Too Much and Never Enough, стр. 43
It wasn’t until she was moved out of the intensive care unit and into a private room that her progress became visible, and it was weeks more before her pain became bearable. When her appetite started to come back, I took her whatever she wanted. One day she was drinking the butterscotch milkshake I’d picked up on the way when Donald showed up.
He said hello to us both and kissed her quickly. “Mom, you look great.”
“She’s doing much better,” I said. He sat in a chair next to the bed and put a foot up on the edge of the bed frame.
“Mary’s been visiting me every day,” Gam said, smiling at me.
He turned to me. “Must be nice to have so much free time.”
I looked at Gam. She rolled her eyes, and I tried not to laugh.
“How are you, sweetheart?” Gam asked him.
“Don’t ask.” He seemed annoyed.
Gam asked him about his kids, if anything was new with him and Ivana. He didn’t have much to say; clearly bored, he left after ten minutes or so. Gam glanced at the door to make sure he was gone. “Somebody’s cranky.”
Now I did laugh. “To be fair, he’s having a tough time,” I said. In the last twelve months, the Taj Mahal, his favorite Atlantic City casino, had declared bankruptcy just a little over a year after it had opened; his marriage was a disaster, thanks in part to his very public affair with Marla Maples; the banks had put him on an allowance; and the paperback version of his second book, Surviving at the Top, had been published under the title The Art of Survival. Despite the fact that he’d brought it all on himself, he seemed put upon rather than humbled or humiliated.
“Poor Donald,” Gam mocked. She seemed almost giddy, and I thought the hospital staff might need to cut back on her pain meds. “He was always like this. I shouldn’t say it, but when he went to the Military Academy, I was so relieved. He didn’t listen to anyone, especially me, and he tormented Robert. And, oh, Mary! He was such a slob. At school he got medals for neatness, then when he came home, he was still a slob!”
“What did you do?”
“What could I do? He never listened to me. And your grandfather didn’t care.” She shook her head. “Donald got away with murder.”
That surprised me. I had always assumed my grandfather was a taskmaster. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
At the time, my grandfather was at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan getting a hip replacement. I think he had only ever been in the hospital once, when he’d had a tumor on his neck near his right ear removed in 1989. I don’t know if the timing of his hip surgery was a coincidence or if it had been scheduled after Gam was admitted so she wouldn’t have to deal with him while she recovered. His mental state had been deteriorating for some time and while he was in the hospital had definitely taken a turn for the worse. A few times, late at night, the nurses found him trying to leave wearing only boxer shorts. He told them he was going to find Mrs. Trump. Gam seemed pretty happy not to be found.
Donald’s perceived success with the Grand Hyatt in 1980 had paved the way for Trump Tower, which had opened to great fanfare in 1983. From his reportedly abysmal treatment of the undocumented workers who built it to the alleged Mob involvement, the project was steeped in controversy. The affronts culminated in the destruction of the beautiful Art Deco limestone reliefs on the facade of the Bonwit Teller building, which he razed to make room for his. Donald had promised those historically significant artifacts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Realizing that removing them in one piece would cost money and slow down construction, he instead ordered that they be destroyed. When confronted with that breach of trust and taste, he shrugged it off, declaring the sculptures to be “without artistic merit,” as if he knew better than the considered assessment of experts. Over time that attitude—that he knew better—would become even more entrenched: as his knowledge base has decreased (particularly in areas of governing), his claims to know everything have increased in direct proportion to his insecurity, which is where we are now.
The real reason Donald’s first two projects were acquired and developed relatively smoothly was in large part because of Fred’s expertise as a developer and dealmaker. Neither would have been possible without his contacts, influence, approval, money, knowledge, and, maybe most important, endorsement of Donald.
Before that point, Donald had relied entirely on Fred’s money and influence—although he never acknowledged it and publicly credited his own wealth and savvy for his success. The media were more than happy to go along without question, and the banks followed suit when Donald started to pursue the idea of becoming a casino operator in New Jersey, which in 1977 had legalized gambling in Atlantic City in an effort to save the flailing seaside resort town. If my grandfather’s opinion had carried any weight with him, Donald would never have invested in Atlantic City. Manhattan was worth the risk, as far as Fred was concerned, but in Atlantic City he would have nothing except money and advice to offer—no political clout or knowledge of the industry to draw on. By then Fred’s influence over him was waning, and in 1982 Donald applied for his gaming license.
While her brother was casting about for investment opportunities, Maryanne, who had been an assistant district attorney in New Jersey since the mid-1970s, asked Donald if he would ask Roy Cohn to do him a favor. Cohn had enough clout with the Reagan administration that he was given access to AZT, an experimental AIDS treatment, as well as influence over