***
Though they began in similar places, Tony took the road my father wasn’t equipped to take. He aspired to be admired without getting greasy. He grew up in an industrial bedroom community staring at the bright lights of Seattle the way my dad had squinted at the glare of downtown Detroit between drunken joyrides in empty parking lots. Like my dad, Tony had grown up obsessed with American muscle cars; his prize for working construction labor with his dad was a cherry-red Mustang convertible he bought and restored himself. His senior of high school, Tony cruised Alki Beach at sunset so the sun’s angle would set the car afire. Everyone stopped to stare at it, at him, with envy, he bragged over drinks one night.
“That car got me the girls,” he cackled, drawing his hands behind his head. I pretended I wasn’t jealous as our colleagues, four white men in their early fifties, slapped Tony’s back and chortled their admiration.
Unlike my father, Tony attended university to lift himself out of his working-class heritage. After graduation, he washed his hands of physical labor to become an architect where the dirtiest tool in his belt was a pencil.
When I asked why he left architecture after ten years to become a sales executive he smirked, “You don’t see too many rich architects.”
“Don’t you miss design?” I said.
He shrugged. “Only the chumps are still there, slaving over their so-called art. I wanted to make money.”
At that moment, I realized Tony had found the success I had been searching for my entire life; he held the professional and cultural competency my father and husband lacked. His natural gifts of charm and strategy were amplified by his acquisitive tastes: he knew the right shoes and belts to buy (Valentino, Ferragamo), the right shirts and jackets cut to flatter his frame (when in doubt, go Boss), the right cars to drive (the BMW X5, professionally detailed), the right wine to pick (“I always start with Barolo,” he said at our first lunch), the art of negotiating a deal and slipping crisp bills to parking attendants with a smooth handshake. He had carefully studied the techniques of his predecessors, middle-aged white men who had mastered the art of business development on the golf course, in order to become them—just as I came to study him, hoping that the young master might apply and share his moves on me.
***
Growing up in Phoenix, there wasn’t an afternoon when I didn’t dread my father’s return home from work. The sun-scorched front door, radiating the day’s heat, signaled his impending arrival. By 5:45, my nose hairs tickled with the anticipation of his gasoline fume halo, the dusty exhaust of particulates welded to his sunburned neck, the swollen bags of skin sagging beneath his shit-brown eyes, his thick hands permanently grease-stained from a life of manual labor. As the clock struck six, Mom and I would fall quietly to our chores. My homework set aside, I set the table while she hastened to prepare supper so that it would be ready when Dad burst through the door, rattling the frame as he slammed it home, cursing the sweltering sun.
At dinner, anything could be a trigger word. Best to let Dad chamber the round of conversation as we attempted to drown my mother’s overcooked salmon with creamy cucumber dill sauce. No matter where we started, our discussions always settled on money: exorbitant air conditioning bills, repair estimates for the goddamned roof, rising homeowners’ dues and special assessments—those HOA assholes, always screwing us for services we never used, like the golf courses. There was never a good time to ask for anything.
“When I was your age, I had to earn my way,” he grumbled. “You think you can sweet-talk me whenever you want something.”
“Dad, it’s an algebra book. I need it for class.”
“Today, it’s an algebra book. Tomorrow, it’ll be another instrument you want to play, or whatever else that you think you can’t live without. It never ends. It’s always want-want-want with you.”
Each night I hated myself for craving things we couldn’t afford. Especially his affection.