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Once SupaGenius was gone, we spent the rest of Origins comparing notes, but that didn’t really help us. We found out that Corporate Sugar Daddy had paid for the M-Force print run, but I don’t remember the excuse SuperGenius gave him for not using the money that was supposed to be in the bank account or on the credit card. By the time we left the con, we knew we were broke, but were unclear on whether that meant our bank account was dry or if it meant our bank account was dry and we were $10K in debt for the credit card. In the week that followed, we decided it was time to go over the books and see what happened. The Accountant agreed to take on this task, and gathered all the records he could find. We set up a meeting a month or two later to go over the details.
Just to give you a feel for the arrogance of SupaGenius, the night before the meeting he called CSD–knowing full well that The Accountant had gone through all the old bank and card statements–and told him that he’d only used the card once. SG said that he’d used the card to pay his electric bill so his power wouldn’t get shut off, but had repaid it with his next paycheck (You’ll find out how false that was in a moment). He also apparently tried to blame me for some of the expenses, even though I’d never touched the fucking card.
The meeting took place high above downtown Lexington in the Phoenix Room at Park Plaza (CSD lived in the building). SupaGenius spent most of the time he was there apparently believing he could talk us out of actually looking at the accounts. Once it became obvious that wouldn’t happen, he rage-quit and told us we were doomed without him. Leighton walked down to the parking garage with him. While he was gone, we started looking at the bank statements. When Leighton tells the story, he mentions how he came back to find us all drinking bourbon with murder in our eyes.
The Accountant started his presentation by informing us that the credit card was maxed out and we were basically broke. Then we started going through the actual charges. Some we knew were legit and some were ambiguous but potentially business-related, but there was a lot of other stuff there as well. Here are some of the highlights:
- So much steak–seriously, that guy must have eaten two cows a week.
- Lots of gas charges, because apparently we were paying for him to drive to work.
- Charges at several bookstores, games shops and other places we stopped on the way to Vegas (all at places where I’d thought SG had bought stuff with his own money).
- Lots of charges to places like Wal-Mart, Target, and Office Depot. Some of them may have been legitimate, but there were way too many for a company operating on our po-dunk scale.
- The payment to the electric company that SG had claimed was his sole use of the card (the payment to the bank that month was, of course, less than the charge). I think there were a couple of payments to his phone provider as well.
- A $100 ATM withdrawal at the Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas (remember, the place he supposedly visited with his gambling winnings–motherfucker woke me up to lie to me about that shit).
- A charge for a movie rental at Blockbuster (who the fuck resorts to credit card fraud to rent a movie?)
- A pair of ski boots. Apparently The Accountant later asked him what the fuck he was thinking on this particular purchase. SG said that his wife had been working really hard at school and deserved a reward. He was less clear on why it was our goddamned responsibility to pay for it. For several years afterward, you could send some of us into a rage by just saying the words “ski boots.”
Long story short, we were fucked and SupaGenius probably avoided being tossed off a balcony for a second time by leaving when he did. This was unfortunate, since despite our completely unfounded arrogance about our shitty little game zine (we were young and cocky and under the influence of a sociopath), we’d realized that we couldn’t release actual books for a set of core rules from a shitty little zine. Leighton and I had started writing Q2E, but now it looked like it was doomed. When someone mentioned how unfortunate that was, Corporate Sugar Daddy set us straight: “Oh, no. We’re still releasing QAGS 2E if I have to pay for it myself. It’s going to be a big, purple ‘Fuck You’ to SupaGenius.”
Captain’s Log Supplemental: Some time later, I was driving to Louisville to recover all of Hex’s stuff from SG’s house. He was out of town that day, so it seemed like the best time for me to do it and not end up in prison. On the way there, I got a phone call from SupaGenius, who conceded that he “might have mismanaged some funds.” This was the closest we ever got to an apology, or even an admission of guilt. But that’s not the best part of the story: SG was calling in part because he though CSD might be with me. CSD had a “keep your enemies closer” attitude towards SG, and apparently SG had come over to visit and just invited himself to stay the night rather than go back to his hotel (unconfirmed theory: he’d spent the money his company gave him for a hotel room on steak and ski boots). When he woke up, CSD was gone or still asleep or something. He was calling to let me know that he didn’t have any cash on him and wasn’t sure if he’d need it to get out of the parking garage, so he’d taken some money out of Corporate Sugar Daddy’s wallet just to be safe. Yeah. That happened.
