$52 Billion

Eight days ago in St. Louis, a 27-year old woman named Adrienne Martin died in the home of 47-year old August Busch IV. To date, we don’t have a cause of death.

Martin and Busch were a couple – she an aspiring Budweiser model, and he, the scion of Anheuser-Busch, a business that was sold in 2008 to an enormous, multi-national conglomerate named InBev, for $52,000,000,000.

That’s a lot of 000000000’s.

In 1983, I was living in Tucson, Arizona, working in the nightclub business. August Busch IV was 20-years old, and attending the University of Arizona, and going to a lot of nightclubs.

Busch left a club one ‘night’ in 1983 at closing time with a 22-year old cocktail waitress, who later died after being thrown from his 1984 Corvette, when he crashed the car.  Amazingly, Busch found his way home, even though it was 4 miles away. Six hours passed before he came forward to admit to being the driver, and seven months went by before the State’s Attorney declined to bring any charges. The story was that Busch had suffered a fractured skull, which I am guessing led to an acute case of Chappaquidickitis.

In 1985, Busch was arrested and charged with third-degree assault by two undercover cops in St. Louis after he (allegedly) tried to run them over in his car (I’m guessing a 1986 Corvette?). The cops were only able to stop him after shooting out one of his tires. Stunningly, he was acquitted. He said he thought the scraggly cops were kidnappers. Even more astoundingly, he was actually driving a Mercedes-Benz. Must’ve been the one without the bullet-proof tires?

These days Busch has a meaningless title with InBev, and a salary of $120,000 per month that will end in 2014. What is 120K to a guy inheriting a huge part of $52 billion? I don’t know about you, but if I had that kinda money I’d get myself a ‘Vette and a Mercedes.

Of course Busch needs to find a new girlfriend too. My guess is a 2011 model?

I had a really bad feeling about this guy back in 1983. I knew a few of people who’d had enough contact with him to know he was an all expenses paid party. I know where he crashed that ’83 Vette. It was on East River Road, which at the time was pretty hairy in spots, but nothing that a driver doing 45 in a new ‘Vette should have had a problem with – unless they were over-indulging in La Dolce Vita, while the rest of us schmucks were drinking Budweiser?

Hey, what do I know, maybe he’s just really unlucky? I’m pretty sure he’s a pretty stupid guy. I’d heard some stuff, plus, if he’d had any brains, wouldn’t he have been driving a young lady to her death in some town like Cambridge or New Haven?

I did many stupid things when I was young, and I have done stupid things as I’ve aged. I’m an equal-age opportunity stupid guy. Through all of that I have had a lot of girlfriends, but I guess that I was never stupid enough? I know I never had the kinda money that would have allowed me to slide clean out of that ‘Vette on East River Road.

I just have a question about what $52 Billion buys these days, so I'm interested to see what happens next, in St. Louis?