Do You Wish You Were Rich?

Perhaps, those who don't wish they were rich have a good, full-time job with benefits and married the right woman or man. Perhaps, because they're blessed with children that are healthy and happy, live in a safe neighborhood, and own a beautiful house, they believe that they're rich already. Good luck to them. I'm glad that their glass is always half, fucking full and their rose-colored glasses are permanently etched to their frigging faces. Yet, what about the rest of us? And more importantly, what about you, and what about me?

"Is that all there is? Is this as good as it gets? Am I going to die if I'm good, too good? Fuck! Fuck me."

* * * * *

Normally I don't talk to homeless people, I just drop a few coins in their cup and continue walking. Yet, today, I stopped to talk to a homeless man living in a cardboard box beneath a bridge. A shortcut that I take to get to the other side of the street, I use it to not have to run across the street while dodging oncoming cars.

I've seen him there before, the poor bastard. He looked harmless enough and I felt suddenly sorry for him. Having been homeless once in my life after losing everything in the great, 100-year, Susquehanna River flood of 9/11/11, there go I before God. I wished someone had taken the time to show me the kindness then that I was showing him now. I wished someone had bought me a cup of coffee and a sandwich with no strings attached instead of wanting to see and feel my tits while expecting me to give them a hand job and/or a blowjob.

"What do you think?" As if he was an oracle of knowledge and was my equal instead of a homeless man, I looked at him esoterically with respect. "Think about it. I'd like to know what you think," I said trying to get his attention.

I wondered how anyone could live under a bridge in a cardboard box. I wondered if he thought that this was all that there was and that this was as good as it gets. As if he was sleeping, he had his eyes closed and I waited until he looked at me and acknowledged me before asking him my next question. Finally, as if I had interrupted him in deep thought or serious meditation, he looked at me and smiled as if he knew me.

"What do I think about what," he asked?

I returned his smile with my smile.

"Tell me and be honest. Don't you wish you were rich? Wouldn't having lots of money solve most, if not all of your problems? Much like the rest of us living hand-to-mouth and week-to-week, and who don't have anything but our paychecks, while hoping to win the lottery, don't you wish you were rich?"

Not a typical homeless man, he looked at me in the way that a psychiatrist would look at a patient. Showing his intelligence, he looked at me as if he was reading me. Then, he looked at me as if he recognized me. He looked at me again as if he knew me. It was then that he beamed me a wider smile. Not embarrassed or ashamed, he smiled as if he was living in a high-rise condo instead of living in a cardboard box on a urine and shit stained, rat, and roach infested conduit under a bridge.

'Why on Earth was this man smiling with the deplorable living conditions that he was experiencing,' I thought while returning his smile. He made me feel as if I was the deplorable one. 'How dare he be happy enough to smile while living in a fucking, cardboard box? With him looking at me as if he knew all the answers, perhaps, I could learn something from him,' I thought.

"Nope," he said giving me a toothless smile. "I'm already rich, and I'm happy where I am in life." He looked around before looking back at me and quoting Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. "It is what it is," he said as if that was supposed to mean something to me before expanding on his brief, five-word response. "I'm experiencing my life as it was meant to be. This cardboard box is my karma tapping me on the shoulder and kicking me in the butt. I have no one else to blame for the ruination of my life but me," he said with resignation and realization.

Happy? It is what it is? Unless he was a child playing make-believe in a refrigerator box, how can anyone be happy living in a cardboard box under a bridge? Unable to understand his look of satisfaction and his realization of his own reality, his being happy didn't make any sense to me.

I guess, perhaps, especially in his case, happiness was more of a state of mind than his reality. Seriously, how can anyone be happy being in his dismal, homeless predicament and living in a cardboard box? Obviously, he was insane. Nonetheless, I preserved in my pursuit of knowledge to learn why he was happy enough to be satisfied with his existence.

"C'mon, be honest. Don't give me that bullshit that you're happy living just the way things are and just the way that you do. For God sakes, are you kidding me? What's wrong with you? You live in a cardboard box under a bridge for Christ's sake. How can you, a homeless man, possibly be happy with your life?"

