After the Fall

I’d be standing on the sidewalk outside my office, traffic teeming with cars, trucks, vans, and cycles, moving from lane to lane, fighting for position, left and right and ahead. You could feel the rush and the urgency. I’d stand there watching the walkway and the light flashing to summon me across while planning my jump in the lane when the biggest, fastest, most out-of-control vehicle would tempt me. I can’t remember when I started thinking about it, but over time, it became a real option. Then, it became the only option until it became no option, but I knew I didn’t have the courage to do it, even though I knew it was the best option.

After years of concealing the dire financial status of my real estate investment company,  my partners finally figured it out, confronted me and forced me to resign. It was a humiliating end after years of success. Warren Buffet says it takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to destroy it. My five minutes had come and the word spread quickly to a long list of investors, vendors, lenders and eventually to the Department of Justice. 

After the outing, Dave Brenner, a long-standing investor and business associate called to meet me for lunch. Mid-sixties, full black hair parted perfectly, Dave usually had a humorous irony about all things. But there was none of that this day. Dave suffered through a difficult upbringing that still haunted him: poorly matched parents bickering constantly, and the only Jewish family in an unfriendly Philadelphia neighborhood. But he overcame those things: an officer in the Navy, a successful career, solid marriage, three children, and managed his parents’ final days despite the rancor between them. 

We first connected after the wall street crash in ’87. Both of us scarred by the real estate debacle that followed, but survived, recovered and reinvented ourselves. We lost each other while we battled creditors and financial Armageddon and the market-collapse played out. We reconnected in 1992 and he financed most of our early deals, deftly managing the personalities of my two partners Tom Riley and Bill Watson. An enthusiastic supporter, he encouraged my growth and invested aggressively in our deals. Though a one-man shop, he was respected and successful. When considering investments, I sought him out. 

He suggested an Irish pub, sandwiched between empty store fronts on a deteriorating main drag in Norwalk, CT. I’d passed it hundreds of times without notice. It wouldn’t matter, neither of us brought an appetite. Inside, the décor was more mish-mosh than Irish—tchotchkes everywhere. I’d been outed and forced to resign. Dave heard the news second hand. He insisted on a face to face. He greeted me coldly. No man hug, our normal greeting, nor shaking hands. I arrived before him. He carried a brief case—a departure for him. I stood to greet him. He looked at me directly for a moment, then shook his head and sat down without a word. 

“Please tell me the money is still in St Johns.” 

St Johns Towers was a new development project. I transferred the invested funds to other company projects. Dave had made a large, recent investment in St Johns Towers, a redevelopment of three apartment buildings in downtown Stamford, CT. The project remained in contract and the closing had been delayed.

“No. Well, some of it. But, uhh, most of it’s been transferred to fund some of our other buildings.” After the outing, I committed to myself to be transparent about everything but the tendency to prevaricate and equivocate dies hard. 

He shook his head again, his greatest fear realized. It’s not customary nor legal in most cases for a real estate investment company to comingle funds, because each property is comprised of a separate investment group. Some overlap, but are never exactly the same. It was a gray area in our company documents. Technically it may have been legal, but not sound business practice. When a property experienced cash flow issues, I began to transfer funds between entities. Small amounts at first. But over time, the transfers increased, became more complicated and by the period of my resignation, the balance sheets of the various projects were almost impossible to reconcile. The bottom line for Dave was that the funds were not in St Johns, and spread among other projects.

“You resigned now?” he asked. But not like he didn’t know it.

“Yeah.”

“So, Riley and Watson run the company now.” 

Tom Riley and Bill Watson were my business partners who forced me out and were running our real estate company in my absence. 

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t invest with them. I invested with you.” He was angry, but controlled, conflicted between friendly and confrontational. He kept turning his head from side to side. There were many long pauses. Someone came to take our order. I don’t remember what we ordered. Dave ordered something and I ordered the same. I can’t remember eating anything that day.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked 

I hated that question. My wife asked me that question. Everyone asked me that question. He wanted to know how could I do it. Everyone wanted to know how I could do it. What was going through my head, what coursed through me while I wrote one forged signature after the next, the door of my office closed while I put pages on the windows tracing signatures with trembling hands, shaking with fear so I’d have to do it over and over again, hating myself, but I had to keep doing it to avoid the revelation and the disgrace lurking, and script lies so carefully that I was an actor reading them, the self-loathing growing with every fraudulent act but I couldn’t stop them and in fact had to keep repeating them and each one requiring another one, one worse than the last until the self-loathing morphed to denial which became, over time, as much a part of me as the color of my eyes. 

