The Horologist Read online

  Oliver returned from the clouds to find that he had been staring at this deity too long. She was looking right at him, and she enjoyed his attention. She stared right back with a provocative look—a confident, vogue gaze which acknowledged her own libidinous desires. A look that said she had shared Oliver’s daydream. A look that also said Oliver was nothing more than a speck of dust in the shooting star that is New York City.

  The No Walk sign shot red, but Oliver hadn’t noticed, and the mongoloid grin on his face marched right into the back of Leo, nearly knocking him into oncoming traffic. Leo turned red and thrust his elbow into Oliver’s lower ribs. That concluded the fantasy.

  Five blocks south, they reached a place without a dusty, neon-lit sign. The doorman, early in the second half of his twenties, waited outside. He had a burgundy tie, cap, and jacket, and looked like he had been goofy enough to pour lead into people before he got clean. He gave the three businessmen a brief look and a briefer nod, then held open the door. No doorman in the history of doormen had ever been unhappier to let people through.

  The city club was lavishly decorated with the usual Waspy requirements. All five floors were immaculately polished. One floor was a lordly library, two were eateries, and the others held granite steam spas, private conference rooms, and a few hotel suites for guests of the members. The only rules of the club were that all men must wear a necktie, and that phone usage was reserved for buttoned booths. Moses signed them all in and they climbed a staircase of slick wood and oriental rugs to the grill.

  They sat in a cherry-leather booth and put their backs against the padding, so they could see anyone who came in or out. Heavy-hitting capitalists and Prada-wearing wives lined the room. Despite this sort of idealized society, it didn’t seem like a fit for their mentor. When Oliver and Leo asked about his membership, Moses noted that it was an unrivaled source of business. The restrictedness of the club offered a sense of status, encouraging powerful players to apply. “Buy a meal here, and you’ve done two things—provided the most primitive of all human needs, and purchased someone’s time. Remember what I told you though—it is equally important that you invite some to your table because they are deserving, and to invite others because they may come to deserve it.”

  Through their long tenure understudying Moses, the two cubs never heard anything like what he said next. “Oliver. Leo. You are the sons I never had. You took a leap of faith with me years ago, and I do believe that leap has been as rewarding for you as it has for me. I hope you understand that I must let you go out of admiration and respect. This may seem harsh, but it is reasoned. I want you to look at me, think of what I’ve accomplished and listen to my words. I do not want either of you to aspire for my life . . . to wish to be a guarded general of boardrooms. You are not me. And I don’t want you to be.”

  Oliver and Leo gazed around the room of white-whiskered titans; how worn all their faces were. Moses then requested only one menu. Oliver and Leo were to go.

  He closed their employment with, “All the accolades I’ve received, all the power I’ve taken, all the fortune I’ve built, none are the miracle I hankered for as a child. Business, as grand as it can be, can also be self-defeating. It can separate us as humans, and distract us from more purposeful missions. Remember that, as you return to the hunt. Farewell, cubs.”

  Those final two words hit Oliver like a brick: “Farewell, cubs.” Oliver looked into his mentor’s eyes and for the first time realized that the man before him was not an almighty colossus, but a boy.

  Oliver then soaked up a truth that everyone learns at some point in life—every adult, everyone further along in life, is just an innocent little child at heart. Everyone is born into this world and forced to grow up, but we never lose that small kid within us. We hide behind our jobs and our egos and our social statuses and walk through life as best we can, but life eventually beats us down.

  Oliver looked at Moses and saw how time had bludgeoned away at his mentor. And Oliver felt an immeasurable sadness ripple across his heart. He wished life weren’t so tough, that we could learn all the answers. He just wanted everyone to be happy. Is that so much to ask?

  Oliver stood, gored by this awareness, and accepted the reality that he had to leave everything he knew—again. The hour of bereavement arrived as the young men slid along the padded booth and took a long walk back to the street. It wasn’t easy, but they managed to hold their leonine heads and imperial noses up as they left. They walked for miles as life sank in.

