Flat Broke (3 page)

Nods.

“A full house, which is three of a kind and a pair, beats a flush.” They’d started taking notes.

“Four of a kind beats a full house,” I continued.

“And five of a kind beats that!” Tommy beamed.

“You can’t have five of a kind; four is the max. But I like the way you’re thinking, Tom. A straight flush, which is cards in numerical order in the same suit, beats four of a kind. And a royal flush, which is the five highest cards in a suit—the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten—beats everything.”

The good thing was that they weren’t embarrassed that they didn’t know anything about playing cards.

I helped them play for a few hands (“Stop dealing after everyone has five cards, Goob”) and then walked out to the front steps of the dorm to reflect on my first day as a genuine, moneymaking businessman.

The first three games had trucked along, and I already had a pretty good wad of cash in my pocket. The next step was going to be figuring out a discreet way to let Tina know I was fast on my way to becoming a mogul. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl who’d be impressed by money, but I thought she’d be interested in any guy who worked as hard as I did.

I had told my mom I was working—vague, but no lie—so I’d missed dinner while I was getting the first three games off the ground. But sacrifice, I had read, is part of any success. I headed home to see if there were any bananas and chocolate chips left. A celebration dinner.

3

The Successful Person Is a Creative Thinker

I
knew the poker games would be good for some steady cash. And I thought: If the poker games were that easy to set up, I should come up with other ideas. Because now that I had a taste for making money, I—well, I had a taste for making money.

I’m not a jock like JonPaul and Daniel the hockey prodigy, I don’t fart rainbows like my parents seem to think Sarah does, and other than the lying thing, I’m pretty low-maintenance. I think it’s easy to overlook a guy like me; I could be taken for granted. Being self-sufficient doesn’t really call attention to itself.

I get along with my dad, but we don’t have a lot in common. And actually, I have never truly figured out what my dad does for a living. I know he’s the vice president of long-range strategic planning for an investment firm, but I don’t really know what that means. He tried to explain once, but when he threw out the term
theoretical precepts,
he lost me.

But maybe we did have something in common: we were both businessmen.

It was starting to look like this moneymaking talent was my special skill. Something that would make everyone, especially Tina, realize how unique I really am. And it would give me a lot of interesting things to say to people, like Dad. Let’s face it, summarizing your day in the eighth grade doesn’t make for the best conversation (“I stared at Tina. All day. It made me sweat in funny places”). But talking about my business strategy—well, who wouldn’t want to hear about that?

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made to throw everything I had into making as much money as I could while I was still in middle school.

I wasn’t a dopey kid anymore; it was time to get serious about my future. A whatchamacallit, a financial empire, was not out of the question if I worked hard enough.

I looked up from the notes I was jotting at my desk at corporate HQ.

Technically, HQ was an unused storage closet at the back of Auntie Buzz’s office. I needed a real office if I was truly going to be someone important. I sat a little taller in the chair behind the three-legged desk I’d rescued from the Dumpster in the alley and propped up with sample books of curtain fabric. The file folders in front of me were empty, but I labeled them anyway—
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE, CLIENT DATABASE, PENDING TRANSACTIONS.

I straightened a photo of my house that I’d put in a frame and set on my desk. I’d read that the best leaders never forget where they came from. My modest beginnings. That was how I’d refer to my childhood home during interviews someday.

Okay.

Brainstorming. How a fourteen-year-old guy like myself could make more money.

Quick money.

Big money.

Constant money.

I started by listing all the usual ways: babysitting, yard work, a lemonade stand, car washes.

I used to do okay Markie-sitting, but other than him, I don’t really know many little kids. He’s my next-door neighbor, so I started babysitting him, but in general I’m not that interested in little kids. Markie’s more like a little brother or a little me than a kid, anyhow.

The book about the guy with the lawn service was a downer, because I was already doing yard work for my parents. For free. Part of the If You Lie, Bad Things Will Happen program at the Spencer homestead.

The lemonade stand had potential, but only if I did something to make the idea more special, more me-like. I put an asterisk next to that one for further study.

Car wash? Nope. The high school cheerleading squads had the corner on that market. There was no way I could compete with teenage girls in shorts and swinging ponytails.

Ponder, ponder, ponder.

I’d always thought I’d be good at creating television shows. I had dozens of ideas for game shows, reality programming, sitcoms, hourlong dramas, documentaries, talk shows. I could fill a week’s worth of airtime with all my great ideas.

But my parents are always going on about TV sucking the life out of a person’s mind and depriving that person of IQ points, and I didn’t want to start out my career disappointing my folks. Plenty of time for that later. When they can no longer ground me or take away my allowance.

Think: What does a fourteen-year-old want?

