Worthy Of This Great City Read online

  As expected, Ruth was invited to a private audience and aircheck in Stanley’s new front office, an accommodation second only to George’s vulgar decorator suite and certainly much grander than Jenny’s deliberately modest space. Ruth knocked, pushed in the door, and stopped in surprise at the threshold. Paused there, torn between laughter and disbelief.

  Thus they were lost in the stars. Two larger examples of those garish inspirational posters, the first Ruth ever encountered, were propped against the front of an immense dining table of a desk of some extremely dark, almost black wood. Stars drawn with precision on an intricate flow chart were sketched out in blue marker across the whiteboard covering almost all of one narrow wall. More placards, the smaller versions that would later migrate out to cubicles and conference rooms, were stacked on a central glass coffee table, and even more were displayed singly on various shelves so that the visitor could better experience the overall effect of rocket ships rising on effusions of orange cartoon flames, five-pointed suns resembling children’s gold stars, cratered but demurely smiling moons, and comets trailing silvery tails, all of it metallic and shimmering, expertly packaged, and hopelessly childish.

  Ruth toured the premises deliberately, pausing before each poster, reading the imperatives printed across those unlikely heavens. Finally, again in her own good time, she took the chair opposite her new boss and, sitting, presented him with an expression combining overt incredulity with minor parental disappointment. More of the same crap, simplified and better packaged.

  He nodded in comprehension, this apparently intelligent human who’d for some reason inserted himself into their presence hugging this adolescent excrescence to his chest when he must have known better? “I expect some skepticism. That’s fine.” That consistent amiability, that characteristic watchful tilt, while at the same time he made small encouraging gestures, urging her closer.

  So they leaned in towards each other over his broad desk like a pair of conspirators and set about reviewing her morning’s broadcast, Ruth and this outsider who was surely tasked with determining her fate. He had a small framed photo of a respectable blond wife standing with her arms encircling two amorphous teenage daughters. “I’m very impressed, you know,” Stanley said. “You have an extremely strong base. Well, you know that.” A wave of one wrist. “Two times Major Market Personality of the Year finalist. I gather that’s quite an accomplishment.”

  “It is,” she said.

  So onward with that same variety of dubious companionability, their two heads uncomfortably near while they played back her everyday intimate pleasantries, her polished formatics and laughing chatter with Bob and Leslie, her smooth liner readings and natural resets. Ruth’s on-air persona was always approachable, even slightly vulnerable although never enough to undermine her ability to represent homecoming and security.

  That initial review session went quite smoothly and Stanley had very few comments for her, none of them precisely critical. “You’re surprising good with politics, keeping it neutral, but try to tone down the sarcasm.” Really, that was all! But he’d just arrived; give him time. And then, “Sometimes you seem to be talking down or possibly even expressing contempt for your listeners.” A palm to forestall protest. “I know that’s not your intent.”

  “My God no!” That was unexpected and upsetting. “The opposite, in fact!” When? That couldn’t be true. What was he hearing?

  But afterwards there was no easy dismissal; instead Stanley leaned back into a corner of his executive’s chair and observed her for a few long seconds, as if making up his mind. Finally he reached forward and patted the top of the stack of glitzy paperbacks still confined in a block of shrink wrap. They were upside-down; she saw a photo of a bland young man with a wide salesman’s smile on the back cover with some bolded encouraging platitudes.

  “You get this idea?” Those piercing, shielded eyes angling in to her again, evaluating her response. “It’s all about taking responsibility.”

  And shifting his tight little butt in his chair he sat forward again, suddenly almost eager. “PHA has always been an informally managed company, but these remain difficult times everywhere and that’s why there has to be professional management, people with skills that transfer whether it’s to chemicals or automobiles or broadcasting. Employees for their part have to meet a new standard of professionalism. Everyone at this station will be held accountable for their attitude. Attitude is the key. Everyone working here is going to bring optimism and energy to every job.”

