This dynamic didn’t end with childhood. It continued into adulthood. While I worked two jobs during college to avoid taking out student loans, Lucas changed colleges three times at my parents’ expense, majoring in general subjects and regularly attending frat parties. When I graduated and found an entry-level job in tech, Dad nodded and asked me when I’d get married. When Lucas dropped out to become a DJ and promoter, Dad bought him a $3,000 turntable system, because you have to invest in talent.
Over the past five years, I’d struggled my way up the corporate ladder. I specialized in UX design, or user experience. My job was to anticipate problems and solve them before the user even noticed. I was good at it. I was meticulous and well paid. But I lived below my means. I lived in a modest townhouse. I wore simple clothes. My only luxury, my only symbol of success, was that car. It was a beast: a high-end SUV with heated seats, a panoramic sunroof, and an engine that purred like a jungle cat. I’d bought it because I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel powerful. Every time I gripped that leather steering wheel, I felt a surge of pride. I’d made it. The engine seemed to purr. No one had given it to me.
And now Lucas had done it. Lucas, the antagonist of my story. Even though he never saw himself that way, he considered himself a victim of circumstance, a genius waiting for the world to catch up with him. Right now, his circumstances were a girl named Jessica, whom he’d met in a seedy bar four months earlier. She was pregnant. I’d tried to be happy for them. Really. I’d bought them a crib. I’d opened a savings account for the baby. But Lucas didn’t want a crib. He wanted money. He wanted shortcuts. And Dad was his perfect accomplice.
Gary, my father, was a man who believed his manhood depended on his ability to control the women in his life. He was charming with strangers, the one who always bought drinks at the bar. But at home, he was a dictator. He had retired from a mid-level job five years earlier, and since then his world had shrunk until controlling his children was all he had left. He resented my success. I could see it in the way he sneered when I mentioned a promotion. I could see it in the way he asked, “Who’s the boss over there?”, implying it couldn’t be me. He resented that I didn’t need him. Lucas, on the other hand, needed him constantly, and Dad liked that. Dad liked being the savior. But since Dad lived on a fixed pension and had squandered much of his savings on bad investments and bailing Lucas out of trouble in the past, he couldn’t afford to buy him a new car. So he did the best he could. He looked at his resources, and in his mind, I was an asset.
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