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Too Much
Too Much
Too Much
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Too Much

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Have you ever imagined taking vengeance on someone who cut you off in traffic? David Herman, a young accountant in Orange County, California, cuts off a nefarious private investigator in traffic and becomes the victim of identity theft that makes him appear to have a felony criminal record. Losing his job as a result sets him on a life-changing journey that he never expected, and causes him to meet a girl named Vodka who may just be more than he can handle. He experiences living in his car and working with Spanish speaking day laborers. Eventually he must become a private investigator himself to avenge the cyber crime against him and the murder of a close friend. In the meantime, will he ever achieve his dream of having too much?

LanguageEnglish
PublisherRobert James
Release dateJun 14, 2014
ISBN9781311469885
Too Much
Author

Robert James

Dr. Robert's life story reads very much like some of his novels. A rock 'n roll run-a-way at thirteen, he has travelled the world extensively in many professions. Blessed with many talents, Dr. Robert spent just over two decades as a performer in the music industry, before becoming an entrepreneur and creator of both audio and video productions. He holds a Bachelors in A/V and a Masters in Science Business Administration. After a major heart attack in 1998, Dr. Robert ceased his business activities, began his current career as a novelist, and also began his Doctorate in Philosophy, which he graduated in 2005 at sixty years of age. Additionally, he holds a 16 year US patent for an 'improved computer game controller', which is soon to be launched. Having started out writing a post-apocalyptic situation comedy series for television, he is now well past his millionth word of fiction.

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    Book preview

    Too Much - Robert James

    Too Much

    by Robert James

    Published by Robert James at Smashwords

    Copyright 2014 Robert James

    For my wife, Kathy, who knows me better than anyone and still

    loves me unconditionally for some strange reason.

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Table of Contents

    Chapter One – Too Much Is Not Enough

    Chapter Two – Before You Can Make Ends Meet, Someone Destroys Them

    Chapter Three – It's Beginning to Look It's Not Like Christmas

    Chapter Four – Be Thankful For What You Don't Have

    Chapter Five – You're Up the Creek Without a Canoe

    Chapter Six – You Can't Always Get What You Think You Want

    Chapter Seven – Many Are Called, But Few Don't Go to Voice Mail

    Chapter Eight – Love Is the Answer, But What Was the Question?

    Chapter Nine – What Goes Around Goes Around

    Chapter Ten – Luck Is Better Than Skill, But Skill Helps You Get Lucky

    Chapter Eleven – You May Be Lucky, But There Is Both Good and Bad Luck

    Chapter Twelve – Screw Luck, Follow your Heart

    Chapter Thirteen – You Get What You Get Paid For

    Chapter Fourteen – Happiness Is A Warm Bun

    Chapter Fifteen – You Have To Go With Whatever You've Got

    Chapter Sixteen – You're Getting Close So Don't Give Up The Ghost

    Chapter Seventeen – Just Before You Can Get Enough You Fall Down

    Chapter Eighteen – If You Fall Just Get Up And Keep Going!

    Chapter Nineteen – Too Much Is Just Enough

    About the Author

    Too Much

    by Robert James

    Chapter One

    Too Much Is Not Enough

    David Herman sat eating his lunch in the quad in the middle of the office plaza where he worked in Irvine, California. His lunch was an Italian sub-sandwich, one of his favorites. He washed it down with Coke Zero sipped through a straw from a waxed paper cup. It was a warm sunny day in September, pretty typical of most days in So Cal. He was sitting on a low stone wall that isolated the green areas that were planted with grass, bushes, and small trees from the concrete walkway with its incessant foot traffic. He was surrounded by tall office buildings that dominated the area just a few blocks east of the John Wayne Airport, modern structures of tinted glass held in a matrix of shiny black siding. They weren't skyscrapers, but they were among the tallest buildings in the area. His office was in one of those buildings, one floor below the top. It had a nice view that included Newport Beach and the Pacific Ocean on days that weren't too foggy to see that far.

