The Estate

The room may have smelled of the elderly but this man couldn’t have been more than forty. His dark brown hair didn’t reveal any grey, and with that amount of stubble on his face, there’s no way he was vain enough to be dyeing it. Plus he didn’t wear glasses. Wasn’t it a requirement for all chubby, middle-aged, small-time lawyers in little downtown offices to wear glasses? If not for reading, at least to look knowledgeable for their clients, Avery thought. Avery was sitting there uncomfortably in a wooden chair that was designed to appear distinguished. The wobbles of the chair, however, told Avery a different story of how this, no doubt, online-degree legal practitioner probably put the chair together himself to save a few bucks. Or, judging by James’ Santa Clause-like frame, maybe he just liked the meatballs at Ikea. Avery often became judgmental when he didn’t want to be somewhere.

He’d never been to a will reading before, and now sitting in front of James Temple, “Attorney at Law,” he realized that he actually preferred the funeral to this. At least at the funeral he knew what to expect: black clothes, flowers, and plenty of “sorry for your loss.” He remembered thinking, during the first speaker on behalf of his dead father, that funerals could be made a lot more entertaining with some money on the line. An over/under bet on how far the best friend of the deceased could get in his eulogy before the faucets in his eyes began to drip. A friendly wager on who’d receive the flag when a veteran died single. And don’t forget the pregame bet: casket or urn? Hey, funeral directors could make a nice little side hustle in the bookie business. Avery couldn’t help but grin at the thought of a face-painted, beer-helmet-wearing sports fan springing to his feet with a cheer as an elderly widow broke into tears mere seconds before the two-minute mark. Then he nearly broke into a chuckle at the thought of the imaginary widow’s son scolding her after the funeral, “You couldn’t have held on 3 more seconds! I had the over!” As he held back laughs at a thought no one else in attendance would have found humorous, he caught the end of Timothy’s speech… “and I’m really gonna miss him.”

Recalling that daydream was enough to make Avery a little more comfortable in the Ikea chair. Just then, James, who with his pink face and stubble could be a giant peach, began:

“I know this is a difficult time for you Mr. Bateman. I’ve lost both my parents as well.”

Well thanks for welcoming me to the club. If you’re a member, I can’t wait to see the facilities, Avery thought. He despised everything about this situation. He had a million other things to be doing and yet here he was, back in his hometown of Yellow Springs, listening to this buffoon, waiting to see what chump change his dear old dad had left him.

Avery, like many sons, had a complicated relationship with his father. His father hadn’t been a bad person. In fact, Hank Bateman had been quite the opposite. He was what you think of when you hear the phrase: honest, hardworking, blue collar American. His name was Hank for Pete’s sake. He’d worked at the same rail yard until they made him retire at the age of 68. He’d been heavily involved with his local chapter of the Knights of Columbus, doing everything he could for the homeless in his little town. He had even kept blankets in the backseat of his truck in case he passed by a down-on-their-luck stranger during the bitingly cold winters. The town had given Hank the Good Samaritan Award back in 1983. He hadn’t liked the way a man was handling a lady and stepped in; it turned out to be an attempted kidnapping. No, it’d be hard to find a bad thing to say about old Hank. But even with all of that, Avery held an incredible amount of disdain for the man. Because, in Avery’s eyes, all Hank had ever been was poor.

As a boy, Avery couldn’t stand the small town he was born into, and the fact that his father had been so content with such a simple life drove him up a wall. Avery had been a bright kid, perhaps too bright. From an early age he understood that his mother had died during childbirth, and not peacefully in her sleep like his father swore she had. Avery lived in the real world, from the moment he opened his eyes and his mother closed hers. When his dad told him the story about the Good Samaritan Award, Avery responded, “So you just let the kidnapper get away? He probably went and kidnapped someone else.” The pride Hank had felt gazing at his plaque just moments before visibly turned into a combination of pain and shame. The hurt look didn’t tug at Avery’s heart in the slightest. He was too busy focusing on school and baseball, for his brain and brawn were his ticket out of that half horse town.

