Neville

    The wooden counter's slight bumps of wood grain showed up on his drawing.  As always.  He would throw the doodling away at the end of his shift.  As always.  There were few customers anymore, bookshops fell to the kindle.  He knew it.  He had plenty of money from his parents insurance, enough to live a few lifetimes, so he did what he wanted, sat in the mostly empty bookstore, reading and doodling.  Something about the smell of books had always comforted him, and the used books certainly picked up scents over the years.  The shop had a website that did a lot more business than the storefront.  He hired an employee on the profits, and paid her well to just do her own thing without bothering him.  Stella loved the arrangement, after being micromanaged by bosses over the years, and at least having to report all the time on her progress, keep her hours...  she was finally simply trusted, and left to do her job when it did not interfere with her life, instead of the other way around.   She had explained as much to Neville one day.   He nodded, fully understanding what she meant, after brief stints in the corporate world that had left him preferring poverty.

Above the door is a sign reads -- WE ARE NOT RICH BY WHAT WE POSSESS, BUT BY WHAT WE CAN DO WITHOUT.   He has been drawing the sign for the only God knows time, irritated by the grain showing through though caring too little about the problem to solve it.   Watches the man as he enters the shop, looking straight into Neville's eyes and smiling as he ignores all the merchandise and makes his way back to the counter.  'A salesman,' Neville thinks, not caring one way or the other.  Just registering the thought.  He opened the shop partially to force himself to have interaction with people, all sorts of people...  at least that was on his list of reasons, and was certainly an under utilized skilled in his life before the money.  BM as he called it, though the obviousness of the reference to 'bowel movement' bothered him a bit.

   "Neville?"
    "Yes, how are you doing?"   There were stools set up in front of the counter, and coffee was sold on the rarest of occasions, and then often to go.  He waved at them and the man nodded a thanks, set a small folder of papers on the counter,  sat down.
    "Always best to lie and say great.   I am here because there has been an offer on your building, and though we have not met, I am the lawyer your parents hired to deal with this, before their accident.  I am sure you have another by now.  So, here is the offer, paperwork, and  I guess the last bill for services rendered."
    'Well, you can bill me again... by telling them not for sale."
    "This is a consortium of sorts, uh... dealt with them before and they have enough power to get the city to force you out.  They want to use four blocks around here for the biggest mall in a thousand miles, a town rebuilder kind of project.  You should sell while the price is high.  It goes lower and lower after this."
     "Well, I can move..,  I suppose.  I just bought the building...  "   He picks up the folder, ruffles through until he finds what he has been offered, and realizes he just made over three hundred thousand.

She hates the idea of the Mall and has been on various committees to stop the construction, was connected with all the residents who were holding out.  He had no idea there was any controversy...  though he could remember her angrily coming into the shop, rather out of nowhere and asking him if he was selling his building and he replied 'God, no, never...' simply because it seemed to mean so much to her and he had just bought the place.   She will not believe him at first when he tells her that he did not know anything about this, avoided the newspapers and the news altogether because it had been a depressing stream of information he did not need all his life.

"You are dense enough to have missed this."   She thinks again how she wished he was better looking.  Her own appearance attracted sometimes irresistibly handsome men, and she enjoyed them.  Loved a few.   She was single at the moment, to a degree that those she saw were just in it for the sex, a married man, a couple married women... all with no desire to destroy their lives for a lover.  Her preference between lovers.  Serial monogamist, like most of her generation, unless she was dating a swinger.  She did not care which way she lived.  Up to her partner.  Neville, with his egg shaped head, small eyes behind his black, thick eyeglasses, little colorless lips, purely ordinary nose, just a bit bulbous on the bottom;  no neck to speak of, flabby, hair seldom combed -- he told her once he had given up on having a relationship and as such gave a shit how he looked.

The two never dated.  She quit the day he signed the papers to move.  He gave her the three hundred dollars as severance pay.  Told her he was sorry, but the lawyers said they had already lost, and there was no point in hitting their heads up against a brick wall.  He knew she did not want to take the money, but could not resist.   She used it to move to another town and started a business that he looked up on the internet.

He never opened another bookstore.   Of course he had been in love with her.  He had wanted her to love him as he was...  not as the fake people are sometimes for their whole lives, especially around their spouses.   He could see her occasionally falling for his personality, and even hoped that one day she would approach him.  He could not bring himself to even think about asking her a date, out of fear of what would happen after she said no, which he was almost certain she would.   And yes, she would have...  though one day she let herself look at his crotch long enough to reassure herself there was no silver cloud waiting down there.

He moved into a largish house on a huge farm, and began saving animals that were going to sent to slaughter, or being used for milk;   pigs, cats and dogs, whatever was about to die that he had room for, he brought them in.  Donations poured in and his employees grew to eighteen thousand, and he paid them twice what anyone else would, gave them incredible benefits.   He had enough money to live on without the place, so he kept the money pouring back in, mostly to the employees.   He bought their affection, and some thought he only kept the plant to have people around him who liked him.   He could not tell a joke, or even much of an anecdote, though he laughed easily, and was generous to a fault with all of them, on almost any manner.

He had no idea that his generosity would cause any stir, until the night three men in suits, drove up to his  house in cars with the plates removed, and told him he was paying his employees too much, forcing other companies in the area to compete with his wages. ..  and making the other unions look bad.   They threw in a threating tone that amused him.  Nothing really made him fearful, at least among the things that would a 'normalish' person.

'A union, none the less,' he thought to himself after they left.  He liked unions.  Supported all the strikers, despite their union, all he could, which turned out to be quite a bit of food.  His employees were in the union, though it had little to do at his planet, where  he basically gave them nearly twice what others on their union was being offered.

The  next day,  called in the head of the Union to his office.

"I had a visit from some people who claimed they were with the, maybe, national union.  They implied if I do not cut your wages...   I don't know, what these people imply.  Fuck them, by the way.  You know anything I should know about this?"
"Neville, I heard there was some bitching, people wanting what you gave us.  I don't know... the side of union that came here.   You know I got...  I don't even attend the meetings, unless it is for a strike vote somewhere.  And some have, you know..."
"They want to strike, we will provide them with food, money, whatever the hell."
"You know, coulda' been the owners, sending someone in... trying to make it look union."

"I run a rescue operation, that has grown into the largest in the world...  people try to give me plaques, not threaten me."


Neville's car's computer was hacked three days later, as he was doing sixty around a curve, sending him straight into a line of trees.  The impact did not quite kill him.   A man who had followed him from the plant saw he was alive, grabbed his head and twisted until vertebrae snapped, then left the scene.

Neville's plant was left to his employee's, each getting an equal share.  Many chose to quit working and live on their profits, some sold their stake to others.   The union officially voted the plant out, for a few years, then began to miss the dues.  The endowment he placed his other millions in would keep the rescue farm open for another fifty years, even without turning a profit.

Up until the day he died he doodled every day, and tossed them away...   the woman who cleaned his office the last time, pulled his last crumpled drawing out of the garbage and was the first to see one of his drawings since the bookstore.  A horse, badly drawn, running in one of the fields of the farm...  she held the paper to her face and cried, thinking of the kind man who had never forgotten her birthday.  And like so many woman in the past, she wished he had been good looking enough to turn her on, because, as many of them there did, they thought he would be a catch if he had different packaging.