So before I begin regaling you with my newest adventure with my magical chess set, let me talk about my finances. As you probably remember, I'm named after a granduncle, because his will stipulated that his wealth would go to the first child named after him. Even though they didn't hesitate to name me after my granduncle, I knew it really bugged my parents to have to name me Jack, just to get the money. Considering that my other siblings are named Richard, Sebastian, Catherine and Sabrina, you can imagine how much it grated my parents to name me Jack. Me, I've always liked my name. But I'm getting off subject.
My Granduncle Jack actually left both me and my parents money. After taxes, I got ten million dollars, and they got ten million dollars. Of course, the will stipulated I couldn't touch my money until I was 21, and then I could only spend the interest. The principal was beyond my reach until I turned 25. My parents were named co-trustees of my accounts and earned thirty thousand dollars a year for their troubles. Yeah, not a lot of money in and of itself, I suppose, but it was money they didn't have to really do anything for, and it was on top of their own money, so they couldn't complain.
Now, I vaguely knew they could withdraw money from my account to pay for expenses related to me, but it was with the stipulation that they could only draw from the interest, and not the principal. My ten million was invested very conservatively, but even so, ten million dollars creates a lot of interest (no pun intended).
OK, I admit I've never known a lot about finances. I just knew I was going to school, playing baseball, having fun and not having to worry about money. I knew sometime in the vague future that I would take control of my money if I wanted to but, to be honest, I was happy to let Mom and Dad keep on doing that, like they had been doing all my life. OK, sure, once in awhile, they would give me a lecture about how they expected me to remember my brothers and sisters when I was able to access my money, but hey, I was going to do that anyway. My friends didn't know how much I was worth, because when I was a kid it just didn't seem important, and when I was in high school, well, it just didn't seem important. Plus, since I couldn't touch the money or prove that I had it, there was no reason to talk about it.
But back to the present. Both me and my parents inherited a lot of money from my Granduncle Jack, and they were watching my money, at least until I was out of college. I thought that was that.
The day after I had my 'encounter' with Jessica Simpson was a Saturday, and I usually slept in on the weekends until nine or ten. I guess I must have been really tired, because I was woken up at noon by a knocking on my front door. I don't know if it was my 'encounter' with Jessica Simpson, or all the built up anxiety that had accumulated over the years about my magical chess set finally being resolved, or what, but I was out cold.
As the knocking continued, I grabbed a pair of shorts and a shirt off my bedroom floor and made my way to the door. There was a messenger waiting there for me. He was only a couple of years older than me, and looked a little peeved that he had to wait for me to get to the door, but otherwise he was pretty polite. He handed me a letter, had me sign for it, then headed out.
I looked the envelope over as I closed the door. It was one of those fancy envelopes that has a thread count, and in the return address area was the name of a law firm, with their named spelled out in Old English style letters. I sat down and opened the envelope. The letter inside was short and to the point. The law firm wanted to talk to me about my inheritance from my granduncle Jack, and gave a phone number I should call them to make an appointment "at my earliest convenience."
I didn't recognize the firm's name, but to be honest, the only law firm name I would recognize was the one my Dad was a partner at. I decided to give the number a call, expecting to receive a recording or maybe an answering service, since it was Saturday.
Instead, I got a real live person who worked for the law firm. When I told her who I was, she immediately told me they had been expecting my call, and asked when would be a good time to set up an appointment for me to come in and discuss an additional inheritance from my Granduncle.
The way she emphasized the word 'additional' caught my attention. "I--uh ... well, my Mom and Dad usually handle such things," I managed to stutter.
"We're aware of that, sir, but considering the nature of this additional inheritance, my employers would like to talk to you directly. When would be a convenient time?" she asked again.
My last class on Monday ended at three, so I told her anytime after 3 p.m. Monday. She made me an appointment at 3:30 p.m. and told me she would text me directions to the law firm from my campus, which freaked me out. I mean, if she had caller ID, she could see my phone number, but in our short conversation, I hadn't mentioned where I went to college. And usually, except for junk mail, everything always went to my parents' address.
