Me: “OMG, we’re rich now!”
Dad: “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, Kemosabe…?”
“So…is this dirty money, then?”
I flipped and flopped the big ol’ Ziploc bag full of hundred dollar bills back and forth in my hands, marveling at that the raw power I could feel radiating from it.
It’s not every day that your dad and stepmom show up at your dorm room unannounced, casually flaunting $45k in cold hard cash. And it’s also not every day that you’re relieved to learn that they didn’t commit a felony in the process of acquiring such sums of monies.
It was, however, last week that I told you all about how I ended up here, so if you’re not familiar with what I’m going on about, take a moment to go back and read Part One of this tale here.
Go on and git now–I’ll wait why you catch up.
…
…
Okay, so where were we? Oh yeah, the whole “dirty money” question.
So as I had mentioned previously, while they had been telling me they had been coming up to Topeka to go to bankruptcy court, they had actually been spending much more time at the nearby casino instead…
…doing the one thing the bankruptcy court had forbade them from doing: gambling.
The problem with gambling, you see, though, is that run the risk of actually winning a shit-ton of money. And that done gone and did happen to ol’ Dad.
So while it wasn’t exactly illegal money, let’s just say it wasn’t the “cleanest of currencies,” ya?
“Now, son, you can’t tell anybody about this, you hear? The bankruptcy judge will plow our farm in the back 40 if he gets wind of our gamblin’ winnings–if you know what I mean.”
*sigh*
“Yes, Dad, I get the sodomy reference. Very clever. Well, as far as your ‘mum’s-the-word’ request goes, l suppose that I wouldn’t be opposed to accepting a tidy sum of hush-money–if you know what I mean.”
“Well, you’re lucky your Old Man is a rather generous soul–here’s a $100 for your troubles…”
A down-payment. Why was I so foolish to think that that $100 was just a down-payment on my silence? Why would I even dare to hope that over time, Dad would shower my with Franklins like I was a stripper at a high-end strip club?
Dang, I was naive back then.
I mean I held up my end of the bargain–I didn’t tell a soul about that cash that we had hidden in our basement crawl space for the entirety of Christmas break. Sure, I pulled it out every now and then just to look at it and feel it in my hands.
And now that I reminiscence over those fond times over two decades past, I vaguely remember maybe–just maybe–showing off the cash to my two hometown homies, Giakob (pronounced ‘Jacob’) and Big Mike. But that was it. I swear.
Dad, on the other hand, might as well have been the Oprah of Southwest Kansas: “You get a car! You get a car! And you get a car! EVERYBODY GETS A CAR!!!”
Well, he wasn’t handing out cars, but he was handing out large amounts of cash all willy-nilly.
Now I’ll admit a part of me greatly admired his generous spirit, and was proud to call him “Dad.” My favorite example of his unbridled generosity was when he gave a $1,000 to a friend of Daisy’s (my stepmom), so she could give her three young kids a decent Christmas. That holiday season had been particularly rough on them, it being their first one without their dad around and all.
However…there was just one slight problem with that whole act of unadulterated kindness: Daisy didn’t see it so much as Dad “providing a Christmas Miracle for 3 poor, fatherless kids,” as much as “my husband just gave a suspiciously large amount of cash to my much younger, rather attractive, and newly-single ‘friend.'”
Oh man, was she so pissed.
Speaking of admitting things, I also have to admit that I found it hilarious that she grilled him to no end over this perceived act of, um, “adulterated kindness.”
Of course, my ability to engage in schadenfreude1If you’re not familiar with the term, first click here, and then here. might have been lightly fueled by the fact that each of these youngsters were seeing ~$233 more of Dad’s loot than his own ----- biological2Oh, and just to keep the record set straight, I’m pretty certain that none of these kids were biologically his, in case you were wondering. Like, 98% sure, I am. son was.
And I know what you’re thinking: “Certainly you got a pretty sweet Christmas present that year, right? He indubitably made up for the lack of pre-inheritance, with a new car, yeah? Well, at least new leather seat covers for your Ford Taurus SHO? Please tell me he at least gave you that.”
And to answer your questions in order: “Nope”, “no”, “negatorary”, and “ah hell nah.”
Instead I got…a ----- track suit. I shit thee not.
Silly me, though. I completely missed the whole Mafia-of-Southwest-Kansas vibe.
It wouldn’t be too long before I would come to understand what that track suit really represented: Ol’ Bob Corleone3Yes, that is indeed a Godfather reference. was making me an offer I couldn’t refuse…
“To be continued…”
There. I said it. No need to mince words when it comes to letting you, Dear Reader, know that somehow I have managed to not quite get to the point of the story this time. Though I’m pretty sure I’ll make it there next time. I pinky-promise.
In the meantime, I suppose I should throw you a bone and leave you with a mildly pithy point of the story: *ahem* The point of the (sub)story is, for the love of your marriage, don’t be throwing cash at another woman without your wife’s blessing first.
I mean, jeez, Dad, I know your heart was in the right place, but dang, if that’s not screaming “take one guess who my mistress is,” I don’t know what is.
Content created on: 3/4/5 December 2021 (Fri/Sat/Sun)
Footnotes & References:
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