Chapter 9 The Poor Man's Son

"There's a paradox," I said to Smith as we pulled back on the highway. "You're animated about expanding wealth, yet the first time we spoke, you bit my head off for saying wealth was the objective."

"I'm an empiricist." Smith said, rapping the dashboard. "I like to record observable facts. As such, it's my obligation to examine whether material things make people happy. The issue is complicated, I'll admit, but are economists today so narrow-minded the issue doesn't seem important?"

I felt rebuked. "A growing national output or GDP is almost always considered a sign of a 'healthy' economy," I replied. "Oh, there are people on the fringes who talk about Small is Beautiful and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)—which subtracts from GDP the negative impacts of pollution, crime, rising inequality, and such things—but most economists don't take time to consider these issues. Virtually all our models assume that higher output is the goal without a second thought."

"Let me lay out the broad picture," Smith said, "saving specifics for later?" He was covering a lot of ground, and I wasn't sure I had the patience, or he the stamina, to finish. Nevertheless, I nodded.

"It's clear to me," he said, "that one's material station in life isn't the ultimate factor explaining happiness. This is corroborated by numerous observations, naturally anecdotal ones, but enough surely to cloud the unexamined notion you so easily accept. No," he paused to punctuate his words, "happiness is fairly immune to economic fortune."

"You think peace of mind determines happiness?"

"Ultimately," he said.

"Doesn't wealth affect your peace of mind, your security for the future?"

"To a point. Man's existence requires many things that are external to him. Abject starvation isn't conducive to peace of mind; the utility of wealth can't be questioned in that regard. Eliminating such scourges is critical because it eases real, physical burdens. Perhaps a third of the earth's people still need to feel those benefits." Smith stroked his chin. "But for those who are beyond abject destitution, there's little real difference between the potential happiness of a rich person and a poor person."

"But there's a difference, holding all else constant?" I asked.

"Some, but not that great. And can you really hold all else constant?"

Smith looked at me. "May I tell you a story from my Theory of Moral Sentiments? One of my favorites."

I nodded.

"It's the 'Parable of the Poor Man's Son.'" He closed his eyes, and began to recite:

A poor man's son, whom heaven in its anger visited with ambition, begins to look around himself and admire the condition of the rich. He finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to walk a-foot, but sees his superiors carried about in carriages, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with greater convenience. He judges that a numerous retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of trouble. He thinks if he had attained these conveniences he would sit contentedly in the tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant idea of this felicity.

Smith's voice became deeper and louder, and I found myself drawn in to this story as if it were my own unhappy fate.

To obtain these conveniences, he submits in the first year, nay in the first month of his application, to more fatigue of body and more uneasiness of mind than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them! He slaves to distinguish himself in some laborious profession which he hates, forces himself to be obsequious to people he despises, and, by so doing, finally acquires all the material riches he so long sought. But by now he's in the last dregs of life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by the memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments, and he begins at last to realize that wealth and fame are mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease of body or tranquillity of mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys.

"What's a tweezer-case?" I asked.

"A small box for tiny tools. Men of leisure carried them," Smith said. He waited for this to sink in. "Anyway, the poor man's son threw away the key to happiness which was with him all along. The stumbling block to happiness lay in his mind, not in his luxuries." Smith looked at me as if I should extract some particular meaning.

I didn't respond. It was a poignant parable, but I struggled to accept the claim that money couldn't buy peace of mind.

* * *

We pulled up to "Sonny's Sports Bar" on the outskirts of Wheeling, West Virginia the next afternoon a little after one. We'd spent the night at a rundown motel with saggy mattresses and faded curtains. The motel owner allowed Rex to stay in her fenced yard while we went to lunch. The morning's sports pages inspired my choice of restaurant, as the baseball season was heating up. A sizzling rivalry between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, in the National League Central Division, had caught my eye, and I'd had little time to watch the sport recently. A perusal of the Yellow Pages yielded a sketch of what now stood in front of us: a low-slung building with dirty wood siding and a V-roof providing the only architectural interest. A glowing neon "BAR OPEN" sign hung in the window.