Unfortunately for Avery, the stench of Yellow Springs would follow him all the way to Yale, where he had acquired an impressive baseball scholarship. No matter how well he could throw a slider, he still didn’t come from money. His new friends never let him forget it. And although he grew up and made his first million by the age of 27, that chip on his shoulder wasn’t going anywhere. He became the kind of rich guy that wanted you to know money meant nothing to him. The kind of rich guy that intentionally tossed the keys to his orange Lamborghini on the ground for the valet to pick up. The kind of rich guy who was about to scoff at the net worth of Hank Bateman.

James had been droning on and had finally retrieved the small black notebook from his briefcase--the same black notebook that Hank used to carry in his shirt pocket every day. Avery recognized it despite how long it’d been since he last saw it. James opened the thing, flipped past what Avery assumed were grocery lists and the names of shows Hank liked next to what channel they could be found on, and began reading from the last page. “Hank Bateman’s Will and Testament: my fishing poles and gear I leave to my friend Timothy Harrison. Everything else I own I leave to my only son, Avery Bateman.”

Son of a bitch!, Avery thought sarcastically, I was really hoping for those fishing poles. “So what's the grand total?” Avery asked.

“Well,” James responded, “after reviewing all of your father’s assets, it comes to about 20,000 dollars.”

$20,000? Avery thought. He’d made more than that last week in Bitcoin alone. Avery knew it wouldn’t be much, but learning that the entirety of his father’s small-potatoes life could be summed up into a measly 20 grand? Avery’s cheeks started to turn a little red. Even being in the room alone with this pudgy lawyer, he was genuinely embarrassed. Then an idea came to him. Avery thought, I’m going to show this sorry shit who the hell he’s in the room with, then proceeded to say, “You know what, you keep it”.

“I beg your pardon?” James asked.

“I don’t need the hassle James, if you want to go through his crap and sell whatever's valuable in that old apartment, go for it. And you can have whatever’s in the bank account too.”

“You’ve just lost your father. Surely you can’t mean what you’re saying.”

“Temple, after today you will never see me in this town again. So give me whatever papers you need me to sign and just take the money. Oh, and don’t call me Shirley.”

After Avery had signed over his fathers entire estate to the flabbergasted James Temple, he headed for the door. James stopped him almost yelling, “Wait, isn’t there anything I can do for you, Mr. Bateman?” Avery turned around putting his hand on the doorframe and thought for a second. “Oh yea, I’ve got one condition on the money.”

“Name it,” James blurted.

“Get some better chairs.” Avery slapped the doorframe twice and left.

Earlier that morning, James awoke still holding his daughter's hand. He had dozed off telling her a Temple original about the princess who cut off all her hair and had still been the most beautiful girl in all the realm. Although it was early, if he was going to make it to work on time he wouldn’t get a chance to shave. He kissed Payton on the forehead and wrote a message on a pink sticky note saying, “Daddy’s gone to work. We’ll finish the story tonight Princess.” He delicately placed the note in the palm of the hand that didn’t have a plastic finger clamp monitoring her pulse. He grabbed his coat and took his time leaving the room. He told Kiley, his daughter’s favorite nurse, that Payton’s mother would be by around lunch and he’d be back after work. James looked at his watch then started to hustle.

Traffic wouldn’t be an issue this early, but his office in downtown Yellow Springs was quite a ways from this well-equipped hospital in the big city. The whole drive over, he was chewing on the fact that although Dr. Mueller was giving his daughter the kind of care she desperately needed, he had no idea how long his wife and he could keep paying for that care. With his tiny law practice and his wife's new job at that drive-through coffee hut two blocks from the hospital, they were already pinching pennies. When he arrived at his office he parked in the spot with the worn sign he’d installed back before Payton was even born. It read, “Reserved for James Temple.” He popped the trunk and got out to retrieve the fresh suit he kept there for these exact situations. After finishing the struggle of getting the wool pants over his rather large caboose in the back seat of his 2000 Honda accord, he realized he had left his glasses at the hospital. They must’ve snuck under Payton’s blanket after he laid them down to “rest his eyes.” James was still getting used to wearing his glasses and didn’t fully believe he needed them quite yet. He straightened his yellow tie in the rearview mirror and patted his cheeks to try to wake himself up. He looked at his tired reflection and said, “Ok Jimmy, time to be a lawyer.”