Chapter Twenty-Five

The rich guests gathered around Derrick in the Gazebo. The shameless display of wealth shocked David. All of the men’s suits looked like they cost thousands of dollars. The women wore diamonds, emeralds, and rubies strung all over their bodies. The woman standing next to him wore a diamond necklace that could feed the entire continent of Africa for a week.
David felt out of place in his blue jeans, working boots, workingman shirt, and poet cap. Good. He didn’t want to fit in with these people. When he read his poem to them, they would realize the error of their ways.
He left the gazebo for a stroll around the garden. He went into the darkness by pine tree alley, a small maze made out of pine trees. It was a fairly simple maze. You turned left and then you turned right. It was hard to get lost.
“Thanks for dressing up,” a girl’s voice said.
David turned and saw a beautiful girl approaching him. She had curly auburn hair, a dark oval face, and almond-shaped brown eyes. She wore jeans, but not workingman jeans, designer jeans. They complimented her figure nicely.
“I’m a workingman,” David said. “I can barely afford to put bread on the table. I can’t afford fancy designer name-brand clothes.”
“Don’t worry, you look fine. It’s a good look for you. It says: I’m an artist. I’m above society’s laws. I don’t have to brush my hair.”
David matted his hair down with his hand. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Natasha. I’m Elizabeth’s charge.”
“I’m David.” He shook her hand.
“Sorry,” she said. “My palms are sweaty.”
“Mine were dry. It’s an even exchange. You’re her charge?”
“It means I have to come to her birthday party.”
“You’re a professional guest?”
“I’m not a guest. I’m her ward. She’s my legal guardian.”
“I’m a poet.”
“I know who you are. I saw you reading to the flowers. That’s my room up there.” She pointed to the top of a high spire on the house. “You get so passionate when you read to them.”
“Elizabeth never mentioned you.”
She shrugged. “She probably forgot I exist.”
“How could she forget you?”
“Spur of the moment, Liz decides she wants a kid, but she’s too old and dried out to have one, so she goes to the pound and gets me.”
“The pound?”
“The orphanage. It’s called the pound in Orphan-speak.”
She was an orphan. David didn’t know what to say. He wondered if “I’m sorry” was appropriate. He wasn’t sure, so he stayed silent and didn’t look her in the eyes.
“What!?” Natasha said. “Why do people always get like that when they find out I’m an orphan. They get all uncomfortable. It’s not like orphan is contagious. It’s not like your parents are going to drop dead if I breathe on you.”
Now David was really not sure what to say and looked away uncertainly. He wanted to say something to show her that he it was no big deal; he didn’t feel at all uncomfortable with her being an orphan.
“So,” he said casually. “How’d you get picked?”
“Picked?”
“How’d you get Elizabeth to choose you? You know, when she came to the orphanage.”
She smiled. “Well, I had the experience,” she said sarcastically. “I mean, I’ve been trying to get adopted for seventeen years now, I know all the tricks. Honestly, I thought I was too old to get adopted, that I’d be in the orphanage until my eighteenth birthday, and then be thrown to the street. Happy Birthday, you’re homeless. Great present, right?”
“Better than socks.”
She grinned. “Most people want a baby,” she said. But Liz wanted the least amount of responsibility possible. Maybe she thought it would be fun to have her very own orphan, or she wanted to relive her glory days as a mother, or it was some psychological empty nest syndrome thing. Anyway, after a few weeks, the novelty of having an orphan wore off, and Liz decided she didn’t want to walk me anymore.”
“Walk you?”
“I’m using a dog metaphor. I thought you were a poet. Can’t you recognize a metaphor?”
“I’m a working class poet. I tell it like it really is. I don’t disguise the truth with metaphors.”
“You’re saying I’m hiding the truth?”
“No. Not you. Bourgeois poets. Poets who think they can have a quiet normal life and be great poets. See, inspiration comes from an unconscious part of the brain. That’s why true artists have to live their lives among the people, not in an ivory tower where it’s impossible to align the creative part of the brain with the oppressed. That’s why I dropped out of college: to get in better touch with the workingman.”
“I’m thinking of doing that: dropping out of college. After I start in the fall, I mean. Liz wants me to go.”
“You should. Drop out, I mean. Everyone should. Universities just reproduce the class system. The people who can afford it get to go and take over their parents’ place in the social hierarchy.”
“What about orphans?”
“What?”
“Will I take after my parents if I don’t know who they are?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure how you’ll turn out.”
“I don’t have to go to college, anyway. I’ve got Liz’s credit card. I’m set for life.”
“See, I think you’re missing the point of the whole dropping out of college thing.”
There was a moment of quiet silence where they stared at each other. The garden party was heard distantly.
“So,” Natasha said. “Can I read one of your poems?”
“I’m going to read one in a few minutes. Elizabeth wanted to show me off, so I’m reading a poem to her guests.”
“What’s it about?”
“The inevitable demise of people who throw garden parties.”
She laughed. “That’s your boss.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t care who I offend. An exploited worker is an exploited worker. I’m not going to be intimidated just because Elizabeth’s husband’s some kind of billionaire industrialist or something.”
Natasha laughed.
“Howard?” she said. “Howard doesn’t have money. He’s a scholar.” She said scholar with a fancy wave of her hand. “They don’t pay scholars so good.”
“So she inherited it.”
Natasha shook her head. “Liz wasn’t always rich. She gets it from Leonard.”
“Who’s Leonard?”
“Her son. He’s filthy rich and supports her flower habit.”
“So how did Leonard get rich? Through other people’s labor, right?”
“Worse,” she said. She looked around, leaned in close, and whispered in his ear, her breath making his whole body tingle. “Bootlegging.”
“He sells pirated movies?”
“No. He sells alcohol.”
“But alcohol isn’t illegal anymore.”
“It is where he sells it.”
“Grade schools?”
“Iran.”
“Grade schools in Iran?”
“No. Just Iran, period.” She shook her head sadly. “He doesn’t even come to his own mother’s eightieth birthday party. He’d rather hang out with the Mullahs.”
***
כ''ט בתשרי תשס''ח
ירושלים
October 11, 2007
Jerusalem