Tag: Godfather of the High Plains

Well, this is a crap deal.

You get the loot while I get looted…

“You know, Dad, it was tax evasion that ultimately did Al Capone in, right?”

“Well, we wouldn’t technically be ‘evading’ taxes–the casino already saw to that–we’re just presenting an ‘alternate tax situation’ before amending later. No laws shall be broken!”

Yes, that’s right, we were still trying to figure out exactly to handle the $45k of Ziplocked cash Dad had won gambling when he wasn’t supposed to be.

Now of course, you may bey wondering why he wasn’t supposed to be at that casino in the first place, and in that case it sounds like you might need to catch up on the first installment of this tale here.

And if you’re wondering where all that cash money$$$ went, you won’t want to forget to read about how Jolly Ol’ Saint Bob-olas generously blew much of it on track suits and definitely-non-mistresses, too.

As usual, I’m willing to hang out here for a hot minute while you go catch up on those…

Tax evasion-schmax evasion. I was being coerced into helping Dad out with what sure the hell felt shady af, even if it wasn’t outright “tax evasion.” Now, it wasn’t my first time handling the taxes for the family business. But then again, when I first volunteered to be our finances guy a few years earlier when I was still in high school, it was when “family business” meant “family farm,” and not “Southwest Kansas mafia.”

Apparently, though, Dad had it all figured out: for the purposes of the bankruptcy judge–the party-pooper who had poo-pooed on the idea of Dad & Daisy, my stepmom, enjoying some leisurely gambling–we were just going to create a version of our taxes that existed in the alternate timeline where he hadn’t won all that cash-ola.

Then, once ol’ Judge Dredd was satisfied that a large financial windfall hadn’t mysteriously wind-fallen upon us, then we would submit an amended tax return which more accurately (i.e ‘honestly’) reflected the pool of gold coins that one of us was swimming in.

And let me remind you that ’twas not I, the Noble and Beloved Narrator, who was drowning in greenbacks. Nope. All I had to my name for all my involvement was $100 and an surprisingly comfortable track suit–and I would have gotten the ----- track suit for Christmas, gambling winnings or not.

Now, why am I reiterating my woe-is-me situation yet again? Well, you see besides the bankruptcy judge, there was another party who would be interested in whether or not my family had suddenly came into some money: the fine folks at FAFSA.

Don’t ask me what FAFSA stands for, all I know is that, as a college student and son of a poor (on paper, at least) farmer, these mysterious folks were known to kindly dole out about $2k a semester to me. Throw in my merit-based scholarships, and it all added up to a fully-funded free ride to the esteemed Kansas State University.

But, the catch is that they would annually demand proof that your parents are poor, or else no dinero for you! And what form of proof do they require, you may be wondering? Tax returns, of course!

Fortunately, thanks to Dad’s little bankruptcy-judge-evasion scheme, I had a copy of our taxes proving that we were still wallowing in poverty.¹For the record, farmers can write off a shit-ton of farming expenses, so while we typically had $20k in taxable income, we lived a lifestyle more around $60k. So not quite poor–but we play one on TV. At the time that I had to submit documentation, that was the only copy of taxes I had, so despite my unease with the situation, I had no choice but to mislead the FAFSA peoples as well.

But you know what? Bob J.’s crazy scheme was so crazy that it just might work…

It worked! It worked! Holy scheizen-hoffen, it worked!

Well, kinda…our creative tax reporting worked out for one of us, at least. Can you guess which one? I’ll give you a hint: not the one wearing the track suit.

I mean, I guess I wasn’t completely surprised when a month or so after filing the amended tax form, that I got a letter saying that my family was too rich for FAFSA to be giving me any money. I had a sneaking suspicion the whole time that the IRS and the FAFSA people were pretty tight and would be sharing intel on little rats like me. And sure as a pile of rat feces, the Tax Man Cometh for me.

Yup, that’s right: I lost out on a solid $4k to fund my Sophomore year of college, thanks to having ol’ Kenny Rogers²That’s a clear The Gambler reference, ummmkay? for a father figure. And mind you, this was the year 2000, so that would have been like, what? Let’s see…$6,456.40 in today’s money. That was the entirety my living expenses, dammit!

But that’s okay, at least I still had that sweet track suit, right? That had to have been worth what? Sixty smackaronis, easy…

…

*ahem*

Oh, what’s that? You didn’t pick up on my mild-yet-long-lasting bitterness over the whole “dammit-Dad-share-some-of-your-wealth-with-your-lastborn-son” situation? C’mon, you had to know that was coming–after all ‘Tis The Season!

And by “Season,” of course I’m referring to Festivus (“For the rest of us!”) Season. I figured I would go ahead and get a head start on The Airing Of Grievances this year…

The point of the story is that you would be well-advised to give your kids at least a cool grand in cash if you ever happen to stumble butthole-backwards into tens of thousands of dollars while illicitly gambling.

Otherwise, you can bet your jolly derrière that 2 decades later, one of them is bound to publicly drag your a$$ for screwing them over…

I guess what I’m trying to say is: Have a Festive Festivus, Everybodies!!!

