Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay
“Y'all, how does Lofton County keep doing this – Grayson is six and he is outbuilding grown folks!”
Days-short-of-18-years-old Vanna Trent was shocked just overhearing the story that her cousin Tom Stepforth III had passed on to the Lofton County Free Voice after seeing that their six-year-old neighbor Grayson had not only modeled what had gone wrong – with Legos, mind you – at the Skyscraper Garage but modeled how it should have been built.
“With Legos, mind you!” she said.
“Well, Grayson's big brother Andrew is ten and he was totally right,” Vanna's 21-year-old big brother Melvin said. “Gotta find out who built it, how much they were paid, and where they hid most of the money they were supposed to use on the project.”
Tom, Vanna, and Melvin's grandfather, Thomas Stepforth Sr., sighed.
“All of you are right within your lights,” he said, “but I'm 66, and I can tell you why Grayson is eleven times younger than me and can do just about anything better than most adults. For him, the profit is in doing it right.”
“This is true,” Melvin said. “That's why I make fewer but better beats than my competitors.”
“Sometimes, it is not possible to understand a movie completely until you understand the director of the movie and what he or she believes about life itself. Communication is a subtle thing except when not, and in the case of Lofton County, there is nothing subtle left. When kids 6, 10, and 16 can figure out you are messing up, what the directors of infrastructure in Lofton County are communicating: they do not care if people die as long as they can give contracts to who they want – they think money should remain in their network and they do not care that their network is not doing a great job.”
“So, you're going to fix this, right? Vanna said.
“Not unless asked – who do you think this country tries its best to exclude, even though things our ancestors are built while enslaved are still standing strong?” Mr. Stepforth said. “One thing you have to learn: sometimes you have to let people have what they think they want until they don't want it any more, and then you call the tune on the cleanup. Guess who I learned that from, the hard way?”
“Who?” Melvin and Vanna said.
“Your grandmother,” he said. “I thought I wanted to chase that second and third billion and not work as hard with her and our children. She divorced me and let me have what I thought I wanted until I didn't want it any more and instead wanted her and our family. But see, your grandmother never stopped loving me. There's not that much margin in the cold world.”
“But there shouldn't be,” Melvin said. “Folks are out here building death traps and not caring!”
“Yes, indeed, my grandson, and they are going to keep doing it until they get enough of it – which is going to come sooner than some of these people think."