forget, except for Karen, who’s pacing near the snacks table talking into a headset and who last smiled in 1987. This is my job. I come up with ideas, most of which are killed, and once in a great while one is made into a TV commercial and then we stand around and watch as they are filmed. You would think it would be more fun. I’d introduce you but they’re busy and you’re dead.”

No one has noticed my father and me. We turn and walk away.

• • •

Martin asks me to walk with him. He’s spent the morning on calls, occasionally checking in with Flonz and making sure Jan was happy.

He says, “I’m off. You’re back in New York tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes,” I lie.

“I’ll see you at the editor. I told Jan she can come by as well. What’s in the box?” he asks.

I’m tempted to tell him. “Nothing. Candy. It’s a gift. For a friend. Late Christmas gift. Candy and wine. Small bottle. See you in New York.”

• • •

After lunch, Ian and Pam oversee the green screen shots. There’s little for me to do so I walk outside. The sky is still overcast. It feels like rain. Two PAs sit in matching golf carts watching a movie on one of their iPhones, sharing the headset. I ask if I can use one of the golf carts.

Beyond the soundstages, in the backlot, sits a seemingly real world without human beings. Streets you know, houses you’ve seen hundreds of times. There’s the pond where they filmed the close-up shots of Jaws. There’s the street where Leave It to Beaver lived. There’s the Munsters house. There’s a corner of Greenwich Village and Little Italy.

Up and down each street, the all-American homes, the manicured lawns, the driveways, not a soul, not a car, not a sound. I’ve stepped out of our soundstage of make-believe and into a neighborhood of make-believe.

I park and get out of the golf cart, walk to the Cleavers’ front door, peer inside. It is a shell of a home, pure façade. I shout, “June! I’m home! And I’m not wearing pants!” It comes out louder than I thought it would and I am sure Universal security will arrive any minute.

There was a boy on my street growing up, Bobby Sullivan. We went to grade school together. One day, his older brother, Phil, told us a joke. He said, “What was the first dirty joke ever on television?” We had no idea, boys of eight, nine, ten years old. Phil said, “‘Ward, you were awfully rough on The Beaver last night.’” Phil laughed. We laughed. We had no idea what he was talking about.

I sit down on the steps and call Phoebe, desperate for her to answer but surprised when she does.

I say, “Guess where I am.”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is different. Flatter, trying, polite. She means, I don’t care.

“Leave It to Beaver’s house.”

“Tell the Cleavers I said hello. How’s the shoot going?”

“Okay. I hear you have some news.”

“Yeah. I was going to call you.”

“You got my messages?”

“I did. Yes. Thank you.”

Silence.

I say, “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure. I was thinking about maybe going back to school. Photography.”

“That’d be great.”

“Or maybe teaching,” she says.

“You have no plan, do you?”

“Not a clue.” She forces a small laugh. “I just know I don’t see myself in advertising.”

“I can understand that.”

Phoebe says, “Why is that? Why are there so few people who seem to enjoy working in advertising?”

“I don’t know. But it seems to be that way.”

More silence.

I say, “What are you up to today?”

“Going to see a movie.”

“What movie?”

“Grey Gardens.”

“Fun. Is that the one with Steven Seagal?”

“Yeah.” She fakes a laugh. “I actually should head out soon.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I won’t keep you.”

My breathing comes in short, uncomfortable breaths. It begins to rain very lightly and I slide back, against the front door, under an eave.

She says, “The Frenchman asked me to marry him.”

Dolly zoom. Vertigo. Hand to forehead involuntarily. Panic.

Why wasn’t there an episode where June Cleaver left the house to go to the market for milk and turned and looked at The Beav for an unusually long time and then got in her car and drove into a tree? That would have made for interesting TV.

I say, “Are you going to . . . what are you going . . .” I’m unable to form a full sentence.

Everything slows down. The sound goes away. I watch myself. Look at him, I think. Look at Fin. I do a quick flashback of his life, watch from overhead as he wanders through the maze, making wrong turns, wanting to turn back, sitting down, unable to go forward. Running in circles. I want to help him. From high up I can see it all so clearly. I want to steer him in the right direction. But I know he won’t listen. He doesn’t have the courage to listen. He just wants to keep moving. If he keeps moving he’s safe.