Content created on: 11 December 2021 (Saturday)

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)

It’s like they always say:

You really put the “son” in “prison”…

Something was amiss. I could just feel it in my Freshman bones.

I had been studying in my dorm lobby on a brisk fall Sunday evening, when I had heard the ominous ringing of a distant phone. Somewhere in the depths of my head, I heard a little voice whisper, “Maybe you should answer that.”

“Ha!” I laughed out loud to myself, “Like I could even hear the landline in my room from here.”

Despite how obviously ridiculous it was, I scurried down the hall to Room 410–and much to my psychic surprise–there was my phone, just ringing away. Almost scared of what awaited me on the other end of the line, I finally gathered the courage to answer it only moments before the caller gave up on me.

“Uh. Hello?”

“Son! We’re down in your lobby! We want to take you out to dinner!”

“Wait. You’re here? You were supposed to be back home in Rolla by now…”

Sh*t. Now I knew something was definitely wrong.

Sure, Dad and my stepmom, Daisy,¹Not her real name, but I use this English equivalent so you don’t think her name is pronounced “Magoo”. had been driving the 5-6 hour trip in my direction just about ever other weekend that Fall, but it was never to actually see me. Instead, they were always going to Topeka to bankruptcy court, literally trying to “save the farm.”

And I would consider myself immensely fortunate the few times they bothered going 30 minutes out of their way to visit me at Kansas State.²Kansas State University, that is.

So what was the problem? The problem was that they had already had lunch with me that preceding Friday. There was no way in hell they would ever see me twice in the same weekend…

“HO. LEE. SH*T.”

I stumbled backwards from the passenger side of Dad’s ride, trying to distance myself from the felony that was unfolding right before my eyes.

“No! Stay away from me! You guys just robbed a bank, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU?!?”

I was in shock. As Daisy was letting me into the rear of cab of the truck, she had slyly pulled out of her purse a gallon-sized Ziploc bag…bulging with Franklins, if you know what I mean.

That much cash in a see-through storage container? That was going against all of God’s natural laws. My mind simply couldn’t comprehend what it was looking at…and so of course, the only thing left for it to think it was looking at was two grown-ass adults that were about to go to prison, and their grown-ass son who was unwittingly going to be going with them.

“Uhn-uh! Nope. Y’all can’t do this to me! You know ----- good and well I’m too pretty for prison!”

“Relax, son…”

“No! You tell me what I’m looking at here, or I’m never getting in a vehicle with you again! You’re probably trying to set me up to take the fall as the getaway driver!”

They had about 10 seconds to come up with a good explanation. It wasn’t beyond me to turn my own poor-judgement parents into the Po-po, especially if they were trying to pin their illegal shenanigans on me.

“Dammit, just get in the truck, and we’ll explain everything on the way to dinner. Oh, and by the way…I’m buying…”

“So…$45k, after taxes, you say?”

Of course, I got in the truck with them. Sure, I know you’re disappointed in my lack of judgement, but c’mon: free food. I did mention that I was in college right? And–fun fact–even though almost all of my meals were provided by the esteemed Kramer Dining Hall, there was one glaring exception to this: all the cafeterias on campus would always shut down for Sunday dinner.

So, yeah, call me “food-motivated” all you want, but a steak dinner with the ‘rents would be well worth whatever potential jail time I might be facing. And that was if they convicted me.

All that drama aside, it turns out that they had not robbed a bank after all. Boy, was I relieved when they revealed that Dad had won $66,000 at the casino just north of Topeka when he had got a royal flush playing Caribbean Stud. And–this is a real hoot–when a lucky bastard wins such large sums of monies, apparently they just take the taxes out upfront and give said bastard the rest in cold, hard cash. In ----- Ziploc bags.

Oh! And another fun fact that I learned that night? Yeah, so they only had to go to bankruptcy court every other month. This whole time they had been blowing smoke up my ass as to why they never had time to see me, telling me they had these super-important all-weekend meetings with their lawyer. Which wasn’t a complete lie…if by “lawyer” you mean “Black-Jack dealer,” that is.

The point of the story is that you just might have a gambling problem if you find yourself knowingly let your child starve just so you can feed your insatiable addiction.

*checks notes*

Oh, wait. Sorry about that. There’s more.

That’s right, there’s more to this story than just my thinly-veiled attempt to earn your sympathy by playing the role of the emotionally and nutritionally neglected college student.

Turns out there was a proverbial fly in the ointment: this whole time, those two clowns had been legally forbidden from indulging in their favorite vice, as part of the Chapter Whatever agreement the bankruptcy court had drawn up for them, and into which they had subsequently knowingly entered therein.

No, no, no, this wasn’t going to come back and bet–er, I mean “bite”–them in the ass. No, not at all…

…

That was, uh…that was a “teaser,” folks. You know, a very effective technique to get you to tune in next week to see exactly whose ass gets bitten, and exactly how hard of an ass-biting it is…

(To be continued…)

Content created on: 27 November 2021 (Saturday)