Gold Rush, page 19
Aaron turns the TV off.
“Well, it’s twenty-four dollars more than I expected,” he mumbles to himself. Although his net worth would still be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Aaron has lost over 90% of his wealth overnight. And the bloodbath will continue. He consoles himself with the thought that his other companies, like Sec-X, have intrinsic value, so their stock prices should recover, but it’s a fleeting hope. Sentiment has turned against him. Once, his name was his brand. Now, it’s radioactive.
Aaron’s fingers tremble. He doesn’t want them to, but he has no choice in the matter. Deep within the recesses of his mind, his emotions stage a coup against reason. Aaron sits there in shock, stunned, looking down at his shaking hand with disbelief, unable to control anything in his life.
He’s been humiliated. Shamed. He gets up from the table with his phone in his hand. Walking outside through the vast sliding glass door, he’s assaulted with a rush of cold wind, but he feels nothing. As he strides past the heated outdoor swimming pool, he tosses his phone into the water. It wavers as it sinks to the bottom.
The railing around the rooftop penthouse is set at chest height, being designed to prevent anyone from accidentally falling over the edge. Cars, trucks and taxis drive along the street some twenty floors below. Aaron grips the steel. His knuckles go white. In that moment, he’s not sure what he’s thinking, only that his life is in ruins. His career is a tragedy—no, a comedy that’s laughably tragic. It’s not true, but he can’t think clearly. He can’t see a future beyond now. The humiliation and grief he feels are overwhelming. No one has died, and yet he feels a sense of loss washing over him regardless.
Aaron’s mind is lying to him. Dying doesn’t seem so bad. If anything, it is a point of resolution, an end to the pain he feels in his chest. The End isn’t just found in movies and novels, but life itself. Few get to choose when and how the end comes. Aaron feels rather than thinks about what will happen if he jumps. All he needs to do is hoist himself up and swing his legs over the railing. And then what? Then there’s nothing left to be done but fall. What will it feel like? The rush of air sweeping through his hair? The flicker of brickwork and windows screaming past inches from his fingers? The pavement rushing up to meet him? And then—nothing. Time itself will end. It’s not that darkness will follow. Nothing will follow. Creation itself will cease to exist.
Oh, he’s not fooled by the fake-permanence of death, but he knows it is the easiest option before him. For everyone else, the Earth will continue to turn, but not for him. For Aaron, nothing will matter anymore. A sheet will be spread out over his crumpled, bloody body. The police will be called. An investigation will conclude suicide, and he’ll be buried back in Colorado. It’ll be a small service. His Mom will cry, stricken with the hollow emptiness of a grief that knows no bounds. But none of that will mean anything to him. As the wind tosses his hair around, he wonders what it will be like to be gone, but that isn’t an accurate description of what will happen. Gone implies traveling from one place to another, but there is no other place to go. From his perspective, nothing will follow, and that’s the allure, that’s what invites him to jump. For once in his life, nothing is desirable over something. Deep down, he knows it’s cheating. It avoids the pain instead of dealing with it, but the pain is more than he can bear.
The steep roof of a church on the other side of the road catches his eye. A steeple, as seen from above, is peculiar to behold. Instead of rising high in the air, it seems feeble, unable to reach the sky. Over the course of the past century, an old church has been dwarfed by the buildings around it, towering above it, intimidating it, challenging its once-unquestioned relevance, and yet still, the church stands defiant.
Aaron blinks, and he’s down on the street, standing outside the building, looking at the church across the road. His mind is a mess. Although mentally, he knows what happened, life is a blur. He must have turned and walked away from the edge, back into the apartment, through the foyer, and then taken the elevator down to the lobby before stepping outside. To him, though, it feels like he jumped. He didn’t. He couldn’t have. Either way, he was destined to reach the pavement. Even with a dark haze clouding his mind, he had enough presence to walk rather than jump. It scares Aaron to realize he has so little control over his own mind. For someone who commands and others obey, he is at the mercy of his own subconscious.
Before he realizes what’s happening, he’s an atheist walking up a set of broad concrete steps toward an ornate wooden arch leading into the sanctuary. There’s something calming about the blocks of stone forming the church. Centuries ago, they were hewn from granite by craftsmen working with hammers and chisels to achieve a precise fit. Each stone speaks of dead toil. Some unnamed, unacknowledged worker labored to build something greater than themselves. Even an unbeliever like him has to respect their dedication.
As he steps inside the church, Aaron is surrounded by silence. The portico dampens the noise from outside, leaving the interior serene in the midst of New York City’s morning chaos. There’s a wooden donation box set in the vestibule, but Aaron isn’t here for a show of wealth with pseudo-humility. He needs help, and for the first time in his life, it strikes him that genuine help is something beyond what mere money can buy. Oh, his millions could get him in front of any therapist in the city, and he has no doubt their sage advice would help, but charity is greater. Rather than being transactional—something he’s excelled at all his life—he’s looking for mercy, as that’s unconditional. His bare feet leave him feeling naked. His first impression on walking into the vast open chamber with its high beams crisscrossing the steep ceiling is one of intimidation, but Aaron realizes that says more about him than it does the church. Once again, he’s staring into a mirror, wondering about the reflection.