He changed the subject.

“You know,” he continued. “I don’t think you realize what a great tragedy this is. What a fall this is. I mean you were The Man.” Then he paused, shaking his head again. Looking to the side as if too painful to look at me. I knew he was angry. But he was more sad than angry, and sad for the both of us.

“Our friendship was exceptional. You know that?” he said, signaling that it was past.  But I had hoped, probably only agreed to meet for lunch, because I thought he might still be my friend. But it was clear he couldn’t be. Just more denial on my part. I got lost for a moment. The reality overwhelming. My mind went loco. I got lost in the word exceptional. Maybe our friendship was exceptional or maybe it wasn’t because it includes the word ex which is what I had become to everyone and I kept repeating the word in my head trying to decide if it was a positive or a negative word. And these were my thoughts as I stopped listening to Dave. When I recovered, I didn’t remember where the conversation had landed.

 “How is Barbara doing?” I asked. Barbara was his wife.

“She’s depressed.”

 “Will this impact your financials?” I asked but hated asking.

“I’ll have to wear a different pair of sneakers,” he answered. It was a dark joke but he wasn’t  smiling.

We ate something and we talked some more but I can’t remember any of it, only that we departed without any conclusion or resolution. No harsh words or accusations but no physical contact either—no hand-shake or man-hug. I sensed he wanted to say more. I can only recall the empty feeling. The both of us broken. I never saw Dave again. He didn’t even attend my sentencing. I was grateful for that.

*****

JD Meehan was the son of my best friend, Doug Meehan. Both were investors. I called Doug first to explain.

“John. I don’t understand what the hell happened,” he said. He heard about my resignation. Our wives had been best friends. His youngest son had been killed in 9/11, a passenger on the first plane to hit the towers. We met as young married couples. We’d been friends for forty years. I had misled him like everyone else.

“Look,” he said. “I think I understand what happened. But JD is very upset about it. Will you call him tomorrow.”

JD, a successful hedge fund trader, was in his early forties and had been a star since kindergarten. Three sports in high school, a top student at Princeton, and an MBA at Wharton. Later, a job at a major hedge-fund, married to a beautiful girl from the mid-west and two beautiful children. He had recently invested with us. Our families were close, I was his sponsor when he was confirmed in eighth grade. A big deal in Catholic families. 

I called JD the next morning. I was looking forward to explain myself. For some reason I expected him to be supportive. 

“JD. How are you?” I started. I had decided that I wouldn’t start with ‘how are you.’ But I was uncomfortable and did it anyway.

“I’m not very good, John,” he said, obviously upset and angry. He had always called me Mr. DiMenna or Mr. D. 

“Why is my father the largest investor in St Johns?” he asked. St Johns, the same deal that Al Braunstein referenced. His father was one of the largest investors. I didn’t think he was the largest. The question was a jarring non-sequitur.  

“JD. I don’t think…”

“I can’t believe what you’ve done,” he interrupted. “I know what you did. You took advantage of my father. This will break him,” he said, his voice breaking close to tears.

“JD…” I tried to counter him but he talked right over me. 

I couldn’t speak. There were answers but I couldn’t source them. I had known him since birth. My daughter and he were toddlers in a playpen together, our families babysat for each other, pictures of father and son golf events together were still on the walls of our kitchen.

“JD…”

“You screwed him, “he interrupted again, raising his voice and angry. “He’s not a sophisticated investor. And you had him invest in a deal you knew was failing.”

I actually believed in the deal. I even had a prospective buyer to buy us out. But I couldn’t get there.

“You know what he’s been through with my brother, my mom? This will break him,” he repeated. 

His parents had recently divorced. His father hadn’t recovered from either 9/11 or the divorce. His father had been forced to retire from NY Telephone, and had become a functioning alcoholic since. 

Two months earlier, his father had called me early in the morning, drunk, while I was driving to work. It was around six thirty am;  I pushed the handsfree icon on the dashboard. 

“John, it’s me,” he said. He was loud and slurring his words. “I’ve got a gun pointed at my head and at 11:33 am I’m going to kill myself.”