He looked at me and smiled again. This time, as if he was the one feeling sorry for me, he gave me an understanding nod and another smile. With his look, he made me feel that I was the one to be pitied. Then, stripping me naked with his look and seeing right through me as if I had no heart and no soul, he made me feel like the disadvantaged one and the homeless one. Then, as if he was Tom Hanks in frigging Forrest Gump saying that life is like a box of chocolates, 'You never know that you're gonna get,' he said something metaphysical and transcendental that really annoyed me.

"Happy is what happy does," said the man living in the cardboard box with a shrug and smiling as if he had already won the lottery. "I'm happy living here and doing nothing while you go off to work. I don't need much more than a few dollars a day to buy something to eat and drink at McDonalds where I use their restroom to relieve myself and to bathe in their sink."

I stared at him more confused than before I ask him the question.

"Happy is what happy does? What does that even mean," I asked?

I looked at him as if he was a street philosopher standing on a soapbox in the Boston Common instead of a homeless man living in a box under a bridge.

'Is he happy doing whatever he's doing because he's alive? Is his sole purpose in life to breathe and to want and expect so little? Is that it? Is that what happy is what happy does means? How can he be happy with having so little when others have so much?'

I looked at the man as if he was drunk on cheap wine. Then, as if giving me a lecture, he pontificated his point as if he was my teacher and I was his student.

"When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence for the United States, he proclaimed the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He did not guarantee happiness to the citizens nor did he mean to hold happiness as the greatest value," said box man. "Happy is what happy does," he said annoyingly again with another shrug. "I'm happy doing nothing but living."

Yet, now that he spoke more while pontificating his point of happiness, as if he was lecturing in front of a college, philosophy class, I recognized his voice, his mannerisms, and his demeanor.

* * * * *

"Professor? Professor Richards? Is that you?" I couldn't believe my old professor was living in a cardboard box. "What are you doing living in a cardboard box? After teaching at Northeastern University, last I heard, you were teaching philosophy and doing phenomenological research at Harvard University," I said.

'The bigger they are, the harder they fall,' I thought. 'When he was pulling down more than two-hundred-forty-thousand-dollars a year as a tenured professor, how could he go so low?'

Last I heard, Professor Richards was living in a big, beautiful house on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a few blocks from Harvard Yard in Harvard Square and across the street from Cambridge Common. Driving a new BMW 530i, married to a sexy blonde with fake tits, and having 2.2 children, I thought he was living the good life. I thought he was living life large. I thought he was happy teaching at Harvard.

With him a tenured, Harvard University professor, and a published author, set for life, I thought he had it made. I thought he had it all. If he's happy now, then what was he before? Miserable? How can he go from being so professionally and socially high in life to being so pathetically and socially low and still be happy? Perhaps, confusing happiness with insanity, he must be crazy.

"Oh, that," he said without shame or remorse while waving a hand of utter nonsense. "Spending what money I had on lawyers to defend me, I lost everything in a civil lawsuit. I lost my job, my tenure, my wife, my children, and everything when an 18-year-old coed reported me for inappropriately touching her, fondling her, stripping her naked, and having sex with her sleeping and drunken body. Something that other professors have routinely done with their students thousands of times, I had no idea that she was the dean's daughter," said the professor. "Just my luck. Who knew?"

I looked at him shocked that he had lost it all for a mere moment of sexual pleasure with the naked body of a coed.

"Back to wishing that you were rich, Professor, being that you're homeless and truly have nothing, wouldn't you like to buy anything you want at any time? Close your eyes, Professor, and play along with me. Now imagine, if you will, what it would be like to afford your heart's desire. Tell me what would you, as a homeless man, would buy?"

Instead of closing his eyes, he stared at me dumbfounded while smiling like an idiot.

"Nothing," he said with a shrug. "I want for nothing. I wouldn't buy anything, not a damn thing. I have everything I want and need with me in this cardboard box," he said.

Now, I was the one looking at him dumbfounded. Perhaps, he didn't understand my question. Perhaps, after living out in the street and out in the cold, he needed a bit of imagery to spark his imagination. Indeed, perhaps, he was crazy.

