Deirdre.net

  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • About
    • Contact Me
    • Menlo Park
  • Writing
    • Books
    • My Publications
    • My Appearances

Why I Helped the First Time

March 16, 2014 by deirdre 5 Comments

When Rose Lemberg and I ran Vera Nazarian’s fundraiser, we each had our own reasons for helping.
I’ll link to Rose’s below, but here are mine.
In 2003, I befriended another person on a forum where we knew each other anonymously (this forum required pseudonyms). Let’s call him Cas. He lived in the Portland, Oregon area. I can’t remember exactly when we first met face to face, but I believe it was 2005. Cas was in town for business (he was a mid-level manager in electronics), and he, Rick, and I had dinner.
In 2006, I took a traditional chairmaking workshop in Portland for a week. Cas and I went out for dinner to his favorite Chinese restaurant, which was a very informal place, but very tasty. In 2007, Cas was once again in my area for business, and he, Rick, and I went out for dinner again.
At that time, Cas was at the very end of what would turn out to be his last job.
Look, I’m going to say it, because I think the truth needs to be said when I’m talking this stuff (which is part of why I’m giving you a nick and not his real name): he was not the most ethical person. I don’t know the whole story, and I don’t care, but he’d done something wrong (and by “wrong,” I mean big ticket wrong) in the past where wound up with an IRS bill of over a hundred grand that was not dischargeable in Chapter 7, only Chapter 13. I believe the rules have subsequently changed, but those were the rules in place at the time.
However, in between when he’d incurred that debt and when I met him, he’d straightened up a lot. Not completely, but a lot. (For me, growth is a more important trait than perfection.)
And he’d had a Chapter 7 years and years before, but this IRS bill was weighing around his neck. In 2005, he filed Chapter 13. Even after he’d lost his job, he’d kept paying on the Chapter 13. His wife had to file Chapter 13 also just so they could keep the house (because they could defer other bills and reduce their household expenses). She had chronic illness, so that was yet another complicating factor.
If he’d gotten a job again, it would have been bearable, but he never did. Months turned into a year, and everything started to fall apart. His creditors asked for relief from the bankruptcy stay beginning in March 2008, right as I got my job at Apple.
Cas never told me.
I was so high on having gotten the job I wanted, I wasn’t really aware that he was deflecting, something he hadn’t done with me before. Only much later, when I looked back, was I able to see that our conversations started shifting at about that point in time.
In August, his bankruptcy was dismissed. He still never told me. Then he started to really withdraw, but I was so busy at work, I honestly barely noticed.
The morning they came to foreclose upon his house late October 2008, he shot and killed himself.
His family called, and I spoke to his brother.
I felt horribly guilty. No, it wasn’t my fault, but I feel guilty that I wasn’t present enough to call him on his withdrawal. I felt guilty that he’d previously trusted me with stuff, and, for whatever reason, maybe I’d lost his trust at a time when he needed someone most to vent to. I regretted not being there.
Even more horribly, I got why he did it. The house was solely in his name, and, in his own weird way, he was trying to protect his wife in a non-community property state. Undeniably, he was sending a big old “fuck you” to the bank foreclosing on the house, knowing they couldn’t sell it as is. That would be a very Cas-like approach. Part of me respects that.
The IRS debt was also solely his and from before marrying his wife, so the innocent spouse rule applied. If he died, she was free from it.
You know what? I miss my friend.
So, when only a few weeks later, someone else I knew sent out a bat signal that they were going to lose their home to foreclosure?
Of course I helped Vera. I felt like I’d failed Cas, but I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. I didn’t do it for Vera anywhere near as much as I did it for Cas.

About That Growth Thing

I’d seen Cas grow over the years I’d known him.
What I haven’t seen is Vera’s growth, and I’ve known her longer.
Cas never asked to borrow money from me (or manipulated money out of me), even when he desperately needed it.
Vera, on the other hand, is all about other people giving her money by whatever means. I’m not actually sure what verb applies to what Vera did, so I’m not going to go there, especially not when strict liability for libel may apply.
It’s not a happy verb, though.
I will say, however, one of the things Teresa Nielsen Hayden said once that has really stuck with me: “the long con is a narrative form.”

Filed Under: In Memoriam Tagged With: fanwriting, friends, memoriam, norilana, pubiishing, vera-nazarian

About the Author

Comments

  1. Elaine says

    March 17, 2014 at 6:42 am

    I’ve been fascinated by this narrative this weekend, though I only vaguely remember the original charity drive. (I’ve been in F&SF fandom for over thirty years, but don’t follow stuff as much as I once did.) I am most fascinated about those willing to follow her off one more cliff, and whether she believes her narrative herself. I also find ponzi schemes, cults, and MLM’s engrossing: the willing suspension of disbelief. Why do people do it?

    Reply
    • Deirdre says

      March 17, 2014 at 4:46 pm

      Funny you should ask. I have a book coming out later this year related to that topic. (I haven’t yet announced the precise subject or title, though I have both decided.)

      Reply
  2. Steven Scotten says

    March 17, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    Heartbreaking. I have to believe that the IRS debt and foreclosure was the justification, no matter how clever the plan. It sounds like he had been doing what I’m doing for a very long time: killing himself in slow motion. That is, painting himself into corners where eventually the only way out would seem to be the permanent solution.
    I’m not saying that you’re justifying his suicide by saying you understand the justification. I just want to be clear that it was a justification. These things are not mutually exclusive.
    I’ve spent several years with long periods of slow-motion suicide. Even now my “alive” days are outnumbered by about five to one. It’s screwed up but the only difference is that I don’t accept this as the normal way things ought to be.
    At least, not most days.

    Reply
  3. Naomi says

    March 23, 2014 at 9:49 pm

    Fell down this particular rabbit hole today. Is there a link to Rose Lemberg’s reasons for helping the first time?
    The whole saga is pretty fascinating.

    Reply
    • Deirdre says

      March 23, 2014 at 9:54 pm

      She posted them on Twitter one day and I was waiting for a possible blog post, which hasn’t happened.
      Since I don’t feel comfortable re-posting them in this blog post without clearing it with her first, if you go to her Twitter profile and scroll to March 16th, they’re there (ten numbered tweets).

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Elaine Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • My Coronavirus Playlist
  • Why I'm Quitting Zazzle
  • Kilauea Lower East Rift Zone Fissure 8
  • Samhain Publishing Closing, So Download Your Books
  • EC for Books: Early June Update

Recent Comments

  • Mike on My September Experiment: Coconut-Free Living
  • deirdre on Twenty Years Ago Today: Scientology vs. the Internet
  • Silence is Complicity – Pretty Terrible on Blog
  • Debarkle Chapter 40: April Part 2 — Early Reactions – Camestros Felapton on The Puppy-Free Hugo Award Voter's Guide
  • Dani on Twenty Years Ago Today: Scientology vs. the Internet

Copyright © 2022 · Desamo Theme (so so so modified from Metro) on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in