The Fives Run North-South (5 page)

Because I’m not sure the warnings came soon enough to help.

5

S
ometimes there is this annoying tickle in the throat. A noticeable hotness in the breath. And a slight, ragged loss of energy. And in settling down and letting it assemble into reflective thought, the hints that a
cold
—
or
worse
—
is
working its way into the system pricks at the mind.

When that happens, I always try to shut it down. Overwhelm it with determined optimism blanketed in denial. Sometimes the symptoms abate, and I conclude that my system has responded favorably to my force of will. I can go to sleep confident that I’ve piloted my system in accordance with the
self
-
control
of my world.

Then I wake up with a stuffed head and inflamed throat.

But that doesn’t prevent me from trying again when, months later, the tickle in the throat returns.

So when a few days passed without any further suspicious incidents related to my newfound buddy in the red SUV, I let the whole mess settle into a dark compartment in my mind so I could focus on the upcoming threats that Kyle Thomas presented. Hastily arranged meetings with my allies on the board and the management team had delayed the meeting Kyle had tried to throw together to start the process that could lead to my ouster. The smaller meetings continued and plugged up my calendar, resulting in
later
-
than
-
usual
evening returns home (though considering Suze’s moods lately, even had I not had anything legitimate keeping me in the office, I’d have probably faked it).

I was in my third meeting with Chester McCaughlin, my biggest supporter on the board, and perhaps my closest friend. It was a Thursday, midway through the morning. He had been lingering too long on niceties.

“Chester,” I said, interrupting some prattle about golf or a boat of some kind.

“Yes, Adam?”

“You’re doing it.”

“What?”

“That thing with your brow,” I said. “Like you’re trying to squeeze your eyeballs out of your skull.” It was good for Chester that he’d been born to old money, he didn’t have the poker face necessary to make his own way in the world.

There was a hesitant knock on my office door. Dammit. I shut the thing for a reason.

“Colorful,” Chester said, without a smile. It didn’t appear he’d heard the knock. I chose to ignore it.

“Well, you should know by now I don’t need
easing
-
in
when it comes to difficult discussions. Rip off the
Band
-
Aid
,” I said.

“I had dinner with Wes and Robert last night.”

“Wes getting any better at keeping his mouth shut while chewing?”

Chester’s smile was too full of effort and too devoid of humor.

“And Kyle Thomas,” he said.

“Hope he had the spot directly across from Wes,” I said, hiding any potential shock.

Again, the tapping on my door. This time Chester heard it, turning slightly.

“Chester,” I said from the gut, yanking his eyes and his focus back to me. “What was the general topic of discussion?”

“I’m guessing you know,” he said.

“You tell me. Global warming? The Red Sox middle relief issues?”

“Dammit, Adam, talk is talk. You’ve got to expect that.”

“Sure I do. Who paid the tab?”

He did that thing where his eyes cross for a second, then looked at me questioningly. “What’s that matter?”

“It matters, Chester. At the end of every meal, someone reaches out and says ‘I got this.’ So I’m asking you a relatively
easy
-
to
-
answer
question. When the bill was dropped in the middle of the table, who reached over and said ‘I got this’?”

“Kyle,” he said after a pause (in which his eyes danced on the ceiling as he tried to connect the dots). “Though I hardly see how that matters.”

I froze, looking directly in his eyes. Creating the void.

After clearing his throat, he said: “He has some good points, stuff we need to consider. You do know that in the last five years, the market cap for Resortex has, you know, gone through the roof.”

Resortex was the closest thing we had to a competitor. “Not exactly McDonald’s versus Burger King here. There are significant differences, as I’m sure you explained to Kyle.”

“Of course, but…”

“He’s making assumptions and using those to try and make decisions based in ignorance. Now what we need to do…”

Again, the knock on the door. Chester looked back over his shoulder. “Maybe you ought to…”

I took a deep breath, rubbing my temples. “What?” I said loudly.

A moment of silence. Whoever was on the other side of the door, (probably Joanne, my assistant, who typically was much more mindful of the purpose behind a closed door) hesitated. Then slowly the knob turned and Joanne slid her head into the room.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Mann,” she said, with a slight shake in her voice. “But she insisted.”

“Who insisted?”

“Your wife. She couldn’t hold on the line, but asked me to pass you an urgent message.”

I looked at Chester. He stood up. “I’ll leave. We can finish up later.”

“That’s okay,” I said, waving him to his seat. “Sometimes Suze and I have a different interpretation of what should or shouldn’t be classified as urgent.” I looked back up at Joanne. “What’s going on?”

