Jimmy was almost twelve years old before he truly started to realize just how much money his family really had. He had of course known the house was big and had a lot of servants, after all he had grown up there, a big car with a driver, Vincent, who took him to school every day, sometimes even letting him ride in the front seat, but he wasn’t supposed to tell mom and dad that. They had cars, boats, two fast jet airplanes and by the time he was twelve he had been in more than a dozen countries, dad called them business trips, Jimmy and his mom called them vacations.
He grew up mostly around the servants, dad was usually away at work and mom had a lot of social functions, but he had friends at school, all of them with houses just as big as his. It was when he was eighteen, right before he headed off to the finest college in the land when he finally understood the size of his family’s holdings. “We grossed over three-hundred billion last year son, over two-hundred thousand employees, not including the work we subcontract.” Jimmy’s dad had some very long conversations with him the days before he left for school, the importance, the responsibilities, the advantages, would all lay directly on his shoulders one day. Of course there were board members, some of them very powerful men and women, but the final authority and the majority of the decisions were completely in his father’s hands, and one day would rest in Jimmy’s.
He was brought into the company slowly, even while at college, his studies were all geared around the family’s needs, the companies continued success, and as time went on, certain things about that success concerned him. “You don’t get this far by being nice all the time, son.” It was the only response his father would give, when land was needed for a new factory, people were sent with offers, when the offers were refused, other people were sent, then people disappeared, or had accidents. Jimmy’s first accident happened his second year at college.
“Oops, you dropped one there, uh oh, you dropped another one!” He and his three friends had just been fooling around with the kid, a kid not much younger than themselves, four college kids whose clothes probably cost more than this kid made all year. Jimmy had actually taken the small Christian tract the kid had handed to him and put it in his back pocket, right before he heard the first “oops.” One of his friends had finally slapped all of them from the kid’s hands while another wrestled his backpack from him and threw it across the street. The four of them had started to shove him back and forth between themselves, but one of the times when Jimmy shoved him, he pushed too hard, and as soon as they heard a sound like a melon being dropped onto a hard floor, the pushing and mocking stopped. The kid slumped slowly down the brick wall and ended up in a position like a drunk who had found a resting place for the night, the blood pooling around him, turning red the Christian tracts. Jimmy’s first accident cost the family three million dollars and a new city park.
At twenty-five he married as he was told to, a girl whose family did not have as much money as theirs did, but it wasn’t far from it. “Don’t look for love in it, son, look at it as a great business opportunity.” Over the next five years, Jimmy could count the number of times that he saw his wife on his fingers and toes, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know other women, in fact, there was very little that he could not buy. There were no children, at least not in the marriage, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others. The women were either forced into abortions or paid off, signing papers that would ensure their silence, while filling their bank accounts. Jimmy liked the money, but he liked the power even more, everywhere he went his name was “Yes, sir,” he had fired people just because of the way they looked at him, and for those few who did not give him the respect he felt he deserved, well, there were people for those people too, very convincing people.
Jimmy’s second accident came just a year after the divorce, she was a nobody, a high paid call girl, but he had drunk far too much that night, and his rough housing had gotten out of hand. He was arrested and booked into the city jail, and if a television reporter had not been filming the clean-up of a big accident by the police station, everything would have just gone away. Once the police realized who he was, certain calls were made, but the cameras had been filming live and things became difficult. His father was called, but the call went unanswered, he had died of a massive heart attack at the same time that Jimmy had fatally attacked the call girl. The trial went on for three weeks, ending when the family’s lawyers produced a knife with Jimmy’s blood on it, taken they said from the purse of the dead girl, trial over, self-defense.
“Don’t you know who I am?” “No, should I?” She was very attractive, but the restaurants that Jimmy frequented around the planet made it a point to be sure all their employees were attractive. It was a business lunch, three new plants were going to be built, but six outdated ones would need to be either completely refurbished or closed. “Close them.” “That’s going to put fourteen thousand people out of work in areas that are already being hit hard.” “Not my problem, close them.” He had to tell the driver to wait, he had forgotten his reading glasses on the table. The attractive woman who didn’t know who he was was clearing the table, and as he approached, something fell from her apron. His blood froze and he couldn’t move as he looked at what he had just retrieved from the floor for her. A Christian tract, that exact same tract that was buried in the bottom of one of his dresser drawers at home, the same tract that kid had handed him that night. “Do you know Jesus, sir?”
“Every building?” “Yes sweetheart, every building.” “What my lovely wife wants, my lovely wife gets.” Jimmy accepted Christ six months after meeting Emily, and they were married six months after that. She was the only person he had ever met who didn’t care about the money, who didn’t want the prestige, who couldn’t be bought. The board members had tried to oust him, saying all these crazy ideas would bankrupt them all, but began to keep quite as they saw the stock values start to soar. Every single structure, every building that the family business owned would get an addition, and that addition was to be used solely for Bible studies, prayer meetings, and a place to contemplate the word of God. All employees, all two-hundred thousand of them and counting, were allowed to work for the company on Sundays only on a voluntary basis, only for a maximum of five hours, and at double pay. Every business in the holdings of Jimmy’s company would close, with pay for all employees, for one week at Easter, and for two-weeks at Christmas. The stock values went thru the roof, it had been become the highest rated place on earth to work, and many came to know Christ, because of the actions of two people.
“Are you sure?” “No, sweetheart, I’m not going to give them their birthdays off with pay, well, at least not yet.”
