Jacob was born in a comfortable upper middle class neighborhood,
the son of a successful mechanical engineer and a stay at home mom.
While he would never have thought himself rich, Jacob enjoyed the
privileges of affluence.
Jacob came to love the house of his youth. It was not the largest
house around, or the nicest, but it was home. Jacob had his own room
with a big loft bed. Jacob's father had a big den he would retire to
when he had visitors. They would come out hours later laughing
heartily and smelling of cigar smoke. Jacob dreamed of the day he would join his father and the other men there.
Out in the back his mother planted flower beds with tulips for the
spring and lilies for the summer. His dad, the engineer built Jacob a
tree-house on the big tree in the back yard. It was the best
tree-house anyone in the neighborhood had ever seen. Jacob loved
sleeping out there on warm summer nights.
Young Jacob was a model student. He excelled at mathematics,
and dreamed of being an engineer like his father. He had lots
of friends and was decent at sports for a math wiz. He
gained a reputation as a wrestler. Jacob was happy.
One night at age sixteen, Jacob's life of comfort ended. The trucker didn't even see Jacob's dad until his car was careening off the bridge. The paramedics said he was probably dead before he hit the water. In the aftermath, Jacob and his mother were
shocked to learn that his father had been secretly
harboring a gambling addiction. He had gambled away most of their
savings. Six months before he died, Jacob's father had cashed in his
life insurance policy to pay off some gambling debts. Jacob and his
mother were left with nothing. They had to sell the house of his
youth and move into a small apartment. Jacob had to go to a new
school where he had no any friends. He missed his father.
He missed wrestling. He missed the house.
Jacob graduated high school, but with no money for college, Jacob
took a job working construction. He spent long hours laying concrete
block in the hot sun. He continued to live with his mother and
helped pay rent on their meager apartment.
A few days after Jacob turned 21, he received a letter in the mail
from an attorney he had never heard of. Evidently, there was some
unresolved matter from his father's will. Jacob waited a full week before he darkened the door of the law
offices of Whitby, Whitby and Morse. When he told the
secretary his name, she gave him a very startled look and immediately
ushered him back to an empty meeting room. A few minutes later
a kind-looking old man entered the room.
"Arthur Whitby," the man extended his hand. "I was a
friend of your father's. You probably don't remember, but I saw you
at the funeral."
Jacob said nothing.
"You know your father was a gambler. He just couldn't pass up
a good bet."
"Yes, I know." Jacob replied a little harsher than he
had intended. "He lost everything we owned. We have nothing
thanks to him."
"Well, he didn't always lose. About eight years ago he
came into my office. He had placed a risky bet on a horse, but it paid
off. At ten to one odds, he had made over $200,000 in one day. He knew his
weakness, his likelihood to gamble all his winnings away, so he came
to me and had me set up a trust, for you. According to the terms of the trust, he could not legally touch
the money, and it would transfer to you automatically at age 21.
Jacob was dumbfounded. "So I have $200,000 waiting for me in
a trust?"
"Not exactly. You see, your father was still a gambler at
heart, and this was his last chance to play the odds on the money.
He invested it in some up-and-coming tech stocks. I told him it was foolish, but that was the only way he would part with
the money. It turns out, those stocks did well. In fact, the value
has more than tripled in eight years. I can write you a check today
for $680,000 dollars."
Jacob quit his construction
job the next day. He enrolled in the engineering program at a local
university for the next fall. Then he looked up the current
owner of his old house. He still loved that house. Jacob paid almost
double what it had been sold for, but he moved in two weeks later.
Jacob graduated from engineering school at the top of his
class and was immediately hired by the same firm his father had
worked for. He was successful and was soon married. A couple of
years later, he had a son of his own. He called him Jude.
But Jacob's life was not all rosy after that. Jacob not only
inherited his math skills from his father, he also inherited his
proclivity toward gambling. Like his father, Jacob tried to keep his
addiction hidden, but it soon overwhelmed him. In spite of a very
good paying job, Jacob was shuffling bills each month, paying off the oldest of them. He put a mortgage against his house to pay off the
gambling debts.
When Jude was six years old, the bank foreclosed on the family's
house. His parents got divorced soon after and Jude grew up with his
mother. Jacob never kept a steady job after that. He moved from place to place, sometimes it was a friend's couch. Jacob finally took his own life
when Jude was 14.
Twenty minutes away from the house Jacob grew up in, Arnie grew up in a small house with his father, a factory worker. His mother
had left them when he was four years old. Arnie's house was always hot in the summer. His father could not afford to put in air-conditioning. There were no flowers in the yard, not even much grass, as the soil was contaminated. When the wind picked up in the summer, it blew clouds of dust from the yard into Arnie's open windows.
Arnie never had a lot of things, but Arnie had learned the value
of hard work early. He
operated a successful lemonade stand when he was nine. His natural skills at business served him well, and by the age of 19 he was managing a
restaurant. Two years later, Arnie went into business for himself. He
owned and operated his own restaurant. It was small, but it was his.
