This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2012 by Oscar Hughes All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. For more information email oscarhughes9@gmail.com. Website at www.oscar-hughes.com Twitter @HughesOscar Cover art designed by Irwan Awalludin

1

I was ecstatic to be moving out of my mom’s house and relieved that I could

begin digging my way out of debt, but I wasn’t happy I would be living in Ohio and

peddling mortgages.

“It pays the most,” I said when he asked me why I took the job. “But, trust me,

I’m already looking for something else.”

The pilot turned off the seatbelt sign and the engine noise leveled off as he broke

out into laughter. He thought this was hilarious.

He closed the Travel + Leisure on his lap and tucked it into the pouch on the seat

in front of him. “I wanted to become an actor but I’ve been selling cars my whole life. I

own three dealerships, a beautiful home in Dallas, a vacation home in Florida, and I put

all my kids through college. Hell, my youngest boy just graduated from Princeton.” It

didn’t make an ounce of difference to me but out of respect I continued nodding. “My

point is . . .” I wasn’t sure he had a point. I wasn’t sure he was sharing all this with me for

any other reason than that he was old and wanted to hear himself speak. “You may be

successful selling mortgages,” he said. “Then what?”

I had already told myself, “I’m only doing this for two years,” so I shrugged and

acted as though I was compiling a playlist on my iPod, hoping it would end our

conversation.

“That’s something I’ve noticed.” I could feel him staring so I looked over. His

neck was craned as if he couldn’t get a good enough look at me. “I noticed it in the young

guys who work for me,” he said. “You guys aren’t motivated. You walk around thinking

it’s someone’s job to hand you something.”

He was trying to put me into a bucket I didn’t belong. “I can promise you no one

has handed me anything.” I was thinking about a conversation I had earlier in the week

with a friend whose parents were badgering her about quitting her job and moving to

Mexico. “Have you ever thought not everyone wants what you have?”

He looked confused. “Don’t you want your kids to have more than you had?”

The beverage cart was coming our way and I wanted a beer.

“This country’s going to hell!” he yelled, as I reached in my pocket for my credit

card. “You watch . . . Occupy Wall Street . . . Most of you don’t want to occupy a damn

job!”

2

His reaction stunned me, but I could hear a woman laughing on the other side of

the beverage cart. The man on my right didn’t bother looking up from his Kindle. It was

my turn so I asked for a Bud Light and handed the attendant my credit card.

“And you, Sir?”

“Diet Coke,” he said, calming down, though his neck was still red when she

handed us our drinks.

“They don’t want to grow up,” said a woman from across the aisle. I assumed the

obnoxious laugh was hers. “Not my son, but some of his friends—25, 26, some of them

are 27 and still living at home.”

She looked at me and I finished the sip of beer in my mouth before politely telling

her. “They’re not able to find jobs.”

“That’s a bunch-of-bull.” He was turning red again. “There are jobs for those

willing to take them—you can’t start at the top.”

“They don’t understand that,” added the woman.

“We don’t understand?” I stared at her. “Oh, we understand. The environment

you gave us is shit!” I unloaded on both of them.

The old man looked surprised. “Hold on there, just ten minutes ago you were

telling me you’re ready to quit.” His eyebrows hiked up. “Hasn’t even worked a single

day yet.” I felt like the chalkboard screeching beneath their nails—and I was damn near

ready to force-feed him his magazine. “You can’t be successful if you’re not willing to

make the sacrifices.”

The man on my right sat forward. “What is success?”

“What kind of a question is that?” the older man snapped as if responding to him

would be a waste of his time. “You set out to achieve something and you achieve it,” he

started to raise his voice.

“So you’re successful because you achieved success?” You couldn’t miss the

mockery in the tone of his voice. “Buying a big house, a vacation home, a fancy car,

that’s not achieving success, it’s purchasing it.”

The older man rolled his eyes. “Bashing the rich will get you nowhere.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s not wrong to have money.”

3

“No one said it is.”

“You are and if you’re trying to make me feel guilty,” he shrugged, “I don’t.”

“Money comes with success,” I said, knowing if I had boatloads of cheddar I’d

spend it.

“Money isn’t the issue and most of us aren’t after success.” He tucked his Kindle

into the pouch. “What we are after is for others to make us feel successful. Setting out to

have others call you a success is not success, it’s a waste of time.” He looked at me.

“You’re too young, but he knows just what I’m talking about. Most of our adult life is

spent trying to arrive somewhere.

