Chapter 315: My Fake Parents Arrive and Ava's Parents Leave

Monday, August 14 to Thursday, August 31, 2006 (Continued)

Ava's parents are VERY conservative people. When we got a chance to visit them four days after our previous visit, they asked for a trust fund to be set up for Ava which paid out half its interest to her, retaining the other half for capital growth to roughly cancel out inflation. That'd give her an immediate cash budget of just over $3 million per year ($250,000 per month).

#2: <How can they expect Ava to survive on a clothing allowance of only $250,000 per month when she'd be living with Julia and Carol? Haha.>

Ava was more than happy with the structure though.

She'd be allowed to withdraw up to $10 million (inflation adjusted) when she turned 20, and every 5-year anniversary until she turned 50. No lump sum withdrawals after that, to guarantee Ava would always have a good income to live on, even if some gold-digger got his claws into her. On her death, the trust fund was to pass to her biological children equally, or to charity if there were no such children.

The Wests asked if my four parents could be the trustees, and maybe Julia and Carol when they got old enough, which everyone happily agreed to.

Katie and Carson didn't escape some teasing about how they'd worried about our being gold-diggers when we'd first met them, but they happily admitted that they'd been well and truly proved wrong about that.

Katie pointing out, "There's no requirement in the contract for Ava to get an equal share."

"Not in the contract, no," agreed Mom. "There's no doubt what Mark would've wanted though."

"Yeah," I confirmed, "I heard Ava sent Mark some REALLY hot photos!"

Ava was sitting on my lap hugging me at the time (puzzling her parents). She said, "Would you like some too?"

"You're not going to want another $125 million for the next set are you? Because that'd knock me back to my last $7."

"I wouldn't charge you that much. You'll need to keep some of your money for when Julia, Carol and I take you shopping for new clothes."

"You mean I have to suffer the indignity of having girls play dress-up with me AND I have to pay for the clothes too? That hardly seems fair."

#12: <We're talking too much like Mark used to. I think Carson's suspicious.>

Carson asked, "Ron, what do you think of being given $125 million?"

"I think it's insane but I'm not going to give it back."

"You talk better with us than you did on TV?"

"That was on purpose. I used to speak trashy in LA, so I put a little of it back on for TV. Vanessa wants me to sound that way publicly, and what Vanessa wants, Vanessa gets." I hadn't thought of a reason why Vanessa might want that, but I had confidence that one of my minds would make up something if Carson asked (that's often how I operate. It's great having so many minds).

^-- Worried that Carson might be beginning to suspect that I was Mark in disguise, even if subconsciously, I headed that off with, "I've tried to leave LA behind, but too many of my family and friends have been banging on Vanessa's gates the last couple of days. My mom and dad came up after the 'No Tax' thing was on the news, and now they're camped outside the gates again. They're unhappy I'm not giving them any of the money. They're threatening to badmouth me on TV, so you'll probably see them on the box soon."

Talking about my family had quelled Carson's suspicions. He did ask, "You're not going to give your family ANY money?"

"They'd spend it on booze and drugs. I thought of buying them a house away from LA, but they'd sell it and spend the money on booze and drugs. I've got a younger brother and sister that I might pay college for, but I'm waiting to see how they do at school first. My family is the reason I got so many convictions and why I left LA, so I'd rather give my money to people who'd use it better than piss it away. The only thing my parents gave me was a bad life, so now I'm making my own."

It was true that Ron Fisher's family and some of his friends were outside our walls the last few days, amid the media throng, but I was exaggerating the "booze and drugs" story. Given a decent restart somewhere nice away from LA, I guessed that the Fishers might do okay, but that wasn't anything to do with me. They hadn't really done anything to deserve getting a dollar from me, other than let their son grow up to be a street gangster so he could chase me into an alley and pull a knife on me to 'volunteer' to be my disguise. Paying them for letting their son turn into a criminal didn't seem appropriate.

Carson let it drop, instead talking to Mom and Julia about MAF. Katie and Carson were amazed by that, and talked about MAF until they were too tired, which didn't take long.

On the topic of the Fishers, they spent three days trying to ask nicely for "Just a few million." They refused media interviews while they waited to see which way the wind blew, and how much money it blew. They had some young Black guys and a girl with them, none of whom I'd personally seen before. From what they yelled, they were my best friends and the love of my life, respectively. The ten guys Ron had usually hung with were dead so these new best friends must've been fairly peripheral to his life, and the girl was presumably the one that the real Ron Fisher had said would've gotten a new guy within a week of my taking Ron and the others out of town.

When it was clear that I was ignoring my family, my best friends, and the love of my life, they played the closest to hardball they could arrange by going on TV to say very unpleasant things about me. They'd obviously put some thought into it, and they did a reasonably good job of besmirching my name and bewailing the ingratitude of youth (not that they used those precise words).

I could've ignored the issue as it wasn't really any skin off my rather large nose, but it was easy to turn their accusations to our advantage. The media were clamoring (they do a lot of that) for me to rebut my parents' accusations. Apparently they thought it'd make Good TV. We agreed to it, but not as a confrontation with my family. They'd had their turn in front of the cameras, so I'd have my turn. The media stopped clamoring long enough to agree to our arrangement. We had a small conference inside our gate far enough for the Fisher family and hangers-on not to hear what was being said. I had Carol on my arm, Julia beside her, Mom and Vanessa on my other side.

