”Betty Ruth, if you continue to yell at that man like that, he’s going to leave you!”
”Mother, you don’t understand. If I don’t yell at Bob, he won’t do a damned thing!”
…
”It’s not something a father likes to admit about his son, but if Bob can’t make this phone book thing work at Donnelly, at the age of 50 it’ll be too late for him to start over. Again.”
”It also helps that there’s no money or product for him to steal, Hoyt.”
Aside: My (maternal-side) uncle, the deliverer of that last line, was a World Class Dick. His asshole game was always on, and it was always top notch – if you wanted to verbally spar with him, better bring your A game and expect to get hurt in return. Smart as hell, he would’ve been a memorable addition to the Dope, at least before his inevitable banning.
Born in 1932, seasoned in Korea, a young executive at JC Penney, my father found himself in 1969 a widower with responsibility for four children. For reasons which weren’t explained to two year-old me, we transferred to Atlanta, GA, my father put in charge of the largest store in the city which also doubled as the distribution center for the other Penney stores situated around Atlanta. Remarried in 1971 to a widow with children of her own (and, really, that’s another thread) he was very successful at Penney’s until….
OK, so when I was a kid we would have fucking fantastic Christmas’s – I would be willing to bet that, gift-wise, our Christmases were better than yours. Or yours. Or yours. On Christmas Eve, we would sit down in front of the tree around 7pm and, for the next three, four hours, the 10 of us would open the hundreds of gifts which surrounded the tree, emptying it of all gifts. And the price we paid? We had to clean everything up before bed time. 10 people giving 9 gifts to the other family members, the parents getting each of the kids multiple gifts… yeah, it was a lot. It took hours to open them.
And the next morning, we would do it again. We would come down, vast mounds of gifts around the tree, and spend hours opening what came from Santa Claus. We would sit down, 2 hours, longer, and open the gifts from Santa.
And it’s 45 years later, I’m telling this to Cathy (Hi!), and I suddenly realized… Holy shit, all that stuff was stolen! My childhood Christmas gifts – they had to be stolen! It’s the only thing which makes sense!
And it makes sense because Dad suddenly lost his job at Penney’s under mysterious (to us kids, at that time) circumstances, his connections unable to protect him for once. And then began the slide…
Dad started a business, executive recruiting, and it failed. He then tried to sell real estate, but… uh… well, one time he needed money, let himself into one of his clients’ home, stole some shit, and pawned it off.
So at the time it’s just my brother and I – the sisters were in college, living in dorms, so they didn’t notice when Dad stopped coming home all of a sudden. One night. Two nights. Three nights. WTF? My brother and I finally pin down Ann, his girlfriend, who told us that Dad was tired and staying at her house. “Bullshit”, I responded, for I could see the lie in her eyes. And then it was that she told us what had happened.
Long story short, Dad plead guilty to a reduced charge, Ann left him, he started (again) with Donnelley after a small stint at another firm where he met my eventual stepmother, and after a year or so at Donnelley, the ATT decision mentioned above happened. Sometime between 1976 and somewhen I learned that Dad was fired from Penneys because of theft (guaranteed this was told to me by my grandparents - they detested Dad).
So, here’s the thing. My dad was very charming, very competent in that Midwest executive sort of way. He’s not one you would go out to the titty bar with, but you would definitely enjoy him in a steak house at 10pm, talking about business and common acquaintances over scotch. And no matter how he fucked up in the decade or so after losing his first wife, he always kept that “competent, white male executive” persona about him, and it allowed enough people to look past his (recent!) transgressions and give him a shot. Loans for his business. Contracts with Fortune 500 businesses. More. (Again, don’t tell me white privilege doesn’t work – my Dad went from prison to 7-figure businessowner in 3 years. If you have the look and attitude, you can just about do anything.)
And so, when this started, my father had his back against the wall – he had a record, in his mind this really was his last shot (his father was likely right about that), and, while quite capable, he really needed someone to kick his ass to make him achieve anything.
Enter my stepmother.