“He and I,” he paused. “We’re the same. A lot of people thought I was

successful—at least until I tried killing myself.”

The woman’s eyes bulged. The older man looked away, grabbing his magazine.

The fact that he was sitting there and hadn’t killed himself dampened the effect it had on

me.

“If I’m bothering you,” he broke the silence, “I see a few open seats,”—he had

glanced toward the back of the plane—“if you want to move it won’t offend me.”

I almost laughed. The man by the window snorted and slapped his magazine

closed. I wasn’t on a side, but he had pissed me off when he twisted my words earlier,

trying to make me seem lazy. “Maybe you can buy him out,” I suggested.

He undid his seat belt and got up. “Move!” he said, and we let him out. I happily

took his seat by the window.

The younger man sat back down in his original seat, raked his hand over his face

and looked across the aisle. The woman had headphones on and a book out.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at me, but I didn’t need an apology and shook my

head.

An attendant was standing a few rows up. “Excuse me, Miss. Could I bother you

for a Bud Light?” He glanced at me. “Or something else?”

“You already upgraded my seat.”

When he stared at me I told him, “I’ll take a Heineken.” He only ordered one.

“Get yourself one,” I said, feeling somewhat uncomfortable with a stranger buying me a

drink.

4

“I would, but I can’t.”

“You don’t have to buy that. What you said didn’t bother me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m dead sure.”

He laughed.

The attendant came, swiped his credit card and handed me the beer.

“Success,” he said, shaking his head as she walked away. “It’s always about

money.”

It bothers me when people try painting everyone with one brush. “Not everyone,”

I said.

“I didn’t say everyone. But to the majority, having more of what others desire is

success and we all want more money.” I appreciated the free beer but I was hoping he

didn’t see it as an invitation to lecture me. “Where I went wrong, is where most of us go

wrong,” he said. “We value money over time. I always hear people saying they wish they

were doing this or wish they were doing that.”

“We have to choose money over time,” I said, “unless you’re loaded, and sorry,

most of us aren’t. I can’t walk in a store and buy food with my time. And I promise you,

no one is going to let me pay my student loans with time.”

He laughed. “You are paying back your loans with time.” He pointed to my lap.

“Your iPod. My Kindle. It boils down to one question: Does having the ability to spend

more money fulfill you more than what you experience when devoting time to what you

enjoy?”

I shifted towards him, but I didn’t have an answer. I just sipped my beer and

listened as he carried on about how he had lived his life filling it with “things” and how it

grew to disgust him.

But when he started talking to me about college and how it isn’t as good an

investment as everybody says it is, I interrupted him. “It’s the best investment available.”

All I could think about was how much money I owed and how long it would take

to pay back my loans. This was all I ever thought about. As far as I was concerned,

college had better of been a goddamn good investment.

5

“College is a great investment when you manage it right, but if you don’t manage

it properly it’s a horrible investment. There are countless students building up enormous

debts to begin careers where the future revolves around waiting for the weekend.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t started my job,” I said, feeling like he wanted me to say

something.

“College is a funny business,” he went on. “I don’t remember too much but what

I do remember is the drinking, my first one-night stands and the cramming I did before

tests. I memorized material long enough to produce the grade expected of me to get

where I needed to go next.” He paused for a sip of water. “What college taught me is that

I can tolerate boredom.”

I laughed. “People go to college to get better jobs,” I said. “People take different

things away from their experience.”

He nodded but I could tell he didn’t agree. “It’s not part of any curriculum—

elementary school, middle school, high school, or college. We like to think we’re living

our lives in pursuit of experiences, not just chasing money. But we aren’t—and we aren’t

teaching our kids anything different.

“From the youngest age, we teach our kids how to separate fun from work. I’ll bet

you a hundred dollars there were times while in college you said to yourself, ‘Sit down,

study this, and then I can go drink?’ Finding work that we enjoy doing is not what the

majority of us do, because the majority of us don’t associate work with fun.”

I agreed with him and nodded.

“I know why I chased money. I was unable to think in terms of what I wanted to

do,” he told me, and I gave him an odd look. “It sounds strange, but a lot of us are like

this.” He paused, taking another sip of water. “Have you ever noticed what people tell

you when you ask them what it is they do? Most people answer with what their

profession is or where they work. They never actually tell you what it is they do.”

“So.”