“It’s your son, sir. It appears there’s been an accident. He’s in the hospital near his school, and she’s on the way up there.”

Ten minutes later, I was pulling out of the parking lot (tires all good) and on my way to see Peter. I had assured Chester that our conversation would resume first thing Monday morning. Today was Thursday, so this would turn into a long weekend. As unsettling as it was to leave at this juncture, I also recognized that Friday was a difficult day to capture all the ears I would need to have listening to me.

Before leaving, I’d scanned my desk, making sure I brought with me every critical document. This couldn’t have come at a worst time, and I’d strongly considered calling Suze and letting her know that I had to stay behind. But I knew that wasn’t right. So even now, as I drove up there, I still had the guilt chewing at me: what kind of father did I picture myself to be if I felt a stronger desire to stay at my desk than at my son’s hospital bedside?

Of course it’s all a balance. On one side of the scale, that
all
-
too
-
familiar
guilt. The counterweight: all the advantages he and Suze enjoyed from the fruits of my labor. It’s a juggling act, but I was comfortable that the two were of equal weight. As I’d often said to Suze, you can’t have it all. We like our stuff. Peter’s in a top school. Paid in cash. Not many have that opportunity. It anchors me to
places
—
both
physical and in my mind and
attentions
—
that
are at a distance from them. That’s the case with me, and frankly, with just about everyone I sit across from every day. They don’t let the guilt in. They don’t leave space for it. Neither, in the end, can I.

So as I pulled out from the parking lot, feeling layers of discomfort, I realize that Suze has to forgive me (and I have to forgive myself) if the first, deepest layer is the sense that I’m abandoning my company and my primary duties with FMP.

So what happened to Peter is this. And it’s silly, really. Kind of stuff we all did in college, and only through dumb luck with no bad consequence (really, who doesn’t think back on some of the things we did as kids and breathe a sigh of relief that we didn’t end up broken or even dead?).

It was a nice, sunny Saturday. Late afternoon. Peter and some of his frat brothers wanted to enjoy the atmosphere, so they climbed out the
second
-
story
windows in their fraternity house onto the porch roof to drink beer and listen to music. Peter went in to get more beer and when climbing back out of the window and onto the roof to where the gang was sitting, he lost his footing and slipped. He slid down the porch roof and over the edge. Luckily, the fall wasn’t too far. Unluckily, it was broken by the
wrought
-
iron
fence that surrounds the property. He caught his hand, just above the wrist, on one of the iron spires atop the fencepost. It speared his hand, making his land on the ground in a grotesque imitation of a Nazi giving their infamous salute. Peter’s toes did manage to touch the ground stopping his fall, which they tell me saved his hand. Had he been a few inches
shorter
—
or
the gate a few inches
taller
—
the
force of his fall would likely have torn his hand off his arm.

But the damage was still substantial. The spire ripped some key blood vessels, shattered small bones, and risked permanent nerve damage. Two emergency surgeries were needed within days of the fall, with no guarantee that Peter would have
full
-
functional
use of his hand. When I arrived at the hospital, they’d told Suze that a third surgery might be necessary and that some fairly intensive physical therapy was all but guaranteed.

One thing was clear: the driver of the red SUV wasn’t there to push him off. I’d be fooling you if I didn’t admit that the thought crept in for a few seconds during the drive up.

Kids being kids, simple as that. Peter had been the fortunate son; his luck simply took a tumble this time. Either way, I was there to make sure he had only the best care from this point forward. At least I could give him that.

His eyes fluttered open.

“Hey,” I said. “How you doing, Scrapper?” Scrapper: his nickname from back when he was eight or so. He hated it then. Judging from his expression, I guessed he still hated it. Though it could be the medication.

Trying to look down at his
well
-
bandaged
hand, he said: “Feel fine now.”

I was alone with him in his hospital room. Suze had been here since her arrival a few hours before me and was taking some time strolling to the cafeteria for a snack. Don’t think she had expected he’d come around this soon after the second surgery, because she’d hate that she wasn’t here for it.

“Pretty stupid of me, hey, Dad?” he said.

“At my age, it would have been stupid,” I said. “For you, not so much.”

He grinned softly. “Surprised you made it,” he said. “Not like it’s that serious.”

“Any excuse to get away.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking again down at his hand. “And for me, any excuse to get out of my Fundamental Physics test.”

I sat down, stretching my stiff neck as I settled into the visitor’s chair; a chair shaped more for a potbellied pig than a grown human man. Easy to see why Suze needed a break.