Getting new mexico, p.15
Getting New Mexico, page 15
Schuyler almost wanted to laugh. Talk about humiliating downfalls. Could anyone else’s descent from power and privilege match the swiftness of his own? How was it that from the get-go he and Bert felt it was okay to deceive their clients? To cheat. That wasn’t a business practice taught at the Yale School of Management. That wasn’t an ethic learned from Harry, nor a family value promoted by Clementine. He alone was responsible for the deserts he’d earned due to greed, his conviction of personal entitlement, and his callous disregard for any human being on the face of this earth besides himself.
How had this happened? Schuyler laid his pen down on the table, sat back in his chair, and pondered that question. He could only answer it by delving into his lurid past.
Bert Bradford’s brilliance at putting together a presentation portfolio, Schuyler recalled, was unmatched. His facility with written composition was slick even if his Brooklyn accent was low-class. The Bradford-Schuyler Investments engraved glossy folder, the result of Bert’s artistry, was a tangible something a client could hold in his hand. It was solid, like the firm’s offerings. Investors could read, then reread, how Bradford-Schuyler would ensure their future stability.
The package provided an easy-to-understand explanation of how the stock market functioned. Its simple terms demystified tax shelters and hedge funds. It described how the firm’s strategy of investment in the real estate boom worked. The huge profits to be made from real estate properties guaranteed retirement security. If the big banks weren’t concerned by the proliferation of subprime mortgages, why should clients worry? Potential investors could expect a reliable rate of return, thanks to the Bradford-Schuyler management team’s expertise.
And if the paper portfolio wasn’t evidence enough of a diligent and conservative firm, their scheduled appointment with the affable Aaron Schuyler clinched the deal. He answered all questions and addressed all concerns. Until, that is, December 10, 2008 …
“Bert! Haul your ass over here!” Schuyler shrieked, his eyes glued to one of the three computer screens on his desk. “Have you seen this? They arrested Madoff!”
“Calm down, you shithead philanderer!” From his own office Bradford shouted the epithet he’d assigned to Schuyler after learning his business partner had seduced Grace. “You’re not the only human with internet, Schuyler. What the fuck! Bernie’s kids ratted him out.”
In the interests of financial solvency, more important than marital commitment, the two men had continued as business partners. On the light side, their shady interaction with clients, their fumbling hustle to keep the firm afloat, as well as their personal friction, provided an ongoing source of amusement for the two secretaries and the receptionist.
“Bert! What are we going to do?”
After a hurried conference, the partners let the receptionist go with two weeks’ pay. Bert directed the secretaries to cancel the day’s remaining appointments, as well as the Thursday and Friday appointments. He phoned the firm’s attorney, Merriweather Layton of Layton, Schirmer, Jones, and Kurkowski, and pretty much told him to hotfoot it over. ASAP.
As for Schuyler, he dashed out of the building to lay in a supply of bagels and cream cheese, extra-large pizzas, hot dogs, and beer. On returning, he unplugged the office phones. The constant ringing was more than annoying. It was intrusive. He needed time to think.
Merriweather Layton, J.D., was not pleased with this summary command. He had long wished to dissociate himself from the questionable practices of the partners, but what could he do? He was one of Bradford-Schuyler’s original investors. The firm had made him a lot of money with a less-than-crystal-clear paper trail. He was in deep. In stark contrast with the firm’s later investors, he wouldn’t suffer at all if these two sleaze-mongers went belly-up.
“Look—I can’t tell you two anything I haven’t tried to drum into your thick heads a dozen times,” Layton growled. “It’s a rotten shame, but the Ponzi as a vehicle for making money is dead. At least, for now. You think I don’t watch the market? I told you to get out of mortgages.”
“Enough with the hindsight, Merriweather,” hissed Schuyler, slamming his fists down on the burled maple surface of the conference table. “Are we going to lose everything?”
“If you’d followed the previous advice of your attorney—myself—that wouldn’t even be an issue. You wouldn’t be in this position with your shorts in a knot.” Layton sipped his scotch in its elegant Venetian cut-glass tumbler. No beer for him. He knew where Schuyler hid the Laphroaig.
