Joseph O’Neill - The Dog

Sandro says, ‘ If I fire him? I just did.’

‘In that case, I quit.’

‘In that case, I’m calling security.’

Another line borrowed from TV. Or maybe Sandro, too, has often dreamed of this moment and knows his script backwards.

I get the cardboard box I’ve set aside for just this eventuality, and I rapidly box my personal embossers and stamps and the other possessions I keep here, which are very few. ‘Here,’ I say, and with great satisfaction I toss Sandro my Batros employee’s ID card and credit card.

‘The car keys,’ Sandro says, wiggling his fingers. I almost forgot. The Autobiography is his, not mine. I hand over the keys.

Back at The Situation, the first thing I do is e-mail Eddie.

I’m sorry to inform you that, with effect from 12.36 p.m. today, I am no longer serving as the Batros Family Officer and related positions. Earlier this morning, Sandro capriciously and in bad faith terminated the employment of Ali, my assistant. This action, along with various actions taken and statements made by Sandro on this and other occasions, makes it impossible for me to discharge my responsibilities and/or remain in my job. I will happily provide you with more details, if you wish. Please note that I have not resigned. I have accepted the unlawful repudiation of my contract of service and am entitled to compensation on that basis.

I look forward to receiving your proposal of financial settlement.

Eddie responds within the hour:

Your resignation is not accepted old amigo. I’m in New York. Why don’t you fly over tonight and we’ll talk it over.

I knew it. When backs are against the wall, Eddie will come out shooting.

From the Belt Parkway, the city looks ragged. Manhattan shows in distant dribs and drabs. The three-quarters-built Freedom Tower, if that’s still its name, looks — I’m afraid there is no other word for it — unintelligent. I saw the Burj Khalifa at a comparable stage of completion. The Arabian spire had the natural inwit of a blade of grass. Its American counterpart, for all its massiveness, looks like a stump — a gargantuan remnant. From my inspection through the taxi window, I actually find it hard to accept that this protrusion is indeed the so-called Freedom Tower. The building seems, as I say, not without nationalistic embarrassment, dumb — a meathead tower. It’s not even that tall. Mistrustful as I am of the first impression; conscious as I am of my limitations as a critic of architecture; wary though I may be of the personal ruling: I cannot hold back a thumbs-down.

This is my first time back in New York since I left, four years ago/yesterday; it’s the first time I’ve set foot in the land of President Obama. My basic reaction is one of unaccountable infuriation. It gets under my skin that the Belt is as worn-down as ever, with the same potholes and, I’m almost prepared to swear, the very same orange-striped traffic cones marking off the same dormant roadworks. The same battered NYPD saloons lurk roadside with the same lethargic and dangerous cops inside them; and the proud, industrious Volk still drives around as if the Rockaways mark the end of the factual world. I’m being irrational, I recognize. To interpret is to misinterpret, never more so than when one is gripped by the prejudicial dismay that’s typical, so I’ve gathered, of the expatriate on his or her return home from brand-new Dubai, who must acclimatize to the older, stick-in-the-mud society of origin, and must be careful neither to overprize nor to overestimate her new knowledge, and of course must reconcile himself to the subtle pigheadedness of his native country, which will withhold from her any interest in, let alone understanding of or esteem for, her overseas experience and the value-adding perspective it has granted, and will not give an inch, and will force the returner from Dubai into one more contemplation of his inefficiency. So it’s not surprising that I’m exasperated as my taxi edges towards downtown Brooklyn and its Marriott hotel, and offended by everything, even the poor old sun, modestly falling into New Jersey. It holds itself out as a bright cloud, and does nothing wrong.

The psychologizer will say that something is afoot, and the psychologizer will be correct. This is J-Town, and I’m having Jenn-jitters. Even though I have no information as to her current whereabouts, I’m very afraid of running into her. I’m well aware that, in terms of probabilities, this is like worrying about being waylaid by Jerry Seinfeld — but guess what, I once walked right by Jerry Seinfeld, on Broadway at Seventy-Seventh Street. That’s why I’m spending the night in a Brooklyn hotel, because Brooklyn, in Jenn’s mind, is another extension of the Lehigh Valley, and a borough of shame. And it’s not only to avoid road traffic that I travel by subway to my meeting with Eddie: in Jenn’s mind, the subway is a zone of shame.

I don’t want to make her out to be a snob. She isn’t, or wasn’t; she was prepared to live in a rent-stabilized one-bedroom, after all. It’s just that she was involved in a quest for metropolitan dignity. This plucky, meritorious girl from ABE was trying to make good, and my job was to cheer her on and, when the going got tough, as it will, to cheer her up, i.e., to run out into the rain for DVDs, and open a bottle of wine, and lay me down like a bridge over troubled water. Talk about cluelessness. Talk about underestimating the loneliness of the viaduct. But what was the clued-in alternative? One still has no idea. One’s heart goes out to this young couple on the A train who drowsily lean on each other as they hurtle towards Manhattan and who knows what else.

He rudely shoves her: she has accidentally drooled on his shoulder. He’s very upset. He likes his jacket, and now his jacket has drool on it. He calls her a name. The train stops, and he gets up. She sort of screams at him to stay, and follows him. She’s pregnant, I see, this nineteen- or twenty-year-old Hispanic girl who wears very high platforms. The train lurches into motion, and she loses her balance and begins to topple over. Instinctively, I move to one side and catch her.

She shouts at me — Get the fuck away from me, asshole.

I’ve got my hands up as if it’s a stickup. I’m looking around the carriage for confirmation that this criticism is outrageous and I’m without blame and in point of fact saved the day. I get nothing but blank faces. Now here comes the knight in shining armour, the boyfriend, all fuck this and fuck that, and getting in my face, pointing and gesturing and threatening, and bitch this and cracker that.

‘What did you call me?’ I say. ‘Cracker?’ Now my face is right up against his. ‘Say it one more time. Call me that one more time.’

The girl is still shouting at me and making accusations.

I call you what I like, bitch cracker, the boy says.

Everyone’s watching now. Everyone’s waiting to see what I’m going to do next.

I’ve made a mistake. I’m looking at a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose-lose.

The train brakes: West Fourth Street. I get out, as if it’s my stop. The boy is yelling and laughing at me from the door of the train. His girlfriend is next to him, screaming with laughter and pride, hanging out of the door, standing by her man. I have brought them together. As they are pulled away, they mouth more insults at me and bang on the train windows. This will be one of the great stories of their romance.

I walk towards the station exit, sweating and shaking. I have to take care to not mutter audibly, because I’m thinking of things to say to the kid. Then another A train roars into the station. I can board it and be in the clear. Nobody on this train knows me: a new train is a new beginning and a clean slate.

Not quite. I’m still in New York, where I am ignominious.