The Weight of Air

by David Poses

  “Stella Weintraub and Associates. How may I help you?”

  “I need to make an appointment as soon as possible.”

  “Hon, I got bupkes till the middle of next month. You want morning or afternoon?”

  As I try to decide between morning, afternoon, or fuck this—maybe I read the sign wrong—the receptionist says, “Whoa. Beep beep beep. Back up. Today must be your lucky day. I just got a cancellation, first thing tomorrow. Can you be here at nine?”

  I take the appointment and turn on the stereo and connect my laptop. I dance in the living room to Eurythmics’ “Love Is a Stranger.”

  Jane comes home. I tell her about the incredible stroke of good fortune.

  “This is what I mean about your magical abilities,” she says. “The biggest headhunter in the city happened to get a cancellation for the next possible appointment at the exact moment you called? You think that happens for everybody?”

  We roll scotch tape around our fingers and remove cat hair from my nice pants and blazer. I try them on and like what I see in the mirror. Normal. Normal people get real jobs and dream of getting houses with picket fences, not of being impaled by a fence picket.

  Jane gets in bed. “You’re looking mighty cute in that suit.” She pats the covers. “But why don’t you take it off and let’s go to beddy-bye.”

  Kissing leads to touching leads to sex. It feels good and familiar. I stay hard until the finish line. Afterward, breathing heavy, Jane says, “You should read more Vonnegut.”

  A framed faded print of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers from an ’80s exhibit at the Met hangs on a beige wall. The paint is peeling. Mountains of folders rise from the floor—some with coffee cups at the summit, mauve lipstick on the rim. There doesn’t seem to be a corollary between the size of the help-wanted ad and the size of the office. I’m not sure who the “Associates” are in Stella Weintraub and Associates, but I know who answered the phone last night.

  In smoky Long Islandese, Stella says, “Take a seat, hon.” She taps my resume with a chewed-up pencil and reads it aloud.

  “Nightclub promoter in high school? Dual majors? Film and philosophy?”

  I make an aw-shucks face.

  An old-fashioned radiator gurgles. Stella tells it to “shut up. Mama’s in an interview.” She swivels in her chair and clasps her hands together.

  “You graduate. You temp for a while, but when you get the call from MTV, it’s a no-brainer. You’re thinking, This is it. Look out world. Here comes David.”

  “Basically.”

  “But now you’re here.”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “S’okay. Seen this movie before. How many headhunters you met with?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “Swear to God?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Dating anyone? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

  “Girlfriend. Jane.”

  “So while you’re running around like a chicken with his head cut off, Jane figures out that if you divide your pay by the hours you’re working, it’s bupkes. One day she says, ‘I’ve had it up to here with this cockamamie horse manure. I want to settle down and make babies, so get a real job or else.’ You call Stella. Am I right or what?”

  “She didn’t say ‘manure’ but—have you been spying on us?”

  Stella peers at me over her glasses and lowers her voice to a near-whisper. “Let me tell you this—99.99999 percent of the people I place are artsy-fartsy types. They work in movies and TV for years before they realize artsy gets you nowhere and fartsy pays the bills. But you graduated three months ago, and already you figured it out.”

  I think that was meant as a compliment.

  “What about computer proficiency? You’re proficient, right?”

  “Totally.”

  Stella lists hardware and software. I claim to have “extensive experience” with everything, including QuarkXpress, which I’ve never heard of.

  “You’re a real likable guy. You know that, right? You know you’re a likable guy?”

  “My mom says I’m handsome too.”

  “Mom also tell you you’re a little bit of a wiseass?”

  Stella pulls a card from her Rolodex. “You’ll fit in great at Saatchi. You’ll love it. Downtown. Young. Fresh. Hip. And entry-level positions don’t open up there every day.” She says to stand up and twirls her fingers. I do the same with my body.

  “Eh—what’s with the—don’t have a blazer with matching slacks?”

  “I spilled coffee on them.”

