Truth in Advertising

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS


What a thing it is to live in New York City. To move here and not know a soul. A clean slate, a chance to walk away from the past and start anew.

Those first years were, for me, unlike anything I had ever known. The job paid very little. Most of my money went to rent. I’d often work late in part because they’d often order pizza or Chinese food and that meant dinner was free. On Thursday night the MoMA didn’t charge admission after 6 P.M. I read Here Is New York. I traced the steps. I reread The Catcher in the Rye and did the same.

Everything seemed possible. This is your life, you think. I am alive in this place and I can do what I choose. I will go to a show at a museum and have no idea what I am looking at. But I will do it and think about it and talk about it. My mind will be different because of it. Better. I will take the flyer from the girl with the blue hair on the corner in the East Village and I will go to the show that starts at midnight in the basement of the building that looks like it might be condemned. I will do it because I have nothing else to do on Saturday night and because I don’t know anyone. I will walk home at three in the morning after talking with the people in the show and making plans to get together the following weekend and I’ll buy Sunday’s newspaper that night, in a deli full of other people doing the same thing. People ordering a ham-and-cheese sandwich, in the middle of the night.

I will feign coolness. I will slowly learn the art of not showing that I am surprised or impressed or moved.

I will feel the elation that comes from anonymity.

I will feel the comfortable loneliness of wandering the avenues in the rush of humanity, the side streets by myself. Fort Tryon Park. The Cloisters. Fulton Street Fish Market. The view of midtown from Tenth Avenue near the Javits Center.

I will come upon the United Nations for the first time, thrill at what happens in this place.

I will, one snowy winter night, happen upon horse stables on the Upper West Side, a soft yellow light off the hay, three horses chewing, billows of condensed air streaming out of their distended nostrils, the snow falling silently around me, and be so moved by it that I will be frozen in place for minutes.

And I will eat at restaurants whose names I’ve heard and read about. I will eat there with clients and bottle after bottle of wine will be ordered and at the end of the meal I will simply get up from the table and leave, the dinner having been paid for. My mother would have shaken her head in wonder.

I will fly business class on an airplane to faraway places. London. Venice. Tokyo. I will try to look as bored as my fellow cabin-mates in my fully reclinable flatbed with in-seat DVD player, even though I want to shout, Holy shit, I’m in business class!

I will feel a great rush of pride at selling an idea to a multinational corporation, watch as they allocate huge sums of money to make my idea real. I will see it on television during a sporting event or a sitcom and friends, impressionable women, will say, “You did that? That is so cool!”

I will compete (though I will not win) with colleagues to create an idea of such magnitude that it will be chosen to run during the Super Bowl. I will attend the Super Bowl and sit in a corporate box with gassy men eating meat and drinking beer, and later the client will want to go to a strip club. I will wonder where all the money comes from, as no one ever seems to pay for anything.

I will get into heated discussions with account people about the length of time a logo appears at the end of a spot. We will fight over thirty-six frames, which is the equivalent of one and a half seconds. Tempers will flare, e-mails will be exchanged, people will shout and curse.

I will thrill at the idea of creation. Of making something from nothing. Of making something funny or charming or poignant out of a mere product. Of transcending the product to a place of entertainment or insight.

I will begin a screenplay that I will never finish, having no idea how to write a screenplay, making the mistake 87 percent of all copywriters have made, thinking it’s identical to a thirty-second commercial except much longer.

And then it will change. Slowly. It will become less . . . special. Less exciting, fulfilling.

I do not remember exactly when it went from being awe-inspiring having someone bring my breakfast to my room in an exceptional hotel to being mundane, and bordering on annoying when I asked for jam and not jelly.

From feeling guilt about taking something from the minibar to raiding it dry.

From feeling blessed to walk cross-town, in the shadow of these magnificent buildings, these storied streets and avenues, to cursing the cross-town traffic, which moves at an average speed of four miles an hour, I once read. “I have a meeting at Palmolive!”

I will curse the stench and the humidity of August in New York. I will forget large chunks of time as I dedicate month after month to projects that are suddenly killed, put on the backburner, or cut because of budget concerns.

It will change. All of it. Imperceptibly at first. Then irrevocably. Thirty comes. Thirty-five surprises you. The prospect of forty stuns you. Once the money was a wonderful surprise. Now it is not enough. A restlessness creeps in. A wanting of something you cannot quite put your finger on. Stories of others people’s lives fascinate you. The idea of many things—a career change, a sabbatical, graduate school, a tattoo—seems interesting but you never do any of them. Others somehow found time to marry, have babies. You hold them when they come to the office (the babies, not the adults). Round faces, absurd toothless smiles, soft and warm. Someone changed the clocks, pushed them ahead when you weren’t looking. There is, occasionally (though more and more frequently), a small pit of anxiety in your stomach. You keep waiting for something to happen. And that is your mistake.

• • •

The subways are empty. It feels like everyone is out of town. The recession-proof rich are skiing in Killington, Aspen, Gstaad. They’re sunning in Turks and Caicos, Miami Beach, Mustique. Others are enjoying the break with family, friends, catching up, making old bonds strong. They’re talking and laughing. One wonders if others know a secret.

Ian and I sit in my office and try to come up with ideas for a revolutionary diaper. We visit the other teams, check on their progress, talk through their thinking. Sometimes we make the ideas better. Sometimes we make them worse. Sometimes we talk about how strange the circus is and why people would pay money to sit and watch clowns and elephants. We look at reels of award-winning commercials from Super Bowls past for inspiration, if by inspiration you mean ideas we can steal. In the afternoon I call the hospital and ask for Margaret. If she’s not working she’s told me to ask for the pretty one. Each day the news is the same.

• • •

I get an e-mail from Rachel Levin asking if we’re still on for Tuesday night. Rachel is a friend of Stefano’s. He’s been trying to fix us up for a few months. I’ve been reluctant. In fact, I haven’t gone out since we called off the wedding. I’m tempted to cancel, postpone, something. But I e-mail back, saying we’re still on.

I receive an e-mail from Jill, cc’ing Ian, Alan, Frank, Dodge, Martin, and the teams. The subject heading is “Revision to Brief. Important.” She says the client, at the urging of counsel, would like to remove the words one-hundred percent non-toxic.

• • •

Late afternoon, a gunmetal sky. A few days before New Year’s Eve. Ian and I go out and bring Starbucks coffees and cakes and cookies back for everyone. We’ve decided to work as a group for a few hours, see what happens. We sit in my office. Paulie leafs through an advertising awards magazine. Stefano’s head is back and his eyes are closed. Raj sits on the floor cross-legged. Malcolm is on the couch between Paulie and Stefano looking at his nails. He keeps sniffing them, which is bothering me, but I can’t seem to look away. Ian sits at my desk. I have no chair.

Stefano says, “I have an idea.”

I say, “Fantastic. Tell us.”

Stefano says, “The idea is that we get more time for this assignment.”

Ian says, “That’s not really an idea.”