“So, just listen the next time you ask someone what it is they do. Listen to hear if

they’re defining what it is they do or merely telling you the definition of an occupation.”

He coughed. “Take me for example.” He coughed again then cleared his throat. “I

wanted to become a CEO. I wanted to be the guy making all the decisions. I wanted to be

6

the guy with the beautiful wife and the big house. I wanted vacation homes like that guy,”

he said throwing a thumb over his shoulder. “I fell in love with an idea and I thought

Accounting would help me make it a reality. I was told Accounting is the backbone of

business and knowing the nuts and bolts is the way to move up quickly in any

organization.

“Instead of using my energy to find what it is I wanted to do, I looked around for

examples of people that represented what I wanted to be. The thought process is

backwards—you don’t pick a profession based on who you can be . . . but I tried, and in

the process I denied an opportunity to achieve my own success.”

I understood what he was saying, but not entirely. “What if your goal is to be a

CEO?”

He shrugged. “People are going to choose to live however they want,” he replied.

“I’m only saying that there is a difference between doing something and being

something. All doctors help people, but how a doctor sees himself helping patients is

what he does. All chefs appreciate food and cook with fire, but how a chef sees himself

transforming a meal is what he does.

“I was in my mid-twenties when I realized loving what you do and loving what

you are, are two totally different things. I was at home and a family friend asked me what

I did and how my job was going. I told her where I worked, some of the large clients I

had worked with, and what we sold ourselves as doing for our clients. And she told me

how wonderful it was to hear how well I was doing, and how she had only wished her

son had pursued something similar to what I was doing.”

He laughed, cracked a smile then told me something I’ll never forget.

“Compliments kill people,” he said. “I used her words to make myself feel like I

was doing something; although I hated almost every day of my job. But as long as I had

others willing to value me higher than I felt about myself, than I did too.” He reached for

his water. “It’s easier for us to manage appearances than it is reality. If you don’t enjoy

what you’re doing than when asked what you do, you’re not going to willingly

inconvenience yourself by telling someone how you see what it is you do. You’re going

say what you are and move on. We tell people what we are because what we do depresses

us.

7

“We should be thankful so many of us are similar, because otherwise many of us

would have no way of validating our professional lives. I accepted living this way

because I thought I hadn’t reached the level of success I was after.”

He finished his water and glanced up front, then over his shoulder toward the

back of the plane. There were no attendants walking around so he tucked the cup inside

the pouch.

“People like to say, ‘I’d never kill myself,’” he mumbled. “And I said the same

thing. But what most people don’t realize is that you aren’t some sad man moping

around. It comes on slow and, like most men, it wasn’t my nature to show sadness in

public. I could afford the best food, best clothes, and best women. I could afford to

entertain myself with alcohol and weekends filled with pleasure. I could afford to cope.”

I laughed. “Sounds to me like you worked hard and played harder. Sounds like

that good life.”

“That’s not living the life,” he said. “I was wasting my life. When I knelt down

that night I didn’t see it as killing myself.” He stopped, noticing the woman from across

the aisle taking her headphones off and tucking her book away. She left—I assumed to go

use the restroom—and he finished, “I was already dead—kneeling down was easy.”

I took down the rest of my beer while he sat there not saying anything, clearly not

appreciating my joke. Then out of all the things he could have said, he asked me if I

wanted another beer. I was planning to go out and get wasted later that night anyway, so I

decided I wasn’t going to stop him from saving me a few extra dollars.

“I need to use the restroom,” he said and got up. “I’ll bring it on my way back.”

While he was gone, the woman returned. “Is he still bothering you?” she asked,

sitting down across the aisle.

“No, he’s not bothering me.”

I wasn’t convincing enough. “If he’s bothering you, just tell me,” she said.

“He wasn’t bothering me to begin with,” I said, not wanting her to have a

centimeter of satisfaction. “Why, is he bothering you?”

“Who’s bothering who?” He was standing in the aisle with my Heineken in his

hand.

8

I looked at the lady who quickly pulled her book out and put her headphones back

on. “Man, you and I gotta fly together more often,” I said as he sat down, handing me the

beer. “Heck, a few more of these and I’ll be ready for the night.”

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing,” I said.

He looked across the aisle. “Excuse me.” He reached and tapped her shoulder,

forcing her to remove her headphones and glance up from her book. “Am I bothering

you?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, you are,” she told him. “I want you to leave that young man

alone.”

