As Kandude got off the bus in Omaha, he stumbled across a ragged man with bloody bandages around his head and face huddled on a station floor. Filled with concern, he took what money he had left from the old hippie and offered it to the pathetic figure. The man looked up through his one working eye, staggered to his feet, and suddenly hugged Kandude, who recoiled in alarm. “Alas,” said the wretch, “young Kandude – do you not recognize your longtime Professor?”
“What?” cried Kandude, “my dear Professor B? What has happened? Why are you not in your well-appointed guesthouse at Cha-Ching Manor? Has there been a disaster? What has become of Cardoshia, the most beautiful, kindly, and smokin’ bodacious young woman in all the plutocracy?”
“I am so weak that I cannot stand,” said the Professor. Kandude immediately helped him to a sidewalk bench in front of a nearby McDonalds, buying the Professor a medium Pepsi with his limited funds, and discretely pocketing a handful of ketchup packets to provide a bit of sustenance.
Now refreshed, Professor B said, “Our dear and beautiful Cardoshia is now in desperate straits, reduced to supporting herself via an OnlyFans adult website.”
Kandude collapsed in a near faint on the ground in front of the bench, both stunned by this dire news and also dimly hopeful that he might someday be able to afford a subscription to Cardoshia’s OnlyFans content with private messaging.
“How could this happen to one of the richest, most refined, and deeply modest maiden-heiresses in the entire country?” he asked.
“Ah – it was just business,” said the Professor. “P-M’s conglomerate was brutally attacked, using entirely legal and appropriate means, by corporate raiders, many of them well-deserved losers in P-M’s earlier capitalistic triumphs. They conducted hostile takeovers of his flagship ultra-leveraged derivative funds and gutted his thimblerig precious metal IRA investments for senior citizens. They hoovered up his wonderfully profitable slumlord enterprises, themselves raising the rents, accelerating evictions, deferring maintenance, and collecting fire insurance at even greater profits, thus proving the superiority of their business model.”
“Creditors took Cha-Ching Manor, stripping it of lock, stock and barrel, as was their absolute right and obligation. P-M now lives in a cardboard box on South Dearborn Street; Brutus is a corn dog specialist at a 7-11 in Cicero; and the last Mrs. P-M landed an arm-candy gig with an aging investment banker who is only worth a few million dollars and suffers from Erectile Dysfunction. I myself was dropped off at a Single Room Occupancy hotel with but a single Louis Vuitton Horizon 70 soft sided suitcase, but was then viciously mugged on the sidewalk, dispossessed of all my belongings, and left as you see me now. I have no memory of how I got to Omaha.”
“This is terrible news,” said Kandude, “not just for the beloved family, but for all the retired people who lost their life savings, poor people put out on the streets, and lawyers that may be unable to purchase new BMWs during the current fiscal quarter.”
“Well remember, my dear Kandude,” said Professor B, “that while there may be some discomfort at individual scales, overall, the human condition is greatly improved by the wondrous operations of capitalism. For private misfortunes make the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good. These energetic entrepreneurs, these titans of industry, these rugged individualists who seized P-M’s fortune and pillaged Cha-Ching Manor using the noble tools of the free market, have thereby accumulated more wealth and power, stimulated additional enterprise, and increased the total amount of capital in the marketplace. Thus, is civilization advanced.”
He continued. ”Remember always that we speak of the invisible hand, not the invisible handout. Wealth must be taken, and success in doing so proves the virtue and just desserts of the taker. Indeed, all is for the best in this best of all capitalistic worlds.”
As always, Kandude was overwhelmed with the Professor’s wisdom and buoyancy even in the face of losing an eye, having a lung punctured, and being reduced to penniless beggary. He asked the Professor what they should do now, faced with penury, homelessness and no change of clothes.
“One of my most excellent friends from graduate school is now with the Beeritage Foundation and living in LA,” said the Professor. If we can find our way there, we will be able to get back on our feet, obtain new designer clothing, and enjoy the Mediterranean climate.”
Thus, the bedraggled pair made their way back to the bus station, where the unaffluent passengers of the bus in which Kandude had arrived, having observed Kandude’s kindness to the down-beaten professor, took up a collection to buy them both tickets to LA, as well as Fritos and Ding Dongs from the vending machine to supply their journey.
CHAPTER IV. WILDFIRES AND TEMPESTS ON THE WAY TO THE LEFT COAST