Money Grows on Family Trees

Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure is nicer to cry in a Rolls Royce than on a bike.

The McDarin family had four Rolls Royces, and none of them had ever learnt how to ride a bike. That should tell you more about them than anything else I could say.

This story starts and ends with a burning house. The first burning house is the mantelpiece in the story of an entitled young man. The second burning house is the one he’s telling the story in—an event scheduled by Fate to occur some forty-five minutes after the telling of the first burning house story.

Fate had a rather feisty evening planned. On the program were two accidental suicides, two on-purpose suicides, a regular death, and a premature birth, all before the second course was served.

When the authorities were alerted of the inferno that would start in the kitchen and spread to every last golden crested crevice of the McDarin Manor, the bell had already tolled, so to speak.

But all in due time.

“When I tell you it was like the very flames of Hell come to lick at the foundation I ain’t kidding,” said Francis, the eldest heir to the McDarin empire. “From the moment I got there I could tell two things. One: wasn’t no way the house could be saved, and even less way the firemen could get there before it all collapsed.”

“And two?”

“Two was that I, sure as God took a nap on the seventh day, was going to try.”

The real one-two combination of cold hard facts was this:

One: the fire had been in a birdhouse and indeed neither it nor occupants had survived.

Two: Francis had been the one to light it. Stupid men and firecrackers are an explosive combination.

“You’re so brave,” said Rosy, batting her eyes at her husband.

“Yeah, he’s a real soldier,” mumbled Manson.

“Be nice, honey,” said Evelyn.

“You shouldn’t ride him so much,” said Sophia.

“She should do whatever she wants,” muttered Charlie.

“Oh no,” said Christine. “Is that potato soup? Sorry, I have to—”

In the brief moment before Christine fled the table to throw up, all the McDarins were present in. All except two, of course. Those two were the Sir and Lady McDarin themselves. They were upstairs, putting on racy underwear in preparation for their joint suicide.

Invitations to the dinner had been sent out two months prior, written by the house chef.

For reasons undisclosed to those invited, the two senior McDarins would not join the others at the table.

Those reasons included a six-shooter and red lingerie.

Everyone came armed to the teeth with proverbial weapons, ready to be fired at their brethren’s integrities. Sophia knew a secret about Evelyn; Evelyn about Christine; Christine about Francis; Francis about Rosy; Rosy about Manson; Manson about Sophia, and so on.

The only one not planning to be a part of this conga line of secrets was Charlie, but he had brought live ammunition instead.

Don’t bring a knife to a gun-fight. And for the love of god don’t bring a gun to a battle of wits.

It gets ugly.

What they were fighting for was a spot in Sir McDarin’s will. Thing is, the will wouldn’t change no matter what. It was already written and revised. Only three people would ever read the will: Sir McDarin himself; Marissa the maid; and Stanley the chef—on top of being a potato soup connoisseur, he had a real knack for proofreading. No menu was ever served without his adding oxford commas and semicolons.

The McDarins’ lawyer had not yet read it either, nor would he ever get the chance, for before the dinner was over that will would be naught but fodder for the fire.

The McDarin family tree was reminiscent of an old oak tree. It came from a heavy trunk and stretched out into a world of life. Papa McDarin had sired three children, had adopted one, had taken over custody of his niece, and had gladly welcomed a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law into the family.

And like all old oak trees the McDarin’s tree would soon be cut down to make way for apartment buildings and gas stations where one could buy energy drinks and cigarettes for 1.99.

You could read all about that fateful night in the paper that came out the following day. It contained a photo of the burning house. In the foreground was Rosy smiling.

It is the last photograph of her before she died.

What cannot be seen in the photo is the half-naked forms of Lady and Sir McDaring lying upstairs; Sophia sleeping off her half-assed overdose in the bathroom; Manson rolling his eyes at his wife, Evelyn; and of course young Christine halfway through labour in the library.

If you squint, you may be able to glean Francis instructing the firemen on where to aim their hoses. He had experience from the birdhouse incident after all.

Christine returned from the bathroom, holding her breath as well as she could in the presence of the potato soup. She was nearly nine months pregnant and the month prior to the copulation she had failed her driver’s test which meant she was on the fortieth week of lying about her pregnancy and on her forty-forth of lying about her driver’s license.

No one suspected anything. Tailored maternity clothes do a hell of a lot to hide a pregnancy, and a personal chauffeur does even more to hide a failed driver’s test.

Now a potato soup induced nausea was threatening to betray her.

“Are you alright dear?” asked Rosy, who herself was feeling rather queasy. This may have been for two reasons, the main one being the thirty-seven sleeping pills currently in her system just itching to kick in. She didn’t know any better and thought she had taken a normal dose. She thought it was against headaches.

She thought that because that’s what Charlie had told her.

And Charlie certainly knew better.

Sophia too was high as a kite, yet unlike Rosy she was well aware of it. She had unknowingly drawn inspiration from her uncle Sir McDarin. She wished to go out with a bang, which in her case meant a buttload of oxycontin and a fluffy pillow. She was going to reveal all the secrets she knew about her cousins, then sneak into the bathroom and sleep till the Angel of Death came and carried her wherever thirty-two year old rich women go when they overdose

Listen: Lady and Sir McDarin had a lot of time on their hands to come up with crazy ideas. One such idea was this one: they would get all their affairs in order, and then they would book a one-way free trip to meet God.

