Ordinary Hazards by Anna Bruno

Author:Anna Bruno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2020-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Busy, busy, busy was a Vonnegut reference. Uncle Nic was an aficionado.

Some years later, my dad met me in San Francisco, where I was living, and on our way to dinner, a homeless man tripped and fell on the sidewalk just a couple of feet in front of us. The guy was so close to the entrance of the restaurant that my dad literally had to step over his body to get to the door. I was young at the time and sort of in shock so I just followed his lead. From inside the restaurant, I looked out and watched the man gather himself. Upon seeing my expression, my dad grabbed my arm and said, “A man’s worth is no greater than his ambition.” Biographies and military histories, along with the Wall Street Journal and a few select business periodicals, comprised most of my father’s reading list. Marcus Aurelius fell squarely within his bailiwick.

Something about the word ambition, spoken through my father’s lips, reminded me of the word abomination, and I realized the two weren’t so far off—abomination was simply an exaggerated form of ambition. For the duration of the evening, I pushed the food around on my plate in shame while my dad ate heartily and talked about San Francisco real estate. He tipped generously.

When I told my mom this story, she said, “Of course that’s how he feels. Why do you think he didn’t come to Nico’s funeral?”

Dad probably would have invested in every two-bit business idea Uncle Nic ever had, but the one thing he would not forgive was the obvious eventuality: one day the spaghetti would stop hitting the wall. He despised what he perceived as the opposite of ambition: giving up.

Though my mom always blamed the other woman for their divorce, I’m sure it had everything to do with how he saw her depression. In his mind, it was only weakness. I never forgot what he said to me that day in San Francisco.

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