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Constantine demanded that he write up. Constantine was astonished when he read it. It simply said, among a few other things, that Constantine had ten years to pay back the twenty thousand dollars, and it didn‘t specify monthly amounts. Heber and Haggai figured that ten years would be enough to pay off a twenty-thousand-dollar-loan, no matter how big or small the monthly amount would be. Constantine would calculate in his head the exact amount of money he needed every month to repay the money in ten years time. However, the document had a very important clause that Constantine missed the first time that he read it. It said, in a very small font, that should Constantine be unemployed or should other circumstances keep him from repaying the loan, even for one month, the loan would no longer be a loan and Constantine could keep the rest of the money, even if it was nineteen thousand dollars or even $19,500, but Heber played a game of persuasion of his own because he knew Constantine would object to that clause. Heber said, “And if you don‘t accept every single clause in this agreement, every single little clause in there, this won‘t be a loan, and that‘s my brother and I‘s last word.”
“That‘s right,” Haggai confirmed and then gave him the same pen that he wrote the check with. “So sign. We are going to take this document to court and have it validated by law. That way, if you fail to comply with any of the terms, we will sue you, demanding that you keep every cent of the amount that would be left at the time, no matter how big or small.”
Constantine laughed, incredulous. “You‘re kidding.”
“No, we‘re not. You made my brother write up this agreement for you to sign. Now, you know what will happen if you don‘t comply with the agreement. We‘ve only had to take people to court twice in our entire lives, but both times, we won, so you really don‘t want us to take you to court, Everhart.”
“Ok, I‘m going to comply with this agreement to the letter, and I‘m going to do all I can to make a payment every month until the money‘s paid off, and I already know the amount I need to pay every month to pay off this account in less than ten years.” He thought, hiding it from them, but I’m not going to pay you back with my salary. I’m going to pay you back with the money I’m going to earn on the side. I’m going to publish my first novel and pay you back with that, and when I do that, it’ll be the whole amount that I just borrowed. “Thank you guys, for everything you‘ve done for me and will do for me in the future, if I earn it.”
“We are sure you will.”
“Ok, so when am I going to start working, and what will my job be?”
That afternoon, Constantine was at home, looking in the newspaper for another little job that he could do on the side to set aside the amount of money he would make to pay off his twenty thousand dollars every month. He‘d already deposited the money on his bank account and made all the payments he needed to with his debit card. He paid his mortgage, which was $2,000 a month, his power, which was only $150 a month, only because of the air conditioning, his water was only eighty dollars a month or less, but it was eighty dollars this month, his satellite-TV service was thirty nine dollars and ninety nine cents a month, his home phone service was an average of forty-five dollars a month, and his cell phone service was sixty dollars for this month, for unlimited talk, unlimited text and unlimited internet access on the go. His home phone bundled included internet service with a speed of one megabyte. To him, that was all he needed because he didn‘t download anything from the internet. He would only use the Net to surf his favorite websites and pay his bills, and watch videos online. Even after making all those payments and getting five hundred dollars in groceries today, Constantine had fifteen thousand of the twenty thousand dollars that the Brady twins loaned him, but he felt he couldn‘t give them