While not a religious man, all his life, Stuart Cummings (not his real name) had believed in a fundamental concept of karma. That if you are a decent, hard-working, and good person, you will somehow be rewarded. That if you are a lazy, dishonest, and mean person, you will end up suffering in one way or another. This belief was rocked, and subsequently completely shattered, by the economic crisis of 2009.
Stuart was the proprietor, manager, and operator of a printing shop in a small town on the West Coast. He had worked hard - long hours for many years - to build up his business. He didn't drink or gamble. True to his beliefs, he dedicated himself to his craft, rarely socializing or enjoying himself. If he had one flaw it was that he did not spend much time with his family, but Stuart considered his duty to be, first and foremost, a good provider. He rarely went out, worked seven days a week, and even when no orders were pending spent the day doing preventive maintenance on the machinery, rearranging supplies, or polishing the shop floor.
The ultimate service he could render to his family, as far as Stuart was concerned, was to produce flawless brochures, envelopes, calendars, posters, and visiting cards, as ordered by his customers. This entailed paying exceptional attention to detail - no work delivered by Stuart ever had as much as a smudge on it. As for skipped pages, misalignments, blurred type, inkspots, missed bleeds - these were unheard of. An intense, wiry man with thick glasses, Stuart personally checked all products, obsessively, often late into the night.
Not surprisingly, Cummings Printing gained a reputation for quality, and in the year 1998 this allowed Stuart to win a long-term supply contract with the only major corporation in the county, a local subsidiary of a Fortune 500 diversified manufacturer.
A decade later, the corporation accounted for 92 percent of Stuart's business. But it made golf carts, and in 2008 global demand for golf carts slowed dramatically, before completely drying up in 2009. The parent corporation, which had other, newer factories in other parts of the country, laid off the workforce, closed the factory, and dissolved the subsidiary.
Stuart was now down to 8 percent of his former revenue. To make matters worse, the corporation had been shut down without paying invoices due, one of which was a bill from Cummings Printing for a large order of calendars. Funds had been spent on paper, ink, packaging, and labor to fulfill the calendar order, and Stuart found himself in the hole to the tune of $35,000. This, in addition to mortgages on the family home and personal loans from the bank.
In early 2008, Stuart's father-in-law had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and Stuart had spent the family's entire savings, his daughter's college fund, as well as borrowed money on a futile attempt to tame the disease. The Cummings family was heavily in debt even before the subprime mortgages rocked America.
A scant month after the closure of the factory, Stuart realized he was soon going to run out of cash. Urged by his wife, he left for the Social Security office, to apply for Food Stamps.
For a man with principles, not being able to provide for his family is the greatest of all possible humiliations. There is, in fact, no worse fate for someone whose very identity has been forged in the workplace.
As he walked - the family car was on a used car lot, waiting to be sold - Stuart considered his options. He told me he remembers the day in April, 2009, with great clarity. It was a day with striking blue skies, decorated with only a few whispy clouds, and the air carried a slight, pleasant breeze. Stuart remembered thinking, How can a world this beautiful be so cruel?
He methodically pondered his options.
The first, and most obvious, was to declare bankruptcy for the business and for himself. This would provide immediate relief, but in the long-term it didn't solve any problems. The business was dead without its main client, and without the business it was impossible to earn money.
Would it be possible to move the business to another location? This might have been an option were it not for the debts incurred as a result of Ralph's illness. Stuart might have had a fighting chance to grab a small share of the corporate market in a larger city. But it was impossible to transplant a business without any cash or credit.
Could the business be sold? Nobody would buy a business which didn't have any income. The equipment was salable, but it would be auctioned off below value, and not make much of a dent in the massive debt burden.
Might Stuart write a resume and find a job? This was the most far-fetched idea of all. A 52-year-old white male with no computer skills wasn't easily employable in the best of times, let alone during the greatest depression in living memory when half of America was out of a job.
Eventually, Stuart realized he had no assets except one.
His life insurance was worth $950,000. Stuart had bought a more expensive insurance policy than average, urged on by an old army buddy who'd gone into insurance soon after losing his condominium sales job during the subprime mortgage crisis. Mindful of what had befallen his father-in-law, Stuart had agreed to take the policy, and had been paying the premiums diligently.
