Over Too Soon

The estate is massive, so it was the logical place to do this. The cars were lined up all along East Broadway, from the Bridgeport Ferry dock in “downtown” Port Jefferson, all the way up to Cliff Rd. Then along Cliff Rd to the driveway leading up to the main gate. The armed guards checking invitations and IDs. No one else was getting in.

Once inside the gate the driver was directed to a spot where chauffeured cars could wait or those who drove could park. It had to be well thought out as over a hundred cars were expected. From there the invited guests walked to the front door, where, much to their disappointment, the attendee’s invitations and IDs were checked again.

Things like “Do you know who I am?” or “I was his closest friend”… were heard more times than you can imagine, as self-important people were once again screened before entering.

The guards were polite and simply smiled and said, “We didn’t make the rules sir or madam.”

“The occasion? The reading of the will, who’s will… well… mine. You see, I’m Wes, Wes Roberts and I died just about a month ago. Don’t feel bad, I lived a great life, although it did end a little sooner than I had hoped. It was full of adventure, travel and I was able to make a difference in the lives of friends and strangers. I raised three great kids and accumulate some wealth along the way… Maybe I should back up a little and tell you how we got here before we watch today’s events unfold.”

I was a kid from Brooklyn, If you search for ‘kids, Brooklyn, 1950’s’ you’ll see pictures of what some of my childhood was like. We lived in the Scandinavian part of Brooklyn in Bayridge, right next to one of the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel. I went to PS 169 before we moved to Queens in 1958.

I took the subway to high school when we lived in Corona because we were just inside the boundary for Flushing High School. I enjoyed high school, but had no interest in college and joined the Navy, before graduating, on a deferred entrance enlistment. I went to technical schools and learned to scuba dive while stationed in Key West… Then I did the one thing my father told me to never do, I volunteered for something. It turned out to be a joint task force and was top secret. I got hurt and was sent home with an honorable discharge and no record of how I got hurt.

I had always been comfortable talking to strangers and their position in life never intimidated me, so I became a salesman. I sold calculators, computers, electronic components, and then services like assembly and manufacturing.

Along the way, I met Elizabeth “Please call me Liz.”.Her mother, Betty, was wonderful and I loved her dearly, she was fully supportive and generous in every way, but she had one issue she couldn’t get past… her past.

Her husband had cheated on her and left her with nothing, so she wanted to protect her daughter, not “in case”, but for “when” I cheated on her. So she wouldn’t give her blessing unless we had a prenuptial agreement.

I stopped by their house after work, like I always did and Betty was sitting there with someone who had the look of a lawyer. She asked me to sit and review a document she “took the liberty” of having drawn up. It was completely one-sided, it said that “When (still not if) I cheated, I walked away with only my personal possessions, all savings, all assets would be left behind, as would any real estate or children. I would pay alimony and child support until the children graduated high school.

I laughed at it and told my future mother-in-law that while I loved her and her daughter dearly, that I negotiate contracts every day. They always need to be fair to both parties… I would only sign an agreement if everything was the same for both of us. She was shocked!

“My daughter would never think of being unfaithful”.

“Excellent, then there’s no reason we can’t make the changes. Think about it and let me know what you decide.” As far as I was concerned this ambush meeting was over, I left the house before Liz even got there.

While I waited for the next meeting I read up on prenuptial agreements and New York State law. These documents had the full weight and support of the law behind them, there were never any negotiations, whatever was written, and agreed to, is what happened.

Maybe a week later, I was ambushed again, but this time it was very different. Liz had already signed the agreement and it was even-handed. Cheating was inexcusable and the cheater would leave with basically nothing, while still having the responsibilities allowed by the court and law regarding alimony and child support. I signed it, got a copy and, put it with my other contracts.

We were married in the spring and had a son the following winter. I traveled a lot, but he (and a bit later, his sister and brother), was my life. My reason for living and my reason for putting up with a wife who had changed into something, or someone, I didn’t recognize.

