by Max Shulman
But perhaps I was being hasty. Did money always corrupt? Certainly the character of the man who had the money needed to be taken into account. Money would corrupt a weak man, yes—a mean man, yes. But weak men and mean men were not being considered here. I was the case in point—I, a strong man, a generous man, a man of intelligence, sensitivity, perspicacity, insight, and penetration. Could a man such as I be corrupted? The idea was ridiculous.
I rose from the chair feeling vastly relieved. A great boulder had been removed from my path. Now with good heart and clear conscience I would go forth and get rich. And I would succeed, by Godfrey! I’d get money, no matter what—
There was that horrendous thought again. I fell back into the chair. Oh, what a confusion! What a perplexity! And there was nobody I could turn to for advice. Talking to Dad would not help. Wise as he was, he was inclined to oversimplify when it came to money. He thought anyway you got it was all right. I have heard him speak highly of Dillinger.
If only I knew where George Overmeyer was. There was someone who could tell me what to do. All those books he had read, all those hours he had pondered—surely he had the answer to my question. But where was he?
Sighing, I rose from the chair. I would just have to figure things out for myself. But later, not now. Now I had to return to Miss Geddes’s party. They were all probably very agitated about my long absence.
I started down the expensive staircase.
CHAPTER 7
The guests must have despaired at my returning and gone home, for when I got back to the living room only three people remained: Miss Geddes and a distinguished-looking young woman who sat on the divan silently passing a brandy bottle back and forth, and over at the piano a distinguished-looking young man who stood picking out the “Funeral March” with two fingers.
“Hello, hello, hello,” I cried cheerily and went over to the ladies with a broad smile. They looked up at me slowly.
“Who the hell are you?” asked Miss Geddes.
“Harry Riddle,” I chuckled. Little minx.
They looked down again and resumed passing the bottle. I stood watching them—watching Miss Geddes, actually, for although the other lady was most attractive, my eyes were only for my hostess. Miss Geddes sat utterly relaxed, totally unguarded. A wave of tenderness swept over me. How like a child she looked in repose! How like a child’s her sweet, tired face! How like a child’s her soft white throat! Below that the resemblance ended.
Both Miss Geddes and the other lady seemed disinclined to speak, so after standing over them for a little while—hardly more than an hour—I went across the room to visit with the young man at the piano. He seemed familiar, but I did not recognize him at once. He was much heavier than when I had last seen him; his cheeks had filled out and the eyes that used to blaze were now somnolent in their little pockets of fat. It took a full minute before I knew who he was.
Then, “George!” I cried. “George Overmeyer!”
For it was he. A kind fate had brought him to me when I needed him most.
“George! George! George!” I kept repeating as I pumped his hand.
“Hello, Harry,” he said. “So you made it too.”
“Made what?”
“The middle class.”
I smiled wryly. “I’m afraid not. Not yet, at any rate.… But you—have you made it?”
He nodded. “America,” he said simply.
I grasped him by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Tell me, George, are you corrupted?”
“Mercy me, no,” he replied. “I am daily nobler.”
“Oh, happy day!” I cried joyously. My worries were over; money did not corrupt. Now, without reservations, I could begin the long, painful climb to riches.
“Tell me about your long, painful climb to riches,” I said.
“I married it,” said George.
I looked at the young woman on the divan beside Miss Geddes.
George nodded.
“Chic,” I murmured.
“Damn right. Owns the chic-est liquor store you ever saw. That is, we own it.”
“Hm,” I mused. “Somehow I can’t see you running a liquor store.”
“Not many people do. I get there in the afternoon, pick up some booze, take the money out of the till, and blow. Makes a nice short day.”
“What do you do with the rest of the day?”
“Well, I sleep till noon …”
(Dad’s words came back to me. Wise, wise Dad.)
“… and then an expensive servant serves my expensive breakfast. Then I drop in at the store to pick up some liquor and money. Then I take my wife to the track and lose the money. In the evenings we get drunk.”
