The Circle: Portrait of an American Family

By Eric Cristofer

There are some things too important to think about; you just have to do them. Living is a little like that. Generally, thinking is a by-product. So what goes into a life? A collection of experiences the sum total of which filter through memory and in time amounts to what? If you take a chance and turn the pages maybe, just maybe, youll come closer to answering that question. Then again, maybe not, but youll be no worse off in the process.

Cheers,
Danny Kragg

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504958066

Eric Cristofer

Eric Cristofer is retired from the U.S. State Department where he served as a Foreign Service Officer, Passport Services Agency Assistant Director, and Information Systems Security Officer. He is married and currently lives in Houston, Texas and works for a private security firm as a security project manager specializing in cyber security, computer forensics, business intelligence, risk, and continuity. He has previously published a novel “Conversations With an Alien” in 2004.

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© 2015 Eric Cristofer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/14/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5807-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5805-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5806-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015917660

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Author’s Note

The Opening

Chapter One: All In The Family

Chapter Two: The Greening

Chapter Three: A Different Kind Of Education

Chapter Four: A Sharper Edge

Chapter Five: Between Two Worlds

Chapter Six: The Seduction

Chapter Seven: A Turning Point

Chapter Eight: Walking The Walk

Chapter Nine: The Metamorphosis

Chapter Ten: Things Get Silly In A Hurry

Chapter Eleven: Crossing Over

Chapter Twelve: Poseidon

Chapter Thirteen: The Chase

Chapter Fourteen: Homecoming

Kragg Family Tree

O’connor Family Tree

The Original Circle (The Twelve)

About The Author

Author’s Note

• Readers are reminded that this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

• Moreover, it is the author’s intention to create an alternate universe for the purposes of speculative enjoyment and an escape into the world of imagination.

In memory

of the warm and joyful moments spent in collaboration with Dale Englefield.

He will be missed by his friends and admirers.

The Opening

Surprises can come from anywhere. Hey, Jack, you got a package, the booming voice announced. A weary figure rose from an ancient metallic desk, reached over and took the package. It felt heavy. The package was addressed to: Jack Devereaux, News Desk, Houston Globe. There was no return address. It felt like documents.

Jack Devereaux was used to getting unsolicited documents. He had ruffled many a feather in his thirty-two years of investigative reporting, much of it by being on the receiving end of coveted documents sent from some whistle-blower. He was part of a dying breed, an honest to goodness newsman who loved sticking it to the powerful and well connected. He had sacrificed a cushy job on a flagship newspaper back East to do it his way. Two failed marriages, thinning hair, a potbelly, and a heart condition were all he could show for his efforts. The Houston Globe was the last stop, a dying paper that was still family owned with the balls to keep Jack on staff. He tore through the envelope with tired, arthritic hands.

Carefully lifting the contents, Jack noticed a note had fallen on his desk. He placed the bundle on the desk and retrieved the note. He took his time. After glancing at the note, his eyes widened. Hey Henry, check this out…come on, look! he said with growing excitement.

Henry Klinghoffer was the news editor and the wise sage of the newsroom. He ambled over and circled around to a position behind Jack’s right shoulder for a better view.

The note read: Mr. Devereaux, You’ll find inside the personal journal of Daniel Arthur Kragg in manuscript form. This is a galley copy of a soon-to-be-published manuscript. For reasons that will become clear after you read the galley, you will understand why this piece will be published and distributed in Europe, first in Ireland and later on the continent. Publication in the UK will not go forward given that country’s libel laws, and publishing and distribution in the U.S. may be blocked for reasons that will soon become clear. It is the author’s wish that this information be made public in the U.S. as soon as possible to the widest possible audience. The author further attests to the accuracy of all accounts and events noted in the journal. It is assumed that you will attempt to fact check the details, and you are well within your rights and responsibilities to do so. However you will find that much of the information revealed is highly sensitive and is not supported by any written records. This cannot be helped. The situations and individuals discussed in the journal have gone through great lengths to obscure their activities. In addition, there are powerful individuals and institutions that will stop at nothing to prevent the publication of this journal. You have been warned. Furthermore, you’ll note that there are descriptions of events of a highly intimate and personal nature. I ask that you exercise deference and due care with this information. Your reputation as a fearless investigative journalist was the primary reason this document has been sent to you. I respect your reputation for good taste and discernment. Now, the burden is on your shoulders. I have given you my life story and hopefully, by the time you read this, it doesn’t have an ending.

Sincerely, DAK

The two men stopped dead and stared at each other for a second. Henry rubbed his chin and mused, Daniel Arthur Kragg, Danny Kragg… Say wasn’t he that rich kid that disappeared recently? Yeah, I remember now; it made quite a sensation when he vanished without a trace. He was one of America’s golden boys, but outside society circles, most people didn’t know much about him. Danny, it turns out, was one of the heirs to the Kragg fortune. As I recall, they were into a little of everything.

Henry, do you think this is a load of crap? Jack asked.

