Simon slips his hand into his pocket, unconsciously looking for comfort, for the paper bag placebo, but it’s gone. His pockets are empty. His father smiles.
“Fear is for babies, kiddo, helpless blobs, trapped in the moment with no past or future. No way to meet their own needs. You’re a man now. It’s time to take responsibility, make plans.”
“You don’t understand,” Simon tells him.
“Why? Because I’m old? You ever hear the saying don’t trust anyone over thirty? My generation invented that saying. And then we grew up. We learned how the world works. We made choices. We succeeded or we failed. But we got in the game.”
“It’s not a game.”
“Oh, please. It’s the earnestness. The self-righteousness. My God. Were we like that? So superior, but also paralyzed. Terrified to do the wrong thing, to offend someone.”
He leans forward. “You know what happens to the anxious animals in the wilderness? Dinnertime.”
Simon thinks of Claire, how she loved doing battle with this man, how she thrived on his exasperation, as if having your father’s approval meant you were doing it wrong.
“Your friends are monsters,” Simon says.
“Which friends?”
“Mobley.”
Ty waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, he’s okay. Worse than some, better than others.”
Ty sips his drink, smiles to himself. “Can I tell you a secret? I don’t recycle. I just throw everything in the same damn can. Always have. Sometimes I run the shower for twenty minutes before I get in. Oh, and I keep the heat on in the Hamptons house full blast in winter, even when we’re out of town. I actually like eating half my meal and throwing the rest away. I prefer it, seeing all that expensive meat scraped into the trash, mixing with the plastic and metal.”
Simon stares at him. His father smiles.
“Does that make you anxious?”
“Where are my friends?”
His father pauses, thinking.
“See, I think that’s what’s made you so anxious. Nobody tells you the truth. Everyone says what they think you want to hear, or they say what they want, but not the real reason they want it. That’s the problem with society. You can’t believe anybody. Nothing makes sense. So let me tell you the truth. This Earth was a gift to us from the Lord. He commanded us to use it. He filled the ground with oil for us to burn and filled the sea with fish for us to eat. Every animal living is alive because we allow it to be alive, and if we choose to hunt it to extinction, that is our choice. This planet has seen ice ages and molten eras long before we showed up, and it’ll see them again long after we’re gone. We don’t have to be afraid, because we are doing what we were created to do. To enrich ourselves. And if that heats up the atmosphere and sours the seas, so be it. Do you hear me? We are the dominant species on Earth, which means we get to dominate the Earth. End of story.”
“That’s—awful.”
“It’s the truth. My point is, don’t be anxious. You’re a rich boy, soon to be a wealthy man, in a country where wealth is all that matters. You could have an IQ of eleven and masturbate all day into your mashed potatoes, and you’d still have a better life than ninety-nine percent of the planet. Worried about gun violence or global warming? Build a bunker, buy an island. Solve the problem.”
“I want to see my friends.”
“You have no friends. You’re being used. They’re using you.”
“No. They like me. I’m part of something.”
“They’re using you. Because of your money, because of your name. To get to me.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know that if E. L. Mobley weren’t a friend of mine, you’d be in jail right now, looking at thirty to life for criminal trespass and attempted kidnapping.”
A black Porsche pulls up on the tarmac outside. A man gets out of the passenger’s seat. It’s Gabe Lin. Across from Simon, Ty Oliver stands.
“Now, these next few months are important to me. I need government approval for the Telex merger and after Claire—did you know she reported me to the FDA before she killed herself? That bitch. She even sent documents.”
He shakes his head, but respectfully, as if honoring an enemy on the battlefield.
“But now with you and that judge’s daughter mixed up in some harebrained kidnapping scheme—well, I can’t have you anywhere near that shit show, so I’m gonna put you someplace safe for a while. You and her.”