The Ego Makers

by Donald Everett Axinn

  “Well, Henry,” he began, “I’m hearing all kinds of things about you.

  Good Christ, it’s true that bad news travels faster than shock waves from an earthquake. “They’re attacking me from almost every direction, Jack.”

  “Based on some distortion, I would think,’ Phelan answered. “What can I do for you?”

  “I thought you could give me some advice. I want to make sure, after I put this whole thing into perspective, the necessity to make important decisions.” I could hear my syntax falling all over itself

  “Yes, but that won’t change the facts, whatever they are. Perception is reality, Henry.”

  “Do you have any time soon to discuss the situation with me?”

  “Margaret and I are leaving this afternoon, flying to Florida, and then boarding a cruise ship for the Caribbean with two of our grandchildren. For about ten days. However, they do have ship-to-shore phones.”

  That’s no help, I thought.

  “You’d be surprised what can be accomplished on the phone when it’s necessary,” Phelan said. “Henry, I know this sounds trite, but make sure you don’t lose your objectivity.”

  “Ill do my best.”

  “Oh, Henry, one more thing. Remember those lunches, and some of the things we talked about? Ego and arrogance. The two kinds of ego? One is the healthy kind, the kind that permits us to believe in ourselves. If we didn’t have that kind of ego, you and I would be followers. What I was trying to make you understand is the other kind of ego, the destructive one that we too often ignore or suppress.”

  “You want me to see a psychiatrist, Jack?” I immediately regretted saying it.

  “I don’t have to continue with this, Henry,” he bristled. “‘I’m just not sure you understand the differences. You’ve still got a thing or two to learn.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sure I do. Just my frustration.”

  “Just a minute.” I could hear him telling his wife he’d be off the phone in a moment. “I have to finish packing. Quickly then, the destructive ego can become pervasive when we fail to observe its presence in ourselves.” There was a pause. “Often they alternate. It’s very difficult to detect which one is operative. History is replete with the lives of men and women whose downfalls resulted from an excess of destructive ego. In your situation, Henry, you achieved what you have by utilizing both. But you've got some serious straightening out to do. God, I must sound like a preacher.”

  He did.

  “One last remark, and listen to me carefully. It’s important you continue to believe in yourself, because you’re going to be tested as you never have been before. Have to go. I hope you retain a little of this.

  "I've taken mental notes. I'll work on it. And thanks, Jack, for taking the time. Have a great holiday.”

  “My secretary can tell you how to reach me, Henry, if there’s an emergency.”

  I never did go for all that psychological mumbo-jumbo, especially when the enemy is charging down the hill. Or was it up? Jack had lots of time on his hands these days. Lectures and seminars at business schools all over the country. A little different when you’re up to your ass in crocodiles.

  22

  “WHAT’S your assessment?” I asked Ken Grubin. “We’re being besieged from every quarter. Steve has effectively blown up our munitions. Do we still have enough reserves to withstand the onslaught?”

  Ken, my accountant, was born and raised in Brooklyn and was very savvy. About fifty, tall, full-faced, he was a big man but not fat. He sported a beard, probably because he was balding. He combed his thinning strands across his pate, but the outcome of the battle was no longer in serious doubt. He had an unconscious habit of sticking his tongue in one cheek when he was concentrating. He gestured a lot, and his long arms made his movements all the more fluid and eloquent.

  Ken was not your typical accountant. That’s why I chose him way back when he was working for Morris Ginsberg, my original accountant. I helped him get started with a loan, but told him my one condition was that his firm always remain in the same building as mine. Quick access was mandatory. I liked Ken, as much for his professionalism as for his easygoing personality. But most of all, because he never hesitated to disagree with me.

  “Federated has to be our major concern. Also, the other loans and mortgages, your cash situation. Ari and I have some serious analyzing to do.”

  “But what’s your gut feeling, Ken?”

  He eyed Miller, then me. “Maybe not enough cash or bank credit to cover all our needs. We’ll know in a few days.”

