SUNSET ROMANCE: 9) THE GREASY BURGER FORTUNE
My Saturday Evening Post
11.
“WHAT?”
John Mulberry had just told Rodney Peabody in the most polite, discreet language he could muster that his mother, Elsa, had moments earlier shacked up with a 91 year-old man by the name of Miles Stewart.
“HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?!”
Mulberry holds the phone away from his head to protect his eardrum from a grating onslaught of verbiage.
“I tried my best to stop it,” he forces a few words edgewise.
“WHERE ARE THEY NOW?”
“In your mother’s room.”
“IN BED?”
“I’m afraid that was their intention.”
“THAT’S INSANE! HAS MY MOTHER LOST HER MIND! DON’T YOU PEOPLE HAVE SAFEGUARDS AGAINST THAT KIND OF THING?!”
“It happened very suddenly. Your mother is a very stubborn woman.”
“YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?”
“Your mother met this man only yesterday. I had him removed when they seemed to get too close. But he found his way back.”
“YOU’RE TRYING TO TELL ME THAT A 91 YEAR-OLD MAN FOUND HIS WAY BACK ON HIS OWN?! DON’T YOU SEE THIS IS A SET-UP?! DON’T YOU SEE THAT HE HYPNOTIZED MY MOTHER?! HE’S OBVIOUSLY A GOLD-DIGGER! HE KNOWS WHO MY MOTHER IS! HE WANTS HER MONEY! HE’S AFTER THE GREASY BURGER FORTUNE!”
Mulberry allows himself a moment to let this sink in. “Mr. Peabody, he’s 91 years-old. I hardly think…”
“I DON’T GIVE A CRAP WHAT YOU THINK! HE MUST HAVE CHILDREN! GRANDCHILDREN! GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN! DON’T YOU GET IT? HE’S GOLD-DIGGING FOR THEM!”
“Please calm down…”
“YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN! WHILE YOU ALLOW MY MOTHER TO GET SCREWED!”
“What do you suggest I do?” Mulberry asks meekly.
“FOR A START, GET MY MOTHER ON THE PHONE! THIS FUCKING SECOND!”
“I’ll connect you to her room.” Mulberry taps two digits, puts the phone down, and breathes a sigh of relief to be done with Rodney.
Fifteen seconds later, the red light showing a live line goes out.
Then a green light appears, flashing, which Carol-Ann answers. “It’s Rodney Peabody again,” she whispers to Mulberry.
Mulberry rolls his eyes and picks up. “Yes?”
“SHE’S NOT ANSWERING!” hollers Rodney. “DO SOMETHING!”
“Do what?”
“KNOCK ON HER DOOR! BREAK IT DOWN IF YOU HAVE TO, GODDAMIT!”
“Please stop shouting at me,” says Mulberry. “I’m not happy about this either. It breaches our rules, and we will have to address the ramifications of that. But I’m not going to break down your mother’s door. I suggest you come here yourself and talk to her if you want her to come to her senses.”
“I DON’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS!” screams Rodney. “HOW COULD A REPUTABLE HOME ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN?!”
“Some things are beyond our control?”
“BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?!” Rodney bellows. “I HOPE YOU LIKE LAWSUITS, MUTHERFUCKER!”
Mulberry listens while the cell phone Rodney had been yelling through smashes through a window. He looks at Carol-Ann, who’s having a hard time keeping a straight face.
Says Mulberry, “Elsa’s son is displeased.” For the first time, he grins, appreciating his own dry understatement.
12.
The Greasy Burger chain, with its 756 outlets nationwide, was privately held and owned in its entirety by the Peabody family of Santa Barbara.
Greasy Burger was started by Elsa’s husband, Earl Peabody, who sold hamburgers from his lunch-wagon at construction sites in Newark, New Jersey. The business grew to half-a-dozen lunch-wagons before Earl anchored down to a clapboard shack.
These burgeries proliferated westward, as did the Peabody family, and grew over 60 years from a $500 loan into a small empire worth half a billion dollars.
Earl’s two sons, Rodney and Leonard, owned five percent each of Greasy Burger, and Earl’s widow, Elsa, owned the remaining 90 percent.
Neither Elsa nor either of her sons ate the original Greasy Burger anymore. Neither did anyone else. It had evolved into a turkey burger wrapped in lettuce. This had been the key to Greasy Burger’s success: an ability to adapt to the times, while preserving a trade name revered by so many Americans.
It would be crass to suggest that Rodney and Leonard desperately wanted their mother’s 90 percent share of Greasy Burger split between them as fast as the Lord was prepared to act. But in fact, they did.
Life was not cheap in Hope Ranch, where keeping up with mega-wealthy neighbors was sport, pastime and occupation rolled into one. Add supporting grown children who believed work was a total waste of time—time that could be better put to use shopping. Add tuition at high-priced private schools for grandchildren, along with property tax and a cost of living that perpetually skyrocketed.
Five percent of Greasy Burger had seemed like a whole lot when Leonard and Rodney first inherited this tidy sum upon Earl’s death. But years had passed, and now Rodney and Leonard’s eyes were firmly focused on their elderly mother’s 90 percent, which, of course, they felt was their due, by merit of Earl’s hard work and from being born into the Greasy Burger family.
Both brothers were long retired from their day-to-day executive duties at Greasy Burger, preferring to spend their days playing golf at La Cumbre Country Club, while their wives formed women’s groups and made themselves feel good by doling out donations to charities whose administrators kissed their thunder thighs for a slice of philanthropic pie, and their daughters engaged in numerous cosmetic surgeries and massage therapies.
Elsa’s grandchildren, given the opportunity to manage Greasy Burger outlets, did not much care for the business that provided so sumptuously for all, preferring to spend their time bettering themselves at The Bacara Resort and Spa, when not on long vacations abroad.
One thing they all had in common: Dreams of how they might one day spend their share of Elsa’s 90 percent.
And also one fear they had in common: That something—or someone— might get in the way of their inheritance.