Jordan Belfort - The Wolf of Wall Street

I felt tears streaming down my cheeks as I said, “Jesus, Nae, he was here just a month ago. I…I don’t…” I searched for something to say but quickly realized that no words could describe the magnitude of this tragedy.

So I said nothing.

A week later, on a Friday evening, the seven-thirty meeting at Our Lady of Poland Church had just begun. It was Memorial Day weekend, and I was expecting the usual sixty minutes of torture. Then, to my shock, the opening words from the meeting’s chairperson came in the form of a directive—stating that there would be no drug-drizzling allowed, not under his watch. He was creating a Drizzle-Free Zone, he explained, because the purpose of AA was to create hope and faith, not to complain about the length of the checkout line at Grand Union. Then he held up an egg timer for public inspection, and he said, “There’s nothing that you can’t say in less than two and a half minutes that I have any interest in hearing. So keep it short and sweet.” He nodded once.

I was sitting toward the back, next to a middle-aged woman who looked reasonably well kept, for an ex-drunk. She had reddish hair and a ruddy complexion. I leaned over to her and whispered, “Who is that guy?”

“That’s George. He’s sort of the unofficial leader here.”

“Really?” I said. “Of this meeting?”

“No, no,” she whispered, in a tone implying that I was seriously out of the loop, “not just here, all over the Hamptons.” She looked around conspiratorially, as if she were about to pass on a piece of top-secret information. Then, sotto voce, she said, “He owns Seafield, the drug rehab. You’ve never seen him on TV?”

I shook my head no. “I don’t watch much TV, although he does look somewhat familiar. He— ohmygod!” I was speechless. It was Fred Flintstone, the man with the enormous head who’d popped on my TV screen at three in the morning, inspiring me to throw my Remington sculpture at his face!

After the meeting ended, I waited until the crowd died down and then went up to George and said, “Hi, my name is Jordan. I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed the meeting. It was terrific.”

He extended his hand, which was the size of a catcher’s mitt. I shook it dutifully, praying he wouldn’t rip my arm out of its socket.

“Thanks,” he said. “Are you a newcomer?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m forty-three days sober.”

“Congratulations. That’s no small accomplishment. You should be proud.” He paused and cocked his head to the side, taking a good hard look at me. “You know, you look familiar. What’d you say your name was again?”

Here we go! Those bastards in the press—there was no escaping them! Fred Flintstone had seen my picture in the paper, and now he was going to judge me. It was time for a strategic subject change. “My name’s Jordan, and I gotta tell you a funny story, George: I was in my house up the Island, in Old Brookville, and it was three in the morning…” and I proceeded to tell him how I threw my Remington sculpture at his face, to which he smiled and replied, “You and a thousand other people. Sony should pay me a dollar for every TV they sold to a drug addict who smashed their TV after my commercial.” He let out a chuckle, then added skeptically, “You live in Old Brookville? That’s a helluva nice neighborhood. You live with your parents?”

“No,” I said, smiling. “I’m married with children, but that commercial was too—”

He cut me off. “You out here for Memorial Day?”

Jesus! This wasn’t going according to plan. He had me on the defensive. “No, I have a house out here.”

Sounding surprised: “Oh, really, where?”

I took a deep breath and said, “Meadow Lane.”

He pulled his head back a few inches and narrowed his eyes. “You live on Meadow Lane? Really?”

I nodded slowly.

Fred Flintstone smirked. Apparently, the picture was growing clearer. He smiled and said, “And what did you say your last name was?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Belfort. Ring a bell?”

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “A couple a hundred million of them. You’re that kid who started… uh… what’s it called… Strathman something or other.”

“Stratton Oakmont,” I said tonelessly.

“Yeah! That’s it. Stratton Oakmont! Holy Christ! You look like a fucking teenager! How could you have caused so much commotion?”

I shrugged. “The power of drugs, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, well, you bastards took me for a hundred large in some crazy fucking stock. I can’t even remember the name of it.”

Oh, shit! This was bad. George might take a swing at me with those catcher’s mitts of his! I would offer to pay him back right now. I would run home and get the money out of my safe. “I haven’t been involved with Stratton for a long time, but I’d still be more than happy to—”

He cut me off again. “Listen, I’m really enjoying this conversation, but I gotta get home. I’m expecting a call.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up. I’ll come back next week; maybe we can talk then.”

“Why, you going someplace now?”

“No, why?”

He smiled. “I was going to invite you over for a cup of coffee. I live just down the block from you.”

With raised eyebrows, I said, “You’re not mad about the hundred grand?”

“Nah, what’s a hundred grand between two drunks, right? Besides, I needed the tax deduction.” He smiled and put his arm on my shoulder, and we headed for the door. He said, “I was expecting to find you in the rooms one of these days. I’ve heard some pretty wild stories about you. I’m just glad you made it here before it was too late.”

I nodded in agreement. Then George added, “Anyway, I’m only inviting you over to my house under one condition.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I wanna know the truth about whether you sank your yacht for the insurance money.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

I smiled and said, “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way!”

And just like that I walked out of the Friday night meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with my new sponsor: George B.

George lived on South Main Street, one of the premier streets in the estate section of Southampton. It was one notch down from Meadow Lane, insofar as price was concerned, although the cheapest home on South Main would still set you back $3 million. We were sitting across from each other, on either side of a very expensive bleached-oak table, inside his French country kitchen.

I was in the middle of explaining to George how I planned to kill my interventionist Dennis Maynard, just as soon as my Ninety-in-Ninety had been completed. I had decided that George was the appropriate person to speak to about such an affair after he told me a quick story about a process server who came on his property to serve a bogus summons on him. When George refused to answer the door, the process server started nailing the summons to his hand-polished mahogany door. George went to the door and waited until the process server had the hammer in an upstroke, then he swung open the door, punched the process server’s lights out, and slammed the door shut. It had all happened so fast that the process server couldn’t describe George to the police, so no charges were filed.

“…and it’s fucking despicable,” I was saying, “that this bastard calls himself a professional. Forget the fact that he told my wife not to come visit me while I was rotting away in the loony bin! I mean, that alone is grounds to have his legs broken. But to invite her to the movies to try to coax her into bed, well, that’s grounds for death !” I shook my head in rage and let out a deep breath, happy to finally get things off my chest.