Chapter 62: Back Home

At the time, Timonium wasn’t the world’s greatest choice for awe inspiring hotel rooms. In fact, the only place I could think of was the local Holiday Inn. Certainly, no suites were available, so we crammed into a single room with a king-sized bed and set up the port-a-crib in the corner. Saturday, we decompressed a little, unpacked our bags, and then loaded all of us up in the rusty old Impala and went out car shopping.

First on the list was a new car for me. It’s not that I was any more important than Marilyn, because I’m not. What I am, however, is much more decisive. I knew what I wanted (roughly) and hated shopping for a car. We went to the local Caddy dealership and then the local Lincoln dealership. I was looking for a full-size sedan, four doors, big trunk, big engine, screw the mileage, nothing too trashy (no pimp-mobile!), in a silver or gray. No black Mafia staff car. I found a nice Town Car at the Lincoln dealership on York Road and had them do a quick trade appraisal on the Impala. Then I dickered them out of the tax and tags and wrote them a check for the balance. I would pick it up the following week after the check cleared.

Buying a car for Marilyn was a much more traumatic event. She simply couldn’t make up her mind, and we drove up and down York Road to every dealership between Baltimore and York. She was always like this. On my first go-around, I refused to shop with her. I would turn her loose and just show up to give a perfunctory test drive and write a deposit check. I remember one time where she wanted me to pick the car. I spent two weeks looking them over, even going so far as to bring her back cars for ‘overnights’ and she hated them all. Finally, I told her she had three days to pick a car, or I would buy one for her, whether she liked it or not! “You can’t do that!” I was informed!

“Just watch me, honey! Three days!” She picked out her first minivan after that, inside of three days, too.

This time was no different. We made no progress at all that day with her, and none on Monday either. Threats weren’t working either. Oh well, I would give her another few days before I issued any ultimatums. What she needed was a station wagon, something she could drive Charlie around in, preferably big and roomy and safe. I was thinking of an Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser or a Buick Estate Wagon, but I just didn’t care. I’d get her whatever she wanted. What she wanted was something as small as her Toyota, with the cargo capacity of a C-130, and it had to be ‘cute!’ I had a feeling we were going to end up in a brawl over it anyway, since I wasn’t being ‘helpful’ about it. Jesus Christ, I was paying for it, wasn’t I? How much more helpful could I get?

I got a reprieve from car shopping on Tuesday. We were meeting with the brain trust for lunch at a steakhouse on York Road. Charlie was turning out to be a fairly good kid for taking out (Alison had been colicky as hell!) and behaved as long as we kept pouring formula into the bottomless pit he called a stomach. He wasn’t on baby food, not yet anyway, and I dreaded what that would do to his diapers when it happened.

We weren’t the first ones there. Once we got inside, I saw Missy Talmadge at a table in the center of the room. As soon as she saw me, she had a big smile on her face and stood and waved. I told the hostess we had found our table and led the way inside. As soon as she saw little Charlie, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh my God, he’s adorable!”

“Missy, I want you to meet my wife, Marilyn, and this is our son Charlie. Marilyn, this is Missy Talmadge, my broker from way back when,” I said introducing them. Missy was the same as when I first met her, small and slim, blonde (now with some frosting to set it off, and a shorter hairdo as well), and perky. She was in her mid-30s.

Missy came around the table and gave me a hug, and then shook Marilyn’s hand. “It is so good to finally meet you! Carl has told me about you so often. Your son is so cute!” She bent down and let Charlie grab her finger.

Once Missy had come around the table, I noticed there was a reason for all the family bonding. She was a good four months pregnant! “Congratulations! What’s this, your second?” I asked.

“Third!”

“Well, you look fantastic. When are you due?”

“Probably in February. A winter baby,” she answered.

“Well, I guess we know what you did on your summer vacation,” I teased.

Missy laughed and swatted at me. “You’re awful. Is he like this at home?” she asked Marilyn.

“Usually he’s much worse.”

Missy cut off any further remarks when she looked back towards the entrance and waved again. I turned around and saw three men come towards us. Two of the men I knew. There was John Steiner, probably in his late 50s, and Jake Eisenstein, who was in his early 50s. The third man was about Marilyn’s and my age, mid 20s. All the men shook our hands, and John kissed Missy on the cheek.

