Chapter 8

The trip ... only 25 miles ... to Oak Ridge was a nightmare. I hate to drive in the dark. The Wife took so long getting ready that it was full dark by Karns ... then nature stepped up to the plate and drove a bases loaded home run; it started to rain.

Not the few drops that most Tennessee rainstorms start with. No ... there was a bolt of lightning out of the blue, an immediate crack of thunder and Ma Nature threw a bucket of water ... and forgot to retain the bucket. Light blind for a few seconds, I managed to stay on the road.

Thinking about it later, I imagined the storm was 75 feet wide and three hundred miles long. As violent as it was on the road there couldn’t be any storm left for the rest of Tennessee. I dodged wind-blown branches and falling trees all the way to mom’s house.

Not that she’s my mom ... she’s my mother in law ... and a year and a half older.

I banged on the door until a voice asked who it was.

“Your son in law,” I said.

“David?”

“Yes ... unless Theresa got married,” I said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I brought your daughter,” I said.

“Is she going to help me?”

“That’s why I brought her,” I said.

“The key is...”

The reader doesn’t need to know where that is. I found it ... never would have expected that as a hiding place.

So ... it’s pouring down buckets, I grabbed the door umbrella and got my wife out of the car.

“I’ll melt,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “Maybe it’ll melt...” We won’t go into that ... I should mention that she still has jeans she wore in high school. I doubt she can get the waist around her thigh ... singular. A bit past plush. A hundred pounds past.

Her mom said, “Go home David. We’ll call.”

“When are they going to glue you back together?” I asked.

“The twenty-second,” she said.

“Karen ... help out,” I said.

So ... I hate driving in the dark ... but I did it.

I emailed Smith, Hagerty, Olsen and Lynn and explained what had happened. Bill Hagerty called ... at 12:30 past dark thirty.

“What are you going to do?” Bill, my attorney ... my attorney? When did that happen? I guess ... Bill wanted to know what to do about the property.

“Who is looking after it now?” I asked. This responsibility thing is ... is ... fuck!”

“Charlie had a security company collecting rent and a handy-man agency looking after the buildings, houses and whatnot.”

I know we looked things over ... but ... responsibility ... I really wasn’t paying that much attention ... so, “Where’s the money coming from? To pay for that?” I asked.

Right now ... I feel dumb as a post ... I have enough to pay rent, utilities and internet each month with maybe thirty dollars left over. The truck doesn’t use a lot of gas ... I get by. But ... all that ... STUFF ... you know ... Or maybe you don’t. I guess most people are responsible.

I DON’T WANNA GROW UP!

“The rents and leases put about thirty thousand a day in the bank ... after...” and here he said a bunch of words I’d never heard and never had any use for... amortization, capital gains, bottom line, P&L and a bunch more...”When the balance gets to be two mil the holding company invests...” More words ... God!

“So ... if I never show up again, the place won’t go to Hell in a hand basket?”

“Guidance from the boss is always good ... Boss,” Bill said.

I heard him chuckle.

“Can I just sell the whole shooting match?”

“I suppose...”

More words... economic downturn, excessive profits, IRS, and more.

“So selling would be a bad idea?”

“Why don’t you finish flight lessons and let us worry about things for awhile,” he said.

Is 70 a good age to learn to fly?

Probably not.

I did it anyway ... surprise me ... I passed the physical.

I found a little sport biplane and I love it. One seat.

The mother in law got better. The wife came home. I suffered along for a year, putting up with notions.

“I have this, I have that, I have the other.”

What ever new ailment or rich peoples disease was in vogue ... she had it. The doctor stopped seeing her. The psychologist sent her to a psychiatrist and he agreed.

“She’s crazy.”

You know what?

Crazy is a disability.

She gets a check every month.