“We are in this position. It’s damned uncomfortable and you better get us out of it.” Bradford’s Brooklyn accent thickened as his anxiety mounted. He pushed back his comb-over. “You’re no innocent, Merry!”
“Don’t threaten me, Bert. I’ll remain your principal, but I’m assigning Giovanni Jones as defense counsel, if it comes to that.”
“This wrangling is getting us nowhere.” Schuyler shook his head. “We get it. You’re saying we need to pay off investors. We’ll do that, but we’re nowhere near having the cash flow to repay everyone. It’ll bankrupt us and even bankruptcy won’t satisfy all the investor demands.”
“Then go bankrupt. That shows good intention. It’s better than prison.”
“Can the courts come after our homes? Personal possessions?” Schuyler’s chauffeured Bentley was almost his reason for living.
“What about my condo in Cabo? The one in the Keys? Can they take those?” asked Bert.
“Expect the worst. But if you think bankruptcy is intolerable, let me ask you this—do you have any idea how severe Madoff’s sentence is likely to be?” Merriweather Layton’s grim expression hardened further on observing his two clients’ dumbfounded silence and blank expressions. “I didn’t think so. Take the bankruptcy.”
For seventeen, nearly eighteen years, Bert Bradford and Aaron Schuyler fulfilled every consumer want of their respective clans, yet never gave a rat’s ass about basic family values. Being worthy fathers or faithful, loving husbands wasn’t on their radar.
“Get out!” Natalie cried when she finally understood the full impact of their financial debacle. “I can’t take it any longer! We’re done, Aaron. I’m through with you!”
Bradford-Schuyler Investments had taken bankruptcy. The attorneys were paid. Schuyler was penniless. Clementine assumed mortgage payments and condo association fees for Natalie, so she and the girls still had a roof over their heads. She also paid college tuition and expenses for Nate, who was a freshman at Penn State. She did the same for both girls after they finished high school.
Natalie gratefully accepted Clementine’s help and started job hunting. For the first time in nineteen years, she felt free, joyful. Her relief when the longtime burden of her husband’s marital infidelity was lifted from her shoulders made life, once again, worth living. There was no way she’d miss the friggin’ idiot. The only good thing her ex-husband Aaron had done for her was to father their three children.
When Schuyler stalked out of the flat with a suitcase in each hand, his departure didn’t even faze his two daughters. Whatever. Nora Clementine was watching Oprah and texting her boyfriend, Michael, whom Schuyler had never bothered to meet. The kid attended Phillips Exeter Academy and that met with his approval. That’s all that mattered. Really.
“Nora? Will you put down your phone and listen to me?” He frowned as Nora clapped her free hand over her mouth, tears welling up. Teenagers. So moody. “You owe your father that much. I paid for that phone. Your mother wants a divorce and I’m leaving.”
“Don’t talk to me!” Nora sprang up from the couch. “My heart is breaking!” she cried, and texted Michael the same message as she fled to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Sandy was already locked inside her bedroom. She refused to come out.
“I hope you’re gone for good!” was her muffled comment from behind the door. Who could have missed the latest row between her mother and father? “You’ve said you were leaving so many times, what does it matter? Why don’t you really do it? Don’t ever come back!”
To herself Sandy admitted it did matter. Very much. But there wasn’t anything she could do about the situation. Hopeless.
“Parents are irrelevant, Dad!” she screamed. “Especially mine!”
Later that evening Schuyler texted Sandy and Nora, asking them to reply. They never did. Over the years he continued sending birthday cards to both girls and honored all appropriate occasions with gifts. These, and his occasional texts, were never acknowledged.
Nathan Daniel, Schuyler’s son and oldest child, the one whose birth he hadn’t been present for due to a tryst with Janelle, had already escaped to Harrisburg. It was early August and he was settling in for his first year at Penn. Eager to begin premed studies, happy to be out of his nightmare family, the few words Nathan exchanged with his father during their brief phone conversation left the young man sad and exhausted.
“So that’s pretty much the long and the short of it, Nate. This time we really are getting a divorce,” Schuyler concluded. “Your mother and I are through.”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“So, maybe I can make it to Harrisburg for the homecoming game.”
