The Dark Side

The last time I saw my father alive was in San Francisco in 1978. We met at a restaurant. He had tricked my mother into giving him my phone number by having someone else call and pretend to be a potential employer that was trying to find me to make me a job offer. Then he calls and wants to visit. I didn't believe he had my address. My wife, at the time, did not want to meet him, she had heard all of the stories. Nor did I want him to know where I lived. (I ain't stupid- my mother and brother had their cars fooled with and my brother had walked out one morning and found the old man sitting in his car across the street with a gun in his hand which he pointed at my brother.)

So we agreed on a time and place and I was there early and parked my motorcycle two blocks away because I didn't want him to write down my license number or the make and model of the bike.

I walked in to find him with his new wife and her brother and his wife. I told the old man that I had come to talk to him and I wasn't interested in being social. We sat at the lunch counter while the others got a table.
He says: Hello. I love you. -then hands me a piece of paper to sign. It was a document signing away my rights to the trust that my Great Uncle had left. There were blank places for my brother's and sister's signatures.
I said: I'm not signing this and they won't either. My sister won't see you and my brother has already told you to take a hike.

By signing over the trust, he could sell the holdings and walk away with a lot of money which was intended to be left to his kids (us).

I don't remember much of the rest of the conversation- it was short and I left him there and wandered around to make sure he hadn't followed me before getting my cycle. And then for the next several days I cased the street each time I walked out and looked over my shoulder a lot. (I wasn't stupid)