An Absent Mind(13)

I can accept the overcharging, but I don’t think someone like Friedman should use his fancy degree and being a member of the Quebec Bar—big deal, member of the Bar—to take advantage of Monique. Although my guess is that the last few years she didn’t need a lot of coaxing. I think she’s been fooling around for a long time. But Friedman, he’s supposed to be my friend. Some friend, speaking to my wife in the middle of the night, conspiring to get rid of me so they can be together and steal all my money.

Well, I showed them today. Friedman wanted to be the guy who handles my stuff while I’m alive and wanted Monique to help him. Do I look like a schmuck? I know they’re both like vultures waiting for their prey to die so they can suck on its sweet flesh. They want the right to kill me. Yes, that’s correct—kill me. When you sign one of those things, and if you’re a little bit off your rocker, or in a … you know, like a deep-sleep thing, they can tell the doctor to kill you. In two seconds, they can send you to heaven or hell.

So I sat there and listened and nodded and whatever, and they thought I was being suckered by their sneaky plan. But when Monique left the room, I told Friedman I wasn’t going to let them do me in. He gave me one of his phony endearing smiles and assured me that wasn’t the case.

“What is the case?” I asked.

He said he was only trying to help me, to look after me, to watch over the family, Joey, Bernie, Florence, and, of course, Monique.

“Yeah, I bet you’re going to look out for the family,” I said. I told him I knew about him and Monique.

Again he plastered that sympathetic smile of his on his face, like he was so sorry for my inability to see the truth. Sometimes I think they take a full semester in law school learning how to do that smile. Friedman must have got an A. Anyway, I told him he wasn’t going to be the one who decided anything about my money, or when I die. He put his hand on my arm and asked me to reconsider, again giving me that damn beaming grin of his. God, I would have liked to have dented a few of those too-white teeth of his. But then he probably has big connections with the police, being a big shot lawyer and all. And I didn’t want to spend my last days in some stinking jail having those perverts try to make me their girl, or whatever you call it. Those guys are sick, really sick. Sicker than me. Can you imagine big macho guys doing that stuff to each other? No wonder they send them to jail!

Enough of that. Let me tell you how I handled the will thing. You see, at first, before I knew that Monique was fooling around, I was leaving her everything, so long as she took care of the kids and willed them whatever was left when she was gone. So while she was sitting in Friedman’s conference room, filing her nails, or whatever women do when they have nothing to do—which in Monique’s case is often. I mean volunteer work at the YMCA … big deal. She never really worked. I mean never had a real job. She always said she wanted to but that she couldn’t find work because she had no experience. Then when she got older, she said no one wanted to hire a woman her age. Gimme a break. If she wanted to get off her fat tush and find a job, she could have. But she preferred to have me sweat day and night to make the money while she played mahjong with her fancy lady friends. Well, they say you always marry your mother!

Anyway, while she was in there, I discussed it all with Friedman. Yeah, I decided to keep Friedman as my lawyer. I’m getting too sick to start changing at this point, and they’re all crooks anyway. He told me maybe I should just keep everything as is and that if I want to make changes in the future, I should let him know. That makes sense, I guess, because first of all, I’ll be damned if I’ll pay him to change my will twice—there would be almost nothing left! And besides, I’ll see how Monique behaves. Maybe I’ll leave her something; maybe I won’t.





Saul





First Confession


I heard Monique talking to Florence on the phone. At least I think it was Florence, because she called her “honey,” like she does sometimes. She never calls Joey that. In fact, when she refers to Joey in conversations with me, she always says “that son of yours,” stuff like that.

Now, I know Joey is her son. I was at the hospital when she gave birth, although it was hard to watch. I’m just like Florence; I can’t stand the sight of blood. When Joey came out covered with the stuff, my whole body shook, like when my father would roll his tongue between his teeth and hit me when I was a kid. He did that a lot, and I was always waiting for his tongue to drop to the ground and blood to pour from his mouth. But that never happened.

It seemed he was always hitting or kicking me under the dining room table, and that hurt, because I never thought I had done anything wrong. I already told you I was a tough guy, but I was a fair tough guy.

Joey and Monique were born under different signs. He is a Taurus, and she is an Aquarius. But I’m an Aquarius, too, and I love Joey. I’m not saying she doesn’t have any feelings for him, but they’re not the same as her feelings for Florence. Sure, he isn’t as easy as Florence, but so what. I probably wasn’t as easy as my sister, Miriam, but my father should have loved me, too.

Monique asked Florence to go shopping for things to childproof our house. No one told me that I was going to be a grandfather again. That’s wonderful news!

She’s been gone a long time. Maybe she is seeing someone else. She has been acting a bit funny lately. My guess is that she wants to leave me and doesn’t know how to tell me because I’m sick. Well, I wish she would just do it and get it over with.