Maven’s head was buzzing. This wasn’t a job interview, this was like a life overview, and a lot to take in. Maven waited for more.
Royce checked his watch — thick-faced, the size of an Oreo cookie — then crossed one leg over the other, folding his hands in his lap. “Now I’m gonna drop my theory on adaptive mental health on you.”
Maven said, “Your what?”
“The Tomorrow Man theory. It’s pretty basic. Today, right here, you are who you are. Tomorrow, you will be who you will be. Each and every night, we lie down to die, and each morning we arise, reborn. Now, those who are in good spirits, with strong mental health, they look out for their Tomorrow Man. They eat right today, they drink right today, they go to sleep early today — all so that Tomorrow Man, when he awakes in his bed reborn as Today Man, thanks Yesterday Man. He looks upon him fondly as a child might a good parent. He knows that someone — himself — was looking out for him. He feels cared for, and respected. Loved, in a word. And now he has a legacy to pass on to his subsequent selves.”
Royce glanced at the hotel entrance before returning to the subject at hand.
“But those who are in a bad way, with poor mental health, they constantly leave these messes for Tomorrow Man to clean up. They eat whatever the hell they want, drink like the night will never end, and then fall asleep to forget. They don’t respect Tomorrow Man because they don’t think through the fact that Tomorrow Man will be them. So then they wake up, new Today Man, groaning at the disrespect Yesterday Man showed them. Wondering why does that guy — myself — keep punishing me? But they never learn and instead come to settle for that behavior, eventually learning to ask and expect nothing of themselves. They pass along these same bad habits tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and it becomes psychologically genetic, like a curse.
“Looking at you now, Maven, I can see exactly where you fall on this spectrum. You are a man constantly trying to fix today what Yesterday Man did to you. You make up your bed, you clean those dirty dishes from the night before, and pledge not to start drinking until six, thinking that’s the way to keep an even keel. But in reality you’re always playing catch-up. I know this because I’ve been there. The thing is — you can’t fix the mistakes of Yesterday. Yesterday Man is dead, he’s gone forever, and blame and atonement aren’t worth a damn. What you can do is help yourself today. Eat a vegetable. Read a book. Cut that hair of yours. Leave Tomorrow Man something more than a headache and a jam-packed colon. Do for Tomorrow Man what you would have wanted Yesterday Man to do for you. Does that sound like an action plan?”
Maven nodded. This was like watching a magician shuffle and reshuffle the deck, pulling Maven’s card again every time.
“Is this a program you think you could get with?”
“Probably, yeah,” said Maven. “I should.”
Royce uncrossed his legs and sat forward, again glancing at the revolving doors. “You’re earnest, Maven. A rare quality these days.” Three guys in business wear walked past towing golf bags and carry-ons. “Those guys are about your age, right? Doing all right for themselves, looking to get eighteen holes in before dinner. See, me, I rotated out in the midnineties. Boom time. The Internet boom, the dot-com boom. Boom, boom, boom. In the NASDAQ nineties, there was money everywhere. I mean, I struggled at first, sure. But there were opportunities. But now you come back, you rotate out of this bitch-mother of a war, and they drop a recession over your head like a black hood. Now everyone’s ahead of you. Everybody your age either has a college degree or else years invested in the job market. They have employment equity, because they’ve been enjoying the fruits of your labor, working here in this nice safe bubble of Fortress America. Now you come back, and it’s like, ‘Thanks, kid. Let me shake your hand. Damn proud of ya. Now take a place at the back of the line.’”
Maven watched the golfers with a mixture of anger and envy.
Royce said, “Why, after all you’ve done, would you ever want to wait in a line?”
Maven looked back. He wanted to hear more. But Royce’s eyes were trained on the hotel entrance now, and not looking away.
Maven turned and looked in the same direction as Royce.
The man in the sage green jacket entered the lobby, grip in hand.
Maven instinctually turned away. Royce produced a slim mobile phone, one-touch dialed it, and brought it to his ear. “Ready-up,” he said, then closed the phone again.
The man in the sage green jacket walked to the elevators behind the registration desk. Royce stood, and Maven rose and followed him around the opposite corner, past restroom doors, into the stairwell.
Royce said, “Let’s see how your wind is, soldier.”
They ran up each floor, half-flight by half-flight, Maven sucking air after eight, feeling pain after twenty, going totally out of breath at the top. He stood doubled over before a fire door numbered 29, Royce blowing air too, but upright and smiling.
A small window looked into the carpeted hallway. Maven straightened behind Royce, watching as the man in the sage green jacket turned the far corner, reading room numbers as he went.
“What... the... hell?” whispered Maven, between breaths.
Royce shushed him. “What do you think about the jacket?”
Maven swallowed. “The jacket?”
“A Zegna. Cashmere, retails about two grand. The briefcase?”
“Yeah?”
“A thirteen-hundred-dollar Mulberry. Now, what’s that tell you?”
“The guy overpaid.”
“You say that because you’ve never touched anything of real quality.” Royce said this without insult, a simple declaration. “What you should realize is that the stuff he’s used to carrying inside that case must be worth considerably more than the case itself.”
The guy slowed before a room halfway down the hall. Both Royce and Maven ducked away from the window, in case the guy looked left and right before going inside.
Maven said, “What does this matter to you?”
He heard faint knocking. Maven edged back to the window just in time to see the door open and the guy step inside.
Royce pulled open their door and went silently down the carpeted hallway. At first, Maven thought they were moving to the same door, only to stop behind Royce at the one before it.
A DO NOT DISTURB card hung on the handle. Maven heard a television playing inside.
Royce produced a key card from his jacket pocket, fed it into the slot, and when the light turned green, he eased the door open with barely a click, moving inside.
Maven lingered where he was. Another moment of hesitation. He felt strangely exposed, standing alone in the hallway. The door was closing and he stopped it with his fingertips just as the lock was about to catch.
He entered and shut it quietly behind him. Past a closet and large bathroom on his right, the room opened into a wide suite. Two men, both of them close to Maven’s age, stood between a writing table and the loud boxing match on television. A laptop was on the table, and one of the men, a blue-eyed Latino, watched the screen intently, listening through headphones, not even looking up at Maven. The other one, a spike-haired, blond, all-American type, wore a gun in a shoulder holster, and didn’t take his eyes off Maven until Royce gave him a nod.
A third man, closer in age to Royce, his skin dark brown, reclined on the high, made bed with his fingers laced behind his head. The television remote was nestled in his crotch, a handgun on the comforter at his side. The guy sized up Maven without expression before returning to the roaring of the Ali-Holmes fight being rebroadcast on ESPN Classic.