He's Mine, Now.
A short story
I am likely the only person alive whose Ph.D. transcript from study in the social sciences has a Creative Writing course listed on it for credit.
Gary (“Gary Braver”) Goshgarian led the class through a series of weekly writing prompts. I recall one being about inhabiting a character’s mind while telling a story set in real life events. Here’s another one of my efforts to do this.
“That’s it?” he wondered. Forbes had just confirmed he was the new Wealthiest Man in the World, “Huh,” he shrugged.
He searched to find an emotion, or a feeling; a perspective to have on such an occasion. Then a combination of a chuckle and a snort escaped him, “It’s not like I did anything,” he thought.
What now? Just become richer to no end? Spend the rest of my days defending my crown from wave upon wave of rabid dogs, each more desperate than the last to just take a piece of me—a piece—when they see the gap is widening?
Exponential growth is how life itself comes to be; one cell, to two, to four, to the thirty trillion cells that constitute a fully-grown human. Even more, if a person eats so much they wear others’ profits in layers of fat upon their frame. And all those cells die and new ones are born, constantly—like so many workers.
Thanks to the public relations specialist hired long ago to burnish my image (“Offer to do good things for the world,” she said, “You can be a living superhero in the public’s eye.”) most people think I am a scientist but are not quite sure what sort.
A rocket scientist, an electrical engineer, a computer programmer, a finance specialist—a world-class genius polymath. Whatever; it’s all good. No one suspects that I am a salesman. An uncommon one, and so very talented at couching sales in futurist narratives.
All sales work by getting the customer to recognize a shortcoming in their own lives, and then offer them the exact product or the service that will fix them. Delivery is secondary, and can always be put off. You made the sale by getting them to buy their future selves, right? Well, that future’s not here yet, but just wait and see…
Self-driving cars? Sure—we are building them! Will they work in all situations? Of course not! But that is why we issue a warning—just in case the weather suddenly gets bad, or the car drives into a bridge abutment it did not “see”—it covers our liability. Admittedly, it’s still in the experimental phase—a giant experiment that involves everyone along each car’s path, whether they know it or not. That self-driving car without software bugs is coming. Just wait and see.
Thinking back, hosting Saturday Night Live was probably the highlight of it all, though. Banging Amber on MDMA and K those first few times would have been number one, but then she leaned on me for $500,000 to charity, to be donated in her name. I discovered it was part of a legal settlement; I gave it to her. We never fucked again. They all want a piece.
It sucks, not being able to trust anyone anymore. Every woman wants to fuck my money, none of them want to fuck me. Now I have this scheming stalker that seduced me by cosplaying a game character and got pregnant, and the money I offered is not enough to shut her up.
I swear, it’s just like when my step-sister seduced my father and then gave birth to my half-sister/step-niece. Alpha men have to protect themselves against women. They cannot help themselves, I suppose.
I originally used my satellites to aid the Ukrainians—the last gasp of the superhero image, but I got nothing out of it. No one seemed to care.
I am alone here, beset by a world’s worth of enemies—regulators, tax men, unionizers, my competitors. Remember when I sold the concept of electric cars as environmentally-friendly? Now the environmentalists bitch about shorebirds being disturbed by rocket launches.
Humans on Mars! Days are numbered on this planet! Remember?
And I am trapped in a legal jail, with obligations running in all sorts of directions. People might think having a billion dollars is just a matter of having a billion dollars, but they are constantly in motion. You never know just how much anything is worth at any time, and by the time you take the measurements you can be sure of, everything else you own is worth more (usually) or less (like with Trump). It’s all an estimate.
And most of it is not real. It represents the future. Future production by workers, who themselves are extending credit to employers by working before being paid. Future purchases by those workers financed with credit extended by financiers, with interest to be paid into the future. Consumer credit is the promise of future production itself by workers, made by them to afford the goods they need to extend credit to their employers. It’s all an endless, ever-expanding loop.
Marx called it “fictitious capital,” but I can tell you that to some of us, it becomes everything consumers buy, only better. Better cars, better houses, better clothing, better vacations, better sexual partners, better lives, longer lives, richer lives. All you have to do is get ahead of the game.
Warren Buffet pulled a bunch of his money from the stock markets—from investing in the future profitability of businesses. He’s been seeing a bubble for a year now. That bubble will pop in the future. That’s not a sale, it’s a certainty. Businesses are over-valued right now. American real estate is over-valued right now, especially around cities.
While he retrenches, I see the opportunity to break it all.
Trump showed he was desperate and alone, too. Just like me. When a man is accused of sexual assault, and then later of a consensual affair, having his lawfully-wedded wife visible in the courtroom while the accuser testifies is invaluable to a defense team. Melania will do no more than what is in her contract, and apparently standing by her man is not included. It was imperative that Hillary appeared on 60 Minutes with her philandering spouse to sell the strength of their marriage going forward, to keep Bill electable.
All alone. Surrounded by people constantly, but with no one on his side other than those who would stand to gain a piece. And once it was clear there would be no criminal charges brought before Election Day—the immediate future was cleared—there was no better time to jump in and put the plan in motion. The Christians offered prayers and idolatry, the Heritage Foundation offered ideas, but where was the money to put you over the top?
He plays a tough guy for the cameras, and he’s worn a scowl so long it has lined his lower jaw, but he will roll and expose his belly for a master such as myself. I kept him from losing a second time, I kept him out of prison. He’s mine, now.