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Description
Loyalty is a lot like other goods; it can be bought, or it can be sold. Some people have a particular affinity for it, while others seem to burn through it all too quickly. As with other goods, how much loyalty you have depends upon your economic standing. Unlike other goods, however, it works as a reciprocal; the more money you have, the less loyal people are to you. I should know, of course; I’m the richest twenty-something in America.

My name’s Horace Aensbourough, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve lived in luxury. The best clothes, a huge house, a car for my birthday every year—every thing someone could ever want, I have. I’ve never had to work a day in my life, and I don’t plan on it; by the time my father dies, I’ll have inherited a fortune of over six billion dollars. My father invented some kind of new engine that burned distilled water, allowing infinite fuel. They aren’t the prettiest cars, but they get the job done, and that’s exactly why, in this environmentally conscious world of ours, that my father became a multi-billionaire.

My father was never married. The only reason he had me was because he decided he needed progeny before dying. We never really connected—I was practically raised by our workers. Ah, well. I’ve always had money and pleasure to go along with it; who needs love when you’re so rich? In any case, since I’ve had affluence all my life, I’ve been in a private school for as long as I can remember.

To say I was popular would be missing the point of my telling you this, officer; it’s a foregone conclusion. Now, if you were to ask me if I had any real friends, that helped me get past the pain I was constantly in, to come and visit me when I was sick or to help with something that I couldn’t talk to anyone else about—that’s the question you should be asking. I didn’t, and now here we are, in the station.

Oh, I had hangers-on to spare. I had people that wanted a part of me, to bask in my glow of wealth, to be like me in every way. But they were fake, wearing their masks to try and gain my favor and I hated them for it. When it started being hard to associate with me, whenever I was the one with the problem, whenever I decided I needed someone to reach out to, they jumped ship. So I said ‘fuck it’ and delved headfirst into this lifestyle, taking as many clinging fools as I could to stay with me, using them and abusing them, indulging their desires to keep them happy. But I wasn’t, and so we have reached a bit of a crossroads in my life. I thought maybe that it was my wealth and social status that was causing me this despair.

In any case, during my stint in private school, I decided to take a summer job; not to earn the money or anything, but because I was going through a phase and decided I should be more connected to the common people while I could. So I applied to various places, rental stores and the like, until I finally got a job working in a kitchen in this rundown greasy spoon out on the east end of town. This was just the kind of environment I was searching for; when I put on my apron, no one knew that I was the son of the richest man in the city, or that I hadn’t a day of hard work to my name. I was just another cook, and I loved it. I dedicated myself wholly to my work, much to the chagrin of my estranged father. The servants were proud of me, told me I should keep on this path and I would be all right.

And then I met Kevin Grausland. He is everything that my father wanted me to avoid; Keven comes from an impoverished family, he’s had to work since he was ten and still go to school to support his seven siblings that his father left him to deal with when he ran out. His mother is so sick, so now he works three jobs, making just enough to scrap by. Even then, he remains a model student, always on the honor roll, alongside his athletic and communal achievements. My father used to tell me to avoid these people like the plague.

My father was never very creative.

He was so popular at the restaurant. It made me sick to see him every day, making more friends than I had ever known. He was so light and easy with those people, always cracking jokes, but not at anyone’s expense; always laughing when someone else said something funny, even me. I tried my best to befriend him, truly I did; but he refused to stop being such a nice guy.

I admit: from my perspective, he has no flaws whatsoever. That makes me furious, even now; how can this proletariat think he can come in and be so much more popular than me? Who does he fucking think he is, a messiah? I don’t doubt it; he always struck me as having a serious martyr complex.

Maybe that’s why people like him so goddamn much. They like seeing someone else suffer more than themselves, so they can feel better about their own lives. I’m digressing.

As you might expect, Kevin was extraordinarily popular, to the point of being ridiculous. I was being relegated to dish-washing and floor-sweeping, while Kevin was head chef, serving everything he cooked to the customer who ordered it personally. He didn’t make much more than me, but that small gap between our paychecks was another factor in my fury. Even though I didn’t need the money anyway, it always made me so angry to hear him talking about how much he appreciated his paycheck every two weeks to our boss—always kissing the old codger’s ass like it was nourishing.

So I found myself at something of a crossroads; should I continue to be degraded by staying in the presence of this sycophantic, uncouth peon, or should I take a stand with what I have, do something about Kevin the only way I could.

In the end, I chose the latter option; it just seemed like the thing to do, officer. My father always told me that I was special for the fact that I had things that other people didn’t have, regardless of whether or not those things were material. After much introspection, I realize that my father was trying to tell me that I wasn’t special for anything other than my money. He would always dance around his messages like that, sugarcoating it; that’s how he became a force in the boardroom, after all.