  Gifted teachers are toughest on their most promising students. Moses had made them financially independent and blossoming prospects; he had seen their potential, and had helped them begin to realize it. But, when they thought more, did they really want to be his understudy forever? It was strange medicine, but they began to feel a new sense of freedom.

  As they traversed the sidewalk, Oliver was deep in thought with a smile. A good mentor in life is everything.

  THE HERMIT

  THE CITY WAS an infernal, icy machine of flashing light—a pulsing skyline, a fortress. Somewhere in Tribeca, Moses and his wife would be finishing their sushi at their dining room table on the seventy-fourth floor. The spread would be world class. The rice would be so rich and delicate that it would explode like little clouds in their mouth. The steamed monkfish, the blackened seaweed, and the sashimi snapper would be superb. They would eat and overlook the convergence of the Hudson and East rivers into the Upper Bay, and the sun would be setting over Ellis Island by the time they laid down their chopsticks. Moses and his wife would open a bottle of something French, something le meilleur, and each savor six ounces by the fire before slipping off their garments to massage off the day in their whirlpool bathtub. Their favorite spa setting would take twelve minutes, then they would slide in bed and discuss the latest with their two daughters, one in her second year at UCLA, and the other in her third year at Princeton. Both were expecting three As, an A-, and a B+ to finish the semester. It would be 11:00 PM by now, and they would peacefully drift asleep.

  Three hours later and three miles north, Oliver and Leo exited a dive. A week had passed since Moses turned them loose, and time was already eroding their gratitude. As a new suit grows old, loses its sharp color, becomes creased, the hems frayed, so too had their lives in New York.

  With lubricated stomachs and uneven steps, Oliver and Leo entered the Library Bar, a respectable venue for respectable people.

  The maître ‘d, a girl of twenty-two or so, welcomed them. She escorted Oliver and Leo into the two-story room with bookcases for walls and leather chesterfield chairs. The busybody bit her lip and gave the young men an extra glance before retreating in her black dress. Her game was precise and practiced. The bar was her roulette wheel and she was the marble.

  The bar was near empty, but they decided to continue poisoning themselves with a fourth order of vodka. They crossed their ankles with a yawn, and gaped around the room, antennas up. Curiously, a hermit had nestled himself in the corner with a book open in his hands. He was still and quiet, and looked sober, and this horrified the young men.

  The thing about people who fully abstain from alcohol is that they are either the only sane breed on our planet, or they are secretly more sinister than the rest of us. Either way, Oliver and Leo needed to know.

  With the hermit’s slender nose deep in a text, Leo called out to him. “What can be so interesting at this hour?”

  The hermit looked at them like a man who had better things to do. “This little book here is my own. It is my central instruction on life. Many of its words were written long ago, but their truths endure time.”

  Now this was different. Oliver inquired, “If that book’s really yours, why continue to read it? Why not seek more advanced material?”

  The hermit was a frail man weighing 145 with feminine arms and a gentle face. “I once thought that way, that I must seek more. Then I came to realize that all advancement derives from the fundamental.”

  Homer moved over
and shook hands with the young men. Then he took a seat. “Our world is a sea of convolution, so it can be helpful to review the basics before I tread into complexity. Some days you will sail along calm shores, others will catch you in a storm. But, if you have a set of principles to guide you, placid and choppy waters are equally navigable.”

  “Okay . . . I buy it. But how did you figure out all these endurable truths?”

  “By taking my time. By committing to continual self-improvement. By listening to life as it reveals itself.”

  Oliver pointed to the journal. “May I?”

  Homer pulled back a bit and patted the spine. “I must insist. Let life teach you. Craft your own principles from your own experiences. You are young. Pay attention and you will learn exactly what life needs you to know.”

