One Day as a Rich Man

I was sixty-six years old the day the man from Hollywood called to tell me I had become a genius. I was in my slippers, inconveniently attached to my house by nostalgia and a broken screen door, and I had exactly twelve dollars and nineteen cents in my checking account, a fact I had memorized so I could recite it to myself during moments of optimism. The phone rang like a church bell with hay fever. I let it ring twice to appear un-needy, then I answered and said hello with the brave tone a man uses when he doesn’t yet know if he is owed money or called to judgment.

“Is this Mr. Harlan P. Blodgett, author of The Card Catalog of Doom?” said a voice so smooth it could’ve been butter with a marketing degree.

“It is,” I said, because for once it was.

“Mr. Blodgett, I represent Titan Colossus Paramount CineMaxima. We would like to secure the film rights to your novel for ten million dollars.”

I set the phone on my kitchen table as one gently sets down a pail with a live wasp in it. I walked to the sink. I looked out the window at my neighbor, Herb, who was in his yard wearing a hat knitted to resemble a trout, as if he were trying to coax lightning to pick him by looking delicious. Then I went back to the phone and said, “Could you repeat that number? I am elderly and my ears sometimes round up.”

“Ten. Million. Dollars,” the man enunciated, as if he suspected I might accidentally agree to a ham sandwich.

“Do you also handle sandwiches?” I asked, strictly for information.

He laughed. “We’ll email the paperwork.”

It took him twelve minutes to email the paperwork, during which I walked a small figure-eight in the kitchen that deepened with each loop until I had bored a rut into the linoleum you could roll marbles through. I signed everything electronically, an act that convinced me the future had arrived while I was looking for my reading glasses. By suppertime I was rich. By breakfast I was wealthy. By lunch I had googled “silly ways to spend a fortune” and taken notes.

I always suspected I’d be rich in my old age, the way a boy suspects he’ll wrestle a bear someday and come away with a scar that tells time. I had written The Card Catalog of Doom between naps, during that period of retirement when your life becomes an unpinned map and you are the thumbtack, wandering the corkboard looking for purchase. The book was about a librarian who discovers the universe filed under “U” and decides to re-shelve it alphabetically. Apparently that rang a bell in California that was attached to a vault.

For my first purchase, I bought a gold-plated doorbell that plays the overture to The Barber of Seville at a volume sufficient to notify aircraft. The man who installed it had a tattoo of a door on his forearm—none of my business, but it suggested commitment to his craft. I pressed the button and the house performed its opera. I laughed and cried together like a man who has just encountered his future and it brought sheet music.

Within a week I was a patron of several arts and one science no one asked for. I bought a jet-powered mobility scooter called “The Silver Comet” that can do thirty-two miles per hour and corners with the moral certainty of a tax auditor. I purchased a refrigerator that texts haikus about leftovers (“Cold lasagna waits / in pans like patient moonlight / destiny reheats”). I hired a personal fitness coach named Zane, whose muscles had muscles, then paid him double to stop showing up so I could pursue my true regimen: brisk ambling powered by donut holes and curiosity.

I found a retired astronaut in Ohio who would take me to the edge of space so I could wink at the stratosphere and call it “kid.” The rocket resembled a thermos that had joined the Marines, and the pilot, a woman named Captain Morales, had the calm cheerfulness of someone who has repeatedly told Death to check back next week. We went up on a Tuesday afternoon because that felt like the day of the week most in need of correction. We climbed until the sky went from blue to “are you sure,” and the Earth curved like a shy smile. I tapped the window and told the planet not to worry; I’d be right back. I came home with an official certificate that said I had gone to “the vicinity of space,” which is like saying you went to Paris and waved at a croissant from across the street, but it was still very good.

After that I bought a dirigible. Not a big one—just enough to shade a church picnic and confuse the clergy. I named her Lullaby of Gravity and took short floats over the county fair, where I dropped coupons for free lemonade and one autographed copy of my book, which I wrote to myself and then mailed home because I am a completist.

My spending developed a style. I did not want real estate, yachts, or jewelry. I wanted items that would make a reasonable man say, “I have questions.” For instance: I bought a set of seven animatronic butlers, each programmed with a different personality. Clarence was British and apologetic; Dusty was from West Texas and called me “Cap’n” and told the weather the way a cowpoke might, with sky stories; Gwendolyn was technically a robotic butleress who could fold a fitted sheet in a manner that ought to be taught in seminaries. They rolled around like Roombas with neckties, delivering fresh-baked scones and unsolicited life advice. The cat, Mabel, rode them like parade floats and stared down on me as if I were a small government in need of oversight.

