Title: Memior
Featuring: Tyler Nelson
Date: Back in Time
Location: The Nelson Estate

The summer after my first year at community college, I answered a help wanted ad in the local paper. It was fairly ambiguous, offering only this for a description: "House sitter wanted. Expenses covered. 521-9927." Sounded too good to be true, didn’t it? How hard could it be to stay at someone’s house while they weren’t there? So I called the number, prepared for it to be some sort of scam, but ready to pounce if it wasn’t. Turns out the phone number belonged to a third party broker that pretty much hired me with very little in the way of an interview.

"Yes, I’m calling about the ad in the paper."

"Great!" the woman on the other end of the line exclaimed, seeming almost relieved. She sounded attractive, I thought. "Can you start immediately?"

She was getting a little ahead of herself. Was she under some kind of pressure or deadline to get the job filled? Maybe she was working on commission. Either way, she sounded anxious.

"Well, that depends." I totally intended on giving it a shot, but I didn’t want to lay all my cards on the table right then and there. I was too shrewd for that. "How much does it pay?"

I could hear her shuffling through some papers. "Looks like it pays…four hundred a week cash, plus expenses."

Four hundred a week? Cash? For living in someone’s house?

"Hmmm….I dunno." I thought about pressing for a bit more, but I didn’t want to let the fish off the hook. How long could I drag this out before she called bullshit? "You did say expenses were covered, right?"

"Yes."

Another pause while I counted the money in my head. "Okay, I suppose that seems fair. Looks like you got yourself a house sitter."

"Excellent. The address is 24862 Highway 235. The code for the gate is 1021, and there is a key under the mat outside the side entrance." I scrambled to scratch the information down on a piece of paper. "Once you arrive, you’ll find a packet of information on the kitchen counter. Congratulations!"

Rather abruptly, she hung up. Or maybe we got disconnected. I wasn’t exactly sure. She didn’t even get my name. I sat there for a moment looking at the phone, wondering what had just happened. Finally I shrugged my shoulders and hung the phone up, silencing the dial tone. I scanned my small studio apartment, complete with hide-a-bed and a 19 inch television on top of an empty milk crate. A mouse scurried along the floor next to the wall, its small claws quietly searching for traction on the hardwood. I couldn’t tell if that was Tom or Jerry; they looked the same. As the mouse disappeared under the bathroom door, I made the not-so-hard decision to ditch the studio. It was only supposed to be temporary anyway, just until I got a few things working. So I gathered all of my clothes and a few important belongings, which ended up filling two suitcases and a medium sized box, and left the keys on the kitchenette counter.

Putting your whole life into a couple suitcases and a box can really put things in perspective for you. Things really weren’t working out as I had hoped when I ditched my parents and set out on my own a few years earlier. I had managed to pay my way up until now by selling bogus insurance policies to elderly people and demanding up-front payment of premiums. Unfortunately, some of the people became a little suspicious and called a local television station. They ran a story about it and that was the end of that. This little house-sitting gig would be perfect until I could get something else up and running. I had a few ideas, most having to do with fundraisers for sick or missing kids. People shell out tons of money for that bleeding heart shit.

I finally found the house after about a forty-five minute drive down highway 235, but it looked to be worth the trouble. I don’t know who or what was smiling down on me that day, but the house was a mansion, complete with a six foot high iron privacy/security fence surrounding the property. I pulled into the drive and entered the code the woman on the phone had given me, and sure enough the gate crawled open. As I passed through the gate, I couldn’t help but be a little awestruck. The house was a red brick, Tudor style mansion that took up much of my field of vision. The lawn was expertly manicured and landscaped, with a large fountain at the end of the circular drive in front of the house. I quickly began to wonder if I was being set up for something, because who pays someone to live in a place like this?