  Stella tilts her head from side to side and returns to the Rolodex. “You know what—you’re more of an Ammirati guy. You’ll like it better there. Uptown. Established. Sophisticated. Great client roster.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m in the Ammirati Puris Lintas lobby, sitting on a low black leather sofa with chrome fixtures. On a matching sofa across from me, two girls whisper about interviews they’ve had at other ad agencies, referring to them as “safeties” and “reaches” the way high school seniors talk about colleges. I stare at the floor. Carrara marble. Why do I know that?

  A woman in a gray suit steps off the elevator and goes for the blond girl, who rises with impeccable posture and makes eye contact while shaking hands. On the way to the elevator, she backhands lint off her skirt and mouths Good luck to the other girl.

  Another woman in a gray suit comes at me. “Kara,” she says, extending her hand. I grab it awkwardly, the knuckle of her ring finger and pinky—the way a serf greets the queen.

  In the elevator, she asks, “Is it warmer than when I left my apartment this morning?”

  “Probably—if your apartment’s in Saskatoon.”

  “Ha! Stella said you were funny.”

  In a large conference room, the firm’s work is plastered on the walls. BMW, Burger King, Club Med, UPS, GMC, Four Seasons, Iridium. Sitting across from me at a long table, Kara explains the position I’m applying for.

  “We call it a floater,” she says. “The person supports all the creatives, designers, copywriters, producers—all that jazz.” She breezes through the benefits: paid sick and personal days, bereavement time, maternity leave, stock options, 401(k) with match, medical and dental coverage, life insurance. “If you work past 6 p.m., the company pays for dinner. If you work past 7, you’ll get dinner and a cab home. After 9, it’s dinner plus a car service.”

  “Wow.” I hope my enthusiasm is believable.

  Kara glances at my resume. “I went to Tunnel once,” she says, the way you’d name a restaurant that gave you food poisoning. “I saw Michael Alig there. Before he got arrested for killing that guy, obviously. You didn’t have to work with him, did you?”

  “Never met him,” I lie.

  “Thank God.”

  “I never actually went to the clubs. My job was advertising.”

  “Come on, you didn’t want to party with the Club Kids every night?”

  “Do you want to eat Burger King every day?”

  “Touché.”

  After the interview, I imagine the conversation between Stella and Kara.

  “Did I tell you or did I tell you? The worst candidate I’ve ever met in my whole entire life, ever, period. End of story.”

  “He totally lied to me. ‘Never went to the clubs.’ There are pictures of him in the clubs in magazines and newspapers and that book.”

  At Jo’s apartment, the light on the answering machine is blinking.

  “Hi David, this is Kara from Ammirati. We’d love for you to join our team.”

  I call back and accept the offer.

  twenty-six

  Jane and I sign a lease on an apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It has a terrace and views of the Statue of Liberty. I use the remaining funds in my Smith Barney account to cover the first month, last month, security, and realtor’s fee.

  Our historically Italian neighborhood has a small-town feel: brownstones and row houses with impeccably manicured lawns on tree-lined stree
ts. “Coming soon” signs hang in the empty storefront windows on Clinton Street. We’re getting a bike shop, a bookstore, and various eateries. On Henry Street, between a bakery-café and an Italian “social club,” a new gourmet food store offers an impressive selection of meats and cheeses.

  The vibe changes on Smith Street, where a Mediterranean restaurant is the only business amid blocks of abandoned, commercially zoned nineteenth-century buildings.

  My mom takes us shopping for furniture, kitchenware, and other essentials. In Fish’s Eddy, she recalls the time when she was nine years old and my grandfather drove her across the Brooklyn Bridge, just because. “You remind me so much of him,” she says, blotting her eye with a tissue. “So smart, so talented, so capable.”

  Jane gets a job at a refugee resettlement agency in Brooklyn. Combined, our monthly pay will just about cover overhead. We open a joint checking account, and I volunteer to manage our finances—paying the bills and balancing the checkbook.

  We move into the apartment before any of the furniture is delivered.