“He can speak for himself.” He paused. “But if you have something you want to

say, you should say it. Otherwise . . .” and he looked over his shoulder toward the back.

She gave him a nasty look and put her headphones back on.

“Is there a problem, Sir?” a flight attendant asked.

He shook his head carelessly and the attendant looked at me. “No problem here,”

I said, and he moved along.

“If something bothers you, you have the right to say something,” he said, getting

back to everything but suicide. I thought his attempt is what he really wanted to talk

about. Yet he kept going off on wild tangents.

“Like I should’ve said something when my boss called me into his office, telling

me I need to show them I still wanted to be there. I should’ve walked out and never

looked back. You know, I should’ve tried talking to my parents, but I knew what they’d

say—the one thing I heard my entire life: ‘It’ll pay off in the end.’”

My stomach was growling. “Excuse me,” I said, as I saw an attendant passing by

with a box of pretzels. “Could I please have a pack of those?” She pulled one from the

box and handed it to me. “I apologize, what were you saying?”

“I had a choice to make. I could quit or I could adjust my attitude,” he said. “I

thought I should quit but none of my friends seemed to be struggling, and what would I

do?” He shrugged. “I had never really taken the time to think about what it was I wanted

to do. So I kept myself busy and made sure I always had something to look forward to. I

went out every weekend and sometimes during the week too. Women were the best

9

distraction,” he said. “I could wine and dine them while most of them crumbled in my

hands. The best looking ones are usually the ones who believe they deserve to be wined

and dined too. But after a couple of years, I got tired of it.”

He sounded like a fool. “What kind of man gets tired of waking up next to good-

looking women?” I asked suspiciously.

“Do you think I spent the amount of money I did, dressed the way I did and took

them to the places I did without knowing what it would get me?” He paused but I didn’t

say anything—I had gotten used to him not waiting for a response.

“As sick as it sounds, there are plenty of women out there who don’t mind being a

transaction. They valued my money and I valued their looks. I admit, I used them to help

me get through one week and into the next,” he said. “At a certain point though, you

begin feeling lousy spending money for a woman’s affection.

“But, women,”—he started laughing but quickly restrained himself—“they’ll tell

you they care about their looks so much because they want to feel good about themselves.

They’re doing it for themselves . . . come on … male or female, we rarely do anything for

ourselves.”

“What’d you do then,” I said, “just sit around drinking by yourself?”

“I stopped drinking all together,” he answered, which I didn’t believe. “I spent

more time thinking about quitting and how I might spend my time. But, let me ask you?”

“Ask me what?” I said.

“What happens if a man pursues a less lucrative path?”

“I don’t know.” I honestly didn’t know what he was driving at.

“What happens is his marriage options dwindle, and at the time I saw marriage as

a step I could take toward a healthier lifestyle,” he said. “I honestly thought settling down

and marrying someone is what would make me happy. But I rushed myself into marrying

an entitled bitch.”

I pulled the Heineken away from my lips, almost choking on the beer in my

mouth.

“I don’t blame her,” he said, putting his hands up in defense. “I don’t blame her

one bit for the expectations she had about what a husband should be. I assume she only

thought it fair she get what her mother had—what some of her friends had.

10

“I’d never expect a woman to admit it, but as a sex, they’re overly interested in

men who can provide them with things. Women demand successful husbands and are

quick to ignore the psychological effect it has on men when the first thing they want to

know is where he works.

“And we’re just as much to blame. We need to stop taking so much pride in

telling women what we are and how much we make. We need to start taking more pride

in what it is we do. It was my fault for marrying a woman like her.”

“Why’d you marry her then?” I said.

“What do you mean? I loved her. There were no problems between us until I felt I

was sacrificing too much for this so called ‘American Dream.’ When I accepted the fact

that the race most of us are running is one where winning is losing less, I sat down with

my wife and told her I wanted to quit my job and delay our plan of having a baby. By the

look on her face, you’d have thought I told her someone close to us had died.

“But in her defense, she had no clue about how I was feeling. I had been ignoring

how I felt instead of trying to explain it to her. She took what I said and turned it into me

not being happy in our marriage. All I wanted was for her to understand that my job

wasn’t fulfilling and it never had been. She wanted to know how we would continue

affording our lifestyle. I told her all we had to do was lower our standard of living. The

baby would come when we were ready. She quickly let me know that was not the original

plan, and it wasn’t. I don’t think she could have understood if she wanted to. Her life had

already been planned out,” he shook his head, “years in advance.

