Chapter 56

So, it was pointed out to me in the editing process that if I was going to put untranslated Polish into the story, then I needed to do something. What was suggested was to add it at the end of the chapter. So going forward, anything with an asterisk will have the word or phrase with the translation at the end of the chapter.

The week started pretty good. At school, I was talking to my teachers trying to figure out what my grades were looking like. It seemed that I was going to have about a B average.

Mr. Singh continued his irregular combat instruction while talking to me about applying it in my life. The one thing he kept pounding into me was that when your life was on the line, everything is fair game.

We were sitting cooling down and conversing about varied things when he said something that made me think.

“So Barnim, you realize we as humans are basically animals. Though we do things that no other animal does, humans are the only animal that kills from a distance. We are fucking excellent at it.” It was an interesting perspective and on the face of it seemed to be true.

We worked on some varied meditation techniques that seemed like they would work, especially when things weren’t quiet or ideal for meditation.

The morning of December 7th went normally. I noticed that my run wasn’t taxing me like it used to, so it was time to ramp the runs up a bit more.

During the day at school, I spent my time wondering what Bob and Mr. Roth wanted to talk to me about. No matter how much I racked my brain about it, I just couldn’t think of what it could be. It was driving me crazy the whole day and during the drive over to Bob’s office.

Bob’s secretary had me go sit in the conference room while he finished a call he was on. As I walked in, Mr. Roth was sitting at the conference table.

“So, Mr. Roth, care to tell me what this is all about?”

“I would, but you’ll have to wait until Bob gets in here.” Great, this made me worry even more. There really wasn’t much more that I could do but wait, so I made small talk.

“So, I saw the sign outside changed. Seems that there’s been a new addition to the lineup?”

“Yep. The dragon lady was out of her mind when I didn’t put you in jail. She even filed a complaint with the State Bar of Georgia Office of the General Counsel. That was the last straw for me. When they found no evidence to support the claim, I quit.”

“Good for you.”

“I decided to take Bob up on his offer and got a nasty phone call from DA Brice when she found out. I simply said that I was looking forward to mopping the courtroom with her.”

“I hope you do.”

We kept up the small talk until Bob came in about 10 minutes later with two folders. He handed Mr. Roth a folder and sat down looking through the folder that he had. There were a few moments of complete silence before he started.

“So, you’re probably wondering why we asked you here?”

“I am. There’s nothing I can think of that would warrant having to see a lawyer.”

“Well, that’s not true. What we have in these folders required this visit.”

“OK. So, what did I do that requires legal representation?”

“Well, you asked a question.”

“How does asking a question get me in legal trouble?”

“Well, it doesn’t.”

“Now I’m confused.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

I looked at Mr. Roth. “You two seem to know something I don’t, care to let me in on this?”

“Bob, you want to put Barnim out of his misery. It seems that he’s stressing about this?”

“I guess we’ll let him off the hook.”

Well, it seemed that I wasn’t in trouble after all. I thought that this was a good thing but was still clueless as to what this was about though. Bob decided to take pity on me.

“You remember the last time we met? You remember what you asked us about?”

“Yeah, I asked about a financial advisor.”

“That and a CPA. That conversation is the reason you’re here. It’s also the reason you’re not writing a large check for this visit.”

“Thanks Bob, and my wallet thanks you even more.”

“Just wait until you get my next bill. So, Isiah, Mr. Roth over here, and I talked. He knew of some CPAs, and I have several financial advisers as clients as well. As such we split the work.”

I’d have to do something nice for them, they did a lot more than I thought they would. This was way above and beyond what I had expected. I figured they’d just give me a list of names and numbers to go through. That would have been a long, drawn-out process. I didn’t know how many names they had but I wanted this to be over with quickly.

“So, I’m going to make this easy. Give me your pitch on the person both of you like the most. I’ll meet with them. If for some reason I don’t pick them for one reason or another, then you give me the folders and I’ll do the rest myself.” They looked at each other for a moment then Bob looked at his paperwork.

“So, I have a client who is a broker and financial advisor for Fidelity in Atlanta. If he wasn’t my client, I would be his. He informed me of an entry level analyst who he thinks is going to do big things.”

I could see just from this that they had done considerable research into this. I had to come up with something killer for them to show my appreciation for what they did. Bob continued on.

“So, his name is Nikolas Christellis. He’s 24 yrs old and has a business degree from Wake Forest University. He’s been at Fidelity for just over a year. My client who has 31 years in the business has the kid on the fast track.” This seemed promising, then Mr. Roth gave me a big preamble.

“So Barnim, my number one pick is going to take some time to explain. That’s because she’s family, she’s my wife’s niece and a really bright kid.”

“Being family doesn’t bother me. I have faith with your judgment.”

