Succession

My wife’s naming our child Robert Jackson IV, after his grandfather Robert Jackson III. This ordering scheme ignores me altogether — uncommon, she admits. But the rules do allow it.

The name would rub off, she explains. She needn’t talk of her father’s accomplishments again. He held the honors, patronized the charities, jack-hammered his legacy into history with the scribes singing his praises through megaphones. At birth, our son will compete with his grandfather’s other namesakes – a Fortune 500 company, a memorial highway that passes my house, and an asteroid that tickles the orbit of Mars.

No mention of me. No room for the slightly-successful.

The old man’s portrait hangs on the wall where our imitation fireplace once stood. I toast his unsmiling face with a warm Budweiser. Then I flick my lighter to life.

Too bad about the painting, I’ll tell her.