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Show -215 "I quit," I said again after he'd walked me past his secretaries and pulled up a chair for me beside his desk. He made a little pyramid with his hands and closed his eyes, "What is a man?" he said. "Animals die and there's an end of it, but a man wants to leave something behind." A wide window opened on the factory floor; the production lines were rolling. I could see Juan and Estrellita taping petals at a great rate: snap, snap, whap, a fraction of a turn and start again. Fancy worked at her welder. Orange and avocado shades-Kansas City is a no-taste town. "All the old rules for living are dead," Weinstein said. "There is nobody who wants to make anything of himself any more. Where is there a man like me? Where is one who wants it said of him after he's dead: 'he built this, he achieved that'? Tell me." "Dead is dead," I said. "After that, who knows?" "A philosophy for savages. But is that the way the world is going? Is that what you're telling me? You're not a savage yourself, Buck. Is it time again for them to take over? Young people are not kids waiting to grow up and be like us any more. Now they get older but their ideas don't change. They make their wages and spend them quick before they have a chance to know they had anything. Who saves money to put down on a building, a store, something to pass on?" |