She considered the order a moment, then leaned forward, as if conspiratorially, and also as if she didn’t realize she was displaying what was, at that point, anyway, her very finest attribute: cleavage so deep it shorted what few circuits my brain ever actually has. “I’d normally tell you a Johnnie Black—,” she said.
“In a pinch, I suppose, if it’s your finest—.”
“But I think we have a Johnnie Blue hidden away somewhere. I’ll have to ask our manager—.”
“I would most certainly make any trouble to which you ventured worth your every while.”
“It’s not my whiles I’m worried about, and it wouldn’t be trouble, although it might take a few minutes.”
“Ah, but anything worth enjoying is worth waiting for,” Angus said, then looked at me. “What do you say, my boy? Have you some time in your youth to spare?”
I looked back to the stage, where Tom and the guys were still dissembling the drumkit and packing away instruments and cables and pedals. After which they’d have to walk around, mingle, thank everyone for coming—“Yeah, it looks like I’ve got a few minutes.”
The bartender nodded and headed away.
“Ever had a fine Scotch?”
“I had my very first taste of Scotch a few weeks ago. My old boss gave it to me as a sort of Christmas bonus.”
“May I presume that by calling him your old boss, you’re saying that in addition to being your Christmas bonus, it became your severance package as well? Or are you, in fact, referring to the poor man’s age?”
“No, you’re right. I was working up at the New Yorker. But I was temping.”
“So interesting how the verbification of the word conceals its true nature.”
“I think I might’ve been starting to realize that. But I’d been there for, like, a year? I guess a little more. Anyway, I asked if I could come on full-time, but it turned out they hadn’t even realized I was there, and they decided they could save twenty or thirty thousand bucks by cutting the budget that paid me. Can’t say they were wrong. My boss gave me the Scotch as a holiday bonus slash severance package slash parting gift.”
“And was it a fine Scotch, or are we insulting my homeland?”
“Can’t tell you for sure. What little I drank I mixed with Sprite—.”
“My dear boy, that’s blasphemy, pure and simple. I presume, at least, it was not the Johnnie I’ve just ordered for us . . .”
I shook my head. “I think it was a Glen. Glenlivvey? Glengoin—?”
He held his hand up. “Really, my boy, you must stop talking. The pain you’ve done me so far I can attribute to blissful ignorance, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive your adding further insult to current injury. Tell me at the very least that there was a celebratory occasion for the consumption, and that you weren’t attempting to drown your sorrows over your lost—.”
“Oh, no. I actually was celebrating. I’d just finished a novel I’d—.”
“So you’re a writer,” he said. “I straightaway sensed some creative energy about you. I thought you might be musically inclined, but then realized that you would probably have been on stage earlier. I briefly thought you might be an actor—you’ve got the looks, not to mention the charisma—but you don’t exactly seem to crave attention. I’m not saying you mind attention, don’t mistake me, but you seem comfortable enough without it. Which leaves few other options. Painting, perhaps, or sculpting—.”
“Believe me, you don’t want me around sharp tools.”
“Exactly why writing seemed most likely, though if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re certainly in better shape than most writers I’ve known. The very act tends to lend itself to a sedentary existence, but you?” he said squeezed my upper arm to emphasize; his grip punctuation-quick. “Exactly. Trim and fit as an Olympic swimmer, and I’ll bet you’re not just any writer but a good one. I’ve got an eye for talent. Which brings us to the most important question one can pose to a writer, namely with what topics and subjects said writers concern themselves with. So tell me, dear boy,” he said, shaking his wrist to slip his watch from the cuff, “In five words or ten seconds, whichever comes first, what is your novel about?”
“Time travel,” I replied.
He raised his eyebrows. “You still have three words. Or nine seconds.”
I shrugged. “Don’t need ‘em. I mean, sure, it’s more complicated. It’s a hundred thousand words. But you want five, and it’s about time travel and what to do with it. Or at least, what the characters I was writing about did with it.”
