SEPTEMBER 20, 2023 – I had no further contact with UB for the rest of 2006. On March 2, 2007, I took another stab at submitting a proposal, or rather, an outline of a process for disposition of Gaga and Grandpa’s estates and trusts and distribution of Mother’s inheritance. Less than three weeks later he surprised me with a response . . . until I tore open the envelope and saw that it was a non-response.
It was typed out on UB’s ancient MAC and composed in UB’s classically stilted style using the royal “we”—just as Mother always did.
TO: ERIC NILSSON
Here is acknowledgment of your letter of March 2
We have put it under review……….we find that is [sic] too difficult, too much legaleez [sic], too technical for us to comprehend and is not suitable for a decision by us who are totally unfamiliar with this kind of complicated document. We have already had brief discussion with our attorney who as of now does not give his approval or recommendation to such a commitment by us.
It would also need a [sic] study by an accountant and retirement financial advisor.
The best part was that he signed it with a scribbled G, which I’m sure stood for “George,” the name he used with Alex, not “Griswold,” UB’s actual first name.
The letter was the lowest form of UB B.S. My outline had been as basic as I could make it without running the risk it would be perceived as sarcastically simplistic. UB had bragged too much for too long about his legal and financial prowess now to feign the ignorance of a simpleton. He prided himself in drafting commercial leases replete with “all the legalese necessary to protect the landlord’s interests” and being “the only person who actually reads a prospectus, word for word, before I buy into an IPO.” Because he thought he was smarter than any lawyer and was too cheap to retain one in the first place, I knew darn well that “discussion with our attorney,” brief or otherwise, was a fib as big as his desire to shut me down and out.
I didn’t follow up, and there was no further contact between us for almost two years. All that I knew was that he hadn’t died or been carried out of 42 Baghdad Street wearing a strait jacket. In either case Cliff would’ve told me.
Many months passed even before my next conversation with Cliff. He’d called me in July of 2007 and left a cursory message—“Hi Eric. What’s happenin’? Good ol’ Cliff here just checkin’ in.” Beth and I were out of the country at the time, and on our return, life a foot from my face prevented me from returning his call. But soon thereafter I’d heard from Nina about her recent and not altogether unpleasant encounter with UB—in Hamburg—and about something most troubling.
I sat down and wrote Cliff a letter:
Dear Cliff:
I hope you’re well. Sorry I missed your call a couple of weeks ago. I was on the Prairie Companion Cruise over in Norway, and my connections were very sketchy. By the way, the scenery in Norway was unbelievable, and I’m not just talking about the fjørds. I’m talking about the women. Positively gorgeous, one right after another. Same goes for Sweden and Denmark. I didn’t notice the men (Let’s be straight, so to speak, about one thing, at least!).
I think you’ll have to agree that with UB’s 85th birthday right around the corner, when I saw the enclosed card[1], I just had to buy it. The guy looks just like UB about 40 years ago. Except the eyes. They could be his eyes today when watching his favorite show(s), if you know what I mean. Anyway, I leave it to your discretion as to whether you should actually send it. It could have the exact opposite of the intended effect.
By the way, recently Kristina sent me an email and gave me the rundown on her recent trip to Hamburg and visit with UB. She said UB was crazy about the Goodspeed Opera House and was generally in pretty good spirits about things. However, apparently they disagreed about what to do with all the vegetation out front. Classic Holman approach [. . . ignore the view]. “View” defined as cove, water, picturesque (as in “expensive”) boats moored across the way, old farmhouse on grassy slope on opposite side of cove, etc., NOT defined as over-grown hemlock branches poking your eyes out if you get too close to “the view,” a few big dead trees leaning this way and that, and other short-range vegetative clutter tenaciously gripping the bank in front of the house. Oh well. The Holman’s (other than George B. and Ethelyn H.) were never known for their sense of visual aesthetics.
Kristina also learned from UB that Grandpa had purchased a life insurance policy on UB/Mother’s cousin Lois. Grandpa was the beneficiary, which means the life insurance proceeds should have gone to Grandpa’s estate (then to Gaga’s and from there, half to UB, half to Mother). But of course, UB has done nothing with the policy. Lois died about 10 years ago. And what does UB have to say about it (to Kristina)? “Better to let sleeping dogs lie.” (Or is it “Better to let cats die—cats that are really old deaf blind lame and in pain”? Sorry, bad joke.) Now tell me, in the context of “no-brainer” cash on the barrelhead to be had just for the asking under a life insurance policy, what would be “better” about letting sleeping dogs lie?! After getting just plain upset about yet another case of malfeasance, I simmered down, rationalizing that since the policy had been purchased 100 years ago (more or less—remember, we’re dealing with Holman time here), it probably had a face value of $6,000. Not worth getting all steamed up about.
Okay, I’ve saved this for last: Kristina also told me that A (for “Ass Hole”) was in Rutherford recently for a whole two weeks!!!! How did this happen without you or I knowing about it? How did this happen without one of us getting a hold of the punk and scaring the bloody CRAP out of him?!
Don’t worry, I’m not blowing a gasket over this: I know it’s just another installment in the interminable Roadrunner cartoon that you and I have been living for the past umpteen years—you and I are the Wile E. Coyote with perpetually singed eyebrows, while UB plays out his life going, “Beep-beep!” Ya gotta laugh at this stuff. Why? ‘Cause to quote you, “Ya can’t make this stuff up!”
Anyway, I hope all’s well with you. Call me when you have time. In the meantime, keep laughin’!
Your honorary cousin,
/s/
Whether by chance or design, the timing of Alex’s visit had coincided with Cliff’s absence for a week at a Halloween costume convention in Las Vegas followed by an exceptionally hectic week at Cliffhanger Productions. Alex had flown under the radar, as had the money: why use Western Union when you can hand cold cash straight to the intended recipient?
About a month after the Serbian gold-bricker’s sojourn in Rutherford, Cliff called me to rub more salt in the wound.
“Yesterday,” said Cliff, “I went across the street to Rite-Aid [all-too convenient site of the Western Union outlet UB used to wire funds to London] to get something to drink and the manager asked me, ‘Do you know how much money your uncle is sending overseas?’ I laughed. ‘In the first place,’ I told him, ‘he’s not my uncle, and in the second place, yes, unfortunately, I know it’s boatloads of cash. Believe me I know.’”
“Beep-beep.”
“Exactly.”
For the next two and a half years, UB “Beep-beeped” with little intervention from me, except . . . for an olive branch in March 2009. Cliff’s interaction with UB was reduced to semi-weekly check-ins and periodic clean-ups ordered and paid for by . . . Cliff. Cliff and I talked occasionally but always in a state of tacit resignation over the chronic state of affairs at 42 Baghdad Street.
When possible, on his regular check-ins, Cliff would look around for cassette tapes of the latest conversations between UB and Alex. Blank cassettes could be easily distinguished from used ones: the latter invariably bore hand-written dates. The audio tapes were so numerous and ubiquitous, Cliff could remove them surreptitiously and mail them to me for monitoring. In a recorded conversation toward the end of 2007, UB revealed to an ungrateful Alex that so far in that year alone, UB had wired over $100,000. Between that acknowledgment and the Western Union receipts I’d found on my trips to Rutherford through the previous year, the total count was now well past $400,000 with no sign of the spigot closing.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] The gag card featured a guy wearing hypnotically spiraling eyeglasses. Inside it read, “Go crazy on your birthday!”
