Chapter 47: SELF PERPETUATING

For Auld Lang Syne!

Never having offspring of my own is a bit of a disappointment, but I have plenty of family. My brothers and sisters and half brothers and half sisters have provided me with a crowd of nieces and nephews. Uncle may not be as satisfying a title as Dad, but I do enjoy the love given me as their doting uncle. All my relations are provided for and when they were adequately trained and ready to take responsibility, given one of my successful DBAs.

The center chunk of farmed out land walled in by my ranks of lots, and blocked from road access, I finally and recently purchased. The heirs of the old farmers who unwisely sold me all the road sides, have unwisely and prematurely sold me the final largest piece. While the price per acre is ten times higher than it was thirty years ago, it’s devalued dollars and I basically stole the land at the price I negotiated.

The same land is being negotiated for again now, for resale to the Walmart Corporation. I stand to make a million profit or better just on the one large piece. Walmart will need to negotiate for some of the lots blocking road access with the current owners. I’ll advise when the price is right for my family to sell the pieces I gave to them. Walmart won’t be allowed to rob them at ridiculous low prices. More millions enriching my family.

My concubines Mimi, Mei, Dana, and Jin are family just as much as blood relations. They and their children are stock holders in ‘NOW’ andheirs to some of my estates along with inlaws, Paul’s and Sam’s families. I’ve given away all my ‘NOW’ stock though Marshall retains fifty one percent.

It’s said you know you’ve reached old age when your social engagements are predominantly attending funerals of families and friends. If that’s the litmus test, I’m very old indeed this year.

Recently my Dad passed, donating me his final testicle three days before he died. I attended the funeral in a wheelchair too sore and swollen to walk. Mom was by my side when she collapsed. At first we thought she fainted. Mom followed Dad. Some say she refused to be deserted again. My preferred fantasy is, he called her to join him in eternity. Pure fantasy, as Dad was never demonstrative or affectionate in life, why would he be in death. He was capable of pride, and he was very proud of me. Mom loved me, maybe in unconventional ways, but she loved me. I loved her, but Inever gave a fuck for my Mom!

Milly’s dad, Mr. Ralph died two years ago and Mr Moses last year. Sergey just disappeared two and a half years ago at the same time Yolanda was paroled from prison. My suspicion is they’re together making mischief again somewhere.

Johnny married a Latina lot lizard named Octavia and have a son named Juan. My sister Karen finally married. If I can marry a black woman, she isn’t less ballsy she claims, marrying a black man. Sam is Karen’s husband and they have a son, Rob. Paul as you know already, married my half sister and sister-in-law Jeanette. They named their son Kennedy, Ken for short. These three strong intelligent men are the ramrods and heirs of my organization.

They call me Uncle “Iron”. Nearly everybody thinks it’s because I own the largest scrap iron business in the tristate area. Marshall, Sam, Paul, and I may be, I hope, the only ones who know the truth.

Sam and Paul started their boys calling me Uncle Iron when they were little tykes, and the name caught hold, stuck, and spread, and now every one entitled to familiarity calls me Uncle Iron. My hope is to never be embarrassed by the true origin of the nickname. It’s short for Uncle ‘Iron Balls”. Sam and Paul are the veterans Marshall hired so many decades ago.

Marshall and I are just as much in love as we ever were, maybe more. We bought the farm our families sharecropped, about a dozen years ago, while Mr Ralph and Dad were still alive to see it become our land. Proud as peacocks they were that day. We gave the farm to Milly. It’s coming back some day. Marshall and Jeanette are Milly’s only children. Three big signs advertise Milly’s Farm. You reckon she’s proud?

Sold off the ‘Crabby Now?’ chain of restaurants for fourteen million dollars several years back.

Ken, Juan, and Rob are here to take me fishing. We’re flying to the coast for a deep-sea fishing trip on the family’s mega-yacht named ‘SEA HAG’. No, it isn’t the old shrimp boat. All three of my nephews, I call sons, are crackerjack chopper pilots. We’re flying on one of our pair of restored Huey warbirds, repurposed for business.

Maybe this is not really the end, only a hiatus.

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Yob