  “Not a few days,’ I said firmly. “Tomorrow.”

  “Well try. I’ve assigned a couple of juniors together with some of your people. They'll run analyses. Ari and I will study them, and —”

  Dianne burst into the room. She had the look of someone in shock.

  “Your mother is calling. Something about your father. I couldn’t make her out, but I think your father’s had a stroke. Or a heart attack. She’s on line six.”

  I grabbed the phone. “Mom? Mom?” No response. I waited several seconds, then hung up and called back. Four rings and the answering machine came on, so I dialed their second number. Jesus Christ, I thought, why wasn’t she picking up? I called the first number again. The machine again.

  “Dianne, book me on the next flight to Phoenix. It'll probably be difficult at short notice. If it leaves in more than two hours, make arrangements for a private jet.” I turned to Ken and Ari. “Look, put it together. Nights if you need to. You understand why.” Ken waved.

  “Dianne, get hold of a Phoenix operator. Ask her for the phone numbers of the hospitals closest to my parents’ house. I'll call the emergency rooms.” I paused. “No, you book the flight. I'll check the hospitals. And Dianne, you’ll have to drive me to the airport.”

  She nodded, started toward the door, then turned back. “What about Steve?” She asked. I stood there, my mind racing.

  “Steve … Steve. Yes, I’ll call him. Probably my mother already has.”

  The news wasn’t good, but at least my father was alive. Not a heart attack, a series of strokes —- debilitating, but not massive. Too soon to know the full extent. It took about twenty minutes to locate him in St. Joseph’s Hospital, and then to ascertain his condition from the attending doctor.

  I had not really given much thought to my father’s slow but inevitable decline. The shock of his sudden strokes hit me like a blow to my gut. Hell, he’s seventy-five, but in top physical condition. No reason not to assume he didn’t have many good years left. Mother, too.

  I talked to Steve from my car. He said he was making his own arrangements to fly out.

  “Look, the important thing now is what we can do for him,” I said.

  “All right. When we get there, I'm going to act like we’ve made up. But have no illusions, Henry, you’re one hundred percent out of my life!”

  “I don’t need you, either. I never did.”

  He hung up. I don’t know why I thought of it at that moment, but I was wondering how Joyce could think of spending the rest of her life with Steve. Then I remembered what she told me over our last non-lunch. About my not being able to make a commitment to her.

  Except for the maternity section, hospitals always give me the feeling of finality; they exude grimness. I also hate the notion that when you step over the hospital threshold you relinquish all control over your destiny, your life. Entrust it completely to the competence of the medical professionals. Or the incompetence.

  Maybe I was influenced by what I saw in Vietnam, the crazed field medics trying desperately to cope, the panic at the base hospitals. I decided they’d have to put me in a straitjacket to bring me into one of those places.

  I found Mother in the waiting room, pale and distraught. She seemed to be shorter and heavier than I remembered. She reminded me of my two Sabatini aunts, and several of the cousins. If she had been dressed in black, I could have been greeting a Sicilian peasant woman.

  W
e hugged. “My Jake, my wonderful Jake.” She collapsed against me, as if seeking strength. “I’ve been praying to God, Henry. You must pray, too. Where’s Steven? He should be here.”

  “He’ll be here any minute, Mom.” Her face was an image of emptiness. Her eyes darted, birdlike, nervously back and forth. “We’re here with you.”

  ‘Why didn’t you come together? You should have.” Her expression was one of clear reproach.

  “Steve and I will work things out, Mom. How’s Dad doing?”

  “I saw him a half hour ago. He couldn’t talk, but he smiled. They said in a day or so they’ll do a battery of tests.” She began to sob. “I love him so much, Henry. So much. Tel me hell be all right.” I tried to console her, but I knew Steve would do a better job as soon as he arrived.

  In Mother’s presence, Steve and I put on a convincing act of brotherly affection. Away from her, we had nothing to do with each other, not even traveling to and from the hospital. The chief neurologist, Lawrence Scharfman, a man who’d been in his specialty for many years, told us that he was generally optimistic.