  Ruth thought about that one, vaguely insulted by the general thrust, the accusatory note. It was so familiar, yet so troubling. There was slight of hand there somewhere. She blurted the first response that came to mind.

  “That’s not Christian.”

  He started in surprise, frowned, then recovered his supervisor’s face. “Well, I consider myself a Christian and I don’t feel that way.”

  A week or so in the new management team appropriated an empty barrack of a space down on the building’s basement level, spacious enough to accommodate all the executives and staff on metal folding chairs around collapsible tables. It made for a deceptively casual and unthreatening ambience, like a church supper. In filed the support women from the neighborhoods, plump and nervous, and the entry-level types, all bouncy excitement, eager to properly integrate themselves. Such shiny young people with their clean minds and teeth and backgrounds, smiling around with cautious energy; identical products of irrelevant education, cursing the global economy.

  Finally in came the management team itself, a pleased, chatty group given to lewd jokes, orthodox religious beliefs, and reverently right-wing politics. All of them apparently believing in this stuff like it was the American constitution, or at least setting an example. Even George was there, in among the common people to signal his commitment.

  Stanley positioned himself at the front of the room, his feet slightly apart on the beige linoleum, repressing a slight embarrassment. He had one of those easels with a big pad of cheap blank paper. Taking a black marker he printedTAKE OFF! across the first pristine page with broad, dynamic strokes.

  “What do I mean by that? I mean that it’s time to leave the safety of the familiar, tired methods behind.” He stepped back so everyone could better view this principle, his eyes assessing audience acceptance. The letters unfortunately slanted downwards.

  Turning over that page and writing on a fresh one, more strong downward strokes from a marker that squeaked:ATTITUDE DETERMINES OUTCOME! This time misjudging on size, having to squish in the final word. Everyone inferior to him in the company was enjoying this evidence of fallibility.

  “Science tells us this. Philosophers have made this identical statement from ancient times. Psychologists insist on this same basic truth. We each define our own circumstances; this isn’t just words – we do literally create our own worlds. Your success is the result of the attitude you bring into this office every single day, your commitment, your confidence, your optimism, your belief in our mission statement, and ultimately your belief in yourself.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Ruth was seated in an intentionally diverse group comprising two promotions people, the full-time receptionist, an apparently content Jenny, and Sara the personal assistant who was exhibiting more enthusiasm than the total handful of executives combined.

  Supportive, patient glances from the group. “You have to give it a chance,” Sara said.

  “If I were a cartoon, there would have been steam coming out of my ears. The incomprehensible stupidity. The blatant, manipulative misuse of the concept!”

  “Surely you’ve heard this kind of spiel before?”

  “Well yeah, of course, but theoretically, not like a personal accusation. I mean, you can’t imagine how barefaced offensive it was, like we were stupid little children who couldn’t handle our own lives.”

  Here are two random Ruth anecdotes dating from this same period, the month or so preceding the Folk Fest fiasco.

&nb
sp; One: “I would wake up just before dawn physically terrified, knowing how in the end I’d be nothing but bones. It must have been out of a recurring dream, seeing my own skull and like skeleton pieces. I could sort of remember that image. Stark truth. Your kind of truth.”

  Two: “I was at my desk (she had a third of a fairly large office) kind of daydreaming, staring at the light coming through the blinds, and I had a vision, for want of a better term. Suddenly I was staring at this dog, this pit bull with that squat body they have, but it was glaring up at me from an angle so it was all prominent head and jaw and these incredible fangs. It was the essence of rage. I knew it symbolized just pure rage and I immediately recognized it as my own soul.”

  REFLECT THE STARLIGHT!

  Stanley managed to inscribe this third dictum with reasonable tidiness, then broadened and deepened the exclamation point, really digging into the cheap paper. “Nobody shines alone. When we try to outshine others we always end up harming ourselves. But when we help others to do their best work we support our own success. That means no one ever has to be afraid, there’s no need to hide your questions or mistakes when there’s no competition.”

