Midnight Games (A Poem By Gordon Macdonald)


Last evening at the midnight hour
Two men, in different places,
Unknown to each other,
Sat pondering the same subject:
The significance
Of fifty-five years of life.
These are those moments
When a certain mood
Causes a man’s mind to open and scan
The resume of personal existence,
engaging in a ruthless game best called
What’s-the-Point?
For losers, this midnight game can be harsh, perhaps dispiriting, or even destructive.
For winners, it can be satisfying, fortifying, vindicating to the soul.
For both men the time to play this midnight game had come.
A strange reverie, you see, had captured the hour.
And this contest in private thinking, which, sooner or later,
almost every man plays, began for them.
See one player at a desk in a high-ceiling, paneled den.
Mozart plays softly in surround-sound, but no one listens.
The Late Night Show glares out in the dimness, muted, but on one watches.
A whiskey glass frequently “freshened” gains increasing attention.
In another location of great contrast, a second player rests his elbows on a scratched kitchen table.
Decaf, grown cold, half fills a mug.
Here in this simple place, there is silence except, that is, for the deep breathing of sleeping children in the next room and a wife humming a familiar tune as she brushes her hair and prepares for bed.
From somewhere deep in the two players, a voice,
Call it the Keeper-of-the Score, cries out,
“Add everything up! Compute the value of these years!
Be frank; hold nothing back, you two men who live on different sides of the tracks, who are separated by square footage, horsepower, clout, and portfolios.”
And so the first of two reaches for his oft-used glass and begins his private thinking.
“I can play this game,” he says, “and I can win . . . big.”
There’s my house, he notes, for openers: three garages, pool (covered), great room, and closets large enough to be squash courts.
This spread has been featured in Architectural Digest.
The Republicans come here for fund-raisers.
And the folks in town call it an estate.
It’s mine, and –case your curious, it’s paid for.
And when the market gets just right, I’m going to sell this sucker and triple my investment.
I own a business, no partners, no public stock.
Nope. All mine!
Oh, and so are the four hundred-plus people on the payroll,
Now, I say they’re mine because I tell them when to come to work,
when to take a break, how much they’ll earn (I broke the union),
and whether or not they’ll even have a job next week (we call it downsizing).
To my face, those people call me “Mister”; some even call me “Sir.”
Lots of respect in that arrangement. (No one crosses me.)
There’s my wife, and for the purposes of this game, I might as well speak of her in business terms.
The woman’s mine; I’ve bought her everything.
I’ve capped her teeth, paid for weight spas
I’ve imported Paris’s finest, gotten her into the best clubs.
New York’s best doctors have resculpted virtually every part of her body.
Yep! She’s mine. She owes me everything.
She can’t leave; she can’t change . . . without my authorization.
The kids are mine, too, when you add up the costs.
I’ve paid the orthodontist, Harvard, and the Lexus dealer.
I’ve set them in motion with trust funds, abortions,
European vacations, and front-page weddings.
Let’s be blunt: in pure economic terms, they’re mine!
They do what I say, come when I call, face a future I’ve designed.
Oh, and while they’re tallying up the score, remember to record
my investments, my directorships, and my recent invitation to a state dinner in the White House.
That’s all mine too.
And don’t forget my reputation:
Mentioned last month in Fortune, noted as a patron in the symphony’s annual report, and admired for my low golfing handicap.
Right! All Mine! Earned! Deserved! Secure!
“What’s the point?” demands the Keeper-of-the-Score.
“Yes,” the first player answers.
“I was just asking that myself.”
If, for example, everything and every person in my world is mine,
Why am I so drained of spirit as I play this midnight game?
Why do I have this feeling that everything belongs to me . . . But my soul?
And why do I sit here, glass in hand, wondering:
Why is my wife not here tonight,
Why my children chose colleges and jobs a thousand miles away,
If my company will survive paradigm shifts,
If my reputation is adequately protected,
If there is anyone who likes me?
