The Ego Makers

by Donald Everett Axinn

  Everyone hugged and kissed the bride and groom and one another. It was hard to say whether the heavy embraces were Italian or Jewish.

  “All right, “ Sal announced with pride, banging the side of a half-filled glass with a spoon. “Over to the hall for the reception. “ The “hall” was the Sons of Italy, on Hempstead Turnpike in Springfield Gardens. It was time to spice this ceremony up with something Italian. The families and their guests began moving toward the door. “Hey, isn’t this great, honey?” Jake whispered in Barbaras ear. “Believe it or not, everybody’s getting along great. And, by the way, I love you. More than ever. “

  At the hall, after everyone had been seated, Joe stood on his chair, a glass of champagne in his hand. Jake tugged on his khaki tunic. “Hey, cumpar dont make too much of a fool of yourself” he warned. ‘You’re lousy at speeches. “ Joe pushed his hand away.

  “I can talk as good as anyone, “Joe said. “Even if I do get some words wrong. “ He tapped his glass with a spoon and addressed the crowd. “Ladies, gentlemen, family, cousins, and assorted citizens of the world,” he began. “As the best man, I want to tell you, ce n’cosa maravlliosa. Mia sorrelina si mari ta a mio compagno di lavoro e megliore amico.” Then: “This is a wonderful occasion, my fabulous little sister marrying my terrific partner and best friend. Our two great families joined together. “ He gestured to his parents and then to Jake’s mother. “As you know, it aint been easy for these two kids, but, with God’s will and our blessings, hey, let’s toast them for long life! And lots of bambini! Barbara and Jake. Jake and Barbara Martin!”

  The combo — a trumpet, accordion, violin, and drums — broke into a tarantella. Sal stood up, took Barbara s hand, and started to bring her out on the dance floor. “No, Pop, wait!” Joe yelled. “The first dance is always the bride and groom. Pop, you gotta wait. You gotta wait. “

  There on the couch In the loft, I felt wetness on the fabric and lifted my face, burying It in my hands. My mind drifted to thoughts of Clancy, then Vietnam. Those guys In the second squad, In that village, surprised and butchered by the gooks. And that little girl walking in tight circles until she dropped alongside her mother. Watching the medics work on her until she stopped breathing.

  I felt as If I were suspended, as if floating between layers of stratus clouds, darkness above and below. I got up and opened the window, peering out Into the night sky. Heavy rain was falling, a tattoo of drops hit my face, mingling with my tears. The lights of the city blurred. I wanted to be absorbed Into the night, Into the blur, until I became nothing; nothing to think or feel or do. I felt myself being swept away, no longer in control. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind.

  9

  I TOOK a cab up to the Sixtieth Street Heliport. The weather had turned lousy, the rain scarring the windows; it went with my mood. Inside the small operations buildings the young dispatcher greeted me: “You flying tonight, Mr. Martin?” He was wearing a yellow rain suit and hat, his glasses dripping.

  “No,” I said. “I just wanted to watch her through the large window. Just sit here a minute. Alone, if you don’t mind.” The dispatcher nodded and went to the rear of the building. I observed the water streaking down in jagged lines over the sleek metal body. The two long blades sagged from the top, drooping, like some huge, flightless, prehistoric bird. As I studied the helicopter, I decided it was indeed a clumsy, gawky machine. But it does fly. Does the job and doesn’t ask for help, offers no advice, and expects no thanks.

  After some time, I stepped out into the drenching rain. I felt as if I were carrying an enormous weight on my shoulders and back. Sisyphus … no, at least I could walk on flat ground — that poor bastard had to keep climbing the same hill. Christ, Henry, stop being so melodramatic.

  The rain was pouring out of the sky the way it did in Vietnam. Except for an occasional person out walking a dog, the sidewalks were deserted. I began to run the ten blocks to my house, looking up to cross the streets. At one corner — was it Seventieth Street? — yes Seventieth — there was the grocery store on the corner — I banged into a wire trash can and fell. On my bad knee. Drenched, all of me.

  I should have been watching.

  Inside my townhouse, I peeled off my hat and raincoat, shed my clothes, put on a robe, and poured myself a double brandy, which I took into the small breakfast area off the kitchen. I wanted to watch the planes break through the bottom of the overcast, their landing lights tracking preassigned paths before being turned over to the tower. Something reassuring about the way each one tracked the prescribed instrument landing system.