  This drew a little snickering from the office guys, but they promptly pulled themselves back into reality and expressed their agreement with identical nods of fair consideration.

  “Three principles. We’ll be having more training sessions, and you’re going to find them intense. Or I hope so, anyway. You’ll be asked to examine your behavior. You’ll learn techniques for dealing with each other and you’ll learn to structure your time. And at the end of every workday, before you leave this office, each of you will email your supervisor examples of how you’ve enacted each of these three principles that day. You will briefly assess your mood, your level of interest and enthusiasm and whether or not it was all it should have been: distracted or bored or otherwise not fully present and focused on your job. You will note what steps you intend to employ in the future to correct your frame of mind.”

  “It’s just like remolding.” Ruth exclaimed. “Confess to your local cadre.”

  But the station was officially taking the recovery approach, and you were expected to buy into the narrative just as though you’d knocked on the therapist’s door in happy synchronicity.

  Back in the relative haven of her own space, Ruth placed a fresh mug of coffee atop a pile of outdated anonymous crap decorated with yellow sticky notes and marginalia and doodles before hurriedly perusing the latest typical Sara email: Our exciting new era opens! Stand by for more information on how to put REACH FOR THE STARS into practice!

  Impulsively emailing Bob Levine, her occasionally supportive fake sidekick: Thank God this crap has such incredible entertainment value! Sending this out in relief even though, knowing Bob, she didn’t anticipate more than a brief “Ha!” of acknowledgment.

  I’m glad you find me amusing, Ruth. However I think you need to be more careful with your email. I’m sure we don’t want to make an issue of this.

  “My stomach dropped.”

  Sara, not you too! With shaking fingers, as if not utterly demoralized, as if she’d intended to reply to the wretched toady. But you should understand that my objections are very real. Clearly my personal beliefs should under no circumstances interfere with my work. And clearly, vice versa?”

  Which exchange lingered in tense abeyance a full anxious month before eventuating in an unscheduled invitation to Stanley’s office, where Ruth discovered both Sara and Valerie Zhang from Human Resources, a deceptively compliant young woman, not that that mattered. Which ominous assemblage signified an official warning, the initiation of a formal policy.

  In lieu of thinking, Ruth offered in mitigation: “Well, my father’s dying.” This was true.

  Officialdom exchanged glances, allowing her some moments of silence to sit there opposite Stanley in his fantasy kingdom, Ruth maintaining the demeanor of a vaguely amused equal while he quietly watched her from deep back in his chair.

  Finally speaking quite reasonably, anxious to address her valid concerns. “I understand that you might not agree with this program. Which is fine, as I told you before. But it’s not to anyone’s advantage to undermine a company effort.”

  And then, as if suddenly deciding to confer a special, deserved trust, he permitted himself a salesman’s confidential smile and leaned in towards her. “We think this is a valuable concept for those who maybe aren’t as sophisticated as you or I, who haven’t been taught to examine their own attitudes and their impact on others or who’ve never really had to take responsibility for their own lives.”

  Ruth drew back instinctively, her contempt wonderfully justified.

  “I understand responsibility,” she said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Crystal was twisting her torso like an excited little girl, a clump of hair drifting into her wine glass. I set down my drink, captured those drunken strands, and ostentatiously ran my fingers down their length. She gave an indelicate snort, tipsy but unintentionally adorable, dissolving any potential censure. Then her head jerked up and she eyes widened.

  “Holy shit! Look who’s here.” A supposedly discreet nod towards a circumspect corner group, barely visible past another convivial party being shepherded to a booth. We were at a moderately upscale venue given over for the evening to a children’s charity event with local celebrities acting as servers: politicians, news media, sports figures, all that sort of professional personality.

