Novels by Wisdom Joseph

Day 71 out of 90. The invitation came on thick, cream, letterpress paper with deckled edges that probably cost $12 per invite. Delivered by courier to my walk up in Ridgewood that still smelled like dryer sheets and fried oil.My landlord Mr. Kim brought it up. He knocked and said, "Jack, fancy mail for you. You get married?"I opened it.VIVIAN HAWTHORNErequests the pleasure of your companyHAWTHORNE & SONS 30TH ANNIVERSARY & SLOANE'S 23RD BIRTHDAY BASHAUGUST 30TH, 2024 | 7PM | THE HAWTHORNE ESTATEGreenwich, Connecticut ;Black Tie and valetPool House RevealInside was a handwritten note on a separate card. Vivian's handwriting, loopy and sharp at the same time.Jack, We would love for you to come. It's time we all moved forward as a family. No hard feelings about the box. Love, Vivian.'No hard feelings about the box.' I stared at that line for a long time. No hard feelings about stealing my father's company, demolishing his workshop, calling me Box Boy to 200,000 people.I put

It was day 23 of 90, and I was now very good at being boring and staying low.I woke up at 6 AM in Ridgewood, did 20 push-ups on the floor that was cold enough to wake you up faster than coffee, made instant coffee and opened my laptop to draw custom pantries for rich people in the Hamptons who needed a special drawer just for their $80 olive oil.At 10 AM every day, Sloane posted. It was like clockwork. I told myself I wouldn't watch, but I eventually watched it every day. It was research, I told Brown. Brown said it was self harm.On Day 23, Sloane posted from the construction site of the pool house. The pool house that was being built on top of my dad's workshop. "Okay guys, pool house update! We are so excited, we have framing up! Chase is literally like a general contractor now, it's so hot!"She flipped the camera. Chase was there, in a brand new hard hat that had never seen sweat, holding a clipboard upside down, talking to two actual carpenters who were doing the real work. B

Attorney Brown had said ninety days. On paper, I was worth $2.1 trillion but in reality, I was a 26 year old freelance CAD guy in Ridgewood, Queens, whose landlord still called him "the construction kid" and whose ex step sister called him "Box Boy", just to entertain her 200,000 followers.The first day of the 90 days was the worst. I woke up in my apartment with the rusty box on my kitchen table like some weird piece of art. I had paid rent with Dad's black card. Mr. Kim had looked at that card; a matte black Amex that said HAWTHORNE HOLDINGS LLC on it, like I had just handed him a gun.I went to my laptop to do CAD work. I do shop drawings for kitchen remodels in Long Island for $35 an hour. Rich people want custom pantries. I draw them.At 10 AM, Sloane went live on Instagram. I didn't want to watch it, but I eventually watched it. She was standing on the empty dirt lot where Dad's workshop used to be. The workshop was gone. Just flat dirt and an excavator parked to the side. She

I didn't drive straight back, I told myself I was going to drive straight back, 38 hours, nonstop, gas and piss and jerky, back to New York and Attorney Brown and my tiny apartment in Ridgewood that smelled like the laundromat downstairs.But after I put the ammo can back and covered it up before leaving the white dirt of Clayton Valley, I just sat in the black Ford for a long time with the AC on full blast and stared at the white nothing that was mine.4,000 acres. I tried to picture it. I grew up in a construction. I know what an acre looks like. It's about a football field without the end zones. So 4,000 football fields of white salt that was worth $2.1 trillion because somewhere 800 feet down, there was lithium brine that the whole world needed to make batteries.My dad bought that for $8,000 in 1988. The year I was born. He bought it when my mom was pregnant with me and he had no money and everyone told him he was an idiot.My phone still had no service. The satellite phone had o

The 1988 Ford F-250 rumbled out of Building 77 at 8:17 AM and the security gate actually went up before I got there.Mr. Ellis was standing at the gate in his little guardhouse, drinking coffee out of a thermos. He saw the black truck and waved me through like I was a general. "Take care of her, Mr. Hawthorne. Your dad built that truck himself in that unit. Took him two years on Saturdays. Said it was for you. Said you were going to need a real truck where you were going."I rolled down the window. The truck didn't have automatic windows. You had to crank them. "How did you know it was me?"Ellis smiled. "Son, nobody else has driven a truck out of 14B in twenty years. And nobody else looks like Thomas when he was young and pissed off at the world. Go on. Go get what's yours."I nodded because if I opened my mouth I was going to cry again.The truck was perfect. Built-truck perfect. Matte black paint that wasn't shiny, it was flat and mean. Lifted six inches. Huge off road tires that h

I didn't sleep after I got back to Ridgewood.How do you sleep when you just escaped your own father's workshop through a coal chute you haven't used since you were nine, with a backpack full of secrets that got you reported to the Greenwich Police as a trespassing junkie?I sat at my kitchen table from 4:30 AM until the sun came up over the laundromat sign across the street. My tiny apartment smelled like coal dust and old coffee. My knees were raw and bleeding through my jeans where I scraped them in the tunnel. My hands still had dried blood in the cracks from climbing the oak tree. My white t-shirt was now black-gray and I had thrown it in the trash.On the table in front of me were four things.One: The gray waterproof lockbox from the birdhouse, now open, scratched from the fall in the tunnel.Two: The heavy black military USB drive that asked for a password I didn't know.Three: The deed to Unit 14B, Building 77, Brooklyn Navy Yard. Printed on thick legal paper, notarized, stam