What do you need?

written by Hx, from Urbis
http://www.urbis.com/Hx

View story here:
http://www.urbis.com/media/view/57 219...



It started with a lie.

It was a white lie, a necessary lie. That's what Jamison called it, and as its author he should know.

He had the best of intentions, no one could deny that. He certainly couldn't have foreseen what was to happen. But as I lay here, looking for someone to blame -- other than the mob, other than myself -- I can't help thinking about Jamison, and his lie, and his goddamned good intentions.


It was a TV commercial, written and paid for by Jamison. The voice-over was his. The scrolling, synchronized text echoed his words. They asked, "What do you need?"

The commercial aired repeatedly on the only local station in Jamison's long-ago hometown, Lorain Ohio. Later, it appeared in abbreviated form in the newspaper, on billboards, on the sides of buses. What do you need? Jamison wanted to know; and if there was anyone who could give it to you, it was him.

He'd pulled himself out of Lorain's gutters decades ago. No mean feat, that; not because Lorain has any shortage of gutters -- it doesn't. What it lacks are ways out. Jamison found one, I don't know how. I'm convinced it wasn't nefarious. Jamison won't hesitate to tell white lies, necessary lies, but other than that he's honest to a fault. Jamison's wealth is honest, honorable wealth.

He left Lorain but never forgot it. Once he had the means, he was determined to help Lorain. He did that by asking Lorain, What do you need?

I was his helper, his sidekick, personal assistant, gopher, all-around-go-to-guy. Rich men have always had people like me. Jamison had six of us.

We all worked on his Lorain project in the beginning. Later he hired more, and a call-center in India to handle the flood. His factories and offices continued their work uninterrupted. They were wind-up machines anyway, carrying on under their own momentum. They didn't need Jamison, really, and they certainly didn't need me.

So the Lorain project became Jamison's full-time obsession, even as it became my full-time job. Mine, and many others'.


What do you need? What would make your life more livable? What would it take to help you feed your family, to get to work, to get ahead? Here's an address, Jamison said. Send us a letter and let us know. Here's a toll-free number, call us and tell us about it. Here's an email address. Jamison knew there wasn't much internet access in Lorain; poverty trumps technology. But here's an email address anyway.

The lie, the little white necessary one, came at the end when Jamison claimed this was part of a research project. Lorain believed that. There were always research projects, they swarmed around the poor like flies. But, Jamison promised, four respondents would be chosen at random each month, and the researchers would give those lucky few what they needed.

It wasn't like that at all, of course. Jamison wanted to help each one. He just wanted to do so anonymously, with little fanfare. With no more pomp than one would associate with, well, a research project.

So after the commercial aired and the signs went up, we started opening letters, and answering phone calls, and viewing a trickle, just a trickle, of emails.

We prioritized them, reviewed them around a committee-room table (Jamison sitting as chairman, of course), and we employed private-I's and cybersleuths to learn more. Those data-miners had done plenty of work like this -- rich men always hired them to troll records, to spy on whatever electronic traces modern existence leaves behind. They'd never done it in the cause of altruism though, and they loved it. We all loved it. We were helping people. We walked around with these grins that were unerasable.

Requests for cash were usually rejected outright. Jamison said he wanted to give a hand up, not a handout. He had a weakness for people asking for grocery money, though, and people behind on their rent and nearing eviction. The cybersleuths would confirm that, and he'd send off a check. A cashier's check, that is. Anonymous as always.

Medical requests received promptest attention. People who were out of medicine, got their medicine. People who needed to see a doctor had those arrangements made on their behalf.

School supplies for children; Jamison loved those. And many, many requests for shoes. Pleas for orthopedic shoes were answered first, and after that children's shoes. But sooner or later, everyone who asked for them got their shoes.

They arrived in neat cream-colored packages, no return address. The size of the packages varied of course, right down to a thin square envelope carrying nothing but a dentist's appointment card. But they all looked the same: neat and cream colored, with no return address.

He gave away few cars, although that was a frequent request. Jamison was a firm believer in public transportation. So he had the cybersleuths check: were they physically unable to ride a bus? Did they live more than a mile off the busline? If the answers were no then the request went unanswered. But on those rare occasions that a car was truly needed, then a car was given. It arrived at night, towed by the dealership and left stealthily in a driveway or housing-project parking lot. The keys arrived by mail though. In neat cream-colored envelopes, with no return address.

In the end we were answering nearly sixty percent of those requests. Sixty percent of Lorain was getting what it needed.


Here's what we didn't know: we were building a mythology. These were people who'd never known Santa Claus, who'd been forsaken by the Easter Bunny. There'd never been any gifts, not in their neighborhoods. So those cream-colored packages? Those were manna from heaven.

Word spread. How could it not? This was no research project, anyone could see that. What it was, they had no idea. But what they could see clearly that if you wrote a letter or made a phone call, or sent the kid down to the library to type on that funny email-box...if you told them simply and honestly what you needed (don't get greedy now, just tell 'em what you need), then you usually got it.