Of course, then the question was sprung upon me as to how I could destroy Kevin Grausland. After careful deliberation over the course of several days, the answer became stunningly clear to me: I would use my money to influence the opinions of those closest to Kevin, to get them to hate him. And after that was done, I would get the recognition that I craved—no, that I required.

It started simply enough. I studied Kevin’s hive of friends, looking for possible candidates to spread my lies. Finally, I found someone that Kevin seemed to talk to only out of courtesy, who he didn’t really like. I took him aside one day and told him the awful truth about Kevin Grausland; that he was a child rapist.

Of course the guy didn’t believe. I mean, who would? How could Kevin, ubermensche number one, be anything so grotesque and vile? But it was true, I told him, and I can prove it. After my shift, I took the guy with me back to my home, gave him three thousand dollars and sent him on his way by the week after that, the rumor was in full effect.

Officer, you might find this far-fetched—ridiculous, even. I assure you, however, that people are incredibly easily influenced by the presence of money. Honestly, it’s laughable. It always amuses me when I see people jumping over each other to get at me when I wave the promise of financial security in their faces. I suppose I can sympathize; it’s an oddly tempting premise.

I’ve never had such a need in me. Then again, how could I? I’ve always been taken care of, and people become jealous of me for it; they have no idea how much they hurt me by judging me before they’ve met me. I guess it’s not much better when they actually give me a chance; I’ve never really had to be too social with my upbringing. Ah, well; I’m rich, who needs them?

So, back to Mr. Grausland. After a few weeks, he was in quite a state, as you may imagine; a wreck, if you will allow me to use common vernacular. I can’t even begin to tell you the joy that seeing him ragged from sleeplessness, looking this way and that for invisible assailants. He had been beaten outside the restaurant several times, and was waiting for the next one. It surprised me; the speed at which the lie had grown from rumor to truth was akin to that of the speed of a flash of lightning. Kevin was now waiting for the clap of thunder to follow.

Unfortunately, he got it three days later. Kevin Grausland was found in his room with roughly three inches missing from the top of his head. Of course, the gun lay in his hand. No note, no recording, no other reason than a simple lie perpetuated to bring Kevin Grausland down a notch or two.

And then you called me here. I came willingly; after all, how it could be that the son of one of our fair city’s most influential billionaires would be guilty of anything but being too gosh-darned privileged? So I came to the station, and as you saw I made a show of it. No one cared that I was here; they just knew who I was. I put that flourish in my step quite on purpose, officer. The flighty tone, the exaggerated motions—all of it perpetuated to convince you that I was just eccentric, that in all my wealth I had learned nothing of the real world.

Well, I have officer. I know that for admitting to this indirect murder of Kevin Grausland I face jail time at the minimum. I can also tell you that my father will get me out of my cell as quickly as his money can take him. I can tell you that when I leave this city in three years to pursue my higher education, no one will even remember who Kevin Grausland was.

Because that’s how people are, officer; they don’t care for anyone besides themselves. Oh, they present themselves to the contrary well enough; always donating money to this charity or that cause. It’s all a façade, officer; a cheap ploy to make people feel like they’re better than other people. I assure you still that my acts were in the same vein—after all, I just wanted people to notice me.

But it didn’t work. Even in death Kevin continues to lord himself over me, to show that he continues to be better than me in people’s eyes, even beyond the grave. How maddening it is that I can do nothing but attend his wake and subsequent funeral, to see the huddled masses weeping for their fallen hometown hero. It is still apparent to me, even in these settings that no one cared about Kevin. I was the only one who thought enough of him to do something about his influence on my life.

And so it will be that I will serve a brief period of time in your penitentiary, being allowed the highest services available, simply because of my status in your hierarchy. No one sees me as a person, flawed and unable to perfect myself; they see the son of affluence, a rich and powerful liaison for my father’s prestige. I’ve had enough of it. I figure that when I get out of whatever prison you send me to, I’ll try and adjust people’s image of me; drink, do drugs, fight—whatever it takes for people to know who I am.

So it is that we come now to the end of my confession. Yes, I drove Kevin Grausland to suicide, and no, I feel no shame about it; I feel only envy for this boy, this child of mind, who could convince people that he had a hope of success in this world of ours. I must laugh when I think of people holding any memory of Kevin in the future; it amuses me that people would continue to think about the dead. So it is that I must now give my final statement to you, officer.

The fact that my own jealously and money changing hands caused this travesty doesn’t affect me all that much, officer. Is it not right and good in our society that the powerful flaunt their abilities and those that are weak be left behind? How is it my fault that Kevin Grausland refused to adapt?