I parked the car in front and made my way around to the side of the building, and sure enough there was a key under the mat. The conspiracy theories began racing even faster through my mind as I inserted the key into the door. Fully expecting some sort of alarm to go off, I winced as I slowly turned the key and opened the door. Nothing. I paused for a moment just to make sure. Still nothing. I exhaled the breath I had been holding and passed over the threshold into the house. The door led to the kitchen, which was bigger than the studio apartment I had been living in. The stainless steel appliances, solid surface countertops, and oak cabinets were immaculate.

There on the counter was a folder, which I opened to find a list of chores that needed to be taken care of while I was there. I read through the list, which included such ridiculous things as rotating the wine stock and playing music for the plants in the greenhouse, then tossed the folder back onto the counter.

"Hopefully this isn’t some big joke," I said aloud to myself.

*******************************************

Things went pretty smoothly at the house. I mean, how bad can it get living in a mansion and getting paid cash to do it? My money always showed up with the mail, every Friday like clockwork. That seemed a bit odd to me, but I really didn’t give two shits. I was living the lifestyle of the rich and famous, lying by the pool all day, watching movies in the home theater, and drinking expensive bottles of champagne. It didn’t get any better.

Around the end of the second month, however, something happened that would change the course of my life forever. I had just finished watching a movie in the theater, Top Gun was the feature that night, along with a bottle of Dom Perignon. Combine that with lying in the sun by the pool for a few hours that afternoon, and to say that I was dead tired is an understatement. I stumbled up the spiral staircase, nearly empty bottle of champagne in hand. The room I chose to sleep in that night was right at the top of the stairs. It’s no coincidence that it was the first one I came across. I fumbled through the darkness and dumped myself into bed. Did I mention how comfortable the bed was? It was like sleeping on clouds. Anyway, I was out before my head hit the pillow.

After only about thirty minutes, but what seemed like four days, I was awakened by some sort of noise downstairs. I don’t know how the hell I heard it, but maybe after being alone in that house for two months my subconscious mind was tuned in to catching things that were out of the ordinary. I sat up in the bed, my legs hanging off the side. I strained to hear whatever it was I thought I heard when I was sleeping, but all I heard was darkness. I palmed my face and slowly rubbed it all over a few times before crashing back onto the bed. I was nearly passed out again when I heard something again.

Footsteps. Yeah, it was footsteps shuffling across the tile floor of the foyer. I quickly and quietly got up from the bed. Adrenaline was starting to compensate for the alcohol which allowed me to stand upright without falling down. I bent down and grabbed the empty bottle of Dom that I had dropped on the floor, brandishing it by the neck like a club. My heart started to beat through my chest as the footsteps began to slowly climb the stairs. Through the darkness I could barely make out the shadow of someone dressed in dark clothing. I tried to swallow, but the combination of my dry mouth and my heart in my throat made it impossible.

I nearly burst the glass bottle in my hand, I was squeezing it so tight. The intruder reached the top of the stairs, and I suddenly rushed out of the room, shattering the champagne bottle on the person’s head.

"ARGH!"

That was the only word, if you can call that a word, I heard before the sound of the person tumbling down the stairs echoed through the darkness. There were several grunts and moans as the body did an awkward backwards summersault down the stairs. Then I heard one of the most disturbing sounds that I’ve ever heard. It sounded like a tree branch snapping, followed by one final thud. Then there was silence. I stood there in the dark for a few minutes, the neck of the shattered champagne bottle still firmly in my grip. The silence that I had grown accustomed to over the last couple months was now deafening.

I flipped the switch on the light, illuminating the large chandelier that hung from the vaulted ceiling in the foyer. Peeking over the ledge I saw a man lying at the bottom of the stairs in a twisted heap. He was wearing what looked like a military uniform, but it was hard to tell from the way his appendages were bent in every unnatural position imaginable. He looked young, possibly my age, with short brown hair and tanned skin. I took a few deep breaths and then made my way down the stairs, heart still racing from the adrenaline surge.