    He liked to watch the people passing by as he ate. They were all dressed in similar styles according to the fashion dictates of the area. It was West Coast to start with. Then it was Southern California, and then it was the Irvine Business District. If you were not on some Board of Directors or a VP of some company and you were male, you didn't wear a suit and tie. David had on a long sleeve light blue shirt with vertical white stripes, a button down collar, and no tie. He wore dark gray Levi Action Slacks and black loafers. He was a Junior Accountant so he was dressed appropriately for his station. Some rebels wore jeans, but black denim if they did. The women got to rock the look. Any blouse they liked could be paired with a dark skirt that revealed nylon clad legs from the knee down, sometimes with interesting patterns in the hose, and maybe a cute jacket or a colorful silk scarf. They all had impeccable makeup, mostly subtle – it was rare to see a woman with flaming red lipstick there. They were all so beautifully business-like it seemed it would be difficult to touch them lest a touch would mar their crafted looks.

    The oddest thing was that almost everyone, male or female, seemed to strike a pose hunched over a smartphone, like a weasel or a ferret or something, standing upright, but bent over some enthralling object in their paws. Those who didn't exhibit such a posture were often talking to the air, being connected by a Bluetooth or white earbuds to their phones and carrying on a conversation with some invisible contact. You could hardly talk to anyone since they were all either already talking to someone or being inaccessible with their nose down and their thumbs tapping away. When you got on the elevator with one of those beautiful women, it seemed that they purposely avoided you and everyone else by hunching over their smartphones. Sometimes when that happened he would force himself to talk to her anyway. His favorite and most successful line was, Wow, do you have bars in here? Who's your carrier? Usually she would look up, a bit surprised that someone would talk to her although she was obviously engrossed in something private that only she and her phone knew, but would respond with something like, Oh, not really. I'm just checking my email. At least he got to say something like, Okay, have a great day, and then could enjoy a smile from her when she got off at her floor.

    David took a bite of his sandwich. He savored the taste of the salami, pepperoni, and prosciutto with Provolone cheese and veggies including lots of red onion slices enclosed in a cheese crusted bread. He loved the onion. It was always such a struggle to get the sandwich shop to put on enough red onion. It was one of those shops where you ordered what veggies you wanted in the production line as they made your sandwich. Every time he went there he'd say, Lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, green peppers, and lots of red onion. In response they would put on those veggies and add only a slight sprinkling of red onion slices. What was the problem? Was red onion so expensive that they were instructed by their managers to skimp on it? He'd ask them to put on more onion. They did, another slight sprinkling. Today he had to ask a third time for more red onion.

    Is too much, the gal making his sandwich had said. He had rolled his eyes.

    No, it's not enough, he had said.

    Your girlfriend won't like you! she had replied. What did she know? He didn't currently have a girlfriend. If he did, she had better like onions! It was frustrating. Why did anyone have to argue with the person who was supposed to be making your sandwich the way you wanted to make it the way you wanted? Wasn't the customer always right?

    Look, he said, put on enough onion so I don't see the other veggies through it, okay?

    Okay, okay, she said and finally did as he asked.

    Perfect, he said. Oil and red vinegar now, and a little pepper, then we're done.

    Although his last name was Herman, he didn't look white bread at all. David found it hard to say what race he really was. If asked on a survey, he would pick decline to say if that choice was available. Among his friends he referred to himself jokingly as a mutt. His aunt called him her Little Cappuccino when he was a boy. His father, Daniel Herman, was born of an Englishman who married a Filipino woman. His mother's father was a South African gentleman, and his maternal grandmother was Latina. He was a product of mostly dominant traits. He had thick black hair, slicked back with gel and cropped neatly straight across in the back above his collar, brown eyes, and a light brown complexion. He never needed to use a tanning booth. He liked to keep a kind of a five-o-clock shadow beard. He used a hair trimmer set on the lowest setting without any attachment to shave. It gave him a somewhat swarthy look and allowed him to avoid the itchy feeling that he got after he did a clean shave. He wasn't so handsome that he could be in the movies, but he wasn't unattractive. If he overcame his shyness he could date any woman he wanted, but he wasn't all that interested in dating just anyone. He felt like he was looking for something more real.

    He did have an innate sense of accounting. He gravitated to balance. He was most satisfied when everything added up. When something was not right in the numbers, it just felt wrong to him. This kind of intuition helped him excel at his job. He was always able to hunt down any mistakes in the books and correct them. His review after his first year got him a 3.6% raise. It was somewhat measly, but a lot of people didn't even get that much of a raise since times were hard. His firm did financial investment management. The markets didn't do that well that year and raises were tied to market performance. He figured after his second full year he might look for another job. Two full years would look quite good on his resume. He was also planning on going for his CPA. His counselors in college helped him take all the right courses, but this year California had changed the rules. He would have to get a few more college credits, mainly in ethics, and then study to pass the exam. Ethics shouldn't be a problem for him since he could likely take the courses online, and he had decided for himself that the best course in life was to never break any laws, not any ones that could get you in trouble and result in huge fines or jail anyway. He might still drive eighty mph on the Southern California freeways on occasion, but that was mainly so as not to get back-ended.