  Important to meet with Steve and Ari quickly. Examine how not closing the Standard General lease will affect our sources of income. Without the lease, no $65 million permanent mortgage to replace the building loan, which was personally guaranteed. Banks have really tightened up. Can’t be sure how Federated will deal with our expiring building loan. When I meet with MacDougall, must have a number of options, make him comfortable. Otherwise, he could call the loan.

  Federated could foreclose, but it would take them at least a year or more. Banks are notoriously bad building owners. And worse managers. They get caught up in extensive bureaucracy. They either end up leasing only a portion of the empty space or leasing below market rents. Of course, they don’t have to pay interest and amortization. But when they act that way, they tie up capital that could be better invested elsewhere, like in bonds, commercial paper, or loans of a different sort. You’d think stockholders and bank examiners would pressure them not to get into real estate. Actually, there haven’t been that many foreclosures yet. The last thing banks want is to be strung out with a developer for umpteen years.

  The phone rang. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Except … maybe it’s Karen, wanting to see me.

  I picked up the phone, and in a heavy accent: “Hull-o. Ladies’ Uptown Steam Baths, Mahmoud, proprietor speaking.” I wanted to show Karen I was in a better mood.

  “Henry? What’s this ‘steam bath and Mahmoud’ business?” It was my father, his voice a little raspy.

  “Hi, Dad. Just popped into my head. Good to hear you. I miss you.” He must have talked to Steve. I didn’t feel like a lecture or advice. “How’s your wife?” I asked.

  “Don’t be funny. She’s fine. I called you earlier. Twice.” It wasn’t difficult to tell when he was annoyed.

  “Just came home. Haven’t checked my machine yet. You sound upset.”

  “I am. Very. Steven just called. Told me the Standard General deal is down the drain.” He waited for me to respond, but I knew there was more coming. “Wei, doesn’t that create problems? Major problems? Steve said there was no backup deal.” Another pause, but I let him go on. “Remember my warning you that a building the size of 355 was too damn big to spec? That you’d better get tenants first?”

  “Dad, I was dead sure they would take the building. And if they didn’t, we had other good prospects. The market was strong when we began and looked even better going forward. You taught me about risk-reward.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but I always made sure we never overstepped ourselves. A forty-thousand-square-foot industrial building on Long Island in 1953 is one thing. That fifty-story Taj Mahal you put up is another.” My father had a pleasant way of challenging me. It was one of the things I always appreciated about him. His criticisms were direct but not offensive. We could talk them out without either one of us getting really angry. When I was fifteen I began to grasp what his business was all about. Sometime later he told me he had involved me as a way of getting me interested. Also to make me recognize, analyze, and solve problems. When he retired he gave his remaining one-third stake in the company to my mother as nonvoting stock. Steve and I owned the other two-thirds, as well as all of the class-A voting stock.

  “Yeah, it is a big building, but we can handle it. And remember those first office buildings in Jericho on the expressway? I was at Middlebury then. I seem to recollect your sweating bullets until they were rented up.”


  “Henry, that was 1964. We grabbed the best piece of land in Nassau, at Exit 40, Jericho Turnpike. Real estate had yet to catch up with the economy. Low-cost labor on Long Island attracted New York companies. Secretaries would work for less to be closer to home. And, Henry, you seem to forget I had that first building over forty percent leased before I put a shovel in the ground. A little different, don’t you think?”

  I knew he wasn’t being smug. Simply reminding me how rational and thorough he had always been. Still, I had been sure I was right with 355 Park Avenue, It set up like a huge winner, and we had clout with the banks. For Chrissake, half a dozen knocked themselves out trying to get our account. Who could have anticipated that the market would go so quickly from bullish to bearish, everyone hell-bent for the hills?

  I'll work something out, Dad. MacDougall’s an old friend. We’ve got a good statement. Outside of Three-Fifty-Five, all our other buildings have solid cash flows.” I could hear myself sighing, as if I didn’t believe my own brave pronouncements.

  “Supporting all that vacant land. Didn’t you acquire more than you needed?”