You see, we started out poor. My take-home pay from my first job was $74 a week. We lived in a small apartment behind a garage and I commuted into Manhattan every day. I remember coming home one day and my wife was sitting on the floor crying. When I asked, she told me she had saved for three weeks to buy a jar of apple sauce so we could have dessert after dinner on Sunday, but that when she was taking the groceries out of the car, the bag slipped, fell, and the jar broke.

As I comforted her, I swore an oath that somehow we would find a way to a better life. That way was hard work and long hours. I became the top salesman in every company I worked for and trained all the new salesman, showing them how I did my job, but I was always passed over for promotion because I didn’t have a college degree.

I kept my job, worked hard and, continued to be the top salesman in the firm… but I also started my own company. I used my knowledge and contacts to sell used calculators, office machines and, computers, then went and negotiated the purchase price, bought them for 10-15% less than I sold them, delivered them, set them up, and kept the difference.

It didn’t take long for that to be my primary source of income, so the next time they passed over me for a promotion, I quit. They were devastated, I was responsible for 40% of all the sales and simply walked away.

My income took a brief hit but bounced back quickly as I had a lot more tie to dedicate to my business. Over time, just machines became whole systems, and systems became control rooms and command centers. I had taken an idea to “sell and buy” and had turned it into a small, growing and, fairly profitable company. All my customers were in the city.

I was making enough money that we were able to move out of the tiny apartment into a nicer apartment, but the landlady was crazy and dishonest. She had her basement laundry room, hot water heater and, water usage metered to our apartment’s electric and water bill. When I approached her I said we could leave it that way if we could use the laundry also… Nope, she wouldn’t let us use them.

The next day, I said, “Let’s go”, to my wife.

“Let’s go where?”

“To find a house.”

Our son was in his car seat and we drove out the Long Island Expressway. As we went farther East, there were signs near the exits offering houses and condos for sale, we kept going until we saw a sign that said, “No money down”, with a price we could afford. I pulled off the highway at exit 61 and drove south on Patchogue-Holbrook Road to Woodgate Village and bought a condominium for $26,000. The monthly payments and maintenance fee were less than our rent.

Life changed quickly. Living in Queens meant getting to the city was relatively easy. I could even take public transportation all the way if needed. Living in Holbrook meant a 2-hour commute if I was lucky, so, while many people do it, I realized I needed to move my business to Long Island, or find a job.

Leaning on my Naval training and knowledge of electronics, I applied for and got a sales job with a small firm owned by two older men. The salary wasn’t much, but I got a company car, a gas credit card and, earned commission on my sales.

It took a couple of more years, but I became fairly successful. Companies like Ademco and Hazeltine are on Long Island and they needed and used electronic components and assemblies. It was also just about the time toy companies started introducing simple hand-held games, like pong and car racing games. Lesney, who at the time, owned Matchbox, introduced a matchbox road racing set that was very popular and we supplied all the plug-in 12-volt power transformers. Things were great, and then they weren’t.

One night after a long day, I was slouched in my office chair looking out into the night. I hadn’t bothered with the light as my eyes, and brain was tired. The office front door opened and I heard the owners speaking…

“Oh good, he’s not here.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“So far we’ve billed and collected over two million dollars above our agreed mark up, our supplier doesn’t know about…”

“But what if they find out?”

“They’re in Taiwan, it will take them weeks and by then we’ll have closed the company and filed for bankruptcy.”

“What about Wes?”

“Oh we’ll pay him some of his commission, he’s earned it. He’s a great salesman and will land on his feet. Hell, he could work for any of our suppliers and make a damn good living.”

“Okay, he deserves something, just not too much…”

They both laughed.

“So when do we do it?”

“We’ve stretched Taiwan out to just about the limit, I’ve told them that our clients are growing so fast that they are strapped for cash. We have another $600,000 or so that should be paid by the end of the month, I say we wait until then and close the doors.”

“Where does that put us?”

“At over 3 million, so a little over a million five, each!!”

They were chatting and laughing, as they left the office, imagining themselves walking away with enough money to retire on while stiffing me and their suppliers.

