Greed

My ocean town struggles to pick up leaves, offer summer school, and keep our library open. Every day now more men stand at the railroad station, waiting to be chosen for work. Because it’s thought the Hispanics will work for less they get picked first, while the whites and blacks avoid the terror in one another’s eyes. Our handyman, Santos, who expects only what his hands earn, is proud of   his half acre in Guatemala, where he plans to retire. His desire to proceed with dignity is admirable, but he knows that now no one retires, everyone works harder. My father imagined a life more satisfying than the one he managed to lead. He didn’t see himself as uneducated, thwarted, or bitter, but soon-to-be rich. Being rich was his right, he believed. Happiness, I used to think, was a necessary illusion. Now I think it’s just precious moments of relief, like dreams of Guatemala. Sometimes, at night, in winter, surrounded by the significant silence of empty mansions, which once were cottages, where people lived their lives, and now are owned by banks and the absent rich, I like to stand at my window, looking for a tv ’s futile flickering, always surprised to see instead the quaint, porous face of my reflection, immersed in its one abundance.