Alexander the Great w/Darius' Chariot

From the fragments of my memoir—the glazing empire built in California’s orange-groved lots, the buyout born of fractured partnerships, the bagpiper’s chaotic wail at my daughter’s wedding (a bold, Patton-esque gambit that backfired into public unraveling)—my father’s arc feels like Darius’s: a king of his domain, commanding with fierce vision (those glass cubes rising like translucent fortresses), yet compelled to retreat from battles he couldn’t win. His “fall” wasn’t a single tumble but a series of stumbles—the cultural clashes, the family employments laced with early-70s vinyl runs (my dollar-an-hour “riches” amid the grind), and ultimately, the funeral’s Amazing Grace, where redemption flickers through and me left wondering if the sins of the fathers are passed to the sons. 

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The wounds to the face of Alexander depict  

his eagerness to outdo all others in valor, was the first to mount the wall with a scaling ladder. In the battle he leaped down into the town, slaying those who opposed him. Peucestas and Abreas followed; Abreas was struck in the face by an arrow and fell dead at Alexander’s feet. An Indian archer then shot Alexander in the breast… the arrowhead penetrated deep, and he fainted from loss of blood. Some fictionalized versions of the story have Alexander struck in the face by a spear. I used that version in my painting.

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