"Don't be like me," his father told him in some other time. A dream, maybe, but Robert remembers the words clearly, even if all the other details were ghosts. In a landmark decision, Robert Fischer split the companies into neat slices for himself and the other high net worth big wigs that surrounded him, and for months, it seemed to be different enough.
"Don't be like me," his father said, shaky and whispery in pre-death glow.
Robert still couldn't be sure when it was said to him. Spectres of hospital beds and business deals conducted closely haunted his dreams for months and the muddy, fractured memories nibbled on his deeds. In an uncharacteristic push, Robert threw himself into the dating pool again. He fished for a while, but no amount of creature comfort sated the echo ghosting in one ear and out the other.
Then he met Jill. Jill was gorgeous. A ray of light illuminated her dazzling smile when they discussed assets and dividends, the cutthroat world of finance and prospecting producing passion that drove the youths to build a comfortable empire all their own. What is an empire without heirs? The children were fucking beautiful too, and Robert was most unlike Senior in that he nurtured the dear babes, almost forcefully loving them to spite his empty childhood playing with legal pads under the conference table...
Even gold loses its luster when handled too often. Jill's child-deformed body was hardly model lines anymore and the lax condition of other things led Robert to divert himself when he thought she might be in the mood. More than that, Robert didn't want to be like his father, and his money and success felt too similar, and the whispers flitted about his mind again like birds with broken wings.
"Don't be like me," his father demanded before he wheezed and spittled with his last, gasping breaths. The raspy edge of death was louder, amplified.
To occupy his money-free time, Robert starting working out on all the latest machines in his private gym. His muscle definition excited him, and Jill's breasts were at least still tits.
Someone, he didn't know, could have made it up, but someone told him he had the right form for body building. An excellent diversion, Robert Fischer pumped all the iron he could heft, more each day, for longer times between when his family wasn't important and his money didn't need tending.
"Not like you at all," he chanted with every rep.
Robert liked what he saw, even though the juice ran through him like fire, hulking up his rage to indominable heights, and his penis, the opposite direction.
"Don't be like him," Robert seethed through his teeth when he injected more medications for sleep and hunger. Jill was lonely, but he couldn't be bothered as she reminded him there was still a world outside his weight room, that his children missed him.
"You can't even remember their names." Cried the wail on the edges of his conscience, and he grimaced.
"Everyone deserves a better dad," he justified.
Six trophy and ribbon filled years on TV later, Robert's chest expansion program's regimen failed him for his loyalty. The boys had to go, cancer a lumpy guest in his man-purse. Rather than lose 'em, Robert chose a new treatment available to his tax bracket, and his failure compounded.
"Guess daddy won't be pumping iron anymore," jested one of his sons. Jill laughed a real laugh in his presence, and his heart tore beneath his inflating chest. Gynecomastia, the doctors said, a real shame.
"Don't be like me," the old man begged as he clutched at Robert's suit. Looking down at his breasts, he knew a suit would never fit the same way, the prophecy come full circle. He was nothing like his father. Robert Fischer Senior hadn't needed estrogen.
It was no surprise when he sold his rights, his videos, his statements, hell even Jill was for sale, and she had a buyer lined up already. His mountains of flesh sagged lower when Jill and the Kids moved in with an underwear model, who took them our for ice cream and picnics and Disney World.
At least they got the dad they deserved.
"Don't be like me," still occasionally flashed across his mind, especially during Remaining Men Together. Everyone called him Bob, and avoided looking into his bitch tits. It took him nine weeks before he could cry, but once the gates opened, the balm of peace soothed the nattering whine of his decrepit father's last words.
Something else, though, he needed something else, some final closure, if only he could discern...
"Don't be like me..."
Ah. Of course. "Don't be like me," entreated Robert Fischer Senior, though senior he was no longer. Robert shed his former name like a cocoon and spread his very own wings that could lift all the wasted muscle and memory and bitch tits.
He was Robert Fischer no more.
His name was Robert Paulson.