Illuminating the Dark Fields

The alarm went off, jerking James from his sleep. He grunted and looked at the ceiling for a moment, before admitting to himself that he needed to get up. He was back for good and knew he had to build a life here. He was beginning to see progress on all fronts. First, with his family, the dynamic was much better than it ever had been. His sisters were friendlier, and his parents were communicating with him, even listening to his suggestions. Secondly, his grades were steadily increasing.

It was then that James realized that he now understood a very fundamental saying that was pivotal. It had stuck in his brain decades ago.

The greats never sacrifice the important for the urgent. They handle the immediate problem and still make sure to secure the future.

Now, at last, he got that. It had only taken the experience of living two lives.

Quickly addressing the family problem was worth the effort. If he fell out with Pat, it would be a shame, but not really that big a loss. Sure, the two were firm friends, but friends come and go. You can’t help that, but family stays with you until they die. He’s learned that it was a lot better to be nice to people because it paid great dividends. He smiled and swung his feet out of bed, ready for another day in paradise.

James couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.

He met his sister outside and they got running. During the jog he turned to her and asked, “How open to me investing in the stock market do you think Dad would be?”

They stopped for a moment to catch their breath. She studied James, “This is Dad we’re talking about.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“You know he’s a stickler about money.”

“Really? The same guy who gambles every Thursday?”

“Really?”

James nodded, but thought, ‘Oops this wasn’t common knowledge. Sorry, Dad.’

“Yes. Haven’t you seen him come home in the evening smelling of drink and cigars, with a shit eating grin on his face?”

“No...”

“Ah, then you’re just not observant enough,” he shrugged.

“I guess not. I suppose you could try to blackmail him.”

“No,” James rejoined. “I’ve need to get Dad on my side. I’ll try and do the same thing I did with Pat and the job.”

“Appeal to his self-interest?”

“Nailed it,” James winked. “Come on, let’s get going.”

They got back and when they entered the house, she reached under her top and pulled her bra off.

She sighed, “That’s better.”

“Freeing the ladies?”

She laughed, “Yes. At least they don’t bounce around while I’m jogging.”

“Not that I mind,” he shrugged. “Gives me something nice to look at.”

Amanda snorted, “God, look at my nipples.”

He did, noting that they were stiff and hard, tenting her top like two diamonds that could easily cut glass. James quirked an eyebrow up.

“You approve?”

“You know how I feel about them.”

She nodded, “I do.”

He inclined his head and started breakfast. They went to school and James used the school’s resources to do some research during his study hall. When he finished, he headed to the lunchroom where he sat down with Robin. His friend quizzed him on the pages of numbers he had brought.

“What’s that?”

“Research into the stock market.”

“You know that’s essentially gambling, right?”

“Yup.”

She nodded, “You have a plan, I take it?”

“Yup.”

Robin shook her head, understanding that she wouldn’t get any more out of him.

That afternoon when he got home, James sat down with Amanda.

“So why do you want to do this so badly?”

“Let’s do a little math,” James said surprising her. She’d never heard him do math or even seen him do it. He seemed to do everything in his head lately.

“Shoot.”

“I make $4.75 an hour,” he started. She nodded. “At roughly 18 hours a week, I’m grossing $85.50 weekly.”

“Yes.”

“That’s before taxes,” James said, “Factoring them in leaves me just over 70 dollars a week.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s round it to 70 a week. If I save that, I’m accumulating 280 dollars a month,” James continued.

“With you so far.”

“Well, I could go on from there, but I don’t want to put you to sleep,” James shrugged. “The bottom line is that I’m not going to make any money fast Then when I leave for college and head into the real world, I’m going to be accumulating money slowly due to taxes and bills.”

“Yes.”

“So, if I can figure out which companies are on the rise now and invest a little in them, by the time I graduate college, I could have enough money put aside to buy myself a property or two as a nest egg.”

She nodded, “Or you could lose it all if the economy crashes or you guess wrong.”

“Or that,” he acknowledged. James snorted.

“What?”

“You always look on the bright side of life, Am.” She laughed.

“Well, it’s your money. Do what you want. Just remember your twin when you are stinking rich.”

As soon as he said, “I’ll think about it,” she slugged him.

James knew that it was time for Plan B, using his pre-knowledge. While he wasn’t a stock picker like Warren Buffett, he did have one advantage: his memory place had all of the information on the historical performance of stocks, bonds, commodities and options. He could pick the best performing ones for a specific period and quickly rake in the money.

At dinner, his mom looked at him, “You’ve been doing something all week that I cannot figure out. What are you planning?”

“What do you know about the stock market?”

“It’s pie in the sky,” she shrugged, “We don’t have the money for it.”

“Not necessarily,” James said. “Gamblers can beat blackjack if they know how to count cards and poker players beat other players by knowing their tells.”

“That’s a very specific comment.” She narrowed her eyes at her husband, who coughed and looked innocent.

“True, but it remains the same,” James shrugged. “The market has its own tells and with enough research it’s possible to figure it out.”

