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Grinnell Review Corner: Advice

by Khanh Ho, Assistant Professor of English

Don't trust anybody here. Everybody here is a liar. If they're not a liar, they're a thief. You don't want to hang out with a liar or a thief. You know what they do, right? They take things that don't belong to them. You may think they won't do it to you. You're the exception, right? People have always made exceptions for you because they can sense Quality. And you're Quality people. I can tell. You don't have to tell me. You're Quality. It's in your bearing. That says it all.

But you can't trust a thief. They prey on people like you. People like you don't know what the real world's all about. Don't get me wrong. You probably know more about most things than I do. I can't hope to know about important things, things that matter. I've been living here too long and it's sucked it out of me. Sometimes I wonder if I've been living here too long.

But people like you know a lot about the world and, still, people like you are essentially innocent. I can tell. You went to private school, right? You've never had to suffer too deeply. Don't kid a kidder.

I'm not trying to put you down. Take it as a compliment: I've seen suffering. You've never suffered. You look forward to things. I bet when you were a kid you even had ambitions. People like you always have ambition. People like you take it for granted that everyone has ambitions. Having ambitions is a normal thing to you, like electricity and running water.

You know, a thief, he has no ambition. His only ambition is to thieve. It's what he was brought onto the earth to do. He doesn't have a mother or father like you or me. He doesn't have people who love him. A thief is an orphan at heart. That's why he sees a person like you, a person with ambitions, and he feels he has a right. Where do you get off, all high and mighty? That's what he's thinking. That's the thinking of a thief. I'm just calling it as I see it: that's what's in a thief's head.

You're just minding your business, getting on with your life, you say. But a thief is a low down dirty creature. He looks up at the world from a pit and he sees someone like you and all he can think is where does he get off? That's what he's thinking. A thief, he sees you; he is a peasant looking at a prince. That's right: to him, you're a royal prince in a purple robe on a white horse. You're six foot two and with a cleft chin and every inch of you looks straight ahead into the distance. You don't have time for the petty stuff. You are living in the horizon. He looks at you in awe and he hates you. He hates you because he really loves you. He hates you as much as he loves you. He cannot help it and he hates himself for feeling what everyone feels toward a prince. He wishes he could kill you but let me tell you this: he will not kill you. A thief is a coward. All he can do is take a piece of you when you're not around and make you feel like he feels every day of his blessed life: like there's something missing big inside and you don't know how you lost it.

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