Before You Go

by Tommy Butler

  It would be easy to blame my hibernation on winter, to ascribe it to some ancient, evolutionary instinct to bed down through the gray season, to lie low and conserve energy, but even my waking hours have been lifeless. A captive of societal inertia, I allow myself to be nudged through the motions of an estimable modern life. Go to work (though later than usual) and return home again (though earlier). Read email, crunch numbers, send email. Pay rent, fill cupboard. Whatever it takes to keep the organism alive. An automaton with a biological imperative.

  Essentially, I’m turning into Matt. Lodged behind his desk like a stone golem, my office mate seems only artificially alive—wanting nothing, needing nothing, perhaps even feeling nothing. I begin to suspect that he is a simulacrum, no more real than the island in the faded poster above his head. I want to reach out and poke him, to test whether he is just a mirage, but I refrain. As far as my interactions with Matt are concerned, a friendly jab in the arm would be a gross breach of decorum. We don’t even say good morning anymore.

  One grows accustomed to numbness—so much so that when Dean appears in the doorway of our office, I’m surprised when my senses discern the old fear in his eyes. I can’t tell if this is something new, or if he’s been like this for months and I just failed to notice. He hovers for a moment, a thin sheen of perspiration on his brow. I set down my coffee and dutifully wait for the completion of his flyby, but it never comes. Instead he enters the room, dragging a chair toward my desk and taking a seat. I don’t need to strain my foggy memory to know that Dean has never done this before.

  He has also abandoned his trendy jeans and sneakers in order to reprise his designer suit and monk-strap shoes—something else I hadn’t noticed until now. From the inside pocket of his jacket, he takes out a cigar and sets it on my desk.

  “I don’t think we can smoke in here,” I tell him.

  “It was going to be a prize,” he says, “for if you ever beat me at racquetball.” His tone is sunny, belying the shadows under his eyes. “But I got tired of waiting, so just consider it a gift. It’s Cuban. Take a whiff.”

  I run the cigar under my nose. It smells like dirty ash, though I doubt that’s the response Dean is looking for.

  “Smells like the soil, right?” he says. “Like its homeland. As if you were down there munching on tapas or whatever.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Just like that.”

  Dean leans back and crosses his legs as if he’s going to be here awhile, though he doesn’t seem intent on lighting up. I set the cigar aside, silently considering my options for its future disposal. Maybe Bannor would want it.

  “How’s Jennifer?” asks Dean.

  “Why do you ask?”

  He laughs. “Um, because she’s your girlfriend—and presumably my future sister-in-law.”

  “Presumably,” I say. “She’s fine. We got a dog.” I can’t remember if I told Dean about Henri. Apparently not.

  “Nice,” he says. “A black Lab?”

  I find it entirely predictable that Dean would assume we got a Lab, though why he would expect it to be black is beyond me. I’ve no doubt that Dean would hate Henri, who is inclined neither to perform tricks nor just sit there and look pretty, and who wouldn’t deign to pick up a stick with his mouth if you fetched it for him with yours.

  “Chihuahua,” I say.

  “Oh.” Dean suppresses a grimace, then shrugs. “Well, still.”

  He pauses—so briefly that I wouldn’t normally think anything of it, except that not only does Dean never sit down in our office, he also never gives me gifts, or asks me about my girlfriend. This bit of theater is a clear prelude to something, and after a moment he finally gets on with it.

  “So, Satchel has their board meeting tomorrow. The investors are coming in to discuss a potential round of investment. They’re going to need the audited financials.”

  “That’s fine,” I tell him, somewhat relieved. “We finished last week.”

  “Yeah,” says Dean. “They just need to make one last change. They need to move about five million in revenue from this quarter to last quarter.”

  My relief evaporates. “You’re kidding.”

  “No,” says Dean, his words coming faster now. “It’s not a big deal. The company’s booked about ten million for Q1. They just need to show five of that in Q4 instead.”

  “Q4 of the prior tax year.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t do that,” I say.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Dean says again, as if repeating it will make it true.