“Possible? Well, than why haven’t the professionals figured it out?”

“I’ve come to realize that, in life, there is no sure thing.” She nodded and waved her hand to continue. “That’s what I’ve been doing, researching the market and different strategies.”

“May I be excused for a moment?”

“Sure.”

James hopped up, oblivious to the stares, and came back quickly with a notepad. He handed it to her. “All my homework is already done for today. This is just for fun.”

‘Fun,’ she reflected sceptically as she opened up the pad.

“Here’s what I’ve got so far,” James pointed at the page, “several smaller niche companies that not everyone is aware of just yet.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“So, here are my thoughts ... if these go up and continue to rise over the next month, I get to place my money on whatever one I want and you guys help me out.”

“And if you lose?”

“I clean both your cars for a month, without complaint.”

She looked at her husband. He shrugged a reply, “Win, win for me.”

“How do you figure?”

“If he’s right, we make a ton of money.” James nodded enthusiastically. Dad continued, “If he’s wrong, I don’t have to pay to get my car washed.”

“Preach it, daddy-o,” James quipped.

His father laughed.

Mom looked at him and asked “How much money are you talking about? You haven’t made much from that part-time job.”

“I want to start small so a couple of hundred to start. If I’m right, the money will grow and I can branch out. I am going to treat it like gambling and take the original wager off the table, like any good gambler.” James pointedly ignored the look Mom gave to Dad.

Instead, James cast a glance at Amanda, who nodded, clearly impressed. He was getting good at reading people.

He didn’t need to keep an eye on his stock, because, being able to see the figures in his head he knew the share values would rise. That was courtesy of the research he did before the jump, looking at the stock markets throughout the years, flipping through hundreds of pages without actually needing to read them. Once the information was captured, all he had to do was glance, then he could pause in his mind and see the specific details.

It never failed to amaze him and, with the possibility of making money by investing, it moved from a parlor trick to a real asset.

James decided that his shift at work every Thursday would be dedicated to learning the tech’s job. From what he remembered, all he really needed was a checklist of things to review. Solving problems then became a matter of checking the list. Walking into the tech area, Trevor planted him on a stool by his workbench and said, “Listen carefully and you’ll find most of the problems are straightforward to resolve. Unfortunately, most of our customers are dolts and their descriptions are useless. So the first skill a tech needs is good record keeping, especially if the hardware is out of warranty so we can bill for everything we do.”

“What kind of records?” James realized he would be good at this, being able to store everything in his mind for future use.

Trevor waved a handful of paper while saying “Addison’s a stickler for records. I thought it was a waste of time until a customer called me six months after I worked on their machine with questions. I’ll tell you those records saved my ass.”

Trevor pointed to the customer’s computer on his work bench and started with the steps he used to determine where the problem was. He looked at James and realized that he wasn’t taking any notes. “Look James, either get serious and take detailed notes or let me know you’re not interested and I will stop wasting my time.”

James replied, “I’ve got a great memory.”

“Don’t care; no one’s memory is that good. You will have so much thrown at you that you’ll need the note to review.”

“Understood,” James replied and pulled out a pen and grabbed some printer paper. “Next week I’ll bring a notebook.”

While biking home, James realized that no matter what capabilities he had, no one would accept them without proof. He decided to hide his skills and just conform to everyone’s expectations. Even if he never used the notes, he had to create them or he’d lose the opportunity. He began wondering what he could show at school to gain the teachers’ acceptance and advance out of his boring classes.

For the next three Thursdays, Trevor patiently instructed James on the finer points of repairing a system. After each machine was repaired, James documented the work. Trevor grinned when he saw James struggling with one of the forms, “From my view this is great. You get all of the paperwork headaches. And I can concentrate on the next customer’s machine.”

James shrugged his shoulders, “It’s part of the job, so I need to learn. And completing the paperwork is a good way to confirm I’m not missing anything.”

“Great attitude! It’s not what I thought when I started, I can tell you that.”

Finally, he was allowed to start working on his first system, under Trevor’s close supervision. Trevor was surprised that James organized all of his notes into simple, intuitive checklists. He called the owner over and handed him one of the lists. He said excitedly, “Look at this! This will save a lot of time when we work on a system. You could even have James help the customer over the phone with these.”

Addison looked at the list and then reviewed a couple more. “I’m really pleased with these, James. It shows that you understand what Trevor’s taught you. I am going to promote you to a Junior Tech position and have you receive in the repairs and document what the customer believes is the issue. You will free up time for the other techs and make everything go more smoothly.”

James immediately replied, “That’s fantastic. When should I start?”

“Let’s begin on Saturday because that’s the busiest day for receiving repairs. You’ll get a 50 cent an hour raise for the new position. But that does leave me with a problem. Do you think any of your friends could take over your old job?”

“Let me ask around and let you know in a couple of days,” James replied, while picturing how satisfying it would be to work with Amanda or even Pat.

When James got home, he sought his sister out and the two sat down to talk. After he finished pitching the idea of her working at Addison’s, she studied him for a moment.