I was in a daze, I had no idea what I was going to do. I drove home, my wife was asleep, so I checked on my son and sat down with a small glass of tequila. I knew what I had to do. The single largest supplier was in Taiwan and they were about to lose a couple of million dollars. Taiwan is 12 hours ahead of New York, I picked up the phone.

The call didn’t go exactly how I imagined it would go… Mr. Chang was mad at me…

“I have known those men for 10 years, we built this business together, we are close personal friends, they would never do anything to harm me or my company.”

“I’m sorry to disagree, but I’m responsible for 90% of the sales in the company, they haven’t built the business, I have. The only thing they have done is to build a huge accounts payable backlog with your company. They have been paid on time, but are telling you our clients are dragging their feet… but you don’t have to take my word for it. You’ve met the team at Hazeltine, and I introduced you, over the phone, to the buyer at Lesney, call them and ask if they have paid any invoices over the last 150 days…Honestly, I don’t care if you believe or trust me, I’m doing what’s right today, and tomorrow I’m going to quit, which means I am walking away from over $100,000 in commissions. Do what you want.”

I hung up, had another drink and, went to bed.

I told my wife what was going on and she was livid,

“Couldn’t you wait until they paid you?”

“If I did that, it would have been too late, they would be in the wind and our supplier would be out millions.”

“Can’t you think about what I… we, need once in your life.”

“Doing the right thing is always the right choice. If I can’t be honest in my work, why bother.”

“You’re so self-righteous, sometimes it has to be about the money.”

I thought, “who are you?”I walked out and drove to work before I got angry.

I walked into the office and asked the guys if I could speak with them.

“Sure Wes, what’s on your mind?”

“I wanted you to know that I am resigning, effective immediately.”

“WHAT!”

“WHY?”

“Guys, I was here last night, I know what you’re planning and can’t have any part in that, even if it’s just by association.”

“You walk away without notice and you lose any commission owed to you.”

“I assumed you’d say that, honestly I would rather be able to look at myself in the mirror knowing I did the right thing. Here are the keys to the car, it’s in my space in the lot… Goodbye.”

Things were pretty cool at home, money was tight and, not having a car in central Long Island means you’re not going anywhere. My bike had the baby seat in the back, so I would ride to the grocery store and carefully shop making sure I would only have one bag. The bag was in the baby seat on the way home.

Dinners were tough cuts of meat, slow-cooked for a few hours to make them tender and, one shared potato. Pasta, was a treat, especially if there was pasta sauce.

My wife was not happy.

Maybe a month after I had quit, we were sitting down to spaghetti and meat sauce, yes we had splurged… when someone knocked on the door.I opened the door and greeted a well-dressed Chinese gentleman…

“Hello, can I help you?” I looked over his shoulder and asked.

“Has your car broken down?”

“No, no, I am here to see you, you are Mr. Roberts, correct?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I am Daniel Chang, from Taipei.”

I shook his hand and said,

“It’s nice to meet you, please come in, we were just about to have dinner, do you like pasta with tomato sauce?”

During dinner, we chatted about nothing in particular. He told us how he had found me and how he liked the way American drivers drove compared to those in Taiwan. We laughed and used the time to get to know each other. He showed us pictures of his family and talked about life in Taipei. We talked about our lives, our son, and how we met.

My wife went to bed after dinner and Daniel helped me clean up the kitchen. Then we sat down a talked business, but not until he apologized for not trusting me and his tone when I called. He also handed me an envelope and asked me to open it later.

A few hours later, we had formed a partnership, a new company, run by me to sell components, wire harnesses and, electronic assembly services to all my regular customers and any others I could find. The monthly salary was substantial and I would still receive performance bonuses based on sales and profitability.

It’s funny how things can change, literally overnight. After Daniel left, I opened the letter. There was a short note…

“Thank you, you saved our company. The loss of that much money would have bankrupt us and me personally. Please accept this check to help cover some of the commission you would have made.”

There was a cashier’s check for $50,000.

