I knew this guy who was going to be a
businessman. He was going to identify a
need in the community, raise the
capital,
invest wisely, open a small,
friendly business, and enjoy
success.
Ten years later, he owns a couple of
fast food restaurants. His
employees hate him, his
customers shout at him, he has an
ulcer from trying to balance the books, and the
chain is pressuring him to sell to someone who will make the stores more
profitable. He tells me he's living his
dream, but the look on his face during the
evening rush calls him a
liar.
I knew this girl who was going to be an
Artist. She always said it with a capital "A" --
Artist. She was going to move somewhere with
beautiful scenery (
Taos, New Mexico, she said, or
Alaska or
Northern California), live cheap, and
paint everything she could.
Ten years later, she is a
secretary for an accounting firm. She works 45 hours a week and can type 80 words per minute. She hasn't touched her
paintbrushes in six years, and there is no look in the world that is
sadder than the one on her face when she sees her boss hang some cheap
landscape print up in the front office.
I knew this guy who was going to be a
reporter. He was going to fight
corruption in
high places and tell the
important stories that the
readers needed to know. He practiced re-writing stories in
magazines 'til they were better than the
originals.
Ten years later, he bangs out a
feature a day on
inane subjects that are designed solely to fill
space in the
newspaper. He knows which deputies are
brutal thugs, which
judges are screwing their secretaries, which councilmen are
skimming taxes, and which
teachers are screwing their students, but he can't
report on them because he doesn't want to get a
reputation as someone who'll turn against a
source. He claims not to remember his
youthful idealism, and he may be telling the
truth, for once.
I knew this girl who was going to be a
social worker. She was going to work with the
underprivileged, and help them overcome their circumstances to become
productive members of society. She was going to work with the
abused and
injured and
hurt, and help them become whole,
undamaged people again.
Ten years later, she is a
social worker who
hates every single one of her clients. She hates them because they are
poor or
abused or
pitiful or
helpless, and all they do is
whine, and they're all
liars and
scum, and why can't they do something for themselves for once, dammit. She
grumbles to herself that someone oughtta round 'em all up and
blow their fucking brains out, dammit. If you remind her of what she was like when she was
young, she will favor you with a
glare, tell you she doesn't have
time for reminiscing, and get back to
work.
I knew this guy who was going to be a
cop. He wanted to be a cop for all the right reasons -- he was going to
help people and enforce the
law and put
bad people in
jail and make the
world a better place for everyone.
Ten years later, he is in
prison. He and his partner beat a kid to
death. They thought he was a
troublemaker, so they were gonna knock him around a little to teach him a
lesson, and he bumped his head on the
sidewalk and fractured his
skull and
died while the cops were still
laughing at him and telling him to get up and run on
home. This guy I knew now serves as a
lieutenant in a
prison gang because they'll protect him from all the other
inmates who want to
shiv him.
I knew this guy who was going to be a
preacher. He loved
God with all his heart, studied the
Bible, wrote his own
devotions, spent several years in
seminary preparing to serve a
church and its
congregation with
humility and
love.
Ten years later, he works in the
oilfield. The members of his small-town congregation decided one day that they didn't like his stand on
(insert hot-button issue here) and
fired him. He had a
wife and
child to support and couldn't find work with another local
church. So he got a 12-hour-a-day job as a
pumper in the oilfield and he comes home every night too
exhausted to do anything but sit in front of the
TV. He doesn't have time to
read anymore, especially not a
Book he already read twice when he was still in
high school, and he sleeps
late every
weekend and doesn't get up in time to go to
church.
I knew this girl who was going to be an
actress. She did a killer
Ophelia and
Rebecca Nurse and
Lady Bracknell. She disdained
Hollywood and adored
Broadway. She made two trips to
New York and one to
Chicago to see
plays and visit with
playwrights.
Ten years later,
no one knows what happened to her. She moved to
New York, rented a small apartment, and her
family never heard from her again. She might be a
waitress. She might be a
junkie. She might be
dead. She might still be an
actress. We wish we knew for sure.
I knew these two people who were in
love. More than likely, you know the
routine: talked about each other all the time,
worshipped the ground the other walked on, planned a long life revolving around each other, got
syrupy and
googly around each other and made the rest of us
groan. The usual, commonplace
miracles of
chemistry and
attraction and
luck...
Ten years later, both of them have been
married and
divorced twice. They seem to spend most of their time in
court or in
counseling. They don't talk about each other or about anyone else with any
affection. They haven't really loved anyone in years -- in fact, they both claim, independently, that they are now too
smart to feel that
emotion for anyone. They say they don't miss that
feeling, but a more
bitter pair of
cynics you have never met...