Chapter 24: Making a Big Stink

Monday, September 16, 1985

The Batt gave us a reminder that we were perhaps slacking off a bit more than we should be. There was a short article about Louie Welch’s campaign for Houston mayor, complete with some (not all that nasty, really) comments about the January referendum. He had chosen to cast it as a landslide rejection of the anti-discrimination ordinance. I didn’t think a 60-40 margin was all that much of a ‘landslide,’ but I could see why Louie Welch would claim it was.

We were planning on speaking at the October 5th rally, true, but we should see if they needed anything from us before then. Most likely they didn’t, but it was worth checking with them.

It turned out that I shouldn’t have worried. Angie, Paige, Cammie, and Mel were all in regular contact with Anne, and she was much more involved with Houstonians for Equality than we ever were. October 5th was fine. They had a new celebrity now, after all. We were still worthy speakers, but we were also yesterday’s news compared to Anne.

That suited me just fine. I was mentally preparing myself to be news again in a couple of years or so, after all. Having a break was just fine!

Cammie had an update on the houses. The first house was still dragging on, though she felt there was light at the end of the tunnel. The second house was more of a problem. She’d been pretty sure last week that it would be under contract now, but another bidder had jumped in and muddied the waters.

The good news was that the third house on her list was now under contract, making it the first Camel would purchase as an investment. That might make it noteworthy (at least as a historical curiosity) if Camel took off the way we hoped it would.

We would see what happened with the others. These things took time, and no one was pushing Cammie other than Cammie herself.

The second update was considerably bigger, in the end.

“So...” Cammie said. “I’m getting a fair bit of ... pushback? ... about financing. Not that we can’t get it, but they don’t want to give us a ten-year fixed-rate mortgage. What they’re pushing is a two-year mortgage with a balloon payment and then eight at a higher rate. Five years, a payment, then five more is another option. The two-year rate is really good, but we either have to make a big payment and jump up a bunch in rate or pay it off in full. I’m a little leery of that.”

Ang and I looked at each other. Something was tickling at my mind and...

Ang hopped up, came over, and whispered ‘Black Monday’ into my ear.

D’oh!

I whispered back, “Late 1987?”

“October,” she whispered. “Let me take it.”

I nodded.

Angie turned and grinned.

“Take the two-year. We’ll make sure we have ready cash in August 1987. Heck, if you buy anything more, make it sync up if you can, even if that puts you in short-term financing.”

Cammie blinked.

“What...?”

“Nothing,” Angie said. “Nothing at all. You know absolutely nothing about this. All you know is that Steve and I are confident we’ll have ready cash in July or August 1987 so you can pay off the balloon in early September.”

Cammie and Mel exchanged looks.

“You...”

Jas looked at Angie and me, grinned, nodded, and said, “That’s all I know. In this case, I’m more than good with it.”

“Me, too,” Paige said.

“Honestly...” Mel said, “Me, too. Not that ... well. I’m guessing this is about ... questions. If anyone gets questions, it’s not likely us, but...”

Angie nodded, and said, “I’m of the opinion that we’ll be pretty cash-rich in the fall of 1987. Just perfect for closing a few real estate deals. Maybe some new ones, too. There’s ... well...”

Cammie grinned.

“I hear what you’re not saying. Two-year balloons it is!”

She paused, then said, “This will have our interest rate very low. Which is good! I like not tying up cash in these three properties when we can potentially buy more, but I also like not paying interest.”

“Right now, our investments are doing much better than interest rates,” Angie said. “I mostly expect that to continue, but...”

“A balloon payment is a good reason for some profit-taking,” I said.

“That it is!” Angie said. “That it very definitely is!”

Ang and I talked briefly once we could get some time alone. She remembered the whole thing more clearly than I had, though I had a fairly good memory of it. For her ... well, Mom and Dad had freaked out about it more in her first life than they had in mine. That, or she’d just heard more about it. Plus, she’d been taking business classes not that long after, and Black Monday was often billed as an example of why, long-term, the market was a good idea. Even if you were the least lucky investor around, you would have recovered in four years and doubled your money over ten. That wasn’t terrible.