Overdue bills were paid, credit cards were paid off, and we had money in the bank. My customers were delighted to work directly with me again and saw immediate price reductions, while we still made a healthy profit. Sounds great right?

Haha, life is never that easy.

As my income increased and things became easier, my wife joined a health club somewhere and seemed to find new friends. I found out later that she drove 40 minutes each way to a club in Port Jefferson. Her new friends seemed to all be wives of doctors, lawyers, and Wall Street types.

I’m not sure if it’s all women, but my wife, who used to love my child-like sense of humor, trusted my financial judgment and liked that I enjoyed dressing casually… pretty much all the time.

Now she wanted me to change my “image” to suit “our” success and new position (what new position?).

She thought her new friends wouldn’t understand my silly jokes and to be more serious when I was around them.

She loved and married me for who I was and now wanted me to change to fit in with people I didn’t know. The real kicker was that now, we absolutely needed to move to the north shore (of Long Island). We needed a house in a neighborhood that suited our station.

“Station?” I laughed out loud.

“What station are you talking about? I’m a salesman, a broker and, a deal maker. I do import/export and we live based on the success or failure of the next deal. Seeking status and putting on airs isn’t who we are. This condo has served us well and we have another bedroom if we want another child. The cost of these units is a little depressed, but they’re coming back and I’m sure it will end up being a good investment. Isn’t it nice not to have to worry about money for a while?”

“I can’t believe how selfish you are.”

“What?”

“I want to feel like I’m on an equal footing to my friends and they all have houses on the North Shore. We should be living in Stony Brook or Port Jefferson, better yet, Belle Terre. The girls say there are some really nice homes for sale there.”

I couldn’t believe it. We were literally just getting back on our feet and she wanted more. Funny how people reveal their true selves, in feast or famine. The girl I married, the girl who would have been happy to have applesauce as a treat, now thought she “needed” a house on the North Shore.

I told her I would think about it. Naturally, she wasn’t happy.

Woodgate Village was going through a difficult time. People were moving out, they saw their investment of anywhere between $26,000 to $38,000 dropping like a stone. There were dozens of foreclosures and some folks were so angry when the bank wouldn’t help them, they trashed the unit before leaving. It got so bad that the bank and builder worked together to come up with a deal. New buyers would get a three-bedroom unit for $23,000, the company threw in a car and, a guarantee to pay their mortgage for up to 2 years, if the buyer lost their job.

I was out walking with my son and stopped by the management office…

Two hours later I had a contract for first right of refusal on any unit that came up for sale due to foreclosure. My price would be locked, $20,000 for three-bedroom units and $17,000 for two-bedroom ranches. A very good mortgage rate and approval were guaranteed, in addition, the common charges would be paid by the developer for two years… they didn’t offer me the cars.

Over the next few months, I bought 106 units, but I did use my old business model… I sold and bought. It was simple really, I placed several ads for rental units, 2 and 3-bedroom. I would show people the model homes the developer had and rent them the one they liked. The on-site banker would help with the least (and my mortgage).

I wasn’t greedy, the rent would be $100-250 over the mortgage price depending on their credit score and lease term. 90% of the tours and lease deals were done at night, so I was still able to keep up with my sales and was making serious money. My rental income was just over $18,000 a month. I hired a couple of guys to take care of any issues that came up with my units. While the condo had its own crew, my guys could solve a problem in an hour that might take a few days if they went through the maintenance department. It was well worth it as my tenants referred their friends to me, all the time.

It was hard to hide the fact from my wife that we were doing “okay” and things were getting “better”. So I broke down and bought the house in Belle Terre she had to have. It was old but in good shape. It had been hand-built by a cabinet maker. It needed some TLC and MEP (mechanical, electric and, plumbing) systems upgraded, but it was nice to have room for my son to run around as the house sat on 2 acres of mostly zoysia grass.

There was an old bird coup in the yard, I had it converted to an office and used it for my business. I visited Woodgate twice a week, went over any issues with my guys and, even helped out when needed. I visited with old neighbors and over the course of a month stopped in, at least once, to all my tenants to make sure they were happy.

