Old Neighborhood by Avery Corman

Author:Avery Corman [Corman, Avery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7039-4
Publisher: Open Road Media

CHAPTER 11

MY NEW YORK-TO-BOSTON sexual fantasies gave way to Boston-to-New York revenge fantasies. The plane would crash, I would be dead—so there. Beverly would grieve and feel guilty and perhaps I might mess up a couple of New Year’s Eves for her.

“Have a nice day,” the stewardess was intoning when we landed.

“I guess we made it,” I said. She could deal with strange, red-eyed passengers in the morning. They had training schools for that. She just looked at me and said, “Have a nice day.”

I went straight to the agency, needing a shave, my clothes wrinkled.

“I want us to resign the Boujez account,” I said to Tolchin in his office.

“First of all you look like shit. And second, you’re nuts,” he said, succinctly.

“It’s cheap and exploitative and beneath us.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m just not in the business of doing that kind of work.”

“So don’t. You’ve got staff here. Someone else can work on it.”

“Macho and Lesbo. What are we, Ray?”

“Business people.”

“Let someone else do his advertising.”

“We can’t afford it.”

I felt trapped, nauseous. I tried to open the window, but we were in one of those modern office buildings with windows you are discouraged from opening. I tried to bang it open to get air. I kept banging. The stuck window and my general frustration came together and I was just standing there, pounding on the goddamn window that would not open, pounding, pounding.

Tolchin grabbed me and spun me around.

“Are you cracking up?”

“Goddamn window!”

“We can’t resign Boujez. It’ll cost us a fortune.”

“We’ll drink less at lunch.”

“Steve, it’s only a concept. They don’t even have the products yet.”

“Macho and Lesbo.”

“It could fall through. There’s nothing we have to do right now. We don’t have to resign the account.”

I had stopped listening to him. I was looking out the window. We had a good view from our offices, high up. From Tolchin’s corner office and from mine we could see north and south on Madison Avenue. If I jumped out the window I would certainly raise the guilt potential of my death. But of course I could not commit suicide there. I could not get the goddamn window open.

“Steve, where are you?”

“We’ve got good views. Good views, good suits, good desks.”

“Steve—”

I turned toward him.

“You give out little pieces of yourself and it comes back in the form of good suits and good desks.”

“I think you need a rest, Steve. I think you should stay away from the office for a while.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, and I looked around the room. “I’ve lost the theme.”

I told Beverly I would be working at home for a few days and I made work for myself, I read books and back issues of magazines. My presence in the house seemed to be of little concern to my family, Beverly was trying to conclude matters so she could get away for her summer, Sarah was going through a series of end-of-high-school parties, Amy was attending meetings on the end of the world.

Beverly and I appeared as a normal couple for Sarah’s graduation from high school.

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