  On the first night, we have sex on the bedroom floor. It feels good for half a second. Then I get soft and slide out in defeat.

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, baby, it’s okay. Don’t worry.”

  At three in the morning, I’m huddled in the corner, swollen with regret, watching Jane sleep. Sticky snores drip from her open mouth. In the morning, she takes a shower and emerges from the bathroom, naked, drying her hair with a towel. She slides her arms into a peach-colored bra, fastens the strap, and makes coffee in a jezba—a small, hammered copper pot, given to her by someone in Bosnia. Looking at the view of New York harbor from the living room, she blows into her mug of strange-smelling coffee.

  “Well,” she says. “This is where our life begins. Right here, right now.” She sighs and, under her breath, says again, “Right here, right now.”

  Kara meets me in the lobby. “Hope you enjoyed your last days of freedom,” she says, laughing. She takes me to a conference room and introduces me to Bill, a junior art director who started as a floater last year, and Patrick, a senior creative manager.

  “Technically,” Bill says, “you report to Loretta, but she isn't here today. Actually, the entire creative team is your boss. Don’t let that intimidate you—everyone hovering over you. Think of a floater as being at a buffet.”

  “No, no,” Patrick says, shaking his head. “‘Floater’ is a metaphor for ‘a piece of shit.’”

  I want to say, “If I’m a piece of shit, then the creatives hovering over me are assholes, which makes the entire agency a toilet. So fuck you.” Instead, I smile.

  Bill takes me on a tour, running through taglines in the elevator. BMW’s “Ultimate driving machine,” Club Med’s “Antidote for civilization,” GMC’s “Do one thing, do it well.”

  “They’re all Martin’s,” he says.

  On the thirty-eighth floor, Bill introduces me to Marge, a plump, middle-aged woman who sits in a double-wide cubicle across from a closed door with a placard: Martin Puris. She smells of grocery store sheet cake. Beanie Babies occupy the top of a file cabinet behind her. “Welcome aboard,” she says with a warm smile.

  As we walk away, Bill says, “You’ll know you’re doing something right if Kara asks you to fill in for Marge one day.” He lowers his voice. “If you’ve been here six months and you haven’t sat for Marge yet, start looking for another job.”

  Back in the elevator, we head for the fortieth floor. Even before the doors open, I can hear loud classic rock pumping out of the offices. Two foosball tables face a wall of windows with commanding views of Lower Manhattan. A mezzanine with a kitchen and a lounge connects to the floor below via staircase. Bill shows me to my desk in the hall by the elevator bank, across from a wall of offices.

  My new bosses introduce themselves and give me things to do. Nobody asks. They say, “I’m going to have you . . .”

  It doesn’t take me long to learn how to scan in stock photos and mount storyboards. Photoshop is tougher, but no one seems to notice or care that I’m retouching images with a user manual in my lap. My bosses dictate lists of research materials (CDs and DVDs) and have me fetch them. They give me receipts and have me fill out expense reports. I go online for instructions on how to itemize hotel taxes and tip allocations at restaurants.

  On Saturday, Mom calls. “How’s your job? Great, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s nice to have one kid I don’t have to worry about.”

  Mom recalls an incident some years earlier when Daniel refused to get out of the car in Greenwich and then yelled at us when we got back twenty minutes later.

  “At fifteen, how did he not know how to unlock a car door from the inside?”

  My recollection, which I don’t tell her, is that Daniel chose to remain in the hot car because he didn’t want the alarm to go off if he opened the door.

  Mom asks for my phone number at work. On Monday morning at nine, she calls. “Still loving it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, with Jimmy Connors, fist-pumping, 1994 US Open enthusiasm.

  “I hope you’re remembering to stand up straight and make eye contact.”

  The next day, Mom calls again. It becomes a pattern—every weekday at nine.

  “They know you’re hot shit, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m telling you—you’re going to be running that place soon.”

  A relatively new client files for bankruptcy and terminates its contract with the agency, which, in turn, terminates every employee on the account. A parade of my newly unemployed, now-former, coworkers lug boxes of personal effects past my desk. Some speak in halfhearted idioms you’d hear at an AA meeting—“one door closes and another opens.” Others talk of doing tequila shots.