I introduced Marilyn to the others, but when I got to the young man I was stumped. He responded, “Sorry about that. I’m Jake Eisenstein Junior. I work with Dad.”

“Oh, okay.” I glanced over at Jake Senior.

He nodded. “Jake just graduated from Columbia Law this year. He wants to get into tax law, so I’m seeing about bringing him on board.”

I nodded as well; Columbia Law was a good school. “Your new partner?”

“Not yet, he’s not!” said his father dryly. “Let’s just say he’s an associate with prospects. I’m not sure we need a tax lawyer as much as another good accountant.”

“Well, this might be a chance to prove it, huh, Dad?” Jake Junior wasn’t about to be cowed by his father. Jake snorted in response, and John laughed.

“Well, Carl, you’ve all moved up here? How bad is your leg, anyway? I see you’re using a cane,” said John.

I simply shrugged. “I probably will the rest of my life, unless I get the knee replaced. Maybe even then. It’s all ligament and cartilage damage. It is what it is.” I held my hands up in a what-can-you-do-about-it-anyway gesture.

“How do you like it up here, Marilyn? You’re not a Maryland girl, right?” he asked.

“It’s just so unreal! I don’t know what’s happening anymore. I mean, it wasn’t two months ago I found out my husband isn’t just a soldier, he’s got a whole secret life, like in a comic book! He has lawyers and accountants and brokers and who knows what else! I don’t know what to think!” Charlie fussed a little and she lifted him up from his stroller and started digging out a bottle. “It’s like I just found out my Clark Kent is somebody else.” She looked over at me apologetically.

I reached over and squeezed her hand. “That’s why I wanted you to meet everybody. No more secrets. I had a reason for that, but the time for that is over. You’re going to need to know about this stuff, too.”

“No secrets?”

I gave another shrug. “Well, almost no secrets. I’m certainly not going to tell you about my mistress. Mistresses, actually.”

That got a laugh out of John and Missy, a snort from Jake, and a blank stare from Jake Junior. Marilyn looked down at our son and said, “Daddy thinks he’s so funny!” and then she gave me a raspberry.

That got us talking about the money, and John told Marilyn how we originally met and how I got my initial stake of twenty grand. Missy gave a surprised look at that. “Twenty? You only put fifteen into the brokerage back then. What happened to the other five?”

“Living expenses. It wasn’t like I was getting any money from my parents,” I answered.

“No allowance?”

“Not after that. Hamilton was given it, instead.”

Marilyn interjected, “Your brother was given your allowance?”

“A fact he repeatedly told me.”

“Unbelievable!” Then she looked over at Missy. “So, you’re telling me that Carl turned that $15 thousand into $35 million”

Missy nodded. “Closer to forty as of the close of business Friday. Your husband rarely missteps on this stuff, and he’s very good with leverage and options and calls. Commodities, too. He knows his commodities.”

Jake chimed in, “It’s almost spooky, but I haven’t seen Carl make many mistakes. Sometimes his timing is a bit off, but not terribly, and not in an overly bad way. I don’t know where he comes up with some of the stock picks, but the accounting and all is straightforward.”

“Wow!”

I took my wife’s hand again. “And now I get to do something I really enjoy, which is buy you a few things and take care of you. You need to pick out a car and then we’ll look at some property and build a house.”

Over lunch we made a broad agreement to what would happen soon. Marilyn already had an American Express card. Marilyn was absolutely forbidden to get any more credit cards. (They had been so destructive before!) We would open a new checking account locally, at Maryland National Bank. Missy would put a chunk of money into the checking account so that we could buy property and build on it. Marilyn would have access to the checking account, but not to the brokerage accounts, which would remain in my name, though she would remain my survivor on the accounts. Jake Junior also suggested that I incorporate, in the event I wanted to directly invest in any companies rather than go through the brokerage. I didn’t quite follow that reasoning, but I was vain enough to like the name of the company, The Buckman Group. Jake, Jake Junior, and John started talking that over among themselves.

