“Heads up, peasants, the trillionaires have arrived!” I said, walking into my brother’s kitchen.
He looked over from his recliner, then turned back to the TV. “Oh, I thought you were bringing one with you.”
“So we could hang him up by his reproductive organs,” my niece said from the couch, scrolling through her phone.
“Carrie, you gonna condone this type of violence from your children?” I said to my sister-in-law. She was in the laundry room.
“What? What did she do?” She came in from the hallway.
“She said she wants to hang Elon Musk by his genitals. From that flagpole in your neighbor’s yard. Who flies the AfD uber alles flag, or whatever.”
“Blue Lives Matter,” my brother says.
“Same thing.”
“Lorie!” my sister-in-law says. “If you’re planning on hanging someone by his genitals, you’ll need to give them a PDE5 inhibitor first.” My sister-in-law is a nurse. So she knows how to properly do that.
“Yeah, be sure to pocket some Viagra before storming the castle!” my brother says.
“I hear that was how the Mongols did it,” I said. “Only they made people chug yak semen. And physochlaina berries.”
“Nuh-uh,” my niece said.
“Who, the rich?” my sister-in-law says.
“No, the Chinese. And some Turks. Maybe a Goth, here or there.”
“I hear yak semen is good for the face,” my brother said.
“You would know.”
“You’re thinking of salmon,” my niece said.
“Go gaslight people somewhere else, you cishet American…patriarcho…syndicalist,” he says back, without turning from the TV.
“If you’re gonna insult somebody,” she says to him like he was a five-year-old, “they have to actually understand the words you’re saying.”
“The day has come, though,” I said again. “World’s first trillionaire.”
“Kill ‘em all,” my niece said, without looking up.
“Okay, Luigi Galleani.”
“You mean Luigi—”
“No, I don’t.”
“Hey, how much does a person worth a trillion bucks make in an hour?” my brother said suddenly. “Lorie? How much?”
“Assuming a yearly salary?” I said. “Which, you know, it isn’t?”
“Hundred and fourteen million,” she says, after typing for like two seconds.
“Oh, is that all?” my brother says.
“Really?” my sister-in-law says.
“I thought it was more,” he shrugs.
“In a day, that’s what? Two and a half billion? So what’s he gonna do with that money?”
“It’s his money,” my brother says.
“Yeah, but he already said he’s not gonna spend it. Because no one lives long enough to spend that much. So, here’s the real test of just how great a country is. Because it’s made up of people, right? What do the richest and most influential do with their money to help the country, which is designed to help the people? I’d say that’s just a sign of a healthy country as any.”
“Pocket it,” my niece says.
“Lobby for more tax breaks,” my sister-in-law says.
“Well, that just makes my point. ‘Mine! You cain’t take frem me! This’s Muu-merica!’”
“Okay, Communism.”
“It’s a trillion dollars,” I said. “A trillion dollars. This starts a whole new ballgame. Again, he’s not going to spend it. And people need it. Two and a half billion, every single day. What does he do? What do you do? Roundtable discussion. Go.”
“Put it in a giant vault and swim in it,” my brother says.
“You can’t do that,” my niece says.
“How would you know?”
“I’d give it away,” my sister-in-law says. “Like what’s-her-face. Mackenzie Scott Bezos.”
“Another great example of this country’s personal problems,” I said.
“How could you possibly say that?” my niece turns to me, actually looking up from her phone.
“It’s the quick fix. Put a Band-Aid on it. Everything’s fine.”
“She’s given away almost thirty billion. To charitable causes.”
“Has she? All right, who? No no, put your phone down. You can’t make a case for something then do research after the fact. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.”
She went through, anyway. “LGBTQ rights. Indigenous rights. Housing/affordability in the inner city. Let’s see…”
“What are you skipping through? Look, I ain’t saying it’s not something. But you know how much overhead those places have? Who are they? What’s their record? Where’s the paper trail? How much of that money goes to people in need? And for how long? She already said there’s no strings attached.”
“Well, it’s not her job to fix everything,” my sister-in-law says.
“Well, that’s the point, number one. That a private donor has to consider ‘fixing’ things in this country, internally, and the country can’t do it itself—the richest and most technologically advanced on Earth? But, number two: Band-Aid. When’s that Band-Aid peeling off? How much is getting lost in the shuffle? If she really wanted to do something, she’d create an organization not just to give money away, but to oversee every last penny that gets doled out. In other words, do it all herself. A billion should cover it. She’s got the time, right?”
“And she ain’t losing no money,” my brother says. “She’s worth as much today as she was after the divorce. That thirty billion was nothing to her.”
“Well, it’s more than her ex-husband gives,” my sister-in-law shrugs.
“Another great point,” I said. “As much as that dude’s worth, he hasn’t given but maybe two percent of his money away. Elon Musk, probably less.”
“Elon Musk thinks he can fix things by controlling them,” my brother said.
“Well, there you have it. Final thoughts on the greatest country in the world. The most charitable: throwing soggy Band-Aids on things. Blindly. Music education and what-have-you. While people ain’t got their basic needs met: food, electricity, healthcare, education. And the stingiest? Squat. Nothing. Looking to take everything over. Control it. Turn everyone into robots.”
“Like China,” my brother says.
“Yeah, everyone pretty much is a robot over there. Idle hands are an imperialist’s workshop, or whatever.”
“’Cause being human nets you twenty-to-life, you’re not careful,” he says, then pauses. “Right, Lorie?”
“I can’t believe he thinks Mackenzie Scott is as bad as Elon Musk.” She meant me.
“Money talks, bullshit walks,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she says.
“It means I see too much bullshit walking. Out of her office. Every time she hands someone a million bucks with no strings attached. After she talked them in. With her money.”
“You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself,” my brother says.
“Unless you’re a billionaire, evidently.”
“You just wait,” my brother says back. “The quadrillionaires will know how to get it done. ‘Cause there’ll be like four of ‘em. And they’ll own everything the government doesn’t. Things’ll be better then.”
“They’ll own the government, too,” my niece mumbles, scrolling through her phone.
“So, how does it feel, Lorie?” I said. “Growing up in a generation where the average male in your country aspires to be Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire?” She made a face like she was sick.
“Hey, what did we have?” my brother asks.
“Don Johnson,” I said.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger,” my sister-in-law says.
“Too old.”
“They’re the same age!”
“Ronald Reagan,” my brother says.
“That’s even older!”
“Johnny Depp. No, Brad Pitt.”
“Nah, they all get the millennial vote. You gotta go a generation down. I gotta go with…Don Johnson,” I shrugged. “Or George Michael.”
“They’re not in our generation!” my sister-in-law says.
“Okay, Sexism,” my niece says.
“George Michael?” my brother says.
“That ‘Father Figure’ video? Are you kidding? Come on.”
“Nah, David Lee Roth,” he replies.
“Ewwww,” my niece said.
“You know all those last ones are the same age, right?” my sister-in-law says.
“Really?”
“Except David Lee Roth,” my brother says. “I think he’s past a hundred.”
“None of them are real,” my niece suddenly mumbles, looking at her phone.
“Huh?” We all turned. “What do you mean?”
“They’re all an image! At least Elon Musk is real.”
“Wow,” my sister-in-law says. “I never thought of that.”
“Well, in all fairness, none of anything is real. Elon Musk isn’t the Elon Musk you see on social media. No one is. Though he’s probably closer to being real than Arnold Schwarzenegger would be on a movie screen.”
“You think?” my brother says. There was a long silence.
“I can’t believe you used ‘quadrillionaire’ in a sentence properly,” I said to him.
“Yeah. Just under the godzillionaires, there.”
“Aaand there he goes.”
