I had a visit from a client who wished to remain anonymous today. I get them occasionally, and, quite frankly, I’ve found that their envelopes of cash, velvet sacks of platinum Maple Leaf sovereigns, Prada bags crammed chock full of glistening Krugerrands, attache cases of sturdy iridium rod and plain, ordinary cardboard boxes of silver bullion are as good as anyone’s.
At first blush, I thought maybe this guy was, shall we say, a participant in some sort of shady dealings. Ahem. Yes. Right. Let’s face it, folks, I didn’t get my nice house in Great Falls, Virginia by asking more questions than I had to in order to get paid. As a consultant, after all, I give people advice. How damn many questions do I need to ask, anyway? There was, of course, a flashing neon sign floating over his head, featuring an arrow pointed directly at it and flashing “SOCIOPATHIC KLEPTOCRAT” at me, the way most people see neon signs in their dreams, pointing at them, flashing “YOU ARE NAKED.” That’s the difference between me and the average Joe, I guess. It sure makes my job easier; just a God-given talent, I suppose.
To call this sorry example of humanity a nervous wreck would be like calling the Sears Tower a high-rise building. Here, clearly, was someone who never expected to encounter a situation he couldn’t talk his way out of, no matter how dire. But now, he obviously knew, he was in one, and I was, if not his last resort, pretty close to it.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Mr. Collins.” Mystery Man began. “Having a diversified portfolio of options is a way of life for me.”
“Of course,” I agreed, watching his face carefully, as his natively criminal mind spun rationalization upon rationalization, all to justify his greed, cupidity, larcenous nature and inherent mendacity. “I understand,” I assured him. And with that, he relaxed and started to spill.
“I’m a member of upper management at a major financial institution,” he began, a tiny film of sweat forming on his upper lip.
“Fannie Mae?”
He fidgeted.
“Freddie Mac?”
He scratched his right ear fitfully.
“Indy Mac?”
He glanced furtively out my office window at the White House.
“Bear Stearns?”
He scratched his head.
“Goldman Sachs?”
He gulped, then stared down at his shoes.
“Citi Group?”
He gagged.
“Bank of America?”
He projectile vomited on my hand woven silk Persian rug.
“Now, now, sir, whoever you are,” I consoled, “please remember that retaining one’s equanimity in the face of adversity is the key to crisis management.”
“Uh, yes, of course,” my anonymous visitor agreed as I buzzed my private secretary and asked her to call the cleaners. Yes, Dear Reader, a lot of my clients puke on my hand woven silk Persian rug. Therefore, I have a cleaning service on call. They arrive within thirty minutes and have everything completely taken care inside an hour. They aren’t cheap, but God knows, I sure as hell can’t have my next client arriving for their appointment in an office that smells like technicolor yawn, no matter how posh the furnishings.
“Why,” I inquired delicately, “don’t we continue our interview in the conference room?”
He took one look at me, as I gestured nonchalantly at the door to the conference room adjacent to my office, then another at his pile of distinguished financial accomplishment, and gratefully nodded affirmation.
“I feel your pain,” I adroitly lied as we seated ourselves at the conference room table. “The general public,” I cynically prevaricated, “simply has no conception of how valuable persons such as yourself are to a vibrant and healthy national economy.”
“Mr. Collins,” my unknown guest opined, “you just convinced me that your advice will be worth every penny I pay for it.”
“Thank you,” I continued, “let us, therefore, not concern ourselves with price, quantity, supply and demand, but rather with the ultimate economic utility which stands behind all of them. Please, sir, tell me – how can I help you today?”
“It’s… my…” He halted, clearly uncertain as to how to continue.
“Image?”
“Yes,” he sighed, obviously relieved not to have been required to utter the crux of matter himself. Sometimes, that’s where I earn half my fee, and this certainly seemed to be one of those times.
“Let me see if I can present an appropriate analysis,” I offered. “In the prosperous years that preceded our current perilous situation, elegant lithographs of your likeness appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, while financial reporters fawned all over you like groupies hoping to blow the latest pop music star. Everybody loved you; they were thrilled to meet you; some, those being particularly ambitious young female financial professionals, not only asked for your autograph, but went beyond simile and actually did fellate you; and your wife, when so informed, didn’t even mind. The public was encouraged to think of you as a rare and important sort of genius, a truly superlative example of God’s handiwork – a master of industry, a maven of money and a maker of markets. Now, however, everybody thinks you’re some kind of larcenist, or, at best, some kind of moron. Nobody returns your telephone calls; no one answers your RSVP invitations to parties on your outrageously appointed yacht, even your own wife won’t give you so much as a hand job and, in what is surely the unkindest cut of all, people are beginning to ask why, when the big, powerful financial institution you lead is floating in the toilet, waiting to be flushed, unless, of course, Congress and the President force the taxpayers to bail it out, you get paid such a ridiculously high salary.”
Mr. Anonymous nodded sadly. Yeah, it was clear – he realized that I had him completely sussed.
“And how much is that,” I asked, “just for the record?”
“I… it’s… it’s in eight figures.”
“As in,” I continued, “between ten and ninety-nine million dollars a year?”
“Not,” he clarified, “anywhere near ninety-nine million.”
“Oh,” I pressed on, “I see. More like, what, twelve, fifteen, twenty million?”
“Ah, yeah,” he replied sheepishly, “something in that range.”
