Financial Paperwork From A Box, Pt. 1
It was the fourth of seven cardboard boxes delivered to Ruth’s garage from the firm that had provided Charlie with legal services for decades. His longtime music attorney, and close friend, Fred Ansis was retiring from the business. The movers placed the boxes in a stack underneath a leaky ceiling. The plastic case on top, stuffed with priceless handwritten Charlie sheet music, arrangements and scores, I found half-filled with water. I put whatever hadn’t disintegrated on the back patio to dry, underneath the Westlake Village sun, weighed down by garden gnomes, porcelain angels, and empty picture frames.
The financial material was spared, for the most part. This particular box contains expired contracts, 1990s royalty statements, correspondence between publishers, transmitting figures, ironing out agreements, solving misunderstandings, communicating future plans.
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