The Ego Makers

by Donald Everett Axinn

  “I'll know exactly how bad it is when I run a new combined cash flow,” he answered. He looked up, his forehead furrowed, his lips squeezed together. “But we have big problems, Henry. Real big. Steve and I have already taken a preliminary look.”

  “All right,” I said, “let’s start wrestling with them.”

  Steve returned and leaned against the whiteboard on the wall. “Maybe it’s not that bad, Henry,” he said softly. “A bite into the pie, but there’s plenty left.”

  I turned to him with astonishment. “Is this really you, my brother, talking?” I asked. Something else had to be going on.

  “At first, I was against building Three-Fifty-Five. But if you remember, I finally agreed we should go ahead.” He smiled as he said that. “Your perception of me is distorted. As usual.”

  “Yeah, well …” I began. Sometimes I just couldn’t figure Steve out.

  Ari pointed to the chart labeled “CASH REQUIREMENTS, NET.” ‘What doesn’t help the situation,’ he began, “is our federal and state taxes. I've been working them over and over. Carry-forward losses have been used up, especially those donations you guys made some years back. And the capital gains on sales of your stocks and bonds drive the taxes even higher.”

  “The revisions for calculating depreciation are killing us,’ Steve said. He was referring to the diminution of deductions for tenant work, partitions, and other improvements we used to be able to take. He stood up. “This business is beginning to suck!” Ari glanced at me. “Plus, hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain carrying those vacant parcels of land,’ Steve griped. “Sell them, and it would take some pressure off.”

  “No market,” I responded. “If we did, we’d take a real bath.”

  Steve stared at me contemptuously.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll do what I can to sell Montvale, East Fishkill, and the others.”

  “What really concerns me is the drain our vacancies generate,” Steve said. “Very big. Two hundred thousand a month without Three-Fifty-Five. More if some tenants don’t renew. Add in the building loan on Three-Fifty-Five. Megabucks every month.”

  “We must renew leases,” I said. “At whatever price.” Ari nodded, but Steve put up his hand.

  “That would be a double hit,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, you lower rents too much, we can’t service the mortgages. And we’d be short capital even if we could refinance. Plus much lower income for us.”

  “Ill run a new cash flow,” Ari said quickly. “Stick around a couple of hours, it should be ready.” He glanced up at me.

  No matter what Ari came up with, the revised cash flow would most certainly indicate disastrous monthly deficits. “Look guys,” I said a little solemnly. “I need some exercise. Helps me tackle problems better. Be back by noon, okay?”

  “Earlier, damn it,” Steve sniped. “I’m trying to get away with Joyce, remember? She’s waiting.”

  “Sure. Two hours, Ari?” He nodded.

  “What else you doing this weekend, Henry?” Steve asked. Why was he so interested, I wondered.

  “Flying to Martha’s Vineyard. A friend invited me up. Be better prepared for Monday with MacDougall.”

  Steve didn’t respond. I thought of how it would be up in the Vineyard with Karen. I needed a break, and bright and early tomorrow morning I’d be out of here. Some old R 6c R would be exactly right.

  11

  “CLEARANCE, good mornings Chancellor Three-five-five Hotel Mike, with AT1S Delta, instruments to Martha’s Vineyard,’ I had played lousy tennis at the club yesterday. I needed to leave my problems behind on Long Island. I wanted a lost weekend with Karen Viscomi. Spending time at her family’s house on the Vineyard was much better than endless hours poring over numbers and thinking about the meeting with the bank on Monday.

  I had filed an instrument flight plan with Flight Service Station at Islip, where I keep my twin-engine Cessna. The day was typical for late May, hazy with limited visibility. In the summer on Long Island early morning ground fog often results from overnight advection cooling, when cooler temperatures created over the Atlantic move in over the land. It arrives as thick fog that invariably burns off by mid-to-late morning. At best, the flying conditions today were marginal; it was smarter and certainly safer to file under instrument flight rules, known as IFR. I calculated the flight would take forty minutes, based on my average airspeed of 192 knots with winds aloft coming from the southwest at 20 knots.

