The sun rises for the living. It never sets for the dead. And the beat goes on for those left behind. Death, though, punches a hole in the fabric. There is an empty place where Charlie (Charles Harrington, 34) used to be. He didn’t own much. He didn’t leave a will so Henrico County Circuit Court will do the estate. The reason he was a pot washer is debt. Charlie owes Ojiisan still. He could sue Henrico to collect the debt from Charlie’s estate. Or write the debt off.
A younger Saito Ojiisan would sue. It’s more trouble than it is worth. Ojiisan needs a pot washer more than he needs the headache of American jurisprudence. There are 大阪人 who owe Ojiisan and need a job. 日本人の労働倫理を向上させることはできない
It’s been three weeks. Tala is the nearest thing to family for Charlie. She’s been using her door key to get back and forth from Paradise Valley to Inger’s Stewart Street house. What little Charlie has is being stored at Stuart Street. Inger is pretty much full time at her 16th Street cottage. Too many bad memories on Stewart Street.
Remembering Charlie
Not every memorable mansion is on Monument Avenue. Many of the facades you see on that street hide deplorable and run down interiors. The houses you admire tell a story of staff serving a family. The kitchen, laundry and staff needs are all in the basement. When you see a renovation crew on Monument part of the work is to make the home livable for today’s families.
Charlie grew up on Monument Avenue in one of those homes. It’s a family crime that their son fell of the path and isn’t a department head on Capital Square. He’s not supposed to be a dead potwasher for an old Japanese gangster. He is and his funeral will feature intense stares at polished shoes that have lost a little luster. So sad.
His perfect world has two time periods. The first is prior to 1517. Martin Luther fucked everything up. Before him the world worked in a way Charlie understood–everyone in their place and a place for everyone. The second is our Gilded Age, from 1876 until 1900 or so. Charlie’s apocalypse began with Woodrow Wilson’s election in 1913. Bureaucrats replaced nobility and made a worse mess of Luther’s Reformed Tradition catastrophe.
On the Spectrum
“Well, he’s on the spectrum. You understand.” Charlie’s Richmond circles say that. To keep one’s status you either have a sickness or have someone in your orbit that has a suitable malady. Charlie’s major malady is that he feels protective of his kin. Also a bit of outsized pride in his ability to gamble and day trade. Ojiisan can’t get much from Charlie. His Richmond friends and kin are easier. Potwasher Charlie was useful.
On the spectrum because it is an impossibility that an MBA with Wall Street experience washes pots. He should have a corner office in the James Center with a view of Capital Square. Pot washer in a Japanese casino? Absurd! So he must be on the spectrum. Nothing else makes sense.
Why would that blue blood go to waste in a commercial sink? Truth? Maybe it isn’t wasted. Maybe Charlie’s comfort zone is in the risk-averse, comfortable routines of his life washing pots and eating casino buffet. We aren’t all high rollers attracted to risk like moths to a bulb.
Magical Truth
“If I had a million dollars.” These days a million dollars doesn’t go that far. The number we need to retire shrinks as we age. Still, Charlie needs about $1.5 million in net worth to assure himself of a comfortable retirement. He washes pots. His money went into a binge trying to save his drunk Aunt Betty. He’s a good egg who can’t stop once started. The casino made him an offer once he was into them for $2 million.
“If I had a million dollars I could start a publishing company and give a middle finger to the Blue Hairs at the helm of the Great Ship NYC Publishers. It’s not that crazy. Standing up a publishing company like that would cost $15,000 or so.” TJ said similar things. If Charlie had a million dollars he could get out of debt and build the net worth he needs. Publishing company? Would it make it easier to get into Tala’s pants?
Before he died it wouldn’t have been that hard. Tala was into him. She was already doing House Frau work for him. Intimacy wasn’t a big leap further. Most mornings she ate breakfast with him in the casino’s American Cafe.
Manchild
I guess its a match. Somebody who will take care of Charlie’s needs and not ask too much of him. No job, no motivation to pursue a purpose, filling time with social media and console games. I’ve had guys as roommates like that. Hate them, hate them lots. Charlie, though, at least had a job. Ojiisan took most of his wages to pay down the gambling debt. He got a stipend for meals.
Tala and the other bar staff talked Ojiisan into taking one of the dorm rooms and making it over into an Asian kitchen. Big morale boost for them. So Charlie got home cooked food when he wasn’t eating in the American Cafe. It was a point of contention between them. Charlie would finish closing out his station then go grab a plate from the buffet. Meanwhile, Tala had cooked soup for him. But he wasn’t hungry. So she ate alone or with one of the other bar girls.
I don’t think this is just an Asian woman stereotype. When a girl is into a guy she’s docile and loves taking care of him. Because she’s trying to hook him. Once he’s hooked the rules come out. He has to be back from his shift in a few minutes. He can’t leave his shoes on in the dorm. The only acceptable place for a cup is in the cupboard. And more, but click on the link to read those.
No Buffet For You!
The problem is the food in the buffet. It’s all too sweet, too salty and swimming in fat, says Tala. There is rice, vegetables and fish. Charlie doesn’t eat that. He fills his plate with home fries, breakfast tacos filled with pork sausage and scrambled eggs, a biscuit, orange juice and coffee.
Tala does her best. Working with what’s available in the buffet she’ll prepare TapSilog, Orange Juice and Coffee. To which Charlie responds, “I ate at work.” Then Charlie changes out of his work uniform, showers, and settles into his recliner for a nap. And so it went for years. Were Tala not getting paid for this, she’d have left him in a hearbeat. But Ojiisan pays well and is an ok boss.
Usually. The routines of domestic life are seductive. It’s easy to confuse caring for affection. The line between client and partner can get blurred. So it was between Tala and Charlie.
He Kindly Came for Charlie
I write obituaries in this space for people who leave a mark on my life and then go home to heaven. Yah. Parts of the Christian world say we go to heaven and non-belivers don’t. Maybe so. It’s not high on my list of priorities for those in my circle. I’m more worried about ways I can serve those who can be served. Getting back to Charlie, though.
Charles Harrington, 34
Charles “Charlie”, 34, of Richmond, Virginia, passed away unexpectedly in his sleep on February 18, 2025, in a recliner in his staff dorm room at the Paradise Casino in Paradise Valley, Nevada. Born into a prominent Virginia family, Charlie lived with a gamer’s fire and an artist’s soul, leaving sketches, poems, and a heart worn by loyalty and loss.
Charlie’s world once roared with the clash of Halo on his six-screen gaming rig, a marvel of his family’s wealth. His sketches of Virginia fields, Nevada deserts, and casino shadows, paired with raw poetry, echoed a mind steeped in literature’s depths. A graduate of the University of Richmond, he craved the fuss of women who cooked, finding comfort in Tala, a Filipina minder at the casino whose home-cooked meals fought the American Cafe’s greasy leftovers. Charlie fell for her, though she saw him as a job with heart; he left snack wrappers and steakhouse receipts for her to scold, eating the casino’s fatty scraps over her healthier dishes, a quiet defiance of his fading health.
Charlie leaves behind friends like Inger Webb, who holds his notebook of desert sketches; Neesha [Last Name], whose art he cherished; and the Goochland Farm community, led by Ophie [Last Name]. Rumored ties to Neesha’s children remain private, per her wishes. No services are planned, but donations to Catholic Charities, where Ophie volunteers, honor Charlie’s hope for redemption.
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