The velvet rope didn’t just separate the club from the sidewalk; it divided two different species.
"Need a hand, friend?" the man asked, his voice rough but kind. hoi polloi
To Arthur, they were a blur of faces, the "great unwashed" whose only purpose was to provide the background noise to his more refined life. He watched a young woman in a faded jacket laugh as she shared a bag of chips with a friend. He felt a flicker of something—not pity, but a distant, clinical curiosity. How did they manage? he wondered, clutching his crystal flute. How did one find joy in the common horde? . The velvet rope didn’t just separate the club
Later that night, Arthur’s car broke down on a desolate stretch of road far from the shimmering lights of the ballroom. As he stood by his smoking engine, a rusted truck pulled over. Out stepped a man in grease-stained overalls—one of the very people Arthur had looked down upon just hours before. He watched a young woman in a faded
Arthur stood on the "correct" side of the rope, his tuxedo smelling of cedar and vintage Scotch. He looked down at the crowd gathered under the neon buzz of the city—the . They were a sea of denim and cheap polyester, a restless mass of the "many" that he usually avoided with the practiced grace of a man who never had to check his bank balance.
For the first time, Arthur didn't see a member of the masses. He saw a person. As he sat in the cab of the truck, listening to the man talk about his kids and his garden, the term felt heavy and ridiculous in Arthur's mind. He realize that while he had been looking into the masses from his high perch, he had never truly seen them at all. Meeting 'the Hoi Polloi' Head On - Los Angeles Times