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he is as the rich. He is their servant, their confidant, their messenger. He is everything anybody rich wants him to be.
    But he wonders sometimes if maybe the rich look down on him. He wonders sometimes if maybe the rich think that just possibly they’re a little bit
better
than him. The rich are always going to dinner parties and sneak previews. The rich have daughters at Princeton and sons in L.A. He knows the rich have swimming pools and security systems. He wonders what the rich would do if he and Velma knocked on their door onenight. Would the rich let them in? Would they open the door wide and invite them in for crab? Or would they sic a slobbering Doberman on them? The rich are unpredictable.
    The rich do not compare prices in the grocery stores or cut out coupons. The rich are rich enough to afford someone to do this for them, who, by working for the rich, does not feel at all compelled to check prices. No, the rich have their groceries bought for them by persons whose instructions do not include checking prices.
    Mr. Pellisher, poor, lives with the constant thought that leg quarters at forty-nine cents per pound are cheaper than whole chickens at seventy-nine cents per pound, and even though he does not like dark meat, Mr. Pellisher must eat dark meat because he is not like the rich. That is to say that he is not rich. He figures the rich eat only breasts and pulley bones. The rich do not know the price of a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. The rich have no use for such knowledge.
    How great Mr. Pellisher thinks this must be, to live in a world so high above the everyday human struggles of the race. The rich, for instance, never have to install spark plugs. The rich have never been stranded on the side of the road. The rich have never driven a wheezing ’71 Ford Fairlane with a vibrating universal joint. Or put on brake shoes, tried to set points, suffered a burst radiator hose. They have never moaned and cursed on gravel flat on their collective rich backs with large rocks digging into their skin as they twisted greasy bolts into a greasy starter. The rich have it so easy.
    The rich are saying something now. The rich are going onvacation again. South of France? Wales? The rich have no conception of money. They have never bought a television or stereo on credit. They owe nothing to Sears. Their debutante daughters’ braces were paid for with cash. The rich have unlimited credit which they do not need. In addition, the rich have never dug up septic tanks and seen with their own eyes the horrors contained there.
    It appears that the rich are meeting other rich in June at Naples. From there they will fly to Angola. The ducks will darken the sky in late evening. The rich will doubtless shoot them with gold-plated Winchesters. The rich have never fired a Savage single-shot. The rich will go on to Ridder Creek in Alaska, where the salmon turn the water blood-red with their bodies. The rich have never seined minnows to impale upon hooks for pond bass. The rich do not camp out. The rich have never been inside a mobile home.
    Mr. Pellisher has dreams of being rich. He plays Super Bingo at Kroger’s. He goes inside and makes the minimum purchase twice a week, and gets the tickets. Each one could be the one. This is not the only thing he does. He also buys sweepstakes tickets and enters publishers’ clearing house contests. But he never orders the magazines from the publishers. He does not affix the stamps. He has an uneasy feeling that the coupons from people who do not buy the magazines wind up at the bottom of the drawing barrel, but he has no way to prove this. He has no basis for this fear. It is unreasonable for him to think this. It is a phobia that has not yet been named.
    The rich wish to have their matters taken care of immediately.They have their priorities in order. The rich have mixed-doubles sets to play. The rich have eighteen holes at two o’clock. Mr. Pellisher has taken to