Chapter Six

There in the fourth estate were men of noble aspiration. To make ones name was to take a pelt, the skin of a person who had otherwise gained notoriety. It was the dream of every cub reporter to bring down a famous man or woman, to lay low a great person, in the name of reporting the truth. For some reason, this dragging of character through mud is noble in the ethos of the news man.

Fortunately for our man the industrialist, the news man had long ago quit all efforts to discover his skeletons, though they presumed those skeletons were merely well hidden, believing that no man, no matter how noble, how principled, how brilliant, could achieve that greatness without having broken a few necks. Satisfied that the whitewash went at least several layers deep, they had cast about for others to pursue, settling on our man the prosecutor.

No man of mere whitewash he, having the finest gilt on his cane, the whitest clothing, so white it shone in the sun like the very angels, proving his purity. Ah, but such purity rarely is more than clothes deep, and, knowing this, some cub reporters set about exploring him as those embarking on a treasure hunt with a whole island to explore.

Stripping off gilt is easy, but doing so without damaging the underlying material is difficult. While the fourth estate cares little about the members of the other estates, they do care about libel, so tread lightly while searching, and only carefully do they lay their snares. Often, the searching takes the form of a profile report, something to provide the readers with background into the greatness of the subject, such as our whiteness, the prosecutor.

Of course, the profiles were numerous on the industrialist, many of them truly wondering, expressing delight, genuine and sweet, that such a man exists that these sweeps for information did fail. Few profiles existed for the prosecutor, those that existed having been bought and paid for and thus devoid of content of interest, being appropriately worded nothingnesses of marketing. Although it seemed to the public the men were of similar caliber, given that the effectiveness of a proper paid writer is great, as great as the effectiveness of the professional journalist in genuine thrall, so that the casual reader cannot tell the difference.

Remember that many of those in wealth and power, many who hated the industrialist, were willing to do anything to see his fall. Many more were there who saw the rise of the great prosecutor as just the thing, as he would be a mouthpiece for change, to save the world, or at least, save their individual fortunes. It is essential to the upkeep of the modern democracy that men of such fine hair, such a great turn of smile, given to gilt worn as if real solid gold, given to a majesty of delivery, of carriage, such men that cause other men to be in their thrall because they are just so gosh-darn cool, it is essential to the upkeep of a democracy that these men be allowed to lead so as to detract from the necessary policies to aid the bankers in keeping their fortunes. The loss of even one banker's fortune is a miserable thing, given that they are unsuitable to any other work, or, indeed to playing any game with their own money. So do they stack the deck to protect themselves, finding in the vessels such as our prosecutor willing allies in the climb to power and the exploitation of the masses.

So we watch the newsmen in their customary garb of worn clothing to show their seriousness in their poverty, supping the traditional sup of spirits on the rock, and discussing these things, for it is the worldly-wise sageness that is the hallmark of the newsman, that he knoweth all and deigneth to tell us some. They sat and discussed, wondering the angles, searching the relationships, always returning to that canard dearest to the heart of any investigator, to wit: 'Cui bono?'

Chapter Five

And, lo, the winds did blow, but not greatly, enough to increase the greenness of a select few of the minions aboard. It blew not enough to dent the enjoyment of the crew, who now found it possible to resume the deck, as the tossing of the boat was more than adequate to ensure that the lawyers, secretaries, assistants, and clerks, would stay below, dedicatedly applying themselves to their jobs to distract their baser selves from the discomfort caused by the rocking of the boat.

Down in the hold, where the cargo of this schooner was carried, otherwise known as the main salon, the cargo of this schooner was cloistered combing carefully copious quantities of papers, the cargo, of course, being the lawyers, their secretaries, assistants and clerks. The papers included every scrap of knowledge available to such a team as they, which was considerable. One thing to say in the defense of the government clerk is that, in the interest or preserving his job, he collects such a mountain of information that mere mortals lack the ability to sort through it or arrange it in any meaningful way. However, when the trawl is hauled by the man or woman with infinite job security to match his infinite patience, whose pay comes not from the value he generates, but rather from the benefit he provides to his political masters, which pay being shouldered by witless and often careless taxpayers, indeed, which pay produces an army of like-minded men and women, to whom the task of sorting all this information is nearly a pleasure, providing a sense of accomplishment, of a job well done, of doing something meaningful as they help to corral yet another oppressor of the little man, when the trawl is hauled by such a small army, even such as was possessed by our man the prosecutor, such a trawl will find any offense no matter how little, and, far more importantly, will find a pattern of offenses.