Pictures of girls in bikinis. Mini-bikinis. Skin.

If the fourteen-year-old is a male.

I wondered how hard it would be to produce a calendar. And then I imagined how much fun it would be to hold a casting call for models in swimsuits showing lots of skin.

I put that idea in a
FUTURE PLANS
folder, along with the TV mogul idea. For when I could, you know, talk to girls without falling over my own feet every time I tried to open my mouth.

Like with the Three Bears, I knew there had to be something that was Just Right for Kevin. But the brilliant plans weren’t coming as easily as I’d expected.

Take a break. Let the ideas find me.

I took a deep cleansing breath, like my mom taught me during her yoga phase. She spent a lot of time standing with one foot on the other thigh and her hands in prayer position at her heart. Then I wrote
BUSINESS PLAN
on the top of the list and signed my name on the bottom:
Kevin L. Spencer.

Middle initials are cool. I wished I was a Jr. or, better yet, a III or even a IV. Or was K. Lucas Spencer cooler?

I straightened my file folders, proud of my efforts on the crucially important first day of the rest of my life. Good work, Kev! I didn’t mind complimenting myself, since there was no one else around to do it, and praise, I’d read, keeps people motivated.

I wasn’t even too bummed that I still hadn’t figured out a way to bring up the subject of my soon-to-be-wealthdom with Tina.

4

The Successful Person Knows That Hard Work, Although Not Necessarily His Own, Is the Cornerstone of His Achievements

T
he following morning I went to school without a plan for getting rich, but with a better idea about how to build my business. It had come to me while I was sleeping. I’d dreamed that I had a butler and a chauffeur and a cook and a personal trainer. And I woke up knowing that what was missing was a staff.

Sometimes you have to work backwards. So I’d focus on hiring people to work for me, and eventually, the idea of what we could actually all be doing would make itself known. Momentum was probably more important than specifics—right?—in starting up.

JonPaul was waiting for me by the front door of school.

“I want to get rich,” I said right away. One of the books said repeating your objective helps you achieve it.

JonPaul hadn’t read that book. “You already told me that.”

“The poker games are just the first step.”

“In what?”

“My business plan.”

“Oh … sure. How’s that coming along?”

“Great. I know just what I need.”

“What’s that?”

“People.”

“Excuse me?”

“I should have people.”

“But you don’t.”

“But I should. Get me some.”

“Okay.”

“That can be your first job: hiring employees.”

“For what?”

“My business.”

“What business? Did you figure that out?”

“Not all the way. But I will. Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

He started laughing. “You’re the only fourteen-year-old guy I know who plans to rule the world.”

“
Run
the world, JonPaul,
run
, not rule. And I do not. I just want to get filthy, stinking rich. The sooner the better. Because that’s the American Dream. Or the Puritan work ethic. It’s … something patriotic and ambitious.”

I could tell he didn’t really understand what I was talking about. Few do. But JonPaul is the kind of friend who will help.

He knows more people than anyone I’d ever met. He’s on good terms with everyone at our school and has friends at Sandberg, our rival school, as well as the Catholic middle school.

I’d been at HQ for an hour or so after school that day when he poked his head through the door.

“I found you people!”

I tried to look as if I had expected him to be this successful this fast.

“Great! Way to go! Let’s meet them.”

“It’s not a
them,
it’s a
she.
”

Oh.

I rallied. “Good. That was smart, JonPaul; we don’t want to bring too many people on board all at once.”

“Right! That’s what I thought. Sam!” he called.

Sam was a tiny girl with curly red hair and enormous green eyes and she couldn’t have weighed eighty pounds if she’d been soaking wet and holding a large houseplant. She looked thrilled and hopeful, like she was about to do something amazing, instead of hooking up a part-time job working for an eighth grader.

“HiI’mSamit’sSamanthareallybuteveryonehasalwayscalledmeSamwhichisaboy’snameeventhoughI’magirl.”

Whoa. I think and talk fast, but this girl was in hyperdrive, the kind that made the speed of light seem sluggish by comparison.

“Hi, Sam; I’m Kevin. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and why you think you’re right for this position?” She opened her mouth, but I cut her off. “Slowly. We don’t pay by the word.”

She nodded eagerly. “Right. I talk fast when I get nervous and this is my first job interview, so I’mreally
anxious.”

I smiled sympathetically. I wasn’t about to tell her it was my first job interview too.

“I’m thirteen, I go to the Aubrey Conley Day School, I’m an only child, I like sushi, I hate olives, and math is my best subject. I volunteer at the hospital and I babysit for the neighbors, but I
don’t
have
a
real
job.
Not
ajob
like
what
you’re offering.”