The Age of Icarus: Chapter 1 — Descent into Madness
With a hooded falcon perched on the shoulder of his open tuxedo shirt, a gold Rolex clasped on his left wrist, cowboy hat and boots and a towel wrapped around his waist, my father walked into the dimly lit bar of the fanciest hotel in our country and ordered a double Screwdriver at ten in the morning.
Had it been anyone else, the barman would’ve called security and had him thrown out. But this was not “anyone else.” My father’s legendary tips and his preference for mingling with the “common man” rather than with those of his class occupying the stuffy air at the top of my country’s rigid social hierarchy garnered him wide esteem among what he called his “army of angels” — the barmen, waiters, prostitutes, peripatetic musicians, and street urchins he claimed had his back and would rise to his defense were he ever in danger.
The year was 1985. I was twenty-three and just returned in defeat from Costa Rica leaving behind a disgraceful jumble of failed enterprises: a coffee trading company, a cardamom plantation, a garlic import and wholesale venture, a chemical trading operation… and my 19 year-old girlfriend.
Back home, I would find my mother living in a small lakeside house with her American boyfriend after being evicted from my childhood home where she’d spent the last two years in darkness for not being…
