The Stairs – Part 3

I walked through the living room and up the stairs. Turning on the landing, I saw Emily cross the hallway. A quick turn of a knob and I’m in the guest room. My laptop was on top of my bags, so I fired it up. “It’s a good thing they are tech-stupid,” I say as my WiFi bars displayed maxed signal.

My hands blur over the keyboard. Cycling through three sites, I transferred the contents of my retirement account and my savings account all to my checking account. It took all of ten minutes to complete when I looked for local banks. If they got a mortgage for the house, they went easy and got a local loan. “Now to figure out which one.”

A knock sounded at the door. The knob jiggled, but didn’t turn past the push button lock. “Who is it?”

“It’s mom,” mom said.

Pausing for a second, I stood and opened the door. “What do you want?”

Mom stepped in and closed the door. With a bed, a small bookshelf, and my bags, this room was cramped. Throw in two adults and we stood in each other’s personal space.

“I overheard the shouting,” she said. “Vic is a proud man and Candy has been so independent since she was a teenager.” Her hands rolled around each other. “I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, but if you need help doing it, let me know.”

I looked her in the eyes. “Who is their loan through?”

“Ridgemont,” she said. “They’re downtown. We passed them on the way here.”

“Great,” I said. “Now all I have to do is convince someone at the bank to sell me their mortgage.”

“That won’t be hard,” mom said. She held a flat smile and her hand went to her face. “I’ll tell them you’re coming.”

“What good will that do?”

“We’re on the loan too,” she said.

“What?” I leaned in close then lowered my voice. “You’re kidding me. You and dad are retired. Granted, you were smart about your money, but still. I don’t think you could assume the payments on this place.”

“We can’t,” she said, her voice let a tremble. “At least not for long. Maybe one or two payments.”

“So to save them,” I shifted my stance and put my hands on my hips. “You would have to liquidate your retirement. Then what? Live here and let them take care of you?”

“That was my plan,” mom said. “Your father wants them to move to a smaller house and possibly rent.”

With my head bobbing my head worked through the logic. “That makes sense. They could sell half, hell all, their high end crap and make about a year worth of rent.”

“Dad said the same,” mom said with her eyes on the floor. “But there is no way Vic will do that. Candy might, but then the kids aren’t used to that life.”

“So?” I took a step toward my bags, which was the only free floor space. “A three bed, two bath will cost them about a grand a month. I assume Vic is still working.”

“He is,” mom answered. “Candy would have to get a better paying job.”

“Right,” I added. “The kids are old enough to stay by themselves. This is a solid plan. That’s how we grew up.”

“In the beginning, yes,” mom said. “But once you two were teens, we upscaled.”

“But you paid for it in the beginning.” I turned toward the window. “You did low end jobs and dad worked through being an architect. Hell, I imitated you two. Crap job in high school, less of a crap job in college. Tech support, now look at me. It wasn’t easy and didn’t happen overnight.”

“I know,” mom said. “That’s kind of why I want to know what your plan is. You have a lot saved up, I’m sure. If you blow it and buy this house, they will never live it down. And I don’t think they will ever pay you back.”

“If not,” I said, turning back to her. “I can maintain it and sell it in a year, maybe two. The economy isn’t bad. At a minimum, I’ll break even or lose just a little.”

“So you have a plan,” she said. “Good.” Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out a slip of paper. “I wrote the loan info on this. Use it to do what you need to do.”

“Thanks, mom.” I kissed her on the forehead and she left.

With the paper in my hand, I checked my accounts one last time. I didn’t know what the balance on the loan was, but my savings account was under 400 thousand by only a couple hundred bucks. Seeing it all in one spot showed me how well I had it. Granted, the retirement thing would suck. My parachute constituted about twenty grand in stocks. Throw in my next paycheck and I was back at my tech-support days.

Closing the lid of my laptop, I stuffed it under an arm and stepped into the hall. It was clear, so I went downstairs. Dad held out a hand and dangled keys.

“Mom said you might need these,” he said. “Don’t do something stupid. At least something you can’t recover from.”

I couldn’t help by smile. “I got this,” I said. “Thanks for the help.”

It didn’t take long to get to Ridgemont Bank and Trust. After parking, I went inside.

“Hi,” a young woman said. “Welcome to Ridgemont. What can I do for  you?”

“I’m here to buy a mortgage,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, her bright smile darkened and flattened. “I didn’t know we did that. Let me see.” Her head tilted over a digital pad and she ran her fingers over it. “It seems we do,” she said as she looked up. “You need to speak to Marshall Klein. That way.” Her manicured finger pointed in a direction of cubes.

“Thank you very much,” I said with a smile.

A security guard nodded in my direction and my mind ran with it.

The security guard from my dream was different. Taller and thinner. He also waved.

The desk was the same, except for the date and time. They were today and ten fifteen AM.

My eyes held both images and different sounds echoed in my ears.

“Mr. Jeffers?”

My eyes focused on the man saying my name. “Yes,” I said and extended my hand. “Call me Butch. You’re Klein?”