  “Chancellor Three-five-five Hotel Mike, you are cleared to Martha’s Vineyard. Long Island Three departure, radar vectors Calverton, Victor four fifty-one Groton, Victor three seventy-four, direct. Runway heading, altitude three thousand, expect seven thousand ten minutes after departure. Departure frequency one-twenty-point-zero-five. Squawk four three four six.”

  “Roger, Clearance.” I repeated the clearance, then asked, “Clearance, can you work out, Hampton, Victor two sixty-eight Sandy Point, direct?”

  “Stand by one, Five Hotel Mike.”

  My routing was shorter, and I knew from Notices to Airmen that Calverton was hot, that jets were being test-flown at the Grumman facility there. A week ago, a Cessna 152 piloted by a student had almost collided with an F-16. Student pilots can be more dangerous than thunderstorms, ice, or fog.

  “Five Hotel Mike, ready to copy?” I answered that I was. “You are cleared Hampton, Victor two sixty-eight Sandy Point, direct,” he said.

  I acknowledged by repeating his revised instructions. The tower operator released me for takeoff. I pushed the six levers on the yoke forward, surged down the runway, the power of 650 horses behind me, and rotated at 93 knots. When there was no more ground below to land on in the unlikely event I lost an engine, I pulled up the landing gear knob and the three wheels retracted into the fuselage and wings.

  At 500 feet I was absorbed inside a layer of fog and concentrated on holding a heading of 240 degrees while climbing at 120 knots. The man in the tower came back on. “Five Hotel Mike, departure one-twenty-point-zero-five, have a nice flight.”

  I reduced manifold pressure to thirty-five inches and props to 2500 rpm, adjusted the fuel flows, and responded, “Roger, tower, one-twenty-point-zero-five, talk to you on the way back.”

  Flying alone into the blurred unknowns inside clouds is both demanding and exhilarating, and requires total concentration. Confined within the cabin — no place for a claustrophobic — you are entirely dependent on the instruments and your ability to use them properly. When flying blind, you have the disturbing feeling of not being able to tell whether you’re right-side up or not. No visual frame of reference. Normal aerodynamic effects cannot be felt by your body. It’s imperative that tasks such as changing radio frequencies or copying down instructions from an air traffic controller do not take more than a few seconds away from the pilot’s constant need to scan the instrument panel

  Despite all my flying experience, I always feel a twinge of fear when I can’t see outside the aircraft. Add to that the occasional thunderstorm cells, turbulence, or ice on the wings, stabilizers, and props. But, after you shoot an instrument approach, break out of the clouds, and see the lights of the runway, you feel a rush, an exhilaration.

  The weather improved and the fog dissipated by the time I crossed over Brookhaven Airport. Numerous small planes, Cessna 152s and 172s, were practicing touch-and-go landings and takeoffs. They reminded me of a Second World War movie. The Battle of the Coral Sea. Swarms of dive-bombers like hornets attacking a Japanese aircraft carrier, a sitting duck. ATC gave me a change of frequency, to 132.25. I reported in: “New York Approach, good afternoon, Chancellor Three-five-five Hotel Mike on board. 5000.”

  “Roger, Five Hotel Mike. Maintain 5000, numerous targets circling near Spadero at three and eight o’clock, altitudes unknown. Monitor the frequency for deplaning jumpers.”

  “Wilco. No joy on the targets.” A year before, on my way back from the annual 15,000-plane fly-in at Oshkosh with two friends and fellow pilots, Kim
Sparks and Jackie Tulumello, some idiot near Binghamton, New York, discharged his jumpers at 10,000 feet right in front of us. I don’t know how we missed those bastards. We were goddamned lucky. So were they. If we had hit one, he or she would undoubtedly have been killed on the spot. We would probably have crashed.

  And a few weeks prior, near the Middlebury Airport in Vermont, an experienced woman pilot was flying her acrobatic Pitts in an air show. She was told there would be two jumpers. There were actually three. She didn’t see the third until she hit him. The parachutist severed the wing struts and was cut into pieces. The impact probably knocked her unconscious as her tiny aircraft broke apart. It was surmised she had died instantly from a broken neck.

