Before I was rich. I mean REALLY rich. I always loved middle class families. Those families know how to live. Upper middle class… they can be a little, shall we say mean spirited? Perhaps I can find a better word as we go along.
I grew up lower class but had a well-off set of grandparents nestled in a nearby suburb. While I hadn’t exactly won their favors, I was afforded several advantages and a knowledge of luxuries my peers didn’t possess. It did not prepare me to come into serious wealth. Though, it’s hard to say if anything can prepare one for that. Even old money has its tacky attributes and questionable fancies. I used to find it entertaining. I’m a bit ashamed to confess. But other times taught me better of it. Perhaps I can’t stomach the darker side of the coin.
You become tolerant of certain things when you’re overly familiar with poverty. Directly or indirectly, you learn things and become too accepting of circumstances, situations, and people. This isn’t a mark of weak morals. It’s a matter of self-preservation and survival. Humans can get used to almost anything, something my grandfather said. Very true lesson that should serve as a warning, not just a passing philosophical comment.
I had come into several fairly modest sums in my youth. With a shaky economy and worse job market, the money came and went without much note. While I considered myself more fortunate than many, my business connections and other more intimate relations varied far and wide in terms of their financial status. As I became better at some personal endeavors, I certainly became more comfortable. Nothing close to rich. Although my connections grew, and as they grew so did my client list and my rates. I’ll save you plenty of boring underdog clichés. I got good and then I got a lucky break that quickly turned into a windfall. What I struggled to earn in a year was easily my weekly income. While it sounds -and is in fact amazing, it’s quite jarring and a lot to manage.
Anyone not born into wealth that has come into a large monetary sum can tell you of the pitfalls. I’ve had several but nothing terribly troubling. Unfortunately, I had a bad habit of being curious, and overly polite in unfamiliar situations. This led me to an estate party one evening. One particular thing with coming into a lot of money unexpectedly, it can be isolating. I had time to kill. I was overly bored and had been drastically under stimulated the past few months. A close friend suggested the importance of making more ‘affluent’ friends. I had recently rented a nice, but comparatively modest house in a very wealthy area. The windfall I had previously mentioned had begun flooding in at this point in my life. I was being buried under an influx of income and frankly, I didn’t know what to do with it. Coming from poverty can make you overly cautious. I didn’t know if this money would dry up or how much I should reinvest to hedge my bets. I rented a property for three months to try and indulge my recent wins while trying to plan a future. At this point, I hadn’t brought anyone on my daily payroll, and all my ‘normal’ read working class friends were all, well working. The very fortunate exception to this was an intimate acquaintance that occasionally took a long weekend and would the drive to see me.
My neighbors were a very diverse collection of individuals. A few trust fund kids. Some working-class families owned my property and several others close by. I quickly became fascinated by many extra-circular relationships that supported a weird upper middle-class income bracket of sugar babies of the local millionaires and other fortune heirs. I had a very nice bungalow tucked away between some other houses, luxury apartments and a large gated condo community. These people had nothing to do all day. Admittedly, neither did I. I’m a creative by trade. Meaning I use people watching as an inspiration scapegoat to my work.
The area isn’t very large, the majority of people are too self-absorbed to be overly curious, and with the area, mistresses and cabana boys don’t exactly fit the company I keep. I wasn’t flashing any type of money and lived very discreetly. Majority of the friends I made were restaurant staff and professional referrals that turned casual through working relationships. To make matters exceptionally confusing, I occasionally took work cleaning mansions in the area. I cannot stress the amount of time I had. So when my associate invited me to the party this evening, I was familiar with the address. The place was lined with multimillion-dollar estates. Virgil and I would become great friends after this night. He is what you call a working-class millionaire, a category I too fall into. While our money makes money, the majority of cash flow comes from active projects and working 10-50 hours a month. The house we were going to is owned by old money. Old money is so invested, the interest on their holding makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in hours. What we earn in a week, they make in interest that day. Virgil knew this client well and thought I would be interested in tagging along as he too has a curious streak about him, and I made a decent enough cover as his boyfriend couldn’t attend that evening.
I saw many of the servers I knew from the local eateries there that night. Again, while wealthy, this is a relatively small area and it’s almost to be expected. Virgil told me of the client on the drive over. The heir was a twenty something douche bag with more money than God. He was annoying and utterly outrageous. Part of the reason why I was chosen to come that night. In our business dealings, Virgil came to know I have a well-spoken way of diffusing situations and people in varying degrees of amicable to overtly hostile. He said in no uncertain terms that this man child liked to twist arms. Virgil was paid very handsomely for his time, but the boy got his rocks off by pushing people and boundaries to their limits. He outright said he feared bringing anyone else, least something unsavory happened. I asked for an example as I took out my phone and texted my intimate friend a summary of the situation in case something should happen to me.
