Copyright Johnnymax 2012
I caught her, in my bed, with her boss. Came back early from fishing, wish I'd been hunting. A fishing rod isn't half as threatening as a 12 gauge. Angela was no angel, the bitch just laughed, her boss told me to go away and come back when I'm a man. Filleting knife goes through sidewalls real easy. He was pissed about fixing four flats. I had the last laugh when his brakes failed, gosh, someone punctured his brake lines. He wasn't going fast enough to do any serious damage to the car or him. Cops weren't too happy with me but the judge sympathised and only gave me 30 days.
No-one told Angela I was well-behaved and she was rather surprised when I walked in after 10 days. I'd been able to start divorce proceedings from the lock-up so she'd already been served. My cousin Sue was the bank manager so I'd been able to lock that aspect up, my Uncle Dave was my boss so my job was waiting for me. Still my family didn't control everything in the town so when the divorce case was heard she got the usual female advantages, damn near cleaned me out. Daughter Brenda, was only 15 so she had to stay with mum, even though she told the judge, loudly, in court, that she didn't want to stay with a cheating whore. The judge told her to shut up, she had no say until she was eighteen.
At least I had my clothes, my old pick-up, and my fishing gear and boat. Who am I kidding, it was a dingy with a 25hp outboard. Even so I had to sell it to get into a rental apartment. My job was OK but selling furniture on commission isn't the easiest way to make a living. Still I made enough to survive.
Angela was made a pariah in town so she moved 150 miles away. This time I got my sympathetic judge (a great-uncle) and Angela had to pay all the travel costs for Brenda to visit one weekend each month and half of each school holidays. Brenda and I got on very well even though money was tight through me not working as much when she visited. Uncle Dave encouraged me to bring Brenda in with me as he said she brightened up the place and he found some office work for her to do.
Three years of this hand to mouth existence, I'd just put Brenda on the bus back to her moms and was walking home when I spotted a brooch by the sidewalk. Picked it up thinking it might be worth something, but looking closely it was obvious that it was pretty old and probably a family heirloom worth a lot. I put an ad in the local papers Lost and Found with my phone number and when the paper came out my phone rang.
"I think you've found my mothers brooch, a Cabochon Brooch with an engraving of two children, a girl on a swing with a boy holding two apples."
The description was perfect so I arranged to meet her at my work the next day. She was so grateful to get the brooch back that she wanted to give me a hundred dollar reward. I refused to accept, so she gave me a motherly kiss and turned up the next day with a cake and some shop vouchers that Brenda could use. Also in the envelope was a couple of lottery tickets. I put the envelope on the mantel and didn't think to check the tickets until a week after the prize draw.
One ticket won Twenty Million, about twelve and half million after taxes.
I went back to work in a daze. My boss stopped me as I walked in the office and looked at me.
"Are you OK Jake, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"I.... I.... I won the lottery."
"Holy shit, about time some luck went your way. How much?"
"Twenty, About Twe.... twel... Twelve and a half million after tax!"
"ALL RIGHT. Invest it wisely and you'll never have to work again. Your cousin Susan at the bank can get you started on term deposits and sort you out with a proper financial advisor. I'll plan on your immediate retirement, and I do not expect you back this week. I suggest you collect the money, put say, ten million straight into term deposits for now and keep the rest available, buy a new house, truck, fishing boat, whatever."
My Uncle Dave made a lot of sense so I collected the money and saw cousin Sue. She nearly fainted when she saw the numbers but got me organised. Ten million at current interest rates gives an income of nearly five hundred thousand a year which is a hell of a lot more than I'm currently earning.
I went back to my apartment in a bit of a funk and just sat there. My dreams that night were.... interesting. But by morning I'd decided to follow the rest of my uncles advice.
I cleaned out my truck and took it down to another uncles' Ford dealership and traded it in on the latest Ford 250 CrewCab pick-up, with all the trimmings. I picked up the property paper and started looking and one of the pictures reminded me of a place I'd seen a while back when I'd gone fishing. Back then it had a big "No Trespassing" sign but now the picture included a smaller "For Sale" sign. The map had shown there was a lake there but I couldn't find a way in to it. I contacted the realtor who surprised me, the place had been on the market for over two years. It was a hundred and twenty miles north so he passed me on to a local agent who arranged to meet me there in a couple of hours.
I found the property and the agent arrived at the same time. He unlocked the gates and we drove up a long winding drive to find the house on a rise beside the lake. Woooheee the house was fancy.
The house had cedar sidings and a tile roof, the master bedroom had an ensuite that could have damn near fitted a football team in it, there were four guest bedrooms, each with a small ensuite, a large kitchen, a formal dining room, super large living that opened onto a huge redwood deck. There were sun sails over parts of the deck with plenty of sunbathing areas. The house was nearly fully furnished although it had been vacant for a year.
By the lake was a dock and boathouse big enough for two with a proper launching ramp. The garage could fit three and still had plenty of workshop area. The place was off the grid and had a great setup of solar panels, wind turbine and battery storage. All this on 160 acres of land that was mostly covered in trees with a state forest on the other side of the thirty acre lake.
It was perfect.
The valuation wasn't too far different from the asking price of 1.2 Million so I pulled out my checkbook. The agent was dumbfounded when I gave him the asking price. We headed back to his office and he got busy on the phone. He cleared the check with my bank, and arranged for settlement in two days. I asked him to get a cleaning crew to go through it as I planned to move in Monday.
I headed back to town with a sense of purpose and dropped round to see my uncle. He liked the new truck and patted me on the back when I told him about the property.
I spent the weekend packing up my apartment and Monday morning I handed my keys in and drove off. I got to my new house and met the agent there. He handed over the keys and all the paperwork.
He drove off and I moved my gear in. Didn't do much to fill in the space. I headed out to the nearest town and the supermarket. Going from watching the pennies to millionaire meant I could buy the good stuff and I stocked up. Filled the back seat right up. On the edge of town was a boat yard so I stopped and looked around. Makes and models weren't that important on such a small lake but they had a really nice 2002 30' Boston Whaler with twin Yamahas giving 450HP that could even sleep four in comfort. Only $69,000 so another check, hooked it up and towed it home. The heavy trailer was real easy to launch with and then I moored the boat at the dock.