Henry responded, We’ll know after we read it. Look, there are a lot of wannabes out there who will stop at nothing to get a little publicity, but if this thing is for real, we are sitting on a gold mine.

Or a one-way ticket to the bottom of Galveston Bay, added Jack.

Henry started pacing. Jack had worked with his boss long enough to trust his instincts. When Henry started to pace, his mind was cooking up something. He stopped and scanned the room. Looking at his colleague, he suggested, Jack, I think we need to keep this under our hat until we can get a handle on it.

Jack nodded in agreement. Henry went on, I can lock this in my safe and after work we’ll go to your apartment and read through this stuff. I’ll call Susan and let her know I’m working on something and might not make it in. Susan, Henry’s wife, was used to the uncertainty of living with a newspaperman.

Maybe we ought to run it by Terry, Jack offered.

Not yet – if Terry gets involved, this thing might get completely out of hand, and besides, we don’t know what we’ve got… if we’ve got anything, Henry said.

Terry Laughton was the owner and managing editor of the Houston Globe. He was fighting a seemingly losing battle to keep his family newspaper running while competing with one of the major chains. Laughton had cut his staff to the bone, and everyone was doing double duty in a valiant effort to keep the old paper alive and independent. Henry knew that a scoop like this could be like a banquet placed before a starving man. He had been in the business long enough to know that credibility was all they had left, and a story of that magnitude needed to be carefully vetted and researched.

The Houston Globe was an anachronism. The paper had occupied the same building in the northeast corner of downtown Houston for fifty years. It was too hot in the summer and too cold on those rare days when a cold front would blow in from the frigid north. The old building sat astride a flowering development of loft apartments, town homes, shops, restaurants, new roads, and a sports arena. Everyone sensed its days were numbered. Laughton and his devotees were in denial.

Jack could hardly believe his good fortune. He took caution not to get too far ahead of himself. He had seen elaborate hoaxes before and halfway expected the worst. It was easy to get wrapped up in the excitement since the Houston Globe had been through one of its worst years. The paper was hanging on by a thread, and only through drastic cost cutting and Laughton’s indomitable will did the paper go to press each day. The numerous awards and accolades they received couldn’t substitute for shrinking advertising revenue. The paper’s hard-hitting investigative reporting had made far too many enemies in the local business community, and they were paying for it. While it rivaled its competition in subscriptions, there was an undeclared advertising boycott by some of the city’s largest businesses that seriously eroded revenue. Laughton had also been the victim of several frivolous libel suits brought by local bigwigs. The only thing that saved him was two hundred years of precedent and the First Amendment. But in Texas, such things aren’t necessarily a given.

Devereaux could hardly contain himself during the day. He and Henry grabbed a couple of sandwiches, a six-pack, and headed to Jack’s meager abode. Jack Devereaux lived in an old, rundown apartment near downtown off Washington Avenue. He liked the location but not his neighbors. He had been there ever since being thrown out on his ear by his second wife. After that experience, he swore off marriage as an institution too fraught with peril and complications, settling instead on a life as a committed flirt.

After arriving, he and his boss settled right in. They had shared many an hour researching and brainstorming at Jack’s. Something in his gut told him this was the find of a lifetime. Thinking more clearly, Jack recalled the mysterious disappearance of Danny Kragg. It brought to mind the first reports that aired on the television news. He remembered thinking at the time, so what - some rich guy named Danny Kragg is missing.

The last reports had him departing on a sailing trip off the coast of Maine. Then came the prime time news magazine profiles of the Kraggs and the photos on the covers of magazines. It made quite a sensation. The Kraggs were rich, powerful, and secretive. There were no interviews with distraught relatives. There were a few profile pieces and conversations with school friends but not much else. Rumor had it that he had a Black girlfriend that he met in college. Still others had him passing his time as the boy toy of the wife of some corporate tycoon. Nothing stuck for sure as he recalled. But more than anything, there were images of reporters standing in front of wrought iron gates leading to closed compounds and guarded estates, talking into microphones. The press splashed the same two or three photos of the young man on the screen like they do, but that was it.

The Kraggs were originally a well-to-do East Coast family, but a little digging unearthed a Texas connection. There was a prominent Kragg who relocated to Dallas and found his fortune dabbling in oil and politics, which was pretty much the local pastime up there. George P. Kragg was his name, and he had definitely made good. Jack pictured a feature in one of those ritzy magazines with more ad space than copy. It was the usual: profiles on their social life, photos of the well-appointed mansion, a piece about the family pet, or some exotic hobby.

Devereaux followed the story as much as he did any outside his field of view, but since the Kraggs had little or no Houston presence, it quickly fell off his radar screen. Jack’s response to the usual media circus was to run in the opposite direction. The story was the province of the new breed of hack journalists, as far as he was concerned.

Henry pulled the manuscript out of the bundle. This thing is big enough to be a book; serializing it will take a lot of editing and time, he noted.

