Truth in Advertising (23 page)

“How do you know I was on a date?”

“Ian told me. Is she there now? Is she hot? Are you guys in love?”

“We're totally in love.” I pause. “I need to be younger and hotter and a skier, maybe.”

“You're not that old.”

“Thank you.”

“And you're not hideous.” She laughs.

“I'm so glad we talked.”

“What are you doing?”

I say, “I'm back up on Cape Cod.”

“What?” Her voice softens. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I got a call yesterday. There's been a change in his condition.”

“I'm so sorry. God.”

I have no line. I don't know what to say or feel or do. I'm simply watching myself, as if waiting to write my own dialogue.

I flip around the channels and see poor Dick Clark for the eleven seconds they let him speak before cutting to Ryan Seacrest. They keep saying it's the greatest party in the world, while showing shots
of people standing in the bitter cold of Times Square looking around, bored. There's a clock in the corner. Twenty-one minutes until midnight.

I say, “It's an awful thing to die alone. How does that sound, by the way, because I'm not sure I believe it. I want it to sound like an episode of
ER
.”

There's a long silence before Phoebe says, “You're a good man, Fin.”

It is strange the effect those words have on me. It's something my mother used to say to Eddie. It is a thing I feel I have not remotely achieved, as if it may be beyond my reach. Fathers on their way to the park with their kids on Sunday morning, when I'm on my way to get coffee and the paper. These are good men. Men in meetings who look tired because they were up half the night comforting a colicky baby. These are good men. Men who know themselves, who commit to a thing greater than themselves: a wife, a family. These are good men. How does one get there?

I watch part of a commercial our agency did for a drug for type 2 diabetes that has an unusually high incidence of death. The creative team on it told me that during the fair balance—the reading of the long list of possible side effects—they had had a week's worth of meetings about what shot to show when the voice-over says, “May cause death.” Ultimately they decided upon a man clapping for himself at his own birthday party. I asked them why. They said they had no idea. They thought it was absurd and pointless. But they told the client they did it because it was a metaphor for the celebration of life. The client loved it.

“No. I'm not. I'm not a good man.”

Phoebe says, “You showed up when it would have been easy not to. No one else did. That's called being a good man. You're touching your scar.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know you. Who are you going to kiss at midnight?”

“Myself. I'm going to make out with myself ferociously. Probably get to second. What about you?”

“No one.”

I start to say, “Okay, then,” but Phoebe starts to say, “If you were here,” only I don't fully hear what she says.

I say, “What?”

She says, “Nothing.”

I say, “Okay.”

She says, “Wait. One beautiful thing.”

I say, “You go first.”

She says, “A one-legged man skiing.”

I say, “See, that sounds like a punch line.”

“Shut up. You should have seen it. It wasn't like those commercials for people with disabilities where everyone's an Olympian. This guy wasn't good. He kept falling. But he was trying so hard.”

“Sounds like an episode of
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
”

“What's yours?” she asks.

I say, “It's nothing. You'll laugh.”

She says, “I won't laugh. Okay, maybe I'll laugh.”

“No.”

Phoebe says, “Tell me.”

I say, “This couple at the hospital. I was coming to see my father and I passed a room and I saw this old man sitting in a chair next to his wife's bed and he was reading to her. Later, when I left, I walked by and she was asleep and he was still there, but he was holding her hand.”

I think the phone's gone dead.

I say, “You're not laughing.”

“No.”

Three, four seconds.

I say, “Okay, then. Go kiss someone.” I don't know why I say it. I feel foolish for saying it.

Phoebe says, “I'd kiss you if you were here. On the cheek.”

“I'd let you,” I say.

•   •   •

The phone rings at 4:12
A.M.
That's how you know your father is dead.

I dress slowly, call a cab.

At the hospital, I am led into his room by two nurses and the doctor. He looks old and gray and dead and his mouth is slightly open and there is what appears to be white mucus around his mouth.

