Patron: (Boss man)

By Jack McKinney

This is a grandiose portrayal of dynamic personalities beset by life’s unbending policy not to grant excuses, pardons, or favors based on net worth.

Angela, a recently widowed mother, and her son Tony (a near carbon copy of his business-legend dad) share the respective leadership roles of the ranch and the oil company. Angela was the steward of highly guarded family secrets that were rapidly complicating their relationship.

A life-changing affair forces a reveal of some of Angela’s long-harbored family secrets. Tony’s worship then began a gradual decline to respectful tolerance and eventual resentment.

The ultimate clash and crash of two A personalities result in a contentious demise of family and corporate distinction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662437380

Book preview

Chapter 1

Tony slowly began processing the news of his dad’s stroke and unexpected death. He sat motionless in his vehicle for a full twenty minutes, trying desperately to convert and organize this swirl of words into facts and finally reality. As the shock began to subside, he started the unpleasant task of establishing priorities, the first being to get home immediately and console his near-hysterical mother.

The eight-hour road trip home would afford him time to collect his senses and recollect memories. The hours and miles somehow offered a thoughtful, solemn, but somehow comforting appeal as if it would be private and special with his dad.

Tony was the son of extremely wealthy parents, but his dad was hardcore old-school, and Tony did not have full access to wealth and privilege. His dad insisted and demanded that he be exposed to all phases of ranch work, and there was plenty of hard, physical, dirty, and hot work to be done on a ranch. Tony was a poster boy for the old line His daddy’s rich and his mama’s good-looking. The wealth didn’t influence Tony’s formative years in any way.

Tony smiled at those thoughts as he had long since realized that those times were all pieces of the unique yet special relationship he shared with his dad.

Tony grew up to be a very good athlete and a stud quarterback in high school. He earned a scholarship at the University of Texas but was beat out by another stud quarterback, so he never started. He dropped out of school after football season of his junior year. Another freshman stud from Fort Stockton was redshirted and clearly was the one in their plans for the future. Tony always thought of himself as an incomplete rather than a dropout as he left with a 3.3 GPA. His dad accepted his decision to leave school with a series of colorful remarks but ended his rant with clear expectations that mistakes can and will be overcome with hard work.

Daddy put him to work immediately in the lower levels of the oil fields of his oil company. More hot, dirty, hard, and physical long hours but Dad’s way of validating his preachings that hard work can overcome mistakes. As Tony served his time at the oil-field labor level, he was exposed to that level of society both at work and at play. These experiences created a character element and a personality influenced by his surroundings.

Tony was branded immediately as the big boss’s son and of course was the target of a barrage of teasing during the long workdays. They sometimes got to be a bit nasty after work and a few beers.

Tony quickly established boundaries for teasing and resentment. Three or four skirmishes left the teasers with a battered face and pride. These incidents, Tony’s reputation for attracting women, and his ranch raising created the friendly-teasing title of the old familiar He’s a lover and a fighter and a wild horse rider. His acceptance was a very impressive achievement, considering the social burden of being the big boss’s son.

As he emerged from the depths of lower-level labor sometimes known as oil-field trash, he began his upward earned spiral through the mid ranks of the company and into management with accolades from his peers, subordinates, and supervisors. His quality and quantity of work was clearly valid and not favoritism.

Quite predictably, his ascent to management was at first met with resentment and challenges from old-school board members. They objected to his rapid rise to management (ten years) but welcomed his genetics. Criticism of his lack of a degree had become weak and empty as his star had begun to glow brighter and brighter. They all agreed that his dad’s death had changed the generalship and management landscape of the company, and his expertise was already sorely missed. The board would welcome Tony into his new leadership role with guarded optimism and hopeful confidence.

Tony genetically had the tenacity to accept that challenge and was confident and arrogant enough to openly criticize the corporate-world philosophy of degree requirements for character and leadership. He could of course thumb his nose at that policy because he was family, and his mother was CEO.

Through his arrogance and overwhelming confidence, there were positive signs of genuine leadership, irresistible charm, resolve, and all those pretty words that columnists, writers, and poets love to use to create a potential captain of industry image.

A temporary decision was made to create a title position of general operations executive in order to provide Tony the authority to make decisions on whatever and whenever as necessary. This was a move to provide a period of oversight simply to appease two board members and maintain the harmony of the board until they could meet again to create the permanent position of senior VP of operations and elect his mother to chairman of the board vacated by the death of his dad. This move would strengthen and solidify Tony’s position as he would become an officer of the company.

This was all typical behavior while all involved were still reeling and adjusting to the sudden loss of the operational kingpin of this company, but the general overall mood at this pivotal juncture was all positive and spoke volumes for success.

Tony welcomed the upcoming challenges, and it would of course be his sole responsibility for a seamless transfer of authority from his dad to him—he could and would.

Characteristically, this company was light on its feet and moved quickly and decisively on matters of importance so, true to form, did so again in announcing the decision to reconvene the board some ten days after the previous meeting. This tone of quick action and response was established early on in the formation of the company and had provided a competitive advantage always when competing with slow, clumsy conglomerate companies.

The ten days had allowed adequate time for all involved to talk privately with one another and satisfy themselves. Tony sat in the boardroom awaiting the call to order and was amused at the show going on in front of him. The purpose of this meeting was to elect/appoint his mother to chairman of the board and to create the position of senior vice president of operations and announce his promotion to the position.