"Imagine if you will, Professor, being rich and able to buy houses, cars, clothes, jewelry, and take trips. Imagine giving to the poor by playing Santa Claus every year in paying off someone's layaway at Toys R Us," I said while imagining that I was rich too and paying off layaways for some poor family with a lot of children. "If you were rich, you could donate enough money to feed the homeless at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and donate more to help them throughout the year. You could donate to the Animal Rescue League to save homeless dogs and cats."

Only catching one word about him being entitled, he mumbled something unintelligible.

"...entitled."

I looked at him as if he was, indeed, mad. He'd have to be mad to live on the street in a cardboard box. He had to be mad to think that he had everything he wanted and needed in his cardboard shelter. The smartest and academically most successful man I ever knew was at his lowest point in life. What else could he possibly say to redeem himself and save himself from the embarrassment and shame of running into me, one of his students, other than saying that he was happy?

'There go I or any of us by the grace of God,' I thought.

"Pardon, Professor? Entitled? Sorry but I don't understand. What's that, Professor? There's nothing you want or need? Being that you live in a cardboard box, you have nowhere to put whatever it is you'd buy with your wealth, is that it? Further, you don't want to go anywhere but here?" I laughed. "If you were rich, you could buy a bigger cardboard box, one with two stories, a basement, and a three-car garage to store all the shit you bought because you're rich," I said with a smug laugh.

He shook his head from side-to-side while giving me a stern look. Obviously, annoyed with me, he didn't think what I said was funny.

"Nah, as long as I still have my Social Security check, I like being poor, disenfranchised, and one of the entitled," he said with a sad laugh while repeating what he had said before that I didn't catch. "Being homeless gives me a sense of freedom to roam while dragging my box behind me and to live wherever I want. Moreover, it makes me feel special to be entitled to my Social Security check, even though it's barely enough to keep me in food," he said as if he was William H. Macy as Frank Gallagher in Shameless.

I looked at him as if he was mad and obviously, he was.

"That's as convoluted as it is pathetic, Professor," I said while not understanding his logic that justified his smile and his belief that happy is what happy does.

He shrugged as if he didn't care what I thought of him and obviously, he didn't care what I thought of him.

"I can't imagine affording rent and a car on what little that Social Security gives me," he said with resignation. "Yet, my public, self-serving servants, the rich politicians, feel that I'm entitled to be old, disenfranchised, and poor while being dependent upon my government for my monthly stipend. Being that's what they want me to be, entitled, I guess I am entitled enough not to complain."

* * * * *

I looked at him as if he was nuts. Obviously, he was nuts. He had to be crazy to prefer living in a cardboard box under a bridge instead of wishing he was rich. Other than televangelist Joel and Victoria Osteen, who wouldn't want to be rich? Scratch that. On second thought with them living the good life in a ten-million-dollar house, thanks to Jesus (give me a break), they're both very rich.

Okay, other than Catholic Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, or the Pope who vowed to take an oath of poverty...um, scratch that too. It's the nuns who vowed to take an oath of poverty. The men in the Catholic Church are all very rich and live like kings. Have you seen the handmade clothes they wear and the custom-made, thronelike chairs where they sit? Oath of poverty my ass. While I can't even afford to buy a car, they all drive new cars and the Pope is driven around in a bulletproof Pope-mobile.

Okay, other than our politicians, our public servants, sworn to help us instead of harming us and instead of helping themselves, hold on, wait one second, they're all rich too. They don't help us or anyone but themselves and those who donate millions of dollars to the reelection, campaign, war chest. Never mind. None of them wish they're rich because they all already are rich.

Okay, except for my dear, homeless professor, I was out of examples of people who are happy not being rich. Seemingly, he was the only one happy not being rich. Unless I took my life in my hands and surveyed people who lived in the projects, the ghetto, those who shopped at Wal-Mart, or those in line buying lottery tickets, I couldn't find anyone who didn't want to be rich. Everyone I thought of who wouldn't want to be rich were already rich. Everyone I watched acting on TV, reading the news, giving the weather, giving commentary on sports shows, or doing commercials all had more money than I'd ever have in my life.