Malcolm says, “I like that idea.”

Paulie says, “What’s the worst that happens? We don’t come up with anything.”

Ian says, “The worst that happens is that we don’t come up with anything, the client finds someone else to do it, and we all get fired.”

Stefano says, “You have to admit, though. Very rushed. This is an American thing, I think. Rushing around. Always in a hurry. Do you mind if I smoke, Fin?”

“Yes,” I say.

He asks to smoke every time we get together as a group and try to come up with ideas, which almost never works. (The ideas. Or the smoking, for that matter.) But sitting in a group gives the appearance of work, despite the results of a recent study, which says that group brainstorming produces far fewer good ideas than people working on their own. The guys have brought half-written scripts, a line on a page, a half-baked idea, nothing. Rajit has an old issue of National Geographic.

Stefano says, “Very fascist of you, Fin.”

Rajit mumbles something and he and Stefano and Malcolm laugh.

People tap their iPhones, their iPads, tweet, update a Facebook page, post a wall comment, browse Zappos. I stare out the window and imagine the reaction from the driver of the boat when someone first suggested waterskiing.

Stefano continues, “I feel like we used to get much more time. Weeks. Now it’s days. Am I alone here?”

Paulie says, “Hey, ya know Captain Underpants, right?”

Ian says, “You mean Dodge?”

Paulie says, “No. Like Captain Underpants. The books.”

Malcolm says, “Underpants. I don’t understand.”

Paulie says, “Underpants. Captain Underpants. Ya know.”

Ian has Googled Captain Underpants on his iPhone. “I love this. I love his name.”

I say, “Maybe he’s a cartoon and everyone else is real.”

Paulie says, “What if it’s like, ‘Be like Captain Underpants, don’t crap your pants.’”

Stefano says, without opening his eyes, “I could have told you he was going to say that.”

Rajit’s laughing. He’s also in the process of lighting a cigarette.

I say, “Raj. Could you please. Raj.” He just smiles and nods, lighting up. Stefano smells it, opens his eyes, and does the same. Smoke billows. I wave it away with my hand. No one else seems to mind.

Raj says something. Malcolm translates: “Animate it. Everyone else is human except the diapers. They dissolve.”

Raj says, “Pixar. Pixar.” Rajit holds his cigarette between his index finger and his thumb, as if he’s about to throw a dart. When he inhales he turns his hand upside down and drags like he’s smoking a bong. When he exhales, very little smoke comes out.

Ian types the ideas into my computer.

Paulie says, “Up was awesome. I cried.”

Malcom says, “I cried like an infant. It could be because I was adopted.”

Raj says something.

Malcolm says, “He thinks celebrities with extremely large heads and tiny bodies are funny. Babies’ bodies. Wearing diapers.”

Ian says, “That’s mental.” But he writes it down.

Malcolm says, “Okay. Well, we had something. Use the song ‘Under Pressure.’ Queen and David Bowie. And we see landfills. All over the world. Getting fuller. Maybe. I don’t know. Not sure you want to see trash.”

Raj says something. Malcolm says, “He says maybe you reverse it. You see them getting less full, turning into fields again.”

Paulie says, “Is that the right song, though?”

Malcolm says, “Probably not. That’s just the song we were listening to at the time.”

Paulie says, “Ya know what could be kind of beautiful? Like, do you guys know Bach’s Cello Suites? They’re insane. The first one is my favorite.”

Ian’s gone to iTunes and plays it. We listen and I wonder how someone can make that kind of sound. Everyone is quiet for the thirty seconds of free music iTunes gives us.

When it’s done, Ian says, “I kind of love that.” The others nod.

Ian writes it down as under pressure idea/Bach.

Paulie says, “They used it on The West Wing a bunch of years ago. The episode where Josh has the flashbacks of being shot during the assassination attempt.”

Rajit says, “I remember that one,” and we actually understand him.

Ian says, “I loved that show.”

I say, “I own it. The boxed set. I own it.”

People nod, drink their coffee, eat their unusually large Starbucks cookies.

Stefano says, “Have your cake and eat it, too.”

We look at him.

He says, “I was just thinking about that phrase. I don’t understand it.”

Ian says, “It’s about greed, right?”

I say, “I think that’s right. Having cake, but being aware that you shouldn’t eat it.”

Ian says, “No. I think it’s more like, you shouldn’t want more than just your own cake.”

Stefano says, “But why even have the cake in the first place, then? Why is it bad to have some delicious cake and eat it, too?”

Raj says, “No, no,” and then something else.

Malcolm says, “It’s the idea of having cake but also eating it. Two things at once, yeah?”

Paulie says, “Wait. Why would you have it and not eat it?”

Stefano says, “You could be on a diet. Or maybe it’s not a very good cake. The cake in the cafeteria is atrocious.”

Ian says, “Cake’s a funny word. Cake. Cupcake.”

Paulie says, “That’s what my wife calls her hoo-hoo.”

Ian says, “Thanks for that.”

Stefano says, “It’s just odd to me, this notion that you would be served a piece of cake and then not eat it. What’s the point? Is there coffee to go with it? Can I not drink that, too?”

Paulie says, “I think it’s like don’t ask for too much.”

Malcolm says, “Then why not have the saying be something like, ‘Don’t ask for a second piece of cake’?”

Stefano says, “That works much better for me.”

Paulie says, “Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?”

Stefano says, “What’s your point?”

Paulie says, “People say that sometimes. Like, when something’s obvious.”

Stefano says, “Of course a bear shits in the woods. The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. I don’t understand.”

Paulie says, “We had a thing. I mean, you’re gonna think it’s like E-Trade but it’s not E-Trade.”

E-Trade has for several years had wildly successful commercials during the Super Bowl where a baby talks like an adult.

Ian says, “What is it?”

Paulie says, “It’s a baby who talks like an adult.”

Ian says, “That’s E-Trade.”

Paulie says, “No. Listen. It’s different. They’re in a board room and they’re talking about how to save the world.”

I say, “With voices like adults or like babies?”

Paulie says, “Adults.”

Ian says, “Still E-Trade.”

Paulie says, “Then they’re talking like little kids. High baby voices. My daughter just turned three and she has the most awesome voice you’ve ever heard.”

Ian says, “A kid’s voice is okay. What else happens?”

Stefano says, “That’s as far as we got. Good, though, no?”

Ian says, “Maybe work on it. People like babies.”

Malcolm stands, stretches, then shoves his hand down the back of his pants, scratching his ass aggressively. “If I don’t drink a beer soon, my head’s going to burst into flames.”

The rest stand.

Paulie says, “Who wants to buy me a drink?”

They all nod and shrug.

I say, “I don’t feel we’ve accomplished much. We don’t have much time.”

Stefano says, “This is what I’ve been saying.”

Paulie says, “Fin D? Coming with us?”

I start to say something when Stefano says, “Fin is predisposed this evening, Paulie. A romantic rendezvous.”

They all stop and turn.

