The Middle Class is Disappearing

The middle class is disappearing.

It happens again at the bank today. The woman knows it too. I watch from the waiting area as the teller says something and the woman lets out a jarring cry, the type of animalistic sound reserved only for grievous bodily injury. Then she’s fading, which is strange because when it happened to the Reed family down the street they didn’t fade, they flickered. It looked like some sort of bizarre strobing effect when your internet connectivity is all on the fritz and you’re trying to stream a video, except it wasn’t a video. Mitch was getting out of the car and Cheryl had the passenger door open and he starts to flicker first. Before Cheryl even notices it she’s flickering too, meanwhile I’m running down the street to see if they’re in distress, if I can somehow—I don’t know—help out, not cause I know how to stop this but because it’s the neighborly thing to do. Then I see the kids are in the backseat and they’re also flickering. The kids dammit! And inside the house, in the window, their dog Widget is flickering. Quick strobes at first that get further and further apart. All four of the Reeds and their dog are disappearing and reappearing off and on until they finally vanish completely and never show up again.

But the woman at the bank doesn’t flicker, she fades. Her voice does too.

She trudges toward the exit, passing the bank manager as she goes, shouting, “Y’all made a mistake.” But the manager ignores her and she keeps on walking, asking people for help while getting progressively quieter. It sounds like the volume on a TV as it’s being dialed way down.

When she passes me, looks directly into my eyes and shouts, she’s completely mute. We’re both mute in fact. What do I say?

Turns out nothing because she continues on charging toward the exit, gets to the door but the door never opens. The woman is gone. Vanished! The staff don’t seem alarmed by this. And why would they? They’ve probably been seeing that sort of thing all week.

But not me. A million tiny pinpricks are stabbing me everywhere. My eyes are still locked on that exit door, willing an invisible hand to open it, when the Financial Advisor says, “Mr. Evans? Is that you, sir? I’ve been calling your name.” His words dislodge me from a trance I don’t even realize I’m in.

“Call me Ashton,” I tell him as we shake, my eyes not meeting his but roaming the parking area through the glass where I hope to spot that woman. But there’s nobody.

“Follow me.”

He leads me to a corner office then extends a hand and we shake again. “I’m Rick,” he introduces himself before sitting. Shifty brown eyes go back and forth between me and a computer screen where an incomprehensible ticker-tape scroll of stock names and prices track across it. “And how are the wife and kids?”

I haven’t mentioned Vera or the girls. “Umm…they’re good,” I say. “Yours?”

“Good, good.” Rick slides me a complimentary bottle of water I didn’t ask for. “So Ashton, what can I do for you today?”

“I’m just concerned by this notice I got.” When I extend my hand, the paper I’m holding trembles.

Rick takes it, looks, reads, but a little too quickly before handing it back. “Investments are not deposits and may lose value,” he says, which I already know from the fine print on every piece of mail the bank ever sent. You also need to click on a pop-up box that acknowledges this before making any online trades.

“But shouldn’t I be allowed to take out my own money?” Then I add, “What’s left of it.”

“Technically not if it isn’t FDIC insured.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Nothing is guaranteed here.” When I take a closer look at him, Rick seems far more disheveled than his chipper tone suggests. Dark bags under drooping eyelids illustrate a picture of a man who hasn’t been sleeping. He smiles at me with sad eyes. “Listen…” he begins and ends with that one word.

“Yes?”

Rick pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know what’s happening with the market. Everyone’s in the same spot. But believe me when I tell you you’re not going to disappear.”

“You just said the bank doesn’t make guarantees.”

But he’s not listening anymore. His eyes are permanently locked on the computer. A side view of the screen shows a ticker of ever-growing red numbers. Beside them, the X-axis on a line graph plunges downward—the line taking a sharp drop as if it jumped off a cliff. Intuition tells me that the commotion that’s steadily building outside is directly related to this cliff dive.

“If you’ll excuse me a moment,” he says, not waiting for my answer as he dashes out.

Exit Rick.

