Side A was Harolds voice, clear and strong. My name is Harold Pike. Today is March 3rd, 2019. My doctor examined me this morning and I am of perfectly sound mind. I am recording this because I know my nephews.
The deputy leaned in. The lawyer picked up his pen. Doug Fenton has been more of a son to me than either of them, Harold said, and if they try to fight this, I want everyone to know what Brent did to my wife in 2015.
Scott turned slowly to his brother and asked what Harold was talking about. Brent reached for the boombox, and the deputy got there first.
They called me a con man for cleaning an old mans gutters and fixing his roof, and the old man had left a tape that knew exactly which nephew to be afraid of.
What Brent did in 2015 was take advantage of Harolds wife in her last sick months, the money she had set aside for her own care, and Harold had never been able to prove it in time to do anything but change his will and buy a cassette tape. On the tape he laid it all out, dates and amounts, of sound mind, with his doctor ready to say so.
The will stood. The house, the one they said a handyman had no business inheriting, was mine, free and clear, and the contest died the moment Side A finished playing. Brent had his own troubles to answer for after that.
I still live two houses down. I kept Harolds upside-down bucket, the one he sat on while I worked and told me about Korea and his wife. Some evenings I set it out on the porch, just to remember a man who saw who I was, and made sure the law would see it too.