  My mother was shaking visibly, and I suspected Scharfman was offering her the reassuring words she so much wanted to hear. But, when I got him alone, his story was less optimistic.

  “It’s still too early to say for sure the degree of recovery,” he said. “What I said just now was more for your mother, since I can see how upset she is. Understandably, I might add.”

  “We appreciate that,” I said. “What’s your honest opinion?”

  “The good news is none of the strokes was major,” he said. “But the man is seventy-five —”

  “A vigorous seventy-five,” I countered.

  “I’m afraid strokes don’t always depend on physical condition.”

  I stayed in Phoenix three more days, most of which was spent in my father’s room, sometimes alone, sometimes with Steve and my mother. It was painful to see him this way, all tubed up, so white and impassive, but I joked with him, as I always had, and sensed I was making him feel better. It was apparent that Steve resented my little routine. I didn’t care.

  The day I left Phoenix, I went to my father’s room. There was a sharp crispness to the early morning Arizona air. The sun hadn’t worked its way higher and pushed heat down through the atmosphere. “Heading back to the sweatshop in the Big Apple, Dad. Get things straightened out.” I went over and kissed him. His eyes kissed me back.

  “I’ll call every morning, about this time. I expect you to be out there for a round of golf by Christmas. When I call, Mom can hold the phone if you need her to. We can settle all the national and international political and economic situations. And then well advise Congress.” I turned to my mother and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Be back in about a week. Maybe sooner.” I smiled at them both. “I’m as near as the phone.”

  Several weeks later, on a Sunday, at 2:30 in the morning, a call came from St. Joseph’s.

  “Dr. Scharfman here. I’m afraid I have bad news.” My heart fell. I knew now, for the first time, what that trite expression really means. “Your father had a massive stroke a few hours ago. We put him in intensive care, but his breathing was affected. The device helped for a few hours, but the shock to his system was just too great. I’m truly sorry, Mr. Martin. There was nothing we could do.”

  I made arrangements for a private jet and called Steve. I wanted to get to Phoenix to be with my mother as quickly as possible.

  I was in a state of shock, operating mechanically. Steve and I made the funeral arrangements, selected an oak coffin with an engraved Star of David on top, called family and friends, and ministered to my mother, who was inconsolable. I left most of that last chore to Steve, who rarely left her side for the next three days. And she, literally and figuratively leaning on him, seemed to find at least intermittent solace in his physical presence. The funeral and burial were something of a blur; I shook dozens of hands, embraced dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles, and children of all the above, most of whom I barely knew. I gave a short eulogy, but broke down toward the end and couldn’t finish.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. Macho Henry, ego-man, dissolved in a pool of water. But then I remembered Dad’s story about the time he broke down at the Courville cemetery in France near the end of the war.

  Joe Sabatini fought all through Africa and the Italian campaign without a scratchy from Algeria to Palermo to Anzio. He was awarded a battlefield commission when his lieutenant was blown to pieces by a land mine. He had taken over his platoon, quickly establishing himself as their competent but demanding leader.

  D-Day found Joe on the beaches of Normandy, leading his troops through heavy German fire, winning a Silver Star, a second Bronze Star, and a Battalion Citation. Casualties were staggeringly high, but again Joe escaped serious injury. He received shrapnel wounds, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart

  One afternoon, during a lull, Joe sat down to write Jake, his first letter in four weeks.

  France, late summer, 1944

  Dear Jake,

  I hope this gets to you. We’ve been moving so goddamn fast I don't even have time to look around. As for sleep, forget it Maybe an hour here and there, not like you boys having it soft in the Engineers. But we got the fucking Krauts on the run. Ike’s invasion surprised the fucking Germans. We ended up hitting the beach at St. Vaast-la-Hougue (hoo, hoo —get my French!) on the Cherbourg peninsula. We passed St Lo a week ago. These towns and cities are real quaint — or were. Right now they don’t look so good.