Description
Loyalty is a lot like other goods; it can be bought, or it can be sold. Some people have a particular affinity for it, while others seem to burn through it all too quickly. As with other goods, how much loyalty you have depends upon your economic standing. Unlike other goods, however, it works as a reciprocal; the more money you have, the less loyal people are to you. I should know, of course; I’m the richest twenty-something in America.

My name’s Horace Aensbourough, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve lived in luxury. The best clothes, a huge house, a car for my birthday every year—every thing someone could ever want, I have. I’ve never had to work a day in my life, and I don’t plan on it; by the time my father dies, I’ll have inherited a fortune of over six billion dollars. My father invented some kind of new engine that burned distilled water, allowing infinite fuel. They aren’t the prettiest cars, but they get the job done, and that’s exactly why, in this environmentally conscious world of ours, that my father became a multi-billionaire.

My father was never married. The only reason he had me was because he decided he needed progeny before dying. We never really connected—I was practically raised by our workers. Ah, well. I’ve always had money and pleasure to go along with it; who needs love when you’re so rich? In any case, since I’ve had affluence all my life, I’ve been in a private school for as long as I can remember.

To say I was popular would be missing the point of my telling you this, officer; it’s a foregone conclusion. Now, if you were to ask me if I had any real friends, that helped me get past the pain I was constantly in, to come and visit me when I was sick or to help with something that I couldn’t talk to anyone else about—that’s the question you should be asking. I didn’t, and now here we are, in the station.

Oh, I had hangers-on to spare. I had people that wanted a part of me, to bask in my glow of wealth, to be like me in every way. But they were fake, wearing their masks to try and gain my favor and I hated them for it. When it started being hard to associate with me, whenever I was the one with the problem, whenever I decided I needed someone to reach out to, they jumped ship. So I said ‘fuck it’ and delved headfirst into this lifestyle, taking as many clinging fools as I could to stay with me, using them and abusing them, indulging their desires to keep them happy. But I wasn’t, and so we have reached a bit of a crossroads in my life. I thought maybe that it was my wealth and social status that was causing me this despair.

In any case, during my stint in private school, I decided to take a summer job; not to earn the money or anything, but because I was going through a phase and decided I should be more connected to the common people while I could. So I applied to various places, rental stores and the like, until I finally got a job working in a kitchen in this rundown greasy spoon out on the east end of town. This was just the kind of environment I was searching for; when I put on my apron, no one knew that I was the son of the richest man in the city, or that I hadn’t a day of hard work to my name. I was just another cook, and I loved it. I dedicated myself wholly to my work, much to the chagrin of my estranged father. The servants were proud of me, told me I should keep on this path and I would be all right.

And then I met Kevin Grausland. He is everything that my father wanted me to avoid; Keven comes from an impoverished family, he’s had to work since he was ten and still go to school to support his seven siblings that his father left him to deal with when he ran out. His mother is so sick, so now he works three jobs, making just enough to scrap by. Even then, he remains a model student, always on the honor roll, alongside his athletic and communal achievements. My father used to tell me to avoid these people like the plague.

My father was never very creative.

He was so popular at the restaurant. It made me sick to see him every day, making more friends than I had ever known. He was so light and easy with those people, always cracking jokes, but not at anyone’s expense; always laughing when someone else said something funny, even me. I tried my best to befriend him, truly I did; but he refused to stop being such a nice guy.

I admit: from my perspective, he has no flaws whatsoever. That makes me furious, even now; how can this proletariat think he can come in and be so much more popular than me? Who does he fucking think he is, a messiah? I don’t doubt it; he always struck me as having a serious martyr complex.

Maybe that’s why people like him so goddamn much. They like seeing someone else suffer more than themselves, so they can feel better about their own lives. I’m digressing.

As you might expect, Kevin was extraordinarily popular, to the point of being ridiculous. I was being relegated to dish-washing and floor-sweeping, while Kevin was head chef, serving everything he cooked to the customer who ordered it personally. He didn’t make much more than me, but that small gap between our paychecks was another factor in my fury. Even though I didn’t need the money anyway, it always made me so angry to hear him talking about how much he appreciated his paycheck every two weeks to our boss—always kissing the old codger’s ass like it was nourishing.

So I found myself at something of a crossroads; should I continue to be degraded by staying in the presence of this sycophantic, uncouth peon, or should I take a stand with what I have, do something about Kevin the only way I could.

In the end, I chose the latter option; it just seemed like the thing to do, officer. My father always told me that I was special for the fact that I had things that other people didn’t have, regardless of whether or not those things were material. After much introspection, I realize that my father was trying to tell me that I wasn’t special for anything other than my money. He would always dance around his messages like that, sugarcoating it; that’s how he became a force in the boardroom, after all.

