Off the Estate

I had a visit from PUDFARB ICE (People’s United Democratic Free Anarchist Republik of Berkeley Immigration and Customs Enforcement). My Dad passed so the fact that I am off the estate living in the capital of racism is a renewed outrage. If I knew what was good for me I’d sign off on my inheritance and agree to live in Amistad House.

It is likely that I’ll inherit some money. It’s fast money, though. Fast money tends to go as quickly as it came. As you hold the check in your hand the legion of ways to spend it rave in your head. As an example, all those lottery winners who are broke within a few years of cashing the check. PUDFARB ICE had an answer they thought was awesome: give it to them.

A pretty girl was running point. She had a sheaf of papers I was supposed to sign. Somehow a rumor surfaced that I would take my windfall and start a business. Incredibly, PUDFARB ICE claimed that I was not free to do as I pleased with my own money. No, I had to sign it over to them.

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The potential crime was owning a business that PUDFARB ICE could not control. It was fine as long as their union goons could dictate how it would be run. In the small print was language that said my business would be taxed at 90% of the gross revenue. But that tax would pay for a free Cadillac and a new iPhone plus art classes and getting fast-tracked for Medicaid and Section 8.

What’s wrong with socialism?” My son asked this. Many things are wrong with socialism. Signing over my inheritance to PUDFARB ICE in exchange for being fast-tracked into Amistad ought to be a reasonable choice. It isn’t. Nor is spending the imagined amount on “reasonable” purchases that leave me destitute and unable to refuse commitment to Amistad House.

Pretty girl said I was getting old and I’d need someone to help me run the business. She offered to be office manager. There was an employment offer in my name for cab driver. PUDFARB ICE would own the business and Pretty girl wanted to run it. How about . . . no.

Because, tbh, it’s not about being down for the struggle.

Not Silent Now

I don’t like answering the phone because of PUDFARB ICE. They are like a corrupt collection agency. Except that the thing in collections is me. They call, e-mail, post to my FB wall, and generally try to intrude. I left in 1992 for Cal State EBay (Hayward). 25 years ago and they persist.

After 25 years they’d gone silent. Then my Dad passes and they found a way to interrogate me while I was working in Philly. Same thing as always, I need to understand that I didn’t belong out of PUDFARB. I had to come home. The room in Amistad was nice, they said. I could devote myself to writing propaganda and be taken care of.

Taken care of” to a guy who grew up with Greek Mafia neighbors has a bad ring to it. I don’t trust it. Nor do I trust the pretty girl from PUDFARB ICE who just wants me to sign my life away. First class flight to SFO if I would just sign my name to multiple forms. I’m not signing.


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I own a house on Lost Souls Road far, far off the estate. Sometimes when I go to the curb to get my mail I find bodies in the gutter. Some of the bodies are people who got disappeared by PUDFARB ICE. Others are SJW’s who knew what we ought to be doing instead of being a hot mess and didn’t get the hint. You can live a quiet life on Lost Souls Road if you make the right friends.

Goth Girl

I mention my address because the pretty girl from PUDFARB ICE triggers memories of those bodies I sometimes find. This pisses ICE off. If I was a good man I’d just sign and make things easy for everybody. Come home and stop posting to the blog. Stop spewing hate. Pretty tells me that they have a special meal plan I’d really enjoy. Uh Huh.

Idea #2 is that they’d take the money coming to me and buy an annuity that would fund my retirement living in Amistad. Pretty girl could be my home care aid. Good idea but not happening.

On Bottom Everything Points Up

Then the threats come. They’ll ruin me financially. I’ll be eating dog food and living on the street. My adjudicated criminal cases will be re-opened and I’ll have to serve all the time. My reputation will be destroyed.

These are threats that would intimidate someone who believes they have something to lose. PUDFARB ICE pretty girl is a fool. I am one of Billary’s deplorables. I’ve been down, been homeless, convicted of crimes, broke and lost my reputation, thrown off the estate for being a WASP. Every threat they have is something I survived. I’d rather not start from the bottom at my age. But if I must I will.

Socialism asks us to surrender everything to the government and trust that they will be less corrupt than the rest of society. I should trust the pretty girl from PUDFARB ICE with the social work degree. Everything is taken care of, she says.

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Don’t care. I decided last summer that I wasn’t going back to work as a cube rat. It was cab driving even if that job ruined me. If I’m headed to bottom I’m going down fighting, king of my own sandbox.

And with that, they showed me a video of my sister reading a prepared statement. I was a disappointment to my father. I’d failed him. And now I’d broken my trust with her. All I had to do is sign the papers and come back to PUDFARB. Everything would be fine.

I don’t know what’s coming in the next year. 2019 is only a day old as I started this post. One thing it won’t bring is a docile me who behaves as my kin wishes. My sister wants me to conform to her norms. Be a good brother and live as she believes I should. The nice people at PUDFARB ICE told her that things would be good if only I would sign the papers.

Lipstick Isn’t Enough

She signed. They gave her a house in the Berkeley hills. Her daughter is in a private school for the deaf. Her husband works at an NGO. She got a job teaching school for PUDFARB. It’s lovely. I should visit some time.

Then I noticed something. She was quietly signing just with her hands over and over. bs, bs, bs, bs. Thought so.

Bullshit

The problem with socialism is us. Socialism needs perfect compliance. It tends to get into a destructive spiral where control is resisted so control is increased, rinse repeat. Ergo Nazi Germany. The other destructive spiral comes from the idea that those with ability will feed those with need. Very quickly those with ability figure out that survival means becoming one with need. In short order, there are no resources nor people with ability to feed on.

Sign the Contract

The pretty girl put the package of papers in front of me. I looked them over. and told her I could do better with the principle if I invested it and lived off the capital gains. I think it was the word capital. Anyhoo, she lost her shit. A stream of cuss words and crimes of old, fat WASP men spewed out of her mouth. I was every sin ever committed by ever man throughout time. It was an impressive tantrum. Capital is an evil word, it seems.

My Dad was given an offer he couldn’t refused. Take a pension buyout or get fired. He took the buyout. It was about two years worth of salary. He was a little younger than I am now. His two years of salary had to take care of him and my Mom until they died. It wasn’t enough.

It could be enough if he did what my family has done since we were landed gentry in England–invest and live off the profits of said investments. Pretty girl slapped me for saying that. Fuck her . . . no, asshole, not sex, shit. Right, so my Dad used his initial amount in the buyout to grow it into income that supported him for nearly thirty years and paid for my Mom’s care as she declined from dementia.

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Capital gains or passive income is the answer to the wish to drink Mai Tai’s under an umbrella on a tropical island beach. Somehow, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is racist. Whatever. Read it if you want to escape a cube rat life.

His hard work and wise investments mean we are left with an inheritance that PUDFARB ICE wants. Sucks to be them. Free will is a problem for socialists. People might not fully comply. They might take a small pension buyout and get rich with it. I might do that.

So, PUDFARB ICE, do your worst. I’m not signing. I’m not agreeing to give you my inheritance for an annuity that you say will take care of me for the next forty years. Our family has survived retirement by remaining king of our own investment sandbox. Thanks for the offer but I’ll keep my faith in an absurd martyr from Nazareth who was crucified at the request of his church elders and the power of compound interest.

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