Ego Trip by Steven Magnino

The instant the door closed, I knew getting in the car was a mistake.

I was walking east on 49th Street in New York City toward Park Avenue. It was lunchtime on a dazzling spring day in 1985. The sidewalks teemed with people, many taking a midday break to enjoy the sunshine, to get some exercise, or just to people-watch. Some were eating sack lunches, while others queued up at the street vendor food carts. I was enjoying the city’s street theater, its pulsing energy, and its vibrant polyphony.

I had flown in from Chicago that morning for an afternoon business meeting. Dressed in a charcoal gray nailhead suit, blue shirt, power tie, spit-polished black wingtips, and rocking a red silk pocket square, I felt like I belonged.

Outside the Four Seasons restaurant, a man in a khaki vest with a Nikon camera interrupted my thoughts. “Excuse me, sir. I’m a photographer with Fortune magazine. We’re doing a feature story on executive perquisites. My boss wants pictures to run with the article. Can I get a shot of you getting out of this car for the piece?” He gestured to a limousine parked at the curb. I was flattered, even more flattered than when, on my last trip, some Japanese tourists had asked me for directions to the Guggenheim.

“Sure,” I said. He opened the rear door. I slid onto the supple, caramel-colored leather of the back seat. The photographer slammed the door.

That’s when I noticed a black pair of men’s gloves lying atop a copy of the New York Daily News on the seat and a Louisville Slugger on the floorboard. My inner voice went full-tilt bonkers. How could I be so stupid?! The doors are going to lock automatically. I’m trapped. Maybe I’m being kidnapped or, worse, getting whacked by gangsters in a case of mistaken identity. It was weird, but while telling myself not to panic, I remembered Jackson Lansing and berated myself for forgetting the lessons of his horrible example years earlier.

***

During the summer before my senior year in college, I worked at a run-down motel on the edge of town. The Hacienda was a cheap layover for traveling salesmen, oilfield workers, and construction crews. It was tired and looked it. A white, two-story, L-shaped stucco building. The oppressive heat of the Oklahoma summer radiated mercilessly off the asphalt parking lot. Window air conditioning units in each room ran constantly, producing a cacophony of rattling and clanking, and the drip, drip, dripping of condensation on the concrete landing outside.

One afternoon, a spavined, chocolate-colored Cadillac, its hubcaps missing and its suspension shot, bobbed to a stop out front. A big man with broad shoulders slowly climbed out. He wore a wrinkled black suit. His white dress shirt, open at the neck, revealed wisps of salt-and-pepper chest hair. He stretched, pressing his hands into the small of his back, trying to coax a measure of pliability into his weary, stiff frame.

He hobbled in and slammed a meaty palm on the counter of the reception desk. “My name is Jackson Lansing,” he thundered. “I played football for the San Francisco 49ers.” The theatrics and the volume seemed a bit much, as he and I were the only ones in the cramped lobby.

“What can I do for you, Jackson? Do you need a room?” I tried to appear nonchalant, but I was intrigued.

He shook his head no. “I have some friends,” he began but halted. “What’s your name?”

“Well, Steve,” he began again a moment later, “like I was saying, I have some friends. They own a liquor store near here. Since I was in town, you know, I wanted to drop by and say hello, but I don’t remember the address. Can you tell me where the closest one is?”

“You bet,” I said, grabbing the Yellow Pages and suppressing a grin. I gave him the name and address of a liquor store a couple of blocks away, and directions on how to get there. He thanked me; then, lowering his voice, he said in a conspiratorial tone, “If anyone calls looking for me, I haven’t been here, OK?”

“You haven’t been here,” I said slowly, trying to impress upon him that I understood the gravity of the request. “Got it.”

He left, only to return about a half hour later. A sturdy-looking, middle-aged woman with honey-brown hair turning gray sat in the passenger seat of the Caddy outside. She wore cat-eye glasses and a nondescript white uniform that suggested bakery worker, housekeeper, or 1950s service station attendant.

“Hey, Steve, guess what? I ran into an old friend. Do you rent rooms by the hour?”

“I’m sorry, Jackson, but no. We don’t.” I resisted the urge to tell him the place only looked like a no-tell motel.

He sighed and fished a double sawbuck from his wallet to pay for the room, the bill as wrinkled as his suit. “Anybody call for me?”

“Nope. No calls.” He seemed more disappointed than relieved but rebounded quickly. “Can I give you some advice, Steve?” Without waiting for a response, he said, “Play football! I made a million dollars at it.”

I thanked him and told him I’d consider it.

He smiled, pointed an imaginary finger pistol at me, and made a popping sound with his tongue. “Good man.” Then, in a trice, he was gone, out the door, and into the Caddy.

Later, I did a little research in the library. Turns out, despite all the bluster, everything he had told me was true. Jackson was the real deal. He had won the Heisman Trophy the year I was born. And he had had a terrific professional career, including a stint, like he said, with the San Francisco 49ers. Still, part of me pitied him, at least a little. Now, with the spotlight of his playing days extinguished, he seemed as diminished as the shadow his accomplishments once cast. His was a cautionary tale, a warning about the pitfalls of ego, a lesson I vowed to remember.

***

Yet here I was, almost a decade later, led by my ego into the backseat of a limo in midtown Manhattan. The photographer motioned to me. He snapped the picture as I stepped out.

I nodded to him and walked away, chagrined for getting in the car and chagrined for almost panicking. I no longer felt like I belonged. A real New Yorker wouldn’t have gotten into an unfamiliar car at an invitation from a stranger.

***

A couple of months later, at O’Hare Airport, with spare time before a morning flight, I visited a newsstand. I was browsing the magazine section when I noticed the distinctive block letters, in white, on red background squares, of Fortune magazine. An image of the front end of a Mercedes sedan dominated the cover of the July 22nd issue. The ink-black car blended in with the cover’s black background, leaving only the Mercedes’ silver grill and iconic hood ornament visible. In large, bright lemon-yellow letters, the headline trumpeted the cover story: EXECUTIVE PERKS: What’s Hot—and How Reagan’s Tax Plan Might Change Things.

I grabbed the issue and paged to the cover story. No picture of me. But there was a shot of another schmuck getting out of a limo on Park Avenue. I smiled, knowing it had probably been as easy to get that guy into an unfamiliar car as it had been me, both of us tripping headlong, over our egos, into the backseat.