“Okay.”
“If not, I’ll see you at Christmas break.”
“Okay.”
“Well, good luck in school.”
“Thanks, Dad. See you.”
When Nate’s phone went dead Schuyler wondered why he had a lump in his throat. This was something new. Unpleasant. He wrote it off as the stress of the whole damn divorce debacle. How was he supposed to deal with his kids’ indifference, on top of now being a bankrupt has-been? The settlement with Natalie would swallow what little money remained after Bradford-Schuyler’s court-ordered dissolution. Damn lawyers. He swallowed hard to rid himself of the lump. It wouldn’t go away.
The sound of Bella whining at the back door, seeking re-admittance, roused Schuyler. Once again, he’d lost himself in the maze of dead ends that comprised his disgusting past. This well-traveled road map wasn’t just unpleasant. It was shameful. A nightmare. He poured more dog food into Bella’s dish, noting how her tummy nearly dragged upon the floor. Schuyler was by now resigned to his canine partner’s pregnancy, but apprehensive about how he was going to deal with puppies. Oh, well. Last week he’d bought a king-size dog bed.
Putting pen to paper and writing the diary entry lying on the table in front of him had meant reliving every horror he’d hoped was laid to rest forever. These written words, his very own, dredged up all the dirt he’d tried so hard to bury. Yet, he’d had to do it. He had no choice.
Rethinking his previous judgment, he realized the day when Ms. Chatterjee said “no thank you” wasn’t the worst day of his life. Not by a long shot. That prize belonged to the day when he’d last spoken with his only son, the day when his two daughters turned their backs on him and never acknowledged him again. Schuyler realized the lump in his throat had never gone away. It was still there.
He forced himself to reread what he’d written, then deemed it satisfactory. It included most of what he wanted to get out of his gut. He could add to it later, couldn’t he, in another entry? His heart and mind were in turmoil, contesting each other in a tug-of-war as if there could be only one winner in that confrontation. But, why couldn’t they both win? Heart and mind could pull together, instead of struggling at opposite ends of the rope. Or, in this case, his heart strings.
Hallelujah. The light dawns.
The whole point, as Schuyler saw it, was that he’d written down his feelings. When, before today, had he ever admitted to having feelings? His callous tough guy persona had taken shape so long ago, it might have hardened as early as when he exited his cradle.
His father. When had he not had to deal with his moody father’s frame of mind? When Daniel Schuyler was at home, there was a constant need to gauge “the Atmosphere.” Would rage be the order of the day? His boyhood safety depended on being wary and alert, yet safety sometimes meant taking the punishment meted out to him, because things could get worse.
“Taking the patriarchal temperature” was young Schuyler’s only defense against the barrage of verbal abuse aimed at himself or Clementine. He must always be prepared for “worse,” and ready to find a place to hide.
In his very early years Schuyler’s father shut him in a closet as punishment. This was a frequent occurrence since Daniel felt so many offenses deserved punishment. There came a time when young Aaron sought refuge in the closet because its darkness was no longer frightening. It was safe. Dependable. As the years passed, however, he discovered the best hiding place was deep inside himself. This was what he once, in youthful confidence to Uncle Harry, termed his “Shield of Steel.”
“You are, indeed, a warrior, my boy.” Harry gave Aaron a copy of Shambala: The Sacred Way of the Warrior. “This book,” said Harry, “is a trustworthy path to warriorhood.”
Harry’s lips had smiled, but his nephew had a difficult time interpreting the mix of emotions he read in his uncle’s eyes.
Yes, today’s diary entry was satisfying. Well done. Written in his own hand was an admission of love and loss. He owned to have broken many hearts, those of his entire family. He owned to his own broken heart. The misery and frustration he’d be living with due to his unrequited love for Ms. Chatterjee was a cruel sentence of undetermined length, yet the loss of his children was forever.
The more meditative aspect of his nature, as nurtured by Harry Neville, acknowledged how the river of life flows onward, and that its course over rocky shoals might change. That was a rational statement, wasn’t it? Things might get better.