In our lives, all of us have often acted selfishly or obdurately, behaved in a manner not befitting a giant of industry. Most of us never become giants of industry, so most of us can continue to gain pleasure in our petty lives, sarcastically stating things that would end the career of the average politician, and doing so with the pleasant impunity of those that simply do not matter. However, should we present ourselves for high political position, or try to attain great success in business, or, even, win the lottery, all this information instantly becomes public, because it makes the rest of us able to sleep, knowing that, while others may have achieved success, they are just as venal and petty as the rest of us. A true pure character, rational and forceful in his application of ethics, presents a conundrum that leads many to dislike such on the grounds that he must be phony.

In the salon, they squinted. Hours of scrutiny in the dim mood lighting common to overly dark wooded rooms such as this salon had donated to everyone a pain of prodigal proportions in their heads, as if their spirit was trying to escape their skulls. Long had they subjugated themselves to this sort of necessity, however, and, lubricated with small amounts of alcohol and large amounts of caffeine, they pressed on, reading press release after press release, hundreds of police reports on people who might be our industrialist, but turned out to be not. Nor were there any scandalous pieces in the cheap rags. Even the Enquirer enquired not about our man the industrialist.

Some papers there were that discussed his odd lifestyle, but leavened were they with begrudging admiration for his singular pursuit of his own way, for had not Frank Sinatra himself, the chairman of the board, sang with fierce pride of having done it his way? In the end, it is that the countrymen appreciate the man who blazes his own trail, and the sympathy developed for such a person, oft dubbed maverick, often covers a myriad of sin, such that the man may survive the intended assassination.

Papers there were that discussed his business practices, often pointing out that some of his transactions put paid to organizations that had lasted for a hundred years, but ended always that he had seen to it that every one of their employees received aid and compensation such that they endured no hardship.

Papers littered the floor describing how he had achieved the ouster of this or that of his rivals' production, leading to reduced income on their part, but, inevitably did he hire more, often hiring from his very competitors. Also, in no case could it be demonstrated that the sudden disappearance of goods from his rivals from retail centers was a result of anything but the simple preference of consumers for the things he made, aided by the larger margins his things fetched, thus demonstrating his things so superior that people would happily pay a double premium to gain them.

Nay, there was nothing so far in all the papers that would provide any sort of public outrage at the very name of our industrialist. Never for him the peccadilloes of the upper class, so did he adore his wife. Never for him the wild children so often the bane of the successful, since the man who is forceful and takes risks but gets them right often begets the child that is forceful and takes risks but gets them wrong. Often, though, the public can be gulled into believing it is bad parenting or unhappy childhood that leads to such misbehaving, that it is a cry for help from a poor, beleaguered child who just wants to be truly loved. No, our industrialist's daughter was of singular character, studious and astute, whose behavior at school, at home, and amongst her peers was nothing short of saintly.

His things were in an immaculate state of repair. Never had he any pattern of neglect leading to death or dismemberment, never had he had a person in his employ who, once injured, suffered even so much as hardship for the rest of his life. Never had any of his business, once having made an error leading to damage, failed to make it right, well above the requirement of law or public opinion. Such was his dedication to humanity that he himself would investigate any allegation of impropriety, and the only common screeds against him said that he was too ready to agree that his companies had caused damage, such that often he was hounded by gold-diggers and layabouts that would see him pay them for mere allegations, but such were often met with offers of employment, in some cases accepting and going on to become productive members of society. The rest were either relentlessly exposed or paid, as our industrialist felt that it was necessary that the public felt he was fair.