There’s a volcanic eruption of yelling down the hall. At first it seems like a bank robbery in progress. But it’s actually much worse. Screams about the DOW, the NASDAQ, the S&P 500 pierce the air and I feel like a fool for only peripherally understanding what these are and what it all means. I catch the words sell-off, devaluation and recession in panic-stricken voices.

In the next office over, a lady shouts, “Sell it then! Sell everything!”

A sudden lump in my throat has me chugging that complimentary water bottle.

Ding! Ding! Ding! The news apps on everyone's phones explode. I unlock the screen and scroll. My eyes zoom in on the phrases panic selling and severe volatility.

A shaky voice in the hallway asks, “Why don’t they halt trading? Aren’t they supposed to do that?”

Something heavy gets dropped with a BONK! that rattles me far more than it should.

Opening a browser, I search the terms financial insolvency and market crash.

More screams:

“That’s my retirement!”

“That’s my daughter's college fund!”

“Can’t you do anything?”

“What’s happening?”

“Am I flickering?”

“Sell everything now before it’s too late!”

I swipe away from the browser cause I should be calling Vera. But I can’t find the words. For the last two decades, ten-percent of our paychecks were going to that account so we could retire at sixty-five, pay off the house, take trips to Argentina and Thailand in our golden years. Then I wonder if she’s flickering. Is she fading? And then I can’t dial fast enough.

It goes to voicemail but I don’t leave a message. A voicemail saying all our retirement plans could possibly—probably—have gone up in smoke seems inappropriate. So I dial her at the office.

“I think she’s in a meeting,” the receptionist says. “Let me place you on a brief hold.” Click!

Except she never comes back. Neither does Rick.

I send a text that says, Call me when you have a second. The urgency goes unexpressed so as not to frighten her.

Next I call the school that our girls attend. Once. Twice. When nobody picks up after three tries I decide it’s time to go there myself.

The bank’s lobby is noticeably sparser. There’s only one teller helping a single customer—who might be starting to fade, but I can’t bring myself to watch. Outside, the California sunshine hits my face, which should be accompanied by feelings of comfort and tranquility. In actuality, it feels eerie. The birds are chirping loudly but the din of the city is subdued. On a Tuesday at lunchtime, midtown should be brimming with the sounds of motors and energetic conversation. And yet…

“Got any change?” A panhandler asks, extending a paper cup.

“Sorry,” I tell him, heading to my car.

A bald guy exits the vehicle next to mine. “The roads aren't safe,” he says. “Drivers are vanishing behind the wheel and the cars just go…” He makes a gesture with his hand and a whooshing noise to illustrate that the cars keep on driving. A smashing noise in the distance—the unmistakable crunch of metal colliding at high speed—really underscores his point. So I decide against taking the car. I’ll walk the three miles to the girls’ school.

En route, the faces of the homeless stare at me with quizzical expressions. With fewer people around, their numbers seem accentuated.

I watch as a dog-walker trailing a beautiful Siberian Husky doesn’t flicker or fade away but simply pops out of existence. She just abruptly vanishes. The dog walks on for about thirty feet, not realizing it’s dragging its leash, before it turns around to discover its companion isn’t there anymore.

Stores are open but none have customers.

A homeless kid sets up a tent dangerously close to the road.

The Siberian Husky lets out a heartbreaking yowl.

Gazing upward, I wonder if pilotless planes will start falling from the sky. Even though I see nothing, I still quicken my pace.

News apps on my phone are ding-ding-dinging a steady stream of alarming headlines. I scroll through my settings and I think I shut those notifications off. But the dinging continues unabated.

A teenager on a blue and white bike stops in front of me. “It’s so weird,” she says. “In Brentwood, in Beverly Hills, in Bel Air, this isn’t happening. Everything is normal.”

All I can think to reply as I continue on is, “Oh!?” A minute later, when I look over my shoulder I see the blue and white bike lying abandoned in the middle of the sidewalk. The teenager is nowhere to be found.

Almost at the school, my phone doesn’t ding, it chimes a four-note musical riff. I rip it out of my pocket hoping it’s Vera. But it’s a congratulatory alert for reaching my step goal.