  “It’s lying to the investors in order to induce them to invest. That’s fraud, and it’s illegal. I think it’s a big deal by definition.”

  Dean’s sunny tone abruptly morphs into dark clouds. “Jesus, Elliot, don’t be so dramatic. It’s real revenue. They made the money.”

  “Then why not book it in the quarter they made it?”

  Dean starts to flush. “Look, if Satchel doesn’t show that it hit specific revenue targets in the last fiscal year, the next round of investment doesn’t happen. The investors will start calling in their loans, and the company will be done. Over. Bankrupt. Just because of the timing of a little revenue. It’s absurd.”

  “Why don’t they just explain that to the investors?”

  “Because that’s not going to happen, Elliot! And nobody’s asking you for advice. Just edit the financials. It’s not a big deal.”

  “You keep saying that. It doesn’t sound like the investors would agree with you.”

  “Elliot—”

  “It’s also tax fraud.”

  “How the hell can it be tax fraud?” demands Dean. “They’re actually declaring more revenue sooner, so they’ll pay more in taxes. The government should thank them.”

  “That’s not necessarily true, but either way it’s still tax fraud.”

  “Goddammit, Elliot! Just do it.” He jumps up from the chair, his face bright red, the sweat on his forehead beading more sharply. He heads for the door, then stops, apparently awaiting my capitulation.

  When we were in high school, Dean would occasionally ask me to help him with his homework. Normally this meant explaining some broad concept, or translating some arcane problem into a question with which he could comfortably grapple, but every once in a while he would simply ask me for the answer. For some reason, I never really considered this to be cheating. Maybe my moral sense wasn’t yet fully developed, or maybe it just never occurred to me that my brother would ask me to do something wrong, that he would ever value his success more than my integrity.

  I look over at him. He grips the doorframe, glaring back at me with a mixture of fear and aggression. Something in my chest that has been going cold for some time now finally freezes. Then it breaks.

  “I let you win,” I say.

  “What?”

  “At leaf-catching. When we were kids. I never counted all of mine.”

  Dean shakes his head in disbelief. “Who cares?”

  “You did,” I say. “You cared.”

  “Well, that’s sweet, Elliot, but now it’s time to sit at the adult table and act like a grown-up.”

  “You’re a prick.”

  Dean’s eyes go completely dead. His voice is low and withering. “I’m also the only reason you have a job and don’t still live with your parents.” There it is, the rubbing of this truth in my face. I’m surprised it took so long. Dean continues to stare at me, or at least in my direction—seeing nothing, really, other than himself. I can’t speak. I don’t want to speak. I want to pick up the chair and smash it over his head.

  “I’ll do it,” says Matt. I’d forgotten my office mate was there, which isn’t hard to do. His eager depravity is entirely predictable.

  “No,” says Dean. “Elliot’s going to do it. He’s not going to take a nap in the office today, and he’s not going to go home early because he’s feeling sad. He’s going to do his job, by tomorrow morning, like the client wants.”

  He turns and leaves—
no mangled aphorism on his way out, though I can think of a few that would fit. I look blankly down at my desk, waiting for my pulse to settle.

  “Matter of time,” says Matt.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dean hasn’t signed a new client in six months. If Satchel goes bankrupt, I don’t know who he’s got left. All of his dot-bombs are cratering.”

  “Dot-bombs?”

  “Internet companies,” says Matt. “The crash. Not even Dean can deny it anymore. Live by the sword, burst your bubble, as he might say. Though of course he wouldn’t, because he’s screwed.”

  My gut clenches, my stomach compacting into a mass of lead. I turn to my computer and log in to my investment accounts. One look confirms Matt’s report. It’s all gone, or virtually so. Thousands of dollars in savings have become hundreds.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  Matt laughs casually, almost haughtily, as if he saw this coming. “Dude, where have you been?”

