Rich Man

Back in the early aughts, I once held in my trembling hand a paper check from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation for 1.5  million dollars. Yup, $1,500,000, "One Million Five Hundred Thousand and 00/00," as it was written on the check. It came by U.S. Post in a Number 10 envelope with a first class stamp, they didnt even bother to send it by registered mail. As I held that insubstantial slip of paper, I realized it represented more money than I would earn in my entire life.

When I worked at OSF, Paul Allen came through the Development Office every few years. I was never introduced and rarely laid eyes on him, but I got to meet his dog. My friend Sharon stepped in as a last-minute replacement dog sitter while Allen attended a play. I don't remember what kind of dog it was, but I do remember it wore a Burberry collar.

Allen wasn't a "modest" billionaire. He didn't give all his money to high-minded causes like Gates and he didn't live in a suburban home like Buffet.  He bought sports teams, arenas, a freaking space ship. He gave billions to an oddly eclectic array of arts and science organizations. He built an entire museum dedicated to Jimi Hendrix.  He once took his 400 foot yacht cruising in Russia and gave his guests Faberge eggs as parting gifts. (This according to Peter Thomas, who had a nose for those kinds of details.) I guess what I'm trying to say is, the guy knew how to spend money. He was not trying to take it with him.

Good on him, says I. It was his money, who am I to tell him how to spend it? He didn't inherit his wealth, he didn't steal it or conjure it out of some hedge fund. He made his money the old fashioned way, by building and selling a good product. He built something extraordinary and people lined up to buy it. We didn't even know what it was and we sure didn't think we needed it, but now we can't live without it. And that, my friends, is the American dream.

And yet, there is something about that much wealth concentrated in one man's hands that makes me queasy.  Sure, Paul Allen built an outstanding product; so what?  Are products our greatest good, our highest value? Are they the metric by which we measure a woman or a man? By some accounts, Allen's product wasnt even the best of its kind, but he marketed it brilliantly while ruthlessly monopolizing an emerging industry. In return, capitalism honored him with its highest accolade: lots and lots of money. I'm not assigning blame to Allen. The man didn't create our system of predatory capitalism, he just played the game particularly well.

And so it goes. Good night sweet Prince. May your passing mark the end of an era.

BMOC

Yeah, I knew Brett Kavanaugh in high school. We all knew this guy in high school.  He was the class president, the quarterback of the football team, the captain of the debate squad. He wore a letterman jacket and spent a lot of time and money on his hair.  We called them jocks and "soshies" (short for social), and they occupied the farthest end of the social hierarchy from the freaks I ran with. We even had a name for them: BMOC, Big Man On Campus. These boys strode the halls like they owned the school because they did. They stood in judgement of all who inhabited their world. They decreed who belonged and who didn't.

They called us faggot, dyke, whore, pig. They threw things at us as we walked by. They tripped some kid in the cafeteria and screamed with laughter when he landed hard and his tray went flying.  That laughter, like the baying of rabid coyotes, it still rings in my ears. They didn’t fuck with me as much as the quieter kids, I was too big, too loud, too angry to qualify as an easy mark. But, they would murmur among themselves and hoot their hideous laughter as I walked by. I didn't need to hear their words to know what they were saying.

When they got drunk, watch out; that's when things turned really ugly. Weekend keggers at someone's house, the parents out of town, classic rock blasting on the stereo, some girl puking in the bushes. Wasted frat boys making themselves as big as possible, generating as much noise as possible, howling giant primates careening through an over-sized suburban home like coked up rats pinballing off the walls of a maze.

We were drunk too, we girls. We drank Boones Farm Wine or Jack and Coke until we didn’t know any better, or at least didn’t care. Girls like me, we were so desperate for male attention, so hungry for their approval. Male attention was how we measured our worth and it was the only marker that mattered.  If you were pretty, rich, graceful, if you had a certain quality, it was easy to attract a lot of male attention. From what I hear, that kind of attention carried its own costs, but at least you were on the inside and at the top. For the rest of us, for girls like me, male attention was harder to obtain, but it was always the most important goal. I sought that attention like a diver seeks oxygen. I needed it.  I catered to male egos, flattered their vanity, relented to their drunken aggression, acquiesced to their clumsy moves. This is their world and that’s how women like me live in it. We mold ourselves to fit. I had to squeeze myself down, shut myself up, make myself sweeter, lighter, less intimidating. Liquor did the trick. I drank until I felt like I was seen, heard, valued, because desire equaled value. I drank until I found myself in some dark bedroom or cramped back seat with a sloppy, out-of-control animal who had never heard the word “no” in his life. It was not in his lexicon. It didn’t apply to him.    

I don’t apologize. I was just trying to survive the only way I knew how.  Sometimes I felt powerful. Sometimes I felt beautiful.  But, mostly I just felt used. 

Yeah, I knew Brett Kavanaugh in high school. Not him, but dozens just like him. We all did. When I think of that entitled, self-satisfied, racist, misogynistic, elitist frat boy on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, it makes me literally sick.