I heard distant, familiar voices, getting nearer.
“I love what you’ve got going on out there,” said one I nearly recognized.
“Thanks,” Triple-J said.
“I really think it’s major. Revolutionary, even.”
“Cool, thanks,” Triple-J said.
“If you need any help or anything in the future, I’d love it if you’d holler.”
“Good to know,” Triple-J said, entering the office.
In tandem, behind him, walked Burroughs and the notary. The notary was wearing a three-piece shorts suit. The notary’s Ray-Bans were up on his hairline. The pocket-seal case the notary carried was stenciled with the logo of the Marshall Amplification company. The notary was Chad-Kyle.
He glanced at me, and kind of auto-nodded, but his face betrayed no hint of recognition.
“I mean, I’d love to get involved,” he told Triple-J, and, coming up beside me, to my immediate left, he said to Jonboat, “I was just telling Trip, here, I’d love to help him get the word out about these games he’s running. I’d love to help him promote. Help him make what he’s got going on here even bigger. Over at C.K. Productions International, we’ve been having a lot of success—a lot of success—with VIP-flyering. Now, VIP-flyering isn’t all that we do. Is it the foundation of all that we do? Sure. Of course. Make no mistake. VIP-flyering is the foundation. But we applicate a many-pronged integral approach. See, I’m pretty well-networked in terms of the youth. I’ve got I guess you’d say a talent for seeing the next thing early, and I can straddle the cusps of multiple demos. I mean: I do straddle those cusps. It’s kind of my thang—where’s my manners?” He extended a hand, said, “C.K. Baker, licensed notary public.”
Jonboat got up, clutched the proffered hand.
Trip, who, by then, was standing between his father and Burroughs, across the desk from Chad-Kyle and me, caught my eye, shot a fast look at Chad-Kyle, and mouthed the word wang-scab.
“It’s a true thrill to meet you, Mr. Pellmore-Jason,” Chad-Kyle was saying. “To be in your presence and have your attention, even briefly. Just shaking your hand. You know, I saw you a couple weeks back, at the bank. You came in with Ms. Henry—I was the first to spot you walking through the door, ask anyone who works there—but I was way too shy to introduce myself. I guess I should have, and I usually would have, but in person, it’s like—you’re like the opposite of some of these celebrities one meets and one thinks, ‘He looks taller on TV.’ And same with your wife.”
“Well, thank you,” said Jonboat.
“I’m just really grateful I got this second chance. A thousand compliments on everything you do and everything you’ve ever done. I mean that. Sincerely.”
“Very kind of you,” said Jonboat, and turned to Triple-J. “How’d it go out there?” he said.
“How’d it go?” said Chad-Kyle. “Your son is the total king of The Ulysses.”
“It’s Ulysses,” Trip told him.
“What did I say?” said Chad-Kyle.
“ ‘The Ulysses.’ There isn’t any article.”
“Did I say that? That’s weird. I hate an article.”
“Why would you hate a part of speech, dude?” said Trip.
“Hard to explain, really,” Chad-Kyle said. “I have this instinct for branding. An ear, I guess you’d say. I think it’s like a benefit of my having this rare condition you might have heard of called synesthesia? An article to me is…garlicky and…damp. Also magenta.”
“Anyway, I won,” Triple-J said to Jonboat. “Set a new record. The second-place kid, though—the one I went out there to compete against—he broke the record I set this morning, so I let him have Spotsy.”
“That was kind of you,” said Jonboat, playfully poking his son in the ribs.
“I guess it wasn’t unkind,” Triple-J said, “but I think I was only being—come on! stop poking!—I think I was only being fair. Earlier, I’d said the first guy to break my record—which, at the time, was ninety-two seconds—he could take home Spotsy and compete with me for captain of the Yachts next month. But then, just now, when I broke my record, I lasted a hundred and seven seconds, but this second-place guy, he lasted ninety-nine seconds, breaking the old record, so.”
“So now you sound like an old broken record, broken record, broken record, broken record.”
“Har har,” Triple-J said. “Dad jokes rule.”
“Broken record, broken record,” Jonboat continued.
“It’s a good one. Really. Dadly as hell.”
“Broken record, broken record.”
Triple-J made laugh sounds.
“All joking aside,” said Jonboat, “I still say it was kind of you to give the kid the Curio. Even if it was what you should have done anyway. You can be right and kind at the same time, you know?”
“Yeah, okay,” Triple-J said.
“I mean it,” said Jonboat. “In fact, it’s ideal. You did a good job. I’m proud of you, Trip.”
“Plus who needs Spotsy?” Chad-Kyle said, looking rather fixedly at Handsome Arthur, and coming around the back of my chair. “Who needs Spotsy when you’ve got a bot like that one? Man, that thing’s something.”
Burroughs pivoted, palmed one of his shoulders, said, “Time we better get this show on the road,” and, guiding him off the path to the globe, faced him toward the side of the desk to my right.
“Sure thing,” said the notary. He set his case down behind the T-shirt-draped helmet, unlatched and unpacked it: pocket seal, certificates, orca-themed souvenir floaty-pen from SeaWorld.
Burroughs handed me a contract. I signed it. Jonboat and Trip signed the one he handed them. We traded, signed again, and gave the contracts to Chad-Kyle, who, donning a monocle he’d pulled from his vest, started to read them, which seemed inappropriate, though no one bothered saying so.
It might have been the leathery scent of his aftershave, which might have been body spray, or perhaps it was because, of the five individuals gathered around the desk, I was the only one who was sitting, but I’d started feeling a touch claustrophobic—a touch more than a touch—and I guess that accounts for how I managed, once again, to unbox a Quill without having realized.
“Can’t smoke in here,” said Burroughs. “We’ll be done in a minute, though.”
“Sorry,” I said, reboxing the Quill. “I keep on doing that. I don’t know why.”