'I met him in a Boxcar, Riding the rails' [short-short story]
I met him in a boxcar, riding the rails ... somewhere outside Missoula, Montana … three months ago.
Yeah, I know … who rides the rails anymore? … ’cept maybe derelicts, like me.
Recognized him right off, of course. Who could ever mistake that distinctive jib of his? It’s trademarked, you know.
He seemed smaller, somehow … and more human, maybe ... with a permanent smile, twinkle in the eye kind of thing.
Didn’t have a nickel to his name ... so’s I gave him half the ham sandwich from my coat pocket.
Said he was headed for Seattle … figuring on earning enough there for the boat on up to Alaska. Told me he liked busing tables … wiping ’em clean for a fresh new start.
He set the record straight on a few things, too. You know that movie they made about him? Well, it left out a few details … pertaining as to how it all began, that is.
Back when he was a student at Iowa State University (or, maybe it was Ohio State), he was working part time at a pizza joint. Yep, you got it … busing tables. One night, some computer geeks were camped out in a booth … working on an idea they had for an app. And so when he comes over to clean up some of their pizza debris … and he gets the gist of what they’re talking about … he makes what turns out to be … as he put it … the ‘suggestion of all suggestions.’
By the end of the week he was made a full partner in the limited liability company the geeks had set up. He didn’t figure anything would come of it; but then, two months later, he gets a call from one of the them, who says: “Dude, I got a check for you here. It’s for like thirty thousand dollars.”
From that point forward, he said, it was snowball city.
Given the fact that he was the only partner with something approximating a personality, they made him the ‘face of the company’ … and his familiar silhouette, of course, became the company’s logo.
After a year, he had three hundred grand in the bank. After two ... three million. After three … they sell the company to the big boys, and he joins the ranks of the billionaires.
The next decade, as everyone knows, his life was recorded on the cover pages of the tabloids. Hollywood … Aspen … Cannes … his yachts … that week he spent on the international Space Station.
Then … three years ago, in point of fact … one evening, he finds himself mesmerized ... sitting and staring at a metal ball as it spun around one of those roulette wheels in Monaco … and he has … as he put it … the ‘epiphany of all epiphanies.’
After we finished the ham sandwich, we sat there for a while … watching the world roll by outside the boxcar. Finally, he says, “You know, making a billion dollars was a whole lot easier than giving it all away.”
Well, cutting to the chase … at a library, last week, in this town … checking in online … I get this email from some foundation he had setup to give away his last few millions … and it says they’ve got a check … with my name on it … for thirty thousand smackers!
What am I going to do with it? Well, I’m thinking of maybe getting a roof over my head.