“Doug, Geeze. What…”

“I’m so disgusted with myself. So ashamed of myself.” He was crying.

“Where the hell are you?” I asked.

 “I’m home. I’ve got a gun to my head and at 11:33 I’m going to shoot myself.”

He kept repeating this. I didn’t know where he was. He had a home in New York and Florida. I finally figured out that he was in Florida. So, I couldn’t help him, being in Connecticut. He had never gotten over the death of his son. He carried it like a cloak. Then his wife left him after fifty-plus years. Another blow. It shouldn’t have been surprising, he tortured her over the years. Maybe that’s why he said he was so ashamed of himself.

“Doug, please don’t do anything. I can’t get down there. I’m in Connecticut for Christ sakes.”

But he just kept repeating. “At 11:33 I’m going to shoot myself. I have a gun and it’s pointed right at my head.” 

“Doug. Please don’t do anything. Look. I’ll call you right back.” I couldn’t figure out the significance of the time 11:33 that he kept reciting. 

I  was God smacked. I pulled over but I was driving a narrow country road and some cars behind couldn’t pass me and started beeping their horns. Eventually I was able to settle on the shoulder of the road and out of the way. I called a friend of his in Florida who called the police  and went over to his house. Doug didn’t have a gun, but the police arrested him and placed him in the county jail for a few days. Doug surprisingly called me the next morning from the County jail.

“John. You’ve got to get me the hell out of here. I’ve got the Seargent here. Talk to him will you please. “

The Seargent got on the phone. A young polite guy picked up the call. He sounded concerned and said they couldn’t release Doug right away because, even though there was no gun, he had threatened to kill himself. Then Doug got back on the phone.

“What happened?” he asked me. “You’ve got to get me out of here.”

“Doug. I can’t do anything. I’m fifteen hundred miles away.”

“Would you believe this Seargent’s name is Chris. How’s that for irony.” Chris was the name of his son killed in 911. 

“He wants to help you, Doug.” I said. “So just cooperate with him till I can figure something out.”

I couldn’t do any more for Doug. His son, JD flew down there the next morning and was able to get him released.

Now JD recalled it. “Don’t you remember he wanted to kill himself? This will break him,” he repeated again.

“JD, I…I..” I kept trying to answer him but I was unable to follow it with anything. I’d either freeze or he’d interrupt me. 

“This will break him. This will break him.” I could hear his tears welling. “You were like a second father to me,” he said, “How could you do this?” 

Then he hung up. I was shaking.

*****

Father Fiore was the pastor at St Michaels Church, a declining parish on the west side of Stamford, formerly a robust Italian/American community, but now a marginalized community of Latino and Black minorities with the highest rates of crime in the city. A paunchy priest in his mid-fifties, full, thick gray hair and a friendly personality. None of the gravitas you’d normally associate with a Catholic priest. I’d often see him lunching at an Italian Trattoria that I frequented. A neighborhood place on the east side of Stamford where a lot of locals dined, the owners a series of Italian cousins, who diligently patrolled the dining room, mingling with the customers where there was always a lively din. Father Fiore, a regular there who usually dined alone, was settled in a corner, a bottle of red wine in front of him, and his napkin tucked neatly behind his priestly collar. He gave the benediction at many business events I attended. So, he knew who I was.  

I went to lunch there after the call with JD. Without planning it, I stopped by his table and asked him about the schedule for confession at his church. He was puzzled at first, but he quickly apologized and said he had confessions that afternoon. I hadn’t been to confession in years. The urge just came to me when I saw him. A dear, simple man, looking so content, a plate of pasta and a full glass of red wine in front of him. Seemingly not a clue about the world’s ministrations. Somehow, it moved me to that place.

I arrived at the church about five o’clock. It was located in a back alley, with a tiny parking lot and a tired entry. The church was empty, devoid of life, but the usual scent of candles and smoke. Father Fiore was standing by the confessional, his back to me. Without a greeting, he started to go into the confessional cubicle. But I didn’t want to hide in there. A full frontal, devoid of secrecy was essential for me at that moment.

“Father, I’d prefer to do this out in the open.”

He looked surprised but said Okay, and we sat in a front pew next to each other.

“Sorry Father. It’s just important that I do this face to face.”