“Beats working,” I chuckled. “Now tell me all about the middle class.”
“You’ve come to the right man,” he said. “I am the world’s greatest authority on the middle class since Sinclair Lewis gave it up in favor of octoroons.”
I sat down cross-legged on the floor and cupped my hands over my ears, the better to hear.
George began: “It is a mistake to think that the bourgeoisie are motivated by a desire for wealth. This kind of thinking overlooks the heart of the matter. When Bourgeois Jones buys a new car even though his old car is still perfectly serviceable, he is not doing it simply because he himself wants a new car. He is doing it primarily so that his neighbors Smith and Green and Brown will see his new car and admire it. It is for them that he buys the car. It is for their wives that Mrs. Jones buys a new gown. Mr. and Mrs. Jones do not do things for themselves, but for others. In short, the bourgeoisie are motivated by love.”
“Of course,” I cried. “Why didn’t I see that before?”
“Ah, then you agree?”
“Yes. Oh yes.”
“I thought you would,” said George. “The ignorance I detected in you as a youth has now crystallized into a limitless capacity for rationalization.”
“Thank you.” I was grateful that the lamps had all been broken and he could not see my blush.
“Perhaps you have a future after all. There have been cases of idiocy turned to advantage.”
I could not but thank him again.
“You’re welcome. Where was I?”
“You and I were agreeing that the bourgeoisie are motivated by love.”
“Oh yes. Now, you and I know this is true. It is possible, however, to hold another view. Some might think that our Mr. Jones buys a new car to make his neighbors wretched with envy, not because he loves them. It is also possible to make unflattering allegations about how Mr. Jones got the money to buy the car in the first place. Communists, for instance, might have something to say on this subject.”
“Why don’t they go back where they came from?” I snarled.
“Because they came from nowhere. Communism is from nowhere. It’s a crock. Aside from its obvious unattractiveness—I mean things like murder and slavery—it has no intellectual substance. It’s based on a denial of the first human principle: self. It’s a nonesuch—a bubble and a chimera. It’s repugnant to a thinking man.”
“And to me too,” I said.
“Of course you can have a low opinion of the bourgeoisie and not be a communist. You could be, for example, a Jeffersonian Democrat or a Lincolnian Republican … or a Christian.”
“Well, George,” I said, clapping his back, “you’ve certainly relieved my mind. I can’t tell you how happy I am to know that money can’t corrupt anybody.”
“But it can,” said George.
I bit my lip in anguish, and George hastened to reassure me. “Not you and me, of course. We, with our massive intellects, can handle the stuff. But let’s talk about a couple of other fellows—hypothetical fellows. They both start out poor and uncorrupted—I better stop here and emphasize that poor and uncorrupted are not synonymous. Some of the meanest sons of bitches I know haven’t got a pot. In any class a good man is hard to find.
“But let’s get back to our two hypothetical boys. They both st
art out poor and uncorrupted. One is smart; one is dumb. The smart one knows there is something wrong with the world. What’s more, he knows what it is: man’s inhumanity to man. As a pauper, our smart boy is engaged in two fights. The primary—and more urgent—fight is simply the struggle to earn a living. The second fight is to improve the world. He’s carrying on both fights at once, and he’s getting his brains knocked out. Then suddenly, somehow, he comes into a lot of money.”
“Possibly he marries a rich girl,” I suggested.
“A brilliant idea.”
I squirmed with pleasure.
“He marries a rich girl and now the first fight is won. There is no more worrying about money; he’s set up in a thriving business and the loot is pouring in. Now he can devote all his energy to the second fight—to improve the world. But he doesn’t.”
“How come?”
“Because when he had to fight for a living he was a man in motion, and he had enough impetus to carry him into a second fight. But now the initial push—the need to earn a living—is gone. Inertia sets in. He tells himself that the fight to improve the world is hopeless—and don’t think an airtight case can’t be made for such an opinion. Why should he stir himself for a lost cause? So he gives up all fighting altogether and devotes himself to peace, pleasure, and alcohol.”
