Marco Visciolaccio

Hundred-Dollar Grilled Cheese

I think offering seventy-five percent below asking price is generous. And when I only offer someone fifty percent below asking, I think I deserve a thankful handjob in return at the very least. People’s standards have never been lower and that gives people an arbitrage opportunity to turn something bought for two dollars into something sold for a hundred. Not many have the confidence to pull off the low-ball. But I do. And I do it left, right, center.

It’s because I was raised different from everybody else. Tougher, than everybody else. When I turned six, my old man handed me two dollars in small change and said I couldn’t come home until it was a hundred in medium-to-large bills. He was the kind of dad that parented on the outskirts. The kind that left an impression through hard knocks, like someone who punches the pinball machine instead of using the bumpers. And I knew my dad was serious about his two-dollar bullshit—because when I came home the next day having spent my two dollars on a corner store grilled cheese, he whooped my ass like a pinball machine that ate all the cash he had in his pocket. 

I learned quick that, to survive, you need to make that two dollars into a hundred. It’s not easy at first. But you can pull it off if you want to live. The first summer my dad threw me out, I mowed lawns. And in the winter, I’d shovel sidewalks. Pocket change from the neighbors and landlords, that’s all I got at first. But then, I’d make conversation. Widows would give me more when I’d show the welts on my forearms. The married men, or men like my father, or ones that wished they had the stones to be like my father, would also give more when I’d show the welts on my forearms—but only if I’d say they didn’t hurt much. To survive, you have to realize that human life is the product and all I did was learn how to sell it better than anyone else.

But shoveling shit won’t get you far in either summer or winter. You need an opportunity to take something cheap and sell it for a lot more. That’s how everyone else made money, at least. So I’d steal from the corner stores, things other than grilled cheeses. In the South End, I’d stuff candies and cigarettes into my pockets. You know, things that kids would kill for. Then I’d hang around the high schools in the North End and sell it all. I’d always hawk something cheap, something I could steal outright if not practically, to sell it at a markup. Arbitrage. And I made a killing.

Looking back, it wasn’t about the money. Not at first, because when I’d come home, it wouldn’t be my money anymore. I’d show my dad the wad of ones, fives, tens, and he’d transform it into objects only seen at the cusp of a South End kid’s imagination; new snow tires, tobacco-stained teeth, booze that’ll make you go blind, and women—girls, more like. All for the man of the house, he’d say. For the guy who’s smart enough to parent at the outskirts, who’s smart enough to punch the pinball machine and get his knuckles bloody every once in a while.

But before long, he hated that I’d learned how to make money hand-over-fist. When I got old enough, he’d send me out on a Friday afternoon and I’d be back home by midnight. His parenting had backfired. The outskirts of fatherhood kept encroaching on him at the worst times, when something important was happening for him. Namely when he’d have a girl over and he was getting some strange.

One of his girls, they saw me coming in with a wad of cash and it was like they hadn’t seen my dad altogether. Is that all it took to get some strange, just some small-to-medium-to-large bills? Money didn’t matter to me. It was cheap. But strange? That was important at the time, sure. Worth something. So, arbitrage. I offered her fifty-percent less than what she charged my dad and she agreed to a handjob because her standards must have been low since, after all, she was fucking my old man. I’d like to think he respected the move. But then he just whooped me, anyways.

It was then that I arbitraged myself all the way out the door. And in return for never coming home again, I had a hundred dollars all to myself. In large bills, this time.

See, a lot of people want to hire a guy who can turn two dollars into a hundred. And as always, the key is finding things that are only worth two dollars, things you can practically steal. Used cars, misplaced jewelry, deceased parents’ property. Things people want to get rid of since they don’t want to consciously think about them. And because they can’t think anymore, because their expectations for the future are rock-bottom, everything can be bought for only a couple of bucks. Fifty percent below asking. Seventy-five, preferred. And with a spread like that, you just need to perfect the low-ball. Or at least have the confidence to throw it.

When I found my niche, my business, the one I’ve been doing for three decades, all it took was confidence. All it took was remembering what I learned as a kid—that human life is a product and you’ve got to sell it better than anyone else. And if you want to get that arbitrage, that good spread, you’ve got to steal it.

