Too Much and Never Enough, стр. 27
At the very least, Maryanne should have been able to buy groceries without having to ask my grandmother, no matter how obliquely. But no matter how dire their situation, the three oldest Trump children couldn’t get anybody in their family to help them in any substantive way. After a while there seemed to be no point in trying at all. Elizabeth simply accepted her lot. Dad eventually came to believe it was what he deserved. Maryanne convinced herself that not asking for or receiving help was a badge of honor. Their fear of my grandfather was so deeply ingrained that they no longer even recognized it for what it was.
The situation with David Desmond eventually became untenable. He couldn’t get a job, and his drinking worsened. Desperate but being very careful not to seem as if she were asking for anything, Maryanne hinted to her father that David would love a place at Trump Management. My grandfather didn’t ask if there was a problem. He gave his son-in-law a job as a parking lot attendant at one of his buildings in Jamaica Estates.
Donald graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1968 and went straight to work at Trump Management. From his first day on the job, my twenty-two-year-old uncle was given more respect and perks and paid more money than my father ever had been.
Almost immediately, my grandfather appointed Donald vice president of several companies that fell under the Trump Management umbrella, named him “manager” of a building he didn’t actually have to manage, gave him “consulting” fees, and “hired” him as a banker.
The reasoning for that was twofold: First, it was an easy way to put Freddy in his place while signaling to the other employees that they were expected to defer to Donald. Second, it helped consolidate Donald’s de facto position as heir apparent.
Donald secured his father’s attention in a way nobody else did. None of Freddy’s friends could understand why Donald was, in Fred’s eyes, “the cat’s meow.” But after the summers and weekends Donald spent working for his father and visiting construction sites, Fred exposed his younger son to the ins and outs of the real estate business. Donald discovered he had a taste for the seamier side of dealing with contractors and navigating the political and financial power structures that undergirded the world of New York City real estate. Father and son could discuss the business and local politics and gossip endlessly even if the rest of us in the cheap seats had no idea what they were talking about. Not only did Fred and Donald share traits and dislikes, they had the ease of equals, something Freddy could never achieve with his father. Freddy had a wider view of the world than his brother or father did. Unlike Donald, he had belonged to organizations and groups in college that had exposed him to other people’s points of view. In the National Guard and as a pilot at TWA, he had seen the best and brightest, career professionals who believed there was a greater good, that there were things more important than money, such as expertise, dedication, loyalty. They understood that life wasn’t a zero-sum game. But that was part of my dad’s problem. Donald was as narrow and provincial and egotistical as their father. But he also had a confidence and brazenness that Fred envied and his older brother lacked, qualities that Fred planned to turn to his advantage.
Donald’s bid to replace my father at Trump Management was off to a strong start, but he was still at loose ends at home. Robert was at Boston University, which enabled him to avoid service in Vietnam, and Donald and Elizabeth didn’t socialize with each other. Freddy did his best to include his little brother in whatever he and his friends got up to, but it rarely went well. They were a laid-back group who loved flying out east with Freddy to fish and water-ski. They found Donald’s lack of humor and self-importance off-putting. Though they tried for Freddy’s sake to welcome his little brother, they didn’t like him.
Toward the end of Donald’s first year at Trump Management, the tension between him and Freddy was becoming noticeable. Though Freddy tried to leave it at the office, Donald never let anything go. Despite that, when Billy Drake’s girlfriend, Annamaria, was having a dinner party, Freddy asked if he could invite his brother.
The evening didn’t go much better than Donald’s attempted flirtation in the driveway years earlier. Shortly after the brothers arrived, raised voices drew Annamaria from the kitchen, where she was preparing dinner. She found Donald standing inches away from his brother, flushed and pointing his finger in Freddy’s face. Donald looked as though he were about to hit Freddy, so Annamaria pushed herself between the two very tall men.
Freddy took a step back and said through clenched teeth, “Donald, get out of here.”
Donald seemed stunned, then stormed away, saying, “Fine! You eat the girl’s roast beef!” as he slammed the door