The Boy Who Didn't Like Money
Crimes of Fashion
Bridging the Blue/Red Divide

The Boy Who Didn't Like Money
Awakening

On a sweltering August afternoon, the clatter of jackhammers blasted through the open dinette window. I sat in the hallway next to the only phone in my parents’ Brooklyn tenement. Their apartment had no air conditioning – never did, never would – and my backside stuck to the vinyl seat cover of the telephone chair. The black rotary phone rang. I looked down at the dusty piece of history and imagined Alexander Graham Bell calling from the great beyond.

I picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Hi, Mr. Zachter, it’s Bruce Geary.”

I had no idea who he was.

“Yes.” I was Mr. Zachter, just not the Mr. Zachter he thought he was talking to.

“There is a million dollars in the money market account. I suggest you buy a million dollars worth of Treasuries to maximize the return.”

I was hearing things. No one in my family had that kind of dough. The heat had gotten to me. It must be a misunderstanding. A practical joke. I stared at the river of stains running down the walls from the ceiling. When I had lived here as a child, sleeping in the dinette with my head next to the Frigidaire, the upstairs apartment bathroom had leaked. Some things never change.

But some do.

Crimes of Fashion

In Panera’s, as my wife and I share a banana-nut muffin so neither of us exceeds our points for the day, a woman approaches.

“Do you know you could be a model?”

This is not something a forty-four year old man with thinning gray hair hears every day. It’s Viagra for my ego.

“You have the print model look. Most industry work is in print. My name is Linda. I work for Choices, a scouting firm. Agencies search our internet site where we post pictures of our clients. Here is my card.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Linda Tracy.”

“This card says Karen Smith.”

“I wish I was Karen. She’s a heavy hitter. I use hers until I can get new ones. There’s an open call tomorrow night in our Montgomery office.”

“Who are you kidding?”

“Print models come in all shapes and sizes. You’re the distinguished banker type.”

Envisioning herself the wife of a male model, my wife says, “Go! Have a night out.”

How can I say no to that?

Read more...

Back to top