"Malfeasance" pt5 of Escaping The Despondent Sea"

Now, it wasn’t just Sandy’s, and my own, once again, broken dreams that clouded my 

perception. There were other people who had damaging impacts. I am not making 

excuses for my drinking, which I did know was a problem. It was a familiar comfort that I 

had discovered when I was a teenager surviving a badly broken home. Bob, a routine 

source for cheap, skilled-laboring, was a factor in my struggle to overcome during this 

time, as he had been in and out of my life since immediately after the truck accident, which 

happened just a handful of months before my family became to be destroyed. Had my 

mental faculties not been damaged, I may have recognized that this person was not 

someone I should be associated with. As I think about it now, I wonder if it wasn’t his 

twisted aura that poisoned my own? 

Bob had his house up for sale, while building himself another one that was very much like 

it. The only person who became interested in it had no credit of any use, and was unable 

to purchase the home. Bob, needing to unload it, had a discussion with his loan officer 

about his little problem. The fact that this particular loan officer was known as, 

“The Loan God,” was what made Bob seek out his confidence in regards to how he could 

unload this house.

The arrogance and vanity of this particular loan officer was evident by way of his vanity 

plate on his automobile. The vanity plate on his car say’s “Loan God.” His manipulation 

included instructions to Bob that he needed to bring the money that the potential buyer 

was required to have in order for the loan and purchase to be made possible. That meant 

that Bob would have to bring fifteen thousand dollars cash to the table, placing the pile of 

money in front of the buyer as if it were his own money, which he then slid toward the loan 

officer as if he were paying it. The deal was sealed and Bob could now move on with his 

plans. The whole thing is fraudulent and is part of what is plaguing us this very day.

Part of Bob’s browbeating of me was to throw these things in my face. Like I was nothing, 

insignificant. Always saying that I needed to start small and work my way up. Stating that 

he got what he has in life because he took it. Myself, I am not like that. All I could do was 

to pretend to listen intently- as if he was some kind of teacher. He would inundate me with 

these kinds of things throughout the day. My theory was that he could not handle his own 

conscience, needing to drown it out by ripping on me constantly.

Lucky for him I was use to it since my so-called father was much the same, constantly 

beating me into submission, which I stubbornly fought from the beginning, much to his 

dismay. No matter how much he beat me or smacked me, I would get back up. He would 

refuse to listen to something I had to say, swatting me in the face and telling me to “tick-

a-lock” but I would keep on. No matter how many times he hit me, demanding me to shut 

up, I would continue- forcing him to work harder at it. Just as much as he could dish out, I 

would provide an amount of resistance equal to or greater. My tolerance for pain is 

extremely high as a product from that abuse. That is a triumph for myself. No one can hurt 

 me now.

By the time I got home from work with Bob, I was a useless heap of flesh. I couldn’t talk 

very well, stuttering my words and becoming hard to string them together in sentences. 

My hand would curl up in an odd way that I’d only seen in invalids. During the day I would 

be subjecting myself to a barrage of abuse, things like semantic lectures, and statements 

such as, “My kids got me…for Father’s day. What did your kids get you, Daddy?” Or, “You 

must not have been that great of a husband or your wife would have never divorced you.” 

Or by taunting me with calling out to my ex-wife’s new husband as if to be hunting him, 

"Peetah, oh Peetah...” Peter, being his name. Never, have I received closure for the 

decisions Mindy has made, and it continues to haunt me to this day, more or less.

Bob had a way of starting the day off as a confidant, which, having no father to confide in, 

I desperately needed in my life. As the week progressed, he would take that which I had 

told him and twist it into his own brand of torment. I would continue to persevere and do 

my best work for this man, constantly trying to prove my worth, sometimes on a minute to 

minute basis and just as often, I would secretly forgive him. The abuse I endured would 

only be the cork that seemed to keep me tucked in the bottle, especially after telling me 

things like, “Maybe you just don’t know how to suck up right”, which to me meant that I 

should be serving his intimate perversions- to put it lightly.

Back at the park, I was content in my trailer. My mother even came to visit, sometimes 

bringing us pork sausage made from hogs that her boyfriend, Tom, had raised and 

slaughtered. I would end up working for her, pouring my heart into whatever it was that she 

wanted done, as I always did. We had been having trouble with the van and it would get 

worse, running out of gas all of the time because of so little money and the defective gas 

gauge typical of Fords from the eighties.

The season came to an end and we had to move back to the River Pines since the camper 

 was not paid off yet. I scrambled to get it winterized. The entire bottom needed to be 

wrapped in skirting before the cold weather, which put me under the gun because the cold 

was already upon us. I had no choice or assistance to get the work done before the snow 

started flying. One freeze could create so many headaches for us that I couldn’t begin to 

calculate the potential expenses. I made a call to Bob, hoping to find work that would, 

 once again, back me up financially and to make it known that I was living in my own home 

fit for the occasional guest. He would call it my “hut” in the “tin ghetto”.

One day, we had scraped the payment together that completed our purchase of the trailer. 

