I avoid going out to Centerville as much as I can, mainly turning up for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and similar frays, but Cousin Fran insisted I come. Uncle Clifford, she said, was getting increasingly difficult. So I went.
We met for lunch at the Soup Spoon as usual—Cousin Fran said they’d stopped using Valvoline in the salad dressing.
“He wants to join the Occupiers—those Wall Street whachamacallums. He says it’s about time somebody did something about the bankers; look what happened to Aunt Adele’s trust fund. He wants to send them a lot of money. He can’t afford it.”
“Well, I can understand his feelings. A lot of people agree that the bankers have been taking too much out of the financial system. Especially given this much unemployment.”
Fran made a face. “Now you’re talking like Uncle Clifford. America is supposed to be a free enterprise system. Where everybody starts at the bottom and the cream rises to the top.”
I poured some Valvoline on my cucumber salad. “I don’t think Uncle Clifford started at the bottom exactly. He went to Loomis, as I remember. His father was on the board of A.T.&T.”
“I don’t care where he went,” Fran said. She jabbed her fork into her salad so vehemently that a cherry tomato flew off the plate. “He says if Jesus didn’t believe in capitalism, why should he? What makes Uncle Clifford so sure that Jesus didn’t believe in capitalism?”
“From what I know about Jesus, he didn’t exactly fit the George Soros mold.”
Fran picked up the ejected tomato from the table. “You’re both wrong.”
“Who’s both wrong? Jesus and me?”
“No, dummy. You and Uncle Clifford. Look at Jesus. He started out in a manger and ended up being Jesus Christ. It goes to show that anyone can do it if they try hard enough. If that isn’t capitalism, I don’t know what is.”
“I don’t see where Jesus had a lot of money. In most of the pictures you see of him, he’s wearing stuff right out of a thrift shop.”
“He could have been rich if he’d wanted to. He didn’t want to be rich. It didn’t fit his image.”
“I get your point, Fran,” I said. “But you can’t expect Uncle Clifford to act like Jesus. Jesus was a special case.”
“What do you mean, a special case?”
“He had family connections that most people don’t have. Especially Uncle Clifford.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “I don’t get what you mean by family connections. If you’re talking about Great Aunt Celia, forget it. Everybody knows she was bonkers, leaving all that money to the Salvation Army.”
“I wasn’t talking about Great Aunt Celia. I was referring to Jesus.”
She speared another cherry tomato. “Why can’t you ever stick to one subject? You’re always wandering around.”
“I’ll try to do better, Fran.” I forked up some salad. “Tell me about Uncle Clifford.”
“I told you. He wants to go with those Occupiers. He says they’ve got the right idea. He says it’s all the fault of the bankers. Why does everybody always pick on bankers?”
“It was the bailouts, Fran. And then the bankers gave themselves bonuses while they were foreclosing on mortgages they shouldn’t have issued in the first place. It might have been legal, but it didn’t sit well with a lot of people.”
“People are just jealous. That’s always the way. Nobody can stand to see anyone get ahead of them. If they don’t like our system, let them become Communists and see how they like it.”
“Fran, Uncle Clifford is hardly anyone’s idea of a Communist. He’s living on the income from blue chip stocks—General Motors, IBM, the pharmaceutical companies. General Motors isn’t including copies of Das Capital with quarterly reports.”
She shook her head. “I don’t see why you’re so down on capitalism. How else can people get ahead?”
“I’m not down on capitalism. It’s a very successful system in many ways. But I can understand Uncle Clifford’s feelings. The bankers ought to have waited a couple of years until people had jobs before they handed themselves those bonuses.”
“How can you talk like that? Do you think that some Occupier with a beard who never takes a bath can run the country better than the bankers?”
“I agree with you on one point, Fran. Bankers probably smell better than the Occupiers. Shower every morning and pat on after-shave. But the bankers are more likely to have tubs nearby than the Occupiers have.”
“It’s their own fault. If they’d stayed home, they could have taken a bath.”
I swallowed some wine. “Let’s get back to Uncle Clifford, Fran. What do you want to do about him?”
“We have to lock up his trust fund. He says he’ll spend any amount to see a banker go to jail. If that isn’t Communism, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s his money, Fran. Maybe Great Aunt Celia shouldn’t have left it to him, but she did.”
Fran looked as if she had bitten into a lemon. “You’re not being helpful. She was always soft on him from the time he was a little boy. Buying him toys, giving him sweets even though she could see plain enough that he was overweight.”
“You weren’t born then, Fran.”
“No, but I heard about it. I didn’t see anyone giving me sweets. Those things stick in your mind.”
“Fran, I think everyone felt that, even when you were a little girl, you could take care of yourself. They didn’t feel that way about Uncle Clifford.”
She scowled, her forehead corrugated like corduroy and, for a brief moment, I thought I saw a tear forming on one eyelash, but it was a trick of the overhead lights. All she said was, “Yes, that’s always the way. You never get what you deserve unless you don’t deserve it.”