  Deterred, the young men placed another order for vodka. Seeing discouragement, Homer reconsidered. “Perhaps I can share one.” Re-opening his journal, he searched long enough for the round to arrive. “Here we go.” He extended his slender finger onto the page. “People will come and go in life. Some will teach you how to become a better version of yourself, and others will teach you the opposite. Learn the difference and you will steer your sail in the right direction. Then develop the courage to set out on your own path, even when it means losing people along the way. As you learn to say no to things that don’t matter, you will begin to say yes to things that do.”

  Oliver and Leo applauded with smirks across their mouths. Homer was offended. He rose and loudly cleared his throat. “Maybe one day this will sink in, perhaps when you aren’t murdering your minds. Look around this room. Thousands of years of wisdom sit before you. Spend a little time alone now and then. Invest in yourself and figure out what you’re after. Self-improvement is a noble pursuit, and what you are doing tonight is not.”

  Homer then exited.

  It was now 4:00 AM and the young men were plastered to the hairline. The wily maître ‘d snuck over and notified them that they needed to close out. When their cards cleared, she pushed them to the coat check, and just inside the door. Leo put his arm around the busybody and placed his hand a bit too low down her back. He spread his fingers, kneading her thin black cloth and trying to figure out the mechanics of her dress. In the height of modesty, he thanked her for her attentiveness.

  The maître ‘d debated playing his game, knowing that if she succumbed they’d neck around for a bit, then give each other the time. But as Leo spoke, she caught the dreadful stench of his breath, and began to think of all the obscene places his mouth had been. And instead of drinking in his words, she began to regurgitate them onto his collarbone. She hit eject and stored Leo for reference.

  The bundled young men receded through revolving doors and out to the wintry climate. The night air cut. No cabs came. They considered the subway momentarily; only, when they looked down the cold stairwell, that notion froze. At this hour, if they descended beyond the turnstile guarding the rail, they would arrive in an excessively dirty dungeon with shabby people who were closer to death than to eating breakfast. If the young men could outwait the impending robbery, twenty-five minutes would go by before they would hear the agonized squeal of a metal skeleton grinding to a stop. There was zero chance they were walking down those sadistic steps, so they about-faced and moved towards home in the desolate air.

  They walked and they walked, twenty blocks down to their apartment in the scrapyard of the night. This was not your chipper skip-along-with-intermingled-arms, twirl-around-lampposts kind of walk. This was brutal. This was dodge-the-consonance-of-falling-icicles and hope to hell that you have ten fingers and ten toes by the time you reach your door.

  They traveled south with their liquid blankets into SoHo. Five years before, they had taken a tiny but insanely expensive, flex-two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a walk-up in the East Village. That blank unit had cracked floors, a kitchen smaller than a bed, and a bathroom smaller than the kitchen. They had adequate salaries when they started, but after federal, state, and municipal taxes, their rent consumed 45 percent of their after-tax income.

  Now, though, they had ascended to a previously unthinkable level of compensation, and spent at a previously unthinkable level too. They upgraded to a three-bed, three-and-a-half bath loft in a building with a security guard and an elevator that opened in their living room.

  Half an hour later, as they crossed Houston Street, there was an air of familiarity in the moment for Oliver. He was just unsure whether he was remembering something he had done, or something he had to do. Moving along, Oliver caught something faint but unmistakable lurking in the periphery of his vision. What he saw hit like Novocain—the luminescent butterfly fluttered across the pavement beside him.

  He halted midstride, his face frozen like a block of ice. Any degree of wildlife was unlikely in this concrete morass, but this . . . this was unworldly—a hot blue comet in the stiff black night. Oliver watched the glowing wraith float as the shadows twisted around its wings.

  The sapphire butterfly danced over to a billboard rolled down the back of a building. The mural was of a revealing model in red-petal lingerie. She was a golden girl with a full face, deep-blue eyes, soft brown locks, and a smile meant for the heavens. A woman who pulled a million a head for any eligible suitor who came her way. The photo was her standing in front of palm trees, surfers, and sunshine. She was standing in California.