“We went back and forth and it turned into a huge argument. We didn’t talk for at

least a week. But I loved her and I wanted us to work. I didn’t think it was right for me to

expect her to immediately change.”

I’d finished the second Heineken, making it three beers in what felt like an hour. I

felt like I was talking with a friend at that point. “She punked you?” I said.

“You don’t punk someone when you’re in a marriage. We talked it through like

adults,” he said. “I didn’t tell her at the time, but I thought I could slowly show her we

didn’t need all the things we had or all the things she wanted. That was the hurdle I had to

get her over.” He paused and with his head slightly down he whispered, “Women don’t

marry men.”

11

When he turned and looked at me his facial expression was that of someone who

thought he had formed an original thought. “Women marry lifestyles and the evidence is

everywhere,” he stated harshly. “Inside department stores, how much of the store space is

dedicated to women? Who screams and cries when given a blue box tied in white ribbon?

Who is always saying the room would look better with this in it or that in it? You don’t

know how many times I heard my wife say, ‘Ooh! Let’s buy this. This will be perfect for

when our friends come over.’”

I laughed but he didn’t slow down or crack a smile.

“Whether it was a better home or car or jewelry or pictures of us on a better

vacation, she wanted a certain lifestyle that she could show-off to her family and friends.

I could never get her to see that. We always had to buy something else. It drove me crazy,

but at a certain point you just give up.”

“Do you want a mint?” I noticed he kept swiping his tongue to wet the corners of

his mouth. He started looking around for an attendant. “We should be landing in Chicago

soon,” I told him. “They’ll probably be around to pick up trash. You might want to take

the mint. I got gum, too.” He nodded and I reached inside my pocket. I was wondering

how his ex-wife might tell me the story if she were sitting here. As much as he was

blaming her, I wanted to blame him.

“All you had to do was leave her,” I said.

“I would have. But she got pregnant,” he said, tossing the gum in his mouth. “We

had always agreed children should be planned—and not a surprise. She was on the pill!”

he said with a few wild bobs of his head.

I put up and secured my tray table. A flight attendant in the aisle was coming

towards us carrying a trash bag.

“My heart stopped the day she told me about the baby and life was complete hell

after that. With a new baby at home, I had to work even harder and to my surprise, I also

had to change who I was because what corporate America will never tell you is that it’s

not enough to just do your job—not if you want the job of the person above you. I found

myself adopting the behaviors and interests of my colleagues as a way to create

conversation. I didn’t play golf because I enjoyed the fucking game, I played it because I

needed them to like me and consider me for the promotion. I told myself ‘I’m doing it for

12

my son.’ But you know, there is nothing that robs you of freedom more than children and

debt.” He stopped and wiped the corners of his mouth. “Buying a home, sending your

child to college, having a family, everything is expensive. My son ended any idea I had

of leaving my job or my wife. But,” he said, and I handed him my empty bottle as the

attendant came by and he dropped it in the bag, “my son was the main reason I kept

getting up every morning—his smile became the smile I never had. I didn’t want to go to

my job another day, but I cared about Phillip and his future. I was willing to do what it

took to provide for my family—even if it meant crying at night.”

“How old was your son when . . . you know, when you . . .”

“You can say it,” he said.

He wanted me to, but I couldn’t.

“I was sad,” he said, ignoring my question, “and I hid it as long as I could, hoping

it would pass. Some nights I’d come home and go directly to bed. I’d tell my wife I had

to get up early. But when I started using that excuse when it came to having sex, she

accused me of having an affair.” He made a face that told me even the thought of this was

outrageous. “I had no desire to please her or myself. I had barely enough energy to make

it through the day.

“When I started having thoughts about what it’d feel like to jump off a building,

to drive my car off a cliff, to step off a chair, that’s when I knew I was more than just sad.

I didn’t want those thoughts, I just had them—but I never believed I’d attempt anything.

“Then,” he said with his eyes widening, “I got news at work of my second big

promotion. I didn’t call right away to let my wife know; I didn’t plan on telling her at all,

but a colleague told his wife and his wife talked to my wife. When I didn’t bring it up at

dinner that night she got mad and left the table.

“After I cleaned up, I sat down and played with my son. As I was playing with

him, he asked me if I was going to the party. My birthday was coming up and I asked

him, ‘A party for my birthday?’ He said no, a party for my promotion. He wanted to

know what it meant to be promoted.