    He wasn't in a hurry. His father always told him to be patient and good things would come to him. His job wasn't the best job, but it was the best he could get for now. He just had to wait, day by day, week by week, building up his experience and working slowly at advancement. One day it would pay off and everything would be better. His position was Junior, but it would become Intermediate, and one day Senior. If he just kept going, one day he would have a good job, better pay, a better car and even a house. Maybe he would get married and have children. He felt like this was not his life yet; it was a waiting period. One day his real life would come. He just had to keep going, keep turning the cycle, and it would come. It was difficult to make ends meet, but he was young and that was expected. One day he would have enough.

    He finished his lunch, wrapped up the trash, and headed to his office. A man and a woman boarded the elevator with him. They were both nose-to-phone and he didn't feel like disturbing either of them. He quietly suffered the delay of stopping at their floors which were both before his. He got off on his floor. His entry card was in his wallet. No one else was around, so instead of taking it out he did a pirouette that passed his back pocket containing his wallet in front of the entry sensor resulting in the beep that meant the door was open. He pressed the handle and entered.

    He navigated past the lunch room where he dropped his trash off; it wouldn't be good to smell the remnants of his lunch in his desk trashcan throughout the afternoon. He got to his cubicle and took his seat. His cube was one of four that were set together for the purpose of providing close proximity to his team. Two of them, including him, were Junior Accountants. One was Intermediate, and one was Senior. They worked under the Manager of Accounting on the mutual fund area of the company. The other branch of Accounting consisted of two Principal Accountants who saw to the personal investment account management part of the business. They had separate enclosed offices with doors. They were both CPAs and likely got six figure salaries. David guessed they earned it since they worked more than forty hours a week and probably made good money for the company's individual investor clients. He thought that would be him one day if he stuck it out, waited for it long enough, and got his CPA certification. It would just take time.

    It was now time to buckle down. He had a lot of work to do. Two months ago the company replaced the Manager of Accounting with a new manager. It was strange. Paul, the former manager, was there every day before they arrived and was still there when they left. He was pretty easy going, though. There was constant work, but not a lot of pressure. Then Paul's desk was empty for days. No one on his team knew where he was or what happened. They just kept on doing the regular work of posting and verifying daily transactions, hoping Paul wasn't in the hospital or something. One day when David got to work he had an email scheduling a team meeting. At the meeting the CFO introduced their new manager, Peter Davis. Peter announced that there were going to be changes to better represent the activities of the business, including modifications to allocations and different categories for various activities. It would, as he remembered the quote verbatim, improve our alignment of cost realizations to reduce tax implications and accelerate actualization of profits. It seemed clearly implied that Paul was fired and Peter was hired for this purpose. To David that meant, other than that his company was wangling numbers to squeeze out a little more money, that he had to deal with hours and hours of moving things from the old accounting system to the new accounting system. It was tedious work, assuming you wanted it to be done perfectly.

    There was some groaning in private among his teammates, but David didn't really care how the company wanted to do its accounting. In a sense he felt like this was just the prelude to his real job. Whatever they wanted he would do. He was assigned a branch of the accounts to move from the old system and reassign appropriately to the new system. It was like digging dirt, really, he thought. You take your shovel and scoop some dirt from one place and throw it into another place. Indeed he was shoveling data instead of soil, but the effort was quite similar to digging a ditch. It was just a very careful ditch so that the dirt you moved went to the exact right place. He spent the afternoon digging his digital ditch. At least being busy made the time go fast. By the end of the day he thought that he had made significant progress on his ditch.

    It was Friday and just a few minutes from close-of-business. David did a few last entries that would make a good stopping point in his efforts. He closed his programs and opened his browser to check his email. There was nothing significant. He checked his phone. His house-mate, Mark Wang, had texted him asking him to pick up a twelve-pack on his way home because they were having some people over tonight. He replied with, ok np will do.

