Free Seven Deadly Pleasures by Michael Aronovitz Page B

companion who sat in the golf cart, the one who was brought on to expedite my will, he who would do anything for me because I owned him. I got a sudden whisper of fear in the small of my back.
    "So, I bargained for your loyalty," I said. "Why is that so wrong?"
    His smile vanished.
    "Because I'd break the knees of a baby or take a bullet in my side for you. Go on, now admit who you are."
    "No. You're the one with the problem and there's really no challenge in this. It is too easy to prove that you're wrong."
    "Then do it," he said. "Prove me wrong." I hesitated and he went on with words that seemed treasured and rehearsed. "Children of Satan don't feel sadness, friend. They are incapable of any sense of loss. Tell me one thing that makes you feel sorrow for another."
    I shifted my stance and crossed my arms.
    "Game's too easy. I could lie."
    "Why would you lie to me? I'm nobody."
    "And I'm not a machine. I feel like everyone else."
    "Do ya? When's the last time you shed a tear?"
    I had no response, and the fear came to the forefront like a black bird flapping loose in the attic. Weeping was one particular release that helped define the human experience, I knew that, I had certainly read about it, seen it in film, observed it on the news. And though I had never actually come face to face with woe, I just assumed all along that this kind of thing existed in those more connected.
    What does sadness feel like? The impact of a difficult moral choice?
    You'll never know. It has been fully unlearned and now remains too easy to buy off with your money, more money than God.
    I stormed off the golf course. Though it was too early, I retreated to the confines of my second-floor study to fix myself a vodka martini with three anchovy olives.
    What am I?
    Things I had known about myself were altered in this new tilt of light. Apathy seemed cruel. Lack of emotion seemed evil. Calm, cool, and collected seemed sociopathic. And why did I not just have my butler thrown off the grounds, no more questions asked? He was obviously disturbed.
    You knew that from day one. You bought him so you could keep him as property. Now you refuse to let go what you own.
    It ate at me all afternoon. It was an unsolvable round-about.
    You have enough money to buy off sadness. Enough to purchase souls.
    Wide-eyed in the dark, I stared out through my bay windows and searched for feelings of pity about anything. There were none. I did not give a damn about the homeless, not one shred of grief for the starving, not a single crumb of ache for any of the damned living outside of my isolated world.
    What am I?
    I was going to find out. I was going to scratch up some kind of humanity from deep within. I was determined to prove the accusation false.

    ***

    Those lovely, massive windows.
    I aimed high and the first shot back-kicked my shoulder so hard I almost fell on my ass. The large face of the Virgin Mary shattered into a thousand sharp glass raindrops, most of which landed outside on the grass. Others smashed the marble floor before me, skidding and spinning. Morning sun stabbed through the ugly void and the glare lanced off the steel barrel as I cocked another round into the chamber.
    My butler followed as I moved behind the display of Persian vases. He was laughing. I went back on my heels, steadied myself against the wall, aimed low at the wide reproduction of The Last Supper and let the buckshot fly.
    The second thwack of gunfire seemed louder than the first, but it did less damage. In somewhat of a rage, I grabbed the other shotgun and pumped five successive explosions at the stained glass mural, bursting it out at the bottom in thick sprays of calico shrapnel.
    The entire middle section caved and we both dove for cover.
    A huge chunk that was most of a thirty-foot version of the fourteen Stations of the Cross toppled inward. I sneaked up a peak and saw it crash down on my antique Ford, mint condition, museum quality. It crushed the roof, blew out the windows,