  There has to be a mistake. I pull up the stock charts for the past year. The NASDAQ looks like a profile of the Himalayas—March is a soaring peak, May a deeply cut ravine, with another sharp crest in July. Yet the market was still at high altitude as late as August, at which point it became a sheer cliff face running straight down to today—maybe not rock bottom, but well below the levels at which I invested. Seven years of savings have been eviscerated in eight months. I was just too numb to feel the blade. The last time I paid attention to my investments was over a year ago. Just before Esther died. The only mistake was mine.

  And if my public company stocks are basically worthless, then no doubt my firm’s dot-com clients are completely so. If Dean’s accounts are disappearing, all the money I put into them is gone, too, along with any hope of starting my own business. Of course, regardless of savings, the idea of founding an internet company with my brother was a joke. But now even the dream of my own advisory firm is just that—a delusion. I have no seed capital, and no right to ask business owners to take my advice. What would I say? “You can trust me. I lost all of my savings in the stock market.”

  No, that dream is dead now, to the extent dreams ever live at all. And with the stock market crashing, it’s safe to assume that the job market will, too. Any thought I had of quitting suddenly seems naive, if not laughable. The moral dilemma posed by Dean’s demand no longer seems like a dilemma at all, but rather an inevitable result of “sitting at the adult table and acting like a grown-up.” The heaviness in my stomach grows, and my breathing becomes shallow, as if whatever oxygen they see fit to pump into our windowless cell is finally running out. Though it’s barely noon, I head for the elevators, making sure to avoid Dean on the way. I tell myself I just need to step outside for some air, though once I’m on the street, my feet begin to head for home.

  I don’t know why. Jennifer won’t be there, and I don’t normally ask her for guidance anyway. Though, now that I think of it, maybe she can help. She is an attorney, after all, and this is basically a legal question, or an ethical one, or both. Maybe she’d have some insight based on her training or experience. She won’t be home until late tonight, but that’s fine. I’m scheduled to meet Bannor this evening anyway. He wants to see the Manhattan skyline at night from the George Washington Bridge. I have yet to miss one of our walks, and I’m not going to start now.

  Unsure what to do with myself between now and then, I’m drawn to my apartment by a sense of familiarity, if nothing else. It’s Monday, so I’m not surprised to find that Henri has already pissed on the kitchen floor. I am less prepared, however, for two new details. The first is the presence of a man’s suit jacket draped over the back of our lounge chair. The second is a series of feminine moans escalating to a pitch I recognize, though it’s been years since I heard it last. I fight back sudden nausea and move toward the bedroom, where two bodies writhe beneath the sheets.

  “Wow.” My voice is dull, searching for anger or even glibness but finding neither. I stand in the doorway, trying not to lean too heavily against the frame. For some reason, I don’t want to show weakness. As if I were a dominant male in a nature show, fighting to keep his mate. As if there were something left to fight for. As if I actually cared to fight for it.

  “Jesus, Elliot!” Jennifer’s scream conveys mostly shock, but also a touch of annoyance. She leaps up from under the covers, which is remarkable because she was flat on her back with a man between her legs. His head, too, pops into view—small, glassy eyes peer out from an otherwise unremarkable face.

  “Dude,” he says. Really. Verbatim. I guess lawyers can be morons, too. Or bankers, or whatever this particular suit is.

  “Before you get upset,” says Jennifer, “let me—”

  “Don’t bother.” I’d rather not hear Jennifer state her case. There’s nothing she can say, of course. I’m not even sure why I’m still standing in the doorway, except that my legs won’t heed my command to move.

  “Elliot, this . . .” Jennifer waves her hand to indicate the bed or her dude or both. “It’s not a big deal,” she says, a phrase I’ve heard one too many times today already.

  “But it is.” I am only partially speaking to Jennifer. “It is a big deal.”

  “C’mon, man,” says the dude. “It’s just sex.”

  “And cheating,” I say. “Don’t forget cheating.”

  Jennifer drops her shoulders. “We’re not married, Elliot.”

