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entered the living room. He wore brown slacks and a robin’s-egg-blue shirt with a brown-and-red striped tie dangling too short from his neck. Even though he was only twenty-nine he looked decades older. His hair was thinning dramatically—he kept it looking good with a slick comb-over—and he wore reading glasses that made his eyes look gigantic, like some kind of freakish desert insect. Only his shoes betrayed his youthand his interest in rap music. He liked to wear expensive multicolored basketball shoes.
    Despite his nod to phat style, Stanley Lucey was as white as Wonder Bread. Possessed by a supercharged energy, he was always looking around with an anxious expression, waiting for something bad to happen, like a missionary who’d just arrived in Nairobi, hoping help would arrive before the Hottentots took him captive.
    Stanley carried two cups of coffee.
    â€œDad, you know you’re not supposed to smoke.”
    Jack turned and faced his son. “And you know you’re supposed to mind your own fucking business.”
    He took a cup from Stanley, slurped some coffee down, and handed the cup back to his son.
    â€œHold this. I gotta take a dump.”
    ...
    After efficiently eliminating the waste product of a New York strip, baked potato with sour cream and chives, Bac-Os-bits, some iceberg lettuce swamped with ranch dressing, and a peach cobbler à la mode, Jack headed to the garage. Stanley followed. He stood back as his father negotiated two short steps with his walker. Stanley thought about helping, thought better of it, and then finally stepped forward to lend a hand.
    â€œHere, Dad.”
    Jack snapped at him. “I’m fine. You treat me like I’m some kind of fucking retard.”
    â€œI’m just trying to help.”
    â€œI don’t need your fuckin’ charity.”
    Stanley didn’t push it. It didn’t matter. They’d had this same exact argument countless times. It always ended the same way.
    Jack lurched down the steps with his walker and then, with some effort, climbed into his specially built van.
    â€œYou coming? We got work to do.”
    â€œI’ll meet you there.”
    â€œGreat. The way you drive, you’ll get there just in time for lunch.”
    Jack nodded as the garage door automatically opened and blinding-white sunlight blasted the dark and oily room. Stanley stepped back as his father started the van. Jack never looked where he was going when he backed out. He just threw it in gear and hit the gas. Mirrors were for pussies.

Five
    Francis woke up. The intense midmorning sun was raging outside, its white heat muffled to a greenish glow by the heavy blackout curtains covering the hotel room windows. Francis blinked. Even with the curtains pulled tight, the light was excruciating, searing his eyeballs like a red-hot knitting needle. His mouth felt dry and cottony, as if he’d slept all night with a sock stuffed in it. His muscles ached, his bones were throbbing, and his nose was clogged with what felt like great crunchy globs of dried blood. He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he felt so abused.
    He looked around the room, trying to make some sense of it. It looked like his room. But then, all hotel rooms look the same, as if they were mass-produced in a gigantic building, windowless and whitewashed, with the word HOTEL plastered on the side. Identical rooms rolling off a conveyor belt, each outfitted with the same lamps, the same beds, the same art, the same ice buckets, the same terry-cloth robes. All designed to offer comfort and stability to the generic businesspeople who stayed in them between meetings with other generic businesspeople. A place to rest and recover fromstrategizing, selling, teleconferencing, or whatever it is those people do.
    Francis imagined the men and women in their tailored suits with monogrammed leather briefcases and stylish haircuts coming back to these rooms to celebrate some kind