  The butterfly hovered on her perfect nose and sat. Oliver cast a line through his mind, trying to reel out any association for what he was seeing. The butterfly sat patiently, waiting for Oliver to infer its message.

  In the chilled air, a gust of warmth brushed Oliver’s cheek and settled deep in his chest. In this moment was happiness. Oliver thought back to his and Isabella’s first night together on the beach. How distant that now was. Oliver stared at the phantom until a guiding sense clicked.

  Something fey was once again speaking to him. And once again, Oliver listened.

  THE LITTLE GIRL

  THE VELOCITY OF life again accelerated, and the great oracular disk of time expanded beyond reach. Five more years passed after Oliver and Leo moved west in their own Manifest Destiny. Memories of their days wayfaring across Europe were primly limited, as they were now, assuredly, men. Men who could not escape their learned habit of success; men who were caged by their own occupational savviness. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that these men never sought to escape their cage. Perhaps, they couldn’t see their own tether. Their new business endeavor took them outside of real estate, but not outside of investing. The idea took months to blossom, and when it had, it came in an unlikely location.

  Oliver was strolling through a shopping center when it came. He watched as hundreds of people harvested visible rewards: new purses, new outfits, new shoes—all tangible items labeled in advertising as must-haves. Oliver watched these people, and realized how alienated he felt from society. He felt isolated from a culture that bought into the illusion of stability, from a crowd dependent on a false system.

  As Oliver strolled, he lightened as he looked back on his hardships and all that he had learned. He thought back to his time with the clothier. He thought about how he had grown happy when life was simple.

  Oliver knew he needed to surround himself with people he and Leo were philosophically aligned with. He knew he needed to meet other driven individuals who were willing to handle the discomfort of leaving the herd, people who were innovative and intellectually curious, those who asked the right questions and went after what they believed in.

  Later, Oliver imparted this idea to Leo, who asked, “What if we went a step further, and invested in them?”

  And, with that question, what began as bold entrepreneurial confidence, as a courageous bluff, flourished. Their venture capital firm turned into a unicorn of an operation, and their portfolio skyrocketed in value. Not only were Oliver and Leo able to multiply their assets, but they were able to select the monopolistic startups which did so, and
help run them. Their business had erupted. It created thousands of jobs and attracted top talent from across the world, and the City of Angels increased its economic output with their success.

  But despite fiscal prosperity, Oliver was far from wealthy. He had fallen under the spell Mr. vom Glas warned him about. Oliver’s life was full of cash, but void of love, and he grew irritable. He made himself civil, and met many women, but when he’d take them out he would quickly grow discontent and disconnected.

  This was the nest Oliver built for himself—high and dry. He bordered on narcissism. He was apathetic outside and discontent within. No longer did he ask who he was supposed to be. He just rode the tides of life, and never bothered to look back.

  The small, fuzzy lemon jettisoned upward, eclipsing the sun momentarily as Oliver summoned the torque for his thunderous serve. Oliver spanked the chartreuse sea-urchin across the tennis court, where Leo returned it with a backhand and pushed his friend into a tense volley. The rally played out in lethal ballet of nimbleness and cutting ball placement, and spectators around the country club were awed as the assassins chopped the ball back and forth.

  At match point, all their training was a backdrop as instincts took over: a whistling kick serve from the backline, a topspin into the crosscourt, and a displaced drop shot from a net charge. Oliver was the victor but feared what waited for him off the court.

  Cheryl was a beauty with rolling locks of black hair. By miracle, she’d roped roped Oliver into a date last week. He sheathed his racket and set a towel around his neck, rushing to leave as quickly as he came, hoping to avoid the conversation.

  “Oliver! Oh, Oliver! Come here a minute, will you, doll?”

  The chirp came from a table in the shade. Oliver stepped over with an indifferent face as Cheryl looked down at herself. “See anything you like, dear?”