The gravel parking lot was half-full of dreary, worn vehicles, mostly pick-ups. Their side panels proclaimed a variety of businesses: plumbing, roofing, landscaping. I parked beside a garish '80s Chevy with jacked wheels and shimmering lime green metallic paint; silver medallions hung from the rear-view mirror.

We walked out of the hot, bright day into a dark, air conditioned interior. It was a large open room, and we wandered toward the big screen.

"What'll you boys have?" asked a smiling waitress. She was a curvy brunette in her thirties, wearing blue jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, and sneakers.

"You got Coors?" I asked.

"Sure, hon."

"And for me, soda water," Smith said.

Heading back to the bar, she passed a man who reached out to pat her behind.

The waitress whirled.

"Jimmy, you quit that!" She gave his hand a hard slap. "Do that again and I'm calling your probation officer."

The waitress moved away to greet an incoming customer, "Lannette! You made it, darlin'! Where's Charlie?"

"Right behind, Millie."

As new customers entered, this scene was repeated, Millie's name called out, hugs passed around, and orders taken. With swift efficiency the waitress seemed to be everywhere, handing out endearments with bottles of beer. The man called Jimmy sat brooding, observing events behind his baseball cap.

Smith nodded toward the three couples seated in front of us. From the empty bottles in front of them, these Pittsburgh Pirate fans had started preparing for the game hours ago. Two of the men were in their forties, with huge bellies and arms like tree trunks. They were loud but friendly, sporting garish orange and black bandanas and eye patches, giving them courage and title to bellow wisecracks to anyone in the room. One of them turned our way and grinned. "You'all not from around here, are you?"

"No, just passing through," I said.

"You'll need some of these." He handed over some newspaper coupons illustrated with Pittsburgh Pirate symbols. "Saves twenty-five cents on each beer. Give 'em to Millie before you pay."

I thanked him.

"No big deal." The pirate took out a pack of cigarettes and thumped it on the table top. Smith eyed the pack and I wondered if the Harold inside that body was craving nicotine. The pirate withdrew a cigarette, felt in his pockets for a match, and came up empty-handed. He looked around.

Smith volunteered, "Need a light?" He fumbled through his pockets and pulled out Harold's dented Zippo lighter.

The pirate hesitated, then reached for it. He flicked the battered top and struck the flint, lighting the wick on the first try. "Pretty nice," he said, returning it.

"Perhaps you'd care to keep it?" Smith said. "I seem not to need it anymore."

"Really? You sure? Hey, thanks man."

Smith could see my chagrin and whispered, "Benevolence is part of Harold's nature as well as mine. I wouldn't be able to do anything to which he objected."

The pirates' wives, meanwhile, hovered over a stack of photographs, making exclamations. In contrast to their husbands, they'd spent time fixing themselves up: their hair was curled; one wore dangle earrings, the other costume pearls. The third couple at the table was younger, in their twenties. Their chairs were a few inches apart, their legs and arms intertwined. The young man was smartly dressed in cowboy hat and boots, pressed blue jeans, and a Madras shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The woman was thin, her hair bleached blonde, worn to the middle of her back. The couple was self-engrossed.

"Think they're newlyweds?" I asked Smith.

"They act like it," Smith nodded, in private reverie. "Takes me back. You see, in Edinburgh there was a Miss Campbell. She was lovely, and at one time I thought ... well, it doesn't matter."

One of the pirates caught us observing the couple and said, "They've been engaged seven years. She won't marry him 'till they have a house of their own. He's twenty-seven, and still livin' at home." He chortled, "Who can save for a house when you got that boat payment of his?"

The National Anthem filled the bar and the big game was on the screen. No one expected it to be such a tough game for the Cincinnati Reds, at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Smith watched transfixed, interrupting to ask questions as the game unfolded. "Harold doesn't know a thing about baseball," he said, rolling his shoulders in a shrug of apology.

