Mark took a deep breath and quickened his pace.
“My colleagues and I deserved what we got. We could even say some clients deserved their losses because they knew their loans were more like windfalls. But what about the business people who didn’t ask for a nickel, yet when we failed, couldn’t raise a dime when they needed money? What about the employees with no connection to our department? They still lost their jobs.
“I was one of a herd, galloping around with blinders on. Our boss knew how to pull in the reins whenever he thought we might resist. I don’t think anyone spoke up, even when we heard rumors that he was lobbying for a golden parachute.
“I know I didn’t. I just told myself he and his cronies couldn’t possibly walk away with multi-year salaries. I was wrong in so many ways!”
“Justice comes in a variety of forms. What happened to your boss illustrates that, contrary to a general belief, injustice doesn’t go unpunished.”
“What happened, Zachri? When I left, I didn’t look back.”
“Jim and his colleagues did receive what you call golden parachute payments but they were forced to return them. A bank examiner found incriminating evidence within hours of the transaction. It became clear that all five recipients had foreknowledge of the bank’s insolvency.
“Even more incriminating were the findings from minutes of meetings, some of which you attended, showing that these same bankers had initiated and relentlessly pursued the risk-taking strategies that caused the bank to fail.
“The funds were frozen before the transfer could be completed. Your former boss was one very unhappy person, at least from the look on his face when he appeared on television.”
Mark appeared to be more stunned than satisfied by Zachri’s disclosure. He whispered, “I was to blame, too.”
“You weren’t part of senior management. You were only guilty of trying to make a bad idea turn out all right. At the very hour the news story was broadcast, you were witnessing the birth of your son.”
***
As those last five words echoed in his mind, Mark suddenly felt himself being propelled through time and on course for his next journey.
21
REUNION
The phone rang. Since his wife was feeding their baby, Mark grabbed it. A quick glance at the calendar next to the phone reminded him that it was May Day. Recognition brought back memories that stabbed him in the heart.
It was exactly seven years ago that the curtain had come down on one phase of his life. Time had erased much of the trauma but anniversaries had a way of letting stored feelings out of their tightly packed bags.
“Hello Mark! This is a voice from your past! Do you recognize me?”
“Could it be? Is this THE Steve Ferguson of the gone-but-not-forgotten First National Bank?”
“You guessed right, old buddy. I hoped….”
Mark interrupted him excitedly.
“Where have you been, Steve? I tried to reach you years ago but you had vanished…into the arms of a rich woman?”
“Hey, guy, give me a break. Anyway, wasn’t that your salvation? Did you marry that pretty nurse, Mark?”
“Yes and you would have been invited to the wedding if you’d given us a forwarding address.” Mark grinned as he remembered.
“What are you up to these days, Steve?”
Steve paused for just a few seconds before spitting out the words “I’m a banker.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. After what seemed enough time to trudge up a mountain on skis, Mark responded in a tightly controlled voice.
“You can’t have made another deal with the devil.”
“Mark, I now work for a highly respected organization. I’m expected – no, required - to do what I think is right for my clients. No ‘Jim’ types allowed here; it’s an international bank headquartered in Switzerland.”
“If you work in Switzerland, what are you doing in this part of the U.S.? Digging for gold?”
Those few words warned Steve of the need to walk softly but his words came out in a rush.
“My boss is looking for a few good men with your talent for reading people and I want you to join us in Hong Kong or most likely, in Geneva...”
Mark cut him off abruptly.
“You have surely got to be kidding! Or is this a way to stuff your own pocket? I expected better from you, Steve. I don’t hear from you for over six years and then, out of the blue, you ask me to drop everything and become a banker again just because you did. Did our friendship mean so little to you? I’m still suffering from having let our old boss pull my strings, plus now I have a wife and baby boy.”
“I apologize for blurting out my proposal like that, Mark. It’s just that you’d fit in so well. I’m calling from a hotel room two blocks from your home. May I come over?”
“Fit in! How do you know where I’d fit in? I don’t even know that anymore!”
“Mark, this job is the best thing that’s happened to me in years. I actually feel like I’m making up for First National.
“The money is good, too, but the relationships are more important.”
Steve paused and then added: “Like ours was. May I please come over?”
The pause was even longer than the one triggered by Steve’s first announcement.
“Oh, all right.” Mark sighed. “Peg would probably like to see you and we can show off little Martin. I’m warning you though: if you try to coax me into working for another immoral, power-hungry, manipulative son-of-a-bitch, even if the money is triple my foundation salary, I will literally kick you out of my house and my life for good. If you’re coming only as a friend, then find your way to 300 Lincoln Avenue, the little white house with a purple front door on the southwest corner of Lincoln and 32nd.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes, Mark and, if I remember correctly, this bottle I’m toting is your favorite Scotch.”
“Now, don’t think…”
“I know what you’re saying but I guarantee I’m not offering booze as an incentive. There will be no taking advantage of a friend; not tonight, not ever. I would love to have you in the office next to mine again but, if the offer doesn’t appeal to you, then your no will be no.”
