Barron was on time, and as I got into the car I said, “It is my pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Wright.”
“You, too,” he said, and although I know that people reciprocate that to be polite, it sounded more authentic with his voice. “Heliport, right?”
“Yes. It will be my first time on a helicopter.” I added ASAP, “When you took me to the Yankees game, I forgot to call you after the game. My employer drove me home.”
“That’s cool. People forget all the time. I still get paid.”
“No, it is not cool,” I said. “It was my bad.”
He turned his head and looked at me even though he was still driving. “Okay,” he finally said. “Nice suit, by the way. Fits you right.”
Barron turned down the sun-protector, and again I saw the picture of his daughter taped to it. I asked how she was progressing. He said she was excelling in school and he thought she would soon be smarter than he was. I told him I thought the same thing about my sister. “Although for now I want her to think I am more intelligent, so that she continues to try to impress me in school.”
He laughed and said, “You’re all right. You’ve got a unique sense of humor. It’s subtle, but you’ve got one.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I will work to make my sense of humor less subtle.” This was possibly the reason no one else found me humorous. Then I said, “It must be enjoyable to spend time with your family after a week of work.”
Barron scratched the back of his head. His haircut was close to his skull, but many white hairs blended with the black ones. “It is. Sometimes it’s not. But mostly it is.” His eyes angled at me in the mirror. “You have any family here?”
I looked out the window, because suddenly it felt like tears were under the surface of my eyes and waiting to appear like perspiration on a Coke can. “No,” I said. I remained in that position to avoid Barron and because we were now near the East River and I always enjoy observing the water. My father used to teach me swimming at Al Wakrah beach on Saturdays. He was a powerful swimmer, and I learned quickly, although I was never as strong in the water as he was. He didn’t take Zahira, and of course my mother never went although I derived my broad shoulders from her and I believe she would have been efficient in the water as well. We stopped going when she became ill.
We arrived in a few minutes at the heliport, which had a landing pad in the shape of an L on top of the river, a large building behind the small parking lot for cars, and spaces for 12 helicopters, although just five were currently there. I thanked Barron. “Call me when you need a ride to the White House,” he said, and I laughed and complimented him by saying he had a non-subtle sense of humor.
In a few minutes Mr. Schrub’s limo entered the parking lot. The driver, Patrick, exited and opened the rear door for Mr. Schrub. He nodded at Patrick while he held a briefcase in one hand and talked on a cellular, and Patrick returned to the car and waited.
When Mr. Schrub was next to me, he said on the cellular, “John, I’m going to have to go — I’m with an employee,” which was both stimulating, because I always enjoy when anyone mentions that I’m a Schrub employee, especially Mr. Schrub himself, but also disappointing, because he didn’t refer to me by name. He closed the cellular and put down his briefcase and shook my hand. “Glad you could make it, Karim. I hope the late invite wasn’t a problem?”
I told him it wasn’t and that I was grateful for the opportunity to see more of the U.S. “Greenwich isn’t exactly how the other half lives. But it’s a good place for getting to know someone — it’s not always so easy in the city,” he said. I was glad he stated his reason for inviting me, because I didn’t know if we were going to discuss business over the weekend, but then I got nervous because it meant I would have to discuss myself, and my background and opinions are not nearly as original as Mr. Schrub’s.
Then he met with the pilot, who wore a blue uniform with gold buttons and a cap and had a thick black mustache, and they discussed some issues about the flight that I couldn’t hear, and Mr. Schrub informed me we were ready.
The helicopter was much larger than I anticipated. It looked like a minivan with a skinny nose, an elongated tail, and blades on top. The rear had six leather seats opposite each other the color of yogurt, and in the front were two seats for the pilot and a copilot, although when I saw there wasn’t one, Mr. Schrub said, “Don’t worry — if Mike passes out, I know how to land.”
Mr. Schrub and I faced each other, next to the windows, and linked our seat belts. After Mike toggled many switches and talked on the radio system, there was a sound like a powerful windstorm and the helicopter vibrated and it was like we were a vegetable pulled out of the dirt and finally we smoothly partnered with the air.
The sun was down now and the water below us was black, and I visualized that we were like the Schrub hawk, only the helicopter was not carrying the S and E, but Mr. Schrub himself and me, and for a second I also visualized a potential day Schrub Equities would have the name Schrub Issar.
I became very fearful as we flew higher and I didn’t look out the window anymore, because a helicopter doesn’t feel as stable as an airplane. Mr. Schrub could detect I was nervous and said, “I’ve flown this route hundreds of times, Karim. It’s perfectly safe.” When we were high enough, the helicopter moved north and I let myself look out the window. The overview was more beautiful than it was on the airplane, because we were at sufficient altitude to get the big picture of the city but also close enough to see details like cars and people moving through streets like liquid through channels, and it’s always preferable to have a macro and micro perspective simultaneously. E.g., when I’m on the street, New York seems so large, but now in the air I was reminded of how minimal Manhattan truly is, unless you consider the third dimension of height.
“Take a look, Karim,” he said. We were traveling over downtown now. “That city is ripe with possibility. It’s made for young men like you.”
Below us the cars advanced in traffic like lines of ants. “I have never had problems with working hard,” I said.
“It’s not always just about working hard,” he said. He looked like he was about to say something else, but stopped and removed his laptop from his briefcase and said he had to do some work, and told me I could use the portable DVD player and whatever movie was inside that his sons had been watching. He also mentioned that his sons might be joining us this weekend, and I said I was looking forward to meeting them. “I’m more looking forward to having them meet you,” he said.
We bypassed the ultraviolet lights of Times Square and the Schrub logo and my building and the angular skyscrapers in midtown and then the quiet trees of Central Park and the shorter buildings uptown like young children at the knees of their midtown parents, then Harlem and its blocks of iterating apartments and the George Washington Bridge’s white lights like points on a parabola, and then we flew east along the coast and the ground below wasn’t as bright anymore, and the last unique object I could make out was a large ship exhaling black smoke into the air that Mr. Schrub said was littered with garbage and was probably heading to a landfill in Connecticut, and when I couldn’t see anything anymore I powered on the DVD player and the movie Armageddon, which I had heard of in Doha.
Soon we were above large houses with long slanted driveways like snakes and empty swimming pools and fields. We zoomed toward a concrete square with lights around its perimeter far behind one of the houses that was shaped like a large U, but then approximately 200 feet above the ground we decelerated and landed very gently, as if we were tucking a child into bed.