On the other hand, if you were one of the most lucky investors, you’d have pulled your money out (for a very good reason, naturally), then put it back in a while later when the market was down 30% or more from its peak.

And — by what amounted to a real coincidence, not something engineered — we would be in a perfect position to reenter the markets in a big way in mid to late 1988 while they would still be markedly depressed, if perhaps 10% or so recovered.

Even Cammie mentioning it now was coincidence, really. It wasn’t the case that we were buying these properties to give us an excuse to pull out of the market, but it was terribly serendipitous.

If there was a questionable action, it would be Cammie buying more properties with a balloon due around that time. Still, the market was the market. We had long held that it operated ‘fairly’ in terms of time-traveler ethics. We were neither forcing people to sell nor buy. Anyone who traded with us was doing so out of their own self-interest. We might have some ‘insider trading’ knowledge, true, but that didn’t amount to coercion.

What would be unethical would be using something we knew to crash the market, or gaining so much power over a stock that we could engage in pump-and-dump schemes or the like. That was illegal for everyone, not just us. Even if we could cover our tracks, though, it would still be unethical.

Dodging Black Monday? Not unethical.

We both decided to generally withhold any knowledge of the specifics, but to tell Jas and Paige just enough of the general outline so they could challenge any poor behavior.

Not Jane, though, or not yet. This was a place where Jane could make a great deal of money, and she clearly didn’t want to know things like that.

Jas and I discussed it at bedtime. Without specifics, I just told her that there would be a ‘significant stock market downturn’ in late 1987, and we would be better off being largely out of the market.

She agreed: that was knowledge we could ethically use. If Paige agreed, we were as good as I thought we could reasonably be. We would see.

Tuesday, September 17, 1985

I asked Darla out on a date on Saturday. Technically, I asked her for two dates. The first was to the A&M game. We were playing Northeastern Louisiana, a team A&M would be highly favored against, and a football game date at A&M implicitly meant kissing after every A&M score. Darla actually brought that up, as if I wouldn’t know it. I think she was looking forward to having the excuse, really. We would be standing with Jas and the others (at Darla’s suggestion), so I might be kissing two girls after every score. That worked for me, even if it might confuse anyone near us.

The second date would be dinner and, most likely, a movie. I wasn’t at all sure what movie, yet. ‘Gremlins’, rejected for the previous date, might be the favorite. There were quite a few not-very-good movies out right now, really. ‘Gremlins’ was at least a classic. I couldn’t tell Darla that, but there were plenty of solid reviews to rely on.

This time, the ‘take your date to a scary movie so she’ll snuggle with you’ plan would fit. It wouldn’t have last time. A bit too much, too soon.

This was an interesting chase. Was Darla ready for me to catch her by now? Would she pull away if she wasn’t, or would she go through with things she wasn’t ready for and might regret because she felt like she ‘should’ be ready?

She was hardly a child. She could make her own decisions. Whatever they were, I would respect them. However, one of the fundamental rules Jas and I had was that we couldn’t be with someone if we thought it was wrong for them, even if they thought it was fine. That rule fully applied here.

Since I was taking her to the game, I needed to get her ticket coupon book as well as Louise’s in order for us to all be together. I took care of that later in the day so we would be ready for ticket pickup tomorrow.

After dinner, and before we’d really gotten to work studying, Paige came into the living room holding her nose.

“Good Lord, those cats produce one heck of a smell sometimes!” she said. “Phew!”

Tony, looking on from his perch, gave Paige a disdainful look, while Cleo merely flicked her tail and then started grooming herself.

“See if you care!” Paige said, looking up at them.

Angie, coming down the stairs, surprised me by singing out, “Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you?”

I chimed in with, “Smelly cat, smelly cat, it’s not your fault.”

Mel and Paige looked confused, while Jas nodded to herself and Cammie almost smirked.

