Six o’clock on Tuesday, an hour before Amy’s fateful TOB meeting, I purchased a weekly leftist newspaper and stationed myself across the street from the old building. I ate a tuna fish on challah while waiting for Amy to show up. I stooped behind and around structures, compelling the too-tight belt of my too-loose pants to dig painfully. I unbuckled it and waited. Slowly, strange sights appeared. Unusual men emerged. And they didn’t arrive in any of those tacky rec-room-on-wheels limos either. These guys came in chauffeur-driven Rolls or classy, old, English sports cars, which they illegally parked out front, fuck the parking ticket.
In some cases, they got out of private cars. Who were they? There were about a dozen in all, usually with at least one bodyguard as an escort. They were all white, older men, well-dressed with strange clothes, costumes of aristocracy, gold-capped walking sticks, monocles on small vest chains. In one overdone case, a Prussian-looking riding crop tucked under an armpit; in another case, right out of central casting, an antique wicker wheelchair: Old money smelled of geriatric urine. My belt slipped off my pants.
From out of nowhere, a bouncy rottweiler walked up the street and looked at me angrily as it passed, then squatted and took a steaming dump before proceeding on. Along with pit bulls and dobermans, rottweilers are the turnstile jumpers of the pooper-scooper laws. Before the commanding canine could bounce away, a cop car paused.
“Hey,” a rottweiler in a cop uniform called to me. “Clean that up.” He pointed to the poop.
“He ain’t mine,” I said plainly.
“Clean it up or I’ll give you a ticket.”
“He ain’t mine. Give the dog a ticket.” The cop got out of the car, halting traffic all the way back to Brooklyn.
“What, do you just carry a leash on you for kicks?” he said, spotting the leather belt in my hand.
“This is my belt.” I held it up.
“What are you doing here? Let’s see some ID.” Letting out a sigh of protest, I unfolded the copy of the Village Voice I was planning to get disgusted by, and shoveled up the expelled remains of the rottweiler’s last victim. Deputy Dog passed, and I resumed my wait.
As I grew hypothermic in my hot-and-cold guessing-game of hunches, Amy’s cab screeched to a halt before me. As she appeared, and the driver tore off her deductible metered receipt, I felt the tender scab of healing love rip open. “Amy, I love you,” I muttered to a mailbox that doubled as a conduit for my heart’s thwarting.
Not knowing what else to do, I figured that I should try to break into this odd little gathering and confirm once and for all that paranoia was not the central governing force in my life. Something was up. I had to go upstairs and find out what role these senior citizens played in my life. The old building had a main entrance and a large, metal set of janitor’s doors. I tried the janitor’s doors, yanking and pulling, struggling and wheezing. Then I went around to the main entrance. A near-dead security guard dozed before a dozen closed-circuit TVs and switches. I passed him and his seismographic snoring, and snuck into the only elevator in the bank that was still functioning. The button panel required key-access to each floor. Fortunately, the tumblers to one floor were switched to open. I pushed the button for that floor. Loud mechanical sounds from above must have heralded my coming.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FROM ‘HOW’M I DOIN’?’
TO ‘GIULIANI TIME’
AND BACK AGAIN
“It is both a reality and a bad dream, but its deepest reality lies, strangely enough, in its manifestation as a dream,” wise man George Kennan once said about another nightmare.
When the elevator door opened, I stepped into the dreamscape of a large, empty, unlit floor. Distant lights at the far end of the room illuminated a table. People were seated around it. As I approached my heart started fibrillating. I recognized Amy, the only kitten among a bunch of old toms. She saw me before I could reach the table.
“I’ve pieced things together,” I confessed.
An elderly man leaning on a golden, lion-headed cane rose from his chair and began a presentation in a strange accent: “The Whitlock Corporation was founded in England in the mid-eighteenth century, 1752 to be exact. Slowly, in the late-nineteenth century, it invested more and more in America. Finally it was rechartered here in New York. Now, economic domination has slowly been revolving eastward. Young man, this is not some petty frat prank. We don’t deal in vengeance.”