Jack walked over to his desk and fired up his laptop. Listen, Henry, you start reading. I’ll get on the Internet and when you run across something interesting, let me know, and I’ll pull up some references.

Good idea, said Henry. The two men popped open a couple of beers and took their respective places. Henry started reading.

The air was still. Jack was pounding away at the laptop keyboard like it was an old manual typewriter. Henry was quiet and rifling through the pages of the manuscript, the silence punctuated with the occasional, Oh shit, oh my god, you’re not going to believe this!

Hey, Henry, this Danny Kragg is the nephew of George Kragg, the Governor of Texas now running for President! You know… the former Dallas oilman who came from the East and after he got here, bought up pipelines, refineries, power plants, and small time oil field service companies. Remember when he ran for Congress once and got smoked? He came back a few years later and waltzed right into the governor’s mansion with one of the slickest political campaigns ever. Now, it looks like Kragg is a shoo-in to occupy that piece of property in DC – you know – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Jack noted.

No shit, that’s the best kept secret in Texas. The Republicans are running ahead in the polls, and Kragg has avoided making a misstep or any important enemies, and the election is only weeks away, added Henry.

Jack went on, "It gets better…Danny Kragg is or was one of us. He’s the owner and managing editor of Trending Modern magazine. Ever read one of those? Henry shrugged. Jack continued, It’s a pretty cutting edge publication or at least it was when I last read one; it’s a mix of chic business and lifestyle stuff that makes for a more warm and fuzzy look at capitalism – not my cup of tea but generally well written and informative."

Okay, so what? Henry asked.

Well, according to this, there was some sort of conflict in the family. He seems to have had a run-in with his aunt, Jack said.

Henry stopped and looked up from his documents and said, Keep reading - I think we’re going to be here all night.

Chapter One

ALL IN THE FAMILY

I’m on the run now. It all seems so ridiculous when I think about it. In the science of engineering, there is a concept of a cascading systems failure. It is a string of events that in isolation may be harmless but when taken in aggregate, leads to dire consequences. My life now seems to be a cascade of failures, and the consequences of my actions are dire. What I must admit to myself is that I have been the architect of my own ruin, and I must take responsibility for the events now swirling around my life and the lives of those I care about. It isn’t that I am without options. I had and still have many options, though they grow fewer by the day. A series of choices has placed me in my current situation, and I have no regrets for the morality of my choices; I do, however, regret the timing and naiveté of them. I can say that I have learned a valuable lesson: Fate, love, and free will can be a dangerous combination.

I’ve always believed it helps a person to get it all out, so to speak, when faced with difficulties. I have decided to chronicle my story, since it appears that I am going to have to become accustomed to spending a great deal of time alone. Maybe in some way, I will be able to make some sense of all that has happened. This story exhibits measured reflection, so what follows is not well organized; I have to admit it was pulled together in a hurry. It is a snapshot of a life. I admit it is bold to presume one’s own life will be of interest to anyone else, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Where to start? I could start with the first time I met Mae, since she is a big part of why I am where I am. No, I need to start with my family. I’ll do that by introducing myself. My name is Daniel Arthur Kragg. I go by Danny. It is a lot less formal, and it rankled the hell out of my grandfather, which to me is a good thing. I am the grandson of Wellborne Price Kragg, who everyone knows as WP Kragg. Yes, that Kragg. As you probably know, the Kraggs are among the wealthiest and most powerful families in America and have been for over a century. What I failed to fully realize until a few months ago is just how powerful. There are richer people than WP Kragg, but no one even approaches his influence. Influence is far too weak a word. It is power that feeds WP, and it is power that is the true business of the Kragg family.

My great-grandfather was George Wellborne Kragg. He had his fat grubby fingers into everything. He made his name in the shipping and railroad business. But in time, he owned several newspapers, controlling interest in an armory, and was one of the first to invest in the motion picture industry. He loved the horses, and changed mistresses before and after dinner. WP said, His father owned half of all the politicians on the East Coast, and those he didn’t own, he borrowed from time to time!

George Wellborne Kragg was for all intents and purposes the grand patriarch of the American wing of the family. He was WP’s role model, and if he had lived to see what his little boy evolved into, I dare say he would be beaming with pride! The Kraggs have always married well, and George Wellborne Kragg was no exception. His blushing bride on that cool October day in 1919 was none other than Elizabeth Anne Price, of the Rhode Island Prices. Her daddy was a competitor of my great-grandfather in the shipping business, but between them, they hit upon an idea to fix prices and divide the East Coast market into zones. They feigned competition in a few minor ports to keep the Feds off their collective backs. Everyone was happy, and the money rolled in.

Elizabeth Anne Price was a stunner. She had everything required for the millionaire wife. She was refined where George Wellborne was vulgar, demure where he was boisterous, cultured where he was common, and above all, she was beautiful. George Wellborne made sure she wanted for nothing material. The more intimate aspects of their relationship are open to speculation.