“What?” Mel said, looking at Cammie.

“Future,” Cammie said, then giggled.

“Really?” Paige said, laughing a bit.

“Really!” Angie said, grinning. “Yeah, it probably breaks the rules, but ... I mean, when else am I going to sing ‘Smelly Cat’ before ... what ... oh, heck, I don’t know. The mid-1990s?”

“Has to be,” I said, chuckling.

Paige beaned Angie with a thrown couch cushion, while Jas bopped me with one as well.

Just then, I heard the basement door creak. A few seconds later, Candice and Sherry came in.

“Hey!” Candice said. “What’s up? We heard the laughter on the stairs.”

“Paige was complaining about the litter box smell,” Angie said, looking innocent.

“Eww!” Sherry said.

“Wasn’t the whole thing your idea?” Candice said. “Sounds like poetic justice, in a way.”

“Honestly...” Paige said, pausing and biting her lip. After a few seconds, she said, “You’re right. It does. I’ll try not to complain anymore.”

“Nah,” Angie said. “Cute complaining is fine.”

“You’re biased,” Paige said, grinning. “Which is fine by me.”

Sherry looked at Candice and said, “And they say we can be a bit much!”

“Who says that?” Mel said. “We think you guys are really sweet.”

“Some of my old friends,” Sherry said. “It wasn’t ... you know. Because we’re...”

“Both girls,” Candice said, grinning. “It wasn’t. They did the same to straight couples.”

“Well, as far as we’re concerned, sweet is good and you’re not too much,” Angie said, with everyone else agreeing.

“Yay!” Sherry said. “Oh, and before I forget, we came up to borrow a few books. Study stuff.”

“Have at it!” Paige said, gesturing to the bookshelf.

Candice scooted over and started petting Tony while Sherry browsed.

After a minute or so, Sherry looked over. Adopting a mock-annoyed tone, she said, “You’re supposed to be helping!”

Candice grinned and said, “Tony and Cleo demand veneration. And they have claws.”

“I ... have teeth,” Sherry said, grinning widely, then clicking them together.

“On second thought...” Candice said, giggling and going over to the bookshelf.

Mel and Cammie exchanged a look that ... well. Perhaps teeth weren’t a bad thing sometimes for at least one of them? I was pretty sure Angie and Paige caught it. I was also pretty sure they were teasing us, but that was fine.

After Sherry found the books she wanted, the six of us wound up helping both of them out a bit (more Candice, but Sherry, too).

Tony and Cleo came down from the cat tree and made sure to get lots of attention, too. They rubbed up against us, purred a lot, and generally acted exactly how we we’d hoped they would act.

Cammie said, “You know, Paige, when you proposed adding more pussy to the house...”

Sherry snorted and said, “Did she really say that?”

“Actually, it was Angie who said it that way,” Paige said.

“Guilty!” Angie said. “I mean, you know ... cat ... pussy ... the similarities are there.”

“Pretty much that,” Paige said, giggling a bit. “Anyway ... I mean ... well. The original plan was to just add a boy cat.”

Candice nodded, and said, “I remember you saying that.”

“But they’re a matched pair,” Paige said.

“And it did change the gender ratio, if not the difference,” Jas said, grinning.

“They mocked me for proposing adding pussy to fix a pussy imbalance, but it worked. Sort of,” Paige said, then stuck her tongue out.

“Anyway,” Cammie said. “I was going to say that I wasn’t sure about it, both because we never had pets growing up and because ... well, they’re work. But it’s really worked out well, and I love Cleo and Tony, so thank you for suggesting the whole thing.”

“Aww,” Paige said, blushing a bit. She scooted over, exchanging a hug with Cammie. “Thanks! That ... I really ... it means a lot,” she said, sniffling a tiny bit.

“For me, too,” Mel said. “They’re awesome. I think there are some stereotypes about lesbians and cats...”

All of the girls giggled at that. Most of them, loudly. I might not have been able to say it, but we all knew there were such stereotypes, and this one was more true than most.