“I understand, “he said. But he didn’t look like he understood. He seemed more uncomfortable than I was. He put the vestment around his neck, a dark purple one, the traditional church color of suffering, and nodded for me to begin. But he looked straight ahead. 

“Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been…” I paused. “Father I can’t remember how long it’s been since my last confession. And I forget the rest of the required introduction.”

 “It’s okay John. Just proceed as you like. We’ll figure it out.”

“Father I’m not the man everyone thinks I am.” I had no idea why I said that. I didn’t even know what I was going to say. He didn’t respond. He turned and looked directly at me but like he hadn’t a clue what I was talking about.

“I’m a fraud Father. And everyone is about to find out.”

“John. You’re a successful business man,” he countered. Turning toward me for a moment but then looking straight ahead, then up at the ceiling and then turning back to me. An incredulous expression, like this can’t be so.

“No Father…”

“Yes John. You’re respected in the community. I hear from everyone that…”

“Yes. But it’s not true, Father. I mean it was but, but it’s not now. Or maybe it never was. I’ve committed terrible sins Father. Lies, forging documents. I mean. I mean, so many terrible things. I can’t even list them all.”

There was a long pause. He didn’t respond. I realized he was someone uncomfortable with grave revelation and complexity. Maybe being outside the confessional unmoored him. Perhaps I was expecting too much. Almost not fair to expect more from him. I said a few more things and finished up. He forgave me with the usual blessing. A minor penance of prayers—much less than I expected. He didn’t seem scandalized or upset. I didn’t feel he really took it all in. I’m not sure he even believed me. I was so prepared to unburden myself with every sin, every illegal, self-serving, duplicitous, cowardly act. But I was unable. Not through fear. But no audience. He wasn’t listening. I wanted so badly to confess. A confessional is a great thing, an unburdening, even if transitory. 

I recalled the confessional in seventh grade at an all-boys catholic school. The school- house, a non-descript former residence, where Irish Christian Brothers presided like wardens over young boys in ties and jackets. I can remember that the best I ever felt in my entire life was there in seventh grade. So taken with the brothers, I aspired to become one. I was so sure of everything that was important. How reassuring to go to confession that was required every Friday. That dutiful few minutes in the dark, behind a curtain from the outside world and the screen inside, clouded from the priest behind it to confess all your sins. The big ones, the little ones and the really big one, the “mortal” sin that you needed almost a lifetime to reconcile. I never had one of those then at that time. Just the “venial” sins, and all forgiven in that few minutes in the confessional. There was such anguish and anxiety as you knelt outside the confessional waiting for your turn. Reviewing your sins and thinking about the one’s you could leave out. But it wasn’t a real confession if you left anything out. Brother Kelly made sure you got that right. Brother Kelly, a giant of a man with a long chin and a lisp that belied his toughness. 

“There is no forgiveness for a false confession. Ever,” he said. 

Once inside the confessional, there was comfort in the darkness, the scent of the oak panels, the hazy screen, the priest behind it, a ghostly profile as you waited for the panel to slide open, the signal to begin your confession. And what relief there was after, from those few minutes kneeling in silence, saying the simple prayers of penance and the unburdening they provided. But there was none of that at St Michaels that afternoon. I think Father Fiore was relieved when I left. 

*****

My life was over. The big life that is, and I did what I always did. The cowardly retreat. So, we moved to Florida and escaped from the storm. It was seductive at first. The intoxicating scent of the palms always takes you in. It seemed to be just what I needed until it wasn’t. After a few months, I hated Florida. It’s reptilian underworld, pervasive swampland, looming death everywhere, the arrogant winter birds trespassing, struggling aging people at every turn with their wrinkled limbs and rusted walkers, the townies in worn summer clothing, the sterile reality of the summer heat that never relents, the faded promise of escape from their grim realities that was Florida, America’s perceived Eden. After a while I longed for the winter solstice up North with its barren promise that never disappoints. I started to wake up every morning with dread and anxiety. A major effort to get out of bed. Terrible dreams I couldn’t recount but it didn’t matter. Their impact a lingering numbness, and fog that would haunt me the rest of the day.  

Then my lawyer called me early one morning. A departure for him. I had plead guilty to wire fraud a few months earlier. My sentencing hearing was set three months from now on 9/11. The irony of that date not even lost on me; a man who had left all irony behind. Irony, a metric for the successful life. The call shook me. I tried to move on. Routine helps a lot so I went shopping. The stores, the best place to go for solace from a Florida summer. My life, boring routines and errands but distractions from the hearing that loomed. Not knowing which was worse, the tedium or the fear of the hearing.  