Raj says, “Fin. You dog.” Which sounds ridiculous in an Australian-Indian accent.

I say, “Go away.”

They laugh and wander down the hall. I hear Stefano say something about cake.

• • •

Did I mention that I live in MORON?

MORON was the idiot brainchild of a small group of investors who, flush with money from the days before the Big Correction, were planning a new, very expensive, and exceptionally ugly high-rise on the edge of Little Italy. The building—on the corner and across the street from the 100-year-old building I live in—would in no way blend in with the neighborhood, a glass-and-steel monstrosity, Frank Gehry on acid. Huge, glossy posters went up around the proposed site, a sliver of a space surrounded by four-, five-, six-story buildings.

The developers wanted to create buzz. So they thought, Why not create an entirely new neighborhood?! It would be the new “it” neighborhood. SoHo, TriBeCa, Nolita, DUMBO, MORON. It stands for Mott on Rim of Nolita. Which doesn’t really mean anything. It’s Little Italy. But they thought both its meaninglessness and its inanity played perfectly into the early-twenty-first-century zeitgeist of knowing sarcasm and idiocy. We know it’s stupid. We mean it to be stupid. That’s what makes it funny. But we’re also hoping you think that, within the open stupidity, it’s cool.

They blogged and tweeted, Facebooked and LinkedIn. They essentially campaigned for coolness. It never caught on. Part of the problem (besides inanity) was very bad PR. For the building to go ahead it would mean tearing down a small, family-owned shop that had sold fresh mozzarella and cream sauces for generations. A story appeared in The New York Times. People rallied for the shop. The investors hired a PR firm and an ad agency, as well as a Web design firm in Los Angeles. None of it worked. What did work was razing the mozzarella shop in the middle of the night and then constructing the building in six months. The New York Post headline said it best: MORONS LIVE HERE.

That was three years ago. Today the building is barely half full, the rents too high. I’ve heard the original developer defaulted, was indicted, and left the country. At some point every late afternoon, the new building blocks the sun and my apartment goes dark.

I go home to shower and change but instead head straight to the couch to review the many personal letters I’ve received in the mail that day. These include notes from my dear friends American Express and Con Ed. And a letter from Lady Gaga appealing for money (always an awkward subject between friends) for the children of Darfur. “Dear Caring Friend,” Lady Gaga writes (and I can picture her writing it, too, longhand, no doubt). I read the first paragraph of the letter and am acutely aware of how the writing style engenders in me not empathy and sadness—as this subject most certainly should—but annoyance and laughter. Which then leads to sarcasm and mild anger. Which then leads to guilt and shame. Which then leads me to the refrigerator for a cold Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which makes me remember the phrase nancy boy, a phrase my father reserved for men who drank beer that wasn’t Miller. I’m an uncaring nancy boy who drinks fay beer and my father is laughing at me and bizarre Lady Gaga no longer wants to be my friend.

I briefly consider masturbating but decide I don’t have the energy, so I shower instead.

I bought this apartment five years ago. In fact, the bathroom is one of the reasons I bought it. The toilet is in its own room. Like they do in Europe. How great is that? I often say this to people upon showing them my toilet and they rarely react with the kind of excitement I hope for, the kind of excitement that I, myself, felt upon seeing it for the first time. The Realtor actually apologized for it. It’s a small box with a window high up. In a separate room next door is the actual bathroom, sink and old tub with a wraparound curtain. It’s got great charm and character, but it’s a pain in the ass to actually shower in because the space is small and the curtain often clings to your body.

The apartment itself is a small one-bedroom, sixth-floor walk-up, top floor in the back. It’s Connecticut quiet, except for the pipes in the winter. Uneven, wide plank floors, exposed brick wall on one side, old, drafty windows, a small working fireplace. Things break a lot but we have a great super on the ground floor—Ahmed—who is very fond of me, as I let him stay on my couch for two weeks last year when his wife briefly kicked him out. He was a dentist in Yemen.

It’s sparse, clean, perhaps a bit monastic. I could pack and be out of here in half a day. Ian helped me buy some things, most of them at the Chelsea Flea Market on weekends, including a large, old leather chair that I don’t really like and never sit in. There’s a farm table that I do like and I use when I give my frequent lavish dinner parties (I’ve had two in five years). For the most part the walls are bare, which I like. Above the mantel, however, is something I’m quite fond of. It’s an advertising poster from 1934 for a Swiss department store. It’s a giant white button, 35" by 50", with the letters PKZ under it (the store’s name). I can’t say why I like it exactly.

I have plans to redo the kitchen, pages torn out from magazines as guides, notes and bad drawings about how I’ll do it. But I haven’t even started the process. These things take time.

I almost didn’t buy the apartment. I panicked at the closing. I was putting down almost everything I had in the bank and began to have second thoughts. I realized I was happy renting. I liked the idea of impermanence. But I signed the many documents with a fake smile on my face. I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. That it would make me happy. That it was a smart financial move. It’s amazing how you can talk yourself into almost anything.

Now, I sit on the couch, my iPod on shuffle, and half watch TV with the sound off because I can’t stand the commercials. Currently the iPod has chosen “Worried About You” by The Rolling Stones, which is making a Pizza Hut commercial much better. I look at the pile of mail. Along with the catalogs from Crate & Barrel and L.L.Bean are two pieces addressed to Amy. One is a 1.9 percent introductory offer from Citibank and one is a yoga clothing catalog featuring remarkably fit women with lovely bums. I still get junk mail for her once in a while. We lived together here for nine months, during the engagement.

For a while after canceling the wedding, I tried to avoid the medicine cabinet or the top two drawers in the bureau (which I’d given her to use). Her prescriptions and lotions and face creams and lip balms and Lady Schick razors and Secret deodorant and underwear and bras and wonderfully formfitting Lululemon pants.

When she finally did come by, many weeks later, with her two best friends and a car to get her stuff—remaining furiously silent almost the entire time as she threw things into trash bags and a knapsack—I stood, slouched, afraid, regretful, sweaty, confused, ashamed, guilt-ridden in the middle of the living room with the smile of the village idiot on my face.

Finally she spoke as she was going through the books, packing hers, shoving mine back onto the shelf as if she wanted to hurt them.

Holding up a book, Amy said, “I think this is my Infinite Jest.”

I laughed. The wrong response but it seemed funny to me. She laughed, too, for three seconds, then burst into tears.

Take your Infinite Jest, I wanted to say. Take my Infinite Jest. Take all of my jests and my infiniteness. Take the books, the plates, the glasses, the oddly large button poster. Take anything you want. Just please stop suffering because of me.

“Amy,” I said, but had no more to add.

I took a step to her, to hold her, perhaps, put a hand on her shoulder. It’s how I would have directed the scene.

“Stop,” she said. She shook her head back and forth slowly. “Do you know what you’ve done?” she said. “To me? To my family? Do you have any idea?”