Virgil explained that the man aged boy had an affluent family. This is a family that owns the companies that produce say 60% of the items you buy each week. Very established if you will. Because of this, the kid is used to buying his way out of everything. The man child had been a client for upwards of a year when he decided to forcibly grab one of Virgil’s assistants. This went very badly. Virgil threw him out on threat of calling the police, well the man boy actually paid the woman off well enough that she could quit. However, the rub came when this was not deemed acceptable to Virgil. He refused to keep the entitled twat as a client. He came unhinged. So utterly unhinged that the police not only escorted the guy back to his estate, but his parents called and talked Virgil into staying on, but as their employee and not their son’s. It didn’t sit right with Virgil. They talked a great game and threw a ridiculous sum at him. Their lawyers and his exchanged months’ worth of contracts at the family’s expense. He signed several NDAs and the family had to basically pay Virgil to act like a governess for their crappy child that assumed no liabilities. I asked for the twat’s name in between keeping my friend informed of everything in real time. This wealthy little blight on humanity had a large social media following that was highly produced. Meaning, even his casual interests were professionally managed and controlled.
I’m no shrink. But damned if human behavior isn’t one of my favorite interests. It occurred to me this situation was highly precarious, but truth be told, I was too curious to care. That was wholly my shortcoming.
The party was lovely for the first several hours. Many of the friends I had on the serving staff were surprised but psyched to see me around. I kept it vague why I was there, but Virgil’s reputation proceeded him. His work is well known and my role with him there could have been one of a thousand plausible scenarios. Before they had a chance to press me, the twat of the story made an outrageously loud appearance. When I saw the staff scatter like mice, my blood ran cold. This is a sign working class knows well. Let me tell you, the serving staff I knew was overly professional when dealing with completely unreasonable people and requests. The looks on their faces told me everything Virgil could never.
I could tell all of you that I he appeared to be on at least one substance. However, that I believe would overshadow the fact that his personality, if one could even call it that; was so atrocious, anything that would alter his consciousness would certainly be a marked improvement. Not to mislead anyone, this man knew full well what he was doing. He ordered the staff gruffly enough to make even the most demanding employers there look down and away. No one would look him in the eye, not even some of the wealthy people I recognized in passing. It got too much for me. I’m no civil rights activist but had no desire to interfere with the money several of my friends and acquaintances money, meaning I took a step outside.
Now. Something about myself. I have excellent hearing and an even sharper sense of intentions. Especially malicious intentions. I slipped outside relatively unnoticed, but the twat made a point to pause as he saw me exit as he addressed his party. The room’s attention was drawn to me, but I slipped around a corner before even Virgil could take note. I could see rage flare. No one else knew as they followed his eyes to look on nothing as I wasn’t visible to the room. I made my way to the front door contemplating if I should get an uber or text Virgil to see if he’d be ready to bail shortly. It was at least a ten walk to that side of the house from where we were. A butler stepped in front of me and I nearly walked us both to the floor. He requested that I return so that his employer may speak with me in private. Now. As this happened, a very nice woman I knew that was serving passed behind him, paling. She shook her head no wide eyed without breaking her step.
“Sorry. Not interested. Thank you for your time. I’m leaving.”
She visibly exhaled relieved going toward the party as the butler stared at me slightly annoyed. It became clear he wasn’t asking, then it was clearer I was not open to any form of negotiation. The escalation came when he grabbed my arm when I turned to leave. I looked at my arm and back to the butler who was stronger than he let on.
“Let me go or I’ll break that hand.” That’s when knob shine appeared. I’ll keep the incident brief. Both men were blooded and face down on the floor when their intentions had become clear. The cops were reluctantly taking my statement when the party wandered in to find the mess. Virgil’s smile told me I had served the purpose I had been brought to perform. This family had more than enough power and money to have the entire house killed and erased. But, their kid was trash and it wasn’t practical. In fact. I was the straw that broke the family’s back.
The settlement took nearly a year to negotiate. They paid me gobs of money to be silent as we reached a settlement. They had to give me the ten-million-dollar estate the kid had built as part of it. They also had to have their son declared mentally unfit and he was appointed a guardian. They had him committed to a full care facility instead of trying to meet my attorney’s parameters for monitoring. I rent out the property as a wedding venue and hotel. I poached most of my staff from the party that night. They were instrumental in the actions taken. You see, the transgressions this man made were so numerous, he treated rape like speeding tickets, but bypassing the legal system with lawyers, NDAs and of course his family’s money. There had been rumors. Then there were the confirmations Virgil and I received. He raped cops. Male cops. Paid it away. Wasn’t just female staff, the guy pushed every limitation past it’s breaking point, and each time he walked away unscathed and even more confident. Even if I had wanted to stay in that gaudy palace, he made it to hide his horribly hideous deeds, I couldn’t. I still get thank you’s for stopping him. I still get stories about the things he did there for the less than five years he terrorized the area. I wonder what he was doing that his parents gave him the funds to means to build that place. Imagine what he had been doing that took him out of their circle.
Everyone who was on his staff never stepped out of line. Never do they click their tongue, complain, not even an audible sigh. I wonder how many of them would have been his victims had I not come into that sum and couldn’t afford to do the right thing. How many lives are lost or worse over the random whims of a well-off well-connected horror show masquerading as human of discorporate influence.