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The Caretaker

Where do I start? How can I explain how this beautiful woman came into my life and made it worth living once again? Perhaps, I could just start at the beginning. Yes, I’ll start at the beginning and work up to the chance meeting after months of watching her live and wanting to be a part of her life.

I had a life once before. I had a wife and two beautiful little girls. I had a large home in the suburbs and a job that paid me well as long as I sacrificed everything to carry out that job. That was the beginning of the end for me as I would watch everything fall apart, helpless and unable to intervene or stop the landslide that ended up with me in this place doing what I do.

After graduating from Harvard with a degree in Finance I took a position as a Financial Advisor. It was a dream job and the world was on a platter before me. We were just a team of predators offering bad advice at a high price with plenty of disclaimers in place to watch our backs. I was just as guilty as everyone else, but, I had a conscience. That conscience caused me to take part in a large “Sting” operation that placed a lot of people, including myself, behind bars.

I was employed for approximately 5 years with this “respected” financial firm. My job was to open up small accounts and hand them off to the account executives to make them larger. I started to notice discrepancies in those clients’ accounts as large amounts of cash were passing through those accounts and ending up in a company operating fund. Upon further scrutiny I found that this money was ending up in the pockets of the executive board.

I opened my mouth and questioned this practice. And in my next paycheck I received a “bonus” of almost $10,000.00. I didn’t say anything and I used the money for a down payment on a luxury car that would have been better off left at the dealership. This fact the attorneys would mention quite often to implicate me as a perpetrator and not a "Good Samaritan.” In the end, I was sentenced to ten years in prison but I was paroled in five years for good behavior.

So, there I was, ten years of my life wasted between my white collar job and in prison. Needless to say, my wife, unfortunately, could not take the media scrutiny and the nasty looks from neighbors so she served me with divorce papers, was awarded custody of our children and left the country.

I couldn’t find another job because of my prison record and I was on welfare and food stamps for a while. Fortunately a small cleaning service hired me and I began to rebuild my resume “one dead-end job at a time.” My luck changed as my record was cleared when a mystery witness from the payroll department came forward, years later, and testified that the mystery money was planted by the executive board without my consent.

My record was cleared, but still, no one wanted me. I managed to gain employment with the department of sanitation. I would spend mornings slinging around trashcans filled with things that I’d rather forget. That job was short-lived as well and the city invested in an automated trash pickup service that caused at least five hundred sanitation workers to visit the unemployment office.

I collected unemployment compensation for a year and then my luck mysteriously changed. I was offered a job as a live in caretaker in an inner city housing project called Ward Village; those who are unfortunate enough to live there call it “The Ward.” By the grace of God I had a job, a place to live and transportation, if needed. I pick up trash, shovel snow, rake leaves and do anything else as necessary to keep the Ward clean. Many a time I had to look the other way as crimes were committed because I had no back-up. The landlord would only think of the projects when he needed to. It was my job to put things back together and to keep them in working order. My only wish was that I could put my own broken life back together. I was like a lone soldier manning an outpost in a dangerous territory.

My daily routine was the following; wake up at 6 am, shower, eat a cold breakfast and drink cold coffee, get into my truck and start on one end of the complex and work my way back towards my office. I would collect trash, wash buildings, unclog drains, fix air conditioners, paint over graffiti, mow, rake or shovel, fill potholes and anything else that the residents required. My employer, the International Realty Group, didn’t care, but I did. I used to ask for help with electrical repairs, pest removal and jobs better suited for specialists. Due to the fact that help would never arrive, I learned and took on various projects the old fashioned way – a lot of trial and a lot of errors.

Eventually, the buildings and I meshed and similar problems would creep up one unit at a time. My experience from one unit would help me solve a problem in another. The system in place called for the tenants to call the property manager when things stopped working. Each call met with a reply from an answering machine that the mailbox was full. So, I went out and purchased a cell phone and gave my number to everyone in the complex. The tenants and I got along as long as the repairs were made in a timely fashion and the rent wasn’t late. Yes, I had to collect the rent also and drop it off in a shady office downtown and then get my paycheck in return. I’d walk into the office and this fat man named Crenshaw would count the money and throw my check at me while he chomped on a smelly cigar. My $800 monthly paychecks were promptly deposited into a savings account minus $50 for living expenses.

The tenants approved of me on a professional level but on a personal level there were many misconceptions floating around the complex about me. You know my story because I’ve told you, but they created their own stories about the live in caretaker known as “Shiloh.” Some of the stories were somewhat flattering and others were very disturbing.

My full name is Scott Eugene Shiloh – I know, it’s a strange name. My family originated somewhere in the Caribbean and decided to give me this name in honor of my grandfathers and the Shiloh, from what I understand, means a messiah to some and it was the name of a bloody battle during the Civil War. Anyway, they just call me Shiloh.

Let me get the stories straight; one tenant says that I’m a fugitive that she saw on America’s most wanted. She says that I killed an entire family and disappeared into the night only to re-emerge in Connecticut as the caretaker. Another said that I’m a cat burglar responsible for the string of burglaries that have taken place during the last couple of weeks. I’ve been called a rapist, a murderer, an embezzler and even a serial killer. I look as if I could be Arabic because I am half Indian so I’ve even been called a terrorist member of Al Qaeda.

None of this is true but irregardless, when something breaks, or a colony of carpenter ants set up shop in someone’s unit, they call on me to fix the problem. Thankfully, I don’t hold grudges. The rumors about me usually cause the local troublemakers to fear me so they stay out of the neighborhood – this is a fact that I’m happy to report.

Well, a few

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Widmung:
Dedicated to God, our Caretaker.

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