One of her friends—Barb? Mandy? Erin?—came to the door, panting, having gone up and down the six flights several times carrying the trash bags. “All set, Amy. We’ll be in the car.” Barb/Mandy/Erin gave me a look as if to say, I’d like to throw up in your mouth, then walked out.

Amy started for the door and stopped.

She looked at me and said, “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

There are basic questions in life that you need to have answers for.

Why do you do your job?

What can’t you live without?

Who is the most important person in your life?

I do not have the answers to these questions yet. This is not good. Not on the eve of forty, alone, in an apartment whose most striking feature is a toilet in a boxed room.

Here’s the answer: I have no idea why I asked her to marry me. Wishful thinking? That it was the right thing to do? That it was what she wanted me to do? That if I did it I would come around to agree with the idea of it? There are people who believe that life can be lived rationally, that we are in control of our deepest, most powerful emotions, that we can perhaps even escape the deep markers from the early days, the crucial days, where we learn it all. Those people are called crazy. In reality I was playing a part, doing what I imagined I was supposed to do. The words sounded right. That’s why I asked her. How could I stand here and tell her that when I asked her to marry me I was imagining a scene, like in a commercial or a movie, about how one would ask someone to marry them? That it was all distant and unreal to me? That ultimately I did it because it was safe, because I didn’t love her?

Here’s what I knew about myself when it came to Amy: I knew I couldn’t be responsible for her happiness. She was too good, too kind, too loving, too giving. And it was only a matter of time before I let her down. But you cannot say that. Not out loud. Not when you’ve already hurt someone so badly.

I said, “I wanted to make you happy.”

Amy’s face contorted, as if she couldn’t quite believe the words.

“But you didn’t want to make me happy. You just liked the idea of making me happy.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re so . . . you’re so pathetic.”

I was running my tongue across the back of my teeth and my ears were hot. I was embarrassed and wounded and angry but ultimately I had no response because she was right.

• • •

I call Phoebe.

“Do you miss me?” I ask.

Phoebe says, “No. Do you miss me?”

I say, “Maybe. How are you? Where are you?”

“Skiing in Vermont. I told you like a thousand times.”

“I meant where are you this moment?”

“In front of a fire with a glass of wine the size of a Big Gulp.”

“How’s the snow?”

“Amazing. Crazy cold, though. Do you smoke pot?”

“No. Maybe. Do you have any?”

“My brother got me stoned the other night. It was awesome. I haven’t gotten stoned in so long. I can totally see how someone could become a pothead.”

“Like, totally, man.”

“Shut up. What are you up to?”

“Work.”

Phoebe says, “How’s it going?”

“Shitty.”

“That’s a pun. I get it. If I were stoned I’d laugh my ass off. You doing anything fun?”

I’m about to say I have a date tonight, but decide against it.

“Me? Mr. Fun?”

“I’m sorry, who did you say you were?”

“I’m Mr. Fun. I’m all about fun. Finbar Good Times. That would be my mob name. Johnny the Gun, Guido Three Balls, Finbar Good Times.”

“The Frenchman called me,” she says.

On the TV obese people stand on a scale and compete to see who’s lost more weight. Some of the obese people are crying. Some version of Law & Order is on four different channels. Far up the channels is a repeat of the women’s college softball World Series from 2003 between Texas Tech and Cal State Fullerton. Phoebe has only mentioned the Frenchman to me once. We were talking about whether we’d ever had our hearts broken.

I say, “You okay?”

“Yes. No.”

There’s a silence.

Phoebe says, “I was crushed when it ended. When he ended it. I’d call and leave long messages. I wrote him letters. God. I threw myself at him like a . . .” She drifts off.

I don’t know what to say. I’m tempted to say he’s a selfish a*shole but that’s probably not what she wants to hear right now.

Phoebe says, “It was a message. I didn’t talk with him. Out of the blue. He left a message saying he was thinking of me, that he saw an old letter of mine and that he missed me and just wanted to say hi. I mean, you don’t get to do that.”

“Maybe he does miss you,” I say.

“He cheated on me. Left me for someone. Maybe she left him. Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he’s horny. I don’t know. I don’t know what the f*ck men want sometimes. Some want sex and at least you know where you stand and some want a part-time connection and some want a mother and most are just boys and confused and they don’t know their own minds. They don’t tell the truth. They don’t know what they want and it’s tiring.”

Cal State Fullerton has brought in a new pitcher. She is short and stout and she looks exactly like the previous pitcher, to the point where I’m wondering if they are twins. I couldn’t hit her pitching in a million years.

Phoebe sighs. “Sorry.”

“I wish I knew what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Are you going to call him?” It’s out before I can pull it back.

“I don’t know. It’s just . . . It’s unfair to throw a little bomb from the past into someone’s life, when they’ve worked so hard to lock it away.”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“What are you watching?”

“Lesbian softball.”

Phoebe snorts. She snorts when she laughs. “You’re a moron.”

“What? It’s not an insult. You should see these women. They’re lesbian softballers. They’d look at me and say, ‘There’s a bland straight white man.’”

“Moron.” But I can tell she’s smiling. “I gotta go help make dinner.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

I’m about to click off when I say, “He was an idiot.”

“Whatever,” she says, then blows her nose.

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“You are my favorite lesbian softballer.”

She laughs. And hangs up.

• • •

The competing voices in my head vie for time.

Go out, Fin! Get laid, for Christ’s sake.

Stay in, Fin, read a book, watch a Ken Burns documentary, hang yourself as a result.

I arrive early and stand at the small bar. A place called Prune in the East Village. Couples wait for tables over drinks, wait for friends. Kiss, kiss, you look wonderful. The women in close, talking, making eye contact. The men at a distance, nodding, looking around the room. Rich, seductive scents, women in fitted skirts. Hips and thighs and long, milk-white necks.

A woman’s voice says, “You must be Fin.”

“Rachel,” I say. “Hi.”

She kisses my cheek and I go to kiss hers, but she is moving too fast and pulls away so that I appear to be kissing nothing, a Chaplin moment. She is out of breath. She says, “I need a drink, my lips are soooo chapped, I have to pee, I couldn’t find a cab, where’s the toilet? I’ll have whatever you’re having as long as that’s Tanqueray and tonic on the rocks.” And then she is gone.

I order her drink and wait. It arrives as she returns from the ladies’ room.

“How great is that timing?” Rachel says, nudging me, wide-eyed, laughing too hard.

Her coat and hat are off. She has an extraordinary mane of dark brown, tightly curled hair. For some reason it dawns on me that pamplemousse is one of the only words I know in French, and that I remember it only because it sounds ridiculous.

We are shown to a table. She organizes her coat on the back of her chair, bends to put her bag on the floor. I involuntarily look at her ass. She’s talking, perhaps to her bag, possibly to me.

“. . . but that’s the only time. So funny that you should pick this place,” she says.

“I know,” I say, smiling. “I really like it.”

“So you know Stefano,” she says, sitting, exhaling.

“I do. A great guy.”

“Such a great guy. We worked together years ago. I used to be in advertising. Cheers.”

