Jed

Contents

CHARACTERS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Dazzle

CHAPTER TWO

Corporate Virus

CHAPTER THREE

Big Pond Business

CHAPTER FOUR

Small Pond Con

CHAPTER FIVE

Engagements

CHAPTER SIX

Success

CHAPTER SEVEN

Paradise Lost

GLOSSARY

DEDICATION

Periodically over the years, I considered multiple modes for writing about what I learned from a unique benefactor during the early years of my struggle in the pursuit of an education.

The man exploded upon the scene as a prominent and eccentric personality who possessed bizarre signature behaviors.

Watching and learning experientially gave pleasure mixed aptly with chagrin respectfully, although both remained tolerable if not testing as agents of knowledge.

My mentor was a phenomenon within his force field. His impact stretched past the real, touched fantasy, and returned as a humorous caricature force deserving respect. Extrapolate the term unusual to the maximum; add a dash of brash, stir while sprinkling double nouns, adjectives and adverbs, all of which he grasped readily, and watch the brew morph into classic gourmet JED.

A sensational historical fiction novel turned a phenomenon personality into a marvel of a man using truth and literary license as both the mode and the utensil.

Concealed within his connivances and his strut, stride, and stammer there moved a strange subtle goodness not unlike that possessed by most who struggle to survive.

JED the man was kind and generous. Our family thanks JED for the ride and for the imaginary tales that surface from the pool of reality memories enabled. We dedicate this work in appreciation for the nourishment and enjoyment received.

Ronald Lee Weagley

CHARACTERS

Allen Adam Aimes, ‘THREE BROOKS’ land development project director for JED, friend and ally

Brian Boru: The second noted to two choices who served as the last High King of Ireland. The name Brian appears as O’Brien with Enya’s husband and again appears with Wellington, JED’s illegitimate son James Edward Diston, a.k.a. JED, fifth son of William and Mary, 4/1/1900-5/1/1990

Bruno Vito Zarbo, Body Guard and friend of JED

Dawson Dyler O’Brien, attorney husband of Patti’s sister Enya

Dorothy ‘Dottie’ Ann Wentz, administrative associate to JED

Elroy Ian McGomerery, president, Associated Transport-New York

Enya Erin O’Fallon-O’Brien, sister of Patti Margaret

Gaius Octavius Diston, a.k.a. GOD, 2nd son of JED and Patti, born, 9/3/32

Grant Sean Diston, third son of William and Mary

Harold Cornelius Rockefeller Smith, President, South Rail Systems (SRS)

Harold Henry Diston, Eldest son of William and Mary

Harvey Samuel Jones, Wall Street broker

Howard Edward O’Brien, Senator, son of Wellington and Lolita, 1/26/71

Ian Alfred Diston, fourth son of William and Mary

James Edward Diston O’Brien, born in 2020 as the son of Doctor Twilight Duck Gingaskin-O’Brien and Senator Howard Edward O’Brien, JED’s grandson

John Harper Murray, original owner and president of Fast and Friendly-Freight Trucking Company and William ‘Willy’ Smith Murray, son of John Harper

John Joseph Malovitz, traffic analysis with F&F-F Trucking Co., Inc.

King Henry: The King of England was partial namesake for the Diston son, Harold Henry, their eldest. He negotiated the Home Rule Act-1914 with Rory, a settlement between Ireland and England.

Lolita Morning Drum, MD, American natural wife of Wellington married, 2/1/70

Mark Anthony Diston, a.k.a. MAD, eldest son of JED and Patti born, 10/31/31

Mary Martha Diston, mother of JED

Morning Mist Talon, daughter of Rev. Dr. William Paul Talon, Episcopal Bishop and Rebecca Leigh Von Orendorf-Talon, (Tuckahoe Nation) United States of America presidential candidate in 2018, and future wife of James Edward Diston O’Brian great-grandson of JED

Patti Margaret O’Fallon-Diston, wife of, JED

Price Walter Diston, second son of William and Mary Diston

Rebecca Leigh Von Orendorf-Talon, wife of Bishop Talon, candidate for the presidency of the United States of America and a member of the natural Tuckahoe Nation

Reverend Doctor William Paul Talon, Episcopal Bishop, Rebecca’s Leigh Von Orendorf-Talon’s husband and heir of the witchdoctor TaTa Talon legacy from the natural Tuckahoe Nation

Reverend Doctor Roland Luther Wetly, ministerial student bookkeeper, accountant and analyst

Roderick ‘Rory’ O’Connor: The noted of two choices who served as the last High King of Ireland

Twilight Duck Gingaskin, MD, American natural wife of Senator Howard Edward O’Brien married, 2015

Warner Basta Smudge, ICC commissioner

Wellington Oswald O’Brien (Diston), illegitimate son of JED born, 6/1/33

Wilbur ‘Bud’ Hopkins Easel, Executive Vice President of Eleanor Oil

William O’Toole Weston, father of JED

PROLOGUE

JED is a historic fiction novel based on a real life real time protagonist whose years were baffling, erratic, and bizarre to everyone except the man that functioned under the acronym, JED.

