Parallel Parables - An Occasional Venture

October 19, 2008 by djackson.

Call it “The Parable of the Corrupt CEO.” Jesus tells it in Matthew 18.21-35.

Peter asked Jesus, “You’re big on this forgiveness business. I’m down with that. Still, be reasonable; there’s gotta be a limit. I need some way to keep score later on when I become pope. Whaddya say to seven times - good workable number with an intriguing theological background.” Jesus looked at him, secretly wondering if it wouldn’t, after all, have been easier to try trained rhesus monkeys.

“Let me tell you a story.”

Imagine they caught the guy responsible for the global financial crisis: one guy - Herb Schmaltzer, CEO of Heavens to Murgatroid National Trust. I mean, he’d lit the fuse on the whole thing! Turns out for years he’d been plundering a veritable cosmos of corporations, snorting up money like Robert Downey, Jr. in a cocaine-cutting factory. The President of the United States called him in. “What’s up with that?” the chief exec demanded.

“Sorry,” Herb responded.

“Sorry? Do you realize what you’ve done? It’s gonna run me a trillion just to get America out of this thing, and even at that it’ll probably only slow the hemorrhage. And it isn’t just us! You’ve tanked Europe and Asia too. Iceland’s talking about putting the whole country on Ebay.”

“Well, Iceland,” Herb shrugged, “I mean, c’mon.”

“Yeah, but what about Germany?” the President shot back. “Anyway, look - you’ve gotta fix this. Where’s the money? You’ll have to give it back.”

“Uh . . . I spent it.”

“Spent it?! How did you manage to spend that much money? We’re talking about enough money to bankrupt the entire global economy. Oprah doesn’t even have that much money. The net prayer-cloth income of all American televangelists combined wouldn’t put a dent in it. Spent it? How did you spend it?”

“Fritos. I really like Fritos. Oh, and Ding Dongs.”

The President continued to eye him.

“Well, there were a few million-dollar-a-pop staff retreats to a spa in the Caymans. Do you know what they charge for a deep tissue shiatsu? I tell you it’s a scandal. Now THAT’S what Congress should be investigating.”

“Look, I’m really, really sorry,” Herb continued as he unwrapped a cigar. He caught the President’s glance. “Oh. Want one? Cuban. Take two. Take sixteen or so.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” thundered the President. “Well, you’re about to get it. You’re going to be the poster boy for this whole fiasco, pal. We’re going to do an old-style Stalinist show-trial. I’m airing it live on all the cable news networks. I’m putting Judge Judy on the bench and taking away her hormone medication and I’m appointing Bill O’Reilly as prosecuting attorney! We’re reopening Alcatraz just for you and importing Asian hissing cockroaches to breed in your cell! Prisoners at Guantanamo will spend their daily prayer times just thanking Allah they aren’t you! We’re going to sentence you to one enema per dollar stolen, sentences to run consecutively, and the evicted homeowners are going to be taking turns holding the hose!”

For the first time, Herb showed signs of nervousness. He put the lit end of his Havana into his mouth. He wiped his forehead with his two thousand dollar tie. “No! No!” he blurted. “I can fix this, I swear.”

“What did you have in mind?” the President asked dryly.

“Well, I thought maybe I’d pay it back. Do you take Visa?” The President’s jaw dropped. “Oh, yeah. Okay, bad idea. How about this? I figure I’ll make it back on the stock market. If you could front me a couple of million, maybe twenty, I could put it into junk bonds and . . . .” His words died away as he looked at the President. “Mmm, no good either, huh? Well, how about this . . . .”

Suddenly the President began to laugh. He tried to fight it at first, but the corner of his mouth twitched, then he choked on a chortle, then it burst out in deep rolling belly guffaws. Tears burst from his eyes. He slapped his hands on his knees and drummed his feet on the floor. “Poor man,” thought Herb. “I’ve driven him over the edge. I wonder if I could lift his watch and wallet before he recovers? I could get a few bucks for that bling.”

