Somewhere within me a juridical instinct did prickle, a voice that attempted to play the defense, noting that this sort of person was a pawn in the larger scheme of things, was not who was ultimately responsible for all that had gone wrong. But Peter, or Stacy, or the vast flickering network of finance and capital that trades on the hardship of ordinary people, these were targets too protected and diffuse for anyone to do much about. In this moment, in a lapse of the principles I’d held for most of my life, I settled for middle management.
