The man had a heart of gold, but just like his pampered little brother, he had everything

M

oving sluggishly, Bugi made his way to the kitchen to make coffee. The clock on the wall, left by the previous tenant, said it was 11 in the morning.

Bugi took out a paper cup and added instant coffee and boiling water. He stirred in some sugar and went to the fridge for the milk. There was no milk. Of course there wasn’t. He hadn’t bought any.

Should he go and buy some now?

Nah, no point. He drank the coffee as it was, black and boiling hot, threw the cup in the garbage, and looked again at the clock. Five past eleven.

Where was everybody?

Why weren’t they coming? Why wasn’t anyone trying to get him out of bed and out of the house? Why weren’t they giving him pep talks, and why wasn’t anyone coming to him with job offers?

He sat down on one of the chairs in the front room and stared at the ceiling. After he’d been fired from Michaeli’s minimarket, he’d been sure that his few friends would rally round and urge him not to slide back into the jobless mentality, to keep up his efforts to make a new life for himself.

And he’d already planned what he’d say to each one of them.

That pampered prince, Yanky, would be the easiest. If Yanky came around, trying to get him to take a job, Bugi would simply remind him of everything he had — family, money, an apartment, and a kehillah — none of which Bugi had. What could that pampered prince say to that? Nothing. He’d have to back off and accept the fact that you can’t make demands of a poor, unfortunate fellow with no home or family.

Lulu would probably come around, too, raising his voice and trying to bully him into getting up and finding a job, getting up and living.

For Lulu, he had another card to play. Lulu was over 60, and still sitting in the street all day, not lifting a finger to get ahead in life — who was he to come around preaching? Lulu, who went around from shul to shul asking for handouts, wearing pants that had never seen the inside of a washing machine, would tell him he had to live like an upstanding citizen? What a joke.

And then there was the prince’s brother, Nochum Kleiner. The man had a heart of gold, but just like his pampered little brother, he had everything. A home, a family, kids. Lots of kids. So if this Nochum came around and said one word to him about finding a job, Bugi planned to tell him, “You have a home and a family — what do you know about being on your own? How can you tell me I should go out and make money? How can you even tell me I should get up in the morning? Have you ever been without parents or siblings? Have you ever lived out on the streets? Have you ever been penniless?”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 789)