Suddenly the president sat upright and stared at Herb, the gleam still in his eye. “I know what I’m going to do!” he bellowed. Herb braced for the blow. “I’m going to pardon you!” Herb’s eyes saucered. “That’s right,” the president continued, “a full and free presidential pardon. I’m a lame-duck anyway so I’ve got nothing to lose. Who knows, maybe this will become my legacy! That’s it, Herb - a full pardon, no hard feelings and we call the whole thing square.” He went off again into gales of laughter. In a minute he managed to stagger over to the intercom and summon an assistant. Helpless with giggles, the president pointed to Herb and gasped out, “This guy - pardon - paperwork - right away.” When the assistant figured out what was going on, he began to laugh, too. He ran from the Oval Office holding his pocket handkerchief before his streaming eyes. In fifteen minutes Herb left the White House, the ink of the President’s signature still wet on the dotted line of his pardon. Behind him the entire building seemed to resonate in maniacal laughter.

Herb signalled for his limo and sank into the leather seat. He barked a direction to his driver, then repeated it, grumbling about how these people should be required to take a basic English proficiency exam before entering the country illegally. The stretch prowled the Beltway before nosing down the narrow streets of a wasteland of tenements. Herb consulted his Blackberry for the address and barked it to the chauffeur. In a minute he saw a small man in ragged clothes whipping along the sidewalk on a bicycle. The man peddled furiously, a messenger bag flung from his shoulder. Herb instructed the driver to pull to the curb, then jerked his door open so that the bike and its rider slammed into it. The small man tumbled over the handlebars and thudded in a heap on the sidewalk. Before he could recover, Herb was on him.

“Hey, Enrico. Where you going in such a hurry?”

“Oh, Señor Schmaltz,” the man stuttered. “I . . . I’m working. As a messenger!” He flailed for the bag and thrust it up as evidence. “I’m making plenty of money. I’ll be caught up on the rent in no time.”

“‘No time,’ Enrico,” Schmaltz spat, “is exactly what you got. I’ve waited long enough. You’re two months behind on the rent and I can’t put up with deadbeats. So unless you got two grand in that bag, we’re done negotiating.” Enrico begged for Schmaltz to have patience but the landlord remained implacable. He jerked the little messenger to his feet and dragged him into a nearby pawn shop where he hocked the bike and pocketed the cash. Then he frog-marched Enrico down to INS where he ratted him out as an illegal alien along with his wife and six children, accepting a sawbuck per head under the table from a pal who was trying to meet quota.

Later that night he sat in his club regailing the boys with the story over a round of highballs. “Not bad!” he crowed. “A five-spot for the bike and a Jackson each for the undocumenteds - cleared two yards and had that pigstye rented again before nightfall, first and last cash-in-advance.” Somehow, it seemed to him the rest of the guys didn’t laugh as loud as they should have.

Turns out they’d had enough. Even a Wall Street CEO has a gag reflex if you get a dig enough finger far enough down his throat. They put in a call to the President (most of them had him on speed dial) and filled him in on the details. He summoned Herb back for a conference. Herb’s breezy manner evaporated when he saw a bunch of media trucks out front. He felt even worse when he noticed that the guy who opened the door for him was Enrico.

“I pardoned you for a debt that would have staggered Tammy Fay Bakker on a spending spree, and you couldn’t offer rent control to a hard-working immigrant?” he hollered as the cameras rolled. “Tell you what we’re gonna do, Herb. We’re flying you all over the country to a series of homeowners association meetings and you’re gonna explain to every one of ‘em how you intend to pay back their mortgages.”

Herb gulped. “But what if they don’t like my plan?”

The President smiled. “then maybe they’ll have a few plans of their own.”

“Now,” Jesus concluded as Peter muttered something to Andrew about being sorry he’d asked. “You’re Herb. Whose your Enrico?”

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