Aaron walks down the aisle toward the altar with its immaculate purple velvet cloth, candles, and a golden crucifix set on a marble altar, glistening beneath the lights. For him, the sanctuary of a church highlights the dichotomy of religion. Thousands of years of sincere devotion are captured in the solid metal crucifix, while the brilliant spotlights shining down from above speak of a new age, one of reason, science, and technology driving innovation that’s used to enhance a faith few cling to anymore. He sees the contradiction as a metaphor. Rather than fighting each other, insisting that one is righteous and just and true while the other is misguided, the two realms collaborate to work together.
Aaron walks past row upon row of wooden pews. Hymnals and Bibles sit in the wooden racks behind the seats. Statues of saints adorn the walls, being inset in shallow recesses carved into the stone. The saints are plain, being adorned in long, flowing robes. Like him, they’re barefoot.
Aaron reaches the front of the church and sits before the sanctuary where mass is held and readings are conducted. There’s a Bible beside him on the wooden seat. Out of curiosity, he picks it up. From behind him, a voice speaks softly.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for.”
Aaron turns. A priest stands in the aisle with his hands clasped before him. He’s dressed in a black vestment reaching down to barely an inch above the marble. Red threads have been sewn into the dark hem. A golden crucifix hangs around his neck. At a guess, he’s in his early sixties as his hair is thin and grey.
Aaron looks at the Bible in his hand and then back at the priest.
“Huh?” he says, turning the Bible over as he speaks. “I thought that’s what this was all about—finding answers.”
The priest sits down next to him.
“That’s a common misconception… People come to church looking for answers when they should be asking questions.” The priest taps the black cover. “That? That book raises far more questions than it answers.”
Aaron smiles. He likes this priest. “And you are?”
“Father Dominic Ramos.”
“Okay,” Aaron says. “So… Father Ramos, how do I find God?”
“You can’t find God. Finding God is like finding air. You can’t find something that’s all around you everywhere you go. The very act of looking is a contradiction. What you need is acceptance, not discovery.”
Aaron’s eyes narrow. “What kind of priest are you?”
“I didn’t know there were kinds,” he replies. “I guess there are, but we all started out the same. We all went into the ministry with the same hope.”
“To make a difference?”
“No one can make a difference to anyone other than themselves,” the priest replies. “Oh, we like to flatter ourselves. We think we shine like the Sun—like the Sun shines out of our ass.” He laughs at himself. “Look at us. We’re the center of the world—our world, at least. And we’re convinced we can make a difference. We can’t. All we can do is inspire others to help themselves. Each and every one of us needs to make our own difference in this world.”
“I—I’m an atheist,” Aaron says, feeling as though he’s confessing to murder.
“It doesn’t matter what you believe.”
“It doesn’t?” Aaron replies, genuinely surprised by the priest.
“No. Think about it. Whether you believe the Vatican is in Rome or not is utterly irrelevant. It’s there regardless. It doesn’t need your belief.”
Aaron lets out a slight laugh. “No, I guess not.”
“Beliefs are for us, not God. And you?”
“Me?” Aaron says.
“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? On TV.”
Aaron hangs his head.
“It’s all gone, huh?” the priest says, sensing what has driven Aaron into the refuge of the church.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t let it bother you,” the priest says. “Wealth is nothing but an illusion. Everything we see around us—it’s all temporary on one time scale or another, but we don’t see that. We think there’s a permanence to life when there isn’t. And as soon as you accept that, you’ll find peace.”
Aaron nods in agreement.
“You’re a billionaire,” the priest says. “The world is yours. You can have anything you want, anything your heart desires. You can have all things but one.”
“All things but what?”
“You can never have enough.”
Aaron says, “Money buys power.” But it’s not that he’s challenging the priest or contradicting him. For Aaron, those three words are a defense, a statement of belief, the declaration of a sacred creed. They’re the words by which he and his father before him have lived. They’re the ethos of his soul.
“Money buys power over others. But you cannot buy power over yourself.”
Aaron hangs his head as the priest continues.
“Do you know what God told Adam in the Garden of Eden? What His last words were before Adam left paradise?”
Aaron shakes his head.
“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Aaron’s not sure where the priest is going with his reasoning, but he listens out of interest and not just to be polite. In the past, Aaron would have been arrogant. He would have objected and challenged the notion of the Bible as anything other than a bunch of loosely related historical records mixed in with fables, but now he feels open, empty, and in need of something to fill the void inside.
The priest says, “It took humanity thousands of years to realize the truth in those few words, but that’s the truth. We’re dust. We’re a bunch of atoms. That’s all. Nothing separates us from the dirt. We’re a contradiction. We’re ordinary and yet extraordinary. Physically, we’re 60% water. I mean, just plain old ordinary water. Most of what we are is nothing more than the stuff that comes from a tap. And beyond water, we’re made of the same stuff you find in the ground. We’re basically a muddy river on legs. And yet here we are.”