The protagonist coined and/or robbed classic opening lines such as, "In the beginning" and fresh from the womb, as he tripped over his lips and stumbled in his logic. He slithered through passage doorways of his life, sometimes strutting, and often leaping with a burst onto life’s stage, center stage of course, while muttering platitudes of grandeur. His arms waved and his moist body dried in the breeze precipitated by the flapping and jerking movements as he spoke

The real man was a quintessential self-made success, pulled up in social status via sheer force of will from below the measure usually attributed to the average by sheer force of will. He clawed beyond par and he raised himself high on the ladder of success as a top watermark in order to record the abnormality of the fall that would be further than the average fall as a seal of rank and superiority even in his failure. JED was a walking, talking, breathing marvel of a man. He was unscrupulous, cunning, and extremely intelligent with a rapier lip and razor wit both as bold as lightening flashes in the black of night.

Although occasionally cruel, always shifty without prejudice and slick to the extreme, he delighted in giving anonymous donations to academic institutions for the less fortunate, anonymously while stipulating the naming of a building, a chair, a department. He was a humanitarian, a flamboyant con and a stinging adversary who espoused the virtues of Catholicism and the law, both divine law and natural law.

The grim reaper visited while JED was alone and paralyzed in his hotel penthouse suite. He wasted away, slowly. Everything found an Alpha and an Omega with JED.

Truly, he was a marvel of a man in word and deed!

Sometimes a man has to be big enough to see how small he really is.

Ronald Lee Weagley

CHAPTER ONE

Dazzle

ONE MORE-Circa 1900

The cards fell to the floor as JED’s knock on life’s door startled his mother into a leap that she could not negotiate. The leap ended when Mr. William O’Toole Diston caught his wife as she fell forward. The cards landed face-up before her on the floor. The display revealed the card hand order: three twos: (two of clubs, two of hearts, and the two of diamonds), but the deadwood in the hand was one eight and one ace as an omen.

Mr. Diston was never able to beat his wife at card games, regardless. He originally intended the competitive game of Gin rummy as a relief in the midst of the pregnancy tension, albeit more for himself than for Mrs. Diston’s benefit.

Possibly a foot or a fist crashing against the rather fixed walls of womb confinement, a thrust that expressed discontent coupled with a thrashing declaration of desire was stating that time had expired. Possibly, the burst related to JED not wishing to remain past the time allowed for growth in the womb, period. This was, the first recorded position stance and exercise of power by JED the control fanatic.

Mrs. Diston, Mary Martha, was less than pleased, not so much with the flamboyant attempts at the womb exit and world entrance of her newborn but more with the fact there was another in the ever-expanding line of succession to the Diston fortune. All previous siblings were boys: Harold Henry, Price Walter, Grant Sean and Ian Alfred, and the thought that another boy might enter the line-up was troubling at worst and compromising at least.

Mary Martha, filled with hope, prayed daily that her Lord Jesus and His blessed mother working in concert would bestow a girl upon her, not another boy. The Diston name owned a head start on perpetuity without the addition of another male legacy carrier. She knew her heart would pine for gratification forever if it were not a girl. Her prayer fell upon deaf ears.

The Diston English-Irish roots smacked of Roman Catholicism after the family migrated out of Birmingham, England into Dublin, Ireland. The Diston name spread like the plague, each marriage duplicating the brood of the previous clan with the male gender to the extreme that the family laughed at how difficult it was to birth a Patti in the family.

The many broods numbered to twelve for each nest and over three quarters of the total production was male, a reality that set in motion a massive contest for attention, power, and resources. Gaming rules neither restricted nor controlled the outbursts of emotions that gushed forth when broods and clans configured against one another, either in families or in mixed configuration teams, for contests. The competition was brutal.

When a slugfest erupted either within the nuclear family or within the cousin clans that gathered to feast a holiday, each construction brood needing instinctively to display their prowess as males by defeating the competition, regardless of the perpetrator, fathers repeated the phrase, It’s a Diston thing. The few girls in the bloodline life-circle hid while telling tales of the best, who was and who was not as strong as the other was, and at what they did better most simply because they were Distons.

When JED arrived on April 1, 1900 as James Edward Diston, Mary Martha struggled, torn between appreciation and regret, the latter was weakest, and she never granted an audience for the weakest beyond the concept form of her mind. Smiles dominated the candid camera moments. Secretly, thoughts raced wild through imagination images, diluting her smiles with grins and grins with frowns, of what might have been if the child were Patti not James.