After lunch, we split up, though I arranged to meet with them later in the week by myself to sign some paperwork. Marilyn was also getting along well with Missy, and Missy made her promise to call and get together for lunch with her kids. Then we drove down York Road towards Ridgely Road. Tusk Cycles & Repairs was in a small industrial park on the west side of York between Ridgely and Timonium, on the site of a converted gas station. It wasn’t very big, but there were several cars parked and a number of bikes as well. We pulled over to one side and parked, and then fished Charlie out of the back. I led the way inside.

It wasn’t a very big operation, but it was well lighted and clean, and seemed to be split down the middle. One side consisted of the old service station repair bays and was now the motorcycle repair area. The other half was a small office and a somewhat larger showroom, with several gleaming restored motorcycles on display. My advice to Tusker had been to start with repairs and used bikes, rebuilding them, and getting a reputation for quality workmanship. I didn’t know shit about bikes, but I knew a fair bit about sales and quality. At some point he’d be able to move to a larger setting and then think about getting a dealership.

It seemed to be working. Tessa grinned madly and waved to us from behind the counter, where she was writing up a repair slip, and we just waited at the side and looked things over. As soon as Tessa finished with the one customer, another came forward and started asking her questions, so I wandered around the room and on into the service bay. As I did, a mechanic of some sort looked over and said, “Sorry, sir, you can’t come in here.”

Tusker turned around at that and his face lit up, too. “It’s all right, Joey. I’ll take it.” He wiped his hands on a rag and came over. “Damn, you made it up here after all! It’s good to see you!”

“Damn straight! Good to see you, too.” I shook my friend’s hand enthusiastically.

“Marilyn with you?”

“And Charlie. They’re in the showroom.” I turned and went back through the archway and found Marilyn hugging Tessa. Charlie was starting to squirm around some. The two women saw us and a few more hugs were exchanged.

“Where’s Bucky?” I asked.

Tessa answered, “He spends the day with my mom. Now that she’s a granny all is forgiven. Now she’s pushing for number two. I’d offer to let her keep him full time, but she’d probably take us up on it! You’re back!”

“We got back Friday. Long drive!” said Marilyn.

I nodded. “Between my knee and stopping for pit stops and feeding Charlie, it must have taken us twelve hours.”

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“The Holiday Inn up by Padonia Road,” I answered.

“You want to stay with us?” asked Tusker. “It’ll be a little tight, but we’ll survive.”

I glanced at Marilyn, but I already knew the answer. Unless they had a new place, we’d be packed in like sardines. “We appreciate that, but we’re going apartment hunting tomorrow. If we find something, we’ll just move right in. Our stuff is in storage right now.”

I think they were as happy as we were about that. Tusker just nodded. “So, how do you like it? This is the first you’ve been here!” My friend was very proud of his place.

I smiled and nodded. “Very nice. Very professional. That’s the image you’re trying to present. By the time you get to a larger place, you’ll be all set.”

Both he and Tessa laughed at that. “That better be soon! I had no idea how much room we’d need! We are totally crammed in on both parking, display space, and people. We can’t grow any more here!”

“Well, it’s better to have that problem than another type. We’ll have to talk about that.”

Just then three bikers roared into the place and parked. They came in, but Tusker held up a hand. “Sorry guys, you know the rules.” He pointed to a sign on the wall that read, ‘No Colors.’ “Leave ‘em outside.” That was one of the rules that Tusker and I had talked about. Bikers could come in, but if they were affiliated with a gang, they had to leave their colors, or riding jackets and vests, outside. This place, like the bar they had worked at, was neutral territory. They grumbled, but two of them took off their jackets and handed them to the other, who took them back outside. I wondered about that. They were safe enough there without a guardian; nobody on the planet was stupid enough to steal biker colors! Still, the way Tusker explained it once, only a brother could hold your colors; prospects and supports couldn’t touch them.

I looked over at Marilyn. “Listen, we’ll let you get back to work. We’ll call you tonight and figure out when we can get together.” Tusker gave us a thumbs up, and Tessa kissed Charlie and handed him back, and then hugged Marilyn and me again.

After we got back to the motel, I called the real estate broker who was supposed to have apartments lined up, and we made an appointment for the next morning. Marilyn put Charlie in his crib so he could take a nap before dinner. That seemed like a good idea, so once he was out, I pulled Marilyn onto the bed and we took a nap, too. Eventually, anyway. Funny, but we didn’t go to sleep right away!

