Middle Class Phil Jan. 25, 1986
Phil is a good businessman.
From outside, anyone observing him would think he has everything
attribute necessary to be a truly successful American capitalist: he’s cheap;
heartless’ ruthless, a bigot, with more than a little touch of Machiavelli.
He’s not one of your typical cigar-chomping capitalists. He’s
a mouse of a man, with small hands, and a thin moustache like a Mississippi River
boat gambler, the kind that always get shot when caught stealing.
His narrow, dark, pin point eyes never look in one place
long, won’t be pinned down by anyone else’s stare.
His gaze jumps nervously everywhere, at the background, at
the foreground, always searching the landscape for lost pennies.
His smile (and he does this way too often for my comfort) is
more like a sneer, upper lip lifted to reveal two large teeth like that of a
rabbit.
His business experience comes from instinct for doing just
what he needed to advance himself, going four years to college only to graduate
into marrying a successful businessman’s daughter. Although he sincerely seems
to love the woman, he said more than once he can’t wait for the old man to kick
off so he can inherit the family’s wealth, heartless to say the least.
But only one small example of a life of heartless acts.
His first big business coup came when as manager for a soda
distribution company, he under bid his own boss for the Pepsi contract, using
this to propel himself into other business ventures, including a string of Dunkin
Donuts franchises, of which Willowbrook is one.
Phil has a perverse sense of humor. He reminds his father-in-law
to change the will each time Phil’s wife has another child. She currently
working on her third.
It would be easy for me to claim Phil has no morality, but that
would not be accurate.
At times and to certain people, Phil can be incredibly faithful.
But this loyalty is always contingent on whether or not the relationship will
cost him money.
Sometimes, he will profess great love for someone at the
same time he is ruthlessly destroying that person’s life.
Two years ago, he sold the Willowbrook franchise for a
massive profit. He shed tears over the fact that the sale would alter many of
his employees lives for the worse. He seemed genuinely nostalgic for those who
had worked for him, while at the same time, he worked behind the scenes to
deliberately ruin the business he had just sold, and thus throw many of those same
people out of work.
I honestly believe he felt anguish over his actions, where
another ruthless man might not have, though such anguish did not stop him from
doing what he believed would make him a profit.
Phil is very middle class, even though he’s rich, his tastes
remain middle class, and so he has a large house that is simply a bigger
version of what a poorer middle-class man might own. He has a large car and a
large bank account, yet he still thinks and acts like a middle-class man.
It is this commonality with the rest of us that makes it
difficult for Phil to completely divorce himself from the lives of his
employees.
I’m sure as time goes out and he gets richer, these tastes
will fade as he hobnobs with his betters, when he comes to realize just what having
money means, and how he can shape a finer kind of living out of his wealth.
Maybe this has already started. He’s very jealous of his
rich cousin and he is constantly speculating on what he will do when his wife’s
father died, and she and Phil inherit his money.
Phil can be a kind man, although when it comes to money his’
always mean, a man of iron will, although sometimes, he can be intimidated by
those who work for him, a born coward who will become truly dangerous when he
actually gets real power.
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