“Since the late-’60s,” a guy with a Van Dyke beard took the ball, “the Whitlock Corporation has made heavy investments in the Japanese economic infrastructure. Now the principal problem, as you must know, is that there have been many restrictions forbidding foreign investors in Japan, especially back then.”
“So?” I asked him. All eyes looked to one man who had been sitting in darkness the entire time. He suddenly flipped on a lamp. I walked over in disbelief and touched his face to see if he was real.
“Mr. Ngm, what are you doing here?”
“Am I not your father? Can’t you address me as such?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ngm, it’s just that…”
“The Japanese government,” he began, “was particularly worried about the future holders of this stock.”
“But what do you have to do with all this?”
“You must understand,” interjected the Van Dyke beard, “this money is locked in Japan. They won’t let us take it out. All we can really do with it is reinvest it and wait.”
“I am a member of this board,” Mr. Ngm replied.
“This isn’t going to end with a lion and a chicken is it? I know that story.”
“Whitlock is on his way here. He should be the one…”
“He’s my father, isn’t he?” I asked Mr. Ngm.
The group of men looked at each other strangely and silently. Finally Ngm spoke: “A secret clause was built into the 1962 trade agreement between the Japanese government and the CEO of Whitlock Inc. It stated that among Whitlock’s trustees, he had to accept a Japanese citizen. That’s when I was voted a member of the board.”
“What does all this mean?”
“The agreement also stated that a future trustee with quite a few powers would come to the board on his twenty-first birthday.” I was twenty-three, so I couldn’t be the Anti-Christ.
“Am I on Candid Camera?”
“The board of trustees, as you can imagine, crosses a lot of borders. National feelings at times run deep. We have an ex-U.S. president and a former prime minister on our board.
“So Whitlock, to appease many of the Americans on the board, agreed to have his son born in Japan and thereby be a citizen, but he counter-stipulated that you must be raised here…”
“America’s Wackiest Videos?”
“I assure you we did everything for a reason. The result was that you were from the sperm of Whitlock.”
“Am I going to be a patsy for some assassination?”
“I have a meeting in Geneva at 3:00 and no time left for this Oliver Twist crap,” said the dick with the Van Dyke beard.
“Mr. Ngm very graciously gave us permission on behalf of the Japanese government to delay your awakening,” the double-headed cane said.
“We were trying to let you grow up a bit more,” said the Van Dyke dick. “After all, we’re not insensitive. It must be somewhat traumatic to learn that you were manufactured as a stipulation, a voucher to a corporate agreement.”
“You’re not being entirely honest,” a new bow-tied figure added, staring at a distant figure behind him. Turning around, I could see him through the smoke and shadows. Whitlock had arrived.
“There was a force on this board,” the double-headed eagle added, “that did not want you to assume your seat, who felt you were mentis incompetence.”
“Incompetent!”
“This board decided that you had to pass a series of character tests,” Whitlock explained.
“Tests?” I asked.
“Character assessment tests,” said the double-headed cane.
“We wanted to see several things. Among them, we were curious if you would fight for Amy, and stay with her.”
“We were also interested in seeing if you could handle wealth,” Whitlock said. “That money I gave you was in fact the last test.”
“The money? You mean the half-million?”
“How did you handle it? Anything that happens here will be incumbent upon its full return.”
“I still got it. I mean, I spent a couple of hundred, but I can make it back.”
“Return what you have. You can make up the rest later.”
“Fine.” A McDonald’s binge, a tourist night in New York, donations on a subway, and the purchase of an illegal handgun up in Harlem couldn’t have destroyed more than five hundred bucks. I could get that much back selling my collector’s issues of Screw Magazine.
Whitlock vanished off to a distant room that I suspected was a toilet.
