The Third Richest Man c1

The Third Richest Man
By Gary Freeman
Chapter 1
Most people in this world (or at least a lot of them) think that the sun rises and sets over their dad. I hardly knew my dad.  I knew that he was a good guy, quite possibly one of the smartest people alive and that he had always provided for us but as for closeness and warmth, you needed to look somewhere else.  As far as the world was concerned, my father was some kind of God figure that had brought computing to the masses.  They gave him a two Nobel Prizes, one for physics and one for mathematics. They had huge banquets to honor him, named schools after him and tons of other awards. It seemed that the entire world was his offspring and I was a far second place.  Hell, I would have settled to have him home once in a while to play catch with when I was growing up.
Now I knew that we were rich (the kind of people that the democrats warned you about) and that we would never want for anything.  If I wanted something, Dad would make sure that I had a job to work for it.  I basically slept, ate, chased girls and daydreamed through Highland Park High School in Dallas and was able to graduate fourth in my class. I worked throughout at an old newspaper running down small stories about who was having a party and how a kitten was saved from a tree by our brave Highland Park Fire department. If there ever was a real story, then they brought out the "A" team, some drinking buddy of the editor/owner.
Pretty much any job that I had was the same thing. Long hours, low pay. To the world, I was always just Jack Jr. or little jack as some liked to call me, I would rather have been called by my real name, Grady Jensen or just plain Grady.
Anyway that's how I got my old Dodge and my education at Ole Miss. Through loans that I would work to pay back. Dad greased the skids to make sure I got the loan but never gave me anything that I didn't earn. I chose Ole Miss over SMU because dad hadn't gone to Ole Miss and hadn't even known anyone who had gone there.  There I was able to escape into relative obscurity with the only reminder of my home being Marcy.
Ever since I could remember, it had always been Dad, Marcy and me. Marcy Rothman had lived next door to us in Dallas and her parents had been my parent's best friends.  When I was 12, a Delta Airlines DC10 had crashed in Dallas during a driving thunderstorm, killing Marcy's parents and my mother coming back from a vacation in the Bahamas. Dad of course, didn't go because he had to work.  He was always working. Dad not working was kind of like a fish out of water. He was miserable and made everyone around him miserable when he didn't work. Therefore, he stayed at home from the vacation and became the sole parent to me and Marcy's guardian.
Marcy Lynn Rothman was a piece of work from 8:00 day one. The first time I saw her, she was a skinny little kid with braces and pigtails and I kind of thought she was neat so I gave her a little love tap in the shoulder like most boys did in the third grade when they kind of liked someone.  Marcy hit me so hard in the stomach that it felt like at least three days before I could breathe again. Because of her relative proximity to me an uneasy truce was struck and after a while the girl "cooties" went away and she became my best friend in the world. When we were 16, she taught me about girls and sex. When we were 19, I helped her discover that she was gay.  (Granted, a very dubious distinction) She was the smartest person that I ever knew and had one ambition in life. Her all consuming goal was to practice law in her own firm and to help people. Dad loved Marcy with all of his heart and Marcy thought that dad had hung the moon.
On the other hand, the relationship between my father and I was that of a sort of an odd couple.  We never said much to each other and I went the exact opposite way than my father.  Basically we were just different types. He was a very linear man and I was in the 60s and getting in touch with myself and anybody else that would let me. Sort of like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams without the happy reunion and the baseball field.
When I graduated from college, my dad came to Oxford and for the first time in my life, I think that he was actually demonstratively proud of me.  He grinned and smiled and asked me to come back to the little hotel room that he had taken in town. There he pulled a bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila and a couple of shot glasses, poured and passed one to me.
"Grady, he said, I'm afraid that I have let you down. I have spent my life trying to make the world a better place and I am afraid that I have neglected my son. "
"Dad, " I said, " I am just glad you could come to my graduation."" I know how busy you are with the projects and everything."
It was hard not to know how hard he worked. His life was pretty much of an open book on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and the USA Today. It had gotten to the point that we couldn't even go out to restaurants without running into what I liked to call "geek groupies."
He thought for a moment and took a drink of the tequila.
"Any idea where you are going from here??"
Do you mean after the Navy?? (Naval ROTC had put me through school) "I belong lock, stock and barrel to the U.S. Navy for six years."
He frowned as only my father could frown.
"We can get you out of that, you know."
"I couldn't do that, Dad.  A deal is a deal, even if it is with the government."
He looked over my shoulder out the window onto Oxford Square.
"Someday, you will have to take over my work."
  "Dad, I couldn't possibly take over for you. I have neither the scientific background nor the ability to invent things. I am afraid that you are one of a kind person and the rest of us will have to do the best that we can. "
I took a pull at the scotch and felt the burn in the back of my throat.
"I will tell you that I love you very much and I have always been proud to be your son. You gave me strength and stability when mother died and have always been there for me. " You have also done a great job with Marcy when she had no where else to turn. It is definitely not easy raising a Jewish kid when you were raised a "back sliding Baptist. " You have been our father and we love you for it."
He reached over and gave me a hug.  I could see the tears welling up in his eyes.
"That is the best award or prize that anyone has ever given me. Thank you, Son.  About time we go and find us a big old steak." It was the first and last time, he had ever called me son and that was the last time we spoke of my future as a giant of the industry.