Ordeal by Cheque by Michael Daye

It was a cool night in Hollywood Hospital on August 30th, 1903, 4:57 in the morning. At 5:08 a.m. Lawerence Exeter Jr. was born to his loving mother Carmella Exeter and loving father Lawerence Exeter Sr. The next day the two checked out of the hospital with their 6lbs. 7oz. baby Lawerence. The baby was very quiet all the time, he would sleep all day long and get up a couple minutes to eat. All this talk about little baby Lawerence is getting boring. We're going to skip all this mumbo gumbo about little Lawerence and get to the story now.

6 years later, little Lawerence was going to Kindergarten. He was doing very well in school as he passed grade by grade, but when he hit the sixth grade everything started going down hill. He started socializing with the wrong group of people. He started lying, stealing, disrespecting adults, etc; so his parents had only one option, and that was to ship him off to the Columbia Military Academy for boys. They thought, "this should straighten him out and turn him into a young man." Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't, but they were going to find out when he got back. Another 6 years passed and Jr. was home. As a welcome back gift his father bought him a brand new shiny white Cadillac. The Cadillac was priced at $3,885.00. Not even a week passed and Jr. messed it up. He was in an accident. Jr. went out with his friends to a party, got drunk and crashed into a tree. It was a blessing tho, that Jr. was okay. He was banged up a little, not anything severe.

Jr. finally realized how precious his life was so he wanted to do something with it. He decided to go to college so he enrolled into Stanford University. While Jr. as gone Sr. and Carmella got remarried. When Jr. got back he was worse then ever. You would think 5 years of college he would come back positive, but he didn't. Again, his parents sent him away because he was causing problems like usual. This time they sent him off with $200,000.00, Jr. decided to go to Paris, and he did. When Jr. got over there he met a young lady named Marie Wherton. She was a beautiful French lady. She was a waitress but to Jr. a princess, it was love at first site. Jr. had to get her. To win her over, he showered her with gifts. She loved all the gifts because she was a gold digger. Jr. blinded by love proposed to her, she accepted it. They were happily married for 4 years. When Junior's money got to low for her, she left. They got divorced and he had to give her $75,000. Sr. and Carmella never knew why Jr. was so bad but they knew it had to do something with his peers. One day Sr. went into Junior's old room and found an unsent letter that was suppose to go to a Tony Spagoni. The letter read "I have your money Spagoni. I'll give it to you when I get back from France. I'm sorry I took so long to give the money back, I'll pay you back with interest." It so turned out that Spagoni was a loan shark. Spagoni was probably looking for Jr. now. Jr. knew he forgot to send the letter, that's why he went to France. Jr. wanted to visit his parents, so to protect himself from Spagoni he bought a gun from the sport shop. He got the next boat back. He got back 5 days later. He got a cab to the closes food place, then got back into the cab. While in the cab he rode pass Spagoni's house and he was outside washing his Ford. Jr. seen Spagoni and Spagoni seen Junior. Spagoni jumped into his car and chased after him. Junior told the cab driver to speed up, but Spagoni crashed into the back of the cab. Jr. jumped out of the car and tried to hide, Spagoni seen him and went after him. Spagoni was beating Junior up badly. He was bleeding from his mouth and nose. He pulled out the weapon, but Spagoni already had his out. Jr. was gone. The cab driver ran to a pay phone and called the police. They were there in no time and arrested Spagoni. Jr. didn't even get to explain, and he had the money. The police went to the Exeter's residence and told them the horrible news. They were crushed. Their only child was gone. Mr. Exeter was filled with anger and sadness. He was now the only Lawerene Exeter. They had a memorial for Jr. a week later. It was a very sad event. Their whole family and Junior's neighborhood friends were there too. They couldn't believe what happened. There was only one thing they could be happy for and that was that Spagoni would never see freedom again.