  Where Crystal was doing me proud despite some mildly borderline behavior, delicious in an obviously expensive but suitably ladylike blue silk thing that folded over itself like origami. And I was in a mellow mood anyway from the fine wine and excellent food and the satisfaction of observing my betters supporting a worthy cause.

  Luigi’s is relaxed and not really exorbitant; casual by calculation, you know? But even so the familiar South Philly strategy was a genuine reflection of Luigi himself: hardly one of today’s elite celebrity chefs but an established neighborhood luminary, an egregious, unabashed exhibitionist who surely would have suffocated in a more formal environment. His venerable Catherine Street restaurant exuded a comfortable reliability, an air of acquired tradition with nothing further to prove. Of course it was pasted over with the requisite photos of Luigi himself beaming next to Sinatra and Rizzo, Wilt Chamberlain and Joe Frazier, Daryl Hall and Patti LaBelle, Ed Rendell from when he was mayor and a hundred other such cherished or notorious figures, dozens of them covering the walls of the entry lounge so right away you knew exactly where you were, as was fitting. It was very natural but still just a front: Luigi’s was only pretending to be itself. What you missed was how the décor took clever advantage of an arrogant relaxed attitude to cover recent financial constraints, implying a kind of reactionary disintegration where an honored tear or gouge was more precious than anything flashy and new. The place virtually flaunted its lack of pretension: woods were highly polished but cracked and creaking, deep windowsills concealed grungy corners, tasseled tie-backs confined heavy rose-colored drapery with visible shiny patches, and banquettes upholstered in striped fabric showed insignificant stains. Which said, the table linens were uniformly pristine, the glassware sparkled.

  “Can I interest you in coffee or dessert?” The mayor of the great city of Philadelphia, that true prince of thieves and our server for the evening, materialized beside our table wearing a waiter’s apron over his dinner jacket and offered a menu sheet printed for the occasion. Our mayor is small and extremely quiet-spoken, which lends him a false authority.

  “Right there!” Crystal continued, not meaning to ignore His Honor but simply unable to switch herself off her particular track in time. I looked, wondering who could claim such rapt attention in a room positively swarming with regional icons.

  “Ah, you’ve noticed the heartwarming family party in the corner.” Thom paused behind Crystal’s chair on the way to or from one of his own tables. He was identically clad in traditional waiter’s gar
b; beside our mayor, twin servitors prudently shielding an indiscreet sovereign.

  Maybe there’d been confusion over the date? It was certainly an appropriate restaurant but this sure as hell wasn’t Manetti’s kind of crowd. There he was though, Jimmy Manetti, keeping well out of the excitement back in a shaded recess, a kind of raised side chapel containing only the one large round table where he attended to his companions, ignoring all the fund-raising commotion, the polite autograph requests and the phones capturing all the false intimacy and laughing adoration.

  We all considered Manetti for a minute or two until eventually even Crystal grew bored with watching nothing and turned back around. The mayor went to fetch our coffee, and Thom resumed his own duties. So I leaned back as far as courtesy permitted and took my turn at openly staring although without any particular expectations. Once I thought about it why shouldn’t he be here? Probably he came in twice a week.

  In addition to being remotely situated, the Manetti table was partially screened by a pedestal holding a four-foot oriental vase containing that height again in entwined dahlias and roses, full-blown romantic blossoms reminiscent of cabbage roses on old-fashioned wallpaper. Even so I could view a broad section of the enclave, Manetti appropriately seated with his back to the wall. Even at that distance I could see him exuding that scripted mellow refinement, a clichéd facade of silvered hair and tasteful enough tailoring and practiced, avuncular twinkle. Everyone watches too many movies; nobody knows how to be real anymore. Apart from that polished veneer it requires a compendium of negatives to deliver an accurate description: Manetti was neither tall nor short nor overweight nor thin nor really handsome nor physically repellant nor especially charismatic. Sitting still, he drifted into the safety of a tired nullity; you’d ignore him on the train. That night, in that room packed with personalities, he was visible only because everyone was looking around so much.