It was a quick trip into the Publix. I entered the parking lot with great care. Parking a car is life-threatening in Florida. Seemingly driverless vehicles veer unexpectedly into driving lanes at alarming speeds with little warning. The drivers, shrunken old people who operate with compromised faculties and awareness. The entrance, like the lobby of a nursing home: wheel chairs, motorized carts, bandaged faces with the scars of basil cells, cataract removals and bent over octogenarians, all stumbling through the aisles, many of them clueless, blocking the aisle, bent over and squinting to read from the shelves which carry endless options of products and sizes that would make it difficult for even the most skilled shopper. I was just there for the wine pretty much. The two-fers that are always in the front of the store. The days of the big wines over. Some eggs, English muffins and some fruit. I don’t know why I bother with the fruit. It always disappoints. Fruits in Florida seemed grown in sand. I cleared the counter through a fast lane. I actually had one more item than allowed. But the checkers were pleasant, they never minded. No edge to them like in New York. Maybe it’s just that they’ve given up. In the North, the checkers are still fighting, believing. I miss their edge. I left the parking lot with the usual, extra deliberation to avoid the unexpected and without incident. 

Driving home, I thought about my life back home, what I would’ve been doing at that time of day in my former life: lunch with a colleague or lender or friend at my usual spot, a modern pub in the hotel we owned, the owners deferential, the staff fawning, probably at this exact time, returning to the office with people in the lobby waiting to see me, employees waiting for me to sign documents or approve others, many voice mails, messages from my kids, needing this, needing that, hundreds of new emails and trying to manage all of it so that I could meet my wife in the city for dinner with friends and probably finding two new deals to work. But probably vendors, others, screaming for payment, threats and public embarrassment. Then I got a text that I thought was from my lawyer on the car’s console. But it wasn’t my lawyer. I saw the wrong number. It was from Dave Brenner, my long-standing colleague. The text was being read to me by a computer voice. I wanted to send it to voice mail but it started before I could reach the dash. The voice on the car was a female voice, robotic with inaccurate pronunciations of many of the words. For some reason, I was expecting a kind message. Maybe because it was a computer voice and a female voice at that. But the message wasn’t kind. It was jarring.  He was telling me all the things he wanted to tell me the last time we spoke but  couldn’t articulate. It felt like the car was driving itself. The message, its strange syntax, pronunciation and emotional vacuum. 

I…loved…you. You betrayed…me. For months… I couldn’t… accept… the reality… I trusted you… I felt…sorry for… you for… so… long. But… it’s…gone… now. You betrayed… me…Eventually the truth…won… out… over… the emotions…the things you… did…out…right…theft… You…were… the best… You…were… so good to… your… people. You… were… so good to… your… family… Your vulner…ability… gotcha…Your fear of… loss of… status…remembering… the very… hard… painful late… 80s and 90s… It was… a special… trust… But …in the… end you… totally be…trayed… all… of… us… even…your own… family…And now I’ve…lost the… ability to… feel… sorry… for… you… I wake… up…every… day…thinking of…how much better…off… I…. would have… been if… I… had… not… loved you… so much.

The voice stopped abruptly. The dash read “Enter Reply Now”. 

I was at a red light, hot sun pouring through the windshield. The light turned green but I didn’t move. Couldn’t get my foot off the brake. If I were in New York horns would be blazing. But the traffic behind me just drove around me. When I finally started driving again, my first reaction was defensive, angry. There were some specific things he referenced that weren’t accurate. I grabbed on to them, corrected them in an imagined text response. But by the time the message was finished, I was overcome by shame and self-loathing. The robotic voice, eerie, devastating. All the rationalizations, the phony self-talk: “what I did was not that bad; I was trying to do the right thing.” The computer blew right through all that. 

I kept driving but the car was driving itself. A1A was summertime desolate. I kept cruising north, gated community after gated community with their evocative names of gardens, islands and beaches, their signs resting like monuments, evoking Eden’s and ultimate solace inside. I just kept driving mindless and without a destination, miles past my exit, my whole life behind me, and only the looming court date on September 11th to confirm it.