About five years ago I started writing a memoir. I kept at it for a little while, writing about 1,000 words a day for a few weeks. I hadn’t yet been to therapy and there were many things I didn’t really understand about my life, but I still find the unfinished memoir to be a fascinating look into my own past. I’ve decided to post it in installments here, with only a few redactions. You can find the other sections by clicking the Memoir category.
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9.
On one trip to Lenox, I went to the Hagyard Building with a mission. My cousin Denise (whom I refer to as my Aunt Denise) told me that the front door of the Hagyard Building still bore the doorbell nameplates of Bernard Flanders and John Coughlin, my grandfather and great-uncle, respectively. She asked whether I would try to get them off the building, and of course I agreed.
There was a problem, though. My grandparents were forced to leave the Hagyard Building by the landlord, Eddie Darrin, who’d taken over Mole & Mole Real Estate after marrying the boss’s daughter. Darrin was a money-hungry real estate agent who raised my grandparents’ rent an enormous amount and told them to take it or leave it. So they left it with great regret, and moved to Plymouth, Massachussetts to be nearer to my Aunt Linda.
The Mole & Mole offices now occupy the ground floor of the Hagyard Building, and my path to the nameplates must certainly involve a favor from Eddie Darrin, unless I was prepared to return to the building late at night with a crowbar and a ski mask. That kind of thing would probably be noticed on Main Street in Lenox.
So I walked into Mole & Mole, strode up to Eddie Darrin, told him who I was, and asked for the nameplates. He got a hammer from his desk drawer – an interesting thing to have in your desk drawer, come to think of it – and outside we went. On the way, Eddie related to me that my grandparents had whined when their rent was raised, and that they complained about everything. I smiled and kept silent as I watched him pry the nameplates off the doorjamb. With my loot safely in hand, I thanked him and walked away.
In my unbiased opinion, you should have decked him!!!
Ditto!
You two are quite violent!