“And let me guess,” I persevered, determined to hold his feet to the fire for just an instant, “some people are boiling mad that a person such as yourself can oversee a series of obscene financial debacles and still get compensated as if what they do were actually worth a hoot in Hell?”
He started to heave again, but his stomach proved to be empty, which, I say, was just as well. “Essentially,” he croaked. “What can I do?”
“Let’s look at history,” I suggested. “Back in the day, when the town bank failed because the bank’s upper management had engaged in some inappropriate financial shenanigans, it was a simple, straightforward affair. The townspeople would gather at the bank and demand their money. And, when the bank’s upper management sent the junior apprentice teller out to inform the crowd that their life savings had been squandered on fancy cigars, top-dollar whores, extravagant parties and idiotically expensive champagne; that their mortgages were worthless pieces of paper; that their investments in the stock market had proved to be nothing more than greasy swindles perpetrated by lowlife scum; that the bonds in their grandmother’s safe deposit boxes were of use for nothing much more than blowing one’s nose or wiping one’s arse; and, that, sorry, folks, this was the way of American capitalism and commerce, and that the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith therefore decreed that they should lose their jobs, their homes, their horses and buggies, and so forth, and henceforward live in degrading penury, the townspeople pulled down his pants, spanked him pink with fresh-cut hickory switches and sent him running home to his mama, who, everyone expected, would be moving out of town by dawn at the latest. Then, they went inside that bank, dragged out the bank president, the bank vice president and the head teller, beat them until all their teeth fell in the dust, poked out their left eyes with red-hot irons, horse whipped them raw, and then dumped them into vats of boiling tar. After that, they dusted them off with feathers and rode them out of town on a rail.”
My anonymous guest shuddered, then produced yet another set of world-class dry heaves. When he finished, exhausted, tears running down his face, he finally managed to say “I see. What’s your point?”
“My point, sir,” I soldiered on, “is that, as much as our technology and our conception of ourselves changes over the centuries, human nature remains pretty much the same. So, sir, you should realize that as the American economy slides into collapse and disintegration, you, too now confront similar peril, and, I might add, on a constant basis.”
“You think so?”
“I’m positive. People angry that you have screwed up their lives, ruined them, gotten them tossed out on the street, or bankrupted their stock portfolios – they could very well come to get you.”
“Not where I work,” he stated, confident, at least, for once. “SWAT teams would be out in front, shooting them dead like towel-headed jihadis in Baghdad.”
“But,” I pointed out, “you, personally, could be kidnapped.”
“And then what,” he demanded, now a bit skeptical despite his predicament; “would they throw me into a tank of starving piranhas?”
“No,” I shot back, “that’s a myth. Piranhas don’t eat people. But,” I pointed out, “a tank of starving alligators would most certainly tear you to pieces.”
“Well,” came his riposte, “there aren’t any alligators this far north.”
“Yeah,” I conceded, “but DC has some the largest rats on record, right behind New York and Philadelphia. So they could throw you in a pit full of those.”
Considering the prospect, he blanched visibly.
“Or,” I proposed, “they could bury you up to your neck in the sand at low tide and leave you to drown. Or perhaps they would impale you, as Vlad Dracula used to do to those who displeased him. Or maybe they would skin you alive and drag you behind a truck over a bed of rock salt, to writhe in agony while dying, like a big red garden slug. Or somebody might shoot you – and be really sloppy about it, too; they might use a small caliber gun and shoot you in the ankles, then in the wrists, then in the elbows, then in the knees and finally in the gut, then twist all your joints around, disembowel you and leave you to slowly die from exsanguination. Or, possibly, they might tie you to a huge wicker chair with duct tape, then set the chair on fire, and scream vitriol at you as you burn to death.”
“All right,” my mystery guest acquiesced, “let’s say they could, and what’s more, they want to. So what?”
“So, sir,” I advised, “what you need to realize is, because of that, you have a lot in common with a famous American hero.”
“Who?”
“Evel Knievel.”
“The motorbike stunt man?”
“Exactly. Like you, Evel Knievel was always in danger of suffering a gory, ghastly and gruesome death every time he practiced his profession. Not only that, but, on a per-minute basis, Evel Knievel made, when adjusted for inflation, approximately half a million bucks per stunt, and each stunt only lasted around one minute. Now, think about it – that’s, what, 20 or 30 times more money per minute than you get, since right now, you’re in constant danger of an awful death 24 X 7, and therefore only make twenty, thirty, maybe forty dollars a minute. Shucks, even a third-rate human cannon ball working dinky rural carnivals makes more money per minute than that! Plus, everybody loved Evel Knievel, but everybody hates you. Now, is that fair?”
My visitor’s eyes brightened. For the first time, I saw him smile. “Not just no,” he proclaimed, “but hell, no! No way that’s fair!”
“And there, sir,” I concluded, “you have it.”
He heaved an immense sigh of relief. “Mr. Collins,” he confided, “I can truthfully tell you, after hearing your advice, I feel like a new man; as if a terrible weight has been lifted from my shoulders. That’s it, that’s the solution to my dilemma. All I have to do is explain things, the same way you did just then, and everyone will understand, because without people courageous enough to take the risks you described, there just wouldn’t be an American economy as we know it.”
“That,” I both cheerfully and disingenuously assured him, “is most definitely a viable interpretation of my analysis.”