tHE cOMMON gOOD*

The alms man lived in a world of ought to’s and oughtn’t, and as he felt that the two were synonymous, doing one or the other amounted to the same thing. He, the alms man, had deducted an ethic of ought to, doing away with moral imperatives and duty. Judgments were reserved for common things, food and potables, where best to sleep or how to steal something without getting caught. Anything beyond these were deemed secondary, collateral to the common good, which was the good that was common to him and him alone. Not common goods shared in common, but rather discommoded goods for the common good of one person, the alms man. For example, a curd of day-old bread, a rye or pumpernickel, lets say, was considered good for just one person, and in this way a common good for the good of the one person, a goodness common to the greater goodness of one person in common with himself, the alms man. In this manner the ought, any ought, was a common ought, an ought to common to one person in common with himself. The alms man, being in common with himself, and thereby in common to himself and himself alone, was actually a good unto himself, a common good synonymous with the greater good, which was a common good in common with the good of one person, the alms man. Anything beyond that was uncommon and secondary, a collateral good that was no good at all. The alms man had this all worked out on an abacus he had found in the rubbish behind the Sears store behind the Waymart next to the alleyway that led to the Mercury Fish Company, and with a pencil he had pilfered from the Five and Dime on a Saturday.