car crash, or anything that can stop breathing…while Ricky had this, eventually it would wind up with Miles and Belle. Unless I rigged things to prevent it. I realized as I thought about it that I had subconsciously reached a decision about the cold-sleep deal; I wasn’t going to take it. Sobering up and the lecture the doc had read me had stiffened my spine; I wasn’t going to run away, I was going to stay and fight—and this stock certificate was my best weapon. It gave me the right to examine the books; it entitled me to poke my nose into any and all affairs of the company. If they tried again simply to keep me out with a hired guard I could go back next time with a lawyer and a deputy sheriff and a court order.
I could drag them into court with it too. Maybe I couldn’t win but I could make a stink and perhaps cause the Mannix people to shy off from buying them out.
Maybe I shouldn’t send it to Ricky at all.
No, if anything happened to me I wanted her to have it. Ricky and Pete were all the “family” I had. I went on writing:
If by any chance I don’t see you for a year, you’ll know something has happened to me. If that happens, take care of Pete, if you can find him—and without telling anybody take the inside envelope to a branch of the Bank of America, give it to the trust officer and tell him to open it.
Love and kisses,
Uncle Danny
Then I took another sheet and wrote: “3 December 1970, Los Angeles, California—For one dollar in hand received and other valuable considerations I assign”—here I listed legal descriptions and serial numbers of my Hired Girl, Inc., stock shares—“to the Bank of America in trust for Frederica Virginia Gentry and to be reassigned to her on her twenty-first birthday,” and signed it. The intent was clear and it was the best I could do on a drugstore counter with a jukebox blaring in my ear. It should make sure that Ricky got the stock if anything happened to me, while making darn sure that Miles and Belle could not grab it away from her.
But if all went well, I would just ask Ricky to give the envelope back to me when I got around to it. By not using the assignment form printed on the back of the certificate, I avoided all the red tape of having a minor assign it back to me; I could just tear up the separate sheet of paper.
I sealed the stock certificate with the note assigning it into the smaller envelope, placed it and the letter to Ricky in the larger envelope, addressed it to Ricky at the Girl Scout camp, stamped it, and dropped it in the box outside the drugstore. I noted that it would be picked up in about forty minutes and climbed back into my car feeling positively lighthearted…not because I had safeguarded the stock but because I had solved my greater problems.
Well, not “solved” them, perhaps, but had decided to face them, not run off and crawl in a hole to play Rip van Winkle…nor try to blot them out again with ethanol in various flavors. Sure, I wanted to see the year 2000, but just by sitting tight I would see it…when I was sixty, and still young enough, probably, to whistle at the girls. No hurry. Jumping to the next century in one long nap wouldn’t be satisfactory to a normal man anyhow—about like seeing the end of a movie without having seen what goes before. The thing to do with the next thirty years was to enjoy them while they unfolded; then when I came to the year 2000 I would understand it.
In the meantime I was going to have one lulu of a fight with Miles and Belle. Maybe I wouldn’t win, but I would sure let them know they had been in a scrap—like the times Pete had come home bleeding in six directions but insisting loudly, “You ought to see the other cat!”
I didn’t expect much out of this interview tonight. All it would amount to was a formal declaration of war. I planned to ruin Miles’ sleep…and he could phone Belle and ruin hers.
Three
B Y THE TIME I GOT TO M ILES ’ HOUSE I was whistling. I had quit
I could drag them into court with it too. Maybe I couldn’t win but I could make a stink and perhaps cause the Mannix people to shy off from buying them out.
Maybe I shouldn’t send it to Ricky at all.
No, if anything happened to me I wanted her to have it. Ricky and Pete were all the “family” I had. I went on writing:
If by any chance I don’t see you for a year, you’ll know something has happened to me. If that happens, take care of Pete, if you can find him—and without telling anybody take the inside envelope to a branch of the Bank of America, give it to the trust officer and tell him to open it.
Love and kisses,
Uncle Danny
Then I took another sheet and wrote: “3 December 1970, Los Angeles, California—For one dollar in hand received and other valuable considerations I assign”—here I listed legal descriptions and serial numbers of my Hired Girl, Inc., stock shares—“to the Bank of America in trust for Frederica Virginia Gentry and to be reassigned to her on her twenty-first birthday,” and signed it. The intent was clear and it was the best I could do on a drugstore counter with a jukebox blaring in my ear. It should make sure that Ricky got the stock if anything happened to me, while making darn sure that Miles and Belle could not grab it away from her.
But if all went well, I would just ask Ricky to give the envelope back to me when I got around to it. By not using the assignment form printed on the back of the certificate, I avoided all the red tape of having a minor assign it back to me; I could just tear up the separate sheet of paper.
I sealed the stock certificate with the note assigning it into the smaller envelope, placed it and the letter to Ricky in the larger envelope, addressed it to Ricky at the Girl Scout camp, stamped it, and dropped it in the box outside the drugstore. I noted that it would be picked up in about forty minutes and climbed back into my car feeling positively lighthearted…not because I had safeguarded the stock but because I had solved my greater problems.
Well, not “solved” them, perhaps, but had decided to face them, not run off and crawl in a hole to play Rip van Winkle…nor try to blot them out again with ethanol in various flavors. Sure, I wanted to see the year 2000, but just by sitting tight I would see it…when I was sixty, and still young enough, probably, to whistle at the girls. No hurry. Jumping to the next century in one long nap wouldn’t be satisfactory to a normal man anyhow—about like seeing the end of a movie without having seen what goes before. The thing to do with the next thirty years was to enjoy them while they unfolded; then when I came to the year 2000 I would understand it.
In the meantime I was going to have one lulu of a fight with Miles and Belle. Maybe I wouldn’t win, but I would sure let them know they had been in a scrap—like the times Pete had come home bleeding in six directions but insisting loudly, “You ought to see the other cat!”
I didn’t expect much out of this interview tonight. All it would amount to was a formal declaration of war. I planned to ruin Miles’ sleep…and he could phone Belle and ruin hers.
Three
B Y THE TIME I GOT TO M ILES ’ HOUSE I was whistling. I had quit
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