Happiness Pursuant

    Oddly puzzling; the sweet taste in B.F. Prudence’s mouth had no discernible cause, yet, nonetheless, there it was.  Like candy, the taste was tangible, real; it was not entirely an unpleasant sensation, but it also had its perplexing aspects.  He recalled no recent indulgence in sweets; he recalled no indulgence in any food or drink at all that day.  Yet the taste; that strange, pleasurable taste—it had come to bewilder his senses only minutes before, when his palette was sweetened by the candies of life.

    B.F. had always believed that life was a series of tests, each one designed for the purpose of preparing one for the next.  The ultimate goal was the mystery of life; every culture, every religion strived to define for itself what the purpose of the testing was.  Almost all shared a common thread in the belief that the grading curve rested, not on one’s solution to life, but on how one dealt with life; the final review was not based on grades, but on character.

    The belief that a person could be measured on his reactions to life, his past, was more than mere rhetoric to him.  B.F. held the notion that past experiences were the most precious of commodities, for they could be used to wisely guide the present and shape the greatest investment of all: the future.  The past served its purpose of preparing one, yet now he found himself in uncharted territories; nothing in B.F.’s past could have prepared him for this moment.

    It was at this moment, as B.F. held his first hard-earned paycheck in his willing hands, that he was able to compensate for his lack of experience and take in the sensations he felt.  His full appreciation came with his full enlightenment, as he came to understand his perceptions.

    He was, just now and for the first time ever, tasting the sweet rewards of labor and foresight.  He was just now tasting success.

    Ring!...  Ring!...

    B.F. Rockfell drew himself out of the world he had created on paper.  He looked away from his typewriter, towards the source of his distraction.  The telephone continued its protest of being ignored, and B.F., reluctantly, pacified it.

    He cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear and spoke.  “Hello?”

    “B.F., how’re things coming?” came the zealous reply.  B.F. could always count on his agent to feign an infuriating optimism.  He looked back to the typewriter sitting in front of him, counting the product of the past twelve hour’s work.  One page.

    “Just great.  At this rate, I’ll be able to pay off the mortgage in a century.”  He paused, glanced around his small, squalid house, noted the chipped paint, and added, “Then I can get to work on the other mortgages.”

    “Come on, B.F.; come on...” came the reply, almost sympathetic.  “I’ve put a lot of stock in you.  All of the boys are counting on you to pull through.  This isn’t some airport gift-shop novel we’re talking here, this is your baby: The Pursuit of Happiness.”

    “Yeah, I know.”  Of course he knew.  B.F. had been working on what was to be billed “The Great American Novel for the Nineties” for the past five years of his life.  In all honesty, he would have had to have said that he had been working on it for a considerably longer period of time than that; he shared the belief in life being a set of dynamic stages of experience, and he was drawing on all of the experiences he had to write a novel encompassing an America that was much larger and more diverse than ever in history.  More clandestine, he sometimes would think, especially in more recent times.  His cynicism was not without cause, thought it owed more to the homefront than to the nation itself.  The book had begun to overtake him.  He typed, researched, and, when the rare occurrence took, slept.  His income faded into oblivion, as his usual fare of short stories, scripts, and the occasional airport novel ceased to be a priority.  His only means to put food on the table became his savings, and when that well ran dry four years ago, he turned towards mortgages.  Now, for his wife and two children to eat, he looked to the one he married.  Libby was able to bring in enough for one to live.  With frugalness and more than a small degree of necessity, the family learned that a cabbie’s wages, plus the rare New York tip, could sustain them.  Sustain, but scarcely more than that.

    “We gotta get this product in the stores, you know what I’m saying?  Can’t get many buyers without a product.”

    “You can tell ‘the boys’ I’ll be finished when I’m done, Mr. Satz.”

    Aaron Satz’s “boys” were the unseen forces behind a novel: the distribution agencies, the advertising agencies, the financiers—those who stood to gain the most and lose the least.

    Satz began to drop the facade.  “Listen, B.F., I’m fine with you working at your own pace.”

    “Thank-you, Mr. Satz,” B.F. ingratiated, as though he actually believed him.

    “But the powers-that-be, they want results.  Promises won’t satisfy them.  You can’t market a promise.  They want something in their hands.”

    “You know how I feel about letting people see my work before it’s completed.”

    “They want some assurance that there will be a completed work.”

    There was a slight pause in the conversation.  B.F. began to suspect that Satz had not come to him to make a decision, but rather to inform him of one.  “You didn’t.”

