The Family Business

My Dad owns 2 Taxi Medallion (franchises) that permit him to operate cabs at Newark Airport.  Each Taxi franchise is worth about $500,000 a piece.  The cab drivers buy their own cab, maintain them, fuel them, and clean them.  My father insures the cabs every year, with the cost of that insurance coming in around $24,000.

The cab drivers make their own hours when determining how much work and driving they want to do that day.  And my father did not care one way or another about how long the drivers worked as long as they put $800 cash per week, per cab, in the lockbox outside my fathers door in New Providence.

Now with that lockbox getting filled with $1600 cash per week , it is easy to see what a sweet deal my Dad set up. Especially since the business was off the books, and that entire amount deposited each week went right in his pocket.  Don't ask me how my Dad pulled that one off, but he was able to keep this business hush hush for the past 20 years.  That is, until he died at 79 years of age and my Mom took over.

My mother decided shortly after his death, to legitimatize it.  So after 20 years of the cab business being a great source of "under the table" income, mom had it incorporated.  This new form of doing business requires paperwork, for all the world to see, especially the IRS.

My Dad died in 2008 and I was sure that I would be the one to assist in running the cab business.  They would remain in my mother's name, but I would help with the leg and paper work.  Not so.  I was shut off from the business as my younger brother was called upon to help run the cabs now.  I was shocked that my mother would do such a thing and since that time, we have not spoke to each other.

For someone as poor as I, inherenting something would have helped.  Just another Natural Disaster, I suppose.

Devastation Day is Getting Closer. Another Bad Move

I can only shake my head in disgust and confusion over my latest decision.

Knowing that I only have $660 in spare change to my name, with all my bills coming due, and fresh off a loss at Atlantic City (which I didn't finish writing about in my previous blog), I took a trip to the Meadowlands Racetrack yesterday afternoon.

I have an on-line account there, so I figured I would put $400 of the $660 I had in my pocket and just go home and play very conservativly, knowing I could probably build it slowly with little bets. That did not happen.


The frustration of losing the first couple of races set in, and I increased my bets to try to recover and lost it all in less than an hour.  And in my mind, when I made the deposit at the track, I told myself that I would come back and withdraw the $400 because I really needed it to pay bills.  But all that inner advice went out the window when the betting began.

Now I lie here on my couch, watching TV, beating myself up once again wondering how I will survive.  I have not worked in 2 years because I collect Social Security Disability and a Carpenter's Pension check every month.  Together, they add up to $3400 per month net.  When I moved out into my apartment, that amount could easily cover my monthly expenses.  Little did I know that another bad move that I made in the past would come to haunt me.

I owe the IRS $159,000 .  Now that sounds like a huge amount.  Especially when I see commercials on TV claiming that even if you owe fifty thousand dollars, they can get it reduced.  Never has one commercial even offered if it is as high as my debt.  Yet, understand that my obligation has been inflated by 50% with the penalties and interest.  So the true amount that I have not paid is half of that obscene figure.

Well, the IRS has levied both of my checks to the tune of $2000 per month combined, leaving me a paltry $1400 with which to live on each month.  Which means that any money I have in my pocket I cannot afford to lose at gambling or foolish spending.  I shake my head again just reading what I just wrote, knowing the stupid act I commited last night at the on-line horse races.

I am currently in negotiations (on my own) with the IRS, to alleviate some of the financial burden they have placed upon me.  I feel I may get some consideration, yet they are really taking their time and every day my available income puts me closer and closer to a cardboard box on the street.  Yet even this fear did not stop my foolishness in gambling.  I am hoping these blogs will open my eyes someday.

In my next blog , I will tell a story of the death of my father, and the subsequent betrayal of my mother with the family business.  A business that could have saved my financial future, but now lies beyond my grasp or control.

Old Habits Are Hard To Break

As I cruise down the Garden State Parkway, alone in my 2008 Toyota Scion, I once again forget to put on any music, as the thoughts of my destination preoccupy my mind.  Desparate for some extra money, I have brought along all that I have to my name ($1200) and am debating with myself on how I plan to gamble with it.  I am Atlantic City bound.

No thought of losing ever enters my head.  That decision and outcome is made at the Casino.  For right now, mile after mile, I calculate how much I am going to pull out of my pocket, what my maximum bets will be, what game I will play, and what system I will employ.  Yet, regardless of what conclusion I arrive at for my gambling stategy, it never stays the same once I arrive and walk through those Casino doors.  For when I step into that mystical realm of chance, and hear the slot machine orchestra playing my tune, my will and my senses are no longer my own, as I succumb to the allure of the gaming environment.

With about an hour and a half to go before I arrive, I begin calling the Casinos for a comp room.  I make sure that I travel between Sunday through Thursday because even though I have probably lost somewhere close to a half million dollars during my gambling career, I still don't rank with the high rollers who can get comp rooms on the weekends.  And since I have not been to a Casino in a couple of months, after 3 calls to 3 different Casinos, my request for a free room for one evening is declined.  I figure, no problem, when I win I'll get a room at one of the hooker hotels just to pass out in.  See, still no thoughts of losing.

Its about time for a pit stop to hit the mens room, so I check my location on the Parkway and see that I am just passing Exit 105, so I'm close to a rest area.  How many times I have asked myself what started me on my gambling career, and Exit 105 reveals the answer.

It was 38 years ago and I was 16, with one month to go till I got my driver's license, and my father was teaching me to drive.  That was usually my mother's task, but this lesson went to Dad.  It was time for me to get some highway driving in, and my father was in control.  We set our course for the Garden State Parkway.

I drove for about a half hour on that highway until my Dad directed me to take Exit 105.  He said it was such a beautiful day that we might as well make our lesson take me to Monmouth Racetrack, which was only another 10 minutes away.

There are not many more beautiful and serene settings than Monmouth Racetrack on a warm spring day.  The excitement of watching those awesome horses race around the track, and knowing that I could make some money betting on the right one, was the perfect combination of ingredients that unbeknownced to me at that time, would start my gambling addiction.  I didn't even gamble on this day because I was still under age, but I sure as hell knew I was coming back.

My eyes are closing now from the depression medication I have been taking, so I will continue this story in my next entry.