After these classes of disaster, few possibilities remained. The public fails to get particularly excited about traffic tickets, not that there were any, and is not interested in anything of that sort. It is barely interested in tax evasion, as evading taxes is kind of a fond dream of most of the public anyway.

No, after the first fourteen hours or so of work, as the small army was beginning to straggle off to bed (being noted by our prosecutor as to which were weakest and thus working long past the point of effectiveness) it became more and more apparent that the only avenue of destruction that would effect ruin against our industrialist was the one already embarked on, that of proving him a ruinous monopolist. The prosecutor noted that there still remained his lap dog and several of the more ambitious clerks with him, although they seemed to largely be useless at this late an hour, and he retired, signalling that they, too, may retire.

Chapter Four

So the great prosecutor left for vacation. Such a dedicated man was he, such a defender of the little people, so dedicated to fraternité was he, that he took with him several hundred pounds of records, case law and aides, consisting of secretaries, legal researchers and junior lawyers. He brought these, so the public was told, because they needed a break and he was joyous to give them that break. While the press conference was underway explaining his magnanimitude, stevedores loaded up the schooner in preparation for their holiday at sea. Despite that one or two of his aides were fairly green at the prospect, they all put their best face on about the spectacular opportunity afforded them and how it solidified the prosecutor's bona fides as a man who helped the little guy. A master of whitewash was our man the prosecutor.

The schooner set sail later that day, bearing the gleaming smiles of the supposed revelers, much as it carried the brass in its brightwork, or, more precisely, like it carried the paint that covered up some of the age-damaged wood. Should I say that the rot under the smiles was the same as that of the rot under the paint? Nay, these aides were good folk. Much like the soldier in an unpopular foreign war, they had chosen to acquire their food in this way, many of them not really knowing what it meant. Lost wives, lost families, lost opportunities and angry relatives they all had as a result of the dedication of their boss, and this presented yet another opportunity for them to abandon all hope of any personal development in the pursuit of their master's relentless ambition.

Oh, sure, they knew their master would provide for them well enough, so long as they kept producing, but they also knew they were about as well thought of by their master as the brass work on the ship; it served a purpose, but was completely replaceable once tarnished, broken or simply less pretty than a new piece.

Had not this very thing come to pass not a hundred days previously? The man with the paunch belly had built the perfect case against a mob boss, lovingly laying down each detail, laboriously constructing each stroke of evidence, endlessly researching precedent and carefully stoking public opinion, until such a day as it was felt that a trial might succeed. When the day came to announce the attorney who would stand up and take credit for all the work, had it not been another attorney with good hair, another rising star attaching himself to our man the prosecutor, who had stood up and told all and sundry the nature of the crime, strode purposefully into court and carried the day with the power of the oratory constructed for him? So furious was the owner of the paunch belly that he quit, accepted a small bribe to not relay his story to the newspapers and began teaching history at a high school. But, our story is not about him.

See, he doesn't have good enough hair to take on the evils of this world, the titans of industry cynically amassing fortunes on the backs of the downtrodden, pushing the capitalist manifesto on people and demanding they pay, by constructing things the people want and artfully marketing those things. A man sees a car advertisement on television and thinks to himself that he wants that car. He doesn't need it; he has a perfectly usable piece of junk not six or seven years old, decaying of rust, or, more precisely, possessing of a rust patch or two, with the flaky radio, and besides, it gets worse mileage. So thinking, off he goes and buys the new car, trading in his serviceable old clunker in the process. When it is determined he cannot pay for the car, he gets blamed for making a bad decision, but wants to blame the television for luring him into the decision that caused him both ruin and embarrassment, for, see, he now has neither his old car nor his new one.

But, a man with good hair, now, that's a man that can help. That's a man that can comment on the situation and say something must be done. He can then get into his flashy car and drive off, content that some silliness will ensue when the proper committees have met. Somehow, the man who traded his car must get a car, because without a car, he cannot work, work to pay for his house, work to pay for his clothes, work to pay for his things, and work to pay for his food, and will become another burden of the state. So, the last-chance loan is born. The man can now buy another car on credit, this one cheaper and more suited to his stature, as determined by a government test, this one with a loan that is harder to default on, with terms set by an administrator who has nothing but good intentions where he is concerned. It is also a loan that is a millstone because he cannot sell the car at all, being rather upside-down on it due to the favorable terms enforced by the administrator, but it doesn't matter because he now has a car befitting his stature. But, this is not his story, either.