    “Sorry, B.F., but I could only hold out so long...”

    “You didn’t!”  B.F. was not about to buy that Satz was on his side; he worked too closely with fiction to be fooled.  He suspected that letting the publishing company see some rough drafts was Satz’s own idea, designed to relieve the agent of some pressure.  “I never let anyone see a work before it’s completed, not even Libby!”

    “What about Libby, man?  What about Michael and Sara?  The company’s agreed to pay a part of your contract up front for something, anything on paper!  What do you care about most, your pride, or your family’s hunger pangs?”

    “And sell out my drafts for some minuscule fraction?  Grub for some wad of bills like a...  Like an agent?”  He paused for effect.  “You tell them they’ll see results when I’m done!”

    He slammed the phone down into its holder.  It wasn’t that he liked being stubborn or hostile towards his agent.  It was simply that, as any writer would understand, he didn’t let anyone see his work while it was still in progress.  His agent had made a serious breech of some unwritten rule when he went to the publishers behind his back.  B.F. sat down for a moment and stewed over the incident.  He couldn’t help but feel just a little bit guilty about turning down the money, but even after poverty he was still a proud man.  Losing his car, his credit, and even his television were not enough to make him beg for scraps.  His thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone stirring behind him.  He turned to see her.

    “Who was that?” Libby asked.  The question was more of a statement; she knew.  Her voice had a grave edge to it, or so B.F. thought; everything seemed to have a grave edge to it lately.

    “Satz.”  He needn’t say more; the mere name was enough to conjure up frustration.

    “He was offering you money for your drafts.”  Again, it was a statement.  B.F. guessed she had listened to most of the conversation.

    “It’s not negotiable,” he said, turning back to his typewriter.  He didn’t feel like justifying himself to her.  He rarely felt like talking to her at all.  Before he began the novel things were different, but they had drifted apart over the past five years.  B.F. had grown more and more distant, and she had become cold.  Of course, B.F. told himself, he loved her, but he wasn’t sure what that meant anymore.  Libby was an enigma to him; a stranger would know as much about what she felt as he did.  At times like this, he cared little; he didn’t want to waste his time explaining himself when he knew she wouldn’t understand.

    “What about your family?  I was just putting our children to bed.  You know what Michael said to me?  He said that for Christmas, he wants to be happy.”  B.F. closed his eyes.  The duplicity beggared peace within him; he knew he should have taken the money for his family, but he couldn’t do it.  “Maybe pride can fill your stomach, but it’s not enough to feed your family.  Take a look around you sometime, huh?  Maybe you haven’t noticed since I’ve started handling the ten-forties, but we are living in poverty.  We have no savings.  The kids have no toys and their clothes don’t fit.  I work all day and I can barely scrape together a living for this house!”

    “And I’m not working?”  B.F. didn’t really believe that was a good answer, but the game didn’t require one.  It had been a long time since the arguments revolved around who was right; it was simply a matter of who was better with semantics that day, who could find the most biting words.

    “Oh, you’re working all right.  You’re working to fulfill some fantasy of writing yourself a glorious masterpiece that the literary community talks about for the next hundred years.  Well, what do you have to show for it in this century?”

    “Great men are seldom good men,” B.F. tritely stated, with such sarcastic intent that he thought he would rid the room of Libby.  To the contrary, she merely narrowed her eyes.  He paused for a moment to think.  Why was he being so adversarial?  He couldn’t understand himself at times, either.  For a moment he entertained the thought of calling a truce.  He looked up at Libby and saw how angry she was; he didn’t like the fact that he was at fault.  He so wanted to tell her he loved her, to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right—and yet, he couldn’t.  This wasn’t the Libby he knew.  She was colder, separate from him.  The Libby he loved was somewhere else, somewhere in the past.

    “Good night.”  Libby left without another word.  The statement was not meant to be polite; it barely qualified as civil.  The frigidness of her words told B.F. she wasn’t running from him.  Rather, she was leaving his presence because she had no desire to be near him.  Somehow, that hurt B.F. more than if she would have stayed and continued the argument.  Indifference hurt worse than injury.  He closed his eyes and buried his head in his arms.  He felt infinitely tired.  He didn’t want life to be like this.  He wanted to love his wife, his children.  Instead, he grew more estranged from them everyday.  He told himself things would be different when the book was done.  Things would be better.  After this novel, he could go back to putting out short stories and light novels, writing teleplays, and generally pulling in a steady income.  Things would be like they were before.  He could talk to Libby again, about his deepest feelings.  He could be with his children again, to celebrate Michael and Sara’s birthdays, to see them grow to be...