As I reached the bottom, the first thing I noticed was that the man was not breathing. I dropped what was left of the champagne bottle on the steps and knelt down next to him. I thought about giving him CPR, but quickly noticed that although his head was turned to look straight up at me, his chest was lying against the floor. I wasn’t a doctor, but I could tell that either the guy’s neck was broken or he was part owl. I leaned back against the wall, trying to compile everything that had just happened.

I fought the urge to panic, instead digging the man’s wallet out of his pants pocket. I flipped through to his driver’s license, reading his name, then his address. 24862 Highway 235. He lived here. The urge to panic was infinitely stronger now.

"Shit!" I muttered to myself.

I looked at the driver’s license again. "Shit!" That seemed to be the only word in my vocabulary at the time. I stared blankly forward, not really in shock, but not really coherent, either. I finally mustered the will to rise to my feet, stepping over the body laying at the bottom of the stairs as I made my way into the kitchen. I flipped the light switch on and headed for the refrigerator, moving almost on instinct. I pulled another bottle of champagne from the fridge and popped the cork off, paying no mind to the bubbly that poured out onto the floor. I took a long pull from the bottle, wiping the overflow from my chin with my forearm.

I don’t know if more champagne helped my train of thought or not, but the wheels were certainly turning. It was obvious to me that I had to do something with the body. Get rid of it somehow. This was too good of a gig to have it all come crashing down over a simple misunderstanding. All I had to do was pretend for another month that he had never shown up, and then get the hell out of there before anyone figured it out.

I remembered seeing an ATV in the garage, which helped me to formulate my plan. I threw on some clothes and dragged the dead body through the house and into the garage. There was a small amount of blood on the floor coming from a wound on his head from where I clubbed him with the champagne bottle. I’d have to clean that up later. I piled him onto the back of the ATV, tying him down like a freshly killed deer. I grabbed a shovel from the tool rack on the wall and started off toward the wooded area in the back corner of the property.

After several hours the job was done. I did my best to try and disguise the grave, but it was a difficult task considering the factors involved: I was drunk and exhausted, and there was only a quarter moon of light to work by. At least there were no body parts sticking above ground, I reckoned. There was some brush and leaves that I spread out over the loose dirt to act as camouflage. I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my soiled hand, then mounted the four-wheeler and went back to the house. I got right into the shower, washing the dirt and grime from my body.

As I toweled off after the shower, I looked at myself in the mirror. The effects of the champagne were starting to wear off, having sweated a lot of the alcohol out while burying the body. It was kind of funny, because I didn’t see a look of fear on my face, or even remorse. I saw relief.

********************************************

About a week passed since the incident, and everything was back to normal. I was logging plenty of time by the pool, drinking plenty of champagne, and still getting paid for it. Every once in a while I would think about what happened. I wasn’t haunted by it or anything like that. I guess in the end I didn’t really care enough to feel guilty. I was just grateful that I acted quickly to clean it up. I found his suitcases in the kitchen the next day and rifled through them. I found his planner and discovered that he had come home early from military school. Guess he should have called first, huh? I hid his bags inside one of the million closets in the house. Even if someone was looking for them, it would probably take a good week to find them.

I had just finished lunch one day when the doorbell rang. That was the first time in two months that had happened, so it caught me a little off guard. I almost ignored it. It was almost one o’clock, which is getting toward the end of prime tanning time. After the third ring, curiosity got the best of me. I sauntered to the door, casually pulling the massive, hand-carved wood door open. Standing outside, head hung low, was an older man wearing a black suit accented with a grey tie. He slowly raised his head as the door opened, forcing his eyes to meet mine. The guy was probably in his fifties, with a full head of silvery-white hair. Mileage showed on his face through the wrinkles carved on it. His eyes were sad, like a puppy that just got beat with the newspaper for pissing on the floor.

"How ya doin’, son?" His voice cracked like he was going through puberty again.

I looked him up and down. "Can I help you?"

"Are you Tyler?" he asked.