  Host a lot of my boys. (The censor wont mind my saying this, because if s common knowledge both sides took tremendous losses.) Kids, a lot of them, fresh from the States. I feel so much older than my men. If s no fun leading, but at least I got me a couple of real sharp platoon leaders. What a laugh. One of them is from West Point They never taught him this kind of fighting in his classes. Hike him because he’s willing to learn. The other is a tough Jewish kid from the Chicago streets. Good guy. Knows the drill. I told him about us and our family.

  So write me, knucklehead. Especially now that they promoted me to Captain. Yeah, I got two silver bars, like you, buddy. Imagine us, a pair of captains, clowns from Brooklyn. I gotta tell you, I miss you, cumpar. Hell, all the family. And Brigitte, my girl in Georgia. You’re the first to know we’re engaged. When we get back, we’ll start again, okay? I want us to build our company into something terrific. Only thing first you knock out those Nips, and I’ll beat the shit out of the fucking Krauts.

  Watch your ass, Jake. We didn’t get this far to screw up now.

  Your hero and brother-in-law, In the far Pacific, Jake and his company of combat engineers had battled from island to island, often along with the airborne infantry who were parachuted into the interior, behind the fighting on the beaches. The Japanese defended themselves ferociously against the troops coming ashore in waves of landing craft and by air at the airfields.

  Jake’s orders were to repair the landing strips that had been heavily bombed by the Air Force even as invasions by the infantry and armored cavalry were taking place. Jake seemed to possess a rare degree of leadership that motivated his men long after they had decided they couldn't take another step or dig another foxhole. He also insisted they be as good with weapons as they were with bulldozers.

  Some engagements were surprisingly easy, others endless nightmares. When they were dislodged from an airstrip, the Japanese often faked leaving, but hid nearby. After the Americans had established themselves, they would infiltrate and mount counterattacks. On Okinawa, in one of the worst campaigns of the war, US. casualties were devastatingly high. The heavily entrenched Japanese fought from the beaches, from the hills, from caves in the mountains. G-2 intelligence had reported heavy concentrations of the enemy defending the strategically important airstrips.

  For Jake and his men on Okinawa, the combat was brutal In one mission, they captured the airstrip only to lose it again. The next day they regained it. Two days later, an infantry h
eadquarters commander advised him that the area was finally secure and that he could begin the cleanup and prepare it for U.S. fighter planes.

  Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps caution, but Jake didn’t like what he sensed. Independently, he stationed guards at strategic points around the airstrip, and ordered them to remain alert for possible attacks. Nothing happened the first two days, but during the second night, under cover of a heavy overcast, the Japanese infiltrated and killed the guards with knives. Jake had established a communications system; reports were to be sent every hour. Shortly after midnight, his sergeant woke him to inform him that the reports had stopped coming.

  Before the alarm could be sounded, heavy mortar fire rained down on Jake’s headquarters, destroying his communications tent, which prevented him from contacting his platoon leaders at the perimeters to assess their situation and from contacting battalion HQ some miles away for desperately needed infantry and artillery support. Rounds and rounds of mortar and machine-gun fire poured in on them. He screamed an order to his company sergeant, one of the few career soldiers in his unit. Just as he did, the sergeant was hit by shrapnel from a mortar round, literally blowing half his head off. Several other soldiers were hit; the unit was close to panic.

  “Listen up, men!” Jake yelled, climbing onto a rickety folding chair. “Grab whatever you can! Get what’s left of the radios. And don't forget your weapons! Follow me to those trees. I mean, now!” They scampered, a few lugging equipment, 60mm and 81mm mortars and machine guns, trying like hell to keep their heads down. When they reached the clump of trees, Jake looked around and saw one of his men on the ground, writhing in pain, about halfway between the trees and the destroyed headquarters tent. Without thinking, Jake raced back to him, bursts of mortar fire on all sides. But he wasn't thinking: he was on automatic. He lifted the soldier, both of whose legs had been hit, and carried him back to the cluster of trees. Later he wondered how he ever could have carried the soldier, who weighed twenty pounds more than he did, and still move that fast.