    How old were they?

    It was just another count to add to B.F.’s despair.  It really wouldn’t hurt him that much; he was beyond pain now.  He was just numb.  He raised his head and tried to focus his eyes on the typewriter.  It took him longer to do so than he thought it would, and was surprised to find himself fighting a wave of fatigue.  He brought his hand to his face and was shocked to find the stubble of a beard.  He remembered shaving after he woke, it couldn’t have been that long ago...  He blinked his eyes, trying to regain his bearing.  How long had he been awake?  He didn’t want to go to sleep, not now; it was all in his head now, all he had to do was put it into words.  He looked down at the keys.  For a disoriented moment he couldn’t make sense of them; the confusion soon passed.  He began typing.

    B.F. had never been more complete than when he first felt the new weight on his shoulder.  It was the new pinnacle of his life; until now, his success had rested upon microcosmic triumphs.  It was hard for him to believe that, only fifteen years before, a simple check for one-hundred-fifty dollars from Paramount Studios was enough to make his pulse quicken.  Now, as he looked at the accolades on his shoulder and breast and saw the respect with which his shipmates saluted him, he came to realize that being promoted to Chief of Engineering on board the U.S.S. Saratoga was an honor of the highest degree, not only to the navy, not only to himself and his posterity, but to the whole of the great nation of America.

    Of course, it was not only Lieutenant Commander B.F. Prudence’s achievements that had changed.  He himself was more seasoned, more confident.  It was not so long ago that the mere thought of talking to the Captain would force his stomach to quiver, yet now, as he stood there shaking hands with his commanding officer, a strange sense of calm was about him.  He was no longer that Ensign from years ago.  And yet, even still, that quiet sense of unfulfillment gave temperance to his elation.

    It was always there, in the back of his mind, haunting him like a banshee.  Every award he would win, every victory he would wrestle from the jaws of failure and defeat—they were all punctuated by his one outstanding failure.

    He always reasoned that his motives for pursuing a career in the military were to seek adventure and explore the world.  But there was more to his search, something he knew was an impossibility, and yet, there it was: hope that his wildest dreams, his most fantastic of fantasies, would be answered.  Perhaps it was bold arrogance that made him dare to believe that he could have still more out of life, but B.F. was not a haughty man.  His ceaseless pursuit of greater challenges was not for self-aggrandizement.  He told himself it was to make use of the gift of life as best he could, but there was another, almost superstitious, edge to it.  Deep within his heart, in his most private thoughts, he felt that perhaps, if he could meet enough of the challenges, he would find the true object of his quest, and right a seventeen-year-old wrong.  He hoped beyond all reasonable hope that he would someday find Abbie.

    B.F. sat up with a start.  Again the disorientation took hold, but this time, there was no fatigue.  The brightness streaming in through the stained curtains covering the window caused B.F. to slowly realize that this was morning.  He took a breath, collected his thoughts, and stood up.  He winced at the sharp protest from his neck; apparently, he had been sleeping with his head on the desk.  He staggered to the bathroom door and entered the small room.  For a moment he stood there, looking into the mirror.  At first he thought there was someone else staring back at him; then he noted the familiar features, but they were somehow different.  The dark bags under his eyes had swollen, and the wrinkles on his face and forehead had thickened.  He thought he looked ten years older, and—since when had the gray hinted his hair?  He turned the faucet, submerged his hands in the cool liquid, brought them to his face, and shocked his senses into waking.  He looked into the mirror again, half expecting to see a younger, rejuvenated face staring back.  His disappointment was interrupted by the phone, the perpetual harbinger of stress and despondency.  He walked out of the bathroom and headed into the main room, the only other room save for the two bedrooms.  He picked up the phone and put it to his ear.  “Yes?”

    “Hello, Benjamin F. Rockfell?”  The voice betrayed neither malice nor the wish to sell some useless product.  Even still, B.F. was less than enthused about conversation.

    “That’s me.”

    “Hi, I’m John Guerdon from First Federal Bank of New York.”  Malice after all.  “We’ve been reviewing outstanding debts for the past quarter, and your file came up.  It looks like you owe on several loans, and your mortgages are heavily underpaid.”

    B.F. was never happy to deal with the banks, especially when they engaged in subtle and polite harassment.  “I know.  I know...  I’ll be able to pay off the debts soon.”