Elves, or rich white men. It made no difference. It was still manna from heaven.


My downfall was a letter about a dog. It was carefully scrawled, with those frequent misspelled words that we'd almost, but not quite, gotten used to.

Bessie was 79 years old, still lived in the home her husband had bought and cared for and died in. Bessie had no one in this world but a little schnauzer mutt named Tuffy. That was all right, Bessie said, because Tuffy was all she needed.

Tuffy got them seizures, though, and them seizures was getting worse. There's medicine, but it's costly.

These letters is supposed to be about what people needed, Bessie understood that. And she'd understand if the answer was no. But Bessie needed Tuffy, and Tuffy needed medicine. So maybe, if it wasn't asking too much....

Well of course the answer was yes. Of course Bessie and Tuffy would get what they needed. But that letter, out of all those thousands, got me in the gut. Bessie made me think of my grandma, and Tuffy made me think of my own little mutt, Chops. Grandma had loved Chops almost as much as she loved me, and when I came to visit Chops came along. And we'd romp in the rolling grass of grandma's back yard, and every now and then I'd look up to the house and see grandma watching through the window, smiling and delighted.

I read Bessie's letter and slipped into reverie, and relived for a few minutes at least, joyful childhood days with Chops nipping at my heels.

I resolved then to involve myself for once -- more directly, that is. A hands-on elf, that's what I'd be. Just this time.

Jamison had fled Lorain, but he hadn't fled far. Our offices were a mere 30 miles from Bessie's front door. I volunteered to deliver the package myself.

Jamison had no objection, as long as I kept up the stealth. That part was like a game to him now. So go ahead and deliver Tuffy's medicine, but creep up to the door, deposit it and leave. Don't let Bessie see you. God's angels are never detected, they deliver the manna by night.

I knew enough not to go at night, no matter what Jamison said. Bessie lived in a slum where I'd stick out like a chancre. I had no intention of letting the sun set on me there.

Her street was a mess, it was a horrible place. The houses were all clapboard and dirt, falling in on themselves. Yards were littered brown expanses.

Display of address-numbers wasn't a priority; this makes sense to me now but I wasn't expecting it then. I cruised slowly along, peering for numbers (already getting noticed and tagged as an outsider)...seeing an address, if I was lucky, every four or five houses.

And then I misread one. That's all. I saw one that I thought was Bessie's, so I parked my car by the curb and got out.

My mistake was obvious when I got a few steps closer, but quick mental calculation told me Bessie's house was close, just a bit further up the block.

I decided to walk.

I don't know when I realized I was being followed, but I know that after I did, almost immediately, I sensed my followers were multiplying, becoming a crowd.

I had enough time to be struck by the unreality of it all. This was no movie, I told myself. This was modern America, in broad daylight. Murmuring crowds don't appear out of dust, to follow after strangers just because they don't belong.

But I'd forgotten about the package tucked under my arm. The neat cream-colored one, with no return address. That's what the crowd had noticed as soon as I'd stepped into the open. And they'd recognized it as sure as Moses' starving desert wanderers had known manna when they saw it.

"Why didn't you drop it?" Jamison has asked me that more than once. And although I've never really answered him, I think the answer is obvious. It wouldn't have mattered if I dropped it. It was already too late.

They wanted the package, that was true. But they wanted me as well. Here was the myth finally made flesh. Here was an elf in person, within reach.

And everyone knows that if you see an elf, if you catch one, you should stick a knife in it to see if it's blood, or gold, that comes pouring out.

I tried to run. The nightmare I was in became instantly recognizable. This was the one where I tried to run, where I tried to escape the galloping things behind me, but my legs turned to rubber and the headwinds confounded me.

The elf ran away but he did so in slow motion and they caught him with ease. Like all the best stories this one ended with the treasure in hand.

I went down, a tangle of hands on my back bringing me to ground. I'd dropped the package at last and I caught glimpses of the crowd bifurcating, some of them grabbing for it, others grabbing for me.

I felt fists and kicks and those weren't so bad, not like the burning blade that slipped between my ribs. I rolled with the blows then closed my eyes and willed it all away.

It wasn't too terrible. I survived, obviously, and I'm told I'll recover fully. The media heard about me while I was still unconscious. They snooped and prodded and learned all they could about Jamison's Lorain project and they spoiled the secret. They shattered the myth.

Jamison pulled the plug on it, reluctantly. Doing so killed him a little inside, I think.

He's a junkie for giving now, and he's turned his eyes to me. He's a good boss and a kind man and he visits each day, sitting for hours beside my bed.

And he has the best of intentions, ever and always, and I shouldn't feel this way. But he's driving me mad, I can't hide that much longer. He's driving me mad with that same pleading offer, the one he makes every day.

"Just tell me what you need."

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