One of the 1%

I wonder if they know how it feels, those knife-eyes on the street, the picket-sign waves of the 99%, outside my office. I wonder if they have lived my rather yacht-less, mediocre 1-bedroom apartment life. My suit tailored with bleeding, pricked hands in the middle of the night in my kitchen, next to the drip-dripping of a faucet that our landlord has promised us to be fixed but still isn't, smashed dishes strewn across the ground from a fight that left me here alone with our son, barely asleep in the next room.

I wonder if they see through me, entering the workplace in the morning in my grandfather's old jacket and changing, ashamed, in the bathroom before I begin my day on the floor. I wonder if any of the wandering subway-sitters notice me and think anything of this seemingly scruffy man getting on at the Wall Street station.

The beggars on the train plead with tears in their eyes that I spilled on the floor of the hospital, hands shakily taking the scan from the light box of my son's small body.

Leukemia, they told us it was.

Since that day, my life began to be defined by sterile white walls and the sickly smell of too-clean fluids. A new page wiped clean of joy with rubbing alcohol which only stung our eyes and hearts. The insurance company wouldn't give us anything after they learned about the condition, and then of course She left in grief.

So I look at these picketers and bitter folk, and question What was I to do? 

I bluffed my way to the trading floor with only medical fees in mind, yet they continue to make me feel guilty for the riches I have apparently stolen from them, for the weekends I do not spend holidaying away from my son's bed, for the checks I hand off solemnly and dutifully to the white-coats; they continue to spit at my ugly faux-leather shoes and scream injustice as if my life were better than theirs.

I wonder if they know what it's like, seeing their angry faces and feeling shame and embarrassment for my profession, the only thing that will put food on the table and keep my son alive. I wonder if they would trade places with me if they did.

On days where I feel soulless, I am probably twice as bitter as any of them -- and it is not because of greed.