One thing George and Elizabeth did do was to give birth to four disgustingly normal children. Wellborne Price Kragg was the oldest and heir apparent. He was followed by George Arthur, Sarah Elizabeth, and Charles Douglas. Kraggs are generally tallish by nature: dark hair, pale skin, deep set dark brown eyes, and sharp features. Large noses are not uncommon. As far as one could tell from stories around the fire and peering through scrapbooks and albums, all of the Kragg kids were blessed with health, good looks, straight teeth, and decent manners.

Of the four, George Arthur was, well, different. Spurred on by a fever of patriotism and against the vehement denunciations and threats on the part of his father, George Arthur went off and joined the Army Air Corp in the Second World War. It was the most radical thing a Kragg had ever done. His father, George Wellborne, thought it beneath a Kragg to actually fight for the country that had enriched them, and besides, one would have to become familiar with those of the lower stations. Well, George Arthur really pissed off the old patriarch when he went and got himself killed flying a B-24 over Romania.

Kragg children do not challenge the wishes of their parents. There is much too much at stake. Hell, all one had to do was dress well and show up for dinner at the right time, and one was assured of a life of comfort and fortune. George Wellborne would even allow a measured amount of debauchery from time to time, as long as one was discrete and played by Kragg rules. WP seemed to have at least learned that lesson well.

WP’s siblings did well for themselves. Sarah Elizabeth wrote several volumes of poetry, served on the boards of several charities, and was the darling of the social set. She never married, and there were whispers about her private life. Seems she had a constant female companion in later life, but that was before the sexual revolution so nothing was made of it.

Charles Douglas married well in the family tradition. His catch was the vivacious Mary Louise Waterhouse, the youngest daughter of the heir to the surety underwriting house by the same name. She had spark and two girls. Charles was a heavy drinker and gambled much of the time, but that was only a minor nuisance. His losses were easily covered. He went from one failed business venture to another, finding himself prey to every crackpot, get-rich-quick scheme imaginable. WP was determined to keep him as far away from legitimate Kragg business as possible. Charles and family eventually settled in Florida. To the horror of the Kragg family, one of Charles’s daughters changed her name, went off to the West Coast, became an actress, and married a Mexican Communist! The name of Abby Lennon is not mentioned in polite company.

That brings us back to my grandfather, WP Kragg. He took over management of the family fortune and expanded upon it in ways his father would have never imagined. I have often speculated what wondrous good could have come about for mankind, had WP turned his considerable talents to more humanitarian enterprises.

If George Wellborne had married well, WP hit the jackpot. He was fortunate enough to snag Emily Jane Keern, who we all grew to love and admire as Mother Kragg. Emily Jane was pretty enough but not beautiful; she had a fresh face without much color. Her hair was a golden brown, and she had light brown eyes. Emily Jane was considerably shorter than WP, which was odd, as Kraggs generally favored tall women. Emily Jane Keern was not refined and cultured in a classical way, but she was rich beyond imagination. Not only was she wealthy, but also her only sibling, a brother, had died in a boating accident a year before the marriage. Old man Keern looked upon WP as a replacement son of sorts. WP was put in the enviable position of combining the Kragg and Keern fortunes under one roof. The only stipulation was that he could never divorce.

WP had never entertained thoughts of divorce; however, his interpretation of the marriage vow was more libertine than is conventional. From all accounts and my personal observations, Mother Kragg was content with the arrangement. She busied herself with keeping up the Kragg estate in upstate New York (presumptuously named Kragg House), the flat off Central Park in New York, and the summer cottage in Maine, all 7,000 square feet of it that we call Goose Point. There was also the bungalow in the Dominican Republic in that playground for the rich and infamous – Villa de la Playa. It was one of the few places that WP ever visited alone for, as he put it, a taste of the exotic. Everyone suspected he had a mistress he kept down there, but one dared not speak of WP’s private life in the open.

I will have to say that Mother Kragg was kind and generous to those around her. She was a very simple, humane, and uncomplicated person. I should qualify that. My perception of her was that she was an uncomplicated person. Who really knew what was rattling around in her brain? She lived all those years with WP and got pretty much what she wanted, which is no small feat. Mother Kragg was blessed with a bright smile and warm eyes, and she had a charming and approachable air to her. Anyone would feel comfortable talking to her about his or her most guarded secrets.

Mother Kragg gave WP four children. The first two were girls: Mary Elizabeth (Aunt Mary), and Jane Ann (Aunt Jane) - followed by two boys: George Price (Uncle George), and my father, Arthur James. Aunt Mary took after her mother. She was rather short by Kragg standards and had a more proportioned figure with light brown hair, deep-set piercing eyes, and a softer nose and cheekbones. George Price was tall in the Kragg fashion, but his bone structure was more in line with his mother’s. Uncle George had thick hands and a stronger build than his father or grandfather. Jane Ann was thoroughly Kragg. Tall and slender, she was the only Kragg with blue eyes. People say my father looked strikingly like the uncle he never knew, George Arthur, which probably didn’t sit well with WP. My father was tall and athletic, with penetrating dark eyes and a generous smile. The Kragg children have heretofore produced twelve grandchildren, of which by a quirk of fate, I am the oldest.

