fenses down against this crazy white man, but then I S 27
thought to myself,
R 28
3rd Pass Pages
ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 148
Walter Mosley
1
“But I could be dead,” he said. “Just like the man who 2
goes away to prison, I’m gone from the lives of my peers.
3
Anathema and death are the same thing. Most people 4
don’t want to go to prison or even to know about it. They 5
don’t want to go to the toilet with you or witness your 6
fear. No one wants to watch you starve or bleed or suffer 7
in any mortal way. We can’t help but to see ourselves in 8
one another, and what we want to see is beauty and life.”
9
“You don’t sound like a businessman, Mr. Bennet. You 10
sound more like a philosophy teacher.”
11
“I don’t teach,” he said. “But I’m not what you would 12
call a businessman either. I’m a specialist.”
13
“Yeah, yeah, I know, in reclamations.”
14
“That’s right.” He smiled. “But the word has a different 15
meaning than one might think.”
16
“Like what?”
17
“Suppose,” he said, “you knew that there were dia-18
monds in the ground somewhere in Montana. Dia-19
monds. Fabulous wealth. But worthless unless you could 20
retrieve them. As worthless as dirt.”
21
“Get a mining company going and dig,” I said.
22
“But you’re not quite sure where they’re located. You 23
have the knowledge to go looking, but you don’t know 24
who owns the land. Maybe it’s government land, maybe 25
an Indian reservation. Maybe some old communist has it.
26
You don’t know.”
27 S
“That’s why they have corporations,” I said. “You go 28 R
into business with somebody and take your share.”
3rd Pass Pages
ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 149
The Man in My Basement
