by M. Matheson
~~~~0~~~~
Marvin Battles and Joe Skives rode along in somewhat strained silence until they hit the curb bump of the driveway. Marv had surreptitiously texted Maggie about bringing Joe home. She stood in the driveway with her best and warmest smile.
Marv swore he could hear a slow rusty mechanical creak as Joe craned his way.
“Now that you have it all, watch your back. Watch it very carefully. There’s more to my story than you would have ever found out on your own, not to mention you couldn’t have cared less what happened to me.”
“You’re right, Joe. I didn’t give a sh—” Maggie’s appearance at the passenger side stopped the words in his throat, and Marv made a sound like a little bird choking on a seed.
Maggie pulled open the passenger door and greeted Joe with a warm hug and no apparent notice of his foul smell. She ushered him towards the house and Marv trailed closely behind. Over the past six months, Joe had become acclimated to exhaust fumes and desperate filth. The smells of a real home at Christmas wafted up into his face.
Upper middleclass surroundings were what he had grown up in and the ones he had nurtured in his own home, when he had one. Put out on the streets, he realized how habituated he’d become to his own comfort; he had lost all sense of his own affluence. Marv, though, never would get used to it; he flushed with emotion nearly every time he walked into his amazing home to his amazing wife.
Maggie had somehow put together a large dinner on short notice: ham, turkey, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, tureens full of mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing. Marv marveled at his wife’s effort and generosity.
Standing at the head of the table, Joe closed his eyes; he turned his face heavenward and drew deeply of the warm smells before opening his eyes.
“I thought I might never see anything like this again.”
Marv and Maggie held hands, squirming awkwardly in the presence of his palpable appreciation. Joe excused himself and took a weak stab at cleaning up before they ate.
Pushing himself back from the table, a warm satisfied look filled Joe’s face.
“I know I was a jerk and everyone hated me, but no one could see that my balls—sorry Maggie—my balls were in a vise.” There was a quizzical look on Maggie’s and Joe’s faces.
“I figured as much. You’re clueless, aren’t you?” The trio moved towards the great room and its huge stone fireplace as they talked.
Marv stoked a dying fire, and Maggie placed mugs of hot cider in each man’s hands.
To the right of the fire, Joe struck a pose like the old VP about to make a speech. He tipped his warm cider towards the couple, and they took a place on the loveseat before he spoke.
“I want to tell you a story.”
By the time Joe finished, the mood had turned somber and Marv slowly shook his bowed head. “I had some nagging worries, but I too had become comfortable with the luxury of living like this.” He spread his hands. “I didn’t want to lose it all.”
Silence blanketed the room and they stared like catatonic monks into the fire.
Marv was the first to break the dead calm. “So it started to unravel for the Lahey brothers and you took the fall...”
Joe held out his hands wide and pointed back towards the suit he’d worn for months now.
“And here I am!” His laugh, full of irony and pain, lightened the air. “I’ve lost every dime I ever had, and my family too. There are criminal charges hanging over my head and if any cop in the country runs my name, he’ll lock me up with a $500,000.00 bail. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t true.”
Maggie said, “Besides that, just think; you’re famous!”
When the laughing died down, Marv said, “We have to do something.”
“Yeah, right—it’s gone, man. This is what I am now: a mumbling vagrant on the run.”
Maggie skooched up tighter to Marv and leaned over as if Joe was hard of hearing. “We’re going to help you, Joe,” and tapped his knee.
She recounted their own story, including the horrid beginning of the end on that last day in the hotel room, sitting with a gun and seriously ready to end it all. Joe was out of breath just listening and Marv was stunned; she had never before bared so much of her own story, from the childhood abuse to walking the streets.
"Listen guys," said Joe. "I don't want to drag you both down with me. What you have here is real nice. Why risk it?"
"Well, Joe," I said. "How long will it be before they use me as the next scapegoat and slit my throat?"
"Marv, my run lasted nearly fifteen years and you're just getting started. Why not run until you see it coming?"
"Why, Joe? Why—because of you. I wouldn’t sleep again, knowing you were stuck out on the streets while we're sitting fat and happy, even if I did hate your guts. Not one day more. No, sir."
"Thanks, guys, but—do you still hate me? I couldn’t blame you much. I’ve done some pretty crappy stuff to you."
"Joe, shove your humble BUT straight up your...!"
They laughed until Marv started his weird snorting, and then laughed some more.