I funded a local youth orchestra’s tour to Bismarck because the conductor and I agreed that children should see North Dakota while still believing in miracles. I also purchased a minor-league baseball team for one glorious afternoon by sponsoring them so aggressively they let me rename the franchise. The Cedar Rapids Steamers became, for a doubleheader, the Cedar Rapids Feral Librarians. I threw the first pitch with a catcher’s mitt I had bedazzled myself and promptly arrested the trajectory for crimes against physics. We lost both games but I felt we had won something intangible, like clarity.

My neighbor Herb, who had kept me humble for years by existing loudly, did not know what to make of me. He stood in my driveway leaning on a shovel he never used, wearing shirts that made medical professionals worry about his circulation, and he asked me why I needed a drone that delivered empanadas. I said, “Herb, need is a younger man’s verb.” He spit thoughtfully and said, “Seems like the drones should bring chili dogs.” I told him I’d look into a mixed menu. He nodded like a man who had just negotiated peace.

One afternoon I paid a company to theme my life for a week. They assigned a soundtrack that followed me discreetly via portable speakers disguised as potted ferns. Whenever I walked into a room, a brass band swelled as though I were announcing a treaty. When I ate soup, a string quartet played something minimal and brothy. If I napped, a harpist appeared, tiptoed, and twanged lullabies of such tenderness I suspected the angels had hired a PR firm. On the fifth day, they brought in a barbershop quartet to narrate my errands. Listening to four men rhyme “prescriptions” with “derelictions” will change a fellow.

I took classes. I learned glassblowing until I realized I was manufacturing vases better suited for storing regret than flowers. I studied falconry, but the falcon and I agreed to remain acquaintances due to incompatible notions of who was “in charge.” I learned yodeling at an Alpine training camp in Idaho, which is like memorizing French recipes in a roller rink. I yodeled at dawn, a sound like two ghosts arguing in a bottle, and the mountains yodeled back in a voice that said, We are older than your decisions. I purchased a yodeling license anyway and wore it on a lanyard. People respected it in the way people respect thunder—politely, from indoors.

I chartered a ship to go in search of very small whales, because everyone chases the big ones and I root for the junior varsity. We spotted creatures the captain called “enthusiastic minnows,” but I knew whales when I saw them, even if they were no larger than an ottoman. I christened one Percival by the authority vested in me by nobody and sent him blessings in the form of gentle applause. I felt I had done right by the ocean.

You will want to know about the gadgets, because a fortune is only as foolish as the machinery it accumulates. I bought a smart mirror that complimented my posture even when I slouched like a question mark on vacation. I bought a toaster that launched bread high enough to alarm crows. I bought a watch that told time on six continents even when I was only using one. I purchased a pair of self-lacing shoes that laced themselves into swamp knots and refused my counsel. I commissioned a company to build me a closet that sorted my shirts by mood—jaunty, repentant, barbecue-ready—and then I wore the same three items anyway because the human condition is mighty and consistent.

I acquired a bathrobe woven from a fabric so soft it made clouds feel abrasive. I bought a coffee maker that used AI to predict my confessions and produced beverages accordingly. On days it believed I had behaved, it brewed espresso. On days it suspected mischief, it brewed chamomile and told me to sit down and think. I bought a 3D printer and used it almost exclusively to print miniature versions of myself which I left on park benches like patron saints of being lost on purpose. People would find them and send photos to the local newspaper with captions like “Mystery Grandpa Returns” and “Tiny Harlan Achieves Enlightenment Near Pigeons.”

Obviously there were excursions in the traditional sense. I went to a spa in Iceland and floated in mineral water the color of advice. I visited a cheese cave in Wisconsin and named a cheddar wheel Norbert, then paid to have it aged in my honor, which meant very little to Norbert but everything to me. I took a train across Canada in a private car with a balcony, where I waved at moose as if we were old lovers who mutually agreed to keep it platonic. I attended a conference for motivational speakers where they tried to motivate me and I paid extra to be allowed to nap. I went to a billionaire’s survival bunker showroom—an underground mall of apocalypse optimism—and bought a modest unit with a library, pantry, and quilting circle, because I believe the end of the world should be nicely stitched.