We both take big pulls from our drinks.

She has taken time to do her makeup, her hair, her outfit. I can tell. Don’t let him be another loser, she has thought. She called a friend right before she walked in, for support. “Call me as soon as it’s over,” the friend said.

She says, “These things make me tipsy.”

“That’s the idea,” I say, smiling.

“Hey. No kidding,” she says and laughs hard.

Why are we talking like this?

“So you write for television,” I say. I make a conscious effort to stop bouncing my left leg. My hands are cold so I place them under my thighs.

She’s talking but I am thinking of her hips, her marvelous round ass in that black, clingy skirt.

“. . . and then I hooked up with Who’s That Guy? in its second season. It’s been great. I love that we shoot in New York. Have you seen the show?”

“He’s a sewer inspector who wants to be a poet?”

“That’s the one,” she says, nodding.

“It’s funny,” I lie. Stefano showed it to me online. It was awful. “I like the goat,” I add.

“My idea. Thank you. I just thought it would be funny. Goats are funny.”

“They are funny.”

I don’t know where to go from here. I sip my drink.

“That must be exciting, writing for TV,” I say.

“Fin, it’s incredibly exciting at times, let me tell you, but there are days where I want to hack people to death with a machete. These stars”—she makes quote signs with her hands—“are brutal. What a spectacular bunch of egotistical a*sholes, the lot of them, excuse my French.”

Pamplemousse.

“. . . wouldn’t ever get involved with one of them again. Huge mistake. What does your father do?”

“My father?”

My father is dead. My father is almost dead. My father left us. My father beat my brothers and drove my mother to death.

“He’s . . . retired. He was a police officer.”

“Ohmigod. So sexy. What is it about those guys?”

“I don’t know. But I have to say that my father is incredibly sexy.”

Mid-drink, she spits an ice cube back into her glass as she laughs way too hard for it to be honest.

She says, “My father’s a podiatrist. His father sold sturgeon.”

I try to imagine that job.

“. . . and still runs three miles every single day of his life.”

“That’s awesome.”

“I’m starved. You hungry? I could eat a dog. Let’s split the calamari.”

We order food. We order wine. We watch the absurd, awkward wine dance, the new glasses, the small pour, the taste, the search for the right words (“I’m getting a hint of . . . wine?”). She talks. About her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, about her sister’s divorce, about TV shows I don’t watch, pilot season, the importance of the executive producer credit. I listen. I nod. I drift.

Will we have sex tonight? Will we click and find that animal magnetism that makes one person want to bite another? Will we say things in the night, feel a closeness? Is this the woman who will be my wife? I love you, Rachel Levin. Will I one day say these words? Will I send flowers to her office for no other reason than that I love her? Will she keep a photo of me, of us, from that time we went to the vineyard/Costa Rica/Taos, tanned, smiling, on her desk? Will I nurse her through a nasty bout of food poisoning, rampant diarrhea, where her hair is flat and greasy and smells like the inside of a ski hat after a long day, her face pale, her breath horrid? Will we have pet names, use baby talk? Will I sit in shops and watch her try on clothes? Will I meet her friends and family, try and impress them, make them like me? Will I find her friend Tracy, the yoga teacher, sexy? Will Rachel see me looking at her lustfully? Will we argue on our wedding night? Will she cry? Will this be the woman I go to sleep with every night of my life? Will I watch her grow pregnant? Will I watch our child emerge from her body, bloodied, crying, sweat on my wife’s face? Will I comfort her when her father dies of a massive heart attack on the golf course? Will I be patient with her grief, months later? Will I say, instead, “Get over it!” as I wonder what has happened to our marriage, each of us growing distant, building walls. Will I think of taking a rental car and driving to Phoenix, where I will hide inside a Best Western for months? Will she cheat on me on a business trip, with a man twelve years her junior named Chad? “You really want to know? Yes, his penis was much larger than yours.” Will I cheat on her? Will she say, in the fight we have in the kitchen, after the affair is found out about, during the long, drawn-out argument where things are said that can never be taken back, when all our energy is sapped, “I wish I had never married you”? Will we sit in plastic folding chairs on the lawn of a university, exchange a look that cannot be put into words, one of deep connection and understanding, a pure human moment between two people who love and respect each other, a powerful cocktail of pride and melancholy and awe at time itself (“We were changing her diaper yesterday.”) as our daughter accepts her diploma? Will I stand over my wife’s grave and mourn, cry like a baby, wish myself dead? Will she do the same for me, if I die first? Will she remarry? Will anyone remember me twenty years after I die?

“Does it make me anti-Semitic if I don’t want to date Jewish guys?” she asks through a mouthful of sea bass. I open my mouth, as if to answer, but she continues.

“I was seeing someone for a while. Not Jewish. Whatever. I told him he could have a Christmas tree, a small one, but he wouldn’t do the Chanukah thing. Can I try that creamed spinach? Another Jew hater, right? My curse in life, being attracted to Jew-hating men. What is it about Irish guys and Jewish girls? Have you ever been to Israel?”

“No,” I say. “Have you?”

She nods, vigorously, gravely, over the lip of her wineglass. Big swallow.

“Mmm. Yeah. I’ve been. Every Jew has to go once, Fin. Gorgeous. The people, the country. Gorgeous. Paradise. If there were no Arabs. I’m kidding. Sort of. So angry, those people. Let’s split a dessert.”

Then, the crucial moment that comes on every first date in New York. A litmus test. The post-dinner drink or coffee or walk. Neither of us suggests anything. It’s over. I’m relieved. And I’m sure she is, too.

We leave and walk to the corner of First Avenue. The cold air feels good. I am not the kind of man she is looking for. I meet very few of the criteria on her checklist. She stamps her feet a few times to keep warm.

“Thank you for dinner. This was fun,” she lies.

“It was my pleasure,” I say. “I enjoyed it.”

A cab sees us and honks. I raise my arm and it pulls to the curb.

“I’m sorry,” I say, without realizing that I was going to say it.

“For what?”

“I didn’t try very hard.”

A smile spreads over her face. “No. You didn’t. Maybe I tried too hard. I hate these things.”

“Me, too.” We’re both smiling. Finally, a real moment. She kisses my cheek. When she pulls back to look at me again, something clicks, a neuron fires. She needs to double-check something. She leans forward and kisses me on the mouth, puts her hand on my shoulder. It is a passionate kiss, sexy and deep. It surprises me, delights me, confuses me. I think of Phoebe. Why do I feel like I’m cheating?

“Okay, then,” she says.

“Okay,” I say, opening the door to the cab for her.

“I’ll speak with you.”

“Definitely,” I say, then watch as the cab drives up First Avenue, knowing that we will never see each other again.

• • •

I wake early, lie on my side, and look out the window at the blanket of snow that covers the trees and the rooftops. It is still and quiet, except for the wind, the hiss of the radiator. I should go in to work. I should get an early start. Don’t think of it as a diaper, Fin. Think of it as a thing that could save humanity. A superhero. A political message. A love story. A comedy. Let’s get Jerry Seinfeld/Tina Fey/Al Roker/someone-from-The-Bachelor-or-Dancing-with-the-Stars.