“And what did they do with it?”
“You’ll have to read it and find out, won’t you?”
Angus laughed and did a little circular hand gesture as if in concession, and that was when a guy in a blue blazer over a tee-shirt showed up. His jeans showed signs of wear—contrast wrinkles and fraying—he hadn’t earned, but he carried with him a bottle. “Heard you boys ordered some Johnnie Blue. We don’t get many orders for the good stuff, so I thought I’d deliver it to you myself,” he told us, setting down before us two small glasses, then unstopping the bottle.
“May I conjecture by your personal visit that you’re the owner of this fine establishment I might call a tavern were it not so magnificent?”
The man smiled as he sploshed into each of the glasses a vital measure of amber liquid I could smell even where I sat, sweet heft with hooks. “I am. You like it?”
“Oh, aye,” Angus said as the man finished pouring. I reached for my glass, but Angus stayed my hand. “Not yet, not yet,” he said, then to the owner: “Might we in addition request a small glass of water?”
“No problem,” the man said as he turned to fill another glass.
Angus said: “Have you owned this fine establishment very long?”
“It hasn’t been here very long,” I said. “It used to be around the corner, on a side street. Actually on Grape Street. But it got so popular—.”
“Actually, they closed it. I’ve owned the actual building for a decade or so,” he said. “We used to be more of a dance club. But I partnered with the guys over at Grape Street when their lease ran out, and we took out a loan to renovate the place.”
“Which you’ve done spectacularly,” Angus told him. “The acoustics alone—.”
The man smiled. “That was kinda my pet. Trying to get the room to sound perfect no matter what sort of music was playing. Wasn’t cheap, let me tell you,” he said, as he slid the water onto the bar.
“Ah, thank you,” Angus said, and with that he dipped two fingers into the water, then flickered a few droplets of water into his glass, at the same time tracing in the air a pattern that would have looked like a priest’s signing of the cross if the cross were both ornate and Arthurian. “Just a few drops of water breaks up the surface tension of the Scotch and allows more of that delicious aroma to escape, which, need I tell you, renders a fine drink yet finer.”
The owner smiled. “You know how to drink your Scotch.”
Angus looked at me expectantly, and so I dipped two finger tips into the water and then flicked the drops into my own glass. “Your lack of subtlety makes up for your lack of finesse. But we can work on the latter easily enough,” he said, picking up his glass and holding it up just above the bar, toward me. I picked up my own and clinked his glass.
“To the New Year,” Angus said.
“Agreed.” He was right about the aroma; even as I sipped it, it seemed those hard edges had become sharp hooks. That scent could have easily become addictive. The Scotch itself went down smooth and easy, and I wasn’t sure, exactly, what I tasted in it: Oak? Peat? Smoke? The flavor seemed iridescent, one color at first that slipped into others like a chameleon on a roller-coaster, or perhaps holographic, moving around and capturing a tiny story in a single image. I couldn’t decide if I liked it, though I tried. It was too elusive. All I knew was I wanted to chase it.
Angus and I both set our glasses down after that first sip. Like there was s
omething in the Scotch that demanded it be enjoyed slowly. “Now that, my good sir, is a Scotch as fine as fine can be. I haven’t had a drink that good in many, many years. Nor an evening this enjoyable. I must commend you on knowing how to host a party. You can rest assured I will let my friends know about your fine establishment.”
“I appreciate that,” the owner said. “We’d be honored to have more fine connoisseurs like yourselves. In fact, why don’t you let me make this a double, on the house, simply in honor of the fact that you appreciate the finer things in life.”
Angus looked at me. “What do you think, dear boy?”
“Isn’t it, like, against the law to decline such an offer on such an evening?” I asked, and I smiled at the owner. “I think it might be a personal insult, in fact, and I would never insult you. We would be much obliged, and well honored by your hospitality.”
