Payable on Death

I held a page up to a windscreen to read a stamp.

I went to a bank twice, was told nothing both times, got certified copies of a death certificate, and found out about an account.

I turned down a car.

I paid a lawyer two hundred and ten dollars to read a sentence.

I was frightened out of a house by a letter with no legal force and spent four hundred and eighty-six dollars at a motel on Route 42.

And on the second of December I walked into a public office with no appointment, typed a surname into a terminal that anybody may use, and found out in under four minutes, for two dollars, that the house had been mine the entire time.