At times my spending attracted what my mother called “the wrong sort.” You can tell the wrong sort because they begin sentences by complimenting your shoes and end them by asking for three hundred fifty thousand dollars to fund a mobile app that turns sighs into confetti. I said no to them in poetic stanzas, in interpretive dance, and once by juggling oranges until they left. I did not always say no to the right sort, because generosity is a muscle and mine had recently discovered protein.

I helped rebuild the town playground and demanded, as payment, the right to name the slide. It is now officially The Velocity Enthusiast. I endowed a scholarship for left-handed welders because I want bridges to be built by everyone. I paid off five mortgages chosen via a lottery held during the Harvest Festival, where I dressed as a pragmatic scarecrow and posed for photographs with babies who respected my straw authority.

Did I make mistakes? I have a small crate labeled “Errors,” so yes. Once I tried to purchase a baby elephant from a man who turned out to be four men in a trench coat. Another time I sponsored a startup that promised to deliver soup by trebuchet, which sounded elegant but proved unpopular with windows. I bought an NFT of my own grocery list, which in hindsight is difficult to explain to anyone born before the Truman administration, including myself.

My family intervened with love and receipts. My daughter Lila, an accountant who balances ledgers with the devout attention others reserve for the Psalms, arranged a meeting in my living room. She brought pie to soften me up and the sort of spreadsheet that could humble a bishop. “Dad,” she said, “we just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am more than okay,” I said. “I am an elderberry on the vine of possibility.”

“That’s not…a recognized financial category,” she said gently.

My son Walt, who sells insurance to people who fear the future will be punctual, nodded at my animatronic butlers arrayed at the back of the room like a jury. “Which one is your favorite?” he asked, perhaps thinking a favorite could be liquidated into a college fund for his twins, whom I adore and already plan to teach the sacred art of napping.

“Dusty,” I said, as Dusty rolled forward and tipped his hat. “He knows when it’s going to hail.”

Dusty said, “Cap’n, there’s a seventy percent chance of localized thunder around your wallet.”

We negotiated. I allowed Lila to create a bucket called Stability, into which we poured money that would remain unspent unless the moon fell or I decided to raise alpacas. I promised Walt that if any of the gadgets began to reproduce, I would call him first. In return, they promised to let me continue living like an exclamation point in comfortable socks.

For a while I thought I might write another book. The problem was, happiness makes for bad chapters. Twain himself, bless his whiskered memory, understood that a man satisfied is as narratively useful as an egg with no plan. So I tinkered and I traveled and I devoted myself to the kind of silliness that is also wisdom if you squint: the wisdom of seeing the day as a sandwich—two slices of sleep with a glorious, messy center that drips onto your shirt and makes you presentable to the universe.

I took up ballroom dancing at a studio with a disco ball that looked like the moon on a prom date. My partner was a widow named June who owned more turquoise jewelry than the state of Arizona and laughed like a cowbell in a windstorm. We foxtrotted until we ran out of fox. She told me I moved like an argument that always won. I bought her a pair of shoes that claimed to be both orthopedic and seditious. She bought me a hat so wide lizards could shelter under it. We were not in love, not in the cinematic sense, but we had a fondness that made room for soup.

One night, feeling both brave and senseless, I rented an entire movie theater and screened the 1958 documentary Bees and Their Opinions, a film no one requested and everyone needed. I invited the whole town. Forty-two people came, including Herb, who wore a jacket with flames on the sleeves as if his arms were trying to escape. Afterward, we discussed bees. A teenager named Paisley asked if money had made me happier. I told her money is like a megaphone: if you whisper nonsense into it, you get loud nonsense; if you whisper kindness, you may startle heaven into nodding.

With the honey of that remark still flavoring my tongue, I made my largest purchase: I bought time. Not more of it—no one sells that, not even in the deluxe catalog at the back of the universe—but better of it. I hired a chef twice a week so I could stop burning omelets into hieroglyphs. I found a housekeeper who loved clutter the way a detective loves alibis; she freed surfaces I had not seen since the late 90s. I arranged for a bus to take the elders at my church on monthly excursions to museums, botanical gardens, minor-league games, and once to a llama farm where the llamas spit with such frankness you almost admired their editorial standards.