Of course, then the question was sprung upon me as to how I could destroy Kevin Grausland. After careful deliberation over the course of several days, the answer became stunningly clear to me: I would use my money to influence the opinions of those closest to Kevin, to get them to hate him. And after that was done, I would get the recognition that I craved—no, that I required.

It started simply enough. I studied Kevin’s hive of friends, looking for possible candidates to spread my lies. Finally, I found someone that Kevin seemed to talk to only out of courtesy, who he didn’t really like. I took him aside one day and told him the awful truth about Kevin Grausland; that he was a child rapist.

Of course the guy didn’t believe. I mean, who would? How could Kevin, ubermensche number one, be anything so grotesque and vile? But it was true, I told him, and I can prove it. After my shift, I took the guy with me back to my home, gave him three thousand dollars and sent him on his way by the week after that, the rumor was in full effect.

Officer, you might find this far-fetched—ridiculous, even. I assure you, however, that people are incredibly easily influenced by the presence of money. Honestly, it’s laughable. It always amuses me when I see people jumping over each other to get at me when I wave the promise of financial security in their faces. I suppose I can sympathize; it’s an oddly tempting premise.

I’ve never had such a need in me. Then again, how could I? I’ve always been taken care of, and people become jealous of me for it; they have no idea how much they hurt me by judging me before they’ve met me. I guess it’s not much better when they actually give me a chance; I’ve never really had to be too social with my upbringing. Ah, well; I’m rich, who needs them?

So, back to Mr. Grausland. After a few weeks, he was in quite a state, as you may imagine; a wreck, if you will allow me to use common vernacular. I can’t even begin to tell you the joy that seeing him ragged from sleeplessness, looking this way and that for invisible assailants. He had been beaten outside the restaurant several times, and was waiting for the next one. It surprised me; the speed at which the lie had grown from rumor to truth was akin to that of the speed of a flash of lightning. Kevin was now waiting for the clap of thunder to follow.

Unfortunately, he got it three days later. Kevin Grausland was found in his room with roughly three inches missing from the top of his head. Of course, the gun lay in his hand. No note, no recording, no other reason than a simple lie perpetuated to bring Kevin Grausland down a notch or two.

And then you called me here. I came willingly; after all, how it could be that the son of one of our fair city’s most influential billionaires would be guilty of anything but being too gosh-darned privileged? So I came to the station, and as you saw I made a show of it. No one cared that I was here; they just knew who I was. I put that flourish in my step quite on purpose, officer. The flighty tone, the exaggerated motions—all of it perpetuated to convince you that I was just eccentric, that in all my wealth I had learned nothing of the real world.

Well, I have officer. I know that for admitting to this indirect murder of Kevin Grausland I face jail time at the minimum. I can also tell you that my father will get me out of my cell as quickly as his money can take him. I can tell you that when I leave this city in three years to pursue my higher education, no one will even remember who Kevin Grausland was.

Because that’s how people are, officer; they don’t care for anyone besides themselves. Oh, they present themselves to the contrary well enough; always donating money to this charity or that cause. It’s all a façade, officer; a cheap ploy to make people feel like they’re better than other people. I assure you still that my acts were in the same vein—after all, I just wanted people to notice me.

But it didn’t work. Even in death Kevin continues to lord himself over me, to show that he continues to be better than me in people’s eyes, even beyond the grave. How maddening it is that I can do nothing but attend his wake and subsequent funeral, to see the huddled masses weeping for their fallen hometown hero. It is still apparent to me, even in these settings that no one cared about Kevin. I was the only one who thought enough of him to do something about his influence on my life.

And so it will be that I will serve a brief period of time in your penitentiary, being allowed the highest services available, simply because of my status in your hierarchy. No one sees me as a person, flawed and unable to perfect myself; they see the son of affluence, a rich and powerful liaison for my father’s prestige. I’ve had enough of it. I figure that when I get out of whatever prison you send me to, I’ll try and adjust people’s image of me; drink, do drugs, fight—whatever it takes for people to know who I am.

So it is that we come now to the end of my confession. Yes, I drove Kevin Grausland to suicide, and no, I feel no shame about it; I feel only envy for this boy, this child of mind, who could convince people that he had a hope of success in this world of ours. I must laugh when I think of people holding any memory of Kevin in the future; it amuses me that people would continue to think about the dead. So it is that I must now give my final statement to you, officer.

The fact that my own jealously and money changing hands caused this travesty doesn’t affect me all that much, officer. Is it not right and good in our society that the powerful flaunt their abilities and those that are weak be left behind? How is it my fault that Kevin Grausland refused to adapt?