In reading the three brief lives in the following paragraphs, I will leave it to you, the reader, to make the necessary connections...and ask the pertinent questions..
New York City: 10:48PM
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Julia has been home for only ten minutes. Her day began when the alarm clock went off at 4:50AM. At nearly 11:00PM, morning seems like it was days ago. By her worn complexion and slightly stooped gait, one would guess her to be between 45-50 years old, but Julia is in fact only 33. Since her husband ran off to Las Vegas with a younger woman four years ago, she has been working three jobs to try to support her twin girls - Sara and Elsa - who will turn seven years old next week. Being from a working class family, a college education was never in the cards. No one in her family has ever attended more than a year of college, but some of her relatives did acquire some vocational training. Going to a university was a 'middle class' privilege, and she was not middle class. In the very same year her husband abandoned the family, she lost her full-time job, which offered a reasonable salary, three weeks paid vacation and 66% paid health insurance premium benefits. After her company was sold to large conglomerate, many positions were outsourced. Julia's job went to the Philippines. Now, she works as a teacher's assistant in the morning at a local junior high school (no certification required), cuts hair at a beauty salon owned by her best friend Lorna and minds the register at a gas station on 124th Street in the evenings. Last week, she was robbed at gunpoint. Fortunately, the armed intruder took the money and quietly exited the station. Checking in on Sara and Elsa, they are asleep. This is how she sees her children from Monday to Friday - asleep. They rarely wake up long enough to see or remember her. Exhausted, she knows the alarm clock will be ringing again in less than five hours. Although tired, she will have insomnia again. She will spend much of the night ruminating about her and her children's survival. As she cannot see her children much outside of weekends, she blames herself for being a 'bad mother'. And what if she cannot save enough money to start Sara and Elsa at a community college after high school? The idea of them working at unskilled, menial jobs - in a life of drudgery and low expectations has made Julia cry on more than one occasion. Caressing her daughters hair, they wake for just a moment and say together in twin, sleepy voices - 'I love you, Mommy.' Turning to leave the room, Julia bids farewell with the words, 'Good night...I love you.'
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Sao Paulo, Brazil: 11:48PM
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The apartment was dark when Emila came in twenty-five minutes ago. Although tired, she is still keyed up from having one of the longest days of her life as a business professional. Four years ago, she completed her MBA at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Although the job market for people of her caliber was not particularly good that year, she had heard about a company that had just moved one of its divisions out of New York to a suburb of Sao Paulo. Things progressed very quickly. As soon as the newly arrived company from the US received her CV, she was called in for an interview, and then another and then a final interview. After three interviews in a mere ten days, she was hired for an entry-level job. In her first days as a young, working woman of the world, Emila made a point to get to know her fellow employees - which were mostly not fellows at all - but women in her age bracket. Surprisingly, some of them were Americans who had transferred from New York. Of these always loquacious Yanks, she liked Lindsey the best. At 22, three years younger than Emila, Lindsey had no qualms about moving away from her family in Long Island for a job that paid one-third as much as job in the US. To her, it was an adventure and something to put on her resume. Hopefully, she thought, her working experience in Sao Paulo would 'get her noticed' by companies back home in a tight job market in a couple of years. For now, she was content. This, however, was four years ago. As of today, Lindsey is still working at the same desk, and she has not received any positive responses after three summers home and a countless number of resumes sent out to companies in the New York metropolitan area. As she might be in Brazil awhile longer, she is starting to consider studying Portuguese. By contrast, Emila has been promoted twice, married once (two and a half years ago) and had her first child last year. Of the three, it is her husband that has been the disappointment. After being laid off from his construction job a few months ago, he has all but given up looking for work. Rather than spending time with his new baby boy, he usually runs through the hours of the day at a bar or a movie theater. When he and Emila got into a verbal sparring match a few weeks ago, he yelled, 'Work? You don't need me to work! We have a man in the house, and it's YOU! Whatever I do is never 'the right thing' anyway. So, I'm leaving our lives in your capable hands.' Emila was hurt and confused, and she still does not know how to rectify the situation. Now, it is nearly midnight. Her beautiful son, Ravel, is sleeping. The time to see him today has long past. As a tear falls from her left eye, she can only look at Ravel and say, 'Good night...I love you.'
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Las Vegas: 7:48PM
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Robert Maxwell became a millionaire for the fifty-first time this afternoon. Not that he's counting. That stopped after his assets hit more than thirty million dollars. Upon coming to Vegas a few years ago with a 23 year-old blonde draped around his neck, everything seemed to fall right into place. After years of of playing the stocks on Wall Street, a small investment in his ex-wife's former company paid off handsomely when the CEO decided to outsource the largest division to Brazil. As its labor costs were reduced by more than 70%, the company's stock price went through the roof. Robert, who had 'gotten in at the perfect time', cashed out his stock to a tune of $14.5 million. Since then, he has become richer with every investment made. He is right to live in Las Vegas. Whenever he rolls the dice, he always comes up a winner. To be perfectly correct, however, he used to always come up a winner. Although his fortune is still growing, his blonde bombshell girlfriend left him last week for a younger Latino man - who coincidentally made the same approximate amount of money by speculating in the New York real estate market. The Lower East Side made him rich. Robert, now 38, is alone now, and he is no longer the same cocksure man he was when he arrived. All this time on his hands has allowed him time to reflect upon his life. This is a kind of 'time' he never wanted. Looking out at 'The Strip' from his penthouse suite at the Cosmos Hotel, Robert is experiencing a new emotion - and it is nearly killing him. Regret. In a photo his left hand, he looks at his ex-wife holding his daughters. The picture is a year and a half old now. When he had the gaming tables, the blonde girlfriend and the novelty of millions, he completely dismissed his former family from his mind. As he sips from his fourth scotch of the night, he is now wondering if he should try to contact them again. What would his ex-wife say? Would she agree to meet him, or even allow him to see his kids? Robert Maxwell will not cry - not even in private. His father, who raised Robert as the son of a US Marine, made sure of that. Instead, Robert lets out a long sigh, looks at the picture again and whispers to his former family aloud, 'Good night...I love you.'
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J Roquen