For whatever reason, I was always my grandfather’s favorite. He made no secret of it, and for most of my life I welcomed the attention. It often came in quite handy to be in WP’s good graces.

Generally, I got on with everyone, everyone except Aunt Mary. She never liked me. I could sense it from my earliest memories. I can remember not being comfortable when she was around. I always got the feeling that she was judging me or waiting for me to make a mistake so she could pounce and hurl blame my way.

My father and WP were never on good terms. Father committed the cardinal sin of going against WP’s wishes on a number of occasions. First, he chose medicine, not business, as a career. WP could not imagine why someone would want to do so much work for so little gain. The thought of helping ease the suffering of others simply hadn’t occurred to him. Next, Father married early. He hadn’t finished medical school when he married an Irish nurse he met while working as an intern. Her name was Patricia O’Connor. Worse yet, she was six years older than him and as common as common could get. If you do the math, my mother was about three months with child when she strolled down the aisle in her bone colored dress.

WP was so furious he refused to attend the wedding. Mother Kragg was there along with Aunt Jane. Aunt Mary was out of the country, which provided a convenient excuse. Uncle George was also a no-show, as he simply didn’t have the balls to buck WP.

Father had no idea what trouble he was getting himself into. Mom was Catholic, and the Kraggs had always been fiercely loyal Protestants. I don’t think anyone really had much in the way of religious faith, but church attendance was mandatory, sort of like brushing one’s teeth before going to bed. It was just something one did. My parents found a Unitarian minister willing to marry them in the historic Universal Community Church in New York City. As far as WP was concerned, they might just as well had a Hopi Shaman perform the rite in the middle of the Arizona desert.

Soon after the wedding, the problems began. First, the immigration service began to raise issues about Mother’s immigration status. I know that WP was behind it, and the whole incident was nothing more than a shot across the bow. After a couple of hearings and some paperwork, Mother was sworn in as a citizen in due course. After medical school, Father dragged us off to Texas where he worked as a surgical resident. What I now know, that I didn’t at the time, was that WP had blocked his applications for residency appointments to more prestigious programs closer to home.

I also know that WP had cut Father off from the family fortune. He no longer received his allowance and dividends. His entire share of the wealth was transferred to a trust in my name with WP as the trust administrator. Father never spoke of it, nor did he ever have an ill word for WP. Mother was the same. After a couple of years of this stalemate, Mother Kragg brokered a deal where my sister and I could spend our summers with her and WP. The war was over, or so I thought.

A word about my sister…Emily is a rebel through and through. WP couldn’t countenance her headstrong ways and blamed it on the corruption of her Irish blood. She got on famously with Mother Kragg. I have long suspected that Mother Kragg lived vicariously through her namesake. Emily was a free spirit, and while we all thought she was a bit of an airhead, I learned that she was smart enough to keep WP off balance. That is no small feat, mind you. In the end, he pretty much ignored her, which was what she wanted all along. Emily had mother’s red hair and was the only Kragg with freckles. That, too, was from mother’s side of the family.

I found her very annoying in my youth. She had a bad habit of getting into my things. It seemed she liked my sports jerseys and found new and creative ways of wearing them. Sometimes her taste required a bit of the seamstress’s touch that would inevitably render the garment useless. Needless to say, I found my little sister tiresome for the most part. But, in time, I found that my sister had a wonderfully admirable trait. Emily was completely trustworthy and loyal. She could keep a secret and had an uncanny ability to empathize with people.

Then there were the cousins. Kraggs are a fertile lot. I had ten cousins. I won’t bore you with naming them all now. You’ll meet them soon enough. Of all my cousins, Douggie was the only one I could really connect with. He and I were only separated by two months, and over the years, we would find ourselves collaborating on various forms of mischief. Douggie was the eldest son of Aunt Mary and her clueless husband Paul Westbrook. Aunt Mary resented our friendship, telling Mother that I was a bad influence on her Douggie…me, a bad influence.

For the first six years of my life, I lived a pretty normal middle-class life. Mother and Father both worked, and I did the day care and nursery school bit. I played with other middle-class kids, and we lived in a typical suburban neighborhood in Houston, Texas. I remember seeing all kind of people coming in and out of the house. One person I remembered distinctly. Father worked very closely with a Haitian surgical resident who was to be his closest friend for many years. His name was Patrice, and he had a very smooth and funny accent. I thought a lot of him. I also remember he was the blackest person I ever knew. I have fond memories of our Texas house. It was small and unpretentious by Kragg standards, but at the time, it was all I could have hoped for. We had a housekeeper, Miss Aguilar, who insisted that I call her Carmen. She would clean up and sometimes look after me in the evenings. She taught me the odd Spanish word or two. In time, we could get on in Spanish quite well. I was happy then. So that was my early life.