I brushed aside a tear. “Lost, lorn man,” I sighed.
“Now let’s examine our second hypothetical man—the dope. He doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with the world. He thinks it’s jim-dandy, and he loves everybody. His only struggle is to make a living—aggravated in his case by imbecility. Then suddenly he comes into money.”
“Let’s have him marry a rich girl too, huh, George?”
“By all means. He, too, is set up in a thriving business. Now, two things can happen—both bad. First, he can lose all his money through his stupidity. That’s bad because he’ll never again be happy poor. Before, as a benign imbecile, he had, at least, been harmless. But now, as a bitter imbecile, the mind trembles at what could happen to him.”
My mind trembled.
“But let’s explore the second possibility. Let’s say that he survives in business. Here, now, is what will happen. The essence of business is competition. In competition one man hurts another man. Our sweet dope is going to start hurting people. And it won’t be just the superficial bruises of normal commerce. With his sense of proportion, this knothead will absolutely massacre people. And on top of it, he’ll be able to persuade himself that he’s doing them a favor. The world’s champion rationalizer, this one.”
“Lost, lorn man,” I sighed.
“Now let me review what I’ve been saying.”
“No, no, let me,” I urged, and George graciously consented. “Your argument breaks down into three main points,” I said. “Number One: money can corrupt smart people. Number Two: money can corrupt dumb people. Number Three: money can’t corrupt us.”
“Masterful,” said George.
“I was a whiz at this kind of stuff in school,” I confessed with lowered eyes.
“What time is it?” he asked.
I pulled out my Mickey Mouse watch. “Twelve-thirty.”
“Good. It’s a new day. I can start drinking again. I’ve made it a rule never to take more than a quart in one day.”
“Sensible,” I said and accompanied him to the bar, where he filled a glass from a flagon of fine spirits. As George drank I stood thinking. Now that he had dispelled my doubts about getting rich, nothing further barred my way. All that remained was to do it, and there on the spot I so resolved.
“George,” I said, “I’m going to get rich. I’m going to have fine clothes and drive a big car and live in Ivanhoe Gardens and marry a distinguished-looking girl.”
He inclined his head toward Miss Geddes, who sat tilting a brandy bottle on the divan. “Her?”
I reddened. “Oh no.”
“Don’t you want her?”
“More than anything in the world. But she is so delicate and sensitive and pure, and I”—I shrugged—“well. I’m pretty delicate, sensitive, and pure myself. But nowhere,” I added quickly, “as delicate, sensitive, and pure as she.”
George finished his drink and poured another. “Harry, isn’t there some nice girl in your neighborhood?”
“In my neighborhood? You know better than that.”
“Well, in the general vicinity.”
“Conceivably. Why?”
“Go find her and marry her and get a good union job someplace and forget about getting rich.”
“What? And spend the rest of my life with boors and dullards? No, George, not after tonight.”
“You liked the Ivanhoe Gardens set?”
“Who would not?”
“Let me tell you a little about them.”
Me cross-legged on the floor again, hands cupped over ears.
“The leader of Ivanhoe Gardens society, by virtue of having the most money, is a man named Payson Atterbury. He wasn’t here tonight. He was out repossessing cars.”
What an odd hobby, I thought, but politely held my tongue.
He continued: “Atterbury is a moneylender. ‘The Great Forecloser,’ some call him. He specializes in bad risks. When people are in trouble and the banks won’t help them, they know they can always go to Atterbury. He has boundless faith in people. No matter what the banks think of them as risks, Atterbury is willing to take a chance, and his interest rates often run below 100 per cent. In the matter of collateral he is also much more liberal than the banks. He will, for example, accept such things as gold inlays, relatives, or prosthetic devices.”
“A greathearted man,” I said.