“I appreciate that. So, here’s the pertinent info. Her name is Miriam Livshin, she didn’t go to college straight out of high school, as at 18 she traveled to Israel because she felt that she needed to connect with her homeland. Once in Israel, she applied for “Aliyah”. This process, once it was granted, gave her Israeli citizenship as well as her US citizenship. Upon receiving citizenship, she was subject to mandatory military service. Miriam spent 2 yrs in the Israeli intelligence corps. At 21 yrs old, she came back to the US for college.”

I could see why he thought it would be a good match. In a way, her adult life started the same way that my second adult life was going to start.

“So, Miriam went to the northern American land of the Jews, New York City. She attended Cornell University in New York and left with a degree in accounting and a minor in finance. Then she moved back to Atlanta to join the family CPA office.”

Both choices seemed like a good choice. Though I’d want to have a face-to-face meeting before making a final decision. Mr. Roth voiced something that I had noticed.

“I think the two of you will mesh well. You both have a love of America, but also have a fierce loyalty to your ancestry. At least that’s the sense that I get.”

“I get the same sense. We’ll just have to see how things go.”

There was some small chit chat before I left with 2 business cards. Mom stopped me as I came into the house.

“So Barnim, you never told me what you want for Christmas. If you want something specific, you need to give me a list to choose from pretty soon.”

“Well, I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”

“OK, I’ll be expecting it.”

After grabbing a shower, I sat down and thought about Christmas.

The answer hit me as I looked down and saw the scar from hog hunting. There was something that I didn’t really get to do the first go around that was on the list of things to do this time around. I’d gone hunting once or twice in the first go around but was going to make a more concerted effort to do it as much as possible. It would start with this Christmas gift.

The next day on my way to kickboxing, I stopped at a supermarket and picked up a couple magazines to do some research for my Christmas list. I had also looked in phone book in the school library during lunch.

In-between technique, practice and time with Mr. Singh, I spent about 15 minutes perusing the magazines to find what looked to be what I was wanting.

Mom was at the kitchen table when I came in.

“So, I didn’t see your Christmas list when I came home.”

Going over to the counter, I grabbed a pencil and paper. I put the information down that I’d gathered and gave it to her.

“Here you go.” I hadn’t even finished getting a plate of food when I heard her chime out.

“You have got to be kidding me?”

“Nope, that’s what I want.”

“You expect me to buy you a bow and arrow?”

“Actually, a gift certificate to a specific store would work best. A bow needs to really be fitted to the person.”

“What’s the reason you want this.”

“Well, I want to start hunting. I’m not legally able to own a rifle or a shotgun, so a bow it is. On top of that, it’s more challenging.”

“The place you listed is in Jackson. That’s a little bit of a drive.”

“Buck’s Deadeye Archery is the closest one I could find. The others were on the north side of Atlanta.”

“Really? You’ll have to wait and see if I think I’ll get this for you.”

“OK.”

The next week was OK. We finished setting up the Christmas tree lot at work. I was now working most evenings after school and on the weekends. I wasn’t making as much in tips selling Christmas trees.

I called the leads that Bob, and Mr. Roth had given me. We set appointments to meet for a business lunch.

We started our finals at school, but I wasn’t really worried about any of them. The only wrinkle was that I was taking the first and second semester finals in NJROTC.

Friday, I stopped at home before going into work. This was the night that I worked late, not getting off until 9PM.

When I made the turn to exit the kitchen, I bumped smack into Randy. Before I knew what was happening, there was an open-handed smack to my face. My reaction was one that was going to make things difficult.

Due to being so close together, I shot an elbow out without thinking. There was a loud crack, and Randy went down like a sack of potatoes. I really didn’t want to be dealing with this shit!

I rolled the asshole onto his side so he wouldn’t choke on anything. After changing clothes, I checked that he was still breathing and then went to work.

Showing up to work, Mr. Pope asked me about the hand print that was on the side of my face. I explained the whole incident to him.

“Well, you were just defending yourself. Nothing wrong with that, just be careful and watch your back.”

“I don’t think he’ll try anything physical. It’ll probably be something else.”

“Either way you need to be careful. Now get out there and sell Christmas trees.”

“Aye, Aye Captain.”

“Keep that shit up and I’ll kick your ass myself.”

I headed out to the Christmas tree lot. We were actually pretty busy. The first hour of so, about 18 trees were sold. Then my night went straight into the shitter. I saw Mom’s minivan pull up, she was alone, so that was a bonus. I could definitely see she wasn’t happy waking up. I was working, so I did what I’d normally do.

“Well, ma’am, what kind of tree are you looking for.”

“Don’t start that shit with me.”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t appreciate you coming to my job to start this.”

“I don’t appreciate coming home to a groggy Randy because you knocked him out.”

“Well, I was defending myself.” I turned to show her the left side of my face.

“See the hand mark, that’s where Randy hit me. So, if you’d like to go home, then when I’m done with work, we can have a conversation about this.”

“This isn’t over.”

“No, it’s not.”

