Poor Little Rich Boy

Just before Christmas The Activist and I paused outside of a bookstore located on The Plaza in Kansas City. As we stood taking in the swelling crowds rushing to purchase over-priced presents in the ridiculously faux-ritzy Plaza at stores like Armani Exchange and FAO Schwartz where men stand pinching fabric between their fingers and frowning and women delight over ridiculously useless cutting-edge gadgets I took notice of one man in particular. He was wearing an all black outfit topped with glints of metal and leather. He was pacing the area in front of the bookstore talking on a fancy cellular phone.

I guessed that the sum total of things he was wearing or carrying on his person was somewhere in the range of $2000-$3000 and my disdain for this young, pompus rich man deepened the more I watched him. I say he was pompus because he had the air of owning the sidewalk. The way he paced unaware of the flow of traffic, expecting others to adjust, and the way he talked, loudly, not caring who overheard.

"You are staring." Chimed The Activist from the side of her mouth.
"I know." I say, "It is a new thing. I stare now."

As he paced he shifted his supple leather bag to his other shoulder and threw his full-length wool coat over the bag. He placed his sleek little phone back to his ear and said, "I mean I have never even MET my neice. She is three. They haven't come to Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years in the past two years. So, I sit there and talk to no one and no one talks to me."

Boohoo, poor little rich boy.

"So I got them all little things. Even the maid. But I am not going to visit this year."

Imagine the sad tear running down my face.

"I mean they told me not to bring my boyfriend. I haven't even told them he is Asian. Can you imagine my family eating with two gays, one of them Asian?"

He set his bag down.

"Could you be a little less obvious?" asked The Activist.

Fifteen feet away on the same curb a man played a horn. He was spouting out Christmas joy. I had the distinct impression he was there more for the playing than the tips. He was dressed up in a nice outfit, though it paled next to the poor little gay rich boy's.

The rich boy caught a private cab. We went in the book store. When we came back out the musician placed his horn in a richly lined box. The street, reclaimed by the bored, wealthy, heteronormative capitalists kept on being as faux-snooty as ever.