    David lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Irvine in a complex just a few miles from where he worked. He and Mark split the rent, making it barely affordable for both of them. At least he didn't have to take the freeway to get home; that would be a nightmare. The southbound I-405 was always jammed and varied from zero to ten mph in the area around the airport during the evening rush hour. Tonight, however, he had to deviate from the easiest path to stop at the store. Irvine was laid out in such a way that everything was in parks. Where he worked was an office park surrounded by hotel parks due to the proximity to the airport. Where he lived he guessed was an apartment park. There were neither corner stores nor supermarkets in either of those parks because such places of business had to be in commercial parks. Those parks generated their own mini-traffic jams due to the situation that everyone who needed anything on the way home had to go to one of those parks. It would have taken him maybe fifteen minutes to get home, but fifteen minutes after driving his car out of the parking structure at his office he was in a traffic queue waiting to make a left turn into the parking lot for the grocery store. It seemed like all the drivers were inept at navigating the simple maneuver to enter the lot. When they finally got a green arrow it seemed that they crept along so slowly that only three or four cars could make the turn before the light went red again. It was infuriating that it took three changes of the left turn signal before he finally got to the turn. The arrow turned yellow, but he crowded into the intersection behind the Mercedes in front of him and made the turn instead of waiting for a fourth light.

    The store was crowded. It was the wrong time to be shopping for everyone, but it was Friday night and they all needed stuff. All he needed to do was get two six packs of beer and some food for the weekend. He didn't want anything lite – what was the point? They didn't have beer everyday. When they did it might as well be something good. Of course, the better micro-brewery quaffs were more expensive. He settled on two six-packs of a decent amber ale that was on a buy-two sale. He picked up two TV dinners in case Mark didn't have food, and stocked up on some Top Ramen. Payday was a week away and his bank account was close to fumes! He found the shortest line, and let someone with one item get in front of him. No surprise, that person didn't agree with the price of that one item and it took more than five minutes of arguing with the cashier for him to eventually buy that one item. When David finally got out of the store, he checked his watch. It was forty minutes after he had arrived. How the hell had it taken that long?

    An hour after leaving work he finally pulled into the underground parking for his apartment building. He took the elevator to his apartment on the fourth floor. He went in and smelled food. Mark was in the kitchen eating from a bowl with chopsticks. He had something cooking on the stove as well.

    Hey, Bro, David said, What ya got cookin'?

    Potstickers, you can have some, Mark said in a kind of a downer voice.

    That was a normal thing to say, but it was the way he said it that seemed off. Mark seemed unhappy for some reason. He was usually upbeat and lighthearted.

    Cool, I picked up some TV dinners but it looks like you're taken care of. One's for you if you want it anyway. I'll toss it in the freezer.

    Thanks. You got the beers?

    Yeah.

    David pulled the beer out of the grocery sack and put it on the table.

    Nice, Mark said. Looks like we're living the high life tonight.

    Nah, that'd be Miller. True it was a lame joke, but Mark who usually laughed at lame remained solemn.

    David put everything away and put his TV dinner into the microwave.

    Who's coming over?

    Ashley and Zach, Lauren, and she's bringing her friend Kayla.

    Ashley and Zach were a couple. Mark was interested in Lauren. That meant the unknown Kayla was probably a setup for him. Mark was sensitive enough to balance the male-female aspect of a Friday night hangout. That could be good or awkward. Anyway, it might be fun. He noticed Mark had potato chips and dip plus tortilla chips and salsa on the table in the living room. It was going to be a nice junk food party. When the microwave dinged he extracted his meal and threw away the cover. He popped open a beer to go with it.

    Mark, is everything okay? You seem down.

    Oh, man, you had to ask me now? I was gonna tell you later, but, well, I got frikin' laid off my job today.

    What the hell?

    Yeah, I didn't want to bum you out before our little party but I guess you could just tell I wasn't all that gung-ho tonight. They waited until an hour before close of business, then my manager called me into his office and said, 'close the door,' which is almost never a good thing. He gave me the old sob story about business being down and the company had to make some 'hard decisions,' and other bullshit corp-speak that meant, 'you're fired, dude!' I kinda had to laugh about how 'hard' the decision really had to be to let go five of us from software development. Anyway, I had to clean out my desk and my computer was shut down when I got back to it. Good thing I didn't have anything personal on it. I get paid severance for the next two weeks.

    Damn that sucks, Mark! What are you going to do?

    I'm a Java developer in Orange County. Tomorrow I'm gonna update my resume and put it on Dice. Hopefully I will find something around here fast. I also started my application for unemployment just in case. This really sucks, though. Do you know that with my salary history I can't get enough compensation to even cover my half of the rent? I will be able to make next month, but after that I need a job. Worst case is I'd have to move back in with my parents temporarily.