The owner laughed. “You sound like him,” he said as he added another splash of that wonderful amber liquid to our glasses. I swear I might have become intoxicated by the scent alone if I hadn’t already been there. “You guys related? Uncle or something?”
“Actually, don’t tell my new young friend yet, but I am a businessman about to make him the proverbial offer I’m hoping he will be unable to refuse.”
Which confirmed that he had not, in fact, been trying to flirt with me; his old world charm aimed at persuasion, a subtlety that removed from his business pitch both the business and the pitch, at least superficially, and which I can’t say wasn’t effective. I’ve read articles in books and magazines that the most effective way to pick up women is to remove the idea of the pick up from the situation; that the key to effective effort is no effort whatsoever. Take me, for example: if Angus had opened with his pitch—which even then I wasn’t yet sure of, keep in mind—I probably would have shut down. I tend to when I think people are trying to convince me of something, or even worse, sell it to me. I would rather do my own research and make decisions for myself, after careful consideration, which means that I am always inherently suspicious of salesmen. Not like I think they’re going to steal my wallet, but I know they want me to do something, and wanting me to do something is often the surest way to convince me not to.
But Angus had made me genuinely curious. Wouldn’t you be? Heck, aren’t you?
“Ah. Well, then, I’ll leave you two to business. Thank you again for your patronage,” the owner said, and with that disappeared with his bottle.
I took a sip of my Scotch, waiting for Angus to begin whatever pitch he had, but he did not. I said, “I didn’t think you were hitting on me.”
Angus laughed. “Even were I interested in the male form, and even if I hadn’t seen the way you looked after the young lady to whom you were speaking before we made our acquaintance, it’s easy enough to discern that I would have been barking up the proverbial incorrect tree, as it were.”
“You realize I’m probably not interested in whatever business proposition you’re going to pitch me.”
“I don’t know how you can be sure of that, especially considering you haven’t heard what I have to say, or even what I might be able to offer.”
“Unless you’re a literary agent, I don’t see how you’re going to help me any.”
“Surely you don’t believe that the only endeavor with which you might require the expertise of an outside source is in matters of literature and publishing? Given that you know neither the scope nor the range of my specialities, I’d request that you not be so quick to dismiss them out of their turn,” Angus told me as he reached into the inner breast pocket of his blazer, pulling from it a brushed-silver business-card holder from which he withdrew a card. He set it down on the bar and slid it toward me. I noticed, as he said it, though, he didn’t explicitly say he wasn’t a literary agent. “On the other hand, I would not expect you to trust me so quickly and easily, but if you take this card, and keep it with you, and call upon my services when the mood thereupon strikes . . . well, certainly, you have nothing to lose by accepting the card.”
I picked it up and scanned it. Just off-white, with black type embossed enough it shone, however vaguely, in the dim light. A handful of words: Angus Silver, Proprietor, Futures Trading, and then a phone number. “Angus Silver.”
“That’s me,” Angus told me, extending his hand. “At both your service and disposal.”
“Futures Trading?” I accepted his hand. “Like oil and steel and stock market futures?”
“My areas of speciality are diverse in nature and nearly exponential in number, but suffice to say that the nature of my business covers just about everything.”
“Sounds lucrative.”
“There is more than money to be found in the future, and that, dear boy, is where I come in.”
“Still, I don’t—.”
“Have a current position with any company? Really know what your own future is going to hold?”
Whatever protestation I had been about to make died on my tongue.
“I’m not asking you to commit to any business here and now. I’m merely asking that you put the card away, slip it into your wallet, and perhaps give me a call should you wish for some certainty.”