When my sister was born, I guess that was when Mother Kragg stepped in because we moved back east, and from then on, it was private schools, fancier houses, and holidays on the family compound or in the summer cottage. Mother Kragg convinced WP to resume Father’s allowance, partly to ensure we maintained the appropriate Kragg appearance. Initially, Father refused the money. Cleverly, Mother Kragg persuaded Father to look upon the offer as an attempt by WP to mend fences. After prodding from Mother, he grudgingly accepted. It would seem that Mother had plans for the money.

Father landed a very prestigious position at a teaching hospital in New York City, and Mother stopped working full time. She continued to work as a nurse for charity and community based organizations on a part-time basis. We moved into the Kragg suite in the City, and I tried to deal with the culture shock of life on the Upper East Side. After a year of that, Mother convinced Father to move away from the city to the suburbs in the hope of finding some good country air. We ended up in the Poconos, and my poor father did the two-hour train commute to New York. Many a time, I wouldn’t see him for days since he would work so late that it was far easier to remain in the city than to come home. But Mother was happy, and that’s what mattered to Father. All in all, I began to see more and more of WP.

Holidays with the Kragg patriarchy were staged-managed events. Mother would dress up to the hilt, and I could feel the tension when we entered the compound. Mother was about the most positive and forthright person on the planet until, that is, she entered the Kragg domain. WP always had a snide comment or two for her, and Father was usually very set-jawed about the whole thing. When we got home, Father would flail his arms and complain bitterly about WP. Mother would quiet him down and reassure him that she thought the old man was just spouting off. She knew better, of course, but it was a game we all played.

Christmas at Kragg House was always a huge production. It was the only time Mother, Aunt Jane, and Aunt Mary would collaborate on anything. Mother Kragg would take the lead in setting a theme for the year, then the sisters would get busy trying to outdo each other. The greatest controversy would arise from the task of decorating for the event. The Camp David Accords between Israel and the Palestinians was child’s play compared to the negotiations that took place during the pre-holiday planning session. The stylistic differences of the three women could not have been starker. Mother gravitated toward an earthly down-home approach. Irish and a devout Catholic, she wanted to display the more sacred aspects of the season. Aunt Mary, on the other hand, was given to ostentatious display and wanted to shower the place with frightfully expensive ornaments. Aunt Jane was more concerned with getting the colors right and balancing the feel. Hers was a decidedly secular European feel. At the end of the day, Kragg House was stunning, festive, and warm. It was one of the few Kragg gatherings I truly enjoyed. Kraggs being Kraggs, gift giving was subject to fierce competition. The Christmas season tended to involve a pilgrimage by all the siblings to the family estate. WP would brook no excuses short of near death illness or incarceration, and with his pull, even those could be surmounted. The children were spoiled with lavish presents, many of which I found impractical and boring. I really didn’t care if the sweater I got was Italian made silk or the watch was Swiss made. I was more impressed with gadgets. My first snowmobile was fantastic, and the personal hovercraft would provide hours of fun during the summertime. Christmas dinner at Kragg House could feed a small third world country. There were usually several meat dishes: the industry standard turkey was joined by goose, Alaskan King Salmon, a ham, Swedish meatballs, all in far more abundance than the collective Kragg appetite could consume. The variety and number of side dishes were too numerous to describe in detail, except to say that we wanted for nothing. The vast ensemble of desert options could tame the wildest sweet tooth. And at the end, the adults toasted the affair with generous helpings of brandy, port, and liqueurs of all types. Douggie and I usually contrived to sneak a sampling of the tonics on offer for educational purposes.

One thing about my mother I have to admire was that she handled everything with such grace and class. My Uncle George’s hateful wife, the fashionable Ms. Martha Winthrop, was always trying to lay traps for Mother. It just pained her that she was phony from head to toe and Mother was so real. Mother was a very graceful and naturally pretty lady. Aunt Martha was a cosmetic surgeon’s dream. Her boobs were expertly manufactured, her nose was well sculpted, and she had had numerous face-lifts. Her makeup was always just so. Martha was impeccably dressed for every occasion, and while she was considered very attractive, she seemed like a cutout person to me. I can’t remember an intelligent word ever coming out of her mouth. Mother’s quick wit and earthy common sense were more than a match for any of them, except perhaps for WP. No one could get the better of WP.

Father continued to try WP’s patience. After Father accepted his medical job in New York, he worked to secure a teaching position for his old friend from Houston, Dr. Patrice Gaspard. It was rough going for Father to get the nomination past the selection committee. There had never been a Black person on the teaching staff. Hell, that bunch thought they were progressive because they added a world-renowned Japanese doctor to the staff. It had taken an act of Congress and much in the way of patronage from some influential donors to get that off the ground. WP blew a head gasket when he found out. It is a great story, and Mother filled me in on all the details.