    “Mr. Rockfell, I’m sure you’re a trustworthy man.  Nevertheless, we do need to have some assurance that our business together will be ...equitable.  Until now, we’ve been willing to accept your word, but I’m afraid that promises are a form of currency in too great a supply to be worth very much.”

    So content with my word that you’ve taken half my estate, B.F. wanted to say, but instead answered sheepishly, “Yes.”

    “Good.  I’m glad we’re in agreement.”  B.F. could hear Guerdon smile an infuriatingly plastic illusion of goodwill.  “Hopefully we can get this matter resolved.  Come in for a meeting with us on the first, around ten o’clock.  I’d hate to see you lose property when repossession could be avoided.”

    B.F. continued to maintain the fantasy that he actually believed Guerdon cared.  “All right then.  Ten on the first.”  He listened for the click and dial tone on the line, then let the floodgate of emotions burst.  He slammed the phone down into its holder, shattering the holder and sending shards of plastic fragments across the room.  Unsatisfied, he sat down and ran his fingers through his hair.  He was glad no one else was home to see his outburst; Libby was working, and the children were off to school.  B.F. looked at the typewriter sitting in front of him.  It was practically his nemesis; writing became both friend and tomb.  Either way, B.F. thought, he was locked into this path.  The only option he had was to continue with the book.  Wherever it took him, whatever the cost, the book was all he had to save him.  He took a moment to gather his thoughts, and let his fingers dance across the keyboard.

    It happened a long time ago, when B.F. was still in high school, yet he remembered it like it had happened just yesterday, and he was only now recognizing his error.  In a way the incident could almost seem amusing to an impartial observer, but B.F. was not impartial.  It was his heart at stake, and the most painful thing about the entire affair was that B.F. had no one else but himself to blame.

    B.F. sat at the lunch table of his high school cafeteria, finding himself wading through memories in a waste-deep pool of some emotion he could not even begin to identify.  Loneliness did not describe it well; lonely amidst a sea of people perhaps did better, but even that failed to convey the emptiness he felt within, the lack of some missing part of him that he was just now coming to the horrific yet inescapable conclusion that it had never existed to begin with.  Only within his mind, B.F. could not help but tell himself; as always, he struggled so hard to find the “her” that he knew was out there, somewhere, that he would idealize one for whom he had feelings.  That most basic part of his mind that served as a beacon of identity, that would always say, “I am B.F.,” would cease to proclaim the identity of the separate individual, and, for the past six months of B.F.’s life, said only the words B.F. had come to equate with pure beauty, “She is Corrine.”

    Only within his mind.

    The woman B.F. loved and the woman that existed were not the same being, and it was this realization that welled guilt up from within B.F.’s conscience.  She could have never really felt that he loved her, because the “her” that existed in reality was not the “her” B.F. had cherished.  He could not, would not, help but feel selfish; had he not used her, not for her appeal, but for Platonism?  Did purity of intent justify him?  Certainly, it would never be justification enough to him; reading and re-reading her note, seeing her written words telling how sorry she was and how she hoped he could forgive her and someday be friends, he only came harder down upon himself, as he had believed what he had wanted to believe so strongly and convincingly that even she did not see where the fault truly lay.

    This time, he had told himself, it was going to be different; this time, he was not doing it again, he was not idealizing, he was making a decision balanced of logic and emotion, he had truly found love...

    He turned the note over again in his hands, staring at the blank lines on the back.

    Of all things, he did know that, in the beginning, he had hoped that the relationship that would ensue might be more fulfilling than the ones in his past; B.F., despite his prudence, had only found failed love, shattered dreams, and broken hearts.  Still, he had never fully lost his belief in true love, for he knew that it did not come as a gift to be handed over; rather, to build love was an involved and time-consuming art, sweetened by care and persistence.  Unfortunately, a fault that this youthful B.F. had yet to address was that his drive could sometimes lead to a lack of patience in his actions.  He knew that, had he only waited longer and allowed the dream to pass under the filter of reality, his memory of his relationship with Corrine would be instead a living, vibrant and wonderfully Platonic friendship.