Excellent, Fin. Brilliant, Fin. Jackass, Fin.

From the next apartment I hear my neighbor’s son, Henry, eighteen months, his muffled, high-pitched bird-of-a-boy voice, his parents laughing. I roll over and go back to sleep.

• • •

Later in the day. Ian comes into my office holding two coffees, puts one on my desk.

He says, “What’s the most famous Super Bowl spot ever?”

I say, “ ‘Mean Joe’ Greene.”

“Mean Joe” Greene was a football player known for his, well, meanness. In the spot, a beat-up, limping Mean Joe ambles down the corridor after the game, stadium empty except for a young boy, who is obviously in awe of Mean Joe. The kid holds a Coke. He gives it to Joe, who downs it. The kid turns to walk away, disappointed, and Joe says, “Hey, kid.” And tosses him his filthy jersey, which he’s been carrying over his shoulder.

Ian says, “Bigger. The biggest ever. The commercial of commercials.”

I say, “Apple 1984.”

He smiles and says, “Apple 1984.”

He’s grinning. It takes me a few seconds.

I say, “Instead of the girl, it’s a mother.”

He says, “Instead of the sledgehammer, she hurls a huge doodie diaper at the screen.”

I say, “It’s babies in the seats instead of drones.”

He says, “It’s either really funny or incredibly dumb.”

The Apple 1984 spot is legend. It only ran once, during the Super Bowl. Some people say it started the big deal about Super Bowl commercials. It was directed by a young Ridley Scott, whose career largely petered out after that, except for directing Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, G.I. Jane, and Gladiator, among others. In the spot, sixty seconds long, drone-ish people march in a gray futuristic world. A talking head—Big-Brother-meets-Stalin—speaks from a giant screen, a kind of indoctrination. Suddenly, something is wrong. A fit, blond-haired woman in red shorts is running with a sledgehammer. She’s being chased by scary-looking guys in futuristic suits and helmets. Very Orwellian. This is early January 1984. Rows and rows of near brain-dead drones sit and watch a big screen. The fit blonde throws her hammer and destroys the screen. A voice-over says, “On January such-and-such, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

I call Paulie and ask him to come by. He’s three offices away. When he gets to my doorway, I say, “Apple 1984. For this.”

Paulie says, “Dude, that’s so stupid. I love it. Instead of the sledgehammer, it’s a huge doodie diaper.”

I look at Ian.

Ian says, “Great minds.”

I say, “Great or sad?”

Ian says, “Maybe sad.”

• • •

We order in from the diner, grilled cheese and soup.

Ian says, “Maybe something serious.”

“Like what?”

“William McDonough.”

I say, “Finbar Dolan.”

Ian says, “No. William McDonough. Have you heard of him?”

“We went to junior high together. He tried to kiss me at prom.”

“You’re a fool,” Ian says. “He wrote a book called Cradle to Cradle.”

I say, “A cradle is something a baby sleeps in. See? I know things.”

Ian says, “There’s a saying in the environmental design movement, ‘cradle to grave.’ It’s about the life cycle of a product.”

“How do you know these things?”

“NPR. Anyway, William McDonough has this whole philosophy about how a product should be completely reusable. Cradle to cradle.”

“Make it a mini-documentary. Errol Morris.”

“Errol Morris.”

Errol Morris is an Academy Award–winning documentary filmmaker who also makes commercials. He made Fog of War, about Robert McNamara’s experience as secretary of defense during the start of the Vietnam War. Ian and I have been trying to shoot with him for years. Like many creatives, we are keen to validate our work by making it more than merely a commercial. We want to make it a movement, a communication. But we’ve never had a script he was interested in shooting. No surprise there, though, as at the end of every Snugglies spot an animated diaper hugs itself and giggles. The last script we sent him to consider was a takeoff of the Broadway show A Chorus Line (“One . . . singular sensation . . . every little time he makes . . .” If you’re sensing a theme of “borrowing” other ideas and making them our own by putting the most minute twist on them, you’re on to something.). His producer was very gracious, saying that as much as Errol loved the script—and musical theater in particular—he would have to pass, as “Errol is on an extended holiday in India, where he’s shooting a comedy with Adam Sandler.”

I say, “Too serious, maybe?”

Ian says, “Serious stuff, the environment.”

“Super Bowl audience, though. Straight guys. Drunk. Baseball caps on backwards. Guys who use the word tits, boner. Guys who use the word party as a verb.”

Ian says, “It doesn’t have to be super serious. Charming. Hopeful. Not unlike myself.”

I leave a message for Pam, asking her to get in touch with Errol Morris’s production company and to see if William McDonough would be interested. I also ask her to get in touch with Ridley Scott’s production company to see if he’s available.

• • •

“Fin. How do you feel about fondue?”

It’s Martin calling from Austria. A rough calculation says it’s almost ten at night where he is. I’d e-mailed him scripts, paragraph write-ups of ideas from the guys earlier in the day, highlighting Captain Underpants, William McDonough, 1984, under pressure/Bach, and talking babies but not E-Trade, as well as a couple other stragglers that weren’t good but that added to the length of the Word doc I sent, making it seem like a lot of work.

I say, “Warm stinky cheese?”

“You’re a poet.”

“How’s Austria?”

“Reminds me of Switzerland. Not far from the border, actually. What was that quote, Orson Welles’s character in The Third Man. ‘In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love—they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’”

I’m never bored listening to Martin. I hear a piano in the background, clinking glasses, silverware.

“You at dinner, Martin?”

“Friend has a place on the Gaschurn. I’m looking out over the valley, the lights, snowcapped Alps in the distance.”

I’m looking out over an avenue in midtown Manhattan, snow turned black. I have an intense pang of jealousy for Martin’s life, his intelligence and success and cool.

Martin says, “Captain Underpants could be interesting.”

“That’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d hear you say, Martin.”

“Could be the altitude. And the wine.”

I hear a woman speak French. Martin replies in kind, away from the phone.

Martin says, “Bach. Could be nice. Talking babies. Tricky. E-Trade. If you can figure out a way to make it original, fine. But they can’t talk like adults. William McDonough. Tell me.”

I start to explain who William McDonough is.

“I know who he is. What’s the spot?”

“Maybe a mix of interview and beauty shots of the environment. Maybe just him talking to camera. Errol Morris.”

“Bit serious.”

“We watched clips of McDonough on TED. He’s amazing. Great speaker, sense of humor. Won’t feel too serious.”

I’m waiting for him to mention the 1984 idea, which I both love and hate. I love it because I think it could be funny. I hate it because it’s someone else’s idea and I can see it being mercilessly criticized. I worry that it’s one of those ideas that you initially think is genius but that reveal themselves slowly to be idiotic.

He says, “1984.”

“Yes.”