  “You taught me that buying a parcel early creates a low land cost. May be the difference between mortgaging out or having to leave money in the deal.”

  “Land and horses eat, son. Too much land, you starve.” He paused. “This time it doesn’t look like the standard recession, Henry. More like a three-headed monster. Call me after you meet with the bank.”

  He didn’t usually make that request. He had stopped doing it years ago. Not that I didn’t value his opinion or respect his experience, but the real estate industry had changed.

  “You’re thinking times are different,” he added, as if reading my mind. “That I’ve been out of it and wouldn’t understand. Well, there are still many parallels. Banks, vacancies, cash flows, liquidity. Henry, if you want I can jump on the first plane.”

  “No thanks, Dad. But I appreciate your support. As always. How are you keeping busy out there in the land of eternal youth?”

  “Same stuff. Golf, a little tennis, some bridge, friends. Just came back with your mother from Fort Huachuca, Hereford, and Bisbee. Went up Ramsey Canyon to the beautiful Nature Conservancy preserve. We also booked a cruise to Australia and the Orient in December. Everything’s fine except…”

  “Except what?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t tell your mother or Steve. I've been having some dizzy spells lately. Nothing serious, Fm sure. Better stay out of the sun. Some of my friends out here have gotten skin cancer.”

  I didn’t like what I was hearing. Joyce’s father had experienced dizziness. Turned out his arteries were clogged. Next thing you knew, triple bypass. Joyce’s father was considerably younger. Dad was seventy-five. “Move up the date of your annual. Promise me, Dad.”

  “Sounds just like your mother. All right. I’ll call tomorrow. And stay cool, Henry. That’s always been one of your great strengths. Good night, son. I love you. Your steam bath business sounds pretty good. I’ll take off thirty pounds, be the towel boy, or become a eunuch if I have to.”

  I laughed. “Call me after the doctor gives you the once-over.” I said good night, then added: “Talking with you is always helpful. Dad. And by the way, I love you, too.”

  The pizza had given me indigestion. Or maybe the cognac. A nice, long hot shower. Oscar Hijuelos’s new novel. Damn good. Just hit the New York Times Book Review best-seller list. Shit, I miss Karen. Wish she’d call. I was a real jerk tonight.

  It took me a while to fall asleep, which was unusual. By the end of a day, whether it was business or sports, indoor or out, I usually have no trouble sleeping. Finally, I drifted off. Troubled dreams. In one, I was in a race, but the rule was that the one who came in first lost. I wanted to question the rule, but no one would listen. All of us were plowing through knee-deep, gravylike gruel, a smelly greenish mess. At first everyone was nondescript, but then I began to recognize some of my buddies. I was back in Vietnam, leading my company through the swamps toward some village we had to take. My buddy and XO Rich — First Lieutenant Rich Giannotti — was on recon. I knew he was in danger; he had gotten too far ahead of us. He was yelling for everyone to hurry up, he was about to enter the village and wanted more fire support. “Henry, for Chrissake, get your ass up here. Fm going in.”

  “Wait for the gunships and mortars,” I yelled back. They’d blow those gook-ridden shacks to smithereens. “Wait, Rich, we’re coming up!” But either he didn’t hear me or couldn’t. He looked back at me one last time, then dashed into the open, his automatic blazing. The dumb bastard always had a cigar stuck in his mouth, in a face that looked as though it hadn’t seen soap and water for six months. He got no farther than ten yards when a sniper nailed him. Twice.

  When I arrived, Rich was writhing on the ground. I turned him over. He was holding his stomach. His guts were spilling through his hands, blood and bile. I tried to push them back inside, but the more I pushed the more they kept coming out. He looked up and smiled. “Dumb sonofabitch,” I said, holding his head in my lap.

  “Yeah, but I won. I was here first. That’s the game, you jerkoff. I won. I won.” He bit the side of his mouth from the pain, then his body began to twitch and he ground his teeth. “Light my butt, you asshole. It went out in the rain. I mean it, do what I say!”

  “Good God, Rich, you totally screwed up. The first one in loses! Didn’t they tel you that?”

  As I lit his cigar, everything changed to smoke. When it cleared, Rich was gone except for his second finger, which kept wagging. Then it pointed. I can’t do that, I thought. Go where it’s pointing. Then I was alone and it was pitch black. The sky had three moons in it. One was bare, the second laughing, the third crying.

