Every family hides something. This one hides a Bazillionaire.
Whowunnit
The Page Turner Books & Media
Date of Incident: January 5th 2009, 3:13 p.m.
Transcribed by: Squint Unsunanus
Details of Incident/Important Notes:
I was in the back taking in the new inventory when I heard Felix, the new guy, raising his voice and using profanity. Of course, I went immediately to the front, but by the time I got there the altercation was over, and a customer had just left. The store was empty save for one other customer. I told Felix to wait in the back office, and that I would join him shortly. I rang up the other customer’s things which were an anthology of sorts, and a bookmark. Then I joined Felix, who told me all that had happened.
Apparently, a man entered the store acting drunk, complaining about the posted hours on the door. He marched up to Felix and asked him, “Have you seen my maps?” Felix humored the man at first, but after a minute or so of letting him talk, it became apparent that he wasn’t a real salesman. Felix told him that he would have to check back with the owner, but the man became frustrated and continued showing Felix his map. He said that he only wanted “three ninety five” for the map.
Felix asked if he meant three hundred ninety five, or three dollars and ninety five cents. The man became angry and got up into Felix’s face, saying, “I’m worth more than three ‘effing’ dollars and ninety five cents!” Felix admitted to me that, at this point, he had no more patience, and blurted out to the man, “You’re an ‘effing’ horrible salesman, and you’re drunk! Get out of here!” The man continued to curse, but left. The other customer didn’t seem too shaken by the encounter.
We were lucky that the store wasn’t busy. I recommend reprimanding Felix. It wasn’t his fault, but he should have known that using foul language cannot be tolerated. I told him as much in the office after the incident, so maybe that can be enough. More importantly, we should put a “No Solicitation” sign on the entrance, and implement a new protocol for anyone who ignores the sign.
Matthew 22: 8-10
“Then he said to his servants, ‘the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
Mark 3: 24-25
“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”
Pay no attention to the above Bible Passages I told you wouldn’t be included.
Chapters Are For Suckers, and Mysteries Plain Suck:
Hello, and thank you for purchasing, borrowing or stealing this book-like product. Before you begin, my Publisher has requested that I pen a few statements about what possessed me to write this pseudo-literary-thing. To avoid any potential legal issues, I shall do just that.
It’s hard to imagine any form of literature more gripping than the Warranty and Mortgage Deeds recorded in the parish courthouses of Louisiana. The Mystery genre, for instance, pales by comparison so I felt particularly fortunate, as an Oil and Gas Land-man, to get paid to read them. For seven whole years I got to read Deeds of Conveyances every day for hours and hours. On top of this, I also got to copy them, and assemble them into a giant packet known as a “Title Abstract”. Isn’t that fascinating?
You see, like most of you, I HATE CHAPTERS, AND I HATE MYSTERY NOVELS! Chapters are nothing more than a vain attempt at systematically organizing information for proper and expedient assimilation. They teach us the fallacy that life should be viewed and handled in the same manner, and yet we all know that life isn’t boxed in so easily. Much like insurance and politics, it doesn’t make coherent sense sometimes. Can you imagine a world without governmental programs, insurance companies, and women? Organization. Simplicity. Practicality.
Chapters make me want to wretch almost as much as mystery novels. Mystery novels are merely word groupings of misdirection, and misleading unrealistic interactions insuring that no one guesses whodunnit; escapist literature designed to remove the monotonous droning of life. Mystery novels teach us the fallacy that we are creatures who seek after excitement, and passion. Yet, again, we know that life isn’t boxed in so easily. Much like Taxation, and Cartography, life is boring and unbearable. Is it even possible to imagine a world without tax attorneys, mapping calipers, and women? Fun. Adventure. Practicality.
But a Title Abstract? A Title Abstract has it all. They contain Mortgage Deeds, Conveyances and best of all, Probates of Succession. I know. You may not be convinced, but during those seven years as a Landman the Probates were the only things that stopped me from gouging my eyes out with the edge of a legal-sized manila folder; the same way we all feel when we open the cover of a Hagatha Marple mystery.
To be sure, most Probates are Mr. Nicety Nice man bequeathing a meager savings to his beloved family, university, or shi-poo, but every so often, I found a Probate that spun a magnificent yarn about some miserly wealthy woman using her vast fortune to pit ankle-biting, brown-nosing children against each other. Sometimes I found others who used their last will and testament to air their family’s dirty laundry and stick it to the black sheep.
My takeaway from being a Landman was that reading about human misery is an absolute blast, and probates (like divorces) have that in spades. They can spin a tangled web of bizarre manipulations, backstabbing betrayals, and unmitigated greed. Far different from any mystery novel that I’ve been forced at gunpoint to read.
I’ve often wondered why the government doesn’t charge to read them. Probates, I mean. The next time congress tries to solve our thirty trillion dollar national debt, I’ll approach the capitol, in a non-January-6th-kind-of-way, and make that suggestion.
Anyway, during dental visits, I think back to those seven years. One Probate in particular often comes to mind. It was the recorded Succession of a dead man named Benjamin Byron Lysmith, and it comes to mind because in it I found a very peculiar Trust bequeathing an enormous fortune to a group of strangers. And yet it wasn’t the amounts involved that taunted me like a licorice-filled jelly donut. It was the extraordinary terms of the Trust.
Turning its forbidden pages made my angst rise to epic proportions. For it unveiled a bizarre story, unlike any book, sub-titled movie, or condom packet I’d ever read. Thus we have the subject for these non-chaptered pages that the publishers and I are barely confident you’ll enjoy.
Now, for the vast majority of people who haven’t seen the inside of a Clerk of Court, and who haven’t truly lived, a Probate reads like a disjointed grouping of related letters. Therefore its story is also disjointed and incomplete. Byron’s Probate was no different. Amazing as it was, the picture it painted was unfinished, and the plethora of questions I was left with made me want to take a bath in boiling sulfuric acid.
However, instead of instantaneously dissolving all my organs, I studied it, and began a remarkable journey to fill in its gaps. I collected as many pieces of information that I could. I did interviews, I found receipts, correspondences, and even met with first-hand witnesses. Simply put, I did the things that journalists might do if they weren’t rotten stinking agenda-driven liars.
It has taken me years to complete, but the resulting mystery is a mildly less-disjointed narrative filled with bizarre manipulations, back-stabbing betrayals, and unmitigated greed. Human misery. Oh, and sex. There is some sex, too.
Well, there it is. A few statements about how this pseudo-literary-thing is better than every mystery novel ever written. The Publisher can’t sue, unless they’re a bunch of rotten stinking agenda-driven liars. Either way, in this wild ride of non-chaptered pages you are about to read, I guarantee only two things. One: This story will not, in any shape manner or form, begin with something thematic like a Bible passage or a definition. Two: You will not find, by any stretch of the imagination, a single chapter… Especially at the end, because that would be nonsensical.
(For those of you who’ve stolen this book-like product, I’ll leave my name and address on the last page. You can send me a check.)