By J. S. O’Keefe

“You are my li’l man and now you are also the Man,” said his wife. “I am going to throw you a great celebration party with all the family and friends invited.”

The promotion was quite a step up, going from site supervisor to managing director of all viaduct construction on the Italian Peninsula. Surprisingly, the Man didn’t feel much of a delight. He remembered his youth when he’d dreamt about going over to Greece to study stoicism and hook up with the anti-slavery activists there. 

The party was successful even though less than half of family and friends showed up. 

“A lot of leftovers,” he pointed at the barely touched meatloaf on the kitchen counter and the mountain of chocolate chip cookies. “We have enough food for a fortnight.” 

“C’mon, we’d get tired eating the same thing,” said his wife. “Why don’t you bring the meatloaf to the slaves at one of your viaducts, and some of the cookies? And how about a keg of beer? Those poor bastards only get porridge and stale water day in and day out.” 

“Okay, why not,” said the Man. “It’s a bit unusual but not a bad idea. The more they eat, the better they perform. Frankly, work has been slow at each viaduct recently. Sometimes I wonder if the great visionary who came up with ‘leave nothing for tomorrow that can be done today’ was the same person who insisted on building Rome in a day.”

His wife continued, “Remember the slaves are people, too. Human beings, they’re no different from us. Only less lucky.”

“True,” said the Man. “We have to accept, though, slavery is the world order. Apparently it’s the only way to produce wealth. There are three types of people: slaves, slave drivers and the One Percent. As long as the sun rises on the east, it’s not going to change.”

“Well, that’s a lot of philosophy, my li’l man. Take a few dozen pitas with you, too.”

The viaduct workers were amazed that the Man brought them such a nice surprise. What mattered even more was that the Man riding high in Roman society showed such genuine empathy to them. Many had tears in their eyes while wolfing down the meatloaf and stuffing cookies in their mouths. 

Maybe we can believe in the fundamental good in mankind again, they said among themselves. 

Their leader, an old Gaul, stood up and announced, “Sir, we would like to thank you for your generosity today. You treated us like people. You truly are a great man. Since we cannot hope to repay you in this life, we pray to do that in some form in the afterlife.” 

“Great meatloaf, tell the missus!” shouted another slave.  

His buddy next to him nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, yes, great meatloaf. And now I am horny. Very horny!”

Others joined in. “Me too, me too!” 

The next several minutes the construction site was humming with the slow melody of lovelorn men, “We’re horny, we’re horny, we’re horny…”

The Man made a mental note that in the future he’d only bring leftovers to the office, where his coworkers seemed, on average, emotionally more stable.

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