    That scared David. If Mark couldn't pay his half of the rent and had to move out, David might lose his place to live. He didn't have parents to fall back on. His father had passed away and he didn't know where his mother was. Numbers flew through his head. They didn't come out positive. He was pretty much already living hand-to-mouth and if he had to pay more of the rent, there wasn't that much else in expenses to cut. He couldn't afford the whole rent on his own. He put his hand on Mark's shoulder and looked him in the eyes. He had to say something. He didn't know what to say. He let words come out extemporaneously the best he could.

    Look, Bro, we'll work it out. There has got to be a way, and like you said unemployment for Java professionals in this area is way lower than the national or state numbers. You know what? Your job really sucked! You were working all those extra hours with no extra pay because you were hired as a salaried exempt. This is a good thing. You needed a better job and this is just the universe's way of helping you get it. I'll help any way I can. You've been put on the road to a brighter future. It's gonna all work out for the better.

    Thanks, man. Thanks. What you said is encouraging.

    Mark pulled David in for a man-hug, which was a regular hug but was brief and included slapping each other on the back, then disengaging before it got weird.

    David added some of the potstickers to his TV dinner. He sat on the couch with his food and turned on the TV to watch the news. He was worried for himself, but more for Mark. That had to hurt no matter what. Losing your job was like getting dumped by a girlfriend, except worse since if it was a girl she wasn't supplying the paycheck that you needed to live. Having Lauren over should cheer him up.

    Their guests arrived and brought more beer. There wasn't going to be a lack of libation for the evening. Kayla was a cute Asian gal. She wore a pair of white shorts, revealing a tattoo of a leopard on her lower left leg. Its tail curled toward her knee, and it seemed like the cat was stalking her left foot. It was nice artwork. That was the only tattoo she had that he could see so far. She wore a brown and gray long-sleeved pullover that interestingly had thumb holes in the cuffs. She didn't have any obvious piercings other than a double pair of earrings. David struck up a conversation with her and found out that she was an under-grad at UC Irvine studying pre-med. David figured that if she was going to go for being a doctor, a lot of people wouldn’t want their doctor to have crazy tattoos or a nose ring or forty earrings. But then again, tattoos and piercings were becoming mainstream. At some point people might actually be more comfortable with that.

    Everyone got their beers and sat around the coffee table, sampling the chips and dips. Mark usually led things on evenings such as this. Tonight, understandably, he wasn't his usual outgoing self. That made things a bit awkward with the unspoken question of what they should do. David realized it was up to him to make some suggestion.

    Okay, let's vote. We can pick a movie on streaming video, or we have some games. We could play Trivial Pursuit or Mexican Train Station dominoes. So movie, trivia, or dominoes?

    The votes were mostly some version of, I don't care. I don't like trivia that much, but whatever you want is fine. It was pretty much David's choice. A movie would shut everyone up, and talking seemed to promise more fun. Trivia seemed less popular. He brought out the Double-Twelve domino set.

    They took the snacks and drinks and all sat around the dining room table. Dining room was really an imaginary division of the contiguous space between the kitchen counter and the living room, but there was indeed a table. No one except Mark and David himself knew how to play. David explained the house rules and they played a practice round where everyone showed their dominoes and David told them each what their best play was in turn. They were all sharp and competitive young people who caught on easily and actually enjoyed the game once they started playing for real. David was right in thinking that this would allow the most conversation. With a little added warmth from the beers they were drinking, they started to actually have fun.

    Oh no you didn't! Lauren said as Mark played a domino on something she wanted just before her turn. See, David thought, you always put the girl you liked to your right when you play dominoes.

    Sorry, I had to do it, Babe. No other play for me. Everyone laughed a little.

    David had followed his own advice and put Kayla to his right so he wouldn't be taking moves from her. There was no sense risking bad feelings from a cute girl he had just met. Unfortunately, although he was pretty good at the game, that meant she was taking moves from him, and she played pretty sharply for a newb. Oh well, they weren't playing the version for money – he didn't even suggest that version since they were all pretty much poor – it was all good. Zach seemed to know what he was doing or was just lucky. Ashley was to David's left and Zach's right.

    I saw something funny today, Zach said. "I had to drive through Garden Grove and at the city limits they had a welcome sign with electronic letters. It said, 'This month is Distracted Drivers Month. Do not …' and then I couldn't read the rest since I had to suddenly hit the brakes because I almost ran into someone!

