Thomas G. Fiffer

Going to my father’s office was a big deal. Not because he was a big deal attorney, but because I got time with him. Some Saturday mornings, he’d take me with for his “half-day,” buckling me into his Mercedes 450SLC, the “fun car,” which his mother called the “Mersa-deez” and considered a downgrade from the larger Cadillac that preceded it. The Cadillac was yellow, with white upholstery, and I insulted my dad when I called it a banana.

Down our street, Drexel “Ava-nyew,” left on Vernon, right on Tower, then whizzing along Forest Way Drive’s curves in a car engineered for speeds over 100 mph. Once on the highway, we reached the Loop quickly, passing through the tunnels my father called Big John and Little John as we neared the city.

His building, the Rookery, was the oldest skyscraper in Chicago with a soaring lobby (then plastered over) by Frank Lloyd Wright. His office was on the top floor, in the corner, and along with his kingsize desk and elegant leather furniture were pictures of me and my brothers on the walls.

Not long before my father died, just after parking his Mercedes at my uncle’s house with my mother and me inside, he let me use his office Xerox machine to make a copy of my hand. It’s one of a handful of memories of direct interaction with him, lifting the cover, pressing my palm down on the glass, watching the paper emerge—like magic. Dad was an original.