I reach out to touch his arm. I do it with my index finger, not really wanting to touch him, his deadness, but unable to stop myself. His arm is hard and dry and does not feel like skin. I did the same thing to my mother when she died, only I held her hand. This was when Eddie and Kevin and Maura and I were led into the room where my mother's casket was. Now, I am convinced for a moment that he will react, pull away. I snort thinking about it, thinking it would be funny. The nurse mistakes this for crying and hands me a Kleenex.

I don't know why but I imagine him atop my mother, having sex. I imagine him as a child. I imagine him as a seventeen-year-old who lied about his age to sign up for the war. I imagine him on the toilet. I imagine him driving a car and laughing. I imagine him opening a medicine cabinet, looking for aspirins, a razor, a Band-Aid. I imagine him opening an umbrella. I imagine him asleep. I imagine his parents looking at him as an infant, imagine what they themselves thought, felt. I see them smiling and cooing. I imagine him at twenty-five or thirty thinking that his entire life was ahead of him, excited, perhaps, by the possibility of it all, how wonderful it could be. I imagine him years later, somewhere in Florida, alone on Cape Cod, a stranger to his family, wondering how it had all come to be, impotent to change it, a constant refrain of sadness and regret. Where once time seemed to me to move slowly, languidly, now life seems to move so much faster, a speed that frightens me at times. One day, someone will stand over me like this and do the same.

Later, I sign several documents, all of which I am supposed to be given copies of but the copier is broken. The only thing I notice is the time of death: Friday, January 1, 3:42
A.M.

We've spoken very little, the nurses and I.

“Okay, then,” I say, unsure of what to do. I have no idea what happens to him now. Where does he go? Has anyone made arrangements for a funeral?

“I'm sorry,” I say to the nurse. “What happens now?”

“Your father wished to be cremated. It's on the admitting form.”

“Then what?” I ask.

“I don't know. That would be in his will, if he left one.”

Another nurse comes over—
SIMONE
, it says on her nametag—and puts a clear plastic bag on the counter of the nurses station where we are standing.

“This is for you,” she says. “Your father's things. His . . . personal effects.” She wants to sound professional. “Clothes, wallet.” She pauses. She can't think of any more nouns. “Shoes.” Except his shoes aren't in the bag.

In the plastic bag I see his wallet and an opened pack of Lucky Strikes. The logo used to be green, he told me when I was little, but during the war the army needed the dye for everything and so they switched to red.
Lucky Strike went to war
, the ads said. In movies where the art director does his or her homework, he said, you can see that the logo is green. And an old silver cigarette lighter, heavy, with his initials engraved on one side and on the other these names:
DUTCH HARBOR, ATTU, PEARL HARBOR, MIDWAY, ADMIRALTY ISLAND, BRISBANE, SYDNEY, BIAK, ESPIRITU SANTO
. I put it to my nose and smell it. The hint of lighter fluid. He always smelled of cigarettes. And there are brown corduroy pants with the belt still in the loops and black socks that I imagine smell bad and a handkerchief. Who carries a handkerchief anymore? And a plaid flannel shirt and a pilly dark green sweater. I reach in for the wallet, open it, and find $41. A twenty, four fives, and a one. Bills arranged front to back, high to low.

Margaret appears, fresh-faced, clear-eyed, starting her shift. We look at each other for a time and I think how wonderful it must be to share a life with her.

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” my mother would say when someone told her something interesting, something mildly surprising.
Oh, for heaven's sake. Is that right?
She loved him and held him and planned a life. I have their wedding album in my closet in my apartment on a shelf underneath a couple of old boxes. For a time, on occasion, usually late, a glass of wine in hand, I would bring it down and leaf
through it. On page after page, her pretty dress, her lovely hair, the tiny flowers, baby's breath, long white gloves, her broad smile. And him, smiling, too, closed-mouthed, forever embarrassed of his bad teeth. So much possibility. So much hope. We will have children. We will laugh. We will build a life and a family, fill it with rich memories, and nothing,
nothing
, so help us God, will ever pull us apart. What do we really get in life besides family, besides people whose job it is to look out for us? Whose blood oath is that they must never forget that? I would look at the pictures and think,
They knew nothing of what was to come
. I stopped looking after a while because it was like knowing an accident was going to happen but not being able to do anything to stop it.

