Donald — my brother-in-law — writes bad stories about suicide and philosophy, and I can't stand to think about what he does to my sister at night. Helena is tiny — about 110 pounds — and he's pushing 280. The thought of him wheezing away in a sexual frenzy while she's within the same county is enough to make me spit out my bacon and set my forehead down on the cool stainless steel of the kitchen counter.

I weigh about 150 pounds and I earn about $150,000 a year depending on how you measure that sort of thing. I am toned up, and generally ready for a game of tennis. I read Scott Turow, Michael Crichton and select bits of the Wall Street Journal. I think Hegel is dead, but that's as far as I go with the guy.

Last year, Donald gave me a copy of "The Magic Mountain" for Christmas. "I think that you'll really enjoy this," he wheezed, his pale mounds of chest flesh barely constrained by his shirt, which bore the thinly-lined pattern of graph paper. He looked like a crude illustration of space/time theory, and the thought made me grin. "I think I will, too," I said. "This is about the Disneyland ride, right?"

When I was shot through a lung by a client five years ago, Helena was one of the first and only people to make it to the hospital. Donald was never around.

"He's..." picking up the kids, from school. Writing something critical, on a hard deadline. Laid out with the flu. And always terribly sorry he couldn't make it, and hoping fervently for my recovery.

Or so she said.

Having Helena around made the unreality and terrifying newness of hospital life somewhat livable.

Alone in the room, I would shut my eyes and pretend I was already dead.

"Gretel put the cold steel of the gun's deadly mouth against the warm flesh of her chest and let it roar its terrible song. She fell in a cloud of blood, instantly falling inert on the floor, eyes cold and white, as extinguished as the idea she had once stood for: Transcendental poststructuralism."

Can you believe that shit?

I never specifically advised my sister against marrying Donald, because I knew that no other action could so solidly convince her to tie the knot. But chills are easily read when you understand the source.

Nimble and funny, she could have had her pick. She crossed pathes with venture capitalists, international bankers, and hedge fund managers. She knew economics professors, and think tank jockeys and financial columnists. She'd known men who did serious shit.

As America goes, so goes the world. Helena had known guys with their hands on important levers. She'd married Donald. Donald mostly had his hands on food, books, or Helena.

I get 250-300 emails a day. Roughly 70 percent are spam. Twenty-five percent are from lists, either in-house or professional. 4.5-5 percent are directly from my clients. On an average day, I get 0-1 emails from someone I love.

Most of those are from Helena.

I'm not attempting to accomplish anything particularly noble with my life, and I have no illusions about my place in the greater scheme of things. I serve my clients, and I travel the world. Money keeps arriving, and I do various things with it. Some of it gets exiled to distant corners, where it works quietly but furiously on my behalf. Some of it gets set free, flying forth in a green explosion of goodwill, bringing flocks of wine bottles and herds of leather chairs back to rest under my roof. If I'm a cog in some international money apparatus, I am a good cog, and reliable. And I'm proud of what I do. I gather, sort, and dispense information. I guide people through the changing tides and sharp rocks of finance. There is a light on my prow, and for a certain fee, I'll shine it on your behalf.

Maybe there's something beautiful about that.

"Don't you feel like the capitalist system — at least as it's currently imagined — basically just perpetuates an ancient pattern of class injustice that keeps the poor down in the dirt and unfairly allocates most of society's wealth to the very richest — and therefore least deserving — of its individuals?"

I stared at Donald. This was Thanksgiving, so the two-pound buffer of wild rice, juicy turkey breast, pumpkin bread and cranberries should have taken the edge off the wine. Still, I found myself reeling.

"Alex, mmm you don't have to answer the question if you don't want to," said Helena, quietly. She put her hand on my shoulder.

"No, I'll answer it," I said, checking my mental notes to figure out what the question was in the first place. They read like this:

CAPITALISM IS BAD * RICH STAY RICH * UNFAIR THAT THEY ARE RICH

"Listen," I said, leaning forward, trying not to become a self-parody. "I understand what you're getting at. I'm not particularly happy that people are poor. But you can stuff $50,000 into a bum's styrofoam cup, and he'll be back on the street in a week. That's not society's problem. Capitalism is a tool, and if you're smart you'll use it. Communism is a tool. Socialism is a tool. They're all just games, sets of rules we play house with. Capitalism is the best set of rules, 'cause anyone can get out on the corner and hustle."

"Unless they're selling mmm narcotics," murmurred Helena.

"Don't blame capitalism for that," I replied smoothly. "That's a quirk of history."

"What isn't a quirk of history?" asked Donald.

