The Fall-Down Artist by Thomas Lipinski

calls.”
    â€œBusiness is good, huh?” Martin Dorsey rested his glass on the desk blotter and then removed it, inspecting the wet ring it left behind. “Glad to hear it. Maybe it makes the reason I asked you to stop by null and void.”
    â€œSuppose you reveal your reasons, allow my input, and we’ll see.” Dorsey grinned. “Picked that one up in a meeting between two lawyers. They were hoping to settle a domestic dispute by using my input—videotapes.”
    â€œCarroll, please.” His father had his hands out in supplication. “No more cute shit for a few minutes?”
    â€œFine, let’s get to it.”
    â€œYou and I,” Martin Dorsey began, “father and son, but with nothing but a name in common. A lot of crap has taken place over the years, but I can’t change that and you don’t want to, so that’s that. But you did toss away a lot of chances, chances to be much more than you are.”
    â€œI’ll drink your beer,” Dorsey said, “but the lecture you can pack up your ass.”
    Martin Dorsey smiled thinly. “I don’t give lectures, I make speeches. I’m a politician, remember? Regardless, I have to start out this way. Making things your fault makes me feel better. Makes what I’m about to say sound much more caring. Makes me feel I’m giving the prodigal son his room back.”
    â€œNow that you have yourself completely fooled”—Dorseysaluted his father with his beer can—“please continue. Tingling. I’m simply tingling.”
    From the desk’s deep center drawer, Martin Dorsey produced what appeared to be a leather-bound photo album. On the red cover, in raised gold script, it read Steel Center Restoration Project, Phase One . Martin Dorsey pushed the album toward his son and began his presentation.
    â€œI assume you realize that I have not been sitting on my hands since leaving office. I’m a politician, like I said. And a politician is a deal-maker; it’s his job to make the best deal all ways around. It’s always been my favorite part of public life. I know how to make deals, and there are lots of people with money who know I know how. People with money who are looking to make a move.”
    â€œKeep going,” Dorsey said, crossing the room for another beer. His father waited for him to return to his seat before continuing.
    â€œI’ve been very busy,” his father said, “making money by closing deals. Making sure the government-backed loans come through, discussing the possibility of a tax break for a company looking to move into the area. I know the people to talk to and I know how to talk.”
    â€œWho’s disagreeing?”
    â€œThis time,” Martin Dorsey said, tapping his finger on the album cover, “the deal is huge. I’m in with a business group, real top-drawer men with enough vision to see that the old way of making money is dead. Steel, foundry equipment, tractors: that’s all out the window.”
    â€œLots of people disagree,” Dorsey said.
    â€œYou one of them?” Martin Dorsey opened the album and nudged it to the edge of the desk, flipping the pages before his son. The first pages held photos of idle and decaying steel mills and equipment plants. In the foreground of these pictures were railroad lines overgrown with vegetation. A few pages later came blueprints and diagrams for new commercial construction. Near the end began a series of artist-conceptualized drawings of sleek metallic-lookingindustrial buildings, long low barns with additions for office space and newly paved parking lots.
    â€œYour people behind the new industrial push?” Dorsey asked. “All that high-tech stuff? These are the folks trying to buy up old mill sites, am I right?”
    â€œRight you are,” his father said. “High tech is a piece of it, but any interested firm is welcome to come take a look. We’re