I raised the rent every year, or at the end of a lease. While I didn’t have to, I stayed within the boundaries of rent control. I didn’t want to be greedy and was doing well enough, there was no need to stress people out.

The recession ended, housing prices rebounded and those condos were now a hot item. The community had tennis courts, a clubhouse and, a swimming pool included in the common charges. The grounds and homes were well kept and with my guys and half a dozen other workers being always around, it was secure. For me, the checks kept coming in, so I was happy… and then I was overjoyed…

Having her house and the freedom to spend money made my wife a little more affectionate and she became pregnant with our daughter, then oops, our second son.

She was slow in getting back to her lifestyle, but eventually found her footing again. She started taking tennis lessons and spent time at the gym.

She decided the kids needed to have regular adjustments with a boutique osteopath… apparently, “it” was all the alignment. I wasn’t sure what “it” was, but she seemed happy… and then something changed…

My wife needed special care and would go after hours for her treatments. She’d get a babysitter during the day and go for special osteopathic care. She’d have long lunches with old friends, or she simply ‘had’ to try a new restaurant in the Hamptons and be gone for hours.

It took no effort or time to find that she was having what would be the first of several affairs, but I let it go. We no longer had an intimate relationship, but we had three children. I had been traveling to Taiwan, Hong Kong and, China for years.

The import/export business was doing great and then I landed the deal of a lifetime. Westbend signed a $114 million contract with us to make all their timing devices, kitchen timers and, a few other timing pieces. The deal would put me in a new category… I took the money and ran… right back into the arms of my children. I stopped traveling and put all my attention toward their needs.

I coached all the teams, basketball, soccer, volleyball and, baseball. They didn’t all excel, but they had fun and so did their teammates. Every player had to “pass” a proficiency test in the sport. When they did, they got a patch, a “Wes’ Worriers” patch for their jackets, although most ended up in a drawer, I’m sure.

With a lot of money in investments and the real estate business doing very well, those small rent increases add up, I was now bringing in over $50,000 a month from just the condo rent. My banker friends started telling me about any foreclosure that came along.

I was buying houses all along the south shore, from Patchogue to East Hampton. In addition to my, now 120 Woodgate condos, I owned 30 properties, including a small apartment complex on Dune Road, in West Hampton Beach. Financially things couldn’t have been better.

Daniel Chang died suddenly of a stroke. I felt bad, but I couldn’t attend the funeral… The kids were at that age when being away and unsupervised could be a disaster.

My oldest son was going through a bit of a crisis. It was the spring of his senior year. Against my better judgment, I had allowed my wife to convince me that The Stony Brook School was the right choice for his high school years. He had excelled and while I found the teachers to be a combination of pompous and jealous of people who could afford to send their kids there, it felt like it was a good decision. Then something happened to change my mind.

He was now only a couple of months away from graduating with honors. The coach’s son was also a senior and asked my son to go to a party with him. The school has strict rules about drinking, and, apparently, even being close to it, but my son thought it was no big deal, he didn’t smoke or drink. So, they would go, have a little fun and come home.

Somehow, the school found out. My son didn’t think there was anything to hide. He told the “Board of Review” that he and the coach’s son went, but that he didn’t drink or smoke, but he was there and some people were drinking. My son was expelled.

The coach’s son, had several drinks and walked home tipsy, but lied. His parents either didn’t know or covered for him. So, even though there were witnesses and pictures… he was allowed to stay and graduate.

The school is supposed to be based on Christian principles. These are the worst type of Christians, they judge others harshly by a set of rules they pull out of their asses. They claim the students are “challenged to become leaders with integrity and virtue” they also say “character development is considered an essential component of the educational process” but apparently none of that includes, or applies, to the employees or their children.

As my son had already been accepted to Alfred University, in upstate New York, I suggested that he not say anything, show up as scheduled and, see what happens. In August he headed off to college, nobody seemed to notice that he didn’t actually have a high school diploma.