“Has to be perfect. Shot for shot. Perfect but over the top. I don’t hate it.”

Which means he likes it a lot. I hear the French woman again.

“I’m on a plane tomorrow. Be ready to show Frank and Dodge. Tschüss.”

• • •

The team gathers to share where we are. Ideas will be killed. Two or three might live for the eventual presentation, which is three days away, the day after New Year’s.

Martin is back. He talks with Frank and another man I’ve never seen. Dodge is on vacation.

We sit at one of the conference room tables. Jill, Alan, me, Ian, Paulie, Stefano, Malcolm, Raj, Pam. Along the other side sit additional people I’ve only seen a few times and in some cases never at all.

Alan says, “Frank? Shall we get started?” Alan becomes nervous around Frank.

I lean over to Ian. “Who’s the guy?”

The guy is perhaps thirty-five, Japanese, dressed in a bespoke Paul Smith suit that does not lend itself to his portly frame. A fat King George knot in his tie, London-style. The tie is also notable for its explosion of colors. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, but the stubble is patchy fourteen-year-old goose down that looks like the result of a fight lost to a Flowbee. His black hair is a kind of buzz cut on the sides, creating a cupcake effect, the top frosting the recipient of a fair amount of mousse or gel or pomade or Brylcreem. His expression is severe. It could be my imagination but it looks to me like he’s trying hard to keep from laughing.

Ian says, “I don’t know, but he looks familiar.”

Frank waits for silence and then says, smiling, “What a group. I love you guys. Every one of you. To work over the holidays like this for one of the great brands in the world today.” He pauses and shakes his head slowly. “I love your asses.”

The Japanese newcomer looks askance at Frank. Surely he’s thinking, Did he just say “asses”?

Martin jumps in. “Well said as always, Frank. Before we look at the work, I’d like to introduce our good friend, Mr. Keita Nagori. He was in New York and was kind enough to drop by and join us for this review.”

Ian says, “No. It can’t be.”

I whisper, “Is it me or does Keita Nagori sound like a California roll with salmon?”

Ian says, “You make me cringe for you.”

Ian taps his iPhone a few times and holds it up to show me just exactly who Keita Nagori is. A quick Google search has Keita number twelve on the Forbes list of richest men in Japan. Keita’s father bought the agency last year.

Ian says, still whispering, “There’s a billionaire in the room.”

Keita nods crisply.

Martin nods to me to begin. “Fin. Please.”

I preface the ideas by saying we have a lot of good thinking on the table. I always say this. I say we’ve shared a lot of it with the account team already to make sure we were on the right track. I say, referring to the brief, that we feel we have a couple of ideas that could definitely be powerful, breakthrough, charming, funny, differentiating, memorable, groundbreaking, game-changing. I do not believe a word I am saying and am confident that no one else does either. They smile and nod politely, though. I notice that Keita is sitting forward, elbows on the table, leaning against his tented fingers. It looks awkward and uncomfortable, as if he is posing as a businessman at a meeting. He smiles briefly at me.

Each team shares their ideas.

Despite my initial excitement for the ideas, something often happens in the presentation phase where I am disappointed and slightly embarrassed by them. I make the mistake of assuming the flat expression on everyone’s faces is boredom. I want them to look like children upon seeing puppies. My guess is that Martin, Alan, and Jill are thinking of every possible thing wrong with the idea. How will the client respond? Is it remotely like anything else out there? Who could we offend? Are there hidden messages the trade press could pick on?

Ideally we should have had a month, not a week. Ideally we should have had another month to find the right director, location, and cast. The client sees the ideas in three days. They basically have to decide immediately. If this all happens—and I doubt it will as it’s simply not a feasible schedule—we would need to be shooting in less than a week. Which is impossible. But we’ll do it.

People like 1984 and William McDonough. But the idea they spark to is a new one. Ian came up with it this morning. Every baby we see in birthing rooms around the world—the U.S., Europe, China, Africa—has Al Gore’s giant head on their tiny baby body. Proud Chinese fathers and grandfathers look at baby Al. An African mother and father hold baby Al. Swedes, Koreans, Mexicans, Filipinos. It’s called “An Inconvenient Poop.” Okay, that’s not true. It’s called “Al Gore.” The voice-over would say, “Now, with new Snugglies Planet Changers, the world’s first disposable, biodegradable diapers, every time you change a diaper, you can help change the world.” Our online people are looking into change-a-diaper-change-the-world.com.

Frank says, “Can we get Al Gore?”

Jill says, “I saw him on 30 Rock. He’ll do TV. I have a friend at J. Walter Thompson and they were looking at him for something.” Frank nods.

Jill says, “Should it just be newborns or should we show toddlers, too? Toddlers are a huge market for us.”

Ian says, “Cleaner if it’s newborns.”

Martin says, “Pam. Any of these a production problem in the time allotted?”

Pam says, “All of them. But with enough money you can do anything.”

Martin says, “They’ll put money against this. Alan. Your thoughts.”

Alan says, “I think there’s some great work on the table. Truly.”

Jill nods aggressively.

Alan says, “It’s original. It’s ownable. I like that. They’ll like that.”

Jill says, “If I can speak to Alan’s point, let’s remember why we’re here: to do nothing less than revolutionize the diaper industry.”

Alan says, “That’s who we are. As a company, and as a diaper maker. It’s contemporary. It’s now. I love the contextualization of it. Gritty, raw, on brand.”

He’s lost the plot at this point and is just saying whatever pops into his mind.

Jill says, “Definitely on brand.”

Alan says, “We’re saying something here that other diapers can’t. Al Gore or the McDonough idea. Bold.”

Martin says, “Let me have a think. Thank you, everyone.”

There is a brief, deflated pause and people gather their phones and papers and stand and stretch. Still seated at the end of the table, Keita smiles and says, “I like Captain Underpants.”

• • •

Ian comes by my office.

He says, “How do you think that went?”

I say, “Good. I think it went well. You?”

“Not good.”

“No, me neither.”

Ian says, “I need a night off. Do you mind?”

“Course not.”

“I’d like to stop thinking about revolutionary diapers for a bit.”

I say, “Baby, you need to relax.”

“Please don’t call me baby.”

“Baby, I know all about relaxing. Let me give you a piece of advice.”

“Please don’t.”

“When the world is on your shoulders, gotta straighten up your act and boogie down.”

Ian says, “Stop.”

I say, “Livin’ crazy, that’s the only way.”

“You’re not stopping.”

“Life ain’t so bad at all if you live it off the wall.”

“You’re the whitest, straightest man I know.”

“I’m about to stand up and dance.”

Ian says, “I’m leaving.”

Later, I read disheartening stories online about drug-related kidnapping, murder, and dismemberment in Mexico and how it’s spreading to tourist communities.

The phone rings.

“Mr. Dolan? It’s Margaret Nash, from Cape Cod Hospital.”

“Margaret. Hi.”

“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all.”

