Chapter 1

I’m Not Alone Anymore, Am I?

Remember that old saying, ‘Life is but a dream’? Err, maybe it was a song or movie title, whatever; I sort of wish it was true, I’d never wake up.

OK, maybe I’m being a little cynical, some people have it worse. Look at any nursing home, hospital, hospice, shelter, VA Facility, the list goes on. There are a few common things to them also; outside the administration these people are usually alone, most pretty much forgotten.

When I woke up this morning I had a thought, no, more like a realization of something, first that I did ‘wake up’ then that no one gave a shit whether I lived or died, not even me. A pretty sad state of affairs for a twenty something year old to be in isn’t it? I asked myself how it had come to this?

I waited, and waited then waited some more. No answer was forthcoming, in-fact nothing was heard, not even a mouse. It was near December 25th ; I viewed my wall, no stocking, bare chimney or not, no fake fireplace even. I told myself that I was not a loser. Right, “You are not a loser buddy”, ‘just severely unlucky’ I told myself. Ha! What a crock that was.

If luck was a liquid able to fill a cup mine would not be overflowing but empty. Of course I looked back to my life and was able to recall a few hundred things that happened to me already to substantiate that hypothesis. Conclusion one, I was a loser, conclusion two was nothing I could envision was going to change things from that.

I took a large handful of the round things from the nightstand, popped them all into my mouth and went back to bed. A few minutes later I drifted off to sleep. I woke up with a start, had chocolate all over my mouth and pillow and spit out twenty of so of the remaining M&Ms. Man, what a mess and the Red and Green dyed ones were the worst to clean up.

I got up again, realizing today was not to be any different than yesterday. So much for the holidays. Breakfast could wait, those M&Ms put enough sugar in me to last a bit longer. I had been up, as usual, during the night to check my investments on the Asian markets. It was after nine so the US stocks were just opening so London, France and Germany got a quick glance instead. Nothing surprising and I only had two or three stocks in each exchange to check.

It was past ten, almost to the half hour and I was now hungry. I purveyed my vast number of food choices. Cold cereal, hot cereal, one egg left, one end piece of seedless rye bread and a raspberry danish from last week, yum, yum. One of a bachelor’s fates, to forget about shopping for food stuffs. Yep, I adhered to that profile pretty much all right.

I did have a job of sorts; I invested in stocks, bonds and tax-frees. I was not so rich that I did not have to earn money but I lived quite simply and had an Uncle who liked me more than he did my mom, a lot more she was Russian, a sort of bond between families if you know what I mean. He was 93 when he passed, Sal Aiello lived a good life, my Dad, his younger brother had my luck too, or I his, his car blew up one day, me I’m Vince, Vince Aiello. In addition to cash, his car collection and stocks I got one large lot with a nice house on it overlooking the ocean, one small lot with a beach shack on it and two empty lots. Oh, they were all, Tada beachfront, old buildable beachfront properties which garnered the interest of five or six buyers even before Uncle was cremated.

I could not, under California laws fence off their adjoining beaches Per Se. What I could do though was close off the houses and lots as access to them by people and vehicles as long as there was a walkway to the beach within a quarter mile. The fence people just laughed at the twelve inch gates and twenty-four inch walkway lined by fence all the way to the beach. From time to time people, teens mostly, tried cutting the fence, driving through the lots or parking along the curb. Ralph Vince, the local Sheriff and I had a deal. Whenever I called not only were there deputies coming but as many tow trucks and wheel boots he could get his hands on. In our burg, it was a heavy fine/fines and all proceeds went to the city. $350 for towing alone, $150-350 for trespassing, plus the various charges to fix the destruction of property done and to set bail if they chose not to sit in jail awaiting trial.

One or two of the less than stellar trespassers tried to argue that beaches were free access; beaches yes my lots no. The cars on my land, cut fences and ruts leading to the beach said differently about just how free things were. If they argued more, can you say ‘resisting arrest’ and assault on an officer, both were enough for bail to be denied the offenders. That did not happen often and once a year Ralph made certain our arrangement kept going.

