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Highway Robbery: A Tale of Rags and Riches
I have nothing. It’s important there is absolutely no doubt about that. Not a cent. No roof over my head, no bed under my bones, no family, no pension, no food I haven’t had to beg for, not even a decent pair of flip-flops. NOTHING – if you exclude the tattered square of cardboard propped up on my lap asking my brother if he can spare a dollar, which has obviously borne fruit. If you look closely, you can make out a discarded Double Cheeseburger wrapper at my feet.
So. Where was I? Oh, yes I was staring across the street. But of course this isn’t just any old street, this is one of the most spectacularly beautiful streets on the legendary Highway 1, a.k.a. the Pacific Coast Highway, which snakes down the middle of Malibu for twenty-seven paradisiacal miles beside the sapphire glitter of a Pacific Ocean fringed with gold dust from the Getty Villa in the east to the Ventura county line in the west. Highway Number One. What else could it be, in a place where it’s the only number anyone ever looks after?
Speaking of Number One, back to me. Here I am, Ben Somebody, forget the surname, everyone else has. Here am I, Ben Nobody, staring at someone across this fifty feet of heaven, of hopes and schemes and tourist dreams. Who am I staring at?
I am staring at a man with a bottomless fear in his eyes who has EVERYTHING. A man who doesn’t have hundreds of dollars, or thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars, but billions of dollars. A hundred and thirty-nine billion, to be precise.
So. Where was I? Oh, yes I was staring across the street. But of course this isn’t just any old street, this is one of the most spectacularly beautiful streets on the legendary Highway 1, a.k.a. the Pacific Coast Highway, which snakes down the middle of Malibu for twenty-seven paradisiacal miles beside the sapphire glitter of a Pacific Ocean fringed with gold dust from the Getty Villa in the east to the Ventura county line in the west. Highway Number One. What else could it be, in a place where it’s the only number anyone ever looks after?
Speaking of Number One, back to me. Here I am, Ben Somebody, forget the surname, everyone else has. Here am I, Ben Nobody, staring at someone across this fifty feet of heaven, of hopes and schemes and tourist dreams. Who am I staring at?
I am staring at a man with a bottomless fear in his eyes who has EVERYTHING. A man who doesn’t have hundreds of dollars, or thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars, but billions of dollars. A hundred and thirty-nine billion, to be precise.
216 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 5, 2014
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