Listen. You, the one sitting at the end of the stiff’s hospital bed, the person whose expectations for the future are rock-fucking-bottom. I just need sixty seconds to change your life:

One word. Organs. Heart, lungs, the humble liver and kidneys. People need them. Don’t you agree? And people like your ( spouse / child / lover ), in their present ( comatose / post-mortem ) condition, they have no use for them. It’s sad to say, but let’s face it, they won’t be able to do anything anymore. Except help. Your loved one, they can help someone like nobody else can, like a boy in need of a new ( heart / kidneys, set of / liver ). It’s a big question. But don’t you think your ( spouse / child / lover ) would want to spread some good in this world by selflessly giving away a piece of ( himself / herself / themselves)?

See, a dead loved one—that’s the perfect product to low-ball. An almost-corpse that somebody used to love, something they created, or something they probably fucked; it’s something you can steal, if you’ve got the confidence. That’s the key, that’s always been the key, having the confidence to arbitrage a two-dollar body into a hundred-dollar organ transplant. For me, it’s a killing because, like I’ve said, people’s expectations have never been lower.

When I got into this business, it was a lot tougher. They wouldn’t usually let me in the surgery wing. I’d sit outside on the hospital stoop, waiting for the ambulances to roll in. Then I’d be at the payphone, checking the white pages. Expecting a sobbing wife? Easy sell, just have to work the empathy. A sad-sack husband? Mixed bag. Some of them, you just know they couldn’t find another woman to put up with them, and they’d chase me away while hoping for a miraculous recovery. On the other hand, there’d be the others, the ones who dreamed of girls like their secretaries and the neighbor’s daughter returning from college. Strange, occupied their mind. Those were the easiest, since they’d get both the payout and the reassurance of watching me pull their wife’s plug to make sure the broad flatlined. It’d be arbitrage. Their two-dollar freedom, but my hundred-dollar grilled cheese.

After making my first million, I indulged in the most extreme limits of a South End kid’s imagination; prescription drugs from well-greased doctors, a wife who looks like a girl when viewed from a distance, and a ’79 Cadillac, cherry red, like the one my old man once found off the back of a truck. I couldn’t help but think of my dad. I wanted to give him a call. And I wanted to rub it in. Having a son of your own will make you want things like that, I guess. It’ll raise your expectations from the usual South End dreams and think you’re entitled to something you’d never get as a kid.

When I dialed my old man, I got a home caretaker. One from the state. I thought he’d be in cuffs but he was in a coma on account of his heart, and most importantly he was broke. And you know what that meant for a guy like me? For a South End kid who used to have those welts on his forearms and a handful of small bills for the girls he’d pick up from my school parking lot? For someone who can take two dollars and turn it into something other than shoveling shit? That’s right—it was an opportunity for me to change someone’s life in just sixty seconds. Even my old man’s. Which—for me, for only me, for the kind of guy my old man made me, me—is always a killing. Want to know what he was worth?

A brand new set of snow tires. Got them at a discount, too.

Then half a decade passed after that, as it usually does. By then, it was time to do the right thing. It was time to parent my kid from the outskirts—but more importantly, I wanted some strange, and the only way to do that is to get the kid out of the house. I gave my son two dollars and told him he couldn’t come home until he had a hundred in large bills.

But the little prick had the audacity to ask for more than two bucks. Said I was low-balling him. Wouldn’t leave the house until he got twenty. I threatened to whoop his ass like a pinball machine, like my old man would to recoup a little of the parenting investment. Said I wasn’t the kind of guy to use the bumpers. But my kid didn’t understand what the fuck I was talking about. So I went and told my wife about that bullshit. I said I wasn’t going to waste my life on a kid that doesn’t know when to beat it so I can get some strange. 

But when I asked for some strange, for a second kid to hedge the bets since the first one’s a problem, my wife said no to me. The most she’d offer was a handjob. Which—fuck me—is a real low-ball. And with that news, that shouting match, I just about dropped dead. Just about. 

See, like my old man, I had this heart condition, and it put me in the hospital with one of those caretakers. When I was good enough to talk to the doctor, that surgeon with the greased palms, he asked me if I’d ever thought about changing my mind on becoming an organ donor. Since one of my salespeople had gotten my wife’s signature, they just needed mine, too. Then my kid made a good point. Really sold it to me. They could always wait until I fell asleep again, so wouldn’t it be good to actually help someone for a change?

That’s when I noticed it. The real value of human life, or lack thereof. It’s like one day, as a society, we all woke up with two dollars and needed to turn it into a hundred. Everyone was low-balling each other. Left, right, center. Everyone, from the underage girls to the surgeons, to the widows and married men, everyone’s standards had finally hit rock bottom. Everyone but mine. Which, I’ll admit, presented a sort of arbitrage opportunity, didn’t it?