“Some of them just spend it. So what? It goes right back into the economy, doesn’t it? Some of them just stick it into the bank. So what? It’s available for loans. But some of them use it to start small businesses. Somebody in a ghetto where banks don’t want to open up starts a small bank. You know, on the scale of a check-cashing service, something like that. Another guy opens — oh, I don’t know — a shoe-repair business. All these people need supplies, right?”
They nod with some enthusiasm. They are a kind bunch, indulgent. These people are my pals.
“Pens and deposit slips for the little street-corner bank. Pieces of leather and rags and polish and tools for the shoe shop. They buy this stuff. They’re fueling the economy, right?”
Matthew pauses; he liked the nodding earlier, the little smiles, and he’s asking for more of that. His pals give it to him.
“And then when their little businesses begin making money, they begin spending it. They buy better cuts of meat. Flowers for the wife. Shoes for the kids. Toys for the kids. Beer imported from Denver, for Christ’s sake.”
Matthew stops here, thanks to some residual self-censorship, but at home, when he had read the article, when he was alone, he ran on with the impressive logic of his idea. He wondered why no one had seen this logic before. Why hadn’t anyone understood that if the poor had money, everyone would be better off? He began running that over in his mind, making a slogan out of it.
If the poor had money, everybody would have money.
If the poor prosper, everyone prospers.
If you want to get rich, invest in the poor.
Lift the least and you lift yourself.
If the poor were rich, you would be, too.
He laughed at himself. This must be an incredibly naïve idea, he thought. Not the idea of a grownup. A child’s idea. He made himself some dinner. He watched a movie while he ate. He had another drink. By the time he went to bed he had lost the urge to send some money to the woman Effie was defending. He even felt a little foolish for having thought of doing it. It no longer seemed like what an intelligent, thinking adult would do with his money. It was what a kid would do. However, he had not quite forgotten the woman’s plight. He had incorporated it into a new bedtime fantasy. In this one he did send a check, to Effie, for the woman, a large check, and he asked Effie to dole the money out on a monthly basis over the next year, while the woman was finishing school, with the stipulation that her benefactor was to remain unknown to her. He derived an almost tactile pleasure from the thought of writing benefactor and meaning himself. When Effie called to thank him, he suggested lunch or dinner. She said, “I’d love that,” in a voice that was oddly hushed, as if she were embarrassed that he had read her mind, at last, after all these years.
There is a moment of silence at the table after Matthew finishes outlining his proposal. Then Jack says, slowly, very seriously, nodding as he speaks, “You know, Matthew — ” He draws a breath, grimaces as if with the gravity of the moment. “You are shitfaced. I mean, you are really drunk.”
Laughter. Matthew joins it, and he makes a show of pushing his glass away.
“So, Effie,” says Jack, “what was the upshot of the whole thing?”
“Nothing,” says Effie. “Zero upshot. The story in the Globe brought in some money. Not a fortune, but enough. She paid her back rent, and the agency let the matter drop.”
“Good,” Matthew says. “Good.” He’s aware of what he’s doing, and he’s aware that he ought to be ashamed of himself for doing it, but he’s doing it anyway: nodding and smiling in a way that suggests he was one of the people who sent money. He thinks of saying something more. He can imagine himself saying just a little something more, something like “That’s what I hoped,” and before he can stop himself he has said it. Sometimes, he thinks, my mind is my worst enemy.
Effie looks at him with a quizzical grin that quickly widens into a smile. Matthew should feel like shit, but he doesn’t, not at all. He basks in that smile. “Matthew,” Effie says, drawing his name out. “You doll.”
He raises his hand, shrugs, frowns a little, all to say, “It was nothing.” Which, of course, it was.
In Topical Guide 444, Mark Dorset considers Marketing: Persuasion: Slogans and Sloganeering from this episode.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” complete and uninterrupted as an audiobook through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies and Herb ’n’ Lorna.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.
🎧 444: “Some of them . . .”