Who wants to know?

When I was a little boy my maternal grandmother lived with us.  An arrangement that I'm sure made for a great marriage between my parents.  Back in those days my grandmother just so happened to own a building in the South Bronx that at some point was an income generator for her family.  It was a piece of pride for my grandmother knowing she did well enough in life to not only own her own home but have enough to own other buildings.  According to Sybil, in the late '70s, times got tough when the schwartzas (it's not racist the way Sybil mispronounces it) moved in, and ruined everything.  At about this point my grandmother was in the later stages of dementia and my mother was making all the decisions related to the building.  No sooner than my mother took over the management was there an invent that involved a brick through her windshield on the 1st of the month.  Something about having the nerve to show up to collect rent but refusing to turn the heat on.  Now most people would say, let's cut our losses and sell the place.  We can't deal with the tenants or the maintenance and we are certainly too cheap to hire a management company.  But who is going to buy the building? There are black people inside.  Not an easy sell, even now.  I'm kidding.   A better idea according to Sybil was to just abandon the property.  Stop collecting rent, stop pretending to fix things, stop answering the phone.  This idea in theory was great until the city got wind of it and decided to sue my grandmother for being a slum lord.

Now's the part where I come in.  One day I'm in the front yard playing with some G.I.Joes, when a man walks on the property and asks if Katie Fox lives there.  Being a five year old and not alarmed by the stranger, I point to my grandmother sitting in the window staring off into space.  The man proceeds to hand me an envelope and walk away.  Later that afternoon my mother came home and I went running to give her the envelope.  I took pretty good care of it considering I was in the yard the whole time.  I informed her that a man asked if Katie Fox lived there, and I said yes.  I was all proud of my basic knowledge regarding my home and my ability not to lose the letter.  Sybil looked at the piece of paper, looked at me, looked at the piece of paper, looked at me, then stated to scream that she had been served a subpoena and it was all my fault.  Never mind she abandoned the building and the city was looking out for the tenants.  It was the five year old's fault for letting the process server know that my grandmother lived there.  How dare I tell the process server anything.  What business was it of mine??  Before the yelling was done I was blamed for the brick through the windshield, too.  If I didn't want so many toys she wouldn't have had to go there to collect the rent.  I didn't really know how to respond so I just backed out of the room and hid under my bed for a few hours.

I think my mother got the case dismissed by claiming my grandmother had Alzheimer's and she had no knowledge that her mother owned the building.  The city took ownership shortly after.

For years I was reminded of how my careless action caused them to get sued.  Foolish five year old, when will you learn?