Chapter Nine.The Suspect

A week after my father reimbursed only one of the hundreds of dissatisfied renters he's had, my brother Greg sat him down for a grave intervention. Once Melvin realized that we were all serious about not providing him with any more financial dispensation, he became amenable to selling his main residence in Livingston, New Jersey. Greg took it upon himself to spearhead this debacle, mostly I believe because he has three small children and was looking to get out of his house. After his visit he sent a detailed account of the day to my brothers, sisters, and me.

September 17, 2008

4:30-6:45 P.M.

35 Morningside Drive

Dad-the suspect-is sitting out front on the porch basking in the warmth of a sunny and beautiful September afternoon.

Mariana Wallingford, a 46-year-old woman who hails from Livingston and claims she smoked pot in high school with Ray, saunters up Dad's decrepit driveway with her sidekick Realtor husband.

These two had also stopped by several days earlier to tour and assess the house and its ethereal state of utter disrepair. I left work early that day and ordered Dad off the premises in the hopes of giving our new Realtors as little contact with the suspect as possible. The showcase items Dad left behind in order to ensure a lofty appraisal were as follows: Three cabinet doors missing along with a can of soup on the kitchen island from the year 1995. A shutter on the second floor window missing and another shutter on the first floor in front of the living room resting gently on the bushes underneath it. The back room with the fireplace, which Platypus refers to as the "Blue Room" (despite there being no blue in the room), was covered in black mold. The upstairs linen closet had a hornet's nest, which was mildly surprising considering the landscaping bees are drawn to, and being that there are no living plants at 35 Morningside Drive.

I prepared both Realtors for their impending sit-down with Dad, and made them fully aware that they would be dealing with a very delusional, irrational, but nonviolent, common-day lunatic. I assured them I would be there to supervise the meeting and hopefully prevent Dad from demolishing a hot pastrami on rye in their presence.

On the day of the meeting, Dad answers the front door in a pair of sweatpants and a sweater Mom knit for him from the earlier part of the previous century. The four of us move inside and up in the living room, where everyone sits down so they can make their gay and pointless real estate presentation.

We get down to the only relevant point and they indicate that the most favorable listing price to create potential multiple bids is $699,000. This is the same number Ray's Realtor came up with one or two months ago and shared with the suspect. (Dad leisurely answers two calls on his cell phone during the middle of the meeting. He takes his time on the phone while everyone else waits around like a jackass.) I indicate to the suspect that I agree with the Realtors and fully and articulately explain to the suspect that the listing price is only the "listing price" and you generally wind up receiving bids above that number; I am careful to re-explain that the listing price is not the "selling price"-it's merely a widely practiced marketing ploy to produce a higher selling price; this well-accepted practice was then illustrated with actual sales examples of many nearby properties that actually sold for well above their listing prices.

Dad indicates his disagreement with the $699,000 number and proceeds to compare his property to other properties that are actually inhabitable and that sold for much more money. He mentions how he cleaned the mold in the "Blue Room" with some soap and it comes right off, so that problem is solved; I mentioned that remediating the mold scenario was actually a minimum $10,000-$20,000 reconstruction job (i.e., the insides of the walls are all consumed with industrial strength mold-some wall sections are bleached black from mold consumption). We all discuss the idea of selling the house "as is" since selling it not "as is" would require $200,000 to make the entire structure habitable. He agrees. He wants to list it at $749,000 or $739,000, and we get him down to $729,000.

Midway through this episode, we are pleasantly and appropriately interrupted by a knock at the open front door by a service person from the cable company. He shouts from the front door that he needs to pick up payment on the past-due cable bill. Dad says to me, "Greg, you want to give him a check." I say, "He's your vendor." Dad says, "I'll pay you next week," from the upper living room to the service guy still standing outside the front door whom no one can actually see. The cable guy says, "Then I have to pick up your cable box now." Dad says, "Go ahead and take it." The cable guy says, "I'm not allowed to go in the house and take it myself; you have to give it to me." I say to the invisible cable guy, "We're in the middle of a meeting selling the house. Can you come back another time?" The cable guy says, "Okay, but you'll have to bring the cable equipment to our office within one week." Dad says, "Okay…" The never-seen cable guy departs, not knowing or caring that Dad would sooner participate in an octogenarian potato-sack race before setting foot inside any cable office to return anything.

Platypus then proceeds to question Mariana's enthusiasm for the sale. For the record, Mariana and her hubby typically sell about 50 properties a year. I had just met her for the first time, and she seemed like a very nice, honest, straightforward, mild-mannered, but effective, salesperson. Dad says, "You mentioned you've been in the industry for 20 years… well, Mariana, I think you've lost some of your enthusiasm over the years. You haven't said one positive thing about this house since you saw it the other day… I don't think you like this house…"

The life leaks out of everyone's bodies. It's clear that Mariana has never heard anything approaching this type of indictment in her entire career. Mariana says she's sorry if she gave that impression and that she likes the house fine. Platypus continues to question her enthusiasm, her spirit and her lack of regard for his decrepit castle. Mariana's husband then tells us how he bought his own home from Mariana a few years back and that is how they came to work together and fall deeply into one another's arms. Mariana's husband says what a great person and salesperson Mariana has been over the years, and that after both of their divorces, they felt so lucky to not only have found each other but were also fortunate enough to start a realty company. Later on in the meeting, Mariana mentions that her only daughter, whose 17th birthday is today, has been a mute since she witnessed her cousin being attacked and killed by a shark in Hawaii five years ago. Nice going, Platypus.

After Dad has one of his disgusting coughing attacks, somehow the sales process resumes and the suspect signs the Real Estate Listing agreement. I fill out the seller's property disclosure statement on the suspect's behalf, thereby indicating on paper that the seller is not aware that the property is uninhabitable in every regard. Platypus proceeds to regale Mariana and her husband with tales of the house, Mom, Martha's Vineyard, the symbolic and big bloody bull painting above his head, as they both look at the painting, horrified. At this precise moment, a loud crash is heard from the kitchen area. Mariana, her husband, and I all jump at what sounds like an AK-47 gunshot as Platypus turns his head slightly with no reaction whatsoever. The four of us get up from the living room and walk down the five steps into the kitchen, where we discover an eagle with a wingspan of at least five feet sprawled outside the now shattered sliding glass door.