Then, I thought of the monks living in monasteries on mountaintops dressed in long robes and deeply pensive in thought while contemplating life and the mysteries of the universe. Surely, these men who have nothing but a long, wool robe, wooden beads, a cross, and flipflops, are not only happy being poor but also content living without women. Albeit, there are some monks who are allowed to marry and have children. Only, upon further investigation, monks, whether living on top of a mountain or in the valley, own acres lands and live in beautiful houses.

'No frigging way! Are you kidding me?'

Much like the monks in Vina, California, the men at Abbey of New Clairvaux make wine on their 580 acres. They own vineyards where they make and sell their own wine. Much like the Trappists monks at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, they own factories where they make their own jelly. If anything, monks aren't poor, they're rich. No wonder why monks don't wish they were rich. They already are rich.

"Jesus."

Surely, the one group who doesn't care about money, too busy chanting are the Hare Krishna's. Only, now that I think about it, they own a four-story brownstone on Boston's Commonwealth Avenue. With their house on the first block of the street, 72 Commonwealth Ave., the most expensive part of the avenue, a block away from the Boston Public Garden, their house is worth close to twenty-million-dollars.

"Wouldn't you like to travel, Professor," I asked while returning my attention back to my old professor? "Wouldn't you like to go anywhere at any time you want?" Unable to hear what he said, I walked closer and leaned in while intently listening. "Pardon? What's that, Professor? Sorry but I didn't understand your mumbling," I said.

He looked up at me and smiled another toothless smile.

"Travel? After 9/11, with all the inconveniences of long lines and invasive security, I'd never fly again," he said with authority and determined resolve. "I don't like TSA patting me down, going through my luggage, actually, my paper bag, and throwing out my booze and my nail clippers," he said holding up his nail clippers.

I was surprised by the size of his nail clippers when he pulled them out of his cardboard box to show me them. I took a step back in fear while hoping that he didn't stab me with them.

"The biggest nail clippers I've ever seen, those are wicked big nail clippers, Professor. Perhaps, other than Jim Bowie of the Alamo fame, who clips their nails with a Bowie knife? Sorry but I'm siding with the TSA on this one. I don't blame them for wanting to confiscate your Bowie knife, I mean, nail clippers," I said keeping my distance while preparing to run away from him screaming.

* * * * *

For fear that my old professor may stab me to death, I left him to address the others reading this essay and to specifically talk to you. Yes, you. I see you back there reading this essay. You may not think that I see you but I do. I see you counting your pocket change. You wish you were rich, don't you or at least had enough money to buy a cup of coffee and a burger?

"Seriously? Tell the truth. Don't you wish you were rich?"

Wouldn't you like to never work at a boring, tiring, and mundane job every day for 8 hours a day for the rest of your life until you retire? Wouldn't you love it if you never had to work another day in your life and never had to contend with bumper-to-bumper traffic? Wouldn't love to sleep late and go to bed late instead of early to sleep and early to rise? Wouldn't you love to have money enough to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted to do it?

"Pardon? I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said. What was that?"

As if I was hearing things, as if God and the angels were speaking to me directly but all at once, a crowd of voices responded to my question.

"We like our jobs. We love our jobs," they all said. "We wouldn't know what to do with ourselves if we weren't working. Our jobs give us an identity. Working gives up a purpose. Working for a living is what we do. Working gives us the break we need from out significant others and spouses to recoup our energy. Otherwise, we'd go mad while not knowing what else to do."

Oh, my God. I don't believe what I'm hearing. I thought everyone wanted to be rich. I thought everyone wanted the good life without having to work for a living. Obviously, these people have been brainwashed into thinking that they're nothing and no one without their jobs. Obviously, unlike the rest of us working two part-time jobs without benefits, they must be working at full-time jobs with healthcare benefits, a good pay, and a retirement plan for them to love their jobs.

"Really? You like your jobs? You love your jobs? Then, why are you reading my essay? Obviously, you're lying while pretending that you wouldn't want to be rich and would no longer have to work for a living." I looked at them in the way that I looked at the professor. "If you're not going to be honest and admit that you wish you were rich, please leave so that the rest of us can enjoy the fantasy of being rich."