The sounds of the umpire's calls, the smack of the ball on bat, and the headlong catch by an outfielder brought the audience to its feet, hooting and hollering. Pirates' and Reds' fans were equally numbered in the bar, and good-natured ribbing flew back and forth. All eyes were glued to the screen, except for the outcast Jimmy, who sat alone against the far wall, nursing a beer and chain-smoking. His eyes lasered holes into the bottom of his glass.

There was another roar from the crowd. The third base umpire's hands flew up to call the runner safe, and a middle aged man in black plastic glasses stormed to the pirates' table in front of us. He made a production of pulling a dollar bill from his wallet and slapping it onto the table. "For paying off the umps," he said. A big grin showed off his missing teeth. Hoots and hollers rose from partisans in the crowd.

I looked back to the far wall; the morose Jimmy was gone.

"Chili's on!" Millie strode from the kitchen carrying a big iron kettle. We got in line and dished ourselves a steaming bowl, threw on a handful of dry crackers, and spread slabs of butter on cornbread. The meal came at just the right time in that overly air conditioned bar, and precipitated a splurge of beer orders as burning mouths sought relief. That woman Millie was nobody's fool.

The television camera panned the stadium of 50,000 fans. Behind glass partitions in luxurious sky-boxes, tuxedoed waiters served a few privileged guests.

"Hey, that's the Prattston Coal box," cried a burley man. "That's management spending your raise!" The crowd jeered at the screen.

"What do those fancy seats cost?" Smith asked.

"Five thousand, and up," I said. "Corporate money."

"Can it enhance someone's enjoyment of the game? Is there the same fellow-feeling as in here?"

I shrugged.

By the bottom of the ninth, tension filled the bar to a frenzy. Both teams performed superb fielding and hitting. More bills were slapped on the pirates' table in front of us, as part of a betting pool. The game appeared headed into extra innings with a 4–4 tie, two outs, and a lone runner on second.

The Reds sent in a pinch hitter who fouled away a stream of ninety-mile-an-hour pitches. Patiently he worked the count to 3–2. The room quieted, even Millie setting down her tray.

"Here's the windup," the announcer said.

The batter swung and connected, sending the ball up the middle, inches from the glove of the diving short stop. An out-fielder raced to it as the runner rounded third. It was a magnificent throw from center, arriving at the plate with the clash of bodies. Runner and catcher lay in a heap, the umpire poised over them. Then the ball trickled away, and the bar erupted with deafening screams and baleful howls. The pirates shook their heads in disgust.

The bar began to empty. I dropped a twenty note on the table with the coupons handed me earlier. We hadn't made it to the door before one of the pirates rushed in.

"Millie! Better get out here pronto!"

A crowd gathered around the shiny Chevy Malibu that we parked next to. The headlights and taillights were shattered. Glass shards sprinkled the gravel. An earthquake fault line covered the windshield. Millie stood by the car, a hand to her mouth. She cried. "The bastard! He hasn't been outta jail a month."

The pirate who had befriended us sauntered over.

"Lover's quarrel?" I asked.

"Naw. They been married and divorced already. Her ex—Jimmy—he's mad at himself, at life. Got laid off at the mill five years ago. All those steel jobs got moved to Korea." He shook his head. "Once you've been a union steelworker, dammit, how're you gonna wash cars for a living and look yourself in the mirror? How're you gonna support your family cleaning hubcaps?"

A few people around us nodded understandingly.

"A man loses his pride, he's not got much left. That's when Jimmy started beatin' on Millie. After the divorce he hung with a bad crowd, next thing you know he's caught in some burglaries. And would you believe," he gestured at the car, "that Chevy was his pride and joy before the divorce? Rebuilt every piece himself."

Back in our car, I said to Smith, "I guess that about settles it. The lack of money caused the break-up of Millie's marriage and untold unhappiness to others. Do you still deny money can buy peace of mind?"