Gottfried’s Big Decision
Gottfried and Marla had three kids and one on the way. It was 1980. Not a great time for Gottfried’s business to fail, but fail it did—after six years of hard work. Businesses fail. That’s what Marla kept telling him. Businesses fail. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s always a risk to be self-employed. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
But Gottfried felt shame all over. They needed a bigger house and a bigger life. Marla was sick a lot with this pregnancy and he had to provide. He didn’t tell her that he’d pissed away most of his savings trying to keep the business going. He didn’t tell her that he hadn’t saved for the tax bill. Bankruptcy was a word he didn’t want to think about, but there was no way he could pay the bills he’d racked up.
He hovered around the house like a ghost for a whole month before Marla made him tell her everything. It was worse than the robins. Worse than anything Gottfried had ever witnessed—the death of everything they’d worked so hard for.
“You spent the savings?” Marla said.
“Yes.”
“You got a second loan on the house?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Marla picked up the nearest thing to her—a tea towel with exotic birds printed on it—and started to hit Gottfried over the head with it. “You stupid man. You stupid, stupid, stupid man!”
“I can figure this out,” he said.
She kept hitting him with the tea towel and she started to cry. This went on for some time. In Gottfried’s mind, Marla hit him with the bird towel for what seemed like twenty years. In reality, it was only until four-year-old Harry arrived in the kitchen.
“Why’s Mommy crying?”
“Don’t know, son.”
“Mommy?”
Marla kept crying and hitting, though Gottfried had moved out of range and the tea towel was only hitting the table now.
Finally, Marla said, “Harry, go get your sisters.”
Harry left the room and Marla turned to her husband and said, “I guess starting tomorrow you’re a potato farmer again. Call your father. Call your brother.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes. You can,” Marla said. The rest of the sentence went unsaid. The rest of the sentence was the same threat Marla’d been rightfully issuing since Gottfried’s business started its downward turn two children ago.
A week later, Gottfried was in a barn full of harvested potatoes. The smell made him gag. Dirt made him gag. Wearing blue jeans and boots made him gag. Knowing his farm-loving brother had more money saved than he did made him gag. Looking at the old farmhouse that could easily fit four children made him gag. He kept telling himself that men did what they had to do to survive. But even that made him gag.
He couldn’t tell Marla about the deal he’d made with his brother and father. He lied and said he had part ownership of the farm—a rightful share. Really, he was earning a higher-than- usual wage for being general manager. Gottfried wanted a better position. More responsibility. More money.
“Things have changed,” his brother said to him. “You need to work here at least a month. It’s not like it was when we were kids. Things were different.”
This was true. His brother, John, had purchased equipment for harvesting and packaging that didn’t exist when Gottfried had last worked the family farm as a teenager. He almost caught his fingers in the new packaging machine the day John showed him how it worked.
Both brothers knew the whole thing was a bad idea.
In only two months, Gottfried took over as head bookkeeper.
In only one year, he’d made so many intentional mistakes that the business was approaching legal trouble. He “forgot” to pay the right amount of tax. He “forgot” to pay into the state’s unemployment. He got letters from the government and threw them away without opening them—gagging the whole time. Never throwing up, but always gagging.
Gottfried had wanted to be a good businessman. He’d wanted to be a good son. But he tossed both things aside to be a good father and a good husband. He told himself, A man can’t be good at everything.
By the time the government came to the farm, Gottfried’s fourth child was a year old. By the time the government came to the farm, Gottfried’s brother had started an affair with the girl who worked in the shipping department.
When their father called him on the loud intercom that ran throughout the farm buildings, Gottfried knew what it was about. He arrived to the office where John and their sister, Gretchen, were already sitting. And his mother, too, uncontrollably crying.
“What the hell are you trying to do?” his father asked.
Gottfried shrugged and played stupid.
“A man can’t fuck up the books this bad and not mean to.”
He shrugged again.
“John worked his whole life on this farm. You just piss it away like it’s nothing?”
“John’s fucking the Mexican girl from shipping. What’s her name?” Gottfried said. He sighed. “At least I can keep my marriage in order.”
John looked at the floor. Gretchen looked at Gottfried. No one said anything.
A week later they all decided it would be best to sell the farm. They split the land four ways—150 acres apiece—so each could choose to do with their cut what they wanted.
Gottfried felt successful in business for the first time in his life.