“No,” she says.

I’m not sure how much time passes. And maybe it’s all my imagination, my particular narrative and view of the world. But in that “no” I hear the greatest hope I’ve heard in a long time.

I say, “It’s raining here.”

“It’s snowing here. And windy. It’s snowing up outside my window.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. It’s really not,” I say. And then I say, without knowing I was going to, “I saw her.”

“Saw who?”

I’m reaching the point in life where a door is about to close.

“I saw her. I mean, I was there. My mother. I saw her . . . It’s not an excuse. I’m just. I’m so sorry.”

“What?”

The slow-motion film again. Long stretches in my life where it didn’t run. Then stretches where it ran all the time. And always I found a distance from it. The boy. The boy on the bike. I wrote a spot just like it once. Except it’s a girl and her father. Very clever change, I thought. It was for tampons and I had it as a flashback at the now grown girl’s wedding and it was complicated. In fact, it made no sense. The creative director said, “What does this have to do with tampons?”

I’ve never told anyone before. But now it tumbles out. I tell her the whole story. I tell it as if it happened to someone else. I tell it like a narrator, like I have always told it to myself.

“Fin.” Her voice low, intense, so pained.

I say, “That’s how I got the scar.”

It’s colder now, the rain steadier. How lovely it would be to walk into the Cleaver home right now, their clean, warm, loving home. June would have something in the oven, cookies or a cake, a roast for dinner. The boys would be doing their homework, reading a comic book. Maybe The Beav would be up to his usual wacky shenanigans; glueing the cat to the chimney, masturbating outside the window of a female neighbor, attaching a scope to a high-powered rifle and lying in wait for Eddie Haskell. Crazy kids.

I say, “I’m just so sorry. I’m not sure . . . I mean, I’m not sure you understand how much you mean to me.”

“Then tell me.”

• • •

Flonz turns to his first AD and says, “Call it.” The first AD says, “That’s a wrap. Thank you, everyone.” It’s a thing that happens at the end of every shoot. Everyone applauds.

Within thirty minutes the energy of the shoot has dissipated. Pizza and beer arrive for the crew, but they’re eager to break the set down and go home. Flonz hugs everyone and tells Ian he’s wasting his time as an art director and gives him his cell phone number. Everyone hugs everyone else. Flonz’s entourage whisks him away, the clients hop into a waiting van and head to the airport to catch the red-eye. Ian and Pam will do the same. But not before stopping for dinner at Chez Jay in Santa Monica. The plan is to meet at the editor in New York tomorrow.

“It was genius on paper,” I say to Ian.

He smiles and hugs me.

“You good?” he asks.

“I’m good.”

“Call me.”

Keita and I watch as the world that we created is quickly and easily dismantled and put away. Outside, the skies are clearer. Wispy clouds move fast in the high winds.

• • •

Keita and I walk back to the hotel from dinner, an overpriced Italian place on Robertson. He’d asked at dinner when I was going and I told him I was on a morning flight to Honolulu. He asked how I was going to do it and I told him I hadn’t thought that far ahead, that I’d probably just rent a boat. He smiled, as he almost always does, and changed the subject.

We walk through the driveway to the hotel. Instead of walking in, Keita walks over to the life-size statue of Marilyn Monroe, frozen in her famous skirt-billowing moment from The Seven Year Itch. A vintage Aston Martin, a Porsche, and the cleanest Range Rover in the world are waiting for their owners.

Keita says, “Would you take her life and fame for being dead at thirty-seven?”

“No. I like being no one. Plus I wouldn’t date a Kennedy.”

“Can I ask you one question?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you doing it?”

He’s looking at the fake grill that Marilyn is standing on and I’m looking at Marilyn’s breasts.

I say, “Because the others won’t.”

He looks at me and says, “I do not think that’s true. I think you go because it makes you feel better than them.”

I say nothing. But he knows he’s right.

He says, “I hope you are not offended.”