  “Jumpers away,” I heard through my headset. No, no, you dumb bastard! Where? Where the hell are they? Why hadn’t ATC instructed the pilot to give the standard warning, “Three minutes to jump?” Change heading? Those jumpers were somewhere above me, falling through the sky at 176 feet per second.

  “Five Hotel Mike. Where are those jumpers?” I tried to sound calm.

  “About, ah, two miles and twenty degrees to your right,’ the controller responded excitedly. “Turn thirty degrees left, Five Hotel Mike! Left!”

  “Wilco.” A few minutes later, after I was clear of the immediate vicinity, “Look, you report that guy, or I will,” I said with barely concealed anger. “If you don’t, he’s going to kill someone.”

  “Five Hotel Mike, are you wiling to file a report?” was the contrôler's question. I knew the pilot of the plane carrying the jumpers was listening on the frequency.

  “Affirmative! I expect contact will be made with me through Mid-Island at Islip. What’s his tail number?” I damned well planned to follow this up.

  The contrôler hesitated, then said, “Five Hotel Mike, it wil appear in the report. You’ll hear from us. Resume own navigation to Hampton. Correct heading to 110 degrees.” The radar vector put me back on course.

  Karen Viscomi was especially seductive when she shared some of her sexual fantasies with me. Her openness was surprising just after we had gone to bed for the first time. “We find a place,” Karen said. “Yours, mine, some place where no one can bother us. I want candles, a Kenny G. tape playing. It’s dark You’re standing up. You’re not wearing a shirt or shoes or socks. Then you’re going to watch me remove my clothes, not al of them, I’ll keep just a little on. You can’t touch me. Then …”

  What I had learned worked best during the first several dates was to avoid touching, kissing, or anything that would give a woman the idea that having sex was uppermost in my mind. Actually, it wasn’t always. Friendship was also important. Sharing things with a woman like Karen: sports, theater, maybe flying, conversations about anything and everything from deconstruction to the politics of race and gender, to the latest research into the expanding universe; what we believe in, what we want out of life.

  The women I've known generally respond to that approach. When I keep my distance, it confuses them. Either consciously or unconsciously, they begin to wonder why I’m not making moves, whether something is wrong with them. When eventually I “accidentally" brush up against them, they almost always respond by gently taking my hand or offering a shy smile.

  Karen was a lot of fun and very bright. I had taken her to lunch at the Four Seasons, where mega-deals are negotiated over some of the finest food and drink on that restaurant-laden island.

  It had been over two years since Nancy died. From time to time I thought about what I wanted and needed in my relationships with women. I was aware that the first woman in my life, my mother, had made me feel I wasn’t worth a tinker’s damn. My father and brother were important to her, but for me she could only try to make a show of mothering. I sensed she had no heart in it. The result of that for me was not being willing to take the chance of becoming intimate.

  I remember being with the as-yet-unmarried Joyce one wintry Saturday afternoon, nestled in my Greenwich Village loft. She had woken up from a nap and was sitting on the futon, a glass of wine in her hands. “Henry, try not to hold anything back. It costs you, and—”

  “I don’t hold back, I always give you everything Fve got,” I said. She calmly leaned over the bed and poured the wine all over my face. I leapt up.

  ‘What the hell was that for?”

  “To show you how much I love you.” She wiped my face, then: “I'm not your mother, Henry. Once you accept the fact that your mother will never really love you, you'll be available. You’ll never, never have the intimacy you say you want until you’re willing to take the risk of getting involved. And giving up some of the control.” She pulled me down on the futon.

  I had heard what she said. Unfortunately, it didn’t go any further than my ears.

  I descended toward Martha’s Vineyard, a stunning island of ponds and beaches and undulating moors, an enchanted playland. I couldn’t see many people, but I knew they were there, fulfilling themselves with the summer’s activities, I approached from the west over Gay Head, then over Long Beach and Menemsha Pond, toward the main airport in the center of the island. Oak Bluffs and Edgartown were ensconced to the east. The tower gave me permission to land. I entered a left downwind, turned the base leg and then into the final for Runway 24.1 taxied to the parking area, waiting the 3.5 minutes for the supercharged engines to cool down. I thought I could hear something a little different in the sound of the left one. Probably my imagination. I’d check it when I did the engine runups before flying again, as I always did.

