Jaylin Robinson

A Conversation

Frederick awoke with some necessary slumps. Whenever he had to talk to his father, he would drag his feet, especially after one of his many benders and flops. They usually started after a negative news story or a gruesome fight with his father. Finally, after scrolling through his phone searching for some kind of inclination to what the hell happened yesterday, he decided that now was probably the best time to hop in the shower and see the old Caesar. After the shower, he admittedly used way too much grease to slick his hair in a pompadour style. Men like Frederick always seem to have the same hairstyle. He put on a casual black suit with a hoodie and slacks with some Retro Jordans that he loved to tell everybody was from an “authentic afro American gangsta”. Even though they were just cheap replicas from an albeit very good fraudster. He took one look in the mirror and realized something. After a blurry binge which doctors and therapists love to tell him was 5 months even though to him it was mere weeks, he forgot one crucial thing: he forgot to shave. His father once dragged him out of a meeting and began to slap and berate him for coming to a meeting without shaving. But Frederick was kind of done caring about his dad.

While waiting for his cab (his father cut him off from all the company services), he decided that he should check Twitter and search his name for vanity. He scrolled past the usual posting of people calling him a “Nepo baby”, “ A sore on the ass of his dad’s legacy” and one particularly harsh one that called him “ The worst thing to come out of rich guys' sack since Donald Trump.” He then began to drink out of his flask he acquired from one of the many foreign dignitaries his father had wooed. Then he saw his niece Harper had just gotten into Harvard. He thought to himself “Jesus, has it been that long?”. A cab then honked very rudely at him to wake him from his self-pity. He hastily put his flask back into his pocket trying to save what little pride he had.

The cab driver looked over at him with that look of disgust of seeing a famous addict and the look of seeing a mogul's famous son.

“Mr. Carlisle?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Frederick chuckled at him.

He then gave him the look of a confused and tired working man who's just fed up with rich people at this point.

“Uh, yes,” Frederick said, this time with much less pride and smugness.

While watching the city pass him by through the window in the cab, he saw an ad for NYU. That reminded him of his niece. He ruffled through his pocket for his iPhone. He scrolled through his sister’s feed to find once more, but this time to find out more about his niece. Years ago, before all the funerals, drugs, and alcohol, he was a cool uncle who gave his nieces and nephews cool nicknames like “Firefly,” “Buggie,” and “Adonis.” But Biggie was in Harvard now, Firefly was out in Colombia doing human rights missions, and Adonis was interning at some company his grandfather owned 50% of. Firefly was the black sheep of the bunch. Just like her favorite uncle. She was the only child of his only sister, Claire, and her husband, Robert. They could not conceive, so they had to use a sperm donor instead. Something that Frederick’s father loved to poke fun at his “point-blank shooter” son-in-law for. Frederick’s father, of course, believed in his racist form of biological hierarchy and primogeniture, so this made her less than or not even real. They had bonded over that for years. The proverbial black sheep vs. the literal one.

***

“We’re here,” the driver said to Frederick.

He then let out a sigh that held 30 years of familial pain and angst. He looked at the building that brought him so many memories and so much pain. A building he would run in white, waiting for his father. A building where he had seen people keel over trying to please his dad. His dad had built this place in the early 90s, after a life of toiling with newer and different ideas. He refused to buy an already existing building. “I refuse to abide in lesser men’s housing,” he would say. The building was always spotless and up to date. But its history was much less pax americana. His father never had enough money to build this building on his own. But refusing to hemorrhage his already considerable debt, he really didn't have many options. So he decided to bully the closeted chairman of the New York Building Commission for a huge tax abatement. The chairman later shot himself after decades of abuse and blackmail.

He walked through the impeccably decorated and grandiose reception area. He rummaged through his pocket to find his company badge to get through the turnstiles. It gave a rather embarrassing and sad bleep.

“Dad doesn't even wait till the bodies are cold,” he thought to himself.

He then walked over to the reception desk. The receptionist was a perky blonde woman. With an even nicer smile.

“How can I help you?” she asked, not looking up from her desk.

“I’m here to meet my father,” he replied.

She looked up with a fever, and then her eyes turned white like she had seen a ghost.

“Right this way, Mr. Carlisle,” she said, leading him towards the elevator.

Walking through the very familiar halls, he found himself reminiscing about past memories. One time he used the wrong header on a letter, so his father yelled at him so badly that his secretary had to remind him that he had a meeting to end the berating. The next day, he showed up so drunk and high that his father had him shipped through the back for a rehab appointment. Just then he saw a painting of his father. The grandiose painting was equated to Frederick thought to himself. The gold and expressive frames surrounding the painting combined with the grand background behind his father portrayed old money even though his dad was the son of a steelworker.