  Dan, a floater and aspiring graphic designer, says, “Mass shitcannings are common at ad agencies.” He predicts another round in the near future. “It’s always been my dream to be a stay-at-home wife, so if I get shitcanned, it’ll be a sign for me and Jim to take things to the next level.”

  Bill urges me to put together a portfolio. “We work in teams of two,” he says. “Decide if you want to be a copywriter or graphic designer. Then find a counterpart and start pumping out campaigns.”

  “Who and what am I making them for?”

  “Anything. Doesn’t have to be one of our clients. In fact, it shouldn’t be. You want to think outside the box. Take risks and do the unexpected. But have fun with it. Unless you get to be creative director someday, this is the last time you’ll call the shots.”

  I make a campaign for Ducati Motorcycles. Full-bleed images of heavily blurred roads to show the perspective from the bike. Each ad has a date and time in the middle of the page in a small serif font, along with marketing copy: “Life is a short, warm moment.”

  Amy, a floater and aspiring copywriter, stops at my desk and looks at my ads. “Who did the graphics.”

  “Me.”

  “Then who wrote the copy?”

  “Me.”

  “We have rules for a reason,” she says, her eyes bulging. “You can’t design and write copy. And PS: when companies advertise something, they want it in the ad.”

  Patrick shuffles over. “Jeez, Amy. Who took a dump in your breakfast?” He flips through the ads and shouts “Bravo!” as Amy slinks away. He says she probably shat on your work to discourage me from showing it to others, so she could steal my idea. “Be careful, David. There isn’t a person in this entire insidious industry who wouldn’t kill their own mother for a three percent raise or a fancy title.”

  My face is buried in a pillow. For two minutes, the only sound is pounding flesh. No kissing or eye contact, no fondling. As I start to slide out, Jane grabs my ass and pulls me close.

  “Stay,” she says.

  I force a yawn and say I’m tired. Then I lie perfectly still with my eyes closed, which makes my body more restless.

  “David?”

  I
don’t respond.

  “Are you still attracted to me?”

  I don’t respond.

  “Do you still love me?”

  I sit up and tilt my head, putting a look on my face that says, “How could you possibly think I don’t love you?” Jane’s smile is unconvincing. My smile back is probably the same.

  In the morning, she points to a stack of unopened bills on the kitchen counter. “Do you want me to take care of this stuff?”

  “Not at all.”

  I bring the bills to work, and they sit on my desk for a few days. Then I throw them into a drawer.

  From the bottom of the staircase, Herbie looks up as if he’s at the base of Mount Everest. Nana says, “Come on, Herbert. Let’s go see David’s apartment.”

  He plants a hand on the banister and lets out a heavy breath, shifting his gaze to the floor. Jane and I walk up with Nana. In the apartment, she peers into every room and flashes an unimpressed grin. “Okay,” she says, and heads for the door.

  We drive to dinner at the Mediterranean place on Smith Street. Once his drink is served, Herbie gives me an envelope. “Get some furniture.”

  Nana tsks. “We should have seen the size of their place before you wrote that check.”

  “I said some furniture—and a decent set of clubs and a couple thousand golf balls.”

  “They don’t play golf, Herbert.”

  “Then blow it on booze and whores for all I care. Whatever makes you happy.”

  A disapproving look from Nana when Herbie orders another drink. He takes a sip and leans close, reaching for my arm. “How’s the writing going?”

  “I haven’t written anything in a while.”

  “Taking a corporate job doesn’t mean you have to stop being an artist. When you have the soul of an artist, you always find a way to create.”

  After graduating from college with a degree in textile design, Herbie joined the army, then opened a supermarket with his twin brother, Ralph. When they retired, weeks before their fiftieth birthday, they had built the biggest chain of supermarkets in New York City at that time. My mom used to think he opened new stores because he saw the walls as giant canvases.