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I take the notes from him, stunned, but I do as Finlay says, crouching down to the woman and placing the money in her small cap. It takes her a long time to register the new money I’ve added to her meager collection of coins, but when she does, her eyes grow even wider like she can’t quite believe them. When she touches the notes, she gazes in our direction, and, feeling foolish, I give her a little wave that she doesn’t return.
She’s not my mom, she’s not my mom.
The woman tucks the notes safely into the inside pocket of her jacket, her gaze turning vacant again.
“So good things can happen from bad,” Danny says thoughtfully. “And bad can happen from good. I feel like that’s a moral teaching point — ‘I learned something today…’”
“You do realize she’s just going to spend that money on drugs, right?” Rory asks Finlay lightly. “You’re so bleeding-hearted.” The way Rory says this, however, it doesn’t sound like an insult — more a term of affection.
“So whit?” Finlay gripes. “If I had her life, I’d be shootin’ myself up tae the eyeballs wi’ smack an’ a’.”
“Maybe she won’t,” I say optimistically, and Rory gives me a soft look.
“Too many edgy wee bams about,” Finlay mutters, scowling at the group in front of us. We’re near the entrance now, and the tuxedo twats have just been accepted into the student union, and probably St. Camford in general, soon to be running a national daily newspaper with work at local government level followed by a career as a high-up tosser in Parliament… “It isnae about bein’ rich. Ye can be proud o’ that, the same way you can be proud o’ bein’ middle class or workin’ class, whitever. But lookin’ down on others? On those wi’ less than you? Naw. That isnae right.”
I stare at Finlay in amazement, wondering how and why andwhenthis change occurred. Not just with Finlay, but all of them — because I still remember the taunts, those first-year snipes and jibes that I’d never be good enough, clever enough, rich enough, to be a Lochkelvin student, that I’d never becomeone of them. That I’d only ever amount to a novelty, a quota, a box to be checked, a diversity pick.
And maybe that’s the answer, the answer behind their newfound passion and politics.
Me. I’m the reason.
Without me, I wonder, would they have walked past that woman? Would they havelaughed?
A better society cannot be built when the influential live a stratified or atomized existence, dealing only with the people who look and sound and act and earn like them. More than anyone, rich people need perspective like a grounding anchor. And perhaps I’m part of that perspective, the anchor and lens through which they can finally fully see the truth of the world.
* * *
It turns out that the seventh circle of hell is the St. Camford student union. Everyone I pass, someone has an uninformed opinion that they need to share loudly and proudly.
The hall is decorated sumptuously, with chandeliers dripping with crystals and thick velvet drapes. Gilt balloons larger than I’ve ever seen gently rotate on the spot, spelling out the message,WELCOME TO ST. CAMFORD, and effortlessly suited guys attempt to woo girls in elaborate cocktail dresses, blonde flutes of champagne bubbling between them.
It’s a lot different from how I’d expect college bars back home, with pool tables and guys in varsity jackets drinking from plastic red cups and watching major league baseball on a myriad of screens. There are no screens here, but there are a dozen or so ice sculptures dotted around, catching the twinkling crystal lights of the chandeliers.
A girl beside me shimmies her body low, drinking tequila shots from the beak of a carved iced swan.
Danny shoots me an exasperated look, clutching his glass of vodka and Irn-Bru. I made mine a double, having the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to get through the night without being thoroughly lubricated.
“Actually, I think you’ll find that neo-liberal propaganda is merely being used to supplant late-stage capitalism,” someone loudly declares nearby, and it’s like being at Lochkelvin on speed. “If you opened your mind a little wider, you’d also find that the globalist oligarchs are deliberately trying to intervene and suppress Harry Wells’ latest manifesto.”
“I hate to burst your bubble but technocratic liberal fascists aren’t the ones conspiring against our free speech. Try educating yourself instead of believing the six o’clock news, dipshit.”
“We need the decolonization of elite-adjacent inter-radical hegemonic narrativesnow, and to end outmoded and oppressive thought-views.”
I down my drink, wishing the ground could save me by swallowing me whole. The entire place is full of these types of people, talking political jargon, each word laden with a boastful, semi-sneering act of superiority.Oh, how much I know, they seem to say, leaving my ears ringing and my head sore.
“I don’t think I can stick this,” I tell Danny bluntly, observing all the pompous conversations happening around us. “I’m already getting a headache, and trust me, it’s not from the vodka.”
A smile flickers across Danny’s mouth. “Well,” he says in a conspiratorial tone, “you know there’s a cinema on the outskirts of St. Camford? Guess what they’re showing tonight.”
“What?”
“Grease!”
I scrunch my face. “Why is the universe determined to make me watchGrease?”
“Because it’s the one that you want?”
I give him a baleful stare.