Rumors had been flying for weeks that his mother would replace his dad as chairman of the board. She already controlled the board and always got the votes she needed to win her way. She had known them all for years, and she was still a strikingly beautiful woman in her fifties but could easily pass for her late forties, and of course she knew it. She had served as chief legal officer/VP for years, and her masterful art of persuasion almost always won her support and votes for whatever project she was campaigning for.

His mother was there in all of her elegance, very appropriately dressed with everything exactly the right length and just exactly the right button undone for this occasion. She was surrounded by a web of very rich older men who were charmingly aware that she was now a very rich and very successful beautiful widow, certainly deserving of the effort of their wittiest remarks and a subtle gentlemanly touch upon greeting. She knew them all but not as well as they wanted her to know them.

The meeting was called to order, and business at hand was officially decided without complications or objections. This company was still rock-solid in pedigree leadership. After all the congratulatory hugs and handshakes were done, Tony and his mother had a sad but heartfelt visit in which she expressed that she would take comfort and a constant nostalgic presence if Tony would establish his official business in his dad’s office, which they like to refer to as his hideout down the hall.

She continued with her sudden emotional venting by describing the scenario already forming in her mind of the familiar business sounds coming from down the hall. She ended the spontaneous outburst, crying and laughing at the same time. She was a mess, and Tony was a near-mess. Traditionally Tony had addressed Angela, his mother, as Mother but since the passing of his dad, strangely enough Mamma now seemed more natural, warm and affectionate, maybe one of those unexplained human emotions to span the sentiment gap left by his dad. The subject was unspoken and would remain so Tony would adhere to the socially appropriate usage of each if such absurdities existed, not that his family had ever been concerned with social appearances of family traditions.

His response was of course a resounding yes and emotions, dreams, memories, and plans were spinning together and his own voice sounded like an echo that he couldn’t recognize or identify. He already had a cabin on the ranch and a house in town but did relish the thought of relocating his business office to the ranch as he stayed at the cabin very often anyway.

The previous few months since his dad’s death had been an absolute blur of indecisive momentum, if there is such a contradictory descriptive condition of a company status. Admittedly Tony had struggled with passing and confusing thoughts of guilt and pride when he allowed that thought to continue into the possibility of taking his dad’s office.

Of course, there was a bit of respectful arrogance and confidence there that he would certainly be chosen to take over his dad’s responsibilities. Nobody ever used the word replace. What would be his mother’s reaction to such a suggestion? All those agonizing questions had just been answered, and such a morbid predicament had been properly tempered to not only a pleasant acceptance that both salved and served almost all the important family needs. Unknown to the board members, they were getting a much more versatile new leader than they expected.

Tony had gained the personal respect and created a professional presence he exuded throughout the company as he moved through the lower, middle, and upper ranks. He had the innate personality characteristics to be the centerpiece of wherever or whatever forum, be that at a barroom, a boardroom, or a country-club banquet room, completely at ease in all.

Tony left the boardroom, completely drained mentally. The drive to the cabin was a constant fast-forward replay of the past several hours and months. He kept trying to slip his mind into neutral, but today was still fresh in his thoughts. A therapeutic drink or two was in order. He drove past the familiar Petroleum Club, preferring tonight the total solitude of the ranch cabin to rethink and redrink the past few occurrences of overstressed patience. That sounded like a large order for two or three drinks to solve, so he toasted the memory of his dad, let his mind go to recess, and went to bed. The following morning started with the slight thump in his head, reminding him of his uncounted toasts the previous night pursuant to yesterday’s banner occasion.

Today would be a continuous flow of memories, humility, anxiety, and other undesirable feelings as he prepared to finalize the official move to his dad’s office. The emotional and maybe most dreaded move was to meet his mother in her office, and they would begin this transition in lockstep. Her office was just down the hall, which was a very efficient arrangement for both of them, then and now. Because of their positions in the company, they rarely went to the office headquarters and worked almost exclusively from the ranch offices.

His mother was there anxiously awaiting his arrival, and they began the painful task of decision-making of things that needed to be stored and others that must stay even though they had no relevance to business, old or new. As these things created an occasional misty-eyed pause, and Tony’s frame of mind began to assemble this array of sensibilities into an atmosphere that transformed this occasion into a somewhat ghostly sense of sharing the office with his dad instead of establishing a new occupant. Tony liked that concept and took some comfort and pride in his awkward conveyance of his new feelings to his mother. She of course was on the brink of tears off and on all day, so she exploded into a cavalcade of crying, laughing, talking, and hugging, a welcome relief from this solemn occasion.

This new attitude settled over the entire project and created somewhat of a glow, which spawned the almost required salute and proper toast of this momentous occasion. Straight from his dad’s whiskey, this glow spread rapidly—what a day!

Tony’s mother soon declared she had had enough toasting, maybe even too much, so she left with a radiant smile and a sincere good night. Tony thought to himself, My mamma even has a classy slur.

Tony thought one more drink was in order for this special occasion, so he went to the bar to mix a drink but strangely enough decided that just a splash would be absolutely perfect for this moment. He nursed the drink for all the glow he could extract, turned the lights out, and went to his cabin hoping the effects of Dad’s whiskey would override the excitement of the day and allow him to sleep. It did.

Chapter 2

A 5:30 a.m. call from Anna Cline, the owner of the Petroleum Club in town, jolted him awake as