    Everyone laughed. Oh my god! The city was texting you while you were driving about not texting while you were driving! Ashley said. That made everyone laugh harder.

    After his turn, David asked, Kayla, what kind of doctor do you want to be?

    I was thinking about going for surgeon, but I'm actually liking ER.

    Ooh, all that blood and guts. Makes me shiver to think about it.

    It's not all blood and guts. I've done some field studies in ERs where students get to hang out and watch what goes on, even help a little. A lot of it is pretty mundane, even boring really. But I'm not squeamish. Blood flowing or seeing bone through a wound doesn't bother me. That stuff actually interests me and I want to learn how to fix it.

    Better you than me I guess. That's a really cool take on it. I feel like that with numbers. I guess a bleeding account that is cut to the bone spurs my interest in figuring out how to fix it. I guess we both want to fix something in different ways.

    David had his marker up and Kayla played on his train. That was exactly what he needed, for a change. He played and took his marker down. Two turns later he went out and they started the next round.

    Say, David, Mark asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? Everyone laughed at that. Mark was teasing David about his relatively somber question to Kayla and trying to lighten things back up.

    He wants to learn how to play professional dominoes, Zach said. More laughter. They were all in a mood to laugh at just about anything.

    Okay, David said, if you want to know what I really really want, and I have thought long and hard about this, the thing that I really really want is … another beer. Mark can you get me one?

    Ashley and Lauren started singing Spice Girls, Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. Then they broke into laughter and bumped knuckles across the table.

    Sure, bro. Mark grinned at the girls. He was sitting closest to the counter. He got up and reached over it to grab an Amber Ale from the sink where they had put all the ice cubes from the freezer and set the beer bottles to keep them cold. He popped the top with the opener and handed it to David. Your wildest dreams have come true!

    Thanks, David said. He took a good drink and put his bottle down on the table. Then he offhandedly added, Ya know, what I really really want is to just have too much.

    Too much of what? Lauren asked. You could have too much beer pretty easily. There were some chuckles, but the unrestrained laughter that arose from earlier comments wasn't there for her remark. They were all a bit interested in what David said.

    I kinda like that answer, Kayla said. Interesting, but could you elaborate just a little bit?

    It got quiet. Suddenly everyone seemed to be expecting something of value, something real. Perhaps they were intrinsically asking themselves what they would say, and waiting to compare it to what someone else would offer.

    Um, sure. It's pretty simple really. For my whole life so far I've had not quite enough, or barely enough, and at a few times just a little bit more than enough, although that didn't last very long. What if every month after I paid for my housing, my bills, my food, and all the unexpected costs I still had plenty left over? Like not just afford all the expenses, but have a whole lot leftover to do things with and be able to help other people who didn't have enough? I'm sick and tired of being broke before each payday, not having enough or barely having enough. I want to have too much instead!

    The quiet continued. No one was exactly stunned. They just didn't know how to react right away. It was finally Ashley, who had been pretty quiet all evening except for a little singing, who broke the spell.

    A toast to too much. May we all have too much! she said. They all clinked their bottles and got back to the game.

    Then, pretty much, you just want to be rich, Zach said, playing a ten-nine domino on a side-car.

    I suppose you could say that, David replied, "and it does sound fair enough. I guess everyone would like to be rich. Who doesn't dream of owning a yacht docked in Balboa Bay next to their multimillion dollar mansion? But I'm not interested in being rich like that. I don't want things so much. I want to live my life with me having too much instead of everything else demanding too much out of me. I kinda want to turn the tables on life so that I'm in charge instead of being tossed about. I mean, for example, right now if my car broke down I'd be screwed. Why not have it be that if my car breaks down I just go buy a new BMW and still have enough to fix your car if you need it?"

    Yeah, that's what being rich is.

    Okay, fine, I want to be rich then. I want to be filthy rich so that I have too much and can do whatever I want to do. But really I'd settle for my life as it is going and always being able to pay all the bills including the unexpected ones and not be totally broke every month after I do.

    Then assuming you were free from all financial worries, Kayla said, which I think is sort of what you're saying, what is it that you would want to do then?

    Now there's the real question, David, Mark said, laying down a nine-twelve on Zach's play, looking happy to be rid of the huge number of pips. I think David is saying that he just wants to hang out and be Rasta with no worry, be happy, Mon. And with too much he could let all his friends share his enormous supply of medical weed!

