Reagan

Bell boy...carry the bloody baggage out!
The Who - "Bell Boy" - Quadrophenia - 1973

As a very young man, he worked at a nice hotel downtown as a bellhop. His term was "bellman." Mom and Mutchie, who were breathtakingly derisive toward Reagan and his career, opted for "bell boy" or "bell hop." Always behind his back, though.

After they got married, I don't recall him on bell duty any more. He was, or tried to be, a realtor, but little seemed to come from it. When we sold our first house in 1981 (another disaster resulting in yet another life-crushing lawsuit), they were all butthurt 'cuz we didn't use Reagan.

To that, Mom privately quipped, "I'd much prefer that we actually sell the house."

A period in which he was a gentleman of leisure, much to the chagrin of busybody biddies Mom and Mutchie, came to pass in which he spent a lot of time watching cartoons and soaps while Neila worked in the office of a petrochem giant. While the old ladies kindasorta hated his damn guts, I loved the dude to death - he was a blast for a kid.

Eventually, with some aid from their elders, they got a house flippin' gig rolling and did quite well for many years in the 80s and 90s, moving to better digs in the same neighborhood at least three times. In the 90s, they became country club people, contacting us much less. There was one 5 month summer-to-Thanksgiving stretch in which Mom and Dad heard nothing from them even though they lived less than a half-mile away.

Derailment and Corruption 
Things started going south. Business dried up and they badly overspent. The kids and elders grew older. Ryan's transmutation into the mother of all fuckups got rolling. Mutchie declined and died, spawning some terrible missteps involving Mom, Dad, and Mutchie's dog and grave marker. Neila, Reagan, and Ryan embarked on an multi-decade tragic carpet ride of lawsuitin' producing little other than woe.

After cleaning out Mutchie's entire estate, skipping over Mom and shattering her heart, the Flozberks acquired a taste for living off the old folks. In a roughly 3000 foot radius around their heavily-encumbered home were three more camps of elders - Mom and Dad, Aydin, and Reagan's parents, all of whom were much better at avoiding debt and saving money than they were with combined holdings well into the million$.

And through those three camps they stomped and chomped, with a fat home equity loan thrown in to help. Across those three camps we saw catastrophic results, with two sudden violent deaths, two big legal battles, another on the way, years of conflict with much permanent estrangement, and the ruination of the life of Dad, the finest man I've ever known. Dad and I got to calling 'em The Masters of Disasters.

They had no savings, limited skills, big debt, a flair for trouble, a disinclination toward substantial gainful employment, a need to be catered to, an able-bodied junkie + alcoholic son, a lost daughter, and an entrenched lifestyle in one of our city's most exclusive neighborhoods.

Someone had to come up with some kind of plan, right?

Part of it was a Houdini-meets-the-Wallendas squatting maneuver in which they somehow managed to live in a nice house while being at least 69 months (and, one would think, many more at the peak) delinquent on their mortgage.

Another part of it would seem to be the rampage of parasitism and chicanery chronicled on this site.

Delightful Monster
I can't recall Reagan directly doing anything overtly wicked to another person. Yeah, he'd make fun of fat chicks behind their backs (later, ironically, he ended up manacled to one) and loved recklessly shooting birds with airguns, but, in terms of explicitly treating another human unkindly, I never saw it. As with Dad to Mom, not a single harsh word to Neila despite being on the receiving end of much indignity.

Like the less corrupt cop who stands by and does nothing as their more corrupt colleague abuses others, Reagan is a sinner by omission and weakness instead of commission and might. Neila is the unquestioned boss in their world, and his failure to both keep her under control and firmly push better guidance on their camp has, uh, conferred, to put it nicely, a bitter legacy of poor results for a long list of people and animals.

That said, some of the abuses he has quietly stood with kept his pockets stuffed, so, there's that - the self-interest factor certainly matters. In comparison, if I tried to screw someone out of a quarter of their childhood home, Lisa would have my ass on a stick, her confidence in me forever dissolved. Such behavior is simply not possible here.

Reagan has been of substantial service to the family. Much of that service has been helpful, and If tasked to list just the cool times I clearly recall enjoying with him over almost five decades, it would take a long, long time. I thank and salute him for every bit of that.

Much of it, though, has been lackluster, often curiously so. He carries a seemingly-dissonant duality of a gentleman of propriety and a half-assed slacker who would make the biggest stoners I've ever known facepalm so hard their wrists would shatter, spraying the room with gore.

And, some of it has been downright atrocious. For that, I extend two ardent middle fingers and a knowing, pissed-off glare.

Oil Clop You One, Bitch
The only remarkable explicit affront to greater society I can pin on Reagan (other than unleashing Ryan) involves pollution. I was his mechanic for a while and he insisted on pouring gallons and gallons of used motor oil into a derelict flower bed by his driveway. Just east was our city's biggest lake with a tributary creek a mere couple blocks away. After a big rain, it would look like the Exxon Valdez ran aground in his alley. I actually got to callin' him Reagan Hazelwood.

The contamination he inflicted simply due to inexcusable laziness was impressive. Chief Auto Parts, 4 blocks away, took used oil at no cost. Once, right after he dumped 10 blackened quarts into the dirt, we actually drove by Chief going to get dinner! I about went nuts. He responded with his trademark wide-eyed guilty, knowing gaze, howling with laughter.

Such EPIC laziness was later exemplified in a long list of failures in his care for Dad, other elders, Tasha, and Mutchies poor dog.

My failure in the pollution offenses is significant. Instead of merely protesting, then just sitting there shaking my head as he repeatedly did it, I should have acted. A threat to clop him one with the tire tool and dump the oil in the driver's seats would have worked. Instead, I, a stupid teen who wanted to keep his gig, fell well short of what a good man would have done.

A Poor, Poor, Fortunate, Fortunate Chap
I feel bad for the guy, yet he's also got it made. He's gotten to be a millionaire largely by running errands, clipping toenails, and watching TV, but also has been saddled with a parade of kooks, a pretty straight guy shoved, like six-foot-plus suppository, into a giant ass of madness. The obnoxious multi-sensory assault that used to be his stunning wife, the epic mega-loser of a son who devolved into a total fuckin' lunatic, the endless sketchy scrapping to keep their boat afloat can only take a mighty toll on a man.

How has he weathered a combined hundreds of years of Neila, Ryan, Tiffany, the pan-sibling troubles, the tribulations with the old folks, endless lawsuits, pet disasters, and all that other shit I can't think of just this second? By becoming comfortably numb. There's no other way. Watch the Fuckin' Faggot video. That's one benumbed, broken man.

In a way, I must tip my hat to him. I would have been unable to endure his path. Merely having a wife with no discernible hips is a massive bummer (unless that's your thing, of course), but add no discernible brain and it becomes a Greek tragedy. Throw in the rest of the ingredients of the rancid slumgullion and words like "catastrophe" enter the fold.

Reagan is a fascinating character, this odd bundle of extremes shoved into such a low-key package. Despite all the unpleasantness, I very much wish him well and hope I'm not forced to be a factor in the addition of considerable challenges to his life.