Yeah, I know, you can search for anything on the internet, but somebody had been searching me, and I was more than a little freaked out by that fact.
So I stayed around the apartment that weekend and didn't even think (well, not much) about making one of my chess pieces full sized again. And that wasn't easy, because I had a lot of ideas concerning Jessica Simpson. But I also had this creepy feeling of being watched all the time, so paranoia ended up trumping horniness.
All day Monday, I was like a zombie, and I couldn't tell you what went on in my classes, other than I must have managed not to draw any undue attention to myself. The day dragged on, but finally my last class was over, and I made my way to the law firm downtown. The law firm had the top four floors of an upscale tall building, and I was to later learn that this was merely one of their branches, which handled me because of the convenience of the location to me.
After I identified myself to both the receptionist in the lobby and the security guard at the elevators, I rode the elevator up to my appointment. I found my Dad in the lobby of the law firm, waiting on me.
"They contacted you too, Dad?" I asked. In retrospect, I guess I should have called him and Mom, but as I think I've said before, I always felt their was a little strain between me and my parents due to the whole money thing. Still, my folks were a couple of states away, so I thought it was pretty cool that my Dad would make the trip for this.
"Never mind how I came to be here, young man," my Dad answered. My Dad was always calling me 'son', 'young man', or something along those lines. Dad went to great lengths to call me anything but Jack. "You should have contacted me when you received notice of your additional inheritance."
"Yes, sir," I said, hanging my head. "It ... well, it caught me off guard."
"We'll talk about this later. For now, I want you to sit quietly in the lobby while I handle this new development."
"Actually, Mr. Sherrington," a new voice said, "You will remain in the outer office while I have a private chat with the beneficiary of my firm's deceased client about the nature of his inheritance."
This pronouncement had come from a fairly large, dignified looking man standing at the door of one of the hallways leading away from the law firm's main lobby.
"Now see here..." Dad started to say, and I could see he was getting worked up.
"No, Mr. Sherrington," the large man replied, cutting my Dad off. "I am allowing you stay in our offices out of professional courtesy, a courtesy I will withdraw if you force my hand. Your son is an adult in the eyes of the law and, as such, may conduct his affairs as he sees fit. If he wishes you to accompany him into these discussions, we will of course accommodate his wishes, but that decision is his, sir, and not yours."
Dad turned to me. "Son, tell this man you want me as your counsel in there."
To this day, I couldn't tell you why I did it, but I turned to Dad and said, "I'll have them send you in if I feel like I'm getting into trouble, Dad." I nodded at the large man, who simply nodded and said, "If you will follow me, young Mr. Sherrington."
I think Dad would have followed me anyway, but a man with a jacket that had the emblem of a badge sewn on his right breast pocket took a step toward Dad. And knowing my Dad, it wasn't a physical confrontation he was worried about. It was the possibility of causing a scene that he dreaded.
The large man introduced himself as Ronald Stooksberry, and began explaining the vast fortune I had inherited. And I do mean vast. It seems that my granduncle Jack was a lot richer than the twenty million he had left my parents and me. I wasn't Bill Gates or Oprah rich, but I wasn't too far from their neighborhood. It seemed Uncle Jack had done very well for himself.
Let me apologize in advance if I get something wrong in my telling of everything that Mr. Stooksberry told me, but I wasn't then, and I'm not now, a legal expert. That was my Dad. So I probably got some stuff garbled. But Uncle Jack's instruction to the law firm handling his affairs was to make it look like that between me and my parents, we had only inherited twenty million dollars (yeah, I know what you mean, only twenty million dollars!). Which made sense, I guess. I would have the benefit of a lot of money, without being crushed by this huge fortune Uncle Jack had amassed. Although it was kind of strange how Uncle Jack could have all that money and no one knew about it.
Anyway, the law firm not only earned a substantial fee for managing all the remaining inheritance that I wouldn't even learn about until I was eighteen, they were also paid a retainer fee to act as my shadow guardians. You know, step in if my parents were ripping me off too bad. But I think the theory was, if my parents were bad people, they would only know about a fraction of my fortune, so they could only rip off that fraction.