Maggie returned from making up the guest room and, in motherly take-charge fashion, said, "Joe, march your dirty carcass up the stairs, first door on the right, take a shower, and get a good rest. The room is yours as long as you want. Please stay at least through Christmas! Is it a deal?"
"Deal..." He slowly marched upstairs like a defeated little boy.
Joe stepped into the guestroom and felt salty tears drain into his throat; he sat on the edge of the bed and allowed himself a good sobbing cry, the first since he’d stepped onto the streets, penniless.
There was a nice warm queen-sized bed covered in a bright Christmassy down comforter, which had already been turned back, and a loose pile of pillows to match. A large flat-screen TV was mounted high up on the wall across from the foot of the bed. He stared in further amazement at a completely outfitted office in the corner; printer, fax, phone, and all. The bathroom was stocked with fluffy white towels; a pair of plaid pajamas sat folded on the counter.
Joe opened the door and hollered downstairs, “You trust a bum from the street with all this stuff?”
“We recovering hookers, pimps, and thieves can get stupid like that. Now take a shower and shut up.”
“I suppose next you’ll bring me hot cocoa and tuck me in.”
“Don’t wait up for it.”
Just to see if it was live, Joe powered up the computer, which instantly opened a Chrome browser; he idly typed a string of letters into the search bar and Google returned a thousand hits. The beginnings of a big idea peppered his brain.
It was Saturday morning before the home-stretch leading to Christmas and Marv was off work until well after New Year’s 2015. Sitting at the kitchen table, they watched the river go by as they sipped the first coffees of the day. Simultaneously, they looked up at the clock; it was 8:30 and they hadn’t heard a peep from Joe since his crazy snoring stopped halfway through the night and Marv had gone to check on him.
“Do you think he’s still here, Marv? He might have bailed ...”
Marv took a large mug of coffee and warm Danish up to Joe’s room. Through the door, he heard the laser printer going, and really pumping out some sheets, he thought.
After a long minute, Joe answered the door, but made no attempt to hide his work. His grin was crystalline and a spark filled his eyes. Behind him, graphs and charts peered out from neatly ordered stacks of paper that littered the room. When the fax machine sprang to life, they both watched as it spit out a pile of text-covered sheets.
With a bite of Danish still in his mouth, Joe held the door. “Thanks for the coffee and roll, but would you mind a whole lot if I stayed in and worked for a while?”
“Well... Okay, no problem. Umm, take your time.” He was sure – well, fairly sure – that Joe wasn’t the crook the Laheys said he was. Nevertheless, what homeless guy has people who would fax him reams of text, and on Saturday?
“How’s he doing, hon?” Maggie asked.
“Great, apparently; he’s put your old office to work. All the machines are humming and he looks like a new man.”
Joe came downstairs a little after ten o’clock, wearing a Cheshire grin and carrying two neat piles of printed sheets. He nonchalantly asked for more coffee, pulled up a chair, and neatly arranged the load near his place at the table. After Marv and Maggie broke out of a curious stupor, she scrambled some eggs, fried up thick slices of bacon, and toasted some English muffins.
“This sure is a nice place you got, Mac – sorry – Marv. Yep, sure is.” Joe’s fingers laced across his chest and he leaned back in his chair, watching boats go lazily by on the Sacramento River. He was light years from the beaten bum of yesterday.
They ate and talked about families, sports, and old company gossip, just as if they’d been relatives or friends for years. Then Marv turned a friendly grin towards his former boss. “You know...I have box seats for the Kings and they’re playing tonight.” Joe sniffed – those were his old seats – but he just smiled, nodded, and idly drummed his fingers on the stack of papers he’d brought.
“Whatcha got there, Joe?”
“Our future, Marv—” and he spun his chair toward the kitchen, pointing with both index fingers, “—and Maggie’s!” He spoke with the flair of a maestro conducting a symphony. And, by the time he was done, the two large stacks were divided up into several smaller, very neat piles; this was Joe’s back-to-normal professional manner. Marv and Maggie were astounded. How could Joe stay so calm amidst such a great revelation?
It would be impossible just to sit back and do nothing now. This discovery required action not only morally but to vindicate Joe and protect Marv and Maggie's future.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Marv winced and stared at the high-beamed ceiling. “You know...I’ve got the money to pull it off, Joe.” All of a sudden, he was willing to sink his net worth into a plan proposed by a accused and indicted criminal.