While at school, and without speaking to me, he signed up for ROTC and then later joined the Army Reserves. I was pissed and proud, happy, sad and, scared for him. When the gulf wars started, my worst nightmare came true… his unit was called up. His training seemed to fly by and he had a weekend pass before shipping out. It was a quiet dinner. The kids were there, but their mom was “out with friends” later claiming she had the dates mixed up in her calendar. I guessed she simply forgot he was coming home.

In the middle of dinner, my son said, “Hang on, I have something for you dad. He left for a few minutes and came back with a fairly large canvas. He said he had been working on it at school for a couple of years, and finally felt he got it right… he turned it around and it was an amazing family portrait. It was all five of us, we were smiling and had our arms around each other. He confessed that he used the images from a few different photos to create the scene.

“Dad, you have shown us how to work, play, laugh and cry and still get ahead. You have put up with more shit than I ever could, and made our lives great. You have always put family first and I know how much we mean to you, and wanted to paint this so you’d always have our happy family to look at, even when we weren’t all here.”

I cried, the picture was amazing, he had really gotten each of them at their happiest, each child was looking straight at me and we all were standing close. I took a closer look and notice that while he painted his mother smiling, and her face forward, her eyes were looking off to the side. I looked again to make sure and then looked at him, he smiled sadly and shrugged.

He, actually all of them, had known for a long time that their mother seemed to have her eye on something else.

He left for Iraq at the end of the weekend and I promised I’d come and visit. He laughed and said something like, “sure, you’ll just pop over and stroll onto a secure Army base in the desert and say hell…” He stopped, looked at his brother and sister and, said,

“What am I saying, of course, you will, haha, I’ll see you over there dad.” They all laughed.

We tried to stay in a good mood, but when he drove away, I hugged my other two as we walked into the house. I hung the picture over the fireplace in my backyard office. It made me smile whenever I looked at it.

I had made plans to visit him, had the flight booked and the credentials I needed but never got to go… you see he came home first.

We buried him in the National Cemetery in Farmingdale, his mother kept saying,

“I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

Missing his going away dinner to be with her lover wasn’t mentioned.

Tragedy can bring people together… but it can also drive people apart. I’m not really sure what they were thinking, but after John died my children seemed to drink the same cool-aid my wife had been drinking. They started acting entitled and privileged as if they had earned a promotion to be better than everyone else.

Sadly, this created and then increased the divide between us. While their mother showered them with pretty much anything they wanted, they turned their back on me saying that I was being “cheap” and “stingy”, never thinking or at least admitting that I was actually paying for everything their mother gave them.

I was at the cemetery a couple of years later and ran into a guy we called “Blade” I served in Vietnam with. He looked homeless and hungry. He told me he comes there every year on the anniversary of the ambush when his team died, it was the same date my son died.

We walked and talked and I learned that he actually was homeless. He said he had been doing high doses of Darvon and tranquilizers to help numb the pain for years but had now been clean for a few years. Even so, without a work history, veteran or not, he couldn’t get a steady job.

“Okay, Blade you’re hired!”

“What? Hired to do what?”

“I need someone I trust to keep an eye on the house and property when I’m at work, and when I can’t do it, I need someone I trust to solve problems that may come up. What do you say?”

“I say, I’m going to have to find a place to live that’s fairly close to your place.”

“Done, there’s a cottage on the property we’ll renovate it for you.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say, I need to get my things so we can get going.”

“Those are my things over by that tree.”

“Okay, grab them and I’ll get the truck.”

“Wow, a 50’s Ford pick up, nice.”

“I’m glad you like it, it’s the Property Manager’s truck.”

“Yeh? Am I going to meet them?”

“That’s your new title, “Property Manager” so this is your truck. You have a driver’s license, right?”

“Yes, ah well, it needs to be renewed.”

“Super, we’ll stop at the DMV on the way home. What do people call you now?”

“Sampson, well, Sam really, but you can still call me Blade if you want to.”

“Do you still have that 2-foot long French bayonet strapped to your thigh?”

“Haha, no”

“Okay, then Sam it is.”