Where was I, Oh yeah, my job. It was a learning curve. I think I mentioned I am a loser, a loser with a big L. When I first started investing I assigned $100,000 to invest, picked ten stocks and epitomized the ‘buy high, sell low’ saying. It was not an effort I will ever be proud of. I learned from that. Right, I took some of the cash, put it in a local bank just for me and a rainy day, opened an investment line for $100,000 in high yield stocks with a cap fund, bought $200,000 in Tax-Frees and deposited $250,000 for a Wealth Manager to handle for me. I used another $150,000 for self-directed investments and found after the first year that after taxes were paid I could live on just interest and still grow my investments a little; rarely did I have to use any of my rainy day cash funds after the third year.

Having the house and cars free and clear left my only major expenses utilities, maintenance on everything, car tags and property taxes. Those buyers sure wanted that beachfront property though. Like Hell they would ever get it. Yep, so here I was, fat dumb but happy. I would not say things were starting to go right for me but that one event sure made up a lot for how things had been going for me. I think now, three years into it I’m earning about 7.3% after taxes. I thought I could easily live my simple life on that.

Unless you were in the mountains or one of the ski sites where they made snow; snow was not very common in Southern California. The holidays just seemed a bit more lonely for me though. SDSU(San Diego State University) offered a couple courses I thought I would take some day. Right now I had a bigger, more pressing problem, food, I was hungry, starving actually and ‘Baby 1’ one of my luxuries, like Uncle Sal were fast cars too. I needed oil, tyres and filters, maybe plugs too for ‘Baby 1’ a street legal Red 1966 A C Cobra with Ford’s 427 engine. (‘Baby 2’ was one of the competition only models, built in 1968 but Carroll still used a 1965 chassis and it raced only once, BTW Sam was the driver)

The simple solution was brunch, maybe at Lenny’s even the crepes at Be-hop’s then hit the Safeway or Whole Foods or both before going home. If everything worked out the garage could get some of the work done on ‘Baby 1’ while I ate. Man I was bored if going out to eat and shopping for food was something to get me revved up.

Plans change, we all recognize that, don’t we? I dropped ‘Baby 1’ off at the garage and told Al what I thought she needed done. To at least try to change the oil and filters while I ate, “I’ll be backee” I yelled out. By the look he gave me he was not impressed by my mimicry. There is always a critic around. I opted for the closest source of food. By now ‘I was literally a walking skeleton’, I told myself. The Mc D’s on 12th Avenue was minutes away and close enough to 11:30 for me try those new chicken tenders for lunch.

When I got back ‘Baby 1’ was still up on a rack with somebody underneath. “So Alphonse, how much more you ‘gonna’ try to jack me up for today on ‘Baby 1’.”

“Right, like you think things for ‘Baby 1’ are easy to get. Venice is a long ways away.”

“Al, that is Venice California, not Italy, you moron. What do we need now?”

“A ton of suspension and a new chassis, if you believe Lori there. She is willing to take that piece of ‘junk’ off your hands though. She said she feels sorry for you.”

“OK, tell her for $1.2 mil I might let it go. By the way who is she, is she yours?”

“No, she is Sam’s kid. She is still not over her dad’s death. Takes a lot of remarks in bad taste in school about it too. The ‘Cavones’ there just don’t understand how and why he would try to help another racer and get himself killed.”

“Sam was a special man Al. He and my Uncle went back a long way. Does his kid need anything? You know Sam taught me how to drive like 9 or 10 years ago.”

“One Cavone still taunts her about everything and anything, says she should be his girl. Some rich kid spends Daddy’s money and keeps challenging her to a race. The poor girl doesn’t have the car or the money to bet so she keeps quiet but I know it kills her pride and memory of her father. So yeah, maybe loan her ‘Baby 1’ for a day so she at least has a chance to win.”

I walked up to where she was pretending to find things wrong with the car. I said, “Hope you don’t find too much wrong, I’d hate to have to junk it for parts. Your Dad taught me how to race in that heap long time ago. You were only nine or ten back then, it was my Uncles, now it’s mine.”

She looked at me funny.