“How could you do this to me?” I asked Mr Ngm.
“If I told you the truth, it could have jeopardized your status on this board.”
“I don’t mean that!” I yelled back. What was the point of trying to explain what it was like never having a father? How could I articulate the lifelong ache of rootlessness? It was apparent that he felt uncomfortable. Besides, I had already reached overload. I rose and walked through the darkness of this empty void. Behind me I felt a perfumed presence—Amy.
“I can’t believe this,” I muttered. “This is unbelievable.”
“That’s why you were paranoid all your life,” Amy replied, and quickly added, “It’s also why you suffer from certain character ailments.”
“What character ailments?”
“Low self-esteem, manifesting itself in your selfish and sleazy nature. You don’t trust anyone.”
Suddenly it all fit together; she was getting even. “Amy, I’m sorry about our night of love and pain, but I don’t deserve this!”
“That wasn’t me. We never had conjugal relations,” she said.
“Deny if you must…”
“Remember that middle-aged lady in the waiting area?”
“What waiting area?”
“Of the optometrist’s office.”
“No.”
“Well, there was one there. Didn’t you wonder why I insisted you had to get an eye operation just as I was coincidentally coming down with laryngitis?”
“What about it?”
“That case of laryngitis left me completely mute two days ago, remember?”
“So?”
“Do I sound like I have laryngitis now!?” she hollered.
“No, but you could have gotten over it.”
“You couldn’t see me, and I didn’t have to speak to you. A body-double made love to you.”
“But why did Whitlock…”
“You’re Whitlock!” she hollered.
“You’re confusing him!” Whitlock yelled from across the sea of darkness. Members of the board were parting now; others roamed absently, perhaps senilely, around the darkened floor.
“My parents were a trade agreement,” I reckoned aloud.
“You were not neglected,” Amy interjected.
“Everyone in this room had some hand in your upbringing,” said the Ngm trustee affectionately. “We all had real concern for you. We would meet on a regular basis and review your life to try and find ways to generate and funnel love to you.”
“We reviewed video tapes of you,” said another misshapen slab of humanity. “We tried to get the right meals into your body.”
“Flintstone over here,” the Van Dyke pointed to the bow tie, “worried about your sex life. He tried to engineer a romance. He gave you a choice of girls.”
“What? When?”
“At a bar near Herald Square shortly after that phony-operation escapade,” Flintstone replied. I guess no one had ever told him about the children’s cartoon of the same name.
“You mean those three girls who weren’t Charlie’s Angels?”
“Yes, and you rejected all three.”
“They were paid for?”
“Actually,” Van Dyke snickered, “I commend the boy’s instincts.”
“Instincts?”
“In fact, you could resolve a small wager. How did you know they were all transvestites?”
“I refuse to believe this!” I yelled. “You’re all a cartel of out-of-work actors.”
“But I was your legal father, was I not?” Ngm approached.
“You ran a failing bonsai plant company.”
“That was a front. You never saw where I really worked.”
“Yes I did, I saw the warehouse—on Seventh Avenue.”
“We rented that space just to substantiate the lie.”
“Where’s Mother?” I asked anxiously.
“There, I had some problems. It’s difficult hiring a woman for a lifetime role. The woman who played your mother till the age of seven moved to Baltimore. The second lady who played your mother felt the entire idea of deceiving you was disgusting, and quit just as you reached puberty. The last person who played your mother died suddenly.”
“Ma died?” I asked. I had liked the last mother most of all.
“No, actually, she quit. Her name was,” he opened a notebook and checked a page, “Laura Burrell. She died shortly afterwards.”
“Amy, I beg you, tell me how much Whitlock paid you to make you all do this.”
“Not a cent, he didn’t have to.” There was a strange mixture of sadness and panic in those soft, moist eyes. Quietly she explained, “No one outside this room knows this, but my real name is Amy Whitlock. Dad and I…well, I am your older sister.”