We were sitting inside celebrating as the sun was going down, having just given the last 

payment to Jerry’s wife, and the receipt still in our hands. Jerry came tearing into the lot 

we had and came pounding on the door. He seemed upset, which we were used to. We 

opened the door to an irate shyster, saying that we lost our agreement because we 

messed up on the payments. What he was really upset about was that he had no intention 

of us paying it off, knowing we were cash poor and banking on us having a hard time 

doing it. We were supposed to mess up. He was working at making it impossible to make 

that last payment, if none of the others, by not being there to accept it or write us a receipt 

but his wife was home at the right time for us to do so. He figured it would be like shooting 

at dead men and he knew we wouldn’t be able to fight him in court over it. This was a 

money scandal of his, and not the only one. He had made a bet and lost, and, boy, he was 

more angrier when he left. He slammed the door so hard that it shook the whole trailer, 

 knocking stuff off of our walls and jamming the door so hard that it wouldn’t open back up 

to get out of. We just smiled and laughed to each other. We had finally won something.

Come to find out, Jerry had been caught with his hand in the park till. He had been caught 

renting out the modular units that were for sale, and pocketing the money. Only Jerry 

knows how much money he embezzled. He was ousted from the managing of the park, 

and forced to take up residence in his own motor home, a brand new Bounder.

   

Money sources were about exhausted and the lot rent was becoming difficult for us to 

maintain. We had not missed any trailer payments or electric bills, and I had no phone bill 

because Dan Doyle had given me a phone as part of the money I earned but never got due 

to his purchase of a Harley Davidson Fatboy, which used up the money he had been paid 

for the contract to finish the Log home for the Minster family. Dan repeatedly denied any 

wrong doing but taking into consideration the things that Mark and Connie had to say 

about what they paid him for the project, I am not sure that Karma was going to let him 

slip by unscathed for his seeming violation of our trust. This took place while I had become 

to be involved with Michele Shackleton, just before I met Sandy- another flash back:

Out of my desperation for an income, and my innate ability to extend trust to anyone for a 

chance to earn their own, my sight failed to recognize the paid meals and few dollars, now 

and then instead of a check, as part of a scam. Dan kept promising the pay would come 

when we finished the project, while he petered out a few dollars each week to keep us 

hanging on for as long as he could. This was a classic carrot-and-stick tactic that is 

commonly used in the construction business to take advantage of sub-contractors and 

their labor. I like to call it the “West Michigan Trade Robbery”. Never mind that I was happy 

to be working on a log home, with people whom I felt were my friends, that I knew from the 

past. That small detail helped to keep me completely blinded to what was really going on. 

Keeping on at my trade, and trusting Dan, I whistled the song in my heart.

Other than Dan Doyle, Bill Bolthouse, and a young guy Dan had working with him for quite 

some time on his various projects in the past several years, he also had his son, Danny 

junior, and his daughter, Mandy, helping him off and on as he needed them. Dan kept 

managing to land gigs, like this carpentry gig, while working as a licensed electrician, 

servicing run-down mobile homes and small businesses that used antiquated warehousing 

spaces to run their shops out of. It was one of these dilapidated buildings that Dan ran in 

to Bill at, while Bill was performing plumbing tasks for a crook named Gary McQuaig, who 

kept Bill around for inexpensive under-the-table cash labor.

Dan’s son, Danny, was working with him from time to time, instead of steadily, due to 

substance abuse issues that interfered with the work demands. He would be slowly 

replaced by his oldest sister, Mandy, who, at twenty-six years old, had just been released 

from a lengthy jail sentence for substance abuse related charges herself. Mandy would 

work a few days a week when she didn’t have furthering education classes. It would end 

up being my job to work with her, training her in the carpentry trade. This was mostly 

because her father lacked the mindset, and had little patience or ability to effectively 

communicate with her or anyone else who was without any skills that he tried to use as 

help.

Being a parent, and a happy teacher, I corrected her efforts as she worked, rather than 

blow a lot of wind trying to “teach” her, which took a lot of time away from my own 

productivity. This was the right way to go because I could continue working while 

observing her, letting the tools she used do the talking, telling me what her instruction 

needs were. The table saw would holler or sing after a tag team primer lesson. My ears 

could always tell what I needed to know. “Smooth continuous feed on those boards- it 

leaves less blade kerf to remove and gives less strain on the motor,” I would tell her. 

Mandy was a good student, always eager and very earnest and enthusiastic about 

learning the Finish Carpentry Trade. She was also motivated since she was a mother of 

two, and needed to provide to them, without having any help from the children’s fathers, 

unfortunately.

One evening a year or so later, around nine o’clock in the evening, while Sandy and I were

enjoying cocktails around our fire pit, I received a phone call to come and do some

emergency repairs at the Gezon Building in Grand Rapids, near the corner of Plainfield

Avenue and Leonard Street. Apparently someone went through the building, busting down

doors of some of the most active musicians studio spaces, where they stole anything of

value. For some reason Dan Doyle gave them my number, which I am glad he did because

I could use every dollar I could get my hands on at that time, especially since I was still

feeling the sting of being robbed on the Minster’s Log Cabin project. Sandy and I

immediately jumped in the van and dashed out to perform the repairs and collect the

money that was being offered.

One day, while at that same studio building about a year or so after that, I was told of how Dan Doyle’s daughter, Mandy, had been found dead of an overdose in her apartment. I was told that evidence was found in her apartment that indicated her body had been violated after her death, as well as violating one of the children in the home at the time. Apparently, this evidence supported blatant sexual misconduct to both of them. I instant became weak and my knees buckled, collapsing me to the ground. My stomach wretched with dry heaves, and my eyes flooded with tears as the news sunk in. It was as if she was my own child that had died, and it had been my own grandchild that suffered this terrible atrocity. Mandy was only twenty-nine years old.