“No. I’m not offended.”

“I think maybe it is not enough, your reason.”

“So why should I go?” I ask.

“Because he is your father. Because this is what we do as sons. Even when they hurt us and ruin us.”

Shame and embarrassment wash over me. Such an obvious thing. I know nothing.

I say, “Yes.”

Keita smiles.

A man and woman walk out of the hotel to the Aston Martin. Both are on their cell phones, the man wearing a headset. He points to Keita, then points to the door of his car. My adrenaline goes nuclear and I’m on the verge of telling him to go f*ck himself when Keita opens the car door as the man slides in. Keita closes the door and the man hands Keita a five-dollar bill.

The man says, “Save up. Maybe someday you’ll be able to afford one.” He winks and drives off.

The calm smile still there, Keita says, “Our family actually has two.”

In the lobby we shake hands and Keita bows deeply. We agree to keep in touch. He looks like he wants to say something but then turns and gets in the elevator.

• • •

I’m in bed, having foregone brushing my teeth or doing anything with my clothes except stepping out of them. I’m so tired I can’t sleep. The fan clicks on and off in an attempt to keep the room at a constant temperature.

The little voice is Katie Couric. No. It’s Joan Rivers. No, wait. It’s Barbara Walters.

The voice says, “You thought it would be different by now.”

I say, “Yes.”

She says, “You thought things would be clearer at this point in your life. But you’re just more confused.”

I say, “Yes.”

She says, “You thought with age would come a sense of security, of knowledge about how life works. But you still don’t know anything. You haven’t figured anything out yet.”

“No.”

She says, “You don’t know what you want.”

“No.”

“You live in New York City and yet you almost never go to museums or theater, to hear music. You might as well live in Houston. Do you find that very sad?”

“I find your blouse sad.”

“Are you a happy person?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you happy?”

“My work.”

“Is that a true statement?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you quit, find another job?”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t or you won’t? Are you afraid?

“I choose not to. And no, not out of fear.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid of what might happen if you quit?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“A courageous person.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“What would happen if you quit?”

“I don’t know. I’m not very good at a lot of things.”

“Well, at least we know that’s true.”

“There’s no reason to turn to the camera and wink.”

“Are you happy?”

“You asked me that already. Yes. I’m happy. I’m very happy.”

“Are you happy?”

“You asked me that already.”

“But you didn’t answer me. You lied. What makes you happy?”

“My friends.”

“Who? What friends? You don’t really have friends. You have acquaintances. You don’t let people in.”

“I have almost two hundred friends on Facebook. How many do you have?”

“Over three thousand. Are you happy?”

“Stop!”

“You had plans when you first moved to New York, didn’t you? You were going to try new things. You wrote that the first New Year’s Eve you were here, didn’t you?”

“Don’t read my journal.”

“You’ve written it every year since, haven’t you? ‘Try new things. Be fearless. Take a class in something. Change careers.’ You wrote those words. You’ve written those words every New Year’s Eve for seven years. And yet you’ve done none of it. Why?”

“I don’t know. Time slips away.”

“Do you have regrets?”

“Not using Brian Williams for this dialogue.”

“Are you a happy person?”

“I’m begging you. Please leave me alone.”

“You name me Barbara Walters.”

“Yes.”

“You name me Oprah or Terry Gross.”

Yes.”

“You give me names and let me savage you.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you know who I really am.”

“Yes.”

“So answer me. Are you a happy person?”

“No.”

“Then change that.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“Stop crying, Finny. Let me go. Forgive me.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Pain. Guilt. Shame.”

“You ruined me. How could you do that to us?”

“Don’t say that. You know it’s not true.”

“I’m nothing. I’m a fake person. We’re not a family anymore.”

“You have a chance, every day, to change. If you want. One beautiful thing.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Yes, you do. Let me go. Forgive me. Because if you don’t let go, then this is it. This is your life. Are you happy?”

“I’ve never been happy.”

“Okay, then. Let me go. Both of us. Your father and me. Let us go, Finny. Please.”

I stare at the ceiling, the hot tears streaming down the sides of my face, into my ears.