Why do I brood on these things bothered by a nagging void within, when so much is mine?
Time! Switch playing field, for it is
a second player’s turn at the midnight game.
Leave that pretentious scene,
Cross the tracks to a block of homes as plain and indistinguishable as white bread.
Don’t disturb, but quietly watch.
A second player takes his turn at play in the midnight game.
from a beaten-up thermos he refills his mug to the half.
Private thoughts begin.
Gee, this house is getting old,” he sighs, looking around.
Will the furnace last the winter?” he wonders.
I’ve got to paint that ceiling,” he promises.
Crabgrass is getting out of control, he complains.
If we don’t refinance the mortgage, he reasons, it will be ours in six years and seven months.
But, you know, in a way, this place really does own me; it welcomes me each evening as I walk from the bus.
Every room contains memories of Christmases and birthdays,
Crises and conflicts, giggles and prayers.
I do belong to this place; I’m rooted here.
I wouldn’t take a million for it.
My job, . . Just a job…will never make me a millionaire.
But I might as well admit after these thirty years, the job kind of possesses me.
I must have known a thousand people because I’ve served them.
Everyone knows that my word is my bond;
Call me, I say, and I’ll be there on time.
Deal with me, I promise, and I’ll give you a fair price.
Bill me, I assure them, and I’ll pay in fifteen days.
Trust me, and I’ll never let you down.
I like what I’m doing and the way I’m doing it.
My wife, he thinks as he uses a fork to clean his nails, she wasn’t a cheerleader when I met her, she didn’t go to Vassar. and –
please don’t tell her I said this — she’s probably not going to win someone’s beauty contest.
But hey, I might as well say the honest truth–I belong to her.
She’s full of affection for me.
She’s wise; she’s sensitive; she’s caring.
And she’s tough, and she’s smart; nothing gets by her, believe me!
She doesn’t ask for much; she gives everything.
I’d give her anything she asked for,
beginning with myself included, nothing held back.
Then there’s my kids, average students, reasonable competitors, great potential though.
Everyone says that to me.
Shoot! When you get right down to it, I may be their father,
but I belong to those guys.
I like giving them every second of time there is.
I love being spectator to their fun and games.
I glow as I watch their hearts enlarge with insight and character.
The birth certificates in our strong box upstairs say they are mine, but my heart says that I am theirs.
Assets? You kiddin’? Look, I own nothing Wall Street snorts about.
What we’ve got wouldn’t make for a good yard sale.
The only holdings of value are my friends, memories, and my faith in God.
I’m just glad to be alive, Especially after the prostate scare (but the doc said it was benign; to come back in a year).
So when they bury me,
And that looks like a while yet, my estate will be little more than an insurance policy and a way of life passed on to my sons and daughters.
Reputation; connections? I dont’ care what Moscow or Washington thinks.
Now, by the way, there are a few buddies and their wives,
And I’d jump to their side (and they to mine)
Should the occasion of need arise.
With them
I laugh; I cry
I give; I get
I play; I help.
I belong to those folks.
If I’ve got something they need, it’s theirs.
I tell you: I may be broke here (he pats his wallet);
But I’m loaded here (he touches his heart).
Time! It’s past midnight. Game is over!
Count up the scores.
Who is winner?
Are you as confused as I as we watch two men extinguish the lights and head for bed?
Look! One reaches for the hand of his wife as they start up the stairs.
The other has nothing to hold on to.
One grins at something said by his wife, pats her on the rear, and you have this suspicion that the night is not yet concluded.
The other hears only silence a he arms the security system,
takes a sleeping pill, and lurches toward an empty bed.
It was a strange experience, this midnight game.
We thought such games were won by power and accumulation,
by beauty and skill, by being connected.
But maybe we were wrong and didn’t understand that
midnight games are won most often by players whose records include:
Generosity, care,
Simplicity, love,
A full heart.
‘Midnight Games’
By Gordon MacDonald