"The strong always do okay," I said, "and the lazy struggle for grants."

Helena's eyes flashed at me, but Donald just chuckled quietly.

"So we do," he said. "So we do."

A big, comfortably appointed empty house with Bang & Olufsen sound, a jacuzzi, and a half-size indoor swimming pool is still an empty house. No matter what two loyal cats may say. No matter how many cable channels are on tap. No matter how many dates come over, stay the night, eat $10 designer waffles, blow kisses and vanish. No matter whether it's Christmas, New Year's or the end of the world.

The walls echo the hammer of the bassline as I put my feet up. Entombed in sound, I let my mind wrap itself around the syllables that cut through the beats and bass like minnows in a stream.

As I lie buried beneath the wall of sound, it occurs to me that I would like to speak with Donald. I'd like to be able to sit down with him and have a conversation about — whatever. I'd like to figure him out. I'd like to have someone else in the house, and Helena is out of town.

Maybe we could enjoy an amaretto and sour together. Both are in the house.

I turn down the music and dial Helena's number. Donald answers.

"Hey, Donald," I say. "What are you up to tonight?"

This catches him totally flatfooted. "I, uh, not much. Just watching Law and Order."

"Good show," I say. "How about coming over and having a drink or two?"

There is a noncharacteristic silence on the other end of the phone. "Tonight?" he finally replies.

"Unless you're committed to the 'Order' section of the program, yeah. How do you feel about amaretto? Or beer?"

"I feel quite good about both," he says, regaining some poise. "Should I just come over?"

"Sure. See you soon."

I turn the music back up.

It's pure Disneyesque magic that I hear the doorbell at all. It dings precisely as the MC inserts a full stop into his patois — the noise of the door exploits a chink in the sonic wall.

I flip off the Wu-Tang and throw in the new album by Fountains of Wayne. The notes knife their way through the humidity of the late spring air that chokes my corridors and chambers.

I am testing myself ... how late in the season can I go before firing up the central air?

When I open the door, Donald is standing there, his khaki-clad bulk mostly obscuring the night's flowering bushes, passing cars and thriving insects.

"Come on in, good to see you," I say with more warmth than could reasonably be anticipated. Holy hell, I think. I need to get out of this city and go back home where I have real friends.

"Thanks," says Donald. He is carrying a 12-pack of honey ale.

I grin at him, nodding. "12-pack. Good. You're serious about your alcohol consumption."

"What writer worth the title isn't?" he asks, wryly.

I stick the block of beer into the black marble minifridge that is an integral component of my black marble living room bar setup. I crack open two of them and pour them into the Czech pilsner glasses I keep on hand for exactly this sort of occasion.

We both smile wanly, sip out of our tall conical glasses, and put our feet up.

Then there is some silence.

"So where were you when I was in the hospital?" I ask. "Was it just a matter of not liking me?"

Donald stares at me, his glass halfway to his lips. His eyes are big. His breathing comes in big, labored breaths. Were we playing poker, this sort of physiological reaction would tell me that I'd called his bluff, or that he'd filled his inside straight. In the office, this sort of thing typically meant that I'd scored points off of yet another dumbass rival.

Here I wasn't so sure what I'd done.

"No, that wasn't it," he says, buying time. "That's not it at all." Wheels spin. "Let me try to explain. How honest should I be?"

"I guess," I say, "if we're going to talk about this at all, I'd just as soon do it honestly."

"I don't know if that's smart," he says. Slurp of beer. Wipe of hammy lips. Stare. Pronounced blinks. "But," he says, "I will give it a shot."

It's not that I don't like you —

It's more a sort of discomfort —

Well, not with you, per se as much — as — slurp —

Can you turn the volume down a bit? Thanks; good disc though —

More what you represent —

And of course there's Helena —

"What about Helena?" I ask, genuinely curious. So many places to go with that one. But then, pondering the conversation, I envision a massive oak tree growing out of one branch of another massive oak tree. "Never mind Helena for now," I say, "just go on. And slow down. Present it clearly. I argue all day every day at work. Hit my head on."

"You're such a goddamn materialist," he said deliberately. "And you're so good at it. I don't even try to balance my checkbook. It would be a waste of time. Your money is so well-organized that it makes money when you're not even around. It breeds like rats. On one hand, I think your obsession with money is repulsive, and on the other..."

"You can't even begin to figure out how I do it," I say. "Yeah, I guess I can see that. But is that really enough not to see me when I'm fighting for my life in a hospital?"

"No, I mean..." he stammers here. "You don't understand. I just don't know what to say to you."

