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| 1929 Mercedes SSk roadster. Stoskett, (Wiki.) |
Louis Shalako
It was a fashionable
district, in an affluent quarter. Their daily clientele included some of the
most famous, powerful, talented or simply beautiful people in the city.
Some of
them were even important, as either a philosopher or a comedian had once said.
He was opening an account, slightly baffled by his own success but looking
around at the company he kept, impressed as all hell.
Crédit Lyonnais Paris Branch manager
Antoine Noel let himself out of the Mercedes. His son Maurice would pick him up
for lunch, and return him to the bank about one-thirty or two o’clock. Mo would
pick him up after work and deposit him safely back at home. If nothing else,
the man could drive. One must give him that. The SSK was Antoine’s one major
concession to vanity, but the fact was that he hardly ever drove it. He’d worked
hard to expand the bank in its operations, services, and most especially in its
regional expansions of the previous decade. It was a symbol of his success, a
socially acceptable flamboyance in this, the most staid and conservative of
professions.
It made some use of, and gave dignity to a
relationship, with a family member who would otherwise be useless to himself
and the rest of humanity.
What the young man did with himself in the meantime
was no concern of Antoine’s, but Mo hadn’t asked for money, over and above his
rather minimal and unambitious salary in quite some time.
While Antoine
appreciated that his car and driver were mostly available, his son was overpaid
now, considering time spent on actual duties. To be fair, the car was always
clean and very well maintained as befitted Antoine’s status.
Antoine took it that he’d been winning at cards or the
horses and that consequently all was well with the world in Mo’s book.
“Bye, father. Have a good day.”
“Bye, and you, too.”
All Antoine had ever really wanted for his children
was for them to be happy, to be healthy, and to live long and prosper in
whatever way suited them best. Maurice was happy where some of the others
weren’t, even when they had so much more going for them. Lydie, his youngest
daughter was a constant bitcher, and yet she had two fine sons, a doting if
slightly stupid husband. They lived in a better house than her parents. For
that and other reasons, he tried not to judge Mo too harshly.
His youngest son was ambitious in all the wrong
places, or so it seemed to Antoine. He wanted to ski, or so he said, he wanted
to race cars, bed fine young women, write novels and become a painter, a poet,
a sculptor.
What else was wealth for, anyways? That was his
attitude, and something inside of his old man had oddly resonated. Of all his
kids, Antoine liked Mo the best—which is to say that he tolerated him where the
others would have received a good swift kick in the ass.
END