In a huff, she turned and left. Things would probably go sideways when I got home. The rest of the night was fairly busy, and we actually ran out of trees. They would be bringing in more trees during the next day. Mr. Pope came out to the truck as I was getting in.

“You need to be careful when you get home. Like I said, watch your back.”

“I will.”

The drive home was tense, I had no clue what was going to happen. The idiot was going to pull something, that was for sure.

As I pulled into the driveway, it was apparent that he had made his move. There were two McDonough Police cruisers sitting in the driveway. The motherfucker called the cops, what a bitch!

As I got out of the truck there was an officer waiting in the garage.

“Are you Barnim Badzinski?”

“Yes sir, I am. Who might you be?”

“I’m Officer Townsend and I need to speak to with you.”

“Regarding?”

“An altercation earlier.”

“That’s possible, but only after I speak to my attorney and get the OK.”

“What 17yr old has and attorney?”

“I do. So, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Walking into the kitchen, Randy was talking to another officer. I looked at him as I walked by.

“This isn’t over.”

“No, it’s not.”

*”Pierdol się.” I kept walking. Mom chased me down the hall.

“BARNIM!”

“Got to call my lawyer.”

I went upstairs and sat down on the couch and picked up the handset calling Bob.

“Carrigan residence.”

“Evening Bob. It’s Barnim. The cops are at the house wanting to talk to me.”

“What in the hell did you do this time?”

I explained everything that happened from the time that I got home from school till the time that I called him. He took a minute to contemplate it.

“So, tell them what happened and that’s it. If they want to ask you any other questions, give them my number and shut up. Now, I’m going to finish helping my son with his homework.”

“Have a nice night, Bob.” I hung up and went downstairs to the kitchen where both officers were waiting. I looked at the one officer and then to Officer Townsend.

“I’ll give you a statement as to what happened. If there are any questions after that you need to call my lawyer. I’ll give you his contact information so you can set up a time.”

Officer Townsend just nodded and the other one snorted. I blew it off and proceeded with giving my side of what happened.

Randy couldn’t keep his mouth shut during it and Officer Townsend actually made him leave the room. When I got to the point of Mom coming to work, I leaned my head so I could look directly at her. Then explained that both she and Mr. Pope both saw the hand mark on the side of my face. When I finished, the unknown officer stepped towards me.

“So why did you hit him?”

“And you are?”

“Just answer the question.” I turned to look at Officer Townsend.

“So, Officer Townsend, like I said before, I gave you my statement and if anything else is required, here is my lawyer’s information.” I handed him a piece of paper that had all the info on it. The other officer pulled him off to the side and they were whispering to each other. I waited as they went back and forth with each other. Officer Townsend came back over to me.

“I’ve got your information and your lawyer’s. We or a detective will be in contact if needed.”

“If you could, would you please give me the other officer’s name. I’m pretty sure that my lawyer is going to want that information. If need be, he can call tomorrow to get it.” I could see his gears turning, after a minute he responded.

“Officer Jepsen. Y’all have a great evening.”

“You officers stay safe out there.”

They left and I could hear Randy bitching that they didn’t arrest me and how he was going to fix that.

Seemed Mom wanted to have a conversation. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Like I told the officers, I was defending myself. That’s the end of it.”

“Well, that’s not the story that Randy is saying.”

“You saw the handprint on my face. So, you’re telling me that he slapped me after I’d knocked him out?”

“This is just all out of control.”

“I can honestly agree with that. I’ll say this. If Randy wants to continue with this whole farce, it will be countered. I don’t think Randy will look good getting charged with assault of a minor. So, on that note, I’m going to bed.”

As I laid down, I was just wondering what Randy’s problem was. My only choice was to lay low until I could get the fuck out of here.

I was working the late shift at the tree lot today, so I had time to relax before going to work. That was disturbed by Mom coming in just before noon.

“So Barnim, how are you coming along with your college applications?”

“Pretty good. I’ve got about 10 that I’m applying to and begun filling out. I figure they should be done in the next week or so.”

“That’s good. So let me see what schools you’re applying to.”

Luckily, I was prepared for this. I had gone to the guidance counselor and requested some applications. Pulling the first out, I handed it to her.

“Millikin University, your grandfather would be so proud if you went there.”

I started handing the applications to her. Mercer in Georgia; University of Illinois, Illinois State and Bradley in Illinois; Furman and Wofford in South Carolina and finally, I handed her ones for St. Ambrose, Drake and Iowa State of Iowa.

“Well, I’m glad that you’re taking this seriously.”

“Have to be.”

“Well, get back to it.”

She left and I was able to get back to relaxing. I started to get ready for work at about 3 PM. Mom yelled up that I had a phone call.

“Hello.”

“Hey Barnim, it’s Jules.”

“So how are things going?”

“I’m getting frazzled with finals. I was wondering if you could come over and help me study for my history final.”