It was an accident, really, that made my cash start growing. I guess you could say it was the result of a chemical spill. I had taken the few dollars out of my pocket and put them in a basket on the kitchen counter, along with my keys and ID card from where I work - Growth Inc. Investment Consultants. I had dripped a little sauce from my micro-waved frozen dinner on the bills, not on purpose you understand, and after I ate, I looked for some way to clean the money.
I found a stiffened, crumpled rag under the sink, and a nearly empty, unlabeled spray bottle of pinkish-green liquid. I did not recognize the smell or color of the liquid, but I had only moved in a few days earlier, and had no other cleaning supplies. I used them to wipe off the money and the counter, and threw them in the trash. I put the laundered money back in the little basket and took the bag of trash outside to the dumpster in the parking lot. I watched TV for a while and then went to bed.
As I was getting ready to leave the next morning, I put a few of the bills--they were all one-dollar bills--back in my pocket. It seemed like there were more than I remembered from the night before, but I didn't think much about it. I mean, more is always better, right?
I eat lunch every day in a diner down the street from my office. Most days I am waited on by Gary. He is polite and has even taken the trouble to learn my name--Mr. Everson-from my credit card. Everyone at the office calls me Billy. Billy is not my name. William is my name. My mother called me William the Conqueror sometimes. I have no idea where she got that, and I don't think she did either, but we both thought it sounded pretty good.
Everyone at work calls me Billy because I'm an unimportant, low level, minor individual of no real consequence. No one who is important ever talks to me... why would they? I tried to resist being called Billy at first, but it just made things worse. I never knew William could be said with such condescension and contempt. So ok, fine, call me Billy.
Those brokers all fantasize they are masters of the universe, and a master, by definition, has to have slaves. That's my job, and why they insist on calling me Billy. My job is to be less important than they are. They get commissions and bonuses for pitching stocks. I get fourteen bucks an hour for doing data entry and compiling simple reports. None of the real masters even have offices in the building, it's just one little franchise of a giant financial corporation.
Gary calls me Mr. Everson because I tip him in cash and he doesn't have to report it on his taxes. Sure, I bought his pretended respect, but so what? At least I get what I paid for. That's why I keep a few bills in my pocket. They look at me funny at the bank when I ask for one-dollar bills, like, what do you think you can buy with that?... but they're not going to be snide with a customer in front of the security cameras and risk losing their flunky job either. I used to keep the dollar bills in a little gold-anodized money clip, but I got tired of the smirks when I pulled it out, so I stopped doing that.
When I left Gary's tip at lunch that day, it seemed like I had more bills than I had put in my pocket, but I figured I must be mistaken. When I got home and went to put my keys and money in the basket on the counter I had a little shock. I had more bills in my pocket than I expected again. And there were twelve dollar bills in the basket already, which just didn't seem right. I tried to recall every movement of money in and out of my pocket over the last few days, and I simply could not account for it. It was mystifying, but again, who's going to complain about having more money than they thought they had? I mean, more is always better, right?
I had an even greater shock the next morning. There were forty dollar bills in the basket. I counted them three times. There had been twelve and I had added eight, which makes twenty, and now there were forty. I left them all in the basket because it was getting a little... creepy.
I went to work, but I was pretty distracted about the money. When I went to lunch, Gary wasn't there. The woman who waited on me said he hadn't shown up, hadn't called in sick, didn't answer his phone, she hoped he was all right. I included her tip on the credit card. I gave her less than I always gave Gary, I'm not sure why.
I work at Growth Inc. Every day I hear those masters of the universe talking about investing your money and growing your money and leveraging your money and a long list of catchphrases for some kind of magical thing that is going to happen to your money if you give it to them. The successful ones brag they could sell ice machines to Eskimos, and then sell them generators to power them, and then sell them gas for the generators, and then sell them stock in oil companies to drill in their own back yards, and then jack up the price of gas because it is so hard to drill in the ice. They'd get a cut at every step for doing nothing but talk, which they think is pretty funny. They say they are super-salesmen and meta-investors because they always make money no matter what happens. It's some kind of alchemy they practice, a secret power they have because they are masters of the universe. That's the way they tell it.
I didn't get much done in the afternoon either. I got so wound up trying to figure the money thing out I almost got in a wreck on the way home. Had some unpredictable blend of TV dinners and household cleaning products caused the money to start replicating? Would it work on hundred-dollar bills? It was turkey breast with potatoes and gravy, wasn't it? When I got to the apartment complex the first thing I did was run over to the dumpster to look for my bag of trash, but the dumpster had been emptied. I raced up the stairs to my apartment and unlocked the door with shaking hands.
Yes! The cash had filled the basket, flowed out on the counter, fallen into a pile on the kitchen floor. I was going to be rich! I was going to be a zillionaire! William the Conqueror! Hell yeah! I started gasping air. My heart thumped madly. I guess I passed out and hit my head on the linoleum floor.
When I regained consciousness, the first thing I became aware of was a rustling sound, like dead leaves blowing around the doorstep on a cold autumn night. When I opened my eyes, the pile of money was huge, towering over me with its papery whisper. It seemed to be breathing... moving toward me...