Now why would they do such a thing? Well it’s very simple: they wanted to go out on top. They had been to every place on Earth, so it was about time they visited the Pearly Gates of Heaven.

“I reckon,” Francis said, “we’re leaving here either with a spot in the will or a boot print on our behinds.”

“Figured that out all on your own, did you?” asked Manson, taking another sip of wine. So far he had consumed more wine than soup.

He would die two years later, suffering from the vengeful disease that is marital rage. After pumping around two pounds of lead into his wife’s stomach he would turn the shotgun on himself in a wrangled imitation of his in-laws, only to find the weapon empty. In his fervour he had used up all the ammunition on Evelyn.

He would cross the street and a semitruck carrying nearly two tonnes of tangerines would pave Manson flat.

The truckdriver had seen the crazed man running towards the shop with the shotgun and had mowed him down, thinking he was preventing a mass shooting.

“You’re drinking too much,” Evelyn said.

“Shut up,” Manson said.

“Why do you always have to be so mean?” Evelyn asked.

Manson flashed a smile. “Sorry. Would you please shut the fuck up, darling?”

“It’s all that alcohol talking,” Evelyn said.

Manson caught Charlie’s eye over the table. He aimed a finger pistol at his temple and fired.

“More wine, Miss?” Marissa the maid asked Christine.

“No. No thank you.”

Evelyn looked up. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I’m just… I have to drive home.”

Rosy held her hand over her glass, said: “None for me either, thank you.”

“I mean,” Francis continued, “it’s safe to say that we’ve all… stretched Daddy’s patience a bit every now and then—some more than others. Which is why we’re here.”

“You think so?” Sophia asked. By then the oxycontin had kicked in. Rosy’s pills were still slumbering in her stomach.

“Why else if not to give us a chance at convincing him we deserve his mone— his love?”

Fat chance of that happening seeing as Daddy McDarin was just now explaining to his wife the intricacies of a revolver and a little game he’d invented called strip Russian roulette.

“At least you stand a better chance than old Charlie-boy here,” Manson slurred. “From what I hear he’s standing to inherit jack-shit.”

Charlie had heard that too, along with a lot of other things he was going to avenge tonight. He was of the same inclination as Sir McDarin on that account. It really is impressive what a six-shooter can do.

He was planning on using his daddy’s gun to take them all out. It seemed poetic.

And six was the perfect number. When Rosy died from the pills, that left a bullet for everyone who stood to have a place in daddy’s will: Sophia, Evelyn, Manson, Francis, and Christine.

And of course a bullet for Fido too. Daddy did love that dog.

“I don’t think I’m asking for much,” Sophia said. “Just a little bit. And they have a little bit! They have a lot’l bit too! They paid ninety thousand dollars!” She was screaming now. “For a rug! A GODDAMN RUG! AND DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THEY PAID FOR MY REHAB? NOTHING!” Her pupils were dilated to the size of nickels. There was half a gram of oxycontin caressing her soul.

“What’s wrong with her?” Francis asked.

“I think she might be on drugs,” Rosy said meanwhile the sleeping pills were doing their best to shut down her thinker.

“Sophia!” Manson hissed. “Sophia!”

“Huh?”

“What the hell’s up with you? Did you do coke?”

“No.”

“Then what did you do?”

“It’s a secret,” she said with a smile.

“I think half of you here shouldn’t worry about the will,” Rosy said.

“And the other half?” Evelyn demanded.

“The other half knows what they’ve done, I’m sure. And who they are.”

Charlie bit his nail, trying to conjure an excuse to run upstairs and fetch daddy’s gun.

Marissa the maid entered the room with a bowl of bread for the soup. She found the McDarin’s standing, pointing fingers at each other.

“Nobody knows what’s written in that will!” Manson hissed. “So don’t start getting all high and mighty about it.”

“For all we know he’s inheriting it all to the dog,” Evelyn muttered.

“If any of you know what the old man’s written,” Francis said, “you better step forward!”

Unseen, Marissa slipped back into the kitchen.

“They didn’t want the bread?” Stanley the chef asked.

Marissa shook her head, wide-eyed.

Stanley guffawed. “Rich people. I’ll never get the hang of them. Can’t make up their minds if their lives depended on it. And let me tell you, they can’t spell for shit either!”

“What about you, Charlie, you have anything to say about this?” Francis asked.

“Um,” Charlie said. He was staring at Rosy. Any minute now her face could fall straight into the soup where it would stay till somebody pulled it up.

“You know what,” Francis said, raising his glass. “Let’s forget our differences and celebrate. You see, there’s someone pregnant among us today.”

Christine damn near died.

“My lovely wife, Rosy!”

Not a single person cheered for they all thought this: yet another heir to the McDarin fortune?

Well, except for Christine. She was trying her darnedest not to throw up again.

“That could have been us if you didn’t drink so much,” Evelyn whispered to her husband.