Heading up the steps, it’s apparent that school is very much out. No lights are on and a note is pinned to the door. In large black type it reads: The students have gone home. Someone has used a red pen to scribble below it: Some of them at least.

This unauthorized commentary convinces me that I need to get home ASAP. Walking turns into speed-walking, turns into a jog, and finally reaches its final form as an awkward sprint performed in my work clothes and dress shoes. I call Vera’s phone, no longer concerned about maintaining calm. If she learns about this from her panicked, out-of-breath husband as he runs his first 5K in two decades then so be it. When she doesn’t pick up, I try twice more before giving up. A voice in the back of my mind, resting at the nape of my neck, whispers: If she vanished, do you really think you’re capable of raising the girls by yourself?

I round the corner and cross our lawn urging myself to get it together. Outside the house, it’s not a conscious effort to stop at the front door. My hand can’t seem to put the key in the lock. It’s like Schrödinger’s Cat. Behind the door, the girls are both there and gone at the same time. Getting the key in is like trying to thread a needle while skydiving. A badly shaking hand protests but my brain staunchly insists.

Click. Twist. Two deep breaths and then I turn the knob.

“Hi Dad.”

Inside, the girls are streaming videos. The relief I feel is extremely short-lived. They’re scared and looking at me for the type of fatherly words that can numb negative emotions.

“The news is saying that things are getting worse.”

“That’s their job, honey. If they made you think things were getting better you wouldn’t give them clicks.” It seems to reassure Claire but Zoe is implacable. She can do the math: the news alerts plus being dismissed from school plus Dad coming home midday equals a pending catastrophe. “Don’t watch those videos in front of your sister,” I tell her. “No screens right now.”

“Are we going to disappear?” Zoe asks.

Mustering a voice that projects certainty and authority, I tell her, “Not a chance.”

Alone in my office I try calling Vera again. Not even a hello. “Are the girls okay, Ashton?” she asks. “I’m on my way right now.”

“The girls are fine,” I tell her before realizing it’s too quiet. I don’t hear anything downstairs. My heart sinks.

“Did you get everything handled at the bank?” she asks.

“I’ll call you back.”

I rush over to the kitchen, readying myself for what I might see: my daughters flickering, fading. The darkest corner in my brain floods with questions. Will I be able to hold them as they vanish? Can I be a comfort in those last moments?

The girls are not in the kitchen. I try Zoe’s bedroom. Nothing. Then Claire’s. No one.

Then the garage. The bathroom. The linen closet.

Not there.

I check the backyard.

Zoe is showing Claire how to keep a hula hoop spinning. Claire’s laughing but there’s an uneasy look on Zoe’s face. She’s the most anxious girl to ever twirl a hula hoop.

“What are you doing?”

“You said no screens,” Zoe shoots back.

“Right.”

I return upstairs and call Vera back but it goes to voicemail. We just spoke so there’s no reason to be concerned. Right?

Lying down on the bed I remind myself over and over that she sets her phone to Driving Mode whenever she’s behind the wheel. I remind myself until I believe it.

Restlessness.

Sweaty palms.

Breath quickens.

Maybe a beer to relax? No. Mitch and Cheryl were heavy drinkers. So no alcohol. It’s probably not related but best to be on the safe side.

Muscles clench.

A feeling like claustrophobia.

I peek out the window into the yard. The girls aren’t there anymore.

An invisible hand reaches into my chest and squeezes.

They went inside, I convince myself. Keep it together! You’re going to scare them if you keep checking in. They need to see stability. The girls are inside and Vera’s on her way! Then…

Tunnel vision.

Heart thundering.

Thoughts seem…slow.

Go downstairs. Both girls in the kitchen. Claire waves. A disturbed look from Zoe.

An hour passes. No Vera.

Upstairs again. Back down to check on the girls. Then upstairs. Down again.

Ding! Check phone: news alert. Not Vera.

Check on the girls.

Ding! Not Vera.

In the bathroom. Splash. Cold water.

Look in the mirror. The face I see. Frightened.

A flicker?

No.

Please no.

Vera should be here by now.

Another flicker?

No.

Silence downstairs.