“I do too—now,” said Joe. Marv was surprised but not unbelieving. Joe might have been a jerk, but everyone knew he was a genius, except maybe the Lahey brothers.
“I just needed the right opportunity, and you gave it to me, Marv. I learned some hard lessons on the streets, worth more than all the money in the world could buy. I learned about love and brutality. The corporate world is so much more brutal than the streets will ever be.”
They all nodded in agreement.
“A couple months ago, I watched as a man with one leg helped a man with half a mind lift a shopping cart stacked with worthless junk over a curb. They handled it as if it were priceless crystal. It was a huge lesson, a real eye-opener. Those booze- and drug-addled men had something I was missing. They cared about one another’s worthless stuff.
“Fear of losing—” Joe grimaced and shook his head as if agreeing with himself, “—that’s what drove me to become the person everyone hated. So I stayed on the streets – alone, cold, and broke, trying to learn what I needed. You guys are my saviors sent from God... the final lesson. What you guys have done, broke me, man."
“Remember, Joe; this was all Maggie’s idea. I hated your guts.”
“Yeah, but you listened to her.” Joe beamed broadly as if to say a silent gotcha, man.
“What about your family, Joe? What happened to them?” asked Maggie with the concern of a parent whose child has just returned from years of self-destruction.
His bright smile vanished. “The charges against me blindsided us all. I was bewildered, but not completely surprised by the fabrications. My wife bought it hook, line, and sinker, and there was no way I could prove my innocence at the time. Perhaps she had found her way out. We weren't doing too well and she had already threatened to leave several times. She’s back in Unknown, Tennessee with her relatives. I'll never find her; nobody will until she wants to be found. They’re all a bunch of moonshining hillbillies.”
“I'm so sorry, Joe.” Maggie reached to pat his hand.
“Well, boys and girls, we have this plan now, don't we?” SILENCE “Well? Don't we?” The room fell into an awkward silence as Marv took serious consideration of Joe's plan. He picked up the sheaf of papers and fanned through them. It was concise and seemed foolproof.
"What's our first step, Joe?"
“Protection; we have to protect what we have.”
Maggie pushed Marv aside. “I thought you said FOOLPROOF?”
“C’mon, Maggie; nothings foolproof.” He gave her his I'm-in-charge gaze.
“First, we need all our substantial assets held in a trust. We need to own nothing but control everything. I've already done mine; just need the forms notarized and returned from the state. I have someone high up who owes me, so we’ll have a fast track. He'll do yours too. Here are the forms; I filled out what I know. The rest is housekeeping and transferring assets. Oh, and we need to establish an LLC held in trust by both of us. Let’s call it the Christmas Trust. The papers are here for that too.”
Each of their respective trusts opened a trading account with a brokerage, and each established significant long stock positions in Lahey and Lahey and then sold enough option spreads to cover themselves, plus make money, lots of it, when the stock price plummeted.
Shortly, their respective trusts would be firmly in place; they would fill the days leading up to Christmas donating their time and thousands of dollars to feeding the homeless and even help a few struggling charities stay afloat with direct cash infusions from the Christmas Trust along with their combined corporate expertise. More than a few homeless patrons thought they recognized Joe, but refused to believe he was the same man they knew on the streets; they left it at that.
The Monday before Christmas, Lahey and Lahey opened weakly, losing a dollar off the normally steady $6.25. Their options gained twice what they lost on the slump and they sold their long positions along with buying back their Naked options. The Battles and Joe Skives had each netted nearly a million dollars and all before lunch; it was added to the Christmas Trust.
Sitting at the kitchen table eating homemade cinnamon sweet rolls and drinking coffee, Joe picked up his newly acquired cell and called the Sacramento Bee newsroom and asked for Em Mendelssohn. She had been investigating the Lahey Brothers for years, convinced they were somehow behind her sister’s death. Em’s sister En had died a slow, painful death from cancer brought on by carcinogens in the local water supply. The Laheys had been dumping in secret upriver from her little mountain town for more than a decade.
Em pulled in the driveway twenty-three minutes after Joe placed his call.
Joe told his story, and Em asked, "You're a fugitive, Joe, and a bail-jumper. How the hell do I package that?"
“I haven’t a clue. You’re the expert,” said Joe.
Em was a severe-looking woman in her forties; her face and body were all sharp angles and her mouth was locked in a constant grimace from the tons of bitterness she carried for much too long. Her raven hair was pulled back in a matronly bun that tugged at her face. She might have been pretty if she would have just lightened up.