  Karen, who had flown in a little earlier from LaGuardia, was standing at the gate outside the terminal, wearing white sharkskin shorts that clung to her as if wet. A bright blue and white striped tank top and blue topsiders, no socks. She looked great.

  “Hi, Captain Marvel,’ she said, smiling. “The radio says the weather will be gorgeous the rest of the weekend. And the moon’s still doing its job.” We walked hand in hand to her car. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. My parents have dropped in for a surprise visit. We’re always doing that in our family. Dad flew fighters in the Second World War and again in Korea. I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about.”

  I must have looked like a kid in a candy store where the last Milky Way had just been sold. “Ah, that’s great, Karen,” I managed. “I’m sure we will.”

  “You’ll love my mother, too,” Karen said, with another disarming smile. “I bought a whole bunch of fresh veggies and scallops. Also fresh striped bass we can cook on the grill.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Several great restaurants on the Vineyard, but I prefer eating at home. Tomorrow, corn and steamed lobsters. Dad says they taste better boiled, not broiled. Big two-and-a-half-pounders.”

  The drive to the Viscomi home took us west to Chilmark. On the main road we passed traditional Cape Cod houses neatly separated by white picket fences, small lawns, and gardens. Lots of kids on bikes, some with fishing poles. Up and down small hills, past views of little inlets bordered by reeds and moors that reminded me of Scotland. Some who lived in these charming houses were retirees, former professors, and doctors plus a number of summer renters who had finally decided that year-round island living was what they wanted. One couple were my cousins Sid and June Schneider, Maybe I’d give them a call…. Hell, no.

  Nancy had preferred the heated atmosphere of the Hamptons, the excitement of parties given by the rich and famous, the movers and shakers in the arts and business. I had found most of them pretentious and boring. We did that whole bit for a few years, spent weekends socializing and playing tennis. It was fun for a while, but a few weekends back in Middlebury, Vermont, convinced us that long-range, low-keyed time up there was far preferable to the frenzied nonsense of eastern Long Island.

  ‘“You look great,” I said, edging closer. “I must say, I was hoping it would be just the two of us. How long are your folks staying?”

  “Hard to say,” she said. “They’re like gypsies.” Then she began to laugh.

  “Wha
t’s so funny? Have I missed something?”

  She pulled the car over to the side of the road, stopped, and turned to face me. “Henry, I can’t keep this up any longer. In fact, they were planning to come, but I talked them into putting it off until Monday afternoon.”

  I smiled and kissed her warmly on the mouth. “You really had me going,” I said. Could I stay till Monday? There was that crucial meeting first thing with MacDougall. “Karen, in the next day or so, Fm going to make us both forget the rest of the world. That’s a promise.” I put my arms around her and kissed her gently, tenderly behind her ear.

  “Fm surprised,” I said after we made love that afternoon, “that you’re not involved with someone.” She remained silent. “Or is that none of my business?”

  She walked to the window and gazed out onto the blue-green of Vineyard Bay Sound. “No,” she said, “of course it’s your business. After my marriage began to fall apart, there was someone I was in love with. From the office.” She sighed. “Same old story. He said he was getting a divorce and would many me. But then the pull was just too great for him. Two terrific kids, the standard guilt. Plus a wife who did everything she could to get him back I met her once at a party. She blamed me for the fact that her marriage was failings or had failed. Which was simply not so,”

  Karen sat down on the chair next to the bed. She reached for a piece of cheese and glass of white wine, and then handed them to me. “The eternal question is, how can anyone make marriage work? I know maybe two couples I can call successful I may never tie the knot again.”

  ‘I’m the wrong one to ask,’ I said. “Nancy and I were never able to share enough. Anger never went away. We also had different ideas about kids. Now I regret we never had any.”

  Karen lay next to me and stroked my face. “Tomorrow,’ she said, “we’ll share the magnificence of a sparkling Vineyard dawn.” She nestled her face against mine. “Henry Martin, to tell you the truth, you’d be impossible to be married to, but you’re nice to spend weekends with. Now close your eyes, and we’ll nap.”