***
Knocking at Mark’s door, twenty minutes later, Steve was as jittery inside as he had been before first dates in high school. He knew why but he wasn’t sure how to explain it so that Mark wouldn’t misunderstand.
The alcohol in his bag seemed to be begging him to take one quick sip. He knew he couldn’t. That was the medication that had fast-tracked his descent from successful loan officer to daily dining guest at one of Boston’s many food pantries.
If he was to get Mark to accept that this was not about a large finder’s fee, he would have to share the truth. The truth that losing his banking job had been much more devastating than anyone knew.
His golf buddies and church brothers had poked the knife in deeper by berating him for being a part of the mess.
As Steve weighed the costs of re-opening the chronicles of his past, the door to the Lincoln Avenue house opened. Steve could see by the way Mark’s eyes lit up that he had not been written off.
“Hello Steve! Come in! It’s really good to see you. Let me take your coat. Peg’s feeding Mark but she’ll be out in a minute. Do you remember Peg? I think I introduced you at least once.”
“Hey, Mark, you look just like the last time I saw you. Sure, I remember your lovely wife. The last few years have been kinder to you. Maybe she’s the difference. I chose to get my kicks along Route 66. You chose the attention of a good woman.”
Mark pointed to the recliner, his favorite reading chair. When Steve sat down, Mark took the seat to his right and turned to face him.
“You were always the ladies’ man, Steve. Why didn’t you fall prey to some sweet thing who assured you that everything would be all right? You just took off without a trace.
“For months I had to field calls from grieving
women. They seemed to think I would have a forwarding address.”
“Making light of the years since I’ve seen you would be easier for me, Mark, but that wouldn’t be the true story. Hopelessness is closer to the reality. I tried to escape it by the standard method: the bottle.”
Mark paled. “I was shocked by your call, Steve. A bit embarrassed, too, that I hadn’t looked you up in recent years.”
“That’s okay, Mark. You wouldn’t have found me. I was living in a dream world of sorts. Those I shared a bottle with asked very little of me. In a way I was very much myself, not needing to prove anything or please anyone. It was a total makeover; a lifestyle closer to how Robin Williams lived as Perry, the homeless professor, in one of my favorite movies, The Fisher King but I’m droning on.” Steve smiled wryly.
“What has your life been like since the wipeout on Washington Avenue, Mark?”
“To be honest, I felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown for months; especially after I learned that one of my clients had committed suicide after losing his candy store. Earlier, I’d told Ron that the probability of turning his business around, even with a loan, was poor. Even so, when the race to reach our department’s goals kicked into high gear, I made that loan. The more humanitarian way would have been brutal honesty. I wish I’d had the guts. I can be mighty when carrying out orders but just the opposite when faced with an unpopular action.”
Steve was stunned by Mark’s self-evaluation. He’d often seen Mark take the lead during team meetings. Now was a time for listening, however; not for argument. Mark wasn’t through confessing.
“Once I married, I worked very hard to hide this flaw. With Peg’s encouragement, I was able to put one foot in front of the other until I could close that door. Crossing over to a happier place really only came about when I became a father. I know now that no success in business can compare with a smile from my baby boy.
“From what you just shared, the drama of our mutual past stalked you for a time too. Is it over now? Before you answer that question, Steve, what can I get you to drink? If you still drink wine, we have some good red. Otherwise, there’s an assortment of soft drinks and teas and I think Peg just brewed a pot of coffee...”
“I’ll take the coffee, thanks, Mark but why don’t you make yourself a drink? Even though I’ve given that up, it won’t bother me at all if you do. Then I’ll tell you my rather bleak story but at least it’s one with the favored happy ending.”
While Mark fixed their drinks, Steve stared into the fireplace, trying to glean some courage from the glowing logs.
“Drama is a rather tame descriptor of my lifestyle in the three or four years after the bank imploded. At first it was a drawn-out binge. Whiskey put me to sleep at night.
“My alarm and a Bloody Mary got me out of bed sometime before noon. A few cups of coffee sobered me up enough to make a living.
“I found what I thought would be a rather undemanding job on the second shift of an auto supplier. I assumed it wouldn’t take much thinking to machine and assemble rear brake drums and knuckles.“
“Don’t look so startled! I did manual labor to earn some of my college expenses. Working in a factory was my greatest motivator to pursue a degree. But this company’s managers, unlike my college days’ employer, were sticklers for quality. They abhorred rejects. I wasn’t interested in meeting their standards.”
Mark was fascinated.
“I always wondered what it would be like to work in a factory. Wasn’t your job secure? I thought that was the purpose of unions.”
“Not all factories are unionized, Mark. With my second job loss, my descent was quick. To keep despair from drowning me, I hung onto a bottle as my lifejacket. You could have picked me for the poster figure of hopelessness. I even joked that homelessness was my new occupation and my current address.”
“Why didn’t you call me, Steve? I would’ve given you a place to stay.”