“But, but…I love you.”
“I love you, too, brother.” I should have recognized it before; it made complete sense. After all, all love is merely a narcissistic projection. It was inevitable that I would fall in love with her. What else was Amy but me in a dress? Admittedly, the operation had brought out the beauty that was hidden within me. As I reckoned with the thought that she was my sister, I tried to neutralize the sexual feelings I had, but it was confusing.
“You are a full trustee member of Whitlock Incorporated,” Whitlock said. “Just sign some documents and then you can go.”
“You’ll be given an appropriate income, based on dividends, and a portfolio we’ve been keeping for you. Its worth is comparable to that of any other member, save my own, of course.”
“Why the job as a refrigerator repairman?” I asked, still trying to tear holes in their conspiracy.
“You needed a livelihood,” Ngm said.
“And you are hostile to corporate America. That’s the great irony. We truly tried to prep you for a place here. Hell, we tried to prep you for the presidency of the company…”
“Right!” I whooped. “And Whitlock yanked me out of the graduate program.”
“Yes,” Whitlock replied, “because we discovered you were about to drop out. We were hoping to create a frustration, to renew your drive to finish school.”
“How about Veronica, the Dean’s secretary? Why’d you…”
“Oh, we had reason to suspect that she was a member of the MOSAD, so we had to disengage you. We bought her off.”
“The MOSAD? The Israeli secret service, MOSAD?”
“If not them, then the Israeli lobby. We have reason to suspect they stumbled over the secret of your true identity while you were in Israel.”
“That’s insane!”
“Operation Turkish Delight was a strategy designed to defeat the Armenian Memorial Day Bill introduced by Senator Bob Dole,” Whitlock said. “I don’t know who Veronica was with, but once I agreed to use my political clout to kill the bill, she entirely lost interest in you.”
“The operations then! How about the corrective surgery?”
“There were no operations,” Amy replied, repressing a smirk.
“What?”
“Since birth, you had this self-concept of being small and ugly.”
&n
bsp; “But look, the scars!” I showed her my wrist and ankles.
“Those are only scars. Your height hasn’t changed, nothing really changed. You were given a facial and haircut.”
“How about the weight loss?”
“The weight loss was due to the so-called rehabilitative workouts afterwards, and the special diet.”
“We tried to make you healthy!” Whitlock appealed.
“Be real,” Amy said. “Do you really think I would force you to have an operation, or, for that matter, that doctors would operate on a non-consenting patient? It disappointed me that you were so gullible to this whole scheme. I actually thought it was quite amateur.”
“I found out about the Bismarck operations,” I shot back.
“What Bismarck operations?” Amy asked.
“You’re from Bismarck, deny it!”
“I am, so what?”
“I found out all about the operation to take nerds of the ’70s and turn them into corporate execs of the ’90s.”
“That’s insane,” Whitlock replied, rolling his eyes.
“But the Merlin Corporation is doing a clean up there!”
“What do you know of Merlin?” Ngm looked to Whitlock.
“I know it’s a division of Whitlock Incorporated,” I replied. They looked nervously back and forth.
“Hey, if I’m a trustee, I’m entitled to know what’s going on!”
“It’s nothing, just a nuclear waste clean-up unit,” Ngm said.
“Are all these fuck-ups just an accident?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Everything from Vietnam and the Savings and Loan bankruptcy to nuclear waste clean-up.”
“What are you talking about?” Whitlock asked.
“He’s a trustee,” Ngm replied, “and he’s also your son.”
Whitlock sighed and said, “Government debacles are America’s chief booming industry, son. Learn that first and foremost.”
“It’s essentially what we do here,” Ngm replied.
“That’s great,” I said, admiring the stench of it. It had finally sunk in. After a lifetime of despising these people, these modern day destroyers of Rome, it turned out I wasn’t just one of them, I was a general of the Visigoths.
Manhattan Loverboy Page 17