One of the aides on the schooner did have such a loan on such a car. Several others had such a loan on their house, forever concerned about losing it and all the equity they had amassed simply by failing to pay a loan. The shackles we must draw in our mind around the hands of these poor, working people are nonetheless effective for being metaphorical. Here on the schooner sit they, for one reason or another, he of the fine hair with naked ambition, they of the mortgage with fear of loss, those of the family with concern for their offsprings' wellbeing, them that are married somewhat happy of the respite from the complaining about them never being home and them what used to be married struggling with the myriad economic woes the state of not being married anymore inevitably carries.

They were not focused. I guess that is the main point here. There sat junior fine-hair, like a lap dog, nearly panting his approval at every word uttered by his master, but remaining just as clueless as the most wind-brained Cocker Spaniel as to the meanings of the words being uttered. Oh, sure, provide him with a script and coach him on the talking points, and he was a spectacular success, but it was often rumored he had a string hanging out his back, and if you pulled it, he would emit phrases not entirely inappropriate to the question being asked.

The rest of the motley crew of the great schooner, that is, the crew of lawyers, gaggle of attorneys, not the real crew, who kept to themselves as much as possible, keenly aware of their need to eat but also distasteful of the proximity to such a magnum of Moriarties. They kept to the area of the ship without the Egyptian linen and gold-plated bath fixtures, where simple pleasures could be engaged in, and copulate they did. Arguably, they produced more than did the attorneys, as at least five new souls were added to push back against the drudgery of life during this trip. But, this story is not about them.

It is about the attorneys, dammit, and it is difficult to stay on topic because they are so dull. Each and every one is decked out in Neiman Marcus or some such, chosen for them by the sales lady who assured them it was just the right combination of conservative and bold, leading to them being essentially interchangeable. It was a sort of camouflage, these threads of theirs, as nobody stood out, so nobody could get picked on.

And they draped themselves around the room, as if hangers for their expensive clothes, a sort of collection of moving mannequins, as they talked about the upcoming case, pretending to bend their massive collective brains to the task of felling a man. A brainstorming session they called it, but, seized with the decorum of years of brown nosing and general political correctness, their session rose little above a brain squall. And, this would not have been the squall possessing of the fine, gentle, warm rain so common and beloved in the Pacific Isles, but the wind blown useless squall that throws mud in your eye common to desert dwellers, for, indeed, it was a hot wind escaping the average lawyer blunderbuss, a wind that generated little but wilting, that parched those it contacted, rendering them helplessly grasping for some streak of joy, some rose in the desert, maybe a glass of water.

They, the budding lawyers, were immune. When one's soul has been roughly used long enough, it ceases to need much in the way of sustenance, that sustenance being the whimsy to gaze upon a flower, or, worse, to ruminate that one has never seen a poem as lovely as a tree. Perhaps there is a whimsy in the ordered braying of the American Pinstriped Brown Nosed Lawyer, but if there is, I certainly have not found it.

And so they worked late into the night, and, for no apparent reason, began again early the next day, congratulating themselves on their continued dedication.

Chapter Three

And the man of government, all stolid in physique and staid in garb, strode purposefully toward his meeting with the president of his party, mindful of the benefit to his career such striding could create. So purposefully strode he, so powerfully did he enunciate the words of his prepared speech, such was the glint in his eye and the set of his jaw and the cut of his suit that everyone said he would go far. Maybe even the next president. Certainly better than the current guy, who appeared mousy in comparison, tho he stood astride the world on election day, to be denied nothing. Such is the office of the president that no man, however grand, once entering it, can remain grand. The office is of such a great magnitude that the grandest man appears puny by comparison, but that only happens after they gain the office, so the public remains convinced that, somehow, this guy will be different, maybe because his hair is shinier or his smile brighter or he lacks that dyspeptic grin every time someone mentions the scandalous news of the day.

