CHAPTER ONE; DISCLAIMERS

CHAPTER ONE

SOME DISCLAIMERS

I have successfully kept the knowledge of my great wealth and power from all persons. A grand social experiment to learn the truth of men, of women, of brother and sister and best friend; of lover and would-be lover; of mother and father and the men-about-town and the bouldevardiers and the dandys and the fops; those bimbos of both genders whose most vexing question is what hair-care products to use that day and have fits when their four-season-tan begins to fade. One dresses in the muscle-shirt and the other in bikini. Of the typical arrogant, what shall we say of them? Nothing. And everything. They are the mass and the herd and the common. Look around you, they are nearly all comprised of a class of society called 'The Typical'. There is no form to fill out, unless it be the Birth Certificate, nor is there a certain amount of cash to be earned or held in one's name, nor any special schooling required; in fact, as many of society's arrogant come from the most poor as do the most rich. What is this arrogance? It is filler. It fills the hole in their soul the only way they know how to fill it. In the end, I feel a human compassion for them, as they walk by with their nose in the air past the light-filled beings they imagine they are better than. It is free entertainment and given without need of ticket nor invite. The ignorant of all ages and all worlds are such as these. They have ever been such and ever will be- donkeys and jack-asses- all.What I have learned is humbling, as I am among the human race; and exalting, as I am not so much, after all, like the lot of them. It was an easy matter to keep this fact a secret, as during most of that time I was, in fact, very poor. BUT... I knew all along what it was I was traveling to, and when I finally found what it was, it still took years more to engineer the final play that would make me, literally overnight, go from a negative financial worth to a billion-dollar status. That is correct: I made a billion dollars in the span of a few hours, that is if one subtracts the previous years of engineering work put into it. No other fortune was ever made so quickly, once The Plan had been put into operation. If there were a Guinness Book of World Records record for such a thing, it would head the list.

My fortune, if I may say so, at your permission and pardon, is a thing of poetry, and my own sense of great power, which to me is nothing more than appreciation, comes and came in the creation of it. It took me, from the beginning of study to the day of pay-off, twelve years of unremitting- burning the candle at both ends- toil, to create my means of empire; I was without mercy in my creation of it and there was no end to my ambition for power, and not typical power, that which is over other men, but the power that comes from pulling out of oneself the very kernel of one's being, the very meaning of one's greatest dream. What is it that you are here for? What is the one question you believe your life was meant to answer? Surely there is not but one, but it helps to imagine but one, to be done with the many questions that would pop up. Many times I failed and just as many times I went back to the drawing board to come up with that one thing that would be truly incredible and worthy of historical accolade and immortality, like Croesus and Alexander and Caesar. It is the destiny of man to do great things, it is our birthright and responsibility, and against all impossible circumstance, I would make my mark, I would stand my ground, I would create my world. As I built my empire I stayed the same as I had always, I had no need for show and ostentation. My own inner world was enough for me. And as my fortune and empire grew I kept the knowledge of fortune and empire a secret from all. They all believed I was still poor! As I said, it has been the art and trade of bootlegging I have employed myself in. There are no taxes nor records of any of that. The joke was all on them, old sport. There is something quite special about the fact of hidden knowledge when one stares, unblinking, into the face of bigotry based on the economic status of an individual; such is the most popular way that men, when they grow up, bully their fellow men and having more money than God hid away like an invisible mountain it has been like holding a sledge-hammer hid within my hand as the bully sauntered up, a sarcastic smile upon his face. He never imagines correct his fate, until too late. We all enjoy surprise parties, but the best joy, as the spiritual say, is always in the giving....

I keep my cash stashed away in a vault. Underground. Beneath a very large and heavy building. I work at the very top of said building, twenty-eight stories from the ground, so that I can view both man and star from a vantage point someplace between, for perspective and for enjoyment. Man and Star... They are more connected, and yet as far away from each other, as any other two things in the universe. There are many business offices and people between myself and my cash, within that 28-story building. None know the truth of me or that cash except for half a dozen, and they are sworn to secrecy on pain of death... No, just kidding. I would only stash them away with the cash if they ever told, and would feed them bread crumbs and forgetting potions. As for the rest of them, they never think of me much at all, probably; and if they do, see me as just a junior partner to the secretive, very old and obscure eccentric who owns the penthouse at the top and whom few have ever seen. I am not really that old, perhaps eccentric, as that is so much more enjoyable to be than regular and boring. You can keep your status quo, I think I'd rather be an agent of change and something always different. I have a running bet with at least a hundred persons as to who will be the first to meet this rich and secretive recluse. Perhaps someday I will hire an old, wrinkled man to dress up as him and collect my easy money. I tell them that even I have never seen him. He keeps to himself within a stately, well-barricaded office and gives orders through intermediaries.

So these are tales of love and power, of poetry and the hours, within which a man had to make his life. I think that love, like life, is it's own reward and a personal matter entirely. Most- when the object they purport to love, flies away, perhaps not in the kindest of ways- they then become antithetical to the very idea of that once loved thing's existence; much also like when their life becomes un-like the thing they first envisioned it, they become antithetical to it also.That is the common way. I have always shunned the common in my own personal deportment. It is, after all, so very common.... All that I have ever loved is yet within me and this gift of existence is a power I never take for granted, though at times, have become tired of. But I have always tried never to give up two days in a row. As for old loves, even if some of them seemed to be among the worst possible scenarios my life could ever drum up, I had loved them all truly and I remain the same concerning them today. So I would like to tell the tale, of things gone bad and things gone well; of how it is that life becomes, nothing more or less than a book-keeper's sums; with your permission, of course. We are all headed for the ledger book. I suppose since I am here and able to tell it, it is mostly a tale of things gone well. If we are here today at all, we are all living within our very own great and immortal success.... Yes, you can too, have your own great, immortal success. Claim it now, for you have it now. The universe, after all, is a big place, and it's imagination for expansion is without limit. If we were all to succeed greatly, then there would be, not too little here, but too much. Too many men do not understand this.