Chapter 3: Three Modern “Figaro”-s for a Good Revenge

Aaron:

Like Ken, I remembered what happened in my all life at that quarterly gathering. Seven years ago, we were in a restaurant and John caused a little surprise, because he brought a laptop with him. John arrived last and since he was a PI firm owner, we thought he had an unexpected problem and we would be only three there. Such ideas circulated among us. However, he arrived late and put his laptop on the table. After greeting each of us, he stayed standing and put his hand on my shoulder.

He told everybody, “Thank you boys for being with me during my difficult and sad divorce, but Aaron is the next friend whom we should help.”

My two friends, but mainly I, were astonished by his words.

He said, “ Looking for some porn tonight, I found this interesting video on the net.”

He switched on his laptop and he showed my wife’s amatuer porn star video. Samantha was with a younger guy, but he edited out his face from the video. They were having sex and I recognized my wife’s face fully in the video. I was in total shock first, then I became mad at her. I asked John to stop playing the video.

He stopped the porn video and looking me in the eye told me, “Please don’t follow me in your divorce plan.”

I buried myself in my sad thoughts, so Michael and Don questioned John, “What did you say?! We don’t understand your meaning?”

John said, “Naturally, Aaron has to divorce this slut, but he needn’t follow me. Our state’s family law doesn’t have fault-based divorce, so the spouses must split all assets 50%-50% except for prenuptial or property before marriage. Fuck our state’s family law! I’ve common children with Eve and I’m not glad for the 50%-50% asset split plus five years of alimony, etc. But I know my kids get something from our common assets. But poor Aaron doesn’t have any common children with this cheating bitch. Why he should share 50% of their assets with this cheating cunt?”

I was sad and silent, lost in my own thoughts. So Don continued the conversation with John and asked, “What did you think of to help Aaron, John?”

John responded, “I work together with lawyers on many divorces originating from our investigations, so I am not only talking about my experience about divorce. I think we could help Aaron to reach 70-30% or even 75-25% in his divorce. Nobody could reach better share, except for the wife would have a very weak lawyer.”

I came out my funk and looked up at him, “Interesting.”

John put his hand on my shoulder again and he told me, “Aaron, do you want a quick divorce with 50-50% share or you could wait half a year-- even three-quarters of a year-- to start the divorce and we would help you to reach a better rate than 50-50%.”

After him, Michael added, “What ideas have you got? Not too much burden for Aaron to live together with this cheating bitch for six or eight more months?”

John began to explain his plan to us, “It is very difficult to restart a new life when you become divorced. When I discovered she cheated on me, I was between hatred and depression. You heard the vitriol from me hundred times.”

We were silent and and waited for him to continued his confession, “I had hated women for months. I did not trust any woman at all. How Sarah and I are going to move in together next month, I think is a little miracle. But I am thinking if Aaron undertook an actor’s role for a little financial revenge, he would come out of the divorce emotionally better than me. The fiscally-saving-revenge campaign could decrease his depression and a good cover to hide his true emotions to his cheating bitch. His depression will be less after the divorce and he could start over his life with less burden, after a more successful revenge than me. He would have more secret money for to start his future even!”

For the first time after her porn-video performance, I began to smile a little. Because I thought of my luck, because had Sarah and John lived together ... John would not have looked for porn on the Net. I do not know today if it had been this small smile or my hazy thoughts, that could make me accept John’s revenge idea to play this actor role for some months.

But I decided to go for it, “If you assist me, I’d postpone my divorce for months to achieve this revenge. I’d try this actor role. If I deem Samantha as a free of charge escort girl, then I can do it.”

John said, “Boys, I want a some brainstorming. I’m very curious, what ideas we could collect together to change the 50-50% to better rate during short six or nine months?”

This was the best thing, because John’s words opened the sluice gate to perform successful brainstorming. There were some extreme ideas, but John’s experiences were a good filter to throw out the wrong ideas quickly.

The successful ideas, which we found and we accomplished, were the next:

First, Michael’s idea was to compress the poker opportunities, so I could “lose” more money and my friends could hold it aside for me.

Second, John said I had to discover horse racing and my friends could also gather the “lost” money from there.

Yes, kind reader, you are right ... these activities could have hidden 10% of our fortune after 5-6 years. However, this money was the liquid cash capital for the major operations.

Third, John knew a Harley-Davidson used-motorcycle trade-in with service. The owner went through a sad divorce with a cheater wife and he had a special practice. He buys the used bikes and he maintained them up to two years. The original, now-divorced, owner could buy back his old bike. This was a good bargain. This bike money was hidden by the gambling/Horse racing, from Sam and the divorce lawyer, too. By the way, my wife did not like my Harley at all.

Fourth, Don explained a new car’s value decreases 30% some months from the purchase date. We bought my wife’s new car last year and we planned to buy me a new car two-years later. I would bring forward the purchase. During the car purchase, I could drain the shared bank balance better and a little bank loan would decrease our fortune.

Fifth, The “boss” weapon was the next. Michael gave us this example: his colleague was going through a divorce, so he asked that the hospital’s financial leader to postpone the payment of his bonus until after his divorce. I asked my boss to postpone any payments of my bonu and also my any salary increases until after my divorce.

Sixth, The ‘personal belongings modernization’ was John’s newer idea. I had to change many personal items from my electric shaver to my shirts, which were old.

Seventh, The best idea came from Don, the “thick pencil” idea. He knew a construction firm owner, who went through difficult divorce and once heard a vague hint about a smart trick to amend the 50-50% rate at divorce. We had bought an older house and it needed some renovations since we purchased it. This construction firm owner offered twice the price for the smaller renovations and I had to pay his tax and interest, but he gave it back in cash. Later, he told me he only helped me, because his first wife was a cheater, too. This was a little dangerous trick with the IRS.

Eighth, John’s next idea was that I could pick up a bank loan or some smaller bank loans to decrease the common assets. John’s firm worked with a bank manager, who divorced a cheater wife, after John’s firm found the evidence. He knew he could help me with smaller bank loans for purchasing my car and the house renovations. We would collectively repay the bank loans during the divorce. However, I had secret cash through the above mentioned ways!

The clueless cheater, Samantha, did not suspect anything. I think she was glad I went to the horse races. She got more free time to do what she wanted. The house renovations and my new car needed longer persuading from me, but I accomplished both very well. I sold my Harley and she joyfully agreed to buy both my new car and house renovations. We got two smaller bank loans, so I knew I would reach a better rate than 50-50%. As John forecasted, my rate was about 75%.

Before two months to my planned divorce, John and I wanted to find the video lover. I wanted to do a little violence with baseball bat. I did not want to murder him, but a little rough treatment. That’s all. So we found the apartment building at the “White Oaks” by observing the twin towers of the biggest Roman Catholic church with the hill in background from the window in my wife’s porn video. The twin church towers and the hills helped us. John asked his ‘pretty woman’ employee that he uses on jobs, to walk up and down in the Mall and we narrowed the candidates to one guy who lived on the highest level. We had Ken Lundgreen’s name, photos and video about him.