Margaret says, “I’m calling because your father’s vitals have taken a bit of a turn, and while we’re not in a danger area, I did want to let you know. It’s cause for some concern.”

I look up to see Keita standing at my door. I hold up an index finger and smile.

I say, “What . . . what exactly does that mean?”

Margaret says, “It means we’re moving him to the ICU for a measure of precaution.”

I say, “Okay. Well, that makes sense, I guess.”

“Yes. Well. I wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you. Honestly. That’s very kind of you.”

I hang up and look at Keita.

“Keita,” I say. “Hello.”

I stand up and he walks over and we shake hands.

Keita says, “Fin. I like your presentation very much. Would you have time for one quick drink?”

Time to leave my nine to five up on a shelf.

• • •

Somehow it’s late and I am drunk, in the back of a $350,000 Mercedes Maybach, with Keita and a man and a woman whose names I do not know and who do not speak unless Keita speaks to them first.

Keita says, “Tonight we have a party of epic proportions.” It’s something he has said several times during the evening, a go-to line. (Mine’s “Hmm, that’s interesting.”)

Dinner was innocent enough. Gotham Bar and Grill. Then a series of bars on the West Side. The Standard, Pastis, Hotel Gansevoort, Soho House. The man and woman who are currently seated in the front of the Maybach secured entrée into each place and somehow whisked us past waiting crowds, got us seated at corner tables. Drinks appeared and were paid for without my ever seeing a bill or a wallet.

Keita says, “Fin. You are super awesome. You are like Darrin Stephens.”

“I am like Darrin Stephens, Keita my friend.” A not particularly clever retort on my part, but the best I can do at the moment. Keita, however, finds this hilarious. All evening he seems to find everything I say either fascinating or hilarious.

Keita says, “Fin. There were two Darrin Stephens. Why?”

“Well, Keita, that’s tough to say. Dick York, the actor who played the first Darrin Stephens, left the show. Then came Dick Sargent. Two guys named Dick.”

Keita’s torso hurls forward he laughs so hard. Loves a dick joke, apparently.

I say, “Here’s the best part.”

Keita’s drink was three-quarters of the way to his mouth but is now suspended inches from his lips. His eyes go wide in anticipation.

I say, “Dick Sargent was a fake name. His Hollywood name. His real name was Richard Cox.”

Keita squints. “I don’t understand.”

I say, “In America, we sometimes call someone named Richard ‘Dick.’ Dick Cox.”

Keita’s drink is airborne, brown liquid flying onto his pants, my pants, the floor of the car that costs more than the average American home.

I say, “Keita, your English is quite good.”

“It is good and it is not so good. The more I drink the better it gets. I attended a British boarding school for three years as a boy. One of the worst experiences of my life.” He laughs. “Do you speak another language, Fin?”

“No.”

“Of course not. You are American. But that is okay because you are super famous!”

“Yes, I am.”

“You have won many awards for your famous work.”

No, I haven’t. “Yes, I have.”

“And someday you will run the agency.”

Not a snowball’s chance in hell. “Absolutely.”

They’d lied to him. They told him I was the agency’s best writer. They told him I’d been the lead on many new business wins. Frank was jiggling change in his pockets (or possibly playing with his balls), staring out the window of Martin’s office. This was after this morning’s meeting.

Frank had said, “He shows up unannounced in the lobby. Thank God I was in New York. A sneak attack. It’s Pearl Harbor all over again.”

Martin said, “Don’t be daft, Frank.”

Martin was in his chair, fingers tented, the jet lag surely kicking in.

“Fin,” Martin said. “Keita has asked to meet our finest writer.”

I said, “And he’s on vacation.”

“The top three are on vacation,” Frank said to the window.

Martin said, “Frank. For Christ’s sake.” To me: “He wants to see how a commercial is made.”

I say, “Tell him to watch an old episode of thirtysomething.”

Martin says, “He owns the company.”

Frank says, “His father owns the company. I run the company.”

Martin, to Frank: “We all know you run the company, Frank. Maybe go have lunch or buy some nice shirts.”

To me, “Show him around. Let him sit with you and Ian. Take him to an edit session. He’ll get bored and go home.”

Frank says, “What exactly is a Rastafarian, anyway?”

Martin and I both look at him.

Frank says, “My daughter says she’s become one. She’s at Dartmouth. Spoiled brat. Fifty grand a year. Every other week, it seems, she’s home on school break. What the hell am I paying for? She used to be so sweet. Now she smokes marijuana in front of her mother.”

Martin says, “A day or two. Tops. You don’t mind being the best writer in the agency for a day or two, right? Nice work today, by the way. There’s a possibility Monday might not be a complete disaster.”

That was eight hours ago.

• • •

There is a bar in the back of the car and Keita is making drinks.

I say, “Do you have any club soda or ginger ale?”

Keita says something in Japanese and the car pulls over and the woman in the front gets out and runs into a deli, returning in record time with a bottle of each. One could get used to this. I gulp down the club soda and check my voice mail messages on my home phone.

Keita says, “We should go for a ride in a helicopter. See Manhattan at night.”

There’s a message from Dr. Wink. “There’s been a change in your father’s condition. You should come here now.”

I say, “I’m not the best copywriter at the agency, Keita.”

“Fin! You are too modest.”

“No. I’m not. Martin and Frank lied to you. They didn’t want to disappoint you. I’m just a guy who writes diaper commercials. I’m not even a creative director. And I’ll never run the agency.”

He looks out the window, sips his drink.

“Fin. Maybe do you know what my title is?” He’s still looking out the window.

“President?”

He turns. “Special Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer of Lauderbeck, Kline & Vanderhosen’s parent company, Tomo, Japan’s largest shipping company and third largest in the world.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. It means I do nothing, am in charge of nothing. I am the only son, only child, and disappointment to my father. And I will never run my father’s company because he thinks I am stupid. He buys the advertising firm to keep me busy. And then they don’t let me do anything.”

I turn to look at him and he turns from the window.

“F*ck them,” I say.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Whoever told you that you couldn’t do something. F*ck ’em. Course, I myself don’t normally have the balls to say that, but I’m drunk and I’m riding in a Maybach.”

“Fin. I like you, even though you are not best writer.”

“I like you, too, even though your title means nothing. But I have to go home now. My father is dying.”

He turns to me, suddenly serious. “Fin. This is a tragedy. He is a very great man, your father?”

“No. He’s just a regular man.”

“You admire your father? You learn much from him?”

“I once whined to a therapist that my father never taught me anything. The therapist said, ‘You’re wrong. Your father taught you everything.’”

Keita considers this a moment. Or not. He could be drifting. Although he seems to have a remarkable ability to remain reasonably sober.

“Fin,” Keita says in a stage whisper, “my father is a very great man. Very great. He say to me, he say, ‘You are weak and you must be strong. You are ordinary and you must be great.’ He is a very great man, my father.”

He sounds like a dick.

Keita says, “Fin. Do you love your father?”

“No. I hate him, actually.”

He smiles. “Me, too.”