It seems that Father had alluded to the Kragg name in pressuring the board to select Patrice. The patricians on the board naturally assumed that Dr. Arthur Kragg spoke for Wellborne Price Kragg so they held their collective noses and made the selection. WP didn’t find out for several months until he attended the annual fundraising banquet for the hospital. WP saw the program and noticed a very French name on it and asked father about it. Father, beaming, mentioned that he had recommended the doctor to the panel for selection, and of course, they just had to approve. Well, you can just imagine that WP was giddy with excitement. It was the first time his son had ever done anything Kragg-like in his memory. See, to WP, Father had used political muscle to get something done. It was a Kragg move through and through, which was very unlike his son Arthur. Needless to say, Father had setup WP for the big whammy. WP spouted off something to the effect that Father had done well and that the old board needed shaking up from time to time, and besides, it was good to bring in some fresh blood to gain perspective. Father said nothing; he just smiled. WP asked to meet Dr. Patrice Louis Gaspard sometime during the banquet. Father agreed to oblige him in due course. It was one of those usual dazzling affairs with all of the old money and new money types jockeying for position. The men were stiff and pretentious and the women dazzling and ornate. After all of the very predictable and boring speeches, WP motioned to Father to present Dr. Gaspard to himself and Mother Kragg. Father was only too eager to do so. He left the VIP table and worked his way through to the crowd, taking time to stop at every table along the way and make nice with his colleagues and guests. All of this delayed the inevitable, and Father was pouring it on for good measure. He fetched Patrice. Father brought him slowly through the crowd, introducing him to everyone he could. WP must not have been paying attention because when father reached the VIP table, he had to clear his throat to get WP’s attention. The old man spun around, and when he caught a glimpse of Dr. Gaspard, he motioned him off, saying he hadn’t finished his meal yet but could use some more water. Patrice remained reticent the whole time. Not skipping a beat, Father presented Patrice to WP, who for the first time anyone can remember was at a loss for words. WP sat there for a few seconds with a confused look on his face but quickly recovered. He scanned the room and noticed that he was being watched by about five hundred people. WP said, very well, and extended his hand. Patrice bowed slightly and shook his hand firmly. Father then introduced Mother Kragg, who smiled brightly and held out her hand, which Patrice gently took, kissed, and said, It is my pleasure to meet you, Madame. WP did everything he could to maintain his composure. He was in public under the spotlight, and Father had him right where he wanted him. Payback would come later.

What no one knew at the time was that the incident was photographed. The precise moment of the handshake ended up on the society pages of the leading daily newspapers. Since WP was an old coot, no one thought anything of his failure to rise when meeting Dr. Gaspard. The public fallout was unexpected and generally favorable for WP. He was now viewed as a progressive open-minded patron of inclusiveness. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but for WP, it blunted some of the displeasure of having been had, as it were. He recounted the event to me some years later. Danny, while I was furious with Arthur, I have to say that I did come to benefit from it, he said.

How so? I asked.

At the time, I had no idea that I would get a reputation for being fair and open-minded. I thought about it and decided I could use that someday. You know, perception is more valuable than reality, he said. WP was sharp enough to figure out that someday he could profit by his undeserved reputation for fairness.

WP was full of little sayings like that. Perception is more valuable than reality. WP studied human nature. When we were together, he would often share with me the inner workings of his worldview.

Danny, everyone has prejudices about human nature. Call’em views – I got mine and you got yours. They are based on observation and experience. Keep an eye on what’s going on, develop a theory, and test people to see if you’re on to something, he said. And above all, always look for advantage and don’t let anyone get power over you, hear me? he advised.

Yes, yes indeed, I got it, I answered.

WP had a firm belief that he was smarter, more cunning, and a step ahead of most everyone. He was usually right on all fronts. I believe what WP Kragg had most going for him was an uncanny sense of timing. I wouldn’t go so far as to say WP’s prejudices were unfounded, just to say his interpretation of his experiences might be a little different from those of others.

After the banquet incident, Father and WP didn’t speak for weeks. WP never let on to Father that, on some level, he appreciated Father using his power to get what he wanted. To communicate, messages were conveyed through Mother and Mother Kragg, who in time had become quite chummy with each other. I think Mother Kragg came to trust and respect Mother’s levelheadedness and honesty. It was a rare commodity among the Kraggs. Family politics were as ruthless as anything found in business or within the halls of legislative bodies. It was good practice.

With Father off healing the masses, WP turned to Uncle George to be groomed as the future patriarch of the family. As such, Uncle George would have to take over the largest privately owned company in America, K & K Enterprises. The K and K stood for Kragg and Keern – or perhaps Keern and Kragg, the order of which was subject to speculation. K & K was the second largest shipping firm in the U.S., a major warehousing enterprise that controlled trucking in New England and much of the mid-west. K & K also had several joint ventures going on in the areas of paper milling, engineering and construction, and machine tools. Later, it would become one of the largest oil field service companies in the country. WP had considerable interest in defense related production, real estate, publishing, broadcasting, and venture capital. In time, K & K would surge into the defense industry with a vengeance. War is good business, WP liked to say. Keeping track of all this was the life work of WP Kragg. It was an enormous task, for which Uncle George was totally unprepared.