  There was a sign on a tree, a lone tree that had the bark of a sycamore but the needles of an evergreen. The bas-relief letters were in bronze in different sizes. Each letter was moving as if it were part of some tribal dance. I held the board firmly, but the words continued to dance. Then the sign sang to me: HENRY. HENRY. HENRY SABATINL

  HENRY SABATINI MARTIN. IF YOU DONT WANT TO COME IN FIRST, GO TO THE BEGINNING OF THE AIRPORT RUNWAY, AND WALK BACKWARD. IF YOU STOP, YOU WONT BE ABLE TO START AGAIN. WALK

  BACKWARD REGARDLESS OF WHAT ANY OF THE OTHER SIGNS TELL YOU. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE, AND YOU MUST HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR TWO MINUTES.

  I closed my eyes, gasping. Suddenly I was on a huge stage. The same greenish gruel seeped in, curling around the furniture and trees. A single lamp stood like a traffic light. Pastel-colored bulbs were flashing under the shade. I put my hand underneath and something grabbed it. As I withdrew my hand, it held a note, which read, “Henry, think for yourself. Don’t follow the leader,’ It was signed, “Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid Bottling Company.”

  The lamp turned into a moray eel, its mouth gaping with huge razor-sharp teeth. It smiled at me and said, “Kiss me, kiss me.” I turned to run, but remembered what the sign had said about walking backward. I wasn’t sure whether to trust the sign or not. As I began to walk backward, the moray eel came closer. “We’re in a race, but I’m faster,” it hissed. “I want to kiss you hard.” I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I kept trying and finally screamed myself awake. My pillow and sheets were soaked.

  It was 4:30 A.M. The rain had stopped, and outside a thick fog had settled in, obliterating the buildings with milky gauze. I dozed on the couch, but woke when the automatic coffee machine began to grind the beans. At least it wasn’t Rich grinding his teeth. Or the moray eel.

  1

  WHEN I arrived at our Garden City office park, a complex of three four-story buildings we had erected eight years earlier, Steve’s and Ari’s cars were parked in their assigned spots. I brought a cup of black coffee with me into the executive conference room. They were deep in conversation. I would have liked to have been that proverbial fly on the wall, overhear what they had been saying. As a kid, I used to fantasize I had that power.

  Various c
ash flow sheets were spread out on the table. It looked as if Steve and Ari could have been piecing together wallpaper before hanging it. The summary page they were concentrating on was titled

  “COMBINED CASH FLOWS, ALL ENTITIES.” Steve looked up. “Glad

  you could finally make it,” he said.

  “And a good morning to you, too, Steve,” I said. He grumbled something about having to pee and walked out of the room. I sat down in his place and concentrated on the bottom lines, “SURPLUS/DEFICIT, TOTAL INCOMES AND EXPENDITURES.”

  “How bad, Ari?” I asked. We would examine together how we could handle the deficits that would now surely occur.

  Ari Miller was solid as a rock and utterly meticulous. I liked and respected him, though he was somewhat introverted and would have had a tough time if he had to make his living as a salesman. He was born in Vienna in 1937. His parents had waited too long to escape the Nazis, but bribed whoever they had to so their infant son could. An older daughter remained with them. Papers were forged, and the underground placed Ari with a Spanish businessman whose next stop was Italy. Prom there, his guardian took him to Barcelona, where he was smuggled onto a ship to Alexandria in the care of a woman with six children, including Ari. Then finally to Palestine. When he was old enough, Ari made an exhaustive search for his sister and parents; he finally learned that they died in 1944 in a gas chamber in Bergen-Belsen. All he could find out about his sister was that she probably ended up in Sweden. That was all. He married an American Jew he met on a kibbutz, who bore him three sons. Ari spent six years at the accounting firm of Ernst and Young. After those six years, he decided to switch to a smaller company where he would have more impact.

  I admired and respected my CFO, senior vice president for finance. Ari didn’t hesitate to raise the red flag when he detected problems, and often proposed solid solutions. Armed with his analyses, I would determine our best courses of action, especially for new projects and acquisitions. Ari tried to make Steve feel involved, so he always made sure to send reports and memos to both of us.