    He sat at the table, trying desperately not to be engaged in the light and ultimately unfulfilling conversation, when he saw out of the corner of his eye Tara approaching.  Doubting that a conversation with this mutual friend of his and Corrine’s would really help to alleviate his sadness, he turned his lack of attention back to the table.  She would surprise him yet.  Hearing his name, he turned and saw her beckoning for him to speak with her.  B.F. was completely uncertain what to expect, but his mind did entertain the idea that Corrine had a change of heart, and had asked Tara to serve as an intermediary.  He joined her, curious to see what she had to say.  After a few light pleasantries, she told him about Abbie.  B.F., having trouble hearing her over the din of the cafeteria, asked her to repeat what she said.  A friend of Tara’s, Abbie Abrams, liked B.F.  Curiously, the word “liked” seemed so trite to him at the time, so... high school.  Regardless, now was not the time for his friends to try to set him up, to tell him to “buck up, get back into the game, there are plenty of other fish in the sea...,” ad nauseam; he resented this especially from Tara, who should have known B.F. better.  Besides, B.F. didn’t even believe he knew an Abbie Abrams, and he told Tara so.  Perhaps it was a brief flash of the foresight B.F. had yet to develop, but even then he had the feeling that he would come to regret dismissing it at that.  She asked him if he was interested, to which he responded again that he simply didn’t know Abbie.  He kept the rest of his commentary on the whole situation to himself.  And with that, it was over.  With that, it had begun.

    It has been said that curiosity killed the cat; a few weeks later, B.F., now emerging from his sadness, hoped that a human would fare better.  Curious as to why he had the nagging feeling that he had erred, B.F. decided to find out who Abbie was.  The solution seemed obviously simple; look in the yearbook.  When he did so, he knew instantly that finding out who she was would be the only thing simply resolved in this matter.

    Certainly, any man would have felt quite the fool at this point, gazing at the likeness of such beauty.  B.F., however, was not so shallow as to be looking simply at the form of this goddess in human guise; he was looking into her heart, for he realized now, too late, that he did know her, though he had never even dared to dream of the possibilities.  They had been introduced less than a year earlier, but aside from that initial meeting, they had no real contact.  Even still, B.F. knew enough of her to realize that she was the answer to his heart’s quest.  And yet he had squandered his opportunity.  Had it been a case of her not knowing he existed things might have been simpler; in that case it would have been a matter of him taking the initiative.  Now, however, he found himself locked on the other side of the fence, and found that to be a much more imprisoning condition; she believed that he did not know she existed.

    For several months, his mind was dominated with the thought of how he would solve his dilemma.  He so wanted to talk to her, yet he could never bring himself to simply call her, for he could not think of a single reason why she should not simply hang up on him.  Talking to Tara was out of the question; how could he just run back to her and tell him he had changed his mind, then expect her to take care of things for him?  His feelings were too important, too strong for him to fail.  Whatever he did, it had to be right.  Yet nothing he could think of was.  For a long time he did nothing, still searching for the solution, still waiting for the opportunity.  And as time went on... time went on.

    “Ben.”  B.F. heard Libby addressing him from behind.  He didn’t really want to answer; she was probably just going to try to get him to eat, or to go to sleep, or to talk or play with the children...  He didn’t want to be bothered now, he couldn’t afford to be distracted.  “Ben!”  This time, a nasty tingle crept up the base of B.F.’s spine.  It took him a moment to notice she was calling him Ben, rather than B.F.  The way she said his name alarmed him, so much so that he wasn’t sure he wanted to know why she was calling him.  He got up to turn and face her, fighting to stand against knees that had turned to water.  When he faced her, his heart nearly stopped.

    She was standing in the doorway with her jacket on and a suitcase by her side.  Michael and Sara were also standing, in similar fashion.  Without an explanation, B.F. already knew what was happening.  The look in his eye and slack in his jaw told Libby that he understood, too.  Estranged though they may be, marriage often yields an unspoken language.  When Libby spoke again, it was with a soft, sympathetic voice.

    “I’m sorry.  But they deserve better,” she said, in regard to the children.  “My parents are going to provide for us, at least for a little while.”  There was a long pause as B.F. and Libby’s gazes met.  In B.F.’s eyes there were a myriad of emotions; sadness, loneliness, despair, but above all, betrayal.  In Libby’s, there was only a quiet sadness.  B.F. looked down at his children, feeling as though he hardly knew them.  He couldn’t tell what was in their eyes...  He wasn’t sure they felt any loss at all.  And, deep within his heart, he knew he couldn’t blame them.  He stood, dumbfounded, for a long time, unable to find any words; he wanted to say something, anything, to keep his family.  But he had no words to offer.  There was nothing left to say.  At length, Libby spoke her final words to B.F.  “I’m sorry.”  With nothing further, B.F. was alone.