I told the cameras, "I'll tell you 'bout my life and you kin decide for yourself what you think of me not givin' my parents any money. I was born in LA and bought up with gangs all round..." I described the process of my growing up while my life was going down the toilet. I listed my convictions, when I started taking drugs, where in my room I used to hide my drugs, that my parents knew about them, and a few other bad parenting tidbits I'd gotten from the real Ron Fisher. Not many, just enough to set the scene.

Then I briefly talked about my gang turning on each other, which I blamed on drugs, my leaving town for a few weeks to live in the wilderness to think about things. "I decided if I didn't do nothin', I'd die on the streets or in prison, so I went back to LA, got a lawyer, and told him I wanted to leave LA forever. He helped me deal with the cops so they wouldn't be lookin' for me, and deal with my family. I gave them my car, everythin' in my room, drugs and all. I got the lawyer to send them my keys and tell them all I wanted was my birth certificate, which they never sent, so I still ain't got it. I hitched out of LA with the clothes on my back and a little money in my wallet." I digressed momentarily to give the media the names of my LA lawyer and the cops I dealt with, "so's you kin check on what I said."

I described my fictitious hunting for a nice town to settle in, how I'd liked the look of Corvallis, and liked that it had lots of smart people in it, had checked out a couple more towns but had then returned here. I told them I'd slept in a cheap sleeping bag and tiny tent in a corner of the RV park, naming it and the owners, adding, "They're nice people. They had me to dinner a couple of times because they felt sorry for me living so poorly." Then I told them about my searching for a job including the two weeks no pay, two weeks half-pay scheme of mine, but only working part time because I wanted to walk around town to get to know it and the people, get library books to read while it was still daylight because my tent didn't have a light, look into evening education classes for when I had some money to pay for them. I also mentioned that I frequently checked in with the Corvallis police station like I'd volunteered to do for the LA cops.

I talked about my getting a job, naming the garage and the boss, adding that I worked with a guy called BB, "Don't call him Bruce. Bruce don' liked bein' called Bruce. If ya listning Bruce, I told 'em to call you BB, okay?

^-- "The job was good and the boss asked me to stay, but I'd been walking down the road near the bridge when Carol and Julia had trouble with Carol's bike comin' home from school. I tried to help her fix it, but it needed tools, so I helped her get it home then fixed it in her father's workshop. When Vanessa heard I only worked in the mornings she asked me to work in her garden in the afternoons. I needed money then because I had nearly nothin', so I accepted.

^-- "It was good work and they're good bosses so I worked out the rest of the two weeks at the garage like I said I would, then I left to work for Vanessa full time. I got to like them and they got to like me, so they offered me a spare room and home-cooked meals, which I was VERY happy to get after living in my tent fer so long.

^-- "I got to know Carol specially well, and now I'm trying to be good 'nuf to be her boyfriend. It's not easy, because Vanessa keeps me working very hard. She's a very tough boss and not very fair, because since I started she's only given me one pay raise."

I paused to let them get the joke. It took them a while, because it wasn't a very good joke and I hadn't delivered it well. Deliberately so, because I didn't want to come over on TV as someone who was sharp-witted.

I finished with, "Reporters have seen me workin' every day, even after the stupid Gov'mint gave me so much money. I'm tryin' to be a good person since I left LA. Vanessa asked me to work in her garden, so I am, like I said I would. If I thought givin' my parents money was the right thing to do, I'd do it. I don' know what I'm goin' to do with my money yet. Vanessa says I should take my time to think about it, and she's very smart so's I'm goin' to do that. So far the only thing I wanna buy is a wheelbarra that rolls easier, but if I do decide to give some of my money to people, I want it to be to good people who will do good things with it; not bad people who'll waste it on bad things, like I think my parents would. Vanessa is honest, so if I want to give some away, I think I'll give it to her to find the best people to give it to. She'd be better at that than I would. That's all I want to say. Sorry I didn't talk as smart as you're used to."

I faded back in embarrassment, Carol and Julia escorting me back through the gate, leaving the scene to Vanessa and Mom. They added a few extra points about me turning over a new leaf even before I'd gotten to Corvallis, trying my honest best, keeping my word, etc.

Mom had a nice line to deliver, "Some of you might have seen Oprah a few months ago when Carol mentioned that she was a lesbian. She's turned over a new leaf too. She's discovered that boys aren't so bad after all, because of Ron. He's very kind and gentle toward her. Toward all of us actually, but it's had the most effect on Carol.

^-- "Think about the criminal record he had in LA when he was living with his parents and under their guidance. His crimes were getting progressively worse, and I understand that several of the guys in Ron's old gang are dead now. That's the way his life was going. Since he left them, he's turning his life around purely by his own efforts. I understand Ron well enough to know that if he felt appreciation for his parents, he wouldn't hesitate to show it, but he honestly doesn't feel he owes them anything. If there is anything owed, they owe him an apology for being such bad parents for so many years."

Vanessa added, "Ron spent several months living hand-to-mouth, sleeping in a cheap sleeping bag under the stars in winter. He didn't want to contact his parents then, and he doesn't want to contact them now. Ron runs himself down for not being smart, but he was smart enough to cut himself off from the destructive path his life was on, and he's smart enough to work hard on improving himself. Everyone in our two families quickly recognized that he was a man of good qualities who just needed the opportunity and support to improve himself. He wasn't getting that from his own family but he's earned it from us."