The next morning, I woke when Charlie started fussing and I nudged Marilyn awake. “What?” she asked blearily.

“You know who is awake.”

“Well, take care of him. He’s your son, too.”

“No way am I going near him until he’s got a new diaper. You need a hazmat suit around him.”

Marilyn grumbled some and called the father of her son a few choice names, but she got up and took care of him while I headed towards the bathroom. Afterwards, I got out of the shower and fed him a bottle while she showered. We swapped Charlie detail back and forth while getting dressed. Eventually we got out of the room, and that was when I realized I had forgotten to shave.

“What would you say if I grew a beard?” I asked my wife.

“A beard? You?”

“Are you saying I can’t grow a beard?” Back on my first trip through, I had a mustache within weeks of graduation and starting my job. By the time we got married, I had a Fu Manchu mustache and muttonchop sideburns that would have made a Victorian era general proud!

“No! Don’t be silly. I just can’t picture you with a mustache or a beard,” she answered with a smile. “What if it tickles me when you kiss me?”

“That would depend on where I kiss you, wouldn’t it!”

Marilyn blushed at that and ordered me to take us to breakfast. I drove to a nearby diner.

“This is getting pretty old,” I told her. “This is not what we could call a healthy diet.” Since we had left Fayetteville, we had been surviving on fast food and restaurants.

“Let’s hope the broker knows something decent,” agreed Marilyn, nodding.

“We’ll need to set up a weight room when we build the house. I’m starting to get fat.”

“No, you’re finally back to where you were before you left home,” she countered.

I knew better and told her so. “I’m out of shape, hun. I need some serious time in a gym, and I have to find a dojo again. How the hell do I do karate or aikido with a cane? Maybe I can call Mister Miyagi again, see if he can help. I mean, I can’t even run anymore!”

“This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she commented curiously.

“I used to be the smallest kid in school, and I got picked on by everybody!” I replied with a laugh.

“I just can’t picture you like that!”

I laughed some more. “Oh, yeah! When I was in junior high, I was the smallest kid in the entire school, girls included! Tessa could have beat me up if she wanted to!”

Charlie made some sounds from his seat and Marilyn played with him. “Daddy’s so funny, isn’t he?” He smiled at that. “Daddy wants to be a he-man and grow a mustache!” More gurgles and smiles.

“Daddy’s going to get strong so he can spank Mommy on the butt! Maybe Mommy needs to exercise, too, to shrink down that butt!”

Marilyn looked over at me and asked, not in a happy tone, “Are you saying my butt’s big?”

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! “No, it looks pretty nice. You’re not out of shape or overweight...” I paused for effect, and then continued, “ ... yet.”

“Oh?” she answered coolly.

“Oh! Marilyn, you look great, but you don’t take care of yourself. You lost most of the weight from the baby, but not all of it, right?”

“Well, you try having a baby!”

I just grinned. “I prefer my part of the bargain. Seriously, though, you’ve probably put on about five pounds, haven’t you?” Marilyn nodded, so I went on. “What happens the next time we do this? Or is Charlie going to be it?”

“We’re having more children and you know it!” she said with a grin.

“Just so long as we practice a lot. Anyway, what if you put on five pounds with each kid? What if it’s more? The first five doesn’t look bad on you, but after that? Besides, in a few more years you’ll be adding a pound or two a year regardless if you don’t take care of yourself. So will I. For our silver anniversary they’re going to have to cart both our fat asses around!”

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Maybe we can join a gym and get a family discount.” I looked over at my son. “Drop and give me twenty, mister!” I got a burp in response.

“We’ll see,” said Marilyn.

We met the broker, Andrea Greene, in the parking lot behind John Steiner’s office. After the routine greetings, she said she had three ideas for us. “The first is a standard garden apartment, two bedrooms, one bath, probably similar to what you had down south. The other two are different. Why rent an apartment? Why not rent a house?”

I opened my mouth to protest but stopped. It wasn’t what I had asked for, but why not? “Uh, okay. I guess we could look at that.” I turned to face Marilyn, but she had kind of a blank look on her face as well. She hadn’t thought of it either. “As long as somebody else mows the lawn.”