Or maybe it is because 'no comment' is not yet in his vocabulary, this man of the rising star. He may comment on nearly anything, being a mere prosecutor, so long as the comments are grand and the way of saying them are grand, and, most importantly, the comments themselves convey no meaning whatsoever. Any politician will be the master of this essential skill, for if it is possible to discern meaning in anything a politician says to the public, it is possible for some of the public to misconstrue that meaning as taking a position against that portion of the public, something a politician will most strenuously deny having done, whether or not he did it, for a politician, at heart, is a loving man who wishes all men to love him as he loves himself and therefore cannot abide the idea that some may think he carries not their best interest at heart.

Some will say, nay, there be honest politicians, and I say, behold, they are ignored or dead; there is not middle ground. Thus is the strength of the machine, with its great gaping maw at the trough, fed by the blood of the country, its young men off to war, its young maidens off to cry, its middle-aged enslaved by debt, a slavery held dear by accountants, bankers and such, those that pay the government worker enough to engage in the pursuit of happiness supposedly granted to everyone.

Pursuit of happiness happens with a light conscience. With a heavy conscience, it is the fleeing from guilt. The two things often seem similar, what with the singleminded obsession with the end goal, but fleeing from guilt is often rather more lubricated by alcohol than pursuing happiness, which is often lubricated with friendship and the construction of great things.

But enough of this philosophy; what about the practicality? Does not governance demand the finest, the brightest, the most elocutive of the lot? Our government man, our prosecutor, is certainly that. Highest honors in his class, he hung out with the best of the best, enshrouded with ivy and declared fit to rule the world. He began his work lowly enough, doing pro bono work in inner cities, for that would certainly brand him an idealist, a mantle that would allow him to hide all manner of ambition. He also did time as a public defender, seeking to protect the innocent from being wrongfully punished. His ideals flipped when he became a prosecutor, as they must, and he cynically campaigned against his own previous opponent on the grounds that he had been able to continuously beat his opponent in court, meaning that his opponent had let hundreds of guilty go free through incompetence.

Any decent man can see through such a silly contrived attack, but, of course, the political machine and the public bought it, because he had such good hair and when you talked to him, you could tell he was smart. Besides, his party had fallen on hard times, and a rising star such as this was just the ticket, so his party sent the cleaners around to help with the skeletons in his closet and sent the bankers around to help with everything else.

Thus did our man make his name. However, his political adviser had advised him that, in order to run for a senate seat, absolutely essential to make governor or president, he needed a high profile case, needed to show someone who was essentially good to be a mealy, maggot-ridden bastard. Just such a man was found in our friend, the industrialist. Our industrialist had literally never hurt anyone if it was at all possible to avoid. He was the kind of man who stepped over fleas when he could see them. Yet, as is so often the case, it is never the truth but the perception that causes harm, and our man the industrialist had become very successful.

Not only did he present a plum target, but our man the industrialist had never spent any money or time trying to influence politics, so had no friends in the game, so to speak. He did, however, have an awful lot of enemies, many of whom wished he would be broken and stripped of his companies so they could make money for a change. These enemies began to bend ears around the nation, plying their targets with various libations, gifts and services first so as to make the ears far easier to bend. Since, apparently, the quantity of swag is the primary method of making up one's mind when high enough in governance, many of those already tenured in government began casting about for a templar to take on this man of pure snow white morals.

All it really took, they knew, was a good turn of phrase and really good hair, and they found such in the prosecutor. Oh, they made the right faces and took their time selecting their templar, but it was evident in everyone's mind that he was the man; nobody else had that good of hair, nor the twinkling blue eyes, nor the broad, trust me smile. This man was clean, they were sure, a man whose record of challenging the fringes of our society and thus keeping us safe was unsullied, a man who clearly cared, given how much pro bono work he'd done, a man whose salary had never once been raised at his request so as to not burden the people.