“I wasn’t into taking charity. Anyway, I had convinced myself that the well of human kindness had run dry; but I’m making it sound all bad and it wasn’t. I met some really nice guys who, literally, gave me their shirts and shared the food they scrounged from God knows where. Once a day we would meet up at the local food pantry. Afterwards we’d stick around discussing topics I never had time to think about when I was a banker.” Steve paused to take a sip of his coffee.
“I remember one conversation in particular when we debated world faiths and which ones were true religions. I was sitting with my mouth closed, just trying to take it all in.
“Jason, one of the scraggliest-looking, gave a moving lecture on the history of Christianity and the meaning of true religion. I bet it was more profound than the ones heard by most Christian college students.” Steve smiled, remembering.
“What we ate between our community lunches was not for delicate stomachs, just as those debates were not for untrained minds. I could only rarely join in.”
“Oh my God, Steve, I feel sick just thinking of you like that. Why didn’t you go to your family for help? It couldn’t have been more humiliating than eating discarded food!”
“It wasn’t even the shame that held me back. I wasn’t ready to change, and my family would have made me feel like I had failed them; or maybe I couldn’t yet admit that I had failed them. The benefits were having no responsibilities to anyone except myself and making decisions that wouldn’t harm anyone else. If it weren’t for the drinking and the depression, it would have been a rather wholesome period.” Steve paused to finish his coffee before continuing.
“As it was, it was instructive and even enjoyable at times, in ways I find hard to describe. One thing I learned was that we are not so different from one another, even when the ragged and unshaven are compared to the debonair and stylish. We’re all just trying to survive and it helps the cause when we locate one or two others who accept us as we are.
“Amazingly, I did find one of them. Jason was among the little band of riff-raff who hung out at one of the parks where they’d be left alone by city crews. He reminded me of you a little; well, no, maybe Jason was closer to the Fisher King’s insane professor.”
Mark swallowed hard before responding.
“Hmm, I thought we were trying to rebuild our friendship but now you’re insinuating that I fall into the category of nutty professor.”
“Nutty, yes, professor, no; well, actually, it should be the other way around.
“You are one of the brightest guys I know. I remember when we were being pressured to make a contemptible choice. You were the only one looking for a rational way to support or deny Jim’s proposal. Derivatives would have made the risk manageable if it hadn’t been for the monstrous greed of the bank’s officers.”
“Steve, you’re placing all the blame on senior management. You can stop protecting me. We both know I created this nightmare. I’m the one who made it seem reasonable when we all knew that kind of growth was insane.”
“I‘m just as guilty, Mark. If I had disagreed with your derivatives theory, it might have ended that discussion. Denise’s concerns almost did. Even after the bank was closed and we lost contact, I took the path of least resistance. I might still be living in self-inflicted poverty if I hadn’t been jolted back to reality.”
Steve resettled himself in the chair, warming his hands near the fire while studying his empty coffee cup. On the opposite side of a fishing scene was the verse:
‘There’s great delight in simple pleasures,
The reflection of dawn over sparkling water
The hide-and-seek of fisherman and fish.‘
“Mark, I didn’t know you fished.”
“I don’t. That cup was part of a set given to me by my office assistant. What jolted you back to reality, Steve?”
“My buddy, Jason, was murdered. His death at the hands of some of our motley group was my wake-up call. The night before it happened, he entertained us with stories about taxidermy, his career for over twenty years. He told us th
e reason he gave it up was that animal carcasses starting crying out to him, threatening him with the same end if he prepared one more animal to hang in a man cave.
“The next morning I found him. No one would admit to doing it, even when the police questioned each of us to the point of harassment. At the police station, I called my sister and begged her to come and get me.”
As Steve paused and looked up, he saw Mark’s wife standing in the doorway.
“Peg! Hello! It’s been too long. When do I get to meet your son?”
“I hope Mark made you feel welcome, Steve! I was feeding Martin when you showed up. You can peek in on him when he wakes up. I have to admit I’ve been eavesdropping while nursing him. Do you mind?”
“Of course not! Sit down with us and I’ll try to keep it brief so I can get acquainted with the little guy.”
Peg brought in more coffee and a plate of cheese and crackers before taking the seat next to her husband.
Steve continued.
“My sister, Elise, was at the police station within forty-five minutes and since I was not a suspect, she took the prodigal brother home. Her warm reception was one of the grander moments of my life—she even ‘killed the fattened calf’ to welcome me back. But you’re probably wondering how this story leads to my reason for being here. It’s coming. “
As he spoke, Steve had been putting some cheese on a cracker. After swallowing a couple of mouthfuls, he continued.
“Jason’s funeral was the next day. Among the group that met in the same church where Jason and I had often eaten free meals were his sister and brother-in-law. This couple, the only family he had left, had been immortalized in Jason’s storytelling. No, they weren’t characters in the taxidermy stories but the protagonists in his parables of good people overcoming evil forces. I had no idea they were real people until his funeral.
“After returning from the cemetery, we sat around a table at the church sharing what Jason had meant to us.
Pieces of You Page 11