The Boss 4/20/99 Thomas Lipschultz He fulfilled the American dream: A wealthy, healthy, stealthy man of passions, a corporate leader, a businessman, a boss. His methods were... and I disliked them -- I hated them. They threw aside routine, the norm, tradition, like fanaticists, freelancers, free-verse do. We started from nothing -- a new name in the sea, a new number on a scrap of paper in the fishbowl. We rose to success, a passage to riches, a booming stock to the masses. Everyone bought our... No household could be packaged without one. But that first day, that first hour, while still we struggled to crawl from obscurity, I saw how foolish, how deluded, how pagan he was. Tradition and the law go hand in hand, and we didn't write the law. Each of us woke on a rainy, sticky, smoggy Monday and donned our all-hallowed long-hated robes of formality: the khakis or skirt, the button-down shirt, the jacket, the tie, the unworn adornments, then out -- out to the first in a long series. But he! O gods, what sacrilege! He showed himself in blue and black -- "No Fear" across his chest, and "Levi's" on his back. He spoke to us with words that struck me to the bone. "Come casual from this point, friends! Formality is an older habit, and habits may be tough to break -- but this one should be easy," he said. Tradition and the law go hand in hand, and we didn't write the law -- must we now break it? It came upon a midnight clear; our dark and glorious flight was late -- my wife, my son, myself were too. A catered midnight business dinner, out and about in Viva Las Vegas. Some women, us, a man or two were still all decked in tweed, uncomfortable but unable to resist the law inherent in our upbringing. And he -- o gods be damned -- approached my son and spoke to him. "Is your apparel worn by choice, or did your parents force it upon you?" He spoke, in innocence, the horrid truth, which later I would scold him for. "You -- father, mother -- should never tell a child how to hide his body from the world." And as he walked away, I heard him say, "Or even if..." Then came the silence. Then came the sighs, the gasps, the freeze. He stripped, right there -- he was naked, bare, his body on display to the awed throng. He spoke again, and everyone heard: "Why not? God gave it to everyone, and everyone hides it from everyone. I want to see each of you naked, alongside me. I want you all to be free -- come nude to work, and I'll give you money, just as incentive, as reason, as motive, as if you were..." But I heard nothing more, since I left the room. The cops were there shortly, the handcuffs slapped on, and he -- thank the gods -- would soon be gone. Tradition and the law go hand in hand, and after all, I didn't write the law. As they were leaving, he smiled with... The charge was harassment, exposure indecent. He shouted them out, then argued the "in". We soon lost our fortunes to some other man, but that's OK -- I'd never see him again. Tradition was reinstated, again it was law, and everyone forgot. If only I could...