"Likewise," I smile. "I have no fucking idea." We've both finished our beers. "Another?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "We're both smart guys. We should be able to figure this out."

"I have question for you about what you said at Thanksgiving," I say, staring levelly over my drink at Donald's stationary bulk. "You said the rich are, inherently, the least deserving."

"We're all just sacks of flesh, plodding toward the same eternal oblivion," he says. "Why should one class of people have disgusting excess while others languish without health care or a nourishing diet? Or any food at all if you want to think about what's going on in the hardest-hit of the developing nations?"

"These easy for you to say," I reply. "You're on the losing end of all this. I make five times your salary, easy. I'm probably three times as fit as you. I live here," I say, waving my hand airily around my sprawling abode, "and I love it. Did you notice my stereo? Is it not fucking amazing?"

"It's a good system," concedes Donald. "It has assertive bass."

"Definitely. So, it's in your interest to say none of this is worth a damn thing. And it's in my interest to say that all this stuff is equivalent to success."

"Well..." He took another pull on his beer. I reciprocated.

"I mean, look at this way. If you were fit, wealthy, and swimming in gorgeous material possessions, and you had the courage to say that it didn't mean a damn thing, wouldn't that be a lot more credible?"

"I think I'd just look hypocritical," says Donald, sucking down the remainder of his beer. "I mean, if it was so unimportant, why had I put so much time and energy into acquiring and enjoying it? Doesn't that effectively undermine my argument?"

"Not any more than the smell of sour grapes does. You up for a walk? There's a golf course out back that's actually quite a nice walk."

"Uh, sure," he says. "Let's hit it."

"Bring a beer. It's cool."

We slide open the glass doors that demarcate the border between the thoroughly civilized confines of my house and the thoroughly civilized expanse of the golf course. Though I don't own the course, I do own a membership, and that leads me to believe that it's mine to pace at night. No one's ever argued with me, at any rate.

Donald and I step onto the moist grass and let ourselves be pulled out and into the warm night air. The sweet, crisp nip of the honey ale plays brilliantly off of the evening's heavy moisture, and for a while we just walk, enjoying the mix. Sprinklers chit-chit-chit-chit-chit away in the distance, laying down a beat as danceable as anything on vinyl.

The contoured roll of the land makes for a good walk. Our shoes pick up moisture and blades of grass as we advance into the seemingly limitless rolling fields of dark gray.

Off in the distance, we see a large dark figure pulling something out of the ground with an audible grunt. It's a ball washer. A bandana-wearing teenager has pulled a metal ball washer out of the ground. Three smaller figures stand behind the ogreish uprooter. Two of them are carrying bundles of golf flags slung over their shoulders like rifles. The third is hauling a metal wire trashcan.

"Come on, Donald," I hiss quietly, "Let's get 'em!"

"What?" he says.

"Stop, you goddamn looters!" I yell, running downhill at the four figures as fast as my legs will carry me. Thanks to the terrain, I've got the jump on them — I manage to land a flying tackle on one of the flag-bearers as the other three teens head for the hills.

"Aaaaagh!" yells the high-school kid, his eyes as big as saucers.

"AAAAAAGH!" I yell back much more loudly. The kid squirms like a water moccasin, and runs off, dropping flags everywhere.

I lie on the ground laughing for a while. When Donald finally catches up to me, he's laughing too. We sit together in the middle of a pile of discarded golf paraphenalia.

"Is that sort of decision-making process pretty much how you make money?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Pretty much. It doesn't work for everyone."

We walk around for a while more, and get into mundane stuff, like where we're from, and our major relationships, and what we think of God. We both agree that He's not all that He's cracked up to be, but that's pretty much to be expected. You can't expect anyone — not Warren Buffet, not Christopher Walken, not Colin Powell — to live up to their billing. It's just not doable. Sometimes, pretty much is good enough.

Weirdly, Donald is able to supress his twisted tendency to bury his sentences in jargon. He says something about me being "unexpectedly open minded," which I take as more of a compliment than a knock.

After a while, the beer really hits home.

"Why'd you get shot?" he asks me, as we get back to the glass door.

"Huh? Oh, that," I say. "The flying-tackle school of investment sometimes involves some rough landings."

"Ah," he says.

"And you shouldn't sleep with your clients."

I shut the door behind me, and it's hot in the house. I head for the central AC, as Donald cracks open the black marble fridge. Halfway to the panel, I turn around, and adjust the volume on the stereo. It is pumping away like a stadium rock concert, and Donald is nodding his head to the beat, refilling his pilsner.