It wasn’t that Uncle George didn’t have the training; after all, he had an MBA. However, we found out later that he cheated his way through college. No, Uncle George just didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to pull it off. He simply didn’t know how to broker power. Uncle George was just too nice; he didn’t have the nerve to muscle people or to set them up. He wanted too much to be liked. Worse yet, he lacked the ability to see ahead several moves. In effect, he was a poor chess player. In this case, the Kragg gene for cunning didn’t get passed along.

While WP was positioning Uncle George for leadership, Aunt Mary was quietly making her moves. She was spending as much time as she could with WP and Mother Kragg, asking seemingly innocuous questions about their friends and associates and the more mundane aspects of the businesses. In fact, she was collecting all the puzzle pieces she could to get a picture of the whole. What she couldn’t get out of WP, she would get from Mother Kragg. WP would often think out loud in front of Mother Kragg, who would pretend not to listen. The woman was a sponge; she heard everything.

A word about Uncle George’s academic career – rumor has it that WP and Mother Kragg hatched a plot to get Uncle George through college and later graduate school without embarrassing the Kragg name. They hired a financially strapped but brilliant classmate of Uncle George to act as surrogate, so to speak. The kid wrote all of Uncle George’s papers and after some well-placed bribes, even sat some of his exams. This arrangement worked handsomely for undergraduate studies. With the BA in hand, graduate school would require a bit more finesse. It would have brought unwanted attention on Uncle George were he to fail, so Mother Kragg convinced the powers-that-be that their institution of higher learning would benefit handsomely in financial terms if young George Kragg received a Master’s Degree. The agreement was that he would pass respectably and nothing more. To this day, Uncle George can boast of his degrees from two of America’s flagship universities. All of this was just part of the process to set up Uncle George to become heir apparent. Poor WP was wedded to the idea that the man who inherited the Kragg fortune would have to be a man.

Of all Mother Kragg’s children, Mary Elizabeth – Aunt Mary – was a Kragg through and through. She would have been the one best suited to carry the torch. But she was automatically disqualified due to the misfortune of her birth. Being a woman, she couldn’t carry on the Kragg name, as far as WP was concerned, so she was not to be groomed to take over the business. This was unfortunate because my Aunt Mary was a genius. Her genius was in her ability to determine what motivated people to do what they did. Like WP, Aunt Mary had good timing. She also had an uncanny way of avoiding conflict on the surface. Privately, she was utterly ruthless, the extent to which I would find out later. This gave her an enormous capacity for manipulating events to the outcome she desired.

Aunt Mary married Mr. Paul Westbrook with the full blessing and support of her father. Westbrook was a great guy. He wasn’t very smart, but he was a man’s man. He played Rugby and rowed crew at university and came from a wealthy Chicago family with interests in the retail and commercial real estate business. He was everyone’s vision of a frat rat. Handsome and muscular, he could have been a movie star if fate had provided the opening. He liked a good party and would work only as much as was required. He and WP got on famously. Whenever they were together, they shared a laugh and drinks, but it was all very superficial. If WP wanted to talk business philosophy with anyone, he talked to Aunt Mary. Funny that he never recognized her practical business smarts.

To illustrate the point, while Aunt Mary was attending Annandale, the most prestigious prep school for young ladies as the advertisement went, she scored a summer internship with Waterhouse Assurance Underwriters, which was tied to the family by Great Uncle Charles’s marriage. Aunt Mary wormed her way into the hearts of the old coots that ran the place, who had taken over since Great Uncle Charles had long since retired. Through her contacts, she gained access to the files and got her hands on a due diligence report for a pending merger in which the company was involved. Generally, an intern would have never been allowed such access, but Aunt Mary was family so no one paid much attention to her as she glided around the office. From what I understand, Aunt Mary used the information she obtained about the pending merger to alert WP, in order that he could make a seemingly shrewd business investment that later returned quite handsomely. In exchange, Aunt Mary had WP arrange her placement at a Wall Street investment firm where she worked during her college years in New York. Funny thing is that Aunt Mary could have most probably gotten the job on merit, but she reveled in the notion that she had connections that facilitated the same goal.

This brings me to my wonderfully boring Aunt Jane. Jane Ann, as everyone called her, was very much like her mother. She was sweet and honest and very unpretentious. She and Mother, whom Jane and only Jane called Trish, were probably closest of all. In the Kragg mind, she became a poor relation when she married Lane Wells. Professor Wells was an academic, which according to WP was even more useless than a doctor. WP opined that those that know, do; those that don’t know, teach. Lane was a tenured Professor of American Literature at a small New England college. WP didn’t object to the marriage, even though Lane was sixteen years older than Jane at the time. It was the typical student falling in love with the professor story. The reason WP didn’t object was that he had no