3. Final Words （Ryan） #2
But that’s not how Hoffa came into my life.
If he had stayed the same man, I would have never heard of him, let alone taken his money and invested it into my business.
In the late nineties, Hoffa’s wife became pregnant with their first kid; sadly, she didn’t survive childbirth. His daughter, on the other hand, lived.
Once, while we were standing on the same golf course, Hoffa told me that he only had a change of heart after he had held his infant daughter for the first time in his arms. “I knew there and then that I had to devote my entire life to taking care of her,” he had said.
As far as I knew, he never married again.
More importantly, mere days after his daughter’s birth, Hoffa retired from the life of crime.
Retired for good, literally. He moved to New York, cutting all ties with the Irish Mafia.
But Hoffa had never really needed the Mafia to begin with.
His family had been rich, and so had been Hoffa.
They hadn’t escaped from Ireland during the famine or the whole business with the IRA.
They had moved to the States in their own time, with substantial generational wealth.
Hoffa used that rainy day fund to set up his business in New York — a totally legitimate investment company that would look out for the little guy. And why? So he could take care of his daughter and make money legally through investments.
As it happened, many years ago, I was the little guy who went to Hoffa for a shot at making it big in the music industry.
He listened to me intently, went over my business plan, and saw that whole musical spark within me.
I mean, I’m assuming he did, otherwise, why else would he have given me a hundred million dollars in funding?
Since then, he’s turned profits on most of his investments and now stands to be called one of the richest men in the city, if not the country. And now here he was, swinging his golf club and missing thrice in a row.
“You miss one more time like that and they’re going to throw you off the course, old man,” I said, emerging from behind him and thumping him firmly on the back. “Now, move on over, you old geezer, and let me show you how it’s really done.”
“Easy there, kiddo. I didn’t come here to play golf and both of us know it.”
“I didn’t know it,” I said, taking his golf club aside and putting it in his bag. “We haven’t conducted business in the country club in five years, Hoffa.”
“This ain’t about business, Ryan.”
That statement made me take a good hard look at Hoffa.
The man was tired: his face was strained.
Every now and then, he winced as if he was holding back a great deal of pain.
Now that I was noticing him, I could see that he was struggling to walk.
No wonder he was having a hard time hitting the golf ball.
We sat down behind the course on the lawn chairs. A mid-October sun hung low and cold in the sky, but even then, the big umbrella jutting out from the middle of our lawn table provided some much-needed reprieve from the hazy sunlight.
Hoffa’s hands were shaking. With one he had his face all covered up, and with the other, he was bringing the bottle of water to his face without ever taking a sip. His breath sounded whistly, wheezy.
“You okay, Hoff?” I asked.
“I ain’t, son. I ain’t. I’ve been kidding myself for some time thinking that this thing will go away on its own as everything that’s ever happened to me goes away on its own, but I think this time around, it’s the real McCoy,” Hoffa explained, adjusting his felt cap to shield his eyes from the sun. Or, possibly, to hide the tears.
“I never told you this, Ryan, but you were my first actual investment. I’d been investing in stocks and other crap every this way and that; but it wasn’t until you came around that I realized that investing in humans was better than investing in, you know, numbers and stats.
In the long run, it’s humans who give you a return on investment.
Not some algorithm, not some LED screen hanging from the stock exchange,” Hoffa said.
His face was pale and bleak, revealing the underlying web of arteries and veins on his cheeks and forehead. It was like someone had taken the blood out of his system and replaced it with some black sludge.
“Hoff, why are we talking about this?” I asked. “You’re worrying me.”
“Because I never really had a son. After my daughter, I never really wanted one, either. It wasn’t until you came along all starry-eyed and wet behind the ears that I realized what I could do with having a son.
If not a real one, then a spiritual one.
I never said it out loud, cuz I ain’t one for doling out all that sappy shit, but if I don’t do it now, I won’t do it ever. ”
“Why, Hoffa?”
“Because I’m dying, Ryan.”
It felt like someone had emptied a bucket full of ice water on my head. Through all the highs and lows of my life, there had always been one constant: Hoffa. I knew that I could always count on him. He’d always be there. Now he was telling me that he wasn’t going to be around after all.
“In the cosmic sense that we’re all dying?” I asked, hoping to diffuse the tension.
“No, as in I’m probably not going to be here next week or next month…
or whoever knows how long for. The fucking doctors say that there’s nothing more to be done.
Unless, they say, I can go back in time and not smoke all those cigarettes.
Fucking lung cancer, am I right? You know, I’m not even surprised.
It’s karma. You spend your life as a gangbanger and life gangbangs you in return, don’t it? ”
“Stop,” I said. Something stuck in my throat, making my voice sound all guttural. “Hoffa,” I began, swallowing a huge wad of hot breath, “there’s gotta be something we can do. I mean…”
“No. I asked for forgiveness from God, and I’ve spent the last half of my life righting wrongs.
As far as I’m concerned, God and I are in the clear.
I don’t fear death, Ryan. I know I’m going to be okay over there on the other side.
Besides, Rhiannon waits for me. I have to tell her all about how our baby girl grew up into the strong, beautiful woman she is.
But that don’t mean I ain’t afraid. I’m afraid for her.
She’s got no one. No family on either side, no siblings, no distant uncles or aunts.