He, the pauper publican to take on the mighty titan of industry, in a classic David and Goliath moment, to protect yet again the public from the predations of the capitalist, to save them from the inevitable high prices brought on by the monopolies our titan bestrode, and to liberate for once and for all the workers from their tyranny of being locked into working for our titan, as all other competitors were laid to waste.

And so, in the massively oak lined study of the suitably austere president of the party, our man accepted his new charge and swore an oath that he would not rest until the titan was laid low, preferably in pictures with some sort of prostitute, or sheep, or goat. He swore that no matter how heinous the accusation, he would support it, no matter how libelous the outrage, he would mutter it, and that, in the face of the certain truth, he would lie like a politician. Thus he swore and thus he would do.

Chapter Two

So the man of whimsy fell in his great funk, fell like the redwood falls, smashing the smaller trees all around, and so did his wife and daughter fall as well, wandering the house as if echoes lost in the greatness rather than the sparks of laughter, life, and even anger that used to rebound in the halls of the mansion.

The man took to his attic, his hair extending its length by the automatic biologic process, that, if left unchecked, provides the neighborhood with more of the carrion upon which the strutting, preening vultures must feed. His wife, concerned of his health, and certainly of his sanity, brought to him trays of divine succulence, the finest wines and the sweetest pastries, and, in the end, despairing him his life, brought merely coarse bread and water, which he took with a soulful look, a look of acceptance, a distant look of a man deeply lost in thought, so deeply lost that his eyes are mere pools of liquid, with no life, as the man he is is now so deep in his mind that it cannot be bothered to answer the door. Such a man took her proffered bread and water, set on a steel plate and tin cup, and ate slowly, as with a powerful hunger that cannot be sated but is comfortable in its strength to take its time to assert its will over the food.

His wife stood there, gratitude pouring down her face. She reached up and wiped some of the sparkle out of her eyes, said "Oh, it is so good to see you eat. I had come to worry you would never eat again. I will bring some more bread tonight, and maybe some cheese?" This last bit she said with such hopefulness, such eagerness, the kind that happens when it seems that the impossible is going to be a certainty, that it seemed to stir our man's soul and he took a moment from his ruminations to smile wanly, to reach up and touch her arm and say, "That would be nice, thank you."

She knew nothing more to do, so she kissed him on the cheek and turned to descend the stair. She met her daughter at the foot, with an upturned and questing face, and the question needed no asking. "Yes, he ate. He will eat some cheese tonight. No, he's not coming down just yet."

The daughter turned, herself lost in thought about her father, a man who, to her teenage mind, had seemed a giant massive redwood of a man, never swayed by anyone, anything, nor even the relentless march of time itself, the man who always knew how to stand when everyone ran, the man that stirred such jealousy in others that he, of the immaculate manners and immense magnanimity, still had enemies in those whose existence was mousy or snakelike, which is an unforgivable insult to the majestic snake family, although the insult to the mice family can be let stand as their lobbying efforts have been less effective.

That the giant redwood of a man that was her father had fallen was perplexing enough, doing immense damage to her understanding of the world and her place in it, but what to do about it was substantially more perplexing. She, the daughter, had been up to see the man a time or two, but he had been as if he had not seen her. Part of her railed in jealousy against her mother, but that part was quickly smothered by her own gratitude that the man, the redwood, her father, had eaten, that he had responded, that he was less despondent. She took solace that soon her father would be right, that her world would be right, that once again she'd be the little princess she had become accustomed to being, and, with the flexibility of youth, her countenance brightened, and off to some social event she went, as teenagers make social events of the smallest things, dare to contest it, you who either will be, are, or were a teenager.

Her mother, her poor mother, had no such luxury. She took up her position on the love seat in the den, curled up with a book, the letters and words which passed under her gaze without stringing together into any sort of story she could recall, as such a result requires the effort of the part of her brain now deeply taken up with schemes, plots and distractions to enable her to woo her husband out of his funk and down into some semblance of normalcy, for although she married this man because he was no strutting goose, she often secretly wished he'd not give such fodder to the enemies of the happiness she'd built herself here. She keenly felt the daggers aimed her way by those huns of the tree-lined-lane and country club, the barbarians in the finery of civilization, who have the accoutrements that resemble those of the true bon vivant but lack both the bon and the vivant to back it up and make it really work.

