Chapter 33: Dinner Play

I ended up eating lunch by myself.

Grace and Natalie were still with the vet at the stables. John and Jeff were still there too. The rest of the girls had moved to Liz and Catherine’s room to check on Sarah. I scanned them briefly, but the emotions were running rampant, so I tuned it out without delving any deeper. If they needed me, I’d know.

Deciding to go swimming, I grabbed a towel and some sun tan lotion. In 1971, they had not yet coined the term sunscreen.

Diving into the cool water, I swam out to the floating dock, anchored in the middle of the small lake. There were several families on the beach, and I could hear the kids playing in the water as I lay on the raft by myself, gazing at the gathering clouds. There were no other teens my age, I noted as I closed my eyes and promptly fell asleep.

It was the raindrops on my body that woke me. I shivered because it had turned cooler and the wind was up. I quickly swam for the shore. Then, gathering my stuff, I headed for the Lodge. I scanned as I walked, but sensed no apparent danger anywhere.

The girls were all still in Liz and Catherine’s room, emotions calmer, but still buzzing. John and Jeff were on the front porch of the Lodge, watching the rain, and Grace and Natalie were on the move, along with another person I didn’t recognize.

“They must still be with the vet,” I thought.

Anna was with Sandy in the reception building.

I was drenched as I reached the Lodge. Nodding hello to John and Jeff, I started inside to get a shower when John called to me.

“Michael, could we have a word with you?” John asked politely.

I stopped, and turned back to where they were sitting, reading him as I did. He seemed calm, as I took the rocking chair on the other side of him. The rain was coming down harder now.

“I’m going to find us a beer. Would you like one Michael?” Jeff asked.

“Sure. That would be great! Thanks,” I said reflexively, before remembering that I was only sixteen. But if they noticed, neither one said anything.

“I wanted to thank you for including me in what you did this morning. Damn, that was hot!” John chuckled. “She’s in her sexual prime you know. And ever since the chemo, I just haven’t been able to really satisfy her. I just wanted to let you know I’m okay with it and to thank you.”

“Ah ... you’re welcome.” I said hesitantly. “I guess I figured out most of it last Friday night. I’m just glad I could help. I really meant it when I said I was doing it for the girls. I know you’re their father and you love them and will do everything you can. But I do think I have a mission to protect them and help them develop. And I take it seriously. But girls need their mom, and she needed to get on the same page with everyone else.”

“You said this Old One thinks they will change the world?” he asked.

“I said that the Old One said the girls will have a major role in shaping the destiny of mankind. And I also said he told me nothing about how. But if I do my job, I believe he will guide me, and maybe even them as well, when the time is right,” I told him.

“Well, it seems you have shaken up our lives, Michael. With your warning about what could have happened to them, and with your ... er ... gift. I want you to know how glad I am you woke up from that coma, and to tell you if you decide to move down to Tennessee, you’ll always be welcome at our place,” John said sincerely.

“Also, if it makes any difference, you have my blessings or whatever to keep taking care of the girls. And that goes for Sarah too. Only, it could get a little ... uh ... uncomfortable if you picked the wrong moment to share like that. I mean, if it happened while I was in court, for instance.”

“Now that might be difficult to explain to a Judge!” I quipped as we both laughed. I assured him, that if it ever happened again, I would check before I shared. “But I am not convinced it will happen again,” I told him. “She was pretty shaken up about having sex with someone other than you.”

John just smiled condescendingly at me as Jeff returned with three beers and passed them out.

“Somehow, I don’t think you’ve seen the last of Sarah. At least until she gets too pregnant to fuck. We’ll see,” John told me.

Jeff ignored his brother’s last statement and asked if he had missed the answer.

“No. I was waiting on you to get back,” John told him. Then to me he said, “Jeff and I were wondering if your glimpses of the future might have included any financials?”

“Like stocks and bonds?” I asked.

“Yeah. Or any major events that might affect the market,” added Jeff.

“Would it help to know if a company is still going to be around at the turn of the century?”

“Definitely!” Jeff said.

“Well, there are several companies that will still be profitable in the year 2000. They include Teledyne, IBM, Coca-Cola, Disney, Toyota, Daimler-Benz, Honda, Gillette, Pepsi, GE, and HP,” I said, rattling off the names.

“Wait!” said Jeff as he dashed back inside. He returned a moment later with pencil and paper. So I repeated them for him.

“Also, McDonald’s is going to announce a stock split tomorrow, so any share you buy today will eventually be worth 200 shares. And a company called Wal-Mart will do the same on Friday. It will eventually become the largest retail company in the world. I just don’t know if you’ll be able to do anything about getting some of their stock from here,” I said.

John looked to Jeff who just nodded.

