“That’s the difference between crime and business.

For business you gotta have capital.

Sometimes I think it’s the only difference.”

RAYMOND CHANDLER, THE LONG GOODBYE

“THEY STARTED FORECLOSURE. THIS IS not the first time you got behind. It’s not even the first time they tried to foreclose.”

“My place is worth five, maybe ten times, what I owe,” I protested.

The lawyer was Kenny Rosenbaum, a perfectly adequate local practitioner, in an area where perfectly adequate was about as good as it gets. There’s a small legal district in the City of Kingston, around the Ulster County Courthouse. Kenny and his three partners occupied a place that had been built as a three-story home, back around 1870, charming, a bit run down, and fairly typical of our local firms.

His response was, “Right, fine! You have the option of selling it, paying them off, and keeping anything over what you owe. If they foreclose, it goes to auction. Anything above what you owe, including fees and charges and the like, goes to you.”

“What I’m saying is, I want to keep the place. It’s my place. Mine.”

“Look, if you want me to fight them, I can. What will most likely happen is that the foreclosure proceedings will be put on hold…”

“What about the video? Them refusing to take my money? Trying to prevent me from proving it?”

“It’ll help, but it won’t…”

“The reason I’m in this fix is because of Bank of America.” We’d already agreed that I would leave off the obscenities I routinely attached to their name, fore and aft. “I had a homeowner’s loan from Onbank more than twenty-five years ago. That kind of loan was great for me. When I was flush, I could pay it, but I still had access to the money. When I was short, all I had to do was pay the interest.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“They got bought by Norstar. No problem. The loan had a time limit. Ten years or something like that. When it was up, we just rolled it over. Norstar got bought by Fleet. No problem. When it was time to roll it over, we just did it. Then they were taken over by BoA. Everything was fine for about five years, then came rollover time. I go in, they suggest I increase the amount, even double it, that way they’ll give me a cheaper interest rate. Great. So, I put in the application.

“They reject me.