How does it come to this? Not death, but this . . . this empty, nothing thing. A wallet, a bag of clothes. A half-empty pack of cigarettes. A Social Security card in laminate and a pension card for the Boston Police Department and a pick-up slip for a dry cleaner's dated two years ago and there, tattered at the edges, almost stuck to the leather, is a photo, in black and white, of Eddie and Kevin and Maura and me, sitting in a row, in matching sweaters, me a fat-faced three-year-old and on the back the date and the imprint
SEARS ROEBUCK
&
CO. PHOTO LAB. MAKE THE MEMORIES LAST
.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

Margaret says, “Mr. Dolan?”

I look up and smile at her.

“I'm fine, Margaret. Honestly.”

I put the wallet back into the bag.

“We're so sorry,” Simone says suddenly.

“Thank you,” I say, nodding. “Thank you.”

Milky light outside. New Year's Day.

“Happy New Year,” I say.

They force a smile. It's time to go. Except I don't move. And Margaret, sweet Margaret, knower of secrets, of the right way to live, early morning walker, maker of homemade soups, understands far sooner than I the simple truth that however far you drift from your family, however much pain they've caused you, however hard you try to run,
at some point, perhaps without knowing it, you end up running back. Even if it's too late. Which is why she comes over and puts her arms around me, a light embrace, gently patting my back.

I pick up the plastic bag, what is left of my father, and walk out into the blue-gray dawn. I need to call my family.

T
he train heads north hugging the Connecticut coast for a time. Late-afternoon light. I'm going to Boston. Tomorrow we are going to sit in a room—the Dolans—and listen to our father's last will and testament. Tonight, we will have dinner.

Now, though, sitting in the café car on the Acela, I wait for the conference call. The presentation is today. I told Ian I'd prefer to go to the meeting and call in to the reading of the will, but he wouldn't have it. I told Ian about my father when I got back to New York from Cape Cod. It was early, in the office. He'd come in with coffees. We were going to crack it. We were going to best the lame ideas we had. This was the Super Bowl and we were going to make a name for ourselves with this spot.

I say, “My father died.”

Ian says, “Is this a joke?”

“No. Real this time.”

“Jesus, Fin. I'm so sorry. You okay?”

“I'm fine. I'm tired.”

“What happened?”

“He stopped breathing,” I say.

“Cut the shit.”

“He was old.”

“Who else was there?”

“Where?”

Ian says, “In the room. When he died.”

“No one. He died in the middle of the night. Then I went over.”

“It's sad, man.”

“Yeah.”

Ian says, “Why don't you take a few days off. I'll tell Martin. He'll understand.”

“It's fine. It's nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“How long have you known me? How many times have I mentioned my father?”

“Twice,” he says. “Both times to tell me he was dead.”

“Exactly. So. He wasn't really a part of my life.”

“I don't know what to say. Have you told Phoebe?”

“No. I will, though.”

We didn't crack it. In the end, after two dozen more ideas from all of us, Martin narrowed it down to Al Gore and William McDonough, with 1984 as a distant safety. We were eager to sell Al Gore. Big shoot, lots of travel, great computer-generated graphics, work for two weeks in L.A., which would largely involve Ian and me playing Ping-Pong at the post-production facility and eating expensive dinners. And then we would win awards for our spot. That's how we scripted it.

I stopped by Ian's office before I left for Penn Station. “I'm off.”

“Good luck up there.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I waited by the door.

I said, “The Al Gore idea is good.”

Ian said, “Al Gore is good.”

I said, “The others kind of suck, huh?”