In an effort to be rational, Schuyler labeled himself “a late bloomer.” He was just now understanding some of the facts of life that most people knew by the time they were twelve. Given that premise, then, wasn’t it also rational to accept that some lessons, at least for him, were meant to be learned later in life? Eventually his heart would mend. At some elusive future point in time, he might even fall in love again.
That statement seemed the very antithesis of rationality.
CHAPTER 17
Hugh and Harry
After parting ways with Schuyler, Hugh Leigh left the Santa Fe County impound park, prey to many thoughts and emotions. Foremost among these was the heartache of loss and sorrow. Foremost among these would always be the heartache of loss and sorrow. But, lagging not far behind was his admitted surprise that Aaron Schuyler’s expression of gratitude was sincere. Although unexpected, this apparent change in Schuyler’s demeanor was most welcome. Leigh saw none of the surly, blasé I-know-all-the-tricks-in-the-book attitude he’d found so distasteful at his initial meeting with Harry’s nephew.
In accordance with his and Harry’s agreement, he had not attended his partner’s interment and funeral wake. Their very private last goodbye was shared two days prior to Harry’s passing, in Harry’s ninth-floor hospital room in New York. Hugh had made no attempt to disguise his distress.
Harry, his own eyes brimming with tears, understood Hugh’s sobbing breakdown. His grief at this final parting was monumental, not because he was leaving this earthly realm—there were unknown realms to explore—but because cancer was wrenching him away from the man who was, in every sense of the word, his soul mate. His other half in a loving partnership that spanned the decades. Forty-six years. Now, Hugh would be alone.
“You’ve moved out of the Nambé house?” groaned Harry, his pain-wracked body laden with plastic tubes and lines.
“Yes,” Hugh replied in a low voice, “I moved what I wanted to keep to Los Alamos, gave quite a bit of furniture to Lone Goose, and left a few things in the Nambé house.”
“If you have any difficulties with Aaron, but I don’t imagine you will, just contact Clementine—” Harry’s laugh ended with a choking cough. “She’ll take care of everything. I have no doubt she and Winston will straighten him out. Claim victory, in the end. Even as we speak, Aaron is driving my old Toyota pickup back to New Mexico. Clementine wanted to keep the truck in the family. Hah! Right about now he should be crossing into Kansas.”
“You’re more optimistic than me. I don’t know if I can deal with Aaron.” Hugh gripped his temples. In sympathy with Harry, his whole body ached. “He’s caused you and Clementine nothing but trouble.”
“True enough,” Harry gasped, trying to grin. “Dealing with Aaron was always a daunting prospect.
“He’s over fifty—” Harry wheezed with the effort.
“Stop. You don’t have to talk.” To Hugh, Harry’s whisper was noticeably weaker.
“Please—I must. Aaron—in many ways he’s worse than a self-centered child. Grasping and selfish. Yet, there’s an innocence about him, Hugh—if you can get past his tough guy act. When he clearly sees the right thing to do, he—does it. Sad to say, those times are rare. His vision is clouded by—always putting his own interests first.”
As Harry paused, Hugh’s thoughts drifted back to the strong and virile man he had met in their youth. That seemed so very long ago. Another lifetime, really, for it couldn’t have been the two of them, now aged and frail, who had loved each other with such nonstop exuberant passion.
Harry Neville and Hugh Leigh first met at Yale in 1971, when Harry was twenty-nine years old and Hugh was twenty-six. Harry was completing a doctorate in comparative religions, and he was well-housed in a spacious apartment. Hugh had recently submitted his doctoral thesis in analytical chemistry to his review committee. He lived in university-underwritten accommodations and worked on-call shifts at McDonald’s to make ends meet.
While he was waiting to defend his thesis, Hugh spent his free time pursuing his avocation, Buddhist studies. That was how, one night, he encountered Harry Neville in the Philosophy Department’s library. Their attraction was immediate. Hugh was fascinated by Harry’s precise British accent, and Harry poked fun at Hugh’s broad Alabaman vowels.
They first slept together two days later, after several hours at the library spent delving into the origins of Jain festival customs. “Slept together” didn’t exactly describe a night that provided no sleep for either of them, but did include the stimulus of sex and endless rounds of discussion concerning the future of Buddhism in Tibet under Chinese occupation.