    Sure, Mark, when I get to have too much I'll be happy to develop glaucoma for you. I guess that is the real question, though. I can't really say what I would want to do. Once I get there, I'm sure I will find that answer. I don't have it right now.

    You guys are freaking me out with this, Ashley said. Let me see if I got this. You want to be rich so you can pursue your dreams, but so far you don't know what your dreams are? Maybe we need a dream first, and then go after whatever we have to do to get it.

    Zach leaned over and gave Ashley a kiss. You're my dream, he said.

    Ashley smiled. Oh, cut it out you moonbeam!

    It's not a bad answer at all, Kayla said. Where we are right now we're pretty much using our dream time to figure out how to get by. As for me, I hope to be able to heal people and make a decent living doing it. Here's to the future. Let's all have too much.

    They all clinked bottles at that toast.

    David got a thought. All I can say about a dream, he said, is that maybe I would like to start my own company. Again, sorry, I don't know what my company would do, but at least if it's your company you can't get laid off! Hopefully it'll be something that helps people, but that's all I got so far. Stay tuned for details.

    Oh, we can hardly wait to find out what David, Inc. would do. Mark said. Make onion sandwiches? Seriously though, bro, it does sound like a good idea. A toast to David, Inc.!

    Clinks all around. At this point they would toast almost anything.

    After they finished the last round of the game, it turned out Mark won. Usually David won these games, but he had strategically positioned Kayla to mess up his play. Too bad it wasn't for money. Mark could probably have used a few extra bucks. Everyone hung around a little bit, finishing last beers. Lauren said they had to take Kayla home because she had to study on Saturday. Lauren and Mark went off to talk for a few minutes before they left. David saw Lauren make a sad face and hug Mark. He guessed he told her about his situation.

    Kayla took David aside. I like you, she said. Give me your digits.

    David gave her his phone number. She entered it into her phone and pressed call. His cell phone rang.

    Don't answer. Save it, she said. You can call me.

    David canceled the call and saved her number in his contacts.

    Thanks.

    Lauren tapped Kayla and said they were ready to go. Kayla gave David a little kiss. Thanks for a wonderful evening, she said.

    My pleasure, David said as the company left. It was well after midnight. He went to his bedroom. Whoever got up first in the morning would do cleanup. He hoped to win that competition by sleeping in the longest.

    Once David got ready and got into bed, he looked out his window from the darkened room. He could see one single star above the building across the street. He wondered what star it was, or if it was a planet. You didn't get to see too many stars in Irvine. It was limited to just the brightest ones when you could see any at all. Funny thing, he knew the names of a good number of stars, but except for using a stargazing app, if you just saw one you couldn't tell what its name was without seeing the other stars around it. You needed context to identify a star. He fell asleep.

    Chapter Two

    Before You Can Make Ends Meet, Someone Destroys Them

    Evan Vallor grew up as an only child named Ivan Voikavich. That name caused him a lot of teasing in school. Inventive kids would change his name to things like, I been doink a bitch, or, I've a rank sandwich, and other such cruel punny renderings. On his eighteenth birthday, to his parent's chagrin, he legally changed his name. There are studies that prove that only children are not normally spoiled brat cases. Indeed, most are highly motivated individuals and are able to thrive in society in wonderful ways. His particular case would not have been singularly helpful to support such studies, although the highly motivated part seemed to fit. He was a freelance private investigator. His bread and butter once consisted of jobs that involved spying on suspected errant spouses, gathering evidence for lawyers to support their trial actions, helping parents find out if their kids were using drugs, and sometimes assisting bounty hunters locate people. He still did some of that, but he had recently branched out into a new and profitable area – solving identity thefts. He ran ads promising to help victims of identity theft resolve their problem, and he was actually helpful to his clients. The twist was, he himself regularly practiced identity theft and it was not all that rare that his clients were actually his own victims. In a sense he created his own business, and those cases were indeed the easiest to resolve. Already knowing the exact details of the theft he had perpetrated, he could string them along collecting money until he miraculously solved their problems and earned his final payment along with their misplaced gratitude.

    Vallor's pet peeve was stupid people in traffic. Driving on the local freeways, there just seemed to be so many idiots who would do stupid things like cutting into your lane in front of you and then driving slower than the lane was going, forcing himself and the drivers behind him to brake. He was sure that that was the cause of most bad traffic jams

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