“Oh. And there’s a new airline, Southwest Airlines, which has an IPO coming the first week of June. Forty years from now, they will be the largest and most profitable airline in the country.

“Damn! I’ve got to find Anna and get use of a phone!” said Jeff.

I concentrated for a minute then told them, “She’s still in the office up at the registration desk with Sandy.”

Jeff groaned as he looked at the rain and envisioned the long walk.

“Wait a minute,” I said and focused on Anna.

“Anna,” I thought to her, not sure if I could actually hear her from here.

“Yes, Michael?” she thought back to me.

“Jeff needs to use a phone concerning some urgent financial business. We’re at the Lodge and its pouring. What should he do?” I thought to her.

“He can use the extension there in my room in the lodge. It’s not secure, but dad thinks the threat has been greatly reduced since the Russians have been told about you taking over the company.”

I relayed the information to Jeff and he quickly headed inside to make his calls.

“Thanks pretty lady!” I thought back to her, sending a mental image of what I’d like to do to her private parts as a tease. “Will I see you at supper?”

“You’d better! Now I have to get back to my work. I can’t concentrate with you sending me dirty pictures like this,” she laughed.

“I can think of a hundred ways you could make money with a gift like that!” John said, and then added, “But if anyone outside the family ever found out about your gift, we’ll all be in even greater danger.”

“That’s one of my greatest nightmares,” I told him.

“You’re going to have to limit your long term exposure to people, because they won’t have to be around you for long without realizing that something is very different about you,” he said.

“You’ve got a point,” I admitted. I just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Jeff returned a few minutes later.

“I got ‘em!” he said proudly. “A hundred of each for now.”

“You got a hundred shares of McDonald’s and Wal-Mart?” I asked, mentally calculating the number it would finally grow to.

“No. I got a hundred thousand!” he said smiling. “If you are right, the company should make over ten million this month.”

“I’ve got to talk to grandmother about raising my allowance!” I said, seriously. They both laughed.

“What else have you got?” Jeff asked, his appetite whetted.

“I don’t know what to do with the info, but there’s a small capital investment firm in San Francisco called Davis and Rock. That might be a good firm to check out. They seem to be on the leading edge of emerging technologies,” I told them, as Jeff wrote down the names and then looked at me expectantly.

“If I remember correctly, a firm called Intel is going public in October. They are about to announce the invention of the microprocessor.”

I then had to explain what a microprocessor was. The idea of a computer in every home was not as farfetched to them as I thought it would be. “After all, we put a man on the moon two years ago,” was Jeff’s explanation.

I figured I would save telling them about Apple and Microsoft until later.

“There’s a banker in Union County named C.H. Butcher. Have you ever heard of him?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’ve met. Never done anything with him, but I haven’t heard anything bad either,” Jeff answered.

“Well, you won’t from me either. However, his sons, C.H. Junior and Jake will buy up more than a half dozen local banks in the next few years, Jake will run for Governor in ‘78 and loose to Alexander, and by the mid ‘80’s, all of their banks will fail, in the fourth largest bank failure in US History,” I told an amazed Jeff. “So whatever you do, stay away from anything to do with the Butcher brothers and their banks.”

“You’re sure on this?” Jeff asked. Then he looked at John, and started to say something else, but changed his mind when John shook his head.

“Also, along the same vein, there is going to be a major S&L crisis, starting in a few years. It won’t be resolved for almost twenty years. Over a third of all S&L’s will fail or be closed. So be careful,” I warned.

They picked my brain about the recession coming in 1973-1974. And the oil embargo and the wage freeze. John wanted to discuss the Watergate break-in and Nixon’s upcoming resignation, but Jeff wouldn’t let go of the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver commodities market.

“Look, Jeff. Buy every ounce of silver you can lay your hands on between now and December of 1979. The price of silver should fluctuate between six and twelve dollars an ounce until then. And NO futures contracts. Those will be heavily scrutinized when they pass ‘Silver Rule 7’ in January of 1980. Just stay below the radar, and don’t draw any attention to yourself. When the price of silver hits forty dollars an ounce, start selling. And try to attract as little attention as possible. You won’t have much time to sell. On Thursday, March 27, 1980, the price will peak around forty five dollars an ounce, then immediately tumble back to fourteen dollars an ounce in just a few hours. The resulting collapse will just about wipe out the Hunt family fortune.”

They asked loads of questions, to which I didn’t have the answers. Finally, they got back around to the oil embargo.

“Look. I don’t know the first thing about making money on commodities, but in October of 1973, the Arabs will place an embargo on imported oil. It will last about six months. The price of gasoline will go up to over fifty cents a gallon. The price of a barrel will top eleven dollars a barrel, I think. I don’t know enough to advise you on this, but those are the limits I can remember,” I told them.