Needless to say, my wife had a fit, but I didn’t care. I really did need someone to take care of things when I was away from the house… that it also messed with my wife’s plans to bring her lover(s?) to the house simply sweetened the deal.

With real estate doing well I started to invest in stocks. I liked and understood the tech business, so I bought a few of those. I hated the idea of an underground currency but was sure there were lots of people that wanted to hide their money, so I bought 15,000 BitCoins when it was still less than a dollar.

We lived off a side street in Belle Terre, but the most famous house in Belle Terre was something called The Pink House. A nearly 20,000 square foot house was built in the 1800s. It was purchased by real estate developer Sid Farber and his wife The Contessa. It has great views of Long Island sound, but I had always liked to watch the comings and goings in the harbor. So at the end of a dead-end street on the west side of Belle Terre, I quietly purchased the four houses on that street as they became available.

Belle Terre has a “part and parcel” rule that says adjoining properties owned by the same group or person, become a single property. I used that by-law, to merge all four properties and declared the street a private driveway. After some negotiations, and an anonymous gift to the Belle Terre Village “Club House Refurbishment Fund”, the board voted to allow the street to become our private driveway and merge the four lots.

I always had a kind of plan in the back of my mind, so I built big. Imagine a nice-sized hotel from the 1800s covering 2 acres, with all the modern conveniences. Surrounding the house there was something for everyone… a huge pool, tennis and, basketball courts, a 12 car garage and a stable for 8 horses and, a small coral. There was also a riding trail that meandered through the 20 acres of woods around the house.

My wife even offered to have sex with me, for a change, when she saw our new house… I declined.

The transition to the new house was fairly easy, however, Sam’s office was now in the house, right near the front door. You’d walked in and there he was off to the side. There was a fireplace in the foyer, I hung the family portrait John gave me over it so it was the first thing I saw when I came home. Sam was doing great, to me, he really became part of the family. I can only imagine how much this new arrangement interfered with my wife’s social activities, but honestly, it’s partially why I did it, and it worked. There were more “must attend” events away from the house, and more “girl’s nights out” and “shopping with the girls” planned than ever before.

You’re thinking I was a cuckold, aren’t you… don’t, I just didn’t care, for me, she stopped being my wife the first time she fooled around. We just went through the motions so the kids would have both parents around.

The business was doing great, my real estate portfolio was growing as were my investments. The Bitcoin I bought was now over a thousand each and my guru said he expected it to go way up from there.

I was in the city one day and dropped by Sotheby’s to see an old friend. She handled private estate liquidations and was very excited. One of her clients had passed away and their family was going to liquidate her entire art collection. They were working on the auction brochure when I kidnapped her for lunch.

Over lunch, she told me all about the collection and I thought, I should collect art. The right art always goes up and it’s wonderful to have that visual history around the house. She laughed when I told her I was interested, I promised her I really was and would like to make an offer on the entire collection before the auction. Again laughing she said they had been looking for a quick sale, but had turned down an offer from The Metropolitan Museum of Art for $20,000,000. I asked her for her honest opinion of what the collection was worth, she said their appraisers felt it could bring $85,000,000 at the auction. I added, “or not”.

“It’s an auction, anything can happen. What’s the buy it now price for the whole collection?”

“You’d have to be in the range of $100,000,000.”

“Tell them you have a buyer for the entire collection, delivered to my house on Long Island for $82,500,000.”

“Are you serious?”

I picked up my phone and called my Bitcoin guy. I had my phone on speaker.

“Hey, I want to borrow $83,000,000 against my coin, how soon can you make that happen.”

“Done”

She spoke, “Done, what do you mean, done.”

He answered her,

“Done, as in, approved, you can have the money within the hour.”

“Thanks, I’ll let you know where to send it.”

I hung up and said,

“Please make the offer.”

A month later a world-class art collection was delivered to the house. My friend came out to supervise the offloading. When I asked her to supervise the hanging of the painted collection and the placement of the statuary, she was delighted. She quietly told me that she had made a high six-figure commission and was named ‘salesperson of the year’. I was happy for her and delighted with the collection.