“Marshall, please,” he said and shook my hand. “Right this way.” His arm extended and pointed me towards his cube. “I understand you are interested in the Nelson Jeffers mortgage.”

“That is correct,” I said and sat in a rigid chair squeezed between a cube wall and a small desk.

Marshall taped on his keyboard. “They have defaulted on their loan as of yesterday. Are you here to make restitutions?”

“I’m here to buy it,” I said and laid my laptop on the gray desk. “I believe that is something I can do, is it not?”

“You can,” Marshall said. “Normally we wait for the occupants to vacate and then bring in a crew to do any maintenance. This can take somewhere in the neighborhood of six months.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I said. “I know the occupants.”

“That was what I was told,” Marshall said. “The loan amount was 275. They paid six years, all of it interest.” I nodded, remembering how loans worked. “Do you have an offer prepared?”

That was an excellent question. I had the money to pay off 300 thousand right now. No questions asked. However, I’ve heard you can buy them under the total amount, as banks don’t want to deal with having to maintain or work on a house. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any experience in this field.

“Nothing written,” I said, and leaned forward. “But I figure 220 is a good place to start.”

Marshall stared at me for a few seconds and then typed on his keyboard. He slammed a finger onto his enter key, then sat back. “I’m waiting on approval,” he said with a smile and rapped his fingers on the desktop.

“I won’t lie to you, Marshall,” I said. “This is my first time doing something like this. Was my offer good? Close even?”

“Well,” he said and shifted closer to his desk. His computer dinged, and he cut his eyes to the screen. With wide eyes he shifted to his keyboard. “It seems your offer was accepted. Pending on a few minor things, of course.”

“Like what?”

“Payment verification,” he said. “We will accept certified payments within the week.”

“What about cash now,” I said and laid down my debit card.

Marshall’s eyes looked at my card as it clicked on the hard surface of his desk. Then up at my face. “We don’t accept credit cards as payment.”

“Debit,” I said and poked the card. “It’s all there. This is a bank. I’m sure you could run it and see if it will clear.”

“Just a minute,” Marshall said and left the cube office.

I followed him with my eyes until he went through a door. It snapped shut behind him, leaving me in the quiet hum of his computer.

Drumming my fingers on his desk, I glanced around. There wasn’t much, just the standard work based propaganda. Sliding to the cube opening, I scanned the larger area. This was the typical large bank. There was a waist high wall with a door. Behind the wall, I made out an archway.

A bright orange glow dominated the vision in my mind. The scene coalesced from bright orange to fluffy orange and reds with traces of grays and black. It morphed again and became sharp points of red and orange extending out from over the small wall. Again it moved and became more cone shaped as it protruded from the wooded archway behind the low wall.

“Butch!”

I felt warm. Like being too close to a campfire.

“Butch!”

Slapping a smile on my face, I looked over at Marshall.

“That happens all the time,” he said.

“What?” I moved back to the desk.

“The old vault area,” he said. “People come in here and get sucked into the nostalgia of it.”

“So the vault is back there?” I asked tossing a nod in the direction.

“It is,” Marshall said. “But it isn’t. The tellers all have a smaller safe at their stations. Each night, security comes through and takes the days exchanges and moves it to a bigger safe. It stays there a few weeks, then is moved by armored car to the central distribution.”

“So you don’t use the vault?” I asked feeling my lips tighten. “So, about the mortgage?”

“If your accounts clear,” Marshall said, taking my debit card, “You will have yourself a new home. After we get final authorization.”

“Final authorization?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It all goes into this magic box here.” He tapped the computer. “And it goes to out VP board who crunches numbers and stuff. They approve or disapprove and we get something back in a day.”

“So, it will be finalized tomorrow,” I said. “The fifteenth.”

The Stairs – Part 2

At the house, mom bustled about in the kitchen. Emily saw me and her eyes widened and then she stared daggers at her mother. A second later and she stomped upstairs. I plopped on the couch. Dad took up the recliner and Vic disappeared outside. In moments, dad was sawing logs.

With steps that sounded like sledgehammers, Emily reappeared. She whispered out the side of her mouth as she passed me. “Your a sick pervert. Spying on underage women.” Her lips were still twitching and she kept staring at me over her shoulder as she moved onto something else.

Without missing a beat, I pulled out my phone and ran my finger over it. With a few flicks, I viewed the website that had the entire archive of the Stanson home movies, as I like to call them. I didn’t watch all of them, just a few. They are truly boring people. But I did find good highlights.

“I should call the cops,” Emily said.

“Look, squirt,” I said and stood in her way. “If you refer to yourself as underage, you ain’t a woman. And with that bitchy attitude, you’ll be an old cat lady by the time you’re twenty.” Rotating my phone towards her, I tapped the play button. “If your parents catch wind of your stash, they’ll ensure you never see the light of day.” The video showed her rolling some type of herb in paper and then lighting it with a lighter. “Then there is the filching of their booze.” The next clip was of her getting into the wet bar. She was slick by using water to displace what she stole.