He raised an eyebrow. “It’s not my fault.”

“Oh, so it’s mine?”

“Who am I now?” Manson mimed filling a syringe and injecting it into his elbow, then stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes back into his skull.

The two broke out into a heated discussion; Rosy and Francis were congratulating each other on the baby; Christine was trying not to puke; Charlie was thinking about murder.

“I think,” Sophia said, smiling at the rainbows crawling around her vision, “I would like some tea.”

The maid set the kettle over on an old-school gas stove. Manson and Evelyn tumbled in yelling about heroin and the like.

The maid scuttled out of the kitchen, forgetting all about the open flame.

Is that Chekov loading his gun?

Back in the dining room it was a Mexican standoff of the verbal kind.

Francis said: “Christine failed her driving test!”

Christine said: ”Sophia steals from Dad to buy drugs!”

Sophia mumbled: “Evelyn’s infertile.”

As Evelyn had nothing to say about Sophia, and as Sophia’s secret had hurt her a hell of a lot, Evelyn said the most hurtful thing she could think of.

“CHARLIE’S ADOPTED!” she said, then clamped her hands over her mouth.

If Mama McDarin had been here she would have reprimanded the lot of them.

“Stop talking like a cowboy, Frankie dear,” Mama would have said.

“Look lively, Sophie child,” Mama would have said. “This isn’t a funeral. I’m not dead yet.”

“Christine my lovely, are you quite alright? You look ready to throw up your soup.”

But Mama was upstairs, spinning the revolver and aiming it at her head.

Charlie rose. He looked each of the attendees in the eye. The unattended flame in the kitchen had managed to get ahold of a wooden ladle and was hungrily consuming it.

He said: “Francis has been smuggling coke over the border since he was sixteen. Rosy’s child is not Francis’. Christine is pregnant, Sophia went to jail, not rehab, Manson hates his wife, and Evelyn still sleeps with her FUCKING NIGHTLIGHT ON!”

He breathed deeply, and sat back down.

Upstairs in the study lay two wills, a fountain pen, a Colt .45, and a pair of woollen socks.

The first will gave everything to his children. The second will gave everything to his dog. The fountain pen was for signing one or the other. The Colt .45 was for a spicy round of Russian roulette. It was loaded with two bullets: one for each of them.

The socks were to ensure neither of them got cold feet.

“Click” the gun said.

“Strip,” said Sir McDarin.

Lady McDarin took off her top revealing a lacy bra underneath. Sir McDarin whistled.

“Click” the gun whispered to the Lady’s temple. She smiled, handed it to her husband as he took off his pants.

“You’re just as beautiful as when we first met,” Sir McDarin said.

“BANG!” the gun said.

“Oh,” Lady McDarin said as Sir McDarin painted the wall red with his brains.

Lady McDarin proceeded to throw up all over the ninety-thousand dollar rug.

“Is that true?” Sophia asked Christine. “Are you really pregnant?”

“And did you really fail your driving test?” Francis added.

“No-oouuuAAAHHH” Christine said, and the baby decided that enough was enough, speak of the devil and all that jazz, it was about damn time it would show itself.

“I’m…” Sophia said, “going to the bathroom.”

“Me too-OOOOUUUAHHHH,” screamed Christine as she rushed out to give birth to her baby without anyone seeing her.

“I am also going to the bathroom,” Charlie said and hurried upstairs to get his adoptive father’s gun.

“What about you?” Manson demanded of Francis. “You got stomach issues too?”

He shook his head.

“Neither do I,” Manson said. “But I have to throw up.”

With that he excused himself and found a potted plant in which to lay the three bottles of wine he’d chugged.

By this time the fire had spread like STDs tend do in a swinger club—with raging speed and leaving a burning sensation in its wake.

Charlie stumbled into the upstairs bedroom where Papa McDarin lay, dead as a doornail. Mama McDarin was spitting up her dinner.

“Um,” Charlie said.

On the table lay the two wills. It never occurred to Charlie to read it.

Instead he ran downstairs, aimed the gun at Francis’ skull, and pulled the trigger.

Francis closed his eyes against the bullet, but the bullet never came.

“Huh?” Charlie said, and fired again.

The gun clicked. And clicked again.

“Stupid, fucking—” Charlie muttered, hitting the gun against his palm.

“Is it broken?” he said, and turned to stare down the barrel. He pulled the trigger again and lost (or won?) the Russian roulette his adoptive father had started.

He blew his own head clean off.

An hour later Fate was done with her arranged evening and stood along with the reporters and firemen and ragged group of surviving McDarins, watching the second sunset that was the burning manner.

“Smile,” a reporter said.

Rosy turned, smiled her widest smile, and promptly collapsed.

Later on the coroner would discover nearly two dozen intact sleeping pills in her digestive tract. ten would have been enough to knock her out. But Charlie was a meticulous person, and when Fate is so insistent on tripping you up, why not make sure to double tie your laces?

An explosion sounded from the garage, knocking out windows and lifting the ceiling a good seven feet.

The fire had reached the Rolls Royces and eaten their gas tanks.

That would never have happened with bikes.