Shit, I thought to myself. Is this a cop? He sure is a miserable looking son of a bitch if that is the case. Was he here about that night? Could someone have possibly found that body back in those trees? Maybe a stray dog dug him up and gnawed off a hand, dropping it on someone’s doorstep as it begged for food. "Who’s asking?"

I looked over the man’s shoulder to catch a peek at the vehicle he was driving. Looked like a black Cadillac, so that probably ruled him out as a police officer. I felt a little better about things.

"I don’t know if you remember me," he said in a soft voice, "I haven’t seen you since you were about five years old. I’m Tom Fitzgerald. I’m your parents’ lawyer."

Should be easy enough to ditch him, then, I thought. "Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. That was quite a while ago." I decided to play along for a while. "You might have wasted a trip, Tom. I haven’t seen my parents for quite a while."

"Yes, I know you’ve been away at school. I tried to reach you there, but they said you left already."

I couldn’t quite figure out where the old man was heading with this. "You certainly could have called here and saved yourself some trouble."

He hung his head once again, letting a few sniffles escape as he fought back tears. "This is something that really needed to be done in person, son. I don’t know how to tell you this, but your…uhh…your parents are gone." He dug inside his suit jacket and produced a white handkerchief from the breast pocket. He dabbed his eyes and wiped his nose before placing it back in his pocket. "They’ve been killed in a plane crash."

Whoa! That came right out of left field! I stood there, stoic, for what seemed like forever. The old man sobbed as he stood in front of me, which was pathetic, really. "I can’t believe it," I muttered, trying to sound sincere. "When did this happen?"

Tom took a deep breath, allowing it to escape his lungs slowly. "It was yesterday morning. There was some sort of turbulence that put severe down force on the plane. Your father was flying and couldn’t recover. They never had a chance."

That family definitely was not having a good month. "So, what do we do now?" I asked. I was more interested in what kind of angle I could play on this. The guy already thought I was someone else, so I figured I’d see how far I could stretch it out.

Tom gathered his composure. He lifted his head and took a more business-like approach. He was finally acting like a lawyer again. "Don’t worry about any of the funeral arrangements, son. Everything has been provided for in the will."

I certainly wasn’t worried about that, but something he said definitely caught my attention. The will. Judging by the house alone, these people must have been loaded.

"Right, the will." I tried to sound disinterested. "Who all will need to be there for the reading?"

By the look on his face, I figured I might have just stuck a foot in something. "You’re the only heir, son."

"Right, of course." Could I make the save? "I was just wondering about other family."

Tom’s brow furrowed as he looked a bit puzzled. "Unless you know of someone I don’t, your parents didn’t have any other living relatives."

Holy shit! Could I possibly have gotten any luckier? Doing a back flip right there might have been a tad inappropriate, so I did a few in my head. "Nope, none that I know of." I almost cringed at how matter-of-factly that came out.

"Just call my office and set up an appointment whenever you’re up to it, and we’ll go over the will." He forced a smile onto his face. "It’s a rather simple one, so it shouldn’t really take long."

I put on my best somber face and shook Tom’s hand. The old man shook it for an uncomfortably long time, then nodded his head before heading to his car. He got a few steps away before I called out to him.

"Tom?" He spun around, attentive eyes locking in on me. "My parents never really talked about their money to me. Can you give me a ballpark figure on what we’re talking? I mean, just so I can make arrangements for someone to manage it if necessary."

The lawyer paused for a moment, seemingly crunching some numbers in his head. "I’m not an accountant, but I think their assets and holdings are probably somewhere around two hundred and thirty million."

"Oh, okay. Thanks."

Tom waved and turned around to his car. I almost fainted. I watched him slowly disappear down the drive. My heart was pounding again, much like it was that fateful night a week earlier. I remembered thinking that night that my life would never be the same, but I had absolutely no idea of how different it would end up being. In the span of a week, I had gone from struggling con man to heir to a fortune. All I would have to do is get those papers signed, which happened the very next day. I literally became a new man. I became Tyler Nelson.
View Tyler Nelson's Biography
Back