Andrea offered to load us all up in her Cadillac to drive around in, but Charlie had his car seat and that’s a nightmare to move in and out. We decided to follow her on her rounds.

She first drove us over to an apartment complex off Padonia Road, on the east side of Timonium. It was a lot like what we had left in Fayetteville. It would certainly be adequate, but otherwise it was very boring. It wasn’t any different than what we had just moved out of. Next, we drove into a small development off Ridgely. The homes here were nice single-family units, separate houses on small lots, a little smaller and a few years newer than the one I had grown up in. It was a three-bedroom house, but it had small bedrooms and was only a bath and a half. I remained noncommittal, but Marilyn didn’t seem to like it.

Andrea picked up on that. Her final selection was about fifteen minutes away, in a townhouse development in Cockeysville. When I was a little kid, Cockeysville was where the country started, and very rural, but that was changing. Now it was seeing suburbs and townhouses, as people moved up I-83 towards the northern end of the county. This place was off Shawan Road, about a mile from the Hunt Valley interchange.

I was rather taken by it almost from the moment we got out of the car. It was much newer than the other two places, maybe a couple of years old at most. The town houses were in odd shaped three or four house clumps on winding streets. As we pulled in, I noticed a van belonging to a yard maintenance company that was hauling a trailer with a couple of large platform mowers. At the place in Ridgely, I’d either have to buy a lawn mower or pay somebody; here it seemed it was part of the amenities.

Way back when, on my first trip through, when I was fourteen, I had my own lawn business. I mowed five lawns every week, one a day, and made decent money for a kid. I also learned I detested mowing lawns! The following year I gave the business to Hamilton, who promptly ran it into the ground and went out of business.

Andrea took us to an end unit and let us inside. It was very new and clean and white. The only problem was that it had multiple levels. You walked into the living room level on one side. To the left and down half a level was the kitchen and dining room, to the left and up half a level were two bedrooms and a bath, and up another half level, over the living room, was the master suite. In the long run my knee was going to be an issue, but for a year, we could handle it. “I thought these places were like condos, you had to buy them?” I asked.

Andrea said, “Eh, yes and no. There are usually a few units available for rent, or with a lease arrangement. I think the idea is that you move in, fall in love, and decide to buy at some point down the road. Do you like it?”

“Give us a few minutes.” With my wife carrying Charlie, we went from floor to floor and looked it over. Up in the master bedroom, which was roomy, I asked Marilyn, “What do you think?”

“I like it, but what about your leg?”

“Unless it gets really bad, I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want to live here forever, but we can hack it until we get something else,” I answered.

Marilyn asked, “How long will that be?”

I shrugged. I had never built in Maryland before, but I had built homes for customers in New York. “Probably a year. Let’s ask. Could you see yourself living here?”

She nodded. “Yes, at least until we build a place of our own.”

“Keep thinking about that. Let’s ask.”

We headed back down the stairs to find Andrea in the living room, smiling. I don’t know if she had heard us, or just could read our expressions. “I get the funny feeling you like it,” she said.

“Yes, we do. What’s the rent going to be like?” The rent proved to be a couple of hundred higher than anything else we had looked at, but this was partly because of ‘homeowner’s association expenses’; the cost of having the lawns mowed and maintenance fees. Otherwise, it was still a bit on the high side, but not outlandishly so. It was also larger than the other two places.

Marilyn asked how long it would take to build a home. She knew something about homes, but only because Big Bob sold trailers. What we were planning wasn’t a trailer!

Andrea answered, “Well, first we have to find you a piece of land. There’s at least thirty days before we could close on it, what with title searches and financing and escrow...”

“No financing. This will be a pure cash purchase. The same goes towards construction,” I interjected.

Andrea didn’t bat an eye. “That certainly simplifies things. We’ll run the escrow through the agency in any case. Anyway, after the land clears, you’ll need an engineer or architect to sign off on the plans, and then the contractor can get a building permit.” She kept on with some different steps, all of which I was familiar with. The bottom line was that we could probably move in sometime next year, in the spring of 1983.

This was rather disheartening to Marilyn, but quite natural to me. I took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “This is nothing I wasn’t expecting, honey. I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll take this place, I’ll look for land with Andrea, you tell the movers where to put everything, and then we take a nice vacation.”

