Jay Fox - THE WALLS

“I see.”

“Anyway, back to Balaguez. He was one of the lesser-known robber barons, which has already been established. I believe he was the only one of Spanish heritage. With that exception, he was more or less like Carnegie: he and his parents came over to the States sometime in the eighteen-fifties. He was still a young boy then. The family was poor, as can be imagined, but he caught a few breaks, made some money, and invested it well. He was an incredibly shrewd man, a cautious man. Are either of you familiar with Gay's The Miser and Plutus ?”

“No.”

“Ah, well I can picture Balaguez stalking his own shadow, furiously pacing in lieu of sleep, which is the one thing a rich man can never afford. If Wealth and Youth bear Folly, then Avarice and Old Age rear Misery.” Tomas and I look to one another in bewilderment. Patrick notices. “What I mean to say is that he came to be incredibly wealthy — I believe the wealthiest man in Brooklyn before or slightly after eighteen seventy-five — at the expense of what many would consider a worthwhile life.

“In his youth he worked in the newspaper industry, which is where he made a good deal of money, but the railroads made him his fortune. Once he became the wealthiest man in his city, however, he gave up on trains and went back to publishing papers. This wasn't simply a desire to return to the business with which he held the greatest affinity; rather, he wished to once again have an artistic outlet — which was something wholly denied to him in the railroad business, as he was not an engineer or an architect. So he returned to newspapers, initially because he wanted to publish his poetry under the pseudonym Lord K. Ruchmord. I’ve never read any of it myself, but I’ve heard that it was of…well, we’ll say pedestrian quality. But the quality of the poetry is irrelevant,” he continues, “The point of that matter is that Balaguez's primary goal, when he returned to the industry at least, was simply to publish himself.

“He acquired several more papers over the course of the late-seventies and early-eighties, and during that time his control over the content began to grow, too. People enjoyed his poetry even though it was shit, and he eventually started writing editorials fairly regularly. I can't recall any of the various pen names he employed when doing so.” He shrugs. “Not that it's particularly important. Either way, by eighteen eighty-two, Balaguez owned eight papers, all of them based in Brooklyn. Each one has since shut its doors, but, at the time, they were some of the most popular dailies in the city — more like The Post than The Times .

“Although Balaguez was not particularly political, he did attempt to control public opinion to a certain extent, especially once he came to think of himself as being gifted with the pen. It was less ideology and more his ego — he was not evil, nor was he particularly adamant in his beliefs. Perhaps this is a cynical belief. Maybe it was simply business even then, a way to distinguish himself, as well as his product from his competitors. Because he did distinguish himself, very much so, by going against the grain, by stirring things up, by making himself and his commodity a spectacle. He rarely, if even, upheld the opinions of his competitors. In fact, he went out of his way to be contentious and made sure that his editors and writers were equally aggressive. He was fond of slandering other papers and other moguls, and found himself as the defendant in a myriad of libel cases.

“Now, Balaguez did not utilize his power in the manner one might expect. He didn't like to push politicians on people — as he was skeptical of all politicians — and, for the most part, he allowed his writers free-reign on foreign affairs so long as they didn't openly endorse communism, anarchy, or any international labor movement. One could assume that he was pragmatic, but, from what I can infer from his actions, I believe this accredits him a certain degree of political shrewdness that he never truly possessed. It's not that politics eluded him; rather, it bored him. Consequently, his writers were allowed to sympathize with striking workers in the States and in Europe; so, too, were they free, if not encouraged, to criticize other industrialists. They were even allowed to take whichever side they wished on issues such as the gold standard, even if Balaguez had come down on the opposing side. The most important restriction, however, was that no one was to question the 'natural order' of capitalism. It's similar to how papers are run today: lament the most flagrant injustices of the system while ignoring the fact that capitalism necessarily exploits the working class.” A smile appears on Patrick's face when Tomas and I nod gingerly. “But I want to reiterate the main point in all of this: The most important thing the writers had to remember was simply to be distinct from the competition.

“Now, even though Balaguez manipulated the truth to a certain degree, he ended up gaining something of a reputation for selling a fairly honest product. The writing was not the most eloquent, but all of his papers were considered fair-minded and levelheaded. To use an American buzzword from today, the reporting was thought to be objective.”

“Ahhhh, 'ere all bullshidh,” a man from the bar yells in that dialect of inebriation where harsher consonants have the tendency to disappear. “'on't alleve a word a' 'at shidh, Paddy; ya' smarda' 'an 'at.” Let me revise that. He doesn't just sound drunk; he sounds like Jame Gumb.

“I'm talking about the papers from a hundred years ago, Rich,” he responds. “Trust me, I know that information was monopolized by the capitalists long ago. It's a commodity, Rich, no different than corn or sorghum.”

“Capaliss?” he laughs. “Ya' a commie or someding, Paddy?”

“Of course. There's a war going on out there, Rich, and there are only two sides. No one can claim neutrality anymore; any form of complacency is an act of support for the plutocratic interests of the world.” He pauses. “Now, there's only one question you have to ask yourself: Are you upset because your workers are asking for too much, or are you upset because your boss doesn't share the company’s profits with equitable consideration to his employees?”

“Equitihuh…”

“Does your boss pay you what you’re worth, Rich?” somewhat seriously.

“My fuckin' boss,” he says to the chorus around the bar. “My fuckin' boss is a Goddamn cock-sucker.” At high volumes the consonants apparently reappear.

“Well, it would do you some good to join in the fight on the side of those against all bosses,” he responds with his Styrofoam cup in the air. “But first another toast. To drinking.” The proletariat party goes to drink, but Patrick stops them with an open palm. The bartender gingerly nods while pouring a pint of Brooklyn Lager. Patrick then begins:

Drink today, and drown all sorrow,

You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow:

Best, while you have it, use your breath;

There is no drinking after death.

A good half of the bar drinks after this. Even the newer members of the congregation manage to give Patrick his due. “What was I saying?” he asks as he turns his attention back to us. “Oh, yes, Balaguez's papers. They were thought ideal examples of journalistic integrity. Well, I won't go that far, but they were not denounced as rubbish. And it's because of this…let’s call it faith…in the integrity of his papers that he was able to take advantage of a lucrative opportunity, one which came to his attention in the early-eighties. I won't say that he exploited the trust of the people; he simply changed their vague perceptions of a rather obscure region of the world. Some features were ignored; others received more attention than they should have. This locale of which I speak is none other than Siberia.”