On the first anniversary of the phone call, I woke to rain. The house smelled like cinnamon because the smart toaster had learned my moods and baked bread proactively for the sake of the narrative. I stepped onto the porch with a mug of coffee wearing a bathrobe that could rehabilitate a villain. The world was damp and fresh and my bank account was still sufficiently unbelievable.

Herb ambled over in galoshes the size of policy decisions. He looked at my dirigible floating above the garage like a complacent cumulus. “You keeping that?”

“You can borrow it if you promise not to land in the Kroger parking lot this time,” I said.

He nodded, which in Herb’s language is a sonnet. We watched the rain. The street ran like a short river with poor direction.

After a while Herb said, “You gonna write another one?”

“Another what?” I said, because sometimes I perform the fool to see what wisdom will volunteer itself.

“Book,” he said. “You know. The thing that started the parade.”

I considered the parade. The gadgets. The adventures. The money that had not bought me youth, which I didn’t want, or immortality, which I do not trust. It had purchased a louder version of my own foolish heart and a longer table at which to feed people soup. It had bought time, and time had bought gratitude.

“I might,” I said. “But it seems to me a man only gets so many firsts, and I already had the best one.”

“The best what?” he asked.

“Astonishment,” I said. “I recommend it.”

That afternoon, June and I went to the lake with sandwiches packed by the robot butlers—Clarence did cucumbers with discipline; Gwendolyn made deviled eggs that could launch a mayoral campaign. We sat on a blanket designed by an architect, which is to say it believed in itself. Children threw bread at ducks with such gusto the bread considered forming a union. In the distance, my dirigible bobbed and my minor-league team hat flapped in a pine tree where I had left it during a moment of enthusiasm.

June asked what I’d do tomorrow. “Something inadvisable,” I said. “But politely.”

That night I lay in bed and listened to the rain conversing with the gutters. The smart mirror in the bathroom tried to whisper compliments from down the hall, and I told it to hush because sometimes a man requires silence as a witness. I thought about Lila’s spreadsheets and Walt’s insurance and Dusty’s weather warnings. I thought about the orchestra kids seeing Bismarck, and the tiny whales, and Norbert aging in darkness toward a destiny of sandwiches. I thought about money and all the performances it buys tickets to, many of them silly, some of them sacred.

I slept the sleep of a man who has misbehaved responsibly.

In the morning, the doorbell performed Rossini and I went to the door wearing my robe and my dignity. A package waited on the mat. It was from the studio. Inside, a letter informed me the movie was officially green-lit. They had cast the librarian. They were changing the title to Library Ninja, which made me briefly consider un-inventing cinema, but then I laughed until my ribs petitioned for back pay.

Under the letter was a prop: a little brass plaque to be affixed to a library shelf, engraved with:

BLodgett Collection

In Honor of Astonishment

They had mis-capitalized my name. I kept it that way. A life of perfect spelling is not a life I trust.

I went to the kitchen. The coffee machine brewed me courage. The toaster wrote me a haiku:

Old man buys the sky;

gold coins laugh like gulls above

soup for everyone.

I taped the plaque to the wall by the back door and stepped into the day. Mabel the cat rode past me on Dusty the butler like Cleopatra on a four-wheeled throne. Herb texted to ask if he could borrow the dirigible to retrieve his hat from the pine tree. I said yes with the sort of yes a rich man finally learns—simple, immediate, no invoice.

I had not spent all the money, not by a long shot. There are only so many elephants in trench coats you can buy, and the cost of dirigible helium is surprisingly reasonable if you join the club. But I had spent enough to become the sort of elder I wanted to be: extravagant in joy, reckless in mercy, solvent in curiosity. If you want to know the moral, here it is, written on the bottom of the Silver Comet in small, polite letters: When you are lucky enough to be foolish, be foolish in the direction of other people.

I put on my hat—the one not in the tree—and stepped out into the severity of sunlight. The band-in-a-fern struck up a tune. Somewhere a brass plaque gleamed in a half-ironic tribute to my poor capitalization. I ambled toward the day, ready to purchase whatever astonishment was on special, and, failing that, a good sandwich for anybody who happened by and looked like they needed a delicious reason to believe we were all part of a very practical miracle.