I considered the card. I figured I didn’t have much to lose even if I wasn’t exactly sure of anything I might gain, so I took out the cigarette case I use as a wallet and slipped the card between the cash and the plastic, and with that effectively ended the scene, because that’s all that needs establishing. Every scene should either reveal something about character or advance the plot, and now the plot is advanced; I took Angus’ card and set the story moving forward again. I mean, sure, we spoke a bit longer as we finished the Scotch, and then I excused myself, as Tom and the guys had finished packing the gear and I usually helped them carry it out to the van, which I did again that evening. After which we piled ourselves into the cars and drove to the afterparty, none of the fun of which can be adequately described here, so I say we just move on to the next chapter, which fast forwards a few days, and which will reveal Angus’ function in this story:
Chapter Nine, which is the one you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?
Because of course I got in touch with Angus. I mean, as much as I’ve built up his presence in this story? But first: I needed a job and had no idea what to do. I was lucky that my crummy Hoboken apartment was really just a room in the three-bedroom unit/ground floor of a house I shared with two other guys, which meant that my rent was ridiculous by most standards and positively ludicrous by those associated with Manhattan and its outer satellites. Still, I had a several hundred dollar rent bill due on the first of February, and while I had some money saved up, I’d still need a couple hundred besides.
I thought about calling my temp agency, Force One Entertainment, but decided to go to their office, instead; I liked everyone who worked there and was tired of spending time in my apartment. January might be cold, but walking in Manhattan tends to get one’s temperature up, and there are few more awesome places to be. So I took PATH up to Herald Square, where HMV gave way to the progress that is Victoria’s Secret, and headed uptown. Past glitzy-electronic shops with pocket calculator-sized laptops next to only slightly larger cell phones modified for web-surfing and e-mail receipt, because who needs a desk in the digital age? Up past Virgin Megastore, likely the last remaining on the entire island, then a few blocks East, to a building I only call non-descript because it was in the center of a Manhattan blockful of buildings nearly identical.
Elevator up to the fourth floor, with its two doors: directly opposite the elevator was the bookbinder, with a sweetsmell of glue and a sharper one of leather, then right to Force One.
I loved Force One, but didn’t often have occasion to visit their office, nor even to call it until very (then) recently; why would I, considering my long-term gig at the New Yorker? I got there in the middle of the afternoon, when it was full of both new graduates and the recently career-displaced, the former of whom wore, like their professional
business attire, anxiety like puppies hoping for a treat. The latter tended to possess a more deliberate demeanor, their nerves less result of worry of not finding a job but rather the right job.
That first room looked as much like a doctor’s office as one associated with an employment agency: the same bad prints on the wall, the same particle-board furniture on which sat semi-recent Entertainment Weeklys and a few copies of the latest Village Voice, the same half-wall beyond which the receptionist, Joanne (Jo to her friends) sat at a desk to accept incoming candidates and juggle seven or eight different phone lines. I approached that half-wall, ready to greet Jo (who had become my friend shortly after I had broken up with my fiancée, when we went out for obligatory, post-break-up drinks), but I stopped up short and surprised.
I remembered Jo as a pretty girl fresh out of college, sometimes with the same air as the recently-graduated interviewees, with a professional demeanor she was still growing into and which consequently sometimes bordered on terse. She was always chipper and humorous, teasing and halfway to flirtatious, and last I’d spoken to her had been just after what I had taken to calling the Great New Yorker Debacle of 2007, moreso because I thought it was funny and less because I thought it was true, but I realized it had been a while since I’d actually seen her.
In a little over a year, Jo had blossomed from fresh, new, somewhat over-eager and brand-new employment agency receptionist into confident, professional gal who could as easily have been the face of Force One Entertainment as its voice. She’d chopped her brown hair down into an uptown bob she’d dyed six or seven shades darker than I’d ever seen it, which was a few shades darker than her new glasses. She might have done something with her mascara or her eye shadow or something, I don’t know, but boyhow were they blue, hued to match the shimmery, tight turtleneck she wore. Instead of clutching the phone between her chin and her neck, she wore a headpiece like a hairband, with a slender silver microphone like a swipe across her right cheek, and she stared at a computer screen while she spoke and typed simultaneously.
Meets Girl: A Novel Page 9