The Benches

A young man in his late 20s, emerged from the Chester Q. Binghampton School of Business. He had a mission. His assignment: to approach someone who was “down on his luck”, present the person with a $100 bill and witness whatever happened next. So, he did.

In the park across from the building, sitting on a rustic bench and leaning on a grand old tree, was an old man who had seen better days, to be sure. His tattered coat and pants reflected a life that, at least in recent years, had been very difficult. His shoes did not have laces. His coat was missing buttons. His hat was dipped below his brow as he slept.

The student approached him and sat on the edge of the bench. He asked politely, “Excuse, me. May I bother you for just a moment?” The old man looked up and revealed that he was blind in one eye. The eye looked more like a pearl. His good eye was brown and half covered by a heavy eyelid. He responded, “What can I do for you?” The young man replied courteously, “I have been sent over from the business school, there at the Binghampton building across the way. It is our assignment to go out and find someone who, with all due respect, is on hard times. I have a $100 bill here for you. I have been asked to report what you do with this $100.”

The old man looked at the student carefully and inquisitively, then, looked down at his hands in his own lap. He slowly raised his gaze and said, “Young man, I’ve been sitting out here on this bench for 4 1/2 years. It has been a difficult time. Here, we are in the middle of these tall buildings, all made with great expense, hard work, dedication and lots and lots of brain power. They surround this little park filled with people on hard times. Look around. All you see is depressed and worn men who have been defeated. And look here. There are three benches. The other two fellows who sit with me in this little theater-of-life are friends of mine. We have a running joke that we are “The Three Benches”. That is: one is nicknamed Johnny, one is named Peter for Peter Benchley of Jaws fame and I am known as “The Judge” because I sit on the bench and hold court every day. (He winked). It’s just a little comedy routine that kind of keeps us going. So, tell me again, what is it that you want from me?”

The young man asked, “What are your real names?”

The man replied, “Does it matter?”

The young man stumbled, “Well, I guess not. Uh, I’m simply going to give you $100 and I want you to tell me what you will do with it. Will you buy food, clothes, alcohol? It’s just a sociological trial to see what folks do when they have money that they don’t expect, especially, well, people who have lost everything.”

The old man paused. Finally he said, “Fine. I want you to take this hundred dollars and go over to the cigar store, there, on the corner of the building. The man who runs that store, we call “The Captain”. Tell him that you want to buy five cigars. Five $20 cigars; one for “The Judge”, one each for Johnny and Peter, the other two “Benches”, one for him, “The Captain” for I have known him for years and, from whom, I have bought many, many cigars and one for you, young man. Buy them and return here and we will smoke them together and talk about you and your experiment.”

The young man looked at him, nodded, and headed to the corner of the busy intersection. The old man yelled to him, “Don’t forget to get some matches!“ The young man smiled, saluted and continued on.

The old man called to the other “Benches” to have them come over and join him in his “court”. The two men, dressed almost identically as the judge, shuffled over, sat down next to him quietly and, with an air of what one can only describe as “inevitability”, waited. The old man said to his friends, “Be patient, fellas. I have a surprise for you!”

The student returned promptly. He reported, “The Captan says hello and wanted to make sure that I gave you a warm hug. Would that be OK?” “Of course,“ the old man replied. “The Captain is a fine man.”

The quartet lit up the cigars. The “Benches” leaned back, and took a long drag. Turning to the young man, the Judge asked simply, “So, what do you think? The young man responded frankly, “I don’t know what to think. It seems to me that that hundred dollars could’ve gone a long way to make your lives a lot better, at least for a short while, anyway. Why did you choose sharing cigars and not food!

The old man replied, “It’s as simple as this. That building over there, it’s named for me. I am Chester Q. Binghampton. Pretty fancy name, isn’t it? I am the man who founded the school that you attend. It was my business to teach business.”

The young man, with eyes wide open and eyebrows high in astonishment, said, “Wait! You are the Master? You are THE Chester Q. Binghampton? I just read your book; that is our textbook for the class!”

The old man replied, “Yes, as I said, I am C.Q.B.” and puffed his cigar.

The young man could not believe his eyes and ears!

“Young man,” said C.Q.B. with a quiet confidence, “don’t be alarmed or surprised or concerned or have any of the astonished feelings that you must be feeling at this moment. I am as happy as I have ever been or could ever be. I am here, with my two friends, on these three benches, under this grand tree, enjoying a fine, fine cigar.”

The young man, still thoroughly astonished, asked the master, “Why, uh, I mean, what caused you to be in this situation, sitting across from the building that bears your name?”

The Master, the Judge, the founder of the C.Q.B. School of Business, C.Q.B., himself replied, “I made one colossal mistake in my life.” He took another draw. “I taught people how to MAKE money but I did not teach them the VALUE of money. You see, that hundred dollars is now showing you the value of money. I am the product of my actions. Full stop. I am here because of my own greed and short sightedness. It is a difficult thing to look at that building every day and see what I built. It is marvelous in itself, I suppose but it, sadly, represents my life’s work.  I must face the fact that I did not live my life with any concern for others. I lived for myself. Life is fickle. Markets go up and down. Trends go in and out. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. It just so happened, the last time I was down, I stayed down and here I am. That is why I choose to sit here as the judge on the bench. I have judged myself and my sentence is to look at that building. Mind you, I am somewhat reprieved for I now have Johnny and Peter who understand and accept me and I have my sturdy tree and I have this cigar. Turns out, it’s all I ever really needed.”

He took a long puff from the cigar, lifted it in a toast to his two bench friends and added, “Now, go back to your class and tell them what you learned.”

As the young man turned to go, C.Q.B. added, “and please, leave the matches.”

May 18, 2022