  I can’t quite believe this is her argument. Isn’t it just like a lawyer to hide behind that kind of technicality. But I don’t mean to bash lawyers. I’m sure there are plenty of attorneys who are decent and kind and good. It’s just that I only happen to know one of them, and—as it turns out—I don’t actually like her very much. I did, though, at one point. Didn’t I? Maybe I liked us. Or maybe I just liked the surface of us, not realizing—or not wanting to realize—that the core was hollow, and largely empty, and vast enough that Jennifer and I could be both inside it and yet a world apart.

  On my way out, I pause at the puddle of urine on the kitchen floor. I realize now that Henri was protesting not my firm’s policy against dogs in the office but the presence of a stranger in my bed, which means that the stranger has been coming here every Monday since Henri’s arrival, at least. The cold leadenness in my gut spreads up into my chest. Normally, I’d gather a fistful of paper towels and mop up Henri’s complaint. But today I leave it where it is. I’m confident that I speak for both of us when I say that this is what we think of the so-called grown-up world.

  You can cover a lot of ground in Manhattan before it dawns on you that you might not be getting anywhere. I spend several hours spiraling crookedly out of the Village and into Midtown, at which point I begin to force my feet vaguely north and west. A few hours later, the George Washington Bridge thrusts its girdered gray towers into the open strip of sky above the Hudson River.

  A pedestrian walkway flanks the road over the bridge. I follow it out to the middle of the span, running my hand along the short railing to my left. Behind the clouded horizon, the sun is close to setting, and the day has settled into a brooding stillness. I stop and lean on the railing to look toward the city. Hundreds of feet below me, the river is the color of slate, reflecting nothing.

  Though I’m not the only one walking the bridge, there aren’t many of us. A lone jogger passes, panting heavily. A pair of tourists gawk at the skyline from behind their camera lenses. I am the only one hovering by himself out here at the midpoint, so it’s not surprising when I’m approached by a police officer with the Port Authority insignia on her dark blue coat. She slows down, giving me a kind but wary look that reminds me of Gareth on the first night of group.

  “How we doing today?” She smiles, though her eyes remain vigilant. Her hands hang loosely at her sides, as if she’s preparing to wrestle me away from the edge.

  “Fine, thanks,” I say, forcing a smile in return. It’s the old lie again—two lies, really—the smile and the words. I’m not fine. I’m not f
ine at all. But “fine” is our favorite lie. We all tell it, all the time. The question itself—“How are you?”—has been neutered. “Good,” you are to say. “Great.” Or, these days, “busy.” People don’t want an actual answer.

  Though, in fairness, this particular patroller may be an exception. She seems not only interested in my response but dubious of it. “There’s a phone about twenty yards that way,” she says, “if you need it.”

  The kind of phone, I think, that dials only one number. I wonder what they would say. What can they do, these well-meaning Gareths of the world? Can they fill the hole in my heart with anything that lasts? Can they alter the journey of my life? Or would they instead strive to change the way I perceive it? Would I want them to?

  “Oh, thanks, but I’m good.” Trying to ease the officer’s skepticism, I offer what I hope is a more sturdy alibi. “I’m waiting for a friend. He’s been wanting to see the city at night from here.”

  “Smart friend,” she says, the tension in her stance relaxing a bit. “It never gets old. I walk the bridge at night all the time.”

  “For pleasure?”

  “Sometimes.” She glances up at the darkening sky. In the distance, the buildings are just beginning to twinkle. “Not long now,” she says. “I’ll leave you to it. My name’s Rita, by the way.”

  “Elliot,” I respond, surprised by this personal introduction. One last play from the suicide prevention playbook, perhaps. Or just a friendly audible. I can no longer tell. The officer—Rita—gives me a nod and moves away, gradually disappearing along with the last of the day.

  By the time I spot Bannor’s approach, night has fallen in earnest. I can just make out the cut of his tweed suit, alternately brightening and dimming as he passes under the bridge’s procession of streetlamps, as if he were flickering in slow motion. His features are mostly concealed by the brim of his hat and the shadow of his beard. It’s not until he’s standing next to me that I notice how much older, and fragile, he suddenly looks. His face is drawn and thin, with dark hollows under his raw eyes.