She put him in a boardroom hastily with no real refreshments or accommodations. He paced through it with no real direction or idea. He flipped through his phone and then through a magazine. His father had always made it a point to never come to a meeting on time. No matter what. He had always found joy in making one wait and seeing them pace. Only presidents and dignitaries had the “right” to see him on time. But this one was an announced visit that would probably ruffle his feathers enough to make him never want to come to this meeting.

“As I live and breathe,” a voice that Frederick couldn't recognize from afar said.

“Alexander?” he asked.

“Jesus, you look shit,” his brother spat at him.

Alexander had been tapped to be his dad’s COO after years of trying and mostly failing from one business adventure to another. He went to Harvard where he studied and iced in a building bearing his dad’s name. After leaving college, he took a rather embarrassing amount of cash given to him as a graduation gift to buy a bunch of newspapers and one small mass media company in order to branch away from his father. The business went belly up shamefully fast, and in order to not have his name shamed in the paper, his father bought out the company just to scrap it, claim the insurance from it, and then sell off what's left. Since then, he's never left his dad's side again.

“Years of drinking have done you wrong,”

“Nice to see you, dear brother.” Frederick said sarcastically.

The two then gave the world's most awkward hug.

“Believe it or not, we missed you, you old and so.” Alexander said.

“I choose the latter.” Frederick replied sarcastically.

“We did! You and your little quips were funny.”

“We were in a meeting about this attempted acquisition of Roy and Sons, and all I could

think was Frederick would be bored out of his mind. Probably make up an excuse to get us both the

hell out of here.” Alexander said, chuckling through it.

Frederick then relaxed a little bit and dipped his head when he chuckled.

“Where do you think we'd go?” Frederick asked this time with a more familial tone.

“Please, remember when you came here so high and drunk that Dad literally turned red. That was such a fun day. You were always a trip.”

That statement then made him tense back up and sighed. Whenever you’re an addict, Frederick learned, you’d never forget it.

“Yeah, good times.” He said picking up his flask.

“Here to see the old man?” Alexander asked sensing the change in tone though it sounded more like an inquisition.

“Sadly, yes. I was sick for a long time, and he never called to check on me. To think about it, nobody did. I could've been dead.” Frederick replied.

Alexander sighed with a thunderous amount of sarcasm and disdain. His brother had used this metaphor before to disguise ugly words like binge, drugs, or alcohol.

“You weren't sick. You were out there partying, drinking, and smoking. Killing yourself and this family. Dad was worried sick. He's getting older, and you're putting all this stress and pain on his heart. You could fucking kill him.” Alexander said with rising volume.

“You sound just like him. Always thinking about yourself. And kill him? After everything you're worried about him?”

“Like it or love it, he's our Dad.”

“Dad?” Frederick spat back at him like venom.

“Dads don't hit their children. Dads don't ship their oldest off to boarding school because they cry too much or whatever that means when their fucking mom dies. Dads don't put their children against each other. Dads love their children. They nurture and love each other. You are so blinded by his shit from being up his ass you can't even see the past.”

“Get over it. That stuff happened to me. Not you.”

“My mother didn’t die? You fucking bitch. I loved her! She was the only one who cared and didn’t look down on me. When she passed, all you and Dad did was ignore me. That’s right: Dad and his little bitch.” Frederick said this, hoping to hurt his brother while sipping his flask again.

“Oh, please. When she was here, all you did was give her a headache. You never appreciated her. So stop this poor little boy act. YOU lied about me to her, causing her to tell Dad. YOU cheated on that test in school that made Dad send you upstate. YOU got drunk and high and crashed that car in the Hamptons. And YOU got so fucking high on crack, I might add, that you forgot to come to my son’s party until after 11 and scared my family. And he never hit you for it. ”

“He did hit me!” Frederick yelled now.

“NOT AS BAD!” Alexander spat back at him.

“You have no right to be upset about it when I'm fine. I've moved past it, so should you. Get your life together and stop blaming Dad. ”

Frederick, sensing the tears and pain, reached for the flask again. Once his brother saw this, he sighed and rubbed his face. He then snatched the flask.

“Give it back, you fucking cuck.” Frederick snapped, yelling at him.

“Fuck you, you miserable piece of shit.” Alexander snapped back right back at him.

Frederick then reached for the flask, but then Alexander shoved him away. The two boys then roughed on the ground, fighting while hurling verbal insults. Businessmen and workers walked by the scuffle, more worried about their actual jobs. The receptionist then walked into the room.

Her presence then seemed to stop the boys’ scuffle. They stared at each other for a long time. Their father had been the center of their relationship for decades. He named his sons in the name of great men and conquerors in history. Alexander, of course, was named after Alexander the Great. Frederick was named after Frederick the Great. His father had always said that names make the man, not the other way around. Of course, none of them had yet to meet the expectations of those sky-high expectations. None of them had even met the normal expectations of a successful adult.

“What are you even doing here, dude?” Alexander asked this time with more sadness than hatred.

“To be one hundred percent honest with you, man, I have no idea anymore. It felt right, like I had to.”