She wanted it badly, but even she couldn’t honestly say that she needed it. She already had a nice house that was a couple of blocks from the beach. She was extremely fortunate to have done so on a teacher’s salary. She had bought it back in 1996 at the bottom of the market before the prices had begun their inexorable creep up to the giddy precipices they now occupy. It was almost like magic. She had set her intention and then the obstacles between her and her dream had fallen one by one.
She had no credit and no means of putting together a down payment, but the childless widow whom she rented from simply doted on her and after a couple of years created a rent-to-own deal for her where she treated all of the rent that had already been received as a down payment and every month’s rent thereafter would chip away at the principal. When the old woman died, five years later, the reading of her will revealed that she had gifted the remainder of the mortgage to her tenant as a final act of generosity. Maribel was a very lucky woman.
But not entirely. Luck wasn’t something that she received passively. She marshalled it. Her father had explained to her that life was like a game that involves both chance and skill. When he had been sixteen, the son of some hard-knotted Fresno farm workers, he had an overpowering desire for a car. He had taken the small pewter figurine that was shaped like a car out of the family’s Monopoly game and carried it around with him like a talisman, willing it to manifest itself in his life. His family, sensible folk, shook their heads and encouraged him to get a job and start saving so that he might have a used car by the time he was in his twenties.
A local dealership, Ronnie Mullen Ford, had a competition. Whoever could keep their hand on a brand-new, robin’s egg blue 1958 Ford Thunderbird the longest could drive it home. It was a true test of endurance, with no breaks allowed for sleeping, eating, restroom or stretching the legs. All activities necessary for survival had to take place with one hand remaining at all times on the roof of the car. This position was chosen specifically because it would cause the most stress to the participants.
The young man who would one day become Maribel’s father prepared by holding the Monopoly piece in his hand while picturing himself opening the door of the vehicle, the new-car smell of outgassing vinyl wafting over him seductively as he slides behind the wheel, puts the key in the ignition and feels a momentary shudder as the powerful engine roars to life. He also bought a pair of hip-waders from a fishing supply store. You must understand that adult protective undergarments were not introduced to the public until 1978, so he had to improvise. Needless to say, 56 hours after the contest began, his last rival fell asleep where he stood, lifting his hand from the car’s roof as he slipped to the ground. Maribel’s father was the winner, standing in what amounted to a sack of effluent that reached to his waist. He had hoped that the kids at school would start calling him “T-bird” instead of Virgil, a name he despised. Instead, there are still alumni from that rural high school that refer to him as “Shit-stain.”
The day before Maribel’s landlady had made her the incredible rent-to-own offer on her property, Maribel had found a Monopoly piece on the floor of her classroom. Not one of the nice pewter game tokens, but one of the little plastic houses that you place on a property in order to be able to charge rent. She gripped it now as she pictured her new waterfront property with a completely unobstructed view of San Francisco Bay. It was just a matter of finding the property, selling the house that she had gained so fortuitously, and using the proceeds to purchase her new dream.
Californians had long anticipated widespread property destruction, but they always figured that it would come from “The Big One,” a sudden seismic event of great intensity, but the truth was much more prosaic. Tremendous ice shelves had calved off of the shores of Antarctica and they took a while to melt. There were no tsunamis or flash floods, just a slow creeping of the high-tide mark up the sand toward the road. Then over it. The constant urging of the tide slowly pulled apart the roadway and began to undermine the foundations of the houses that fronted it. Residents had their houses red-tagged and were forced to leave, the lucky ones bearing insurance settlements to help them start again elsewhere.
Maribel received several offers far in excess of what she was asking, but she was no longer inclined to sell. She sat on her back deck watching the sun sparkle on the water as the surf lapped gently at the foundations of her former neighbors’ homes.
Literature in Small Doses 