They were out there right now, for sure. By now a servant, even the most loyal, who would never hurt the man out of deep and abiding love for him, even out of that very love might, in an instant, let slip the concern bubbling in their soul to the wrong person, a gollum of the chattering class, most certain to tell the next wrong person in the chain of wrong persons, ending up with all the wrong persons knowing, the persons who did not really care except that it provided the tiniest splash of color to their everlasting white lives and made them feel that much better that they could not themselves attain the level of goodness set for them by themselves and all their kind.

They'd be chattering again. They'd go on about his choice of wife, how she did not really support him. They'd go on out of the other side of the same mouth how she married beneath her and should have left the crackpot a confirmed bachelor, but look, the sheen of respectability a woman of such high breeding as herself had allowed this man to worm his way lots higher in life than he should have, to get power he should not have got, and to anger the wrong people such that now he faced prosecution, and that prosecution would hurt so many who would lose their jobs. Of course, all of them had seen this coming; had said so just last week, dare deny it, and thought then that she should just divorce him before he became a millstone around her neck, as he most certainly would become, and look, they would do the same if the situation warranted it.

So she brooded into the night, torturing herself with the imagined words of others, and such a better person was she that she was able to imagine slights and slander that was beyond the simple imagination of the wolves circling her house. She pretended to take it with grace, but eventually curled up in a ball to have a good cry, late into the night, quietly so that her sobbing not carry up and unduly stress her husband in his darkest hour. She cried thus until it became the last thing she remembered doing and she fell asleep. Her daughter, coming back from the social meeting at the place that they all go to, covered her with a shawl and patted her affectionately. Then the daughter went off to bed, secure and happy that things were not, at least, getting any worse.

Chapter One

It was a whimsy, this thing of his, this need that burned like a firefly, all winking on and off and flying all around.  If you asked of him his need, he could not define it, so you could not know it.  Fool, thinks you, he of the whimsy that drives him so hard.  Yet, drive him it did.

It drove him to acquire initially.  Such was the misunderstanding of his whimsy that he acquired things, the substantives of the modern race to the top.  His car was a Bentley, a vehicle of monstrous whimsy, his house an airy estate in the Hamptons where he partook of afternoon strolls in a tophat with his wife and daughter grumbling incessantly about the lace and parasols they must carry, even in the rain, particularly in the rain.  Such was his dedication, nay his compulsion, that often he did not go out on sunny days, and if he did so, he did so with his umbrella.

He felt guilty often on those days, for opposition is truly not whimsy, and merely donning the wrong kit did not produce in him the welling of playfulness of the child he still wished to be.  His hobbies were, therefore, diverse, ranging from that of taming of the shrew, which had yet to be accomplished, but lent mightily to his collection of finger scars, to the arbitrary slaying of insects to childish rhymes, such as one potato, two potato, three potato, four.  Those were the dark days of whimsy, days better spent in the attic consumed by foreboding of the comeuppance a man such as he should certainly suffer.

The neighberhood wives, of the constitution required by stalwart men of business, would call upon his wife to feast on her misfortune, after whence they would commence to neigh and whinny amongst themselves about his nature.  Never mind he the industrialist had built such great and graceful things nor that things of their very own issued from his factories, scattered all over the globe, or that his was the most reverent house on the block in the worship of the atlantic normal, with its stately columns in purest white and majestic lawns with beautiful hand wrought wicker and iron furniture, all gleaming white as was the custom.  Nor could the whinny and neigh of his stables be contested, and the men and women who worked his grounds turned out in the most immaculate livery in the entire town.