As Stuart walked the seven miles to the Social Security office, he became more convinced with every step that taking his own life was to be his fate. He would be fulfilling his duty - providing for his family - and this was a considerable relief. With the resolve firmly made, Stuart had no problems lining up to fill out the form to apply for Food Stamps. The Food Stamps were temporary. He, Stuart Cummings, would look after his wife and his daughter.
There was just one problem - the policy expressly stated the company had no obligations to pay in the event a death was ruled a suicide within two years of the purchase of the policy.
This meant it had to look like an accident, or a natural death.
And that turned out to be a major problem. Any accident by a policy-holder with deep financial woes was bound to be investigated thoroughly. As the days wore on, Stuart became increasingly desperate.
If he were to walk into the path of an oncoming car, it would obviously look like suicide, unless he were drunk. But he had no history of drinking, something any lawyer worth his salt would easily uncover. Besides, if he were drunk, the manoevre would be difficult to execute correctly, and he might end up merely mangled instead of dead, saddling his family with further debts.
A boating accident would be suspicious because he'd never been boating in his life. And the body might never be found - delaying the claims process by years.
A fire might work, but arson could be discovered, and it would put his family in danger. Send the wife to stay with her mother and then set fire to the house? Suspicious. Besides, they needed the house.
Stuart wished he could confide in someone, but even the slightest indication to anyone that he was contemplating suicide might be uncovered during the investigation, or, even worse, trigger an immediate call to 911, leading to confinement in the suicide prevention unit at the psychiatric ward of the local hospital.
It was during breakfast exactly seven days after applying for Food Stamps that Stuart knew instantly what he was going to do. The TV was on and the anchor was talking about some new drug to combat obesity. Obesity was a top killer, a major cause of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes...
Stuart decided he would eat himself to death.
Always intense, active, and wiry, Stuart had never had any health issues. Other than the occasional cold, he hadn't been ill. He used to joke that he was too busy to get ill. But he wasn't busy anymore. Food Stamps would keep the family afloat for now. In the meantime, Stuart would binge on trans-fats, refined sugar, and cholesterol. He'd take up smoking and drinking. If all the warnings were correct, he should be keeling over soon enough. No insurance company investigator would suspect anything; most Americans are overweight, anyway.
Intense and obsessive as ever, Stuart drew up a schedule of target weights and dates, and quickly moved his plan into the implementation phase.
That very day, Stuart ate a two pizzas for lunch, snacked on fried chicken, and wolfed down two platefuls of chow mein for dinner. Before going to bed he finished a tub of Rocky Road, which he washed down with a jug of full cream milk.
A week later he had gained a few pounds, but by no means enough to reach obesity by the target date. Stuart started observing obese men closely - and eventually came to the realization that the magic ingredient was beer. He bought a case of Coors and went to work.
Three cases later and the results were encouraging. He was definitely starting to see the beginnings of a beer gut. Stuart now took every opportunity to socialize and drink beer. He hung out with his neighbor on the porch and swilled Budweiser. He went fishing with his cousin and outdrank him. He went to collect the money raised from the sale of the station wagon and ended up drinking at a pool house with the owner of the used car shop. They then went to a strip club and though he found it hard to concentrate, Stuart never stopped guzzling.
Gradually, a transformation took place, and it wasn't just physical. Maybe it was the fact that he had a plan in place, or maybe he was determined to enjoy the last few months of his life, or maybe it was the beer: Stuart became laid back. The beer drinking, which had been nauseous at first, was now becoming genuinely enjoyable.
Stuart found himself looking forward to parties, weddings and other social occasions. It was at this juncture that I met him - at a reunion. Stuart himself hadn't even been part of the class, but he'd tagged along with one of his drinking buddies. By this time he came across as jovial and relaxed, telling jokes well, and erupting in infectuous laughter at the slightest provocation.
Then a curious thing happened.
The owner of the used car shop asked him to print a case of flyers. A stripper decided to tie the knot with a customer and wanted Stuart to do the wedding invitations. A frat - he hung out with one of the alumni - ordered posters. I asked him to print my book. Word spread. And spread. And spread.
Six months later, we find Stuart in XXL jeans, sweating as he lumbers from one machine to another. He's busy fulfilling orders. Even in these depressed times, word of mouth is delivering more business than the golf cart factory ever did. Annoyingly, all the orders interfere with Stuart's beer drinking, but he takes it in stride.
