And Sons (21 page)

LAX appeared in the distance, and Richard was relieved. The traffic had been light and they were early, as predicted by Emmett, who had begged for another hour of sleep. “Great, two hours of lurking in the airport,” he muttered from the backseat, his thumbs working a text. God knows what he was typing:
my dad sux
. Richard periodically checked on him in the rearview mirror, just to confirm he was still there. It was almost disconcerting how handsome and physically mature the boy had become. It seemed in violation of time. Six foot one and in need of a shave. Broad-shouldered with a narrow waist. A natural swimmer. And smart too, gifted in math and science. But whenever Emmett acted his age, which was often, Richard forgot that he came to this obnoxiousness naturally and wasn’t impersonating a pain-in-the-ass kid. The car approached the Delta terminal. Chloe dug into her handbag and asked if she needed her passport. Passports were the new craze at school, all the seventh-grade girls carrying them as if prepared for a sudden whisking to St. Moritz. Chloe had begged and begged for one even though they had never cleared North America, but over
Christmas they relented and she spent an entire morning styling herself for her big photo shoot. You would have thought she was a citizen of Fauve. Already the magic of girlhood was being mediated through the complications of becoming a woman, a far less knowable state for Richard. In the car Emmett fake-laughed and poor Chloe bit down on the hook and asked, “What’s so funny?” Emmett wiped his nose along the inner handkerchief of his wrist (the boy generated copious amounts of snot, which always made Richard worry about his possible blast count). “I can’t wait until you’re like nineteen,” he said, “and you’re like traveling to Estonia and some border guard checks your passport. You’ll be so embarrassed your face will crawl under the nearest rock.” Chloe gave a whiny rebuttal and Richard warned Emmett but Emmett was unapologetic. “I’m not allowed to get a small tattoo of a Chinese character representing strength and courage because I’m still too young, and hey, no big deal, I get that, I can wait until I’m eighteen, but Chloe here can dress up like a drag queen named Skittles for her passport photo?” Richard warned Emmett again as he searched for a place on the curb, but Emmett pressed further. “And I’m just saying that when she’s older she’s going to feel really really stupid.” Richard had to double park. “What’s that line from
Ampersand
, Dad?”—Richard hated the way Emmett said Dad nowadays—“
Give it time and shame eventually clambers back as pride
. So maybe when Chloe’s thirty she’ll laugh but—” Richard spun around and punched the back of his seat. “Shut the fuck up, please!” he nearly screamed. It was one of his zero-to-ninety outbursts. Instantly Chloe began to cry and Emmett sniffed as if ripping up a disputed contract, after which he opened the door and started unloading the bags with helpful spite. Candy smiled at Richard. “A good start to the trip,” she said. But she knew his battles, knew how fraught both sides of fatherhood could be, and for the most part her sympathy outweighed any frustration. “Take your time with the car,” she told him, squeezing his knee. Richard circled back toward long-term parking. As he drove he imagined heads exploding, which for some reason relaxed him while also confirming his general fuckedupness. The car went into the lot. Before leaving he gave the inside a quick look-over: there on the backseat near the crap-collecting seam was Emmett’s cellphone. The kid must be freaking, probably too
prideful to say a word. Maybe its recovery would spur amends. Hey man, you missing this? Oh, and I’m sorry. I’m kind of, well, anxious about going back to New York. Then, amid this fantasy, Richard thought, When had Emmett read
Ampersand
?

Jamie went up to the fifth floor of the Brill Building, to the offices of RazorRam and his old pal Ram Barrett. Ram had been a star at the Yale School of Drama, a promising actor and director and halfway-decent playwright, but somewhere in his jobless twenties he drifted into editing, specifically reality TV editing, and while he rode that boom into a very nice living, the career had taken its toll. Ram greeted Jamie awkwardly, as if five minutes earlier he had kissed Jamie’s girlfriend or had changed alliances. “What brings you here, not that I don’t love seeing you, I do, of course, I’m just, I thought you were eating peyote in Afghanistan, not to say you’re not doing important work, unlike me, God knows, but I have a family, and bills, and do they even have peyote in Afghanistan?” Ram seemed to plead for a cutaway from his face. “I need a favor,” Jamie said. He stacked the original mini-HD tape and the HDCAM SR tape on Ram’s desk. “I need you to cut these two together. This the beginning, this the end. Clean up the transitions however you think best, do whatever you think best, and then burn me a master. It’s maybe ten, twelve minutes of footage, all pretty self-evident, I think. I’d do the job myself but I’m too close to the subject matter. I need an objective eye, that Ram Barrett touch. And this tape here.” Jamie picked up the HDCAM SR tape. “I have no idea how it looks. The quality might be crap. It also might be, I don’t know, it might be kind of disturbing.” Ram perked up. “Coming from you that means something,” he said. “Do we have a title?” Jamie told him
12:01
P.M
.
and Ram wrote it down on a Post-it which he headstoned to one of the tapes. “I’ll get to it when I can,” Ram said. “I mean sooner than that, not like I’m some big shot or anything, but I am busy, yeah, with the latest episode of
Wall Street/Main Street
, but hey, busy is busy. I’ll try to take a look this afternoon.” Jamie said thanks. Back in the elevator he checked his watch and though it was only mid-morning he wondered if he’d ever have a decent answer to that question.

Richard headed toward their meeting spot, one of those awful airport restaurants that reeked of disinfectant, as if Mr. Clean were decomposing in the corner. He passed people milling about the shops and food courts, a parallel world of in-betweenness that was both drab and exotic, the word
terminal
suggesting possible engine failure, of these people being the last people you would ever see. But Richard was mostly thrilled by the moving sidewalks. It was like the future promised in his youth. A brief vibration grabbed his thigh. Emmett’s phone had a text—

—from someone named T-Bone. Richard tried to decipher the acronym but had no clue except that ;^@ seemed up to no good, and then Carson buzzed in—

—and before Richard could digest its algebra, Kelly checked in—

—but what the hell was b-door and 2Q2C and just when Richard was ready to stop a random teenager and ask his advice, Penny cleared things up—