Truth in Advertising Page 0,122

and put it on my desk. People would come into my office and say, ‘Ohmigod! Is that one of your balls?!’ And I’d say, ‘No. That’s my mark.’ Is that what you mean, Frank, you clueless, soulless douchebag?!”

Jill’s mouth is open, her fingers frozen in mid-text. Alan looks like a wax version of himself. Frank has a look that suggests I’ve been speaking French. It’s Martin who has the slightest hint of something that suggests pleasure.

Pam breaks the silence. “Dolan, I would fuck you right now.” She laughs and walks out.

I stand and walk out and hear Frank say to Martin, “Wait. Was he talking to me?”

• • •

Ian and Pam come by my office.

Ian says, “Well, that was interesting.”

I say, “Did I just quit?”

Pam says, “Quit isn’t the right word. But I think you went a long way toward getting yourself fired.”

Ian nods. “I’ll quit, too. A symbol of my loyalty. We’re a team. We’ll freelance. Even though there is no freelance. Or we’ll get great jobs at another agency. Even though there are no jobs anywhere. Maybe I won’t quit. You’re on your own. I wish you the best.”

Pam stands. “I’ve got shit to do. But one of you is buying me dinner.”

Ian says, “Raoul’s. Seven tonight. On Fin.”

• • •

I leave the office and go for a walk. I watch the skaters at Bryant Park. Are they tourists? New Yorkers taking the day off? They seem happy, skating on a Friday in the middle of the day. I walk across Forty-second Street and take a left on Fifth, make my way over to Grand Central. I go for a walk inside, I stand on the stairs and watch the crowds hustle through. Most walk while looking at their phones. Some wait by the information booth, by the famous clock. I watch them wait, watch as they look around, look at the ceiling. I watch as their friends or coworkers or ex-wife or brother-in-law arrives and says their name. I watch their faces change as they look up and see another human being they know. Watch their faces soften and animate. I watch a woman with a scarf on her head. It’s not fashion, this scarf. It’s something else. She is thin, pale. After a time I see another woman approach. They look to be about the same age, same height, similar features. They could be friends, but I get the sense that they are sisters. They hug and the woman wearing the scarf lays her head on the other woman’s shoulder, the other woman gently holding her scarved head. They stand there like this for some time. I have to look away. It is too much. It is the opposite of quiet desperation. It is connection.

I keep walking.

On Fifty-second near Lex I pass an open garage. Men pull shiny silver carts out onto the street. BEST COFFEE it says on some. The wind picks up. Farther north I pass a homeless woman pushing a baby carriage with two dachshunds in it.

Up Madison Avenue to Sixty-fifth and then over to the park. I walk down the stairs, and sit on a bench in front of the zoo.

I have worked in the same office, in the same building, noticing the same stains on the carpet, using the same bathroom, with the same people, talking about the same things, for eight years of my life. And yet I remember next to nothing of the detail of that time. Eight years. That’s 2,922 days. I recall a handful. Why is that? Why do we forget so much of our life? Of the morning shower and the subway ride, the coffee cart and the meetings, the slow, steady slippage of time? And as you’re going through the motions, picking up a few things at the market on the way home, unlocking the mailbox door, pulling on the refrigerator door that sticks, you wonder, Wasn’t it just last night/last week/last year/five years ago that I did this very thing, felt this very same way?

It’s cold but sunny, and when the wind dies down it’s pleasant to sit on a bench in the sun. I could fall asleep. I could sit here all day. I close my eyes, play the film. I play it slowly, watch every detail. I don’t try to push it from my mind this time. I don’t try to rewrite it. I don’t wince. I welcome the pain, a man who doesn’t put his arms out as he’s falling. I