Benny arrived at school with a chip on his shoulder. His day didn’t start out well. First, his butler didn’t compliment him on his new haircut. Then, the chauffeur dropped him off too far from the curb, and he got mud on the soles of his loafers. Finally and most egregiously, the headmaster caught him loitering in the halls long after the tardy bell rang.
“Young master Benny,” the gray-haired and white-skinned gentleman said. “I see you have not found your way to Mrs. Humphrey’s class yet. That would make the third time this week, and it’s only Tuesday.” He finished with a subtle ‘tsk’ as if he was sucking on a popcorn kernel that had become stuck in a tooth hole where a molar should be.
Benny snarled. “Listen here, pops. You might want to check your privilege at the door.”
Dr. Pomplemoose didn’t understand but, nevertheless, turned instinctively towards the front entrance. The privilege-check girl was in her usual spot, with the smirk of someone who knows more than everyone else.
“Master Benny,” he said, not without great difficulty what with all the wheezing. “When you address me, it is to be as Dr. Pomplemoose or Headmaster Pomplemoose. Not as pops. We have had this conversation more than once. Your disrespect will not be tolerated at Ms. Pennington’s School for Boys and Confused Girls.”
It was Benny’s turn to suck on a popcorn kernel. “If you only knew how much you offended me just then, you’d be begging me not to call Mr. Krumpkin right now. The only reason I’m not already on my phone getting you fired is because you are the least of my vast concerns at this moment.”
Mr. Krumpkin was the President of the Board of Ms. Pennington’s School for Boys and Confused Girls. He was also the nephew of Vice President Nedib, who recommended him to be the CEO at Nucular NRG, a President Bush/Ayatollah Khomeini joint venture, and Benny’s godfather.
“Oh. Right. Mr. Krumpkin.” Dr. Pomplemoose’s tone took a drastic change from one of dissatisfaction to that which a white supremacist might make when mistakenly getting on a bus going to Harlem. “I apologize, Master Benny, if I have inadvertently ruffled your … er … ruffles.” He made a mental note to check the updated dress code. “But I would appreciate it, if you see fit, to address me by my proper title in the future.”
“Whatever, pops,” Benny sneered.
“Good, good. Now, how about you scootch on over to Mrs. Humphrey’s? I’m sure she’s looking forward to your presence in class.” A vision of a hyperventilating Mrs. Humphrey came to mind. “Maybe not,” he added to himself.
“I’ll think about going in a minute,” Benny said, his cheeks quivering with a combination of delight, vexation, and a low-fiber/high-cheesecake diet. “I just don’t know if I can take her today.”
Dr. Pomplemoose’s years of experience working with teenagers and a terminal degree in child psychology enabled him to read between the lines. “It’s simply a matter of low self-esteem,” he thought. “You need a hug, don’t you?” he said.
“Huh? What? No! Quit oppressing me.”
It was the good doctor’s turn to be confused. Brushing off the rebuff and giving the lad a big old squeeze, which lasted just long enough to not be considered harassment, he dismissed the young man and headed back to the office.
Benny huffed and puffed at the thought that any man, especially one so old and white and privileged and smelling of pre-cooked bacon, should dismiss him. Him! Benny von Cain Culls. The heir to the von Cain Culls fortune and winner of the canned food drive three years in a row. How dare Dr. Pomplemoose look down on him as if he was regular rabble instead of a distinguished member of the elite ruling class?
Yet for all his nobility and breeding and innate supremacy, Benny felt sad. Not the kind where you regret what you do and try to change for the better. The deeper, more honorable kind where you feel sorry about how no one truly understands you.
As he walked down the hall towards Mrs. Humphrey’s class, muttering to himself about the unfairness of life, a poster in a rainbow of colors caught his eye.
“Come Join the Social Equities Club,” it read. “Tuesday During Lunch. Open to All.”
“Social Equities,” he mused out loud. “I don’t know what that means, but it rolls off the tongue and tickles my ears. And it’s during lunch.” He quickly checked his calendar to see if he had any previous commitments. “Hmm. Today’s my day to visit the children’s hospital.” He nodded his head. “They’ll understand,” he said and hit delete.
With nothing else to do until lunch, Benny decided to sit in on the second half of Mrs. Humphrey’s class.
“Hi, Benny,” a scratchy, highish-pitched voice called out. “Where ya’ goin’?”
“Uh. Oh hey, Rhoda,” he said. “To Mrs. Humphrey’s.”
“It’s Reese.”
“I thought it was Rhoda.”
“That was yesterday. Today, I feel like a Reese.”
“Whatever.”
“Why ya’ goin’ to Humphrey’s?”
“I got class, genius.”
Rhoda-Reese looked at her watch, which had slipped around to the front of her wrist. “Ouch,” she said as the thick, dark hairs on her forearm got stuck in the watchband.
“Urggh,” Benny said when he saw the thick, dark hairs on her forearm.
“Aren’t you late for class?” Rhoda-Reese asked.
“Who are you, my mother?”
“I could be if you’d like,” she said, placing one hand suggestively on her hip.
Benny picked his nose and wiped it casually on his trousers. “I don’t know what that means,” he said.
“Well, for starters, I could wash your dirty pants.”
“Jeeves does that for me.”
“Who’s Jeeves?”
“Not Jeeves. Jeeves. Like Hevvase. He’s Latino.”
“Ohhhh. Who’s Hevvase?”
“My personal chalet. We brought him across the border on a temporary work permit. He lives in my closet, and we pay him with the change I find in my pocket. We saved him from his miserable, oppressed life.”
“Aren’t you noble!” Rhoda-Reese said.
Benny shrugged as if to say it’s not really that big a deal. “It’s what me and my family do. We help out the unfortunate, but we don’t like to toot our own horn.”
“I understand,” Rhoda-Reese said, her eyes wide in wonder, like a thirteen-year-old girl might be when meeting R. Kelly in person. “I wish I could be more like you.”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “There’s only one of me, and that’s more than enough for this world.” The sadness grew a little more.
At the meeting: They talk about how their sad and angry all the time. Benny realizes he is also. You want to know why? They say. Yes! Benny says. It’s because you’re {oppressed, others are evil, etc.}
After the meeting: Benny goes off to change the world, becoming more and
more involved, pointing out the “flaws” in others, becoming more of a
social justice warrior. He’s asked to go to a rally for some social cause.
The rally/the climax: ??? He shouts. He jeers. He knocks people, who
disagree with him, over the head. He argues leftist talking points like {you’re on the wrong side of history, look up a couple more}. He argues with black people who aren’t leftists and calls them traitors to their race.
Climate change rally? They loot and set fire to stores and cars. The
hardworking people come out and look at their world being destroyed. Benny
chastises them for having jobs and ruining the environment and oppressing
people. In the end, the city burns down. Benny sits on the ashes of the
destruction he caused and says, “I’m still not happy,” or something
similar about how the sadness is even worse now or how his soul is still
upset/angry/unfulfilled.