Nothing. When I left my old life, I cut ties with all of them,” Hoffa continues.
Then, before he could say further, he began coughing profusely, hysterically.
He dabbed a paper towel on his mouth and threw it away in the bin beneath the table, but not before I’d seen the big red blotch of blood.
“Hoff, you have me. You just said earlier that I’m like a son to you. I just wish you’d told me of all this sooner. I’d have taken care of you,” I said, placing my hand over his withered and wrinkled hand.
“Ryan, do you know the one thing that I regret?”
“That you hadn’t smoked all those cigarettes when you were young?”
“Besides that.”
“What is it, Hoff?”
“I never invested in other people the way I did in you. You’ve made me billions. You’ve made yourself billions. But it isn’t about the billions, isn’t it? It’s about this thing we have. This bond. This friendship. I never had that with anyone else,” Hoffa said, sipping from his bottle of water.
“Frankly, Hoffa, you and I had our hands full with each other. You mentored me like no one else. That ought to account for something.”
“Eh, when one’s time is near, one wishes they had more people around. It’s just one of those things,” Hoffa said, wiping a single tear away from his eye.
“Hoff, you lived a good life. You got a chance to turn that whole thing around. Do good for a change. How many people can say they got that opportunity?”
“I know, I know.”
This was followed by a long silence during which both of us just stared idly into the distance, occasionally watching the golfers hit their shots. A world without Hoffa. It was unimaginable.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, feeling unnerved by the continued silence.
“I was actually hoping you’d be the one to ask so that it’d make things less awkward,” Hoffa said, chuckling, coughing, wheezing in the same breath.
“Just tell me. Anything. I owe you that much,” I offered.
“There’s the matter of my daughter,” Hoffa stated, all signs of disease gone from his face. For that brief moment, he looked like the young guy he had been in his Boston heyday, his eyes so sharp that they could cut through metal, face strained with alertness.
“Of course. Naturally, you’ll want to know if she’s taken care of,” I said.
“It’s not like that. She’s going to get a lot of money in the will when I die.
But she’s young, barely in her twenties, and I’m not sure she’ll know what to do with all that wealth.
I’ve set up a trust. But like I said, it’s not about that.
I just worry that she’ll be all alone in the city.
And I want to make sure that she’s not alone any longer.
That she has someone looking out for her. ”
“Aren’t I too young to be a godfather?”
“You’re not getting my point, son. There’s a reason why you’re here and not any of the other people I have invested in.
Like we both just agreed, we had our hands full with each other.
In that time spent together, a person such as myself, being an excellent judge of character, comes to know what kind of person he’s working with.
I know you to be a man of principle. You have resolve. ”
“Hoff,” I said, beginning to worry now that I saw where this conversation was going. “What are you getting at?”
“Do I need to spell it out for you?”
He didn’t. I knew what he was saying. The other thing that happened when you worked together for so long was mental osmosis, allowing you to intercept each other’s thoughts without the other person actually saying anything.
“You want me to marry her,” I muttered slowly, letting each word sink its gravity into my consciousness.
“Yes.”
“But I don’t even know her. I’ve never even met her.
Don’t you think that would be unfair to her?
” I said, hating myself for saying it. I did not want to turn down a dying man’s last request. But marriage?
I was not the kind of person to get married.
Come to think of it, asking me such a huge favor, wasn’t that unfair to me?
“In all my life I’ve never asked you for anything. I hoped that I’d never have to ask. But I’m dying earlier than I thought, and my daughter’s going to have no one. You can understand the desperation that’s taken hold of me, can’t you?”
“Hoff…”
“Listen, she’s quite capable. She’s already taking care of herself.
She’s self-made like you are. Put herself through college.
Full-ride. Has her own place in the city.
Comes to visit me from time to time, but won’t ever give up on her independence.
You don’t know how proud I am of her. How proud I am of you.
It would make this whole process easier for me if I knew that after I’d be gone, she’d have you.
Come to think of it, you’d have her, and she’s a catch. ”
“Hoff…” After all this man had done for me, I’d have to be one heartless son of a bitch to refuse him straight up. “I’ll do it.”
“But there’s just one thing. She can’t know that I asked you to do it. That’s it. That’s the last promise I’m asking you to make. Make good on it and we’re even.”
“Jesus Christ, Hoff,” I said. My ears were ringing, and it wasn’t because of the tinnitus that came to haunt me once every few weeks. I was also feeling quite light-headed.
“Listen, Ryan. If you knew her, you’d come to like her. Maybe even fall in love with her.”
“Okay, then tell me a little about her,” I said, stirring my gin and tonic. All the ice had melted. I signaled the waiter to bring me a fresh one. This one was done for.
“Well, she graduated in the fall. Says she wants to work in the music industry. Is absolutely against nepotism of any sort, if you can believe that. I offered to have her placed at Blue Riff as an executive, but she says she wants to start at the bottom and make her way up to the top.”
My heart sank. It felt like a black hole had opened in the pit of my stomach, pulling me inside myself, and causing me to implode.
“What’s her name, Hoff?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer to that question.
“Melissa. I named her after my own grandmother. She stands out in a crowd, she does. She’s got my eyes, and my sense of humor, if you can believe it.”
As I stared into Hoffa’s cataract-ridden green eyes, I felt my entire world coming down all around me.
What the fuck was I going to do?