I take the F train into Manhattan. The train is practically empty, on account of it being the middle of the day. I sit down and put on my best “fuck off” expression, but no one even tries to bother me. Actually, the train is much nicer than I remember. There are station clocks and everything, letting me know when the next train will arrive. I guess this is where all my taxes have been going.
I get out of the F train at Herald Square. The station here is also almost empty, but aboveground there are swarms of people, and I am reminded exactly why we moved Nylo headquarters down to Brooklyn. I’m extremely relieved I don’t have to come here every day.
I walk over to the Empire State Building. Empire was even in the damn clue, as if “cage 1” hadn’t given it away. “Your empire awaits… ”
We must have all heard the story of our father’s first date with our mother a million times.
Our mother wasn’t from New York City, unlike our father. Misty Lynn MacAteer was a Southerner from Alabama, and when they met she was working at a disco called Scorpio’s as a coat check girl. Our father was trying to meet someone in the feverish early seventies singles scene, and he was having a hard time in the clubs. But the coat check girl at Scorpio’s had no choice but to talk to him and laugh at his awkward flirtations.
After several weekends of clumsy overtures, Dad finally asked Mom out, and for some reason she said yes. She must have been feeling lonely. Anyway, something about his persistence appealed to her. I have often found that people who don’t know what they want are too depressed to fight off those who do.
Dad quickly figured out that Mom hadn’t yet done any of the dumb tourist stuff, like visiting the Statue of Liberty or seeing the Empire State Building. She had been too busy trying to make money to pay rent. In a bombastic gesture of nerdy glee, he booked a reservation at the restaurant in the Empire State Building and invited her to join him there for their first date. He wasn’t a famous game designer yet, but he wanted to show off that he wasn’t just some penniless hustler. He had family money to spend and he wanted to spend it on her.
They met at a grim Irish bar around the corner (Doolan’s? O’Hanahan’s? Fluterty’s? Rafafafaf’s?—it doesn’t matter, all these Midtown bars are exactly the same in a way that is actually a little eerie). They had a quick drink and made awkward conversation, and then they went to the Empire State Building on 34th Street.
This is where things became mythopoeic instead of just quotidian. This is where our family history starts, since none of us would exist without that evening at the Empire State Building. When she got drunk, Mom used to say that she was having second thoughts about even going on a date with our father right up until the moment that he kissed her.
What happened was that on their way up to the restaurant, the elevator came to a crashing halt and then actually jerked downward a few feet, sending both of them tumbling. It was everyone’s worst nightmare: being in a falling elevator in an NYC skyscraper.
The elevator didn’t drop far, but it was enough for our mom to scream and clutch our father. They were only trapped for fifteen minutes (they were rescued by the Empire State Building security team), but this was long enough for Dad to become a fearless protector in her eyes merely by staying calm. He took advantage of her dewy dependence. He kissed her.
She never forgave him for that. In a cute way, sometimes. But often in a very non-cute, real, vengeful way.
In exchange for signing release forms that said they wouldn’t sue, they were treated to a free five-course meal and open bar. They were given an exclusive tour of the building, including the underground rooms where the closed-circuit security cameras showed the video feed from them falling: our mother clutching our father, our father grinning and remaining totally calm, the kiss that he stole.
Do the rest of them remember that the elevator was called “cage 1”? That our mother remembered the fact vividly and always included it as an addendum in her retelling of the story? The first cage in their life together but definitely not the last, she would say. And Dad would laugh but she wouldn’t be joking.
This is a stretch of the city that I know well, mainly because the best board game store in town is right on this block, the Compleat Strategist. I used to compete in Magic: The Gathering tournaments there as a teenager (I exclusively played a blue control deck, obviously). It wasn’t quite fair: I was able to buy every single card I wanted. But I was honorable about my dominance. As I got older, I switched over to competing in Diplomacy and Cosmic Encounter tournaments, also playing a lot of the board game version of Dune with very old men who leered at me as they lost.
Now, back on the same block, I walk right up to the front desk of the Empire State Building, where ten bored security guards all compete against each other to ignore me.
“Hello,” I say. “I am Caitlyn Nylo, CEO of the Nylo Corporation. Could I see the head of security here?”
I give one of the security guards my card. He squints at it. He is a portly man with a walrus mustache and