    The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.  B.F. had no desire to answer it; he had no desire to talk, to think, to feel, to live...  But the phone was insistent, and B.F., defeated, gave in.  He took the receiver to his ear, careful not to cut himself with the broken plastic.  “Rockfell.”

    “B.F., how’s it coming, man, how’s it coming?”  The last person B.F. wanted to deal with.

    “Look, Mr. Satz, I need some time now,” B.F. said, unable to keep the tears out of his voice.  “Please, I just need to have some time.”

    There was a pause on the line.  Satz acted sympathetic, but he was firm.  “I’m really sorry, B.F.  But I’ve pushed the deadlines back for you as much as I can.  Now I’ve got to have something to show, and I’ll need it soon.  Some of the advertising financiers are getting worried, and they’re threatening to pull out of the deal.  There can’t be a ‘Great American Novel’ without some P. R. and hype, not in this day.”

    For a moment, B.F. considered simply hanging up.  Then, to both his and Satz’s surprise, he began to laugh.  It was not a hearty, raucous laugh, but it was a laugh nonetheless.  B.F. gave his response, “All right, you son of a bitch, tell them they’ll have something tomorrow, you hear me?  Tell them they’ll have their ‘Great American Novel!’  See whose dreams come true.  Tomorrow!  Got it?”

    “Tomorrow, yeah, sure,” came Satz’s surprised answer.  “Are you feeling all right, B.F.?”

    “I’m writing the ‘Great American Novel for the Nineties,’ aren’t I?  Why would I be anything less than great?  This is the time for dreams, isn’t it?  The Pursuit of Happiness, n’est-ce pas?”

    “Yeah, sure, I -“

    B.F. Prudence looked into Abbie’s eyes and suddenly knew that which mankind had struggled with since the beginning of time.  He finally understood that this was what the ultimate goal was.  B.F. had worked through every challenge that faced him, progressing from one to the next, but the final test rested on the determination of B.F.’s heart.  He passed with flying colors.  He found true love.

    When he learned that Abbie was on the invitation list to the Kennedy’s party, Senator Prudence’s delighted shock was tempered by the realization that, even after thirty-five years, he was still that tongue-tied high school boy, with no inkling of what to say to her.  Yet he found that words were not necessary.  Even after thirty-five years, true love had an unspoken language.  When B.F. mustered the courage to face her, it was as if time stood still.  He gazed into her deep, shining brown eyes.  She gazed back into his, and instantly both knew that nothing else mattered; the past thirty-five years could not have prepared them for the strength of this unspoken bond they felt.  For a long time neither one spoke.  The power of the moment was so strong, so sacred, it seemed almost disrespectful to mar it with words.  After fifty long years, B.F. had finally come to the most important part of his life.  He looked forward to the realm of possibilities the next fifty would bring, for this time, he would not face the half-century alone; he was united now, not with some entity separate from him, but with a part of his very soul that had been missing from the fiber of his being all of his life. No possible sum of wealth could ever have purchased this moment for B.F., and it was at this moment that he understood what it all had meant.

    The man had wealth, riches beyond the dreams of Avarice.  Now his heart was as wealthy as his account, as his mind and physique.  B.F. dedicated himself to utilizing the precious gift of life to the best of his ability, and the dividends paid off, far greater than any stocks could have.

    This is the American Dream; to work hard, to succeed, and to find that which we hold most precious.  This is what Benjamin Franklin Prudence had strived for all of his life to achieve.  This is the secret of the ultimate goal, to success itself; this is the embodiment of the pursuit of happiness.

    Aaron Satz looked up from the manuscript, reading it yet another time.  The Pursuit of Happiness had been a smashing success; reviews across the board heralded it as one of the greatest literary triumphs of the decade.  The revenues it pulled in provided handsomely for B.F. Rockfell’s estate.  It was quickly becoming an American classic; many who read it soon found the optimist within him.  The novel quickly found itself the subject of study in many high schools and colleges, and one could even argue, as many of these scholars did, that this book helped rekindle that spark of life in American patriotism, and renewed some of the people’s dwindling faith in the concept of success.  The Dream was once again more a philosophy to the people, less a joke.  Satz looked back down at the original manuscript again, this time with a sad sense of loss.  The work of Rockfell was truly a triumph.  It was a pity such a great American writer would not be heard from again.

"You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."
-- Robert Heinlein

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