Too Much and Never Enough, стр. 22

and without that acceptance he probably couldn’t continue. He had spent his entire life up until he had left Trump Management trying his best to become the person his father wanted him to be. When those attempts had repeatedly ended in failure, he had hoped that in the course of fulfilling his own dream that his father would come to accept him for who he really was. He had spent his childhood navigating the minefield of his father’s conditional acceptance, and he knew all too well that there was only one way to receive it—by being someone he wasn’t—and he would never be able to pull that off. His father’s approval still mattered more than anything else. Fred was, and always had been, the ultimate arbiter of his children’s worth (which is why, even late into her seventies, my aunt Maryanne continued to yearn for her long-dead father’s praise).

When TWA later offered Freddy the opportunity to fly out of Idlewild, he jumped at the chance, thinking it might be a way to salvage the situation. The move made no sense from a practical perspective, since he’d have to commute from Marblehead to New York every three or four days. Worse, it put him into closer proximity to Fred. But maybe for Freddy that was the point. Even if he couldn’t get Fred’s approval, it might be easier to convince his father that flying was what he should be doing if he could see it up close. In between flights, Freddy took fellow pilots back to the House to meet his family, hoping Fred might be impressed. It was a desperate move, but Freddy was desperate.

In the end, it made no difference. Fred could never get past the betrayal. Although Freddy had joined ROTC and a fraternity and the flying club, things his father would have disdained but probably didn’t know about, those activities hadn’t altered his plan to work for his father to ensure that the empire would survive in perpetuity. From Fred’s perspective, Freddy’s leaving Trump Management must have felt like an act of blatant disrespect. Ironically, it was the kind of boldness Fred had wanted to instill in his son, but it had been squandered on the wrong ambition. Instead, Fred felt that Freddy’s unprecedented move undermined his authority and diminished Fred’s sense that he was in control of everything, including the course of his son’s life.

A few weeks after the boys’ visit, a summer storm thundered over Marblehead Harbor. Linda was standing in the living room ironing Freddy’s white uniform shirts when the phone rang. As soon as she heard her husband’s voice, she knew something was wrong. He had quit his job at TWA, he told her. The three of them needed to move back to New York as soon as possible. Linda was stunned. That Freddy would give up everything he’d worked for after only four months made no sense at all.

In fact, TWA had given him an ultimatum: if he resigned, he could keep his license; otherwise, it would be forced to fire him as a result of his serious alcohol problem. If Freddy got fired, he’d likely never be able to fly again. He chose the first option, and with that their life in Marblehead was over. Just after Labor Day, the three of them moved back to the corner apartment on the ninth floor of the Highlander in Jamaica.

But Freddy hadn’t entirely given up on a flying career. Maybe, he thought, if he started with smaller airlines with smaller planes and shorter, less stressful routes, he could work his way back up. While Linda and Fritz settled in, Freddy went to Utica, a small city in upstate New York, to work for Piedmont Airlines, which flew commuter routes in the northeast. That job lasted less than a month.

He moved to Oklahoma and flew for another local airline. He was there when Fritz celebrated his second birthday. By December, he was back in Queens. His drinking was out of control, and he knew that he could no longer hack it as a pilot. The only self-made man in the family, Freddy was being slowly, inexorably dismantled.

Less than a year after it had begun, Freddy’s flying career was over. With no other options, he found himself standing in front of his father, who sat in his usual spot on the love seat in the library while his oldest son asked for a job that he didn’t want and Fred didn’t think he could do.

Fred reluctantly agreed, making it clear that he was doing his son a favor.

And then one more glimmer of hope emerged. In February 1965, Fred acquired the site of Steeplechase Park, one of three iconic amusement parks in Coney Island that had been in operation since around the turn of the twentieth century. Steeplechase had outlived its two rivals by decades: Dreamland had been destroyed by fire in 1911, and Luna Park, also struck by fires, had closed in 1944. Fred owned a building complex and shopping area named after Luna Park not far from the original site. Steeplechase continued operations until 1964. The Tilyou family had owned the park from the beginning, but several factors—including high crime and increasing competition for entertainment dollars—had persuaded them to sell the property. Fred, who had known that Steeplechase might become available for development, set his sights on its acquisition. The plan would be another residential development in the style of Trump Village, but a significant hurdle would need to be overcome: changing current zoning laws from public use to private construction. While he waited for the opportunity to present itself, Fred began to lobby his old cronies for their support and started drafting his proposal.

He dangled the possibility of Freddy’s involvement in the ambitious project, and his oldest son, frantic to improve his position and put TWA behind him, jumped at the opportunity. He suspected it might be his last chance to prove himself to the old man.

By then Linda was