Neither, truly, was his wife a bitter, miserable woman.  She saw in her husband the spark of the unknown greatness.  The men of her acquaintance, many who held wives in this very neighborhood, were to a fault conventional, such that their punctuality was so habitual it was effected without the aid of a timepiece and their expectations of their wives was the same, that dinner be at six in the evening and so on, that it be held at the table with the slaughtered beast or fowl and that junior have his homework done and that the wee lassie be decked in finery.

Such was the high standard of huskhood achieved by the rare denizens of this sleepy little town.  So thick was the whitewash over every single soul that the only way of achieving color was to reek of the mould and rot of snipish gossip.  So, nevermind the new Rolls Royce at the lawyer's house, his wife was seen with the gardner in an improper way.

The truth of the matter is, of course, that all of the species in all walks of life partake of a long draught of the gossip, for it renders each and every one of us that much better by comparison, as well as provides a strong reminder that we remain human, rather than divine.  However, in most walks of life, the taint of gossip is lost in the glorious color of living, as the standard, being somewhat lower, allows people to live as people, doing as they wish with little care of the consequences.

Not so in this sleepy little town.  The slightest infraction leads to wagging toungues and, sooner or later, an injunction at the town hall about the beach balls littering your back yard.  That sort of thing, the process of living a life such that happiness is allowed to seep into it, is strictly forbidden.

However, our Misses of the Mister in question had chosen him precisely because he lacked the dour self possession of his colleagues.  His Bentley was du rigor for his stature, but was painted bright yellow with purple seats and spinners on the wheels.  Rather garish though it might seem, it pleased our man.  Truth be told, his vast empire owed more to his sense of whimsy than any other thing, as his products did more than do a thing, they brought the joy of the doing of a thing to life.

Have you ever had a thing that to hold it was a delight?  That to use it was glorious?  That was so intoxicating you found yourself using it incessantly, whether or not whatever it did needed doing?  That thing came from our man's factories.  Truth be told, the glorious things pouring out of the gates of his monuments to efficiency probably did more real damage to productivity than could be calculated, with workers tending to use his hammer rather than another company's screwdriver, causing, of course, the screw to be bent or broken, and the thing once made in this fashion to lack luster.  Such a trend can cause a man to be king, when his things are so superior that the things of others pale so much that the public clamors that all things be made by him.

However, in this world, there are those who, driven by the spirit of spite in plentitude, will reject the success of man as little more than a capricious happenstance, something that is immoral, as it has ennobled one man above another despite that they ought to be the same.  These men we call communists for lack of a more precise printable word.  These men have seen the world for what it is in its stark nakedness and have determined that the various ugly pieces must go.  And, like crazed surgeons, they begin to hack these pieces off.

Such was the peril of the day, leading to a black whimsy, a dark, foreboding whimsy, of epic proportions in the darkest, dankest dungeon of a basement in the house.  The inspectors had arrived that day and determined he possessed a monopoly in the production of useful things in one particular market.  They further determined that, since he charged so much more for his things, despite that the public was eager to pay it, and, indeed, lined up for city blocks to pay it, that he was price-gouging the public and must either reduce his prices or reduce his production.

Well, a facet of the soul-hardened communist that is of no little amusements to his enemies is his rather incomplete grasp of economics.  Were the man to reduce his price, he must needs reduce his quality, and, thus, likely, lose his monopoly, as the public call out for quality on some goods.  Were the man to reduce his production, and there be none other that can match his quality, his price must needs go up, as the public with the wherewithal to satiate their wishes would clearly continue to bid for his goods.  Were he to not allow the price to go up, he would simply run out.

Our hero understood this.  Our hero's wife and child understood this.  It is likely most of his horses and certain that his dog understood this.  The cat could be taught it given sufficient patience, time and thick gloves.  Humans are, of course, another story.  Never is a man so obdurate as when he concludes a thing must be done no matter the cost.  The communist cares not whether his idea can be made to work, his mind has settled that it must work.  This he terms as mandate, that the thing shall be accomplished, because, lo, is it not righteous and good and of a modular construction?

The man of whimsy, the man of greatness, our man of great sorrow this day, must see his happiness and the things he produces that bring others happiness brought low because they meet not the righteousness of those who have annointed themselves the consciences of the nation.