“You’re going to look for land and I’m going to move furniture! That sounds like a really lousy deal!” she said, laughing.

I bent down and whispered in her ear, “I bet I can make the bed move!”

That got a squawk and a smack to the arm, but Marilyn smiled. For the next few minutes, we were tied up in paperwork, signing some papers Andrea had in her briefcase. Some were for the townhouse, and some were for a brokerage agreement to buy property. As per my instructions, she had run everything through John Steiner ahead of time, and I could see his initials on several of the pages. More time was taken when Charlie decided to fill his diaper, drink a bottle of formula, use up a second diaper, and then throw up his formula. It just wasn’t his day!

We concluded the day by agreeing to meet Andrea on Monday to look for properties. Then we went back to the Holiday Inn, where I called the moving company and gave them our new address.

Sunday, we went over to Tusker and Tessa’s place for dinner and a chance to play with Bucky. We made sure to stop at a ToysRUs and picked him up a few toys. They were still in their little apartment that they had moved into back before they got married. All their money had gone into school and their business.

Tessa opened the door for us and immediately took possession of Charlie. (Now, if I could only figure out how to do that for the next eighteen years or so... ) “It is so good to see you again! I’m so sorry we couldn’t talk the other day!” she said.

“Well, you were busy,” said Marilyn.

“Is it always like that?” I asked.

“Well, not always, but most of the time. Tusker’s doing a lot of service work and rebuilds, as well as buying and selling the used bikes. I mean, you wouldn’t believe what he gets when he does a rebuild and then sells it.”

“What wouldn’t they believe?” asked Tusker, coming into the living room. Over in the corner little Bucky was watching Bugs Bunny on the VCR, so we all retired to sit around the kitchen table. Tusker pulled some National Bohemians out of the refrigerator, and we all sat down and relaxed.

“About your rebuilds and resales on the used stuff!”

My friend gave a wry smiled and nodded. “It’s true. I’ll pick up some old bike that somebody wants to dump for a few hundred, maybe a grand, strip it down and clean it, rebuild it, repaint it, and BOOM! Classic motorcycle! I’ll make ten times what I paid for it.”

“Wow! None of that means anything to me, but it sounds good.” Tusker knew I wasn’t a biker. The only time I ever rode a motorcycle back on the first go, I ended up laying it in the gravel. That wasn’t enjoyable, but the bad part was when Marilyn landed on me and broke two of my ribs and put me in the hospital for a couple of days. In Aruba! I learned my lesson! “That pays for the place in Timonium?”

“The service work pays for it. The bike resales and rebuilds are the profit,” answered Tessa.

Tusker grinned. “She’s the real businessperson in the room. I can follow along easily enough, but she’s the brains of the operation.”

That was it for the time being. We talked about old times and new, about my getting out of the army and moving back up to Maryland. We told them about getting an apartment in Cockeysville and made them promise to come up as soon as we got our furniture moved in.

Tusker smiled at Marilyn. “You’re going to love it here. The weather’s great. You can ride almost ten months a year.”

“You can ride. I’ll drive, thank you,” she said.

“I don’t know, honey. I think you’d look pretty hot in your leathers and colors, with Charlie in the sidecar. Talk about your motorcycle mamas! You and Tessa can form your own gang!” I teased.

Tessa started laughing at that, and she got up and went into their laundry room, coming back out a minute later with a t-shirt of her husband’s. On the back it read, ‘IF YOU CAN READ THIS, MY BITCH FELL OFF!’

I laughed at that. “One of the guys in my battery had a shirt like that, only it was written upside down and it read, ‘IF YOU CAN READ THIS, PICK ME UP AND PUT ME BACK ON THE BAR STOOL!’”

“I don’t know about riding. I’ll give it a year, but otherwise I’m heading back to New York in the summer. I did three years down in Fayetteville and it was too hot there!”

“Marilyn, that is why the Good Lord invented air conditioners! At least you never had to shovel snow!” She shrugged in agreement at that. “Besides, when we were kids, I can remember Willard Scott on the Today Show, every winter morning telling people where the coldest spot in the country was, and it was always one of two places, either Mooseprick, Minnesota, or Old Forge, New York. How far was it from your parent’s house to Old Forge? Thirty minutes? Less?”