Clash of Titans

by Torn MacAlester
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“I see you’ve bought K‑Systems,” said Mor­ris Mason to his son Mark as he raised a glass in a
mock­ing toast.

“I thought this was a casu­al din­ner, not a busi­ness meet­ing.” Mark growled, wip­ing his scarred chin with a napkin.

“I’m under­stand­ably curi­ous. You’ve been even more eva­sive than usual.”

“We oust­ed you from your role as CEO. The answers to your ques­tions can be summed up in five words: none of your damn busi­ness.”

“No call to get testy. I’m just curi­ous,” said Morris.

“Why? We gave you enough of a sev­er­ance. Far too much, I think. I don’t think it was because you have any friends on the board. I’m not one of them.”

“Regard­less, it is all very appre­ci­at­ed. It should pro­vide for some inter­est­ing hobbies.”

“Then find some,” snapped Mark.

“What?”

“Hob­bies!”

“What if my hob­by has become help­ing you?” Mor­ris asked, while pick­ing up a water glass.

“You’re hav­ing anoth­er delu­sion­al moment. I stopped accept­ing your help long ago. Even though you offered it rarely.”

“It’s just father­ly advice.”

“Con­sid­er­ing you near­ly got me killed with that advice,” Mark snapped.

“But you survived.”

“Yes. I did. No thanks to you.”

“Don’t tell me you intend upon resort­ing to that ‘poor scarred Mark Mason’ rou­tine again.” Mor­ris chid­ed. “It’s get­ting very old.”

“Let’s get this straight. You have your sev­er­ance. Make good use of it. You won’t have any fur­ther influ­ence on Mason Ener­gy. You’re not CEO anymore”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

“No,” Mark said. “It’s a rec­om­men­da­tion. Buy a restau­rant and leave the CEO role behind.”