Joe pushed a bound stack of twenty sheets of paper towards her; on top were a signed affidavit and DVD video recording made sometime before he was charged with wrongdoing. Em's first glance at an outline of the facts was enough to cause her to stay and read the rest. Maggie kept filling her cup with coffee as she silently pored through the pages, taking an occasional note on a legal pad.
“Why didn't you bring this out before it cost you your life?”
“I was ready to, but the company got the jump on me. It was just bad luck, I guess. They had a very elaborate, nearly foolproof setup against me. They had worked on their scheme long before I made VP, or should I say, ‘they made me VP.’” Marv shivered to think what could have happened to him and Maggie if he never stopped to pick up those Choco-Santas.
Em said, “You were great news for nearly a month.”— SILENCE.
“Are you ready
to face the sharks again?”
“YOU BETCHA!”
Em's features relaxed.
Her story featured on the Channel 13 News that night. The Lahey brothers had been in collusion with several companies owned in part by the Chinese government and operating in Northern California. Their main business was not steel fabrication and lumber as it appeared, but toxic waste disposal.
By 9:30 AM Eastern on Tuesday, pre-market trading had pounded Lahey and Lahey two bucks lower to $3.25. The financial news outlets all carried exposés of Joe’s previous trumped-up charges and video clips of him digging in a dumpster and panhandling on the street; he had no idea where they got pictures like that. Some stations carried short, grainy clips of him being forcefully evicted from his former home. Em did a fabulous job of painting the Laheys as murderous monsters and Joe as the victim. By 10:00 Pacific Time that day, the FBI filed a long list of charges against the Lahey brothers and asked the district judge for a full and immediate exoneration of Joseph Skives. One hour later, warrants were drawn up and a train of black Suburbans headed to the Laheys’ homes and offices. By noon, the brothers sat in adjoining cells in the basement of the Federal Building in downtown Sacramento. Every TV and cable station in the nation chattered with tidbits of the stories, pumping up viewership for prime time. It was going to be a great show.
At 3:00 PM, Joe and Marv stepped into the driveway of the riverfront house. Em led the way; they were immediately engulfed by reporters, like a flock of seagulls fighting for scraps of bread.
Joe leaned over, confident as hell, and whispered into Em’s ear, “I’m sure glad you’re running point.”
“I am the News Mistress.” She playfully jabbed back at Joe with a bony elbow and gave him a stoic thanks. No one had ever seen her so happy; a change so sudden and drastic that she now passed for pretty good-looking. “I’m glad these bastards are stopped cold and hope the Chinese government gets out of our backyard. Although, it won’t do much for those kids with cancer and birth defects, and won’t bring my sister back. At least there won’t be any more preventable cases. I’m sure my sister En is smiling down on us.”
“En? You’re kidding, right?” said Joe. She shook her head. “How many more siblings you got? Twenty-four?” They all cracked up right on camera.
A producer shouted, “Cut that! C’mon, guys; you can’t look so happy. Viewers won’t like it.”
By the end of the day, Lahey and Lahey was trading with the penny stocks, hovering around just inside of a nickel. The Christmas Trust, along with their own personal trusts, picked up controlling interests in the company for a song. Within the week between Christmas and New Year’s, they would start cleaning the damage.
Against conventional wisdom, public interest and confidence in the company soared along with the stock. At the closing bell on Friday, Battles and Skives LLC had replaced the Lahey name and the stock closed at $6.75. They had capitalized big time.
Now there was more than enough money to set up annuities for the sickened kids and grieving families, do the cleanup and get the plants running clean, straight and prosperous. Full time medical would be set up on-site in the afflicted communities and those willing to leave would be well set up elsewhere in new homes without mortgages.
Joe, Maggie, and Marv had been working so hard they nearly missed Christmas.
At least a hundred cards were precariously balanced on limbs of the perfect tree, which would have fit well in a Saturday Evening Post or Kincaid painting. The wonderful aroma of fresh cinnamon rolls filled the air, and they sat around the tree in their bathrobes, steaming cups of cocoa in their hands.
“Sorry there are no gifts, Joe,” Maggie’s face looked like the girl who missed getting her Barbie Dream House.
“Are you kidding me, Mag? With all that’s happened, you’re worried over gifts.” Joe reached to the tree and plucked a plain gold foil embossed card. He flipped it open and read the handwritten note aloud:
“We’re so happy for you and your families.
