The Wisdom of Jimmy Brown
by D. Grant DeMan
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it
back in your pocket. - Old saw
That spring morning of my days of wine and roulette blinding rosettes
blasted dawn across a navy sky beyond purple mountains and slate black
flats of Royston Point outlining an erect figure holding a formidable
pitchfork, eyes glowing with the red constancy of some kind of demon like
the ones invading my soul. I began to walk back over the beach with my
yellow hound Buffy toward the dark presence. It was a long stroll and I
became ever more aware of some kind of judgement going on within the
lessening space between us. By now I could see that the man was not big,
but an old wide Stetson under magenta light expanded his proportions.
Somehow I knew I had reached a turning point. Someway this man of the
morning was about to permanently change my wayward life.
Mine was a trite old story: over years a few cocktails and affairs of
the heart had morphed into drunken orgies and now crippling-debt gaming. No
man is so alone as a broken drunken gambler. Sometimes I even wondered
about Buff. What poor wayward canine instinct persuaded him to stay with
such a loser?
"Good morning," I said to the man with the pitchfork, "Just enjoying a
fine walk."
"I'm Jimmy Brown, and this all here is my home." He stretched his left
arm and waved beyond the little park in which we stood in the direction of
a row of modest cottages lining the bay. I introduced myself.
"I've been here all my life, Son, and I can see that you have distress
a-plenty. Now you sure don't have to relate them to me, but I'm going to
lay on you a story that - if you digest it proper - will make your troubles
sit up and take notice." And without further pause he went on: "When I was
just a little feller we often went hungry and cold, and us kids would go
out to a passing train, harass the engineer and fireman until they threw
big chunks of coal at us. Then we would pick up that fuel to heat our
shanty. As time went by I grew a mite and got a job up in Cumberland, but I
was so puny that they only gave me half the pay of a regular working man."
"The bastards!" I sympathized.
"Don't interrupt, Sonny," Jimmy shot back. "Ya see, though I worked so
hard I near died, I never got envy, for I was rich compared to what I was
used to. But I began to wonder why the other fellers seemed always to be
borrowing money from me. So's as an experiment one evening I went along
with them on their rounds and made a significant discovery."
"What's that?"
"Like I say we visits the saloon and Miss Dolly's cat house, and then
to the card room. And by morning's first light them fellers was not only
broke but on the skids. Some lost their families and homes over that
damnfool manner of living. So's I said to myself right then: 'These guys
owe their soul even though they make twiced what I do,' and I kinda got a
revelation that it's not what you make that counts it's what you have left
- what you gits to keep."
"You know I never thought of it that way, Jimmy."
"Well Sonny, now you will. I kept my money and now I own this whole
point. They spent theirs and they're all dead broke and six feet down now.
A feller should have a plan."
I walked slowly home, made a plan, and through some miracle managed to
survive and thrive sans booze, broads, and betting. The other day while
reading about the billions of dollars governments pay in interest realizing
that if we hadn't gone on a reckless spree during the past decades, there
would be plenty left in the larder for all our needs - and then some.
You bet. Like me, government might well borrow a dollop of wisdom from
my good buddy of the scarlet dawn, Jimmy Brown:
"It ain't what you make that counts. It's what you gits to keep."
'Vox Populi', get started! Send in your comments and critique on 