William O’Toole Diston expressed his desire to call his son by the title J. Edward rather than the typical James or James Edward or Edward, God forbid another Henry. Mary Martha rejected the master’s offerings and after considerable debate, discussion, and compromise of spirit, they decided unanimously, so to speak, that the newborn would be nicknamed, JED, not Rory after the Last Irish throne contender, Roderick O’Connor. The decision included the privilege for the mother to refer to him as J. Edward in moments of stress and contender Brian Boru if he was seriously bad.

At first, the JED handle tended to hang on the tongue of mother Mary Martha but with frequency came the taste of contentment, knowing the name regardless of being an anagram, was special to the signature category; thus, she took comfort in setting JED apart as unique, like King James.

Mary Martha affirmed her inclination that she should go the extra mile in order to address the needs of her last-born; the doctor telling her she would have no more children. Sadness trapped within gratitude allowed her to retrieve the child after his first whimper of discontent. Arm rocking, hip holding him and extended on-demand breast feedings were the normal.

TICKS

JED was a healthy and contented child, strong in physique of body and defiant in spirit of temperament, i.e. if he saw it and decided that he wanted it, he took it and ran with mother on his trail as if playing a repeating game of steal, run and catch. JED loved it! Moreover, it delighted his mother as well.

JED ate only what he wished to eat, nothing else. Mother Mary Martha would block in defense his privilege to be eclectic in the palate.

Clothing was an issue for JED. He selected what he wished and he donned nothing else, whatsoever, at anytime. Mother Mary Martha allowed the trait, feeding it periodically with extravagant colors and dashing styles that set JED aside for attentions otherwise never given. The combination of motherhood and last born was solid and would remain such in the hearts and minds of both forever.

Father William O’Toole Diston coined the condition during a dispute of actions by remarking, JED, your mother spoils you terribly. The indictment always extracted a verbal barrage from Mary Martha who smiled and blurted, You speak as if I were the only one complicit. That is not so, William O’Toole Diston. You and JED’s protective brothers serve the problem equally as well as I do, without comment regarding preference.

As JED grew in years, he played the piano, danced, sang, and provided the family with costumed entertainment respective of the occasion and celebration. All Saints festivals were a high watermark for creativity. JED put together combinations requiring costume changes that dazzled beholders. Whenever he added a dance, a twirl, a pirouette, and a song, the stage ignited. JED loved the attention and he craved the applause, allowing it to elevate his spirits in preparations for the next review moment, Advent, and then Christmas and on to Epiphany, etc. It was a smorgasbord feast for an ego.

However, JED’s hand to eye coordination mixed with his phenomenal finger dexterity lifted card games to the excellence level adding additional attention as needed. When he wrapped his physical skills around his full intellectual concentration powers, the combination proved the game of cards to be at a new echelon to behold, even for the Diston family. JED was a whiz with cards, not only at handling them but also at remembering them.

Mother Mary Martha recognized the innate skill early in JED’s development and she massaged it with attentions, devoting extra effort and time to hone the ability. Games of card memory, card combinations, and intellectual process became daily exercises that lifted mother Mary Martha’s spirits as it increased JED’s skills. It was a marvel to behold. The combination proved fodder as an asset in the pursuit of power throughout JED’s life.

SCHOOL

Leaving mother and the brood was a taxing experience for JED.

Rumor had it from his brothers that the selected private institution had a reservation with James Edward Diston written on the placard in the hall, in italic letters.

JED was frightened. He repeatedly sought solace in his mother’s lap. The nagging from his brothers who poked comment after comment at him about being a baby was horrific. Father William added fuel to the combustion causing JED to eject from his lap safety, stand with hands on his hips, and shout defiantly to all, Go to hell. Such outbursts caused Mary Martha to gasp, the father to blurt a question at JED’s mother, What did he say? and the brothers to laugh a belly roll on the floor.

Again, JED stole victory from the jaws of defeat with a tantrum.

The price he paid for the blurts and displays was minimal compared to the stature the act provided not only at the occasion of the event but for years when tales were told and retold as family folklore. Each revision added a twist and each twist gave JED new colors for his banner of ticks and tricks.

Still, school arrived without regard for the disposition of JED.

It became obvious to JED that he had to adjust in order to win.

Winning for JED meant the defeat of the standards of the institution, including those who stood in his path toward victory. Several years passed and practice allowed JED to master to a fine art: lying without lying merely modifying, cheating without really cheating merely a shift of ownership, conning without conning beyond the limitation of distraction and manipulating without really manipulating past the limit