“I remember looking at him without being able to speak. I wanted to be alone so I

told him to go upstairs. I got in the car and started driving. My wife kept calling but I

never picked up. I thought about how I’d let the idea of success string me along. I didn’t

13

understand how I could have a wife, a kid, a great paying job and feel the way I did. I

mean, I’d made what I thought were reasonable decisions my entire life, yet I was

smothered by my job, I could no longer make love to my wife, and sometimes I felt a

resentment towards my son that made me hate myself. Anytime I did feel good, it was

always short-lived.”

The flight attendant came over the intercom: the plane was making its final

descent into Chicago.

“After an hour of driving around, I turned back and went home. I was tired of

brooding over the past but I broke down the second I turned my car off in the garage. I

couldn’t stop crying,” he said. “I sacrificed myself into a situation that I felt I could no

longer change. And if I couldn’t change it, I thought why keep living through it. Out of

the corner of my eye, I saw my computer bag, unzipped on the passenger side. I reached

in and grabbed the longest adapter cord. I slid my seat all the way back and pulled up the

headrest. I tied it tight around the post and slipped my neck through the loop . . . I knelt

down as far and as hard as I could.”

What he was saying wasn’t what I expected to hear. I had never heard of someone

trying to strangle themselves in their car, but I imagined a panicking dog struggling to

free itself but further tightening its own collar until it eventually strangles itself.

“When I heard my wife scream, I sat back,” he said. “She jumped in the car,

crying hysterically, and slipped her fingers under the cord. I let her loosen it and she

pulled it away from my neck.”

I was hoping his son was in the house asleep. “Was your son with her?”

He pinched his lips together thinly in regret. His nod was steady and controlled. I

could see in his face the everlasting embarrassment—it would never go away.

“I didn’t tell him until last year when he turned sixteen,” he answered. “He lives

with his mother now and there’s no telling what she tells him. I wanted him to know the

truth. I wanted him to understand success is a human creation and if you don’t create it

for yourself, it will slowly bleed the life out of you.”

I felt the plane landing. He took out his cell phone and turned it on.

“Are you getting off?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t and that his final stop was Ohio,

or somewhere after that. I had a few things I wanted to ask him.

14

“I am. I’m visiting my brother and his family.”

“That should be fun,” I said. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“I grew up in Chicago, but I live in Texas.”

“We never got each other’s names.” I stuck my hand out. “I’m Ben.”

“Jake,” he said, shaking my hand.

“Would it be weird if I looked you up on Facebook?”

“No, that wouldn’t be weird, but I don’t have Facebook,” he said. “Can I give you

my email?”

I nodded and he pulled out a pen and wrote his email on a napkin.

“Anything you want to talk about,” he said and handed me the napkin. “The best

part of what I do now is getting involved in my students’ lives. Anything I can do to help,

just shoot me an email.”

“Thanks.” I stuffed the napkin in my pocket, hoping I’d never need it. “And

thanks for the beer,” I told him.

He stood up and moved into the aisle. “No problem,” he said with a smile. “I

know you’re young and it’s fun, but don’t let yourself use it as a distraction. If you aren’t

sure what you’re doing is what you want, then your option to abandon is the most

valuable thing you own.” He pulled his bag down. “You know, don’t get out of college

and start buying all sorts of things because you have some money. Value women who

don’t need you to impress them financially and live below your means.” The line was

filing out in front of him. “No matter what America tries selling you, don’t place

happiness on the other side of success. You do that, and you’ll be all right,” he said and

walked off the plane.

With my arms crossed, I peered out the window at a plane moving toward the

runway.

15

Dear Readers, Thanks for checking out my work. It means a great deal to me when anyone sits down to read what I wrote. It takes a writer and a reader to have a conversation and I genuinely thank you for your time. For anyone who is interested, I have a mailing list you can subscribe to by emailing oscarhughes9@gmail.com. Please include “Add Me” as the subject. I value privacy, cherish it actually, and you can be 100% certain I will never share your address with anyone. I will only email you with new stories I have written and responses to questions from readers. If you have any questions or anything you are curious about, please don’t hesitate to send me an email. If it’s okay with you, the questions I receive will be uploaded with the responses in an audio file on SoundCloud. So whaddya say? Wanna sign up? I know email lists are not for everyone, but thank you again for checking out my work and if you choose not to sign up I hope you will come back and visit. All my best, Oscar