Merry Christmas
The Obamas: Sasha, Malia, Michelle, and Me”
His head shook as he tapped the card against his knee, lost in wonder at the past week’s earth-shattering changes. Much of his life had just come sliding into home base, and he thought for a while that would be enough; Joe wished and hoped he could scrub the loss of his family from his heart.
Maggie pulled a small box from the pocket of her silk robe. “Oh, yeah—I almost forgot. There is one present, but it’s not from us.” She simultaneously produced a ringing cellphone. A salty pearl formed in the corner of her dark almond-shaped eye, but she sniffed it away as she extended both to Joe.
“What’s going on, Maggie? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Joe, I’m REALLY okay. Just answer the phone, you idiot!”
Even before he got the phone to his ear, he recognized Hunter’s desperate voice. A million thoughts crashed in on Joe all at once; she had run out on him at the worst moment of his life, and now that he was suddenly flung to the top of the national spotlight, she called him, crying.
“Joe—Joe—Joseph David, answer me. I can hear you breathing.” That was what she always called him when her emotions reached extremes, good or bad.
In a near whisper, afraid his voice would crack and he would cry, Joseph David answered, “I'm here—” Heat flooded his face and his ears were hot and red. “—Hello Hunter…I'm not sure what to say here.”
“I know, I know… It's okay; take your time. It really is good to hear your voice. Are you really all right? I saw the videos of you on the street; I never imagined. I'm sorry, Joe—So sorry—”
His arm arched back and he launched the phone. It sailed across the room and into the fireplace, landing with a hiss, sputter, and great poof of ash. The smell of burning plastic and black smoke filled the room.
Joe threw his shoulders back, popped his neck, and looked at Maggie. “Sorry about your phone.”
She responded with a sniffing laugh. “It was your phone, Joe...”
Marv couldn't contain himself; his last sip of coffee went spraying out across the room.
Maggie once again extended the small box to Joe. “C’mon; will you just take it, you dumb oaf!” Those epithets somehow made him feel even more like family. With his head held down and peering over his perfect straight nose, he took the box.
It was small enough to hold in his hand and was wrapped in shiny green and red striped paper; a perfect job like the store would do. There was a tiny folded tag which said,
To Joe
Fr. Hunter
For a moment, he thought to pitch it in the fire along with his phone, but figured his new friends—his real family—had gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this, so he opened it. It was a velvet-covered ring box, and he was deathly afraid to open it, but he did, and just let it lie open in his lap between his legs for a long time. He stared down into it, as if waiting for it to tell him his future.
A slow mutter rose from his lips. “I just don’t know. How can I be sure she won’t run out on me if the cards get stacked too heavily against me again?”
“You can’t,” Marv said. “Mag and I have both done things that are unforgivable, things that neither you nor Hunter would ever in your wildest dreams conceive of doing. Yet, here we are. We can’t erase those memories; we have to live with them when they pop up in our hearts. I do know if I would have left her or vice versa, we wouldn’t be here in this house, talking to you about it. We’d be a statistic. Don’t ask me to explain it, but somehow, those monstrous things have made us stronger.
“So, what’ll it be, big boy?” Marv held out his phone to Joe.
Joe wiped the tears from his eyes with the heels of his hands, but it wasn’t enough to staunch the flow. Maggie passed him a dish towel.
“I’m alright; just give me a minute.”
Joe took the phone and asked Maggie, “What’s the number?”
The End
~~~~o~~~~
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and offer my warmest wishes for you and your family this holiday season. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my tale.
M. Matheson
About the Author
Other than dying a slow pleasurable death from the incurable disease of writing stories, I am a 58 year-old retiree, father and husband. After having raised four daughters who are all well into adulthood, my wife and I are now bringing up a very active three-year-old boy. We live in Sacramento, California.
Early in life I was sidetracked by a maniacal and dysfunctional lifestyle, but found later that those same troubles made for great storytelling. I’ve been blessed to take a wide bite out of life from motorcycle outlaw, jail chaplain to Pastor and missionary evangelist. I have seen a lot and traveled a lot; many things I wished I'd never seen or done and some I can't wait to do again, but each and every scrap makes fantastic fabric from which to weave a grand tale.
My greatest joy would be that you simply enjoyed reading this tale.
Merry Christmas,
Mike Matheson
My first novel ‘No More Mister Nice Guy’ is available at major online retailers.
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