Her eyes got wide and she held her breath. A mild tremble started at her shoulders.

“It really is a good thing your parents are stupid when it comes to technology,” I said. “That’s why they asked me to install the surveillance system. I bet this would get you kicked out of here and disowned.” The new clip showed the backside of a boy and random flashes of her head. “With my knowledge of computers and networking, I bet this could find it’s way to the internet. Uncensored, of course. With a high res image of you and Chuckles’ student ids floating in the upper right corner. An anonymous email to the entire student body, as well as faculty of Ridgemont High for a finishing touch.” I touched my phone’s lock button and slid it in my pocket. “I’m just gonna go see how breakfast is coming.” Stepping around the coffee table, I left her trembling where she stood.

Mom had three waffles on a plate as I stepped into the kitchen. Candy pulled the syrup out of the microwave and put it on the table. I slid the butter closer and sat at the four person table in the huge kitchen. Young Barnaby sat across from me. His head was buried over a waffle and his cheeks were stuffed.

“Slow down, kid,” I said. “These things are worth tasting. Trust me.”

He cut his eyes towards his mother. Leaning over the table, he whispered, “Better than mom’s.”

“Yeah,” I said, imitating his whisper. “I’m still digesting a few cakes from when we were kids.” He snorted then clamped a hand over his mouth.

Candice spun around and shifted her eyes between us. “What are you two doing?”

“Guy talk,” I said and put a large hunk of waffle in my mouth.

Once breakfast was done, I volunteered to wash dishes. I figured since I was contributing to the mess, I would help clean it up. It wouldn’t take long. Like everything else in Candy’s house, they had a top of the line extra-large dishwasher. I’m not sure why, it was just a family of four. A normal sized machine should have done the job perfectly. Once loaded and activated, I wiped down the counter and took out the over flowing garbage.

A dizzy spell kicked in as I walked back to the house. I sat hard on the steps and watched as the scene played in front of me. It was the same as before only different.

The same glass door opened in front of me as I pushed on the rail. A security guard smile and waved at me. He rested his hand on a gun at his hip. Something moved off to my side in the distance, but I didn’t look.

Two older women were in front of me. They wore matching light blue blouses and were talking close. One turned and looked at me. It was Mrs. Harrington.

A long table with a digital clock set to 13:07 and 04/15/2017 as a date. There were pens and a small sign in the middle of the table. It said free checking when you set up direct deposit. A pile of bank slips sat in cubbies below the table.

Tellers at a counter waited on two other people. One looked up and turned toward the side and typed on a computer.

It was cold and my steps echoed as I walked. The marbled floor was shiny and it looked like you could ice skate on it.

I smiled at the Mrs. Harrington and her friend who had turned to look at me.

Then a bright orange light appeared. I felt warm then unbearably hot.

A siren wailed in the background.

Jerking at the sound, I looked around. Nothing changed. It was morning and I was sitting on the back steps to my Sister’s red brick house.

Things were definitely not right.

Taking a few seconds, I shook off the vision. Now, if only they would go away.

Inside, Candy poured a cup of coffee and handed it to me. “Butch,” she said, which was odd as growing up she always called me Barney. “About what happened.”

“Which time?” I asked taking the cup. “All the crap you two have been giving me since you’ve been married. Or are you talking about making me feel bad for falling down your stairs?”

Her face turned red and her lips tightened.

“I don’t need that kind of crap,” I said. “I don’t know what I did to get your animosity, but it stops.”

She shifted her feet and looked at the counter.

“Don’t even bother,” I said. “An apology you don’t really mean isn’t worth it.”

“We’re broke,” she said. “Vic and I are about to lose this house and may have to move in with mom and dad.”

“What do you mean you’re broke?” I spread my hands and looked at all of the high end kitchen appliances and other devices. “Look at this place. It’s right out of a movie set.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Vic grew up poor and when he got promoted a few years back, he began spending like there was no tomorrow.”

“Help him get it under control,” I said. “It’s what wives do. Smack their husbands around, metaphorically. Hell, that’s what you did to me through middle and high school.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just hard especially when I like how we are living. I have an easy job and he brought in all the money.”

I nodded. “So now you’re over extended and the bank is about to foreclose. How much?”

“A lot,” she said and chuckled. “We got lucky and bought the house on a short sale as it was. 300 thousand was a song. Trust me.”

“I see,” I said. “You still haven’t answered me. How much to keep you from loosing the house?”

“Ten would keep us from loosing it,” she answered it. “If you could do more, that would be great.”

“So I now have to buy your respect,” I said. “Strange. The guy who was a slacker and not living up to his potential will now be saving his sister as well as her husband who is the main cause of the problem.”

“No one asked for your help,” Vic’s heavy voice came from the door way. “I don’t want charity. Especially not from you.”

“Oh,” I said shaking my head. “There won’t be charity, pal.” I thrust a finger at him. “You aren’t worth it. Hell, the way my sister has been treating me ain’t worth it.” I pushed paste him. “Saving you two won’t be what you expect.”