“And perfectly mated. His wife goes around looking for people who need Atterbury’s aid. In fact, she is often instrumental in reducing them to that condition.”
“A greathearted woman,” I said.
“Atterbury is the leader of this set. Around him are a dozen or so retailers, factors, jobbers, and professionals—charming people all. The days are gone when a middle-class businessman was a Babbitt. These men are sons of Babbitts, yes, but they themselves—although not lacking their fathers’ acumen—have much more rounded-out personalities. They read all the latest book digests and news capsules. At their weekly fraternal lunches they hear erudite but dynamic speakers who fill them in on such topics as ‘If Freud Were in the Ready-to-Wear Line’ and ‘Toynbee and Inventories.’ They are the enlightened generation of businessmen.
“The women of Ivanhoe Gardens,” continued George, “bear a relationship to their husbands roughly resembling that of a jockey to a horse. In this race the horses happen to be as intent on winning as the jockeys, but sometimes a horse may flag or stray. When this happens, the jockey is quick to apply the whip. A certain piquancy is added to the race by the fact that the jockeys occasionally switch horses.”
I must confess that all these turf terms bewildered me. I know a few things about racing: that a furlong is a mile and a quarter, that a stud fee is what you put in the pari-mutuel machine, that a horse must be a citizen to run in the Kentucky Derby. Beyond that, however, my knowledge is blank. But I didn’t want to interrupt George with questions, so I just nodded.
He reached over and rubbed my head. “Trying to get information to you,” he said, “is like trying to shove an oyster into a keyhole.”
The significance of the simile escaped me, but it made a funny picture. I laughed silverly.
“Ah, nuts,” said George, suddenly gloomy. “It’s my own fault. Why must I talk to you in goddam circles? Why can’t I say what I mean in plain English?”
He finished his drink and poured another. “I know why,” he said. “Because I haven’t got an argument. What am I going to tell you—that poverty is noble? Poverty stinks. So does this, but at least you’re comfortable. Get rich, Harry. I can’t imagine how you’ll do it, but do it.”
“Thank you,” I cried, leaping to my feet. “That’s what I wanted to hear you say.”
George’s head sank slowly to the bar. “Yes, Harry, get rich,” he mumbled. “You won’t even need liquor to keep from thinking.” His eyes closed and he began to snore lightly.
I looked over at the ladies on the sofa, thinking perhaps they might now be desirous of conversation. But they were busy, engaged in some kind of nautical game. Miss Geddes was holding the brandy bottle to her eye, telescope fashion, and crying, “Thar she blows!” The other lady lay on her back ejecting jets of water from her mouth. I chuckled at their genteel antics.
Then suddenly I grew speculative. I turned to the sleeping George. Here was a man with the same humble origins as my own. He was no more attractive, no more accomplished, no more poised than I. Then I turned to the distinguished-looking, well-bred lady spitting water on the sofa. How, I wondered, did George ever capture such a prize?
I turned back to George and shook him awake. “George,” I said, “tell me about your courtship.”
George blinked a few times and poured himself another drink. “Glad to,” he said. “Agnes and I had what you might call a whirlwind romance. I first met her at a party at her house. I should point out that I was not a guest. At this time I was working in her father’s liquor store, and I had been pressed into service as a bartender at this party. It was quite a party. There were all kinds of ingenious diversions. Damage ran into the thousands. By dawn all the guests had passed out or gone home, but Agnes was still in a mood for frolic. ‘You there,’ she said to me—she knew my name but preferred this more correct form of address—‘you there, let’s have some fun.’
“‘What would you like to do, ma’am?’ I asked politely.
“‘Think of something, stupid,’ she replied.
“‘There are a few windows still unbroken,’ I suggested.
“‘Balls,’ she replied.
“‘How about turning in some false alarms?’ I suggested.
“‘Balls,’ she replied.
“She made the same circular observation about several more of my suggestions. ‘Always the same old crap,’ she said peevishly. ‘Can’t you think of anything new?’