After the art, I started collecting all sorts of things. My wife thought I was crazy and wanted to know where all this money was coming from, I simply said,”I borrowed it.”

Over the next few years, I collected antique cars, a few world war two planes and, a boat that looked like an ocean liner. After my time in the Navy, I just don’t feel comfortable on smaller boats. It’s a combination of the sound of the engines and the motion that reminds me of being on the north Mekong, so I got the biggest boat I could find. It’s over a hundred meters long, has 6 decks with an enclosed bridge, there’s a pool, hot tub, helicopter and, the tenders are 2 Cigarette boats with triple inboard 454’s.

When Bitcoin hit $50,000 I sold it all, paid off all the loans and, still put over $300 million into a trust. I sold all the income-producing real estate, but kept our 4 houses, and put another $200 million into the trust. That’s when Sam came to me and asked what was going on.

“Sam, there’s there no easy way to say this, but I don’t have much time. The doctor says at the most another few months.”

“Shit, why didn’t you say something?”

“By the time I knew it was too late. All those trips over the last two years were me trying to find a cure.”

“Shit, I thought you were just trying to get away from your wife and what she was doing to your kids.”

“They gave in to the dark side of greed and status, but I raised them to be better than that, they’ll come around, I just hope I live to see it.”

“Speaking of coming around, I noticed you getting friendly with the new housekeeper/cook my wife hired. Is there something going on there I need to know about? Hmm?”

“Hey what can I say, we clicked. She’s a great lady, widowed too young when her husband died while working with Save The Children.”

“What? Really, how?”

“He went on a mission to rescue a truckload of young women, girls really, who were being sold into slavery. They were runaways and immigrant teens who came here alone. Well, they saved the girls, but he was killed during the gunfight.”

“That’s awful, but I’m glad you two found each other.”

“We’re taking it slow and we have to be careful, who knows what your wife would do if she found out.”

“Okay, mums the word, not that I say more than a few words to her majesty on her way out to her many meetings.”

“Ha, meetings.”

“I know, she actually thinks I don’t know or don’t care.”

While we tried any reasonable treatment, I was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. On the night I asked the family to get together, yep, you guessed it, my wife wasn’t available. Of course, she was ever so sorry and would make it up to me… blah, blah, blah.

“No worries, this doesn’t have anything to do with you and shouldn’t affect your life too much.”

I had invited Sam and “Cookie”, whose real name I don’t believe I ever knew.

We sat around the dining room table and I told them the latest, I would be dead within a month or two. Sam knew, Cookie got emotional and the kids went from, OMG, to “what, what, really”, to finally, something close to genuine affection and loss.

After dinner I spoke to the kids for a long time, I told them how disappointed I was in seeing them become so shallow and self-absorbed. To their credit, they took it and admitted that they had got caught up in the status and position their mother was preaching and admitted that they kind of liked the attention and perks of being wealthy.

Right on schedule, I passed away quietly. A month later the cars were lining up as invited guests arrived to hear the reading of the will.

There is quite a crowd, of course, the kids and my loving wife, she made this meeting, Sam and Cookie, of course. Friends, politicians who stood for the values I believed in, relatives, both near and distant, and local business people, people that owned places I frequented and where I felt welcomed all the time.

All in about 200 people were there and waiting…

Everyone was gathered in the ballroom, Sam and I used to play tennis in there when it was raining. A small stand was in the center at one end with a podium, or is it a lectern? I can never remember and a couple of chairs. My attorney stood and people quieted down…

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to celebrate the life of a great and generous man, who left us way too soon, and for the reading of his will. You may have noticed the invitations are of different colors. They are actually color-coded. Each color represents a dollar amount. You will notice that the amounts are not that large, that is only to simplify the bidding. You see around you photos of Mr. Robert’s collections and holdings. Each photo has a price on it. Take as an example the 1943 PBY Floatplane at $10. A plane of that vintage, in that condition, is well worth $2 million. So you see, your money goes pretty far if you’re careful.”