A few years after that, Arnie, who was now married with a new baby, got a call from his old friend Greg. Greg worked for the bank.
"Hey, Arnie, I've got a deal for you."
Arnie had discovered long ago to take everything Greg said with a grain of salt. "I'm listening."
"You need a house don't you."
"Well everyone needs a house, but not everyone can afford one."
"I got one you can afford," Greg assured him.
"I'm trying to save up for something nice. I've got a baby now."
"This is quality, " Greg explained. "A nice three bedroom. Big kitchen. Beautiful little yard. Nice neighborhood too. Great schools. It even has a man-cave."
"How could I afford something like that?" Arnie asked.
"It's a foreclosure. The owner couldn't make payments, so the bank owns the house. We need to get rid of it fast, so it'l go for half the market value. Now, I took the liberty to run your credit. We can give you the loan for it. You just need the down payment. You been saving anything from that little diner of yours?
Arnie couldn't believe his luck. He had been saving a little back each month from the restaurant. He went in to the bank the very next day. A couple weeks later, Arnie moved his wife and baby into Jacob's old house.
Arnie and his wife went on to have several children, filling
the house with joy once again. He repaired the old tree-house for his
boys. They loved sleeping out there on warm summer nights.
In the meantime, Arnie's restaurant grew, and he hired several employees to help
out at the store. One of those employees was a young man named
Jude. Arnie took a liking to Jude from the start. The troubled
boy's story reminded him a little of his own.
Jude was now 17 years old. His father was dead. He lived with his
mother and her motorcycle driving boyfriend named Dutch. Dutch was a
cruel man who physically and verbally abused Jude on a near daily
basis. One day when Jude came to work with a particularly rough
looking black eye, Arnie's compassion got the best of him. He offered
to let Jude come stay with him. And so Jude returned to the house of
his childhood once again.
Arnie's own children were not particularly happy about having Jude
coming to stay with them. Jude was somewhat of a bully at their
school. The abused becomes the abuser.
Jude was shrewd, and, through deals, bribes, and threats, had soon
staked out his place in Arnie's household. Arnie's children tried to
leave him alone as best they could.
One day Jude returned to his mother's house to pick up the last of
his things to move to Arnie's house. Inside, he found some old bank
documents relating to the house, the house he was now living in with
Arnie's family. As Jude looked over the documents
carefully, he discovered several discrepancies in the foreclosure
proceedings that had ultimately ejected his family from that house so
many years before. If Jude was right, the house should never have
been foreclosed. It should never have been taken from him and his
family. It was his house.
What followed was a messy legal battle that would nearly
bankrupt both sides. Jude insisted that he was not trying to take
anything from Arnie and his family, that he was just trying to get
what the bank had taken from him. Arnie couldn't believe that this
boy that he had welcomed into his own house was now trying to take it
out from under him.
After a lengthy court review, the house was awarded to Jude. Arnie
appealed the decision. In the end, the fairest verdict might have
been for them to split the house, to sell it and divide the profits
between the two, but neither would agree to this. In desperation,
Arnie was forced to sell his restaurant to pay all the legal fees. Still, there was no resolution in sight. After four long years of struggle, Arnie finally gave up his claim to the house and
moved out. He found a job in another city and took his family to start a new life there.
Jude in his shrewdness was able to get a loan to buy the restaurant
that had once employed him.
By this time, Paul, Arnie's oldest son was finishing
up his last semester of high school. He would soon begin premed classes at
the local university. He could not afford to move with his family. Jude made a contract for Paul allowing him to
stay in the house in exchange for 20 hours of work in the restaurant.
Paul did not trust Jude, but felt he had no other choice. Of course,
Paul has had many other expenses and has worked more than 40 hours a
week to get by. His studies have suffered, and he is
now eight years into his medical program with at least two more years to
go. In spite of all his work, Paul has built up a small debt to Jude
that he will have to pay off even after he graduates college.
To this day, Paul continues to live in the basement of Jude's
house. Although it was once his family home, he now has no
share in it. He works long hours for Jude so he can continue to
subside in a corner of the house that was once his home. Jude resents Paul's presence there, but is unable to kick him out because of the contract they had both signed. Meanwhile, Paul is looking over the court documents from the case that deprived his family of their house. He has noticed a few discrepancies himself.
There's one in every family. Uncle Ralph is kind of an odd-ball. He shows up to family gatherings wearing a bow tie and tie-dyed shirt, a thin wisp of hair combed over his balding head. Ralph has always been a little socially awkward. People who don't know Ralph very well may be put off by him. He tends to talk over people, so excited about what he has to say that he rarely notices if anyone is listening. Ralph has some weird interests too. He was a "prepper" long before prepping was cool (Is it cool now, or just cool to talk about and watch on reality TV?) Ralph makes it his mission to ensure everyone has adequate stores of food, fuel,and ammo for the coming financial meltdown. He also makes his own wicker furniture, a hobby he has spent years perfecting, planning for day when he will quit his job to do wicker full-time.
