Real Life

My name is Martin Spencer. You won't like me. You won't like my story.

I couldn't care less.

This isn't the line I'd use to pick up girls at a bar, of course. The line I'd use in that situation would be "Hey babe, you see that Bentley outside? It's mine, but the chauffer won't let me drive it. Can I interest you in some Dom Perignon?"

Told you you wouldn't like me. But there are other reasons as well.

The first is that I'm just like you. Or at least I used to be. Midwestern town, middle-class school. Decent college. Morality. Family. The works. Eventually got out of college and went to work for a company. In my case it was a bank, which was logical since I'm an economist. But that's not the point. It could have been a cosmetics firm, or a teaching job, or the family hardware store or my own internet startup. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I was fairly well-to-do, unable to immediately pay off a complete mortgage or buy a yacht, but in no danger of starvation. Back then, I was you. Now, though, I could buy and sell you. I have bought and sold people just like you. And there's no use in telling me otherwise. Everyone has their price.

And there you are, rubbing your hands. You're probably thinking that I'm some sort of criminal mastermind who goes around buying and selling people. And, as soon as I finish this confession, you'll just call in the nearest cop and put me behind bars, smugly congratulating yourself and saying, "Let's see you use your money to get out of this one."

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I've never, not once, broken the law of any country in which I've been.

So how?

I told you, I'm a banker. I have one client, and get paid five million dollars a year to make certain that he's happy. I attend maybe eight or nine meetings a year. And that's it. The rest of my time is mine to do with as I see fit. Oh, and to spend my money, of course.

And my story tells how I did it. But you can probably guess. It took hard work and sacrifice to make my fortune: I had to go to two meetings.

Why the Popular Bank of Switzerland was based in Geneva, as opposed to Zurich, I could not say. Maybe they preferred a view of the lake and its enormous geyser to the medieval historic downtown at the end of the Banhoffstrasse. Maybe they had a secret wish to be French. I don't know. What I do know is that Herr Zürbriggen looked German, and his English sounded German. I wouldn't have cared if he'd had a couple of extra heads and wore a pink tutu. A meeting with Zürbriggen meant that I was in. It was make-or-break time. And I had to make. This trip and this suit were too expensive to waste.

I was precisely two minutes early. He saw me precisely on time and informed me that I had ten minutes. So I told him the story of an African warlord who was controlling a major diamond-producing area and was doing his banking in the Caymans.

He wasn't particularly impressed, so I mentioned five hundred million dollars per annum and told him that his bank would have the man as a client by the end of the month if they made me happy. They made me happy, but they weren't silly about it: I would receive a bonus, enough money to live a life of extreme luxury, just as soon as those dollars had been rolling into the bank for five years. In the meantime, I would have to make do with only my five million in salary.

Oh, and I had to go negotiate things alone. They didn't like Africa. It was dangerous there.

It was also humid. I quickly realized that the location of the blood diamond mines of Sierra Leone hadn't been chosen for its climate or the quality of its airport, which was just a couple of clapboard buildings and a three-story control tower with most of the glass shot out.

I suppose when you've got a lot of pretty rocks in the ground and poor people who are perfectly capable of, if not willing to, pull them out of the ground, you don't need to worry about the weather. Especially if you're the guy holding the guns.

Jimbo, the self-proclaimed warlord of this particular region, was the guy holding the guns. According to my research, he'd survived two civil wars, six assassination attempts and one aborted coup from within his own organization. He was more of a solid fixture than any of the neighboring governments by a large margin. His English sounded Jamaican and his armed guards were large and sweaty, but he didn't have me shot immediately. I was being given the chance to talk fast if I wanted to live. So I made my pitch, extremely conscious of one of the guards holding my arm in order to keep me from running.

He heard me out and then explained that the reason he was going to have me killed was that he'd tried taking his money to Switzerland and been turned down by two of the big banks, so I was clearly a fraud, out to take his money. And even if I wasn't, killing me would at least atone for the humiliation of the Swiss dismissal.

If he wasn't good enough for them, then shooting me might at least teach them some manners. There are some moments that define a man. This was mine. I feel that my life is defined by the fact that I was just like you, but now I'm rich beyond your dreams. And that moment was the one in which I earned my paycheck.

In a smelly, dingy hut on a torrid African day, I looked into the eyes of a man who'd killed more of his countrymen than I could count, and, holding his gaze, told him a ridiculous lie.

"The American government is studying the possibility of freezing and investigating all Cayman accounts. They might even invade like they did in Panama. I give it a fifty-fifty chance of happening. They're looking for terrorist money, of course, but I think they'll find you really interesting, don't you?”

If he'd had any information at all, I'd be dead. Too bad. I had put a price on my life, tossed the dice and won. But it could have gone either way.

And now I'm free. I never have to worry about mortgages or car payments. Rent is a concept I don't even remember. And, with economic freedom comes the knowledge that the morality practiced by the middle classes is just a way to keep from going insane in their mediocre, cookie-cutter lives.

And don’t kid yourself. I thought I was living a good life when I was poor, but now I know just how meaningless it was. And, in your heart, so do you. They say that money doesn't buy happiness. This might be true, but it does purchase the freedom to pursue it.

You don't like me. You say to yourself that it's because I knowingly contribute to slavery and genocide. But you forget that it would exist anyway, so long as people are willing to pay for products that engender it. I've broken no laws, and I'm not worried about anything. I'm just a banker. And you're just jealous.