“Yeah,” Aaron says, appreciating the priest’s point. “Here we are.”
“Look at yourself. Look at your best friend. Look at a stranger walking down the street. Look at me. All we are is a bunch of atoms loosely held together for a few decades, swapping in and out without being noticed, and yet this particular collection of atoms has the privilege of observing everything else in the universe.”
Aaron nods in agreement.
“You’re good at math, right?” the priest asks.
“Ah, yeah. Kind of.”
“Think about us: the human race. Our total mass is a rounding error when compared to the mass of Earth itself. Next to the Sun, we’re utterly insignificant. Compared to the trillions upon trillions of stars and nebulae and black holes out there, we’re nothing—absolutely nothing—and yet we’re not. Why? Because we’re conscious. Yes, we’re just a bunch of atoms. Yes, we’re nothing but dust. But we’re special and unique in that we’re alive. We’re dust that can think and reason.”
Aaron repeats the priest’s quote from the book of Genesis.
“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
“That’s me. That’s you. That’s all of us.”
The priest points at himself. As he taps the black cloth of his tunic, the golden crucifix around his neck sways, catching the light. In contrast to his clothing, his hands are weathered and worn. His fingers are thick and strong. Coarse hair grows on the back of his hand. His fingernails are chipped and grimy. Far from being soft, there are calluses on his hands. He may be a priest, but it’s clear he’s also a man of action, someone who enjoys working outdoors with his hands. Perhaps he’s a carpenter in his spare time—that would be fitting. He speaks with a sense of authority that has been earned, not demanded.
“And me?” he says. “This particular bunch of atoms has the peculiar distinction of being alive. Yeah, I’m dust. I came from the dust and I’ll return to the dust, but for a brief moment in the history of the universe, I get to be something else, and that’s remarkable when you think about it. I get to experience what it means to be dust—to be a collection of atoms that sees and thinks and feels and talks and reasons and loves and hopes. And that is astonishing. That’s life! Never lose sight of just how remarkable you are. Your life is a privilege beyond anything money could ever buy.”
A tear rolls down Aaron’s cheek. Emotion wells within him. It’s that last point about life being priceless that cuts through to his heart. Life itself is something no one can afford to buy—billionaire or not. Aaron’s been so focused on money that he’s forgotten what really matters.
He says, “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”
“I like that,” the priest says. “Who said that? Was it Gandhi? Buddha?”
“Carl Sagan.”
This time it’s the priest who nods in agreement.
Aaron gets to his feet. “Thank you, Father.”
Mitch
Sitting there in an old abandoned pizzeria on a miserable, overcast Thursday, tears well up in Jill’s eyes. Alex notices. She doesn’t want him to notice. She hates that her emotions are transparent, but she feels overwhelmed.
“Hey,” he says, reaching across the table within the decrepit old pizzeria. It’s a little after ten in the morning. His fingers graze the back of her hand. Touch is too much. She withdraws her hand from the table, but it’s too late. Tears stream down her cheeks.
“What’s going on?” Mitch asks with far too much gravel rolling around in the depths of his throat. His voice is rough and angry, or at least that’s how she interprets his growl.
“It’s nothing,” she says, but that’s a lie. Jill wipes her cheeks.
Mitch softens. He crouches beside the table, dropping down onto his haunches so he’s below eye level as she sits in front of her laptop.
“What’s wrong?”
Mitch turns to look at Alex, who swings his laptop around so it’s facing out into the narrow aisle. A shared inbox displays over a thousand unread email messages. Jill’s not sure which ones Mitch is looking at, but she knows what he’s reading. The subject lines spew vitriol.
armorofgod@qmail.com: Die, you fucking bitch!
mikerocks@manimal.com: Stop lying to us, you cow!
jimmy46464687@gravestone.com: Death to the traitors of humanity.
sanemind@xfold.com: I will find you and I will kill you!
“I… I don’t understand how people can be so mean.”
“They’re scared,” Alex says.
“They feel threatened,” Mitch says. “And they’re reacting to that fear. They want you to feel scared as well.”
“But… why would anyone want to kill me? I—I don’t understand. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Hey,” Mitch says, resting his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Normally, Jill would be repulsed by someone touching her without some kind of personal connection, like her brother or her mother, but she accepts it from Mitch. There’s sincerity in his touch. His fingers are firm and strong, and that reassures her.
“But this,” she replies, pointing at the screen. “This is not okay.”
“This,” Mitch says, rising back to his feet and towering over her. “This is why you’re here. This is why they assigned me to protect you.”
Alex asks, “Why did you bring us here? I mean, why aren’t we working out of the astronomy department at Georgetown or the State Department building?”
“Because we knew this was coming,” Mitch says, pointing at the screen. “We knew we needed to keep you somewhere low-key, somewhere out of the media spotlight.”
Jill nods.
“Look,” Mitch says, “I know this bothers you, but for what it’s worth, it doesn’t bother me.”
“It doesn’t?” a surprised Alex asks.
