Jordan Belfort - The Wolf of Wall Street

Captain Marc cocked his square head to the side and raised his rectangular eyebrows high on his square forehead, as if to say, “Are you out of your fucking mind?” But then he began nodding slowly, his face breaking out into a wry smile. “You’re good, buddy. I have to admit it. Did you keep your left eye shut?”

I nodded my head. “It zwork like charm,” I mumbled. “You za best!”

“Good. I’m glad you think that.” He let out a tiny chuckle. “Anyway, I gotta bolt out of here before we get ourselves in trouble. Want me to call the guardhouse to come get you?”

“No, I fine, buzzy. I fine.” With that, I undid my safety restraints, gave Captain Marc a mock salute, and opened the cockpit door and climbed out. Then I wheeled about and closed the cockpit door and banged two times on the window, to let him know that I’d been responsible enough to close the door, which gave me a feeling of great satisfaction, insofar as a man in my condition could be sober enough to do that. Then I wheeled about once more and headed for the main house, straight into the eye of Hurricane Nadine.

It was gorgeous outside. The sky was filled with countless stars, twinkling brilliantly. The temperature was unseasonably warm for December. There wasn’t a stitch of wind, which gave the air that earthy, woodsy smell that reminds you of your childhood. I thought of summer nights at sleepaway camp. I thought of my older brother, Robert, whom I’d recently lost touch with after his wife threatened to sue one of my companies for sexual harassment, at which point I took him out for dinner, got too stoned, and then called his wife an asshole. But, still, they were good memories, memories from a much simpler time.

It was about two hundred yards to the main house. I took a deep breath and relished the scent of my property. What a fine smell it had! All the Bermuda grass! The pungent smell of pine! And so many soothing sounds! The ceaseless croaking of the crickets! The mystical hooting of the owls! The rushing water from that ridiculous pond and waterfall system up ahead!

I had purchased the estate from the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Dick Grasso, who bore an odd resemblance to Frank Perdue, the chicken salesman. Then I dumped a few million into various improvements—most of it sucked into that ridiculous pond and waterfall system and the remainder sucked into a state-of-the-art guardhouse and security system. The guardhouse was manned twenty-four hours a day by two armed bodyguards, both of whom were named Rocco. Inside the guardhouse were banks of TV monitors that received images from twenty-two security cameras positioned throughout the estate. Each camera was tied to a motion sensor and floodlight, creating an impenetrable ring of security.

Just then I felt a tremendous gust of air, so I craned up my neck to watch the helicopter ascend into the darkness. I found myself taking small steps backward, and then the small steps became bigger steps, and then… Oh, shit! I was in trouble! I was about to hit the dirt! I wheeled about and took two giant steps forward, extending my arms out like wings. Like an out-of-control ice skater I stumbled this way and that, trying to find my center of gravity. And then, all at once…a blinding light!

“What the fuck!” I put my hands to my eyes, shielding myself from the searing pain of the floodlights. I had tripped one of the motion sensors and was now a victim of my own security system. The pain was excruciating. My eyes were dilated from all the drugs, my pupils as big as saucers.

Then, the final insult: I tripped in my spiffy crocodile dress shoes and went flying backward and landed flat on my back. After a few seconds the floodlight went off, and I slowly lowered my arm to the side. I pressed my palms against the soft grass. What a wonderful spot I picked to fall on! And I was an expert at falling, knowing exactly how to do it without hurting myself. The secret was to just go with it, like a Hollywood stuntman did. Better still, my drug of choice—namely, Quaaludes—had the wonderful effect of turning my body into rubber, which further protected me from harm.

I resisted the thought that it was the Quaaludes that had made me fall in the first place. After all, there were so many advantages to using them that I considered myself lucky to be addicted to them. I mean, how many drugs made you feel as wonderful as they did, yet didn’t leave you with a hangover the next day? And a man in my position—a man burdened with so many grave responsibilities—couldn’t afford to be hungover, now could he!

And my wife…well, I guess she’d earned her scene with me, but still; did she really have that much reason to be angry? I mean, when she married me she knew what she was getting into, didn’t she? She had been my mistress, for Chrissake! That spoke volumes, didn’t it? And what had I really done tonight? Nothing so terrible, or at least nothing that she could prove!

And around and around that twisted mind of mine went—rationalizing, justifying, then denying, and then rationalizing some more, until I was able to build up a healthy head of righteous resentment. Yes, I thought, there were certain things that went on between rich men and their wives that dated all the way back to the caveman days, or at least back to the Vanderbilts and Astors. There were liberties, so to speak, certain liberties that men of power were entitled to, that men of power had earned! Of course this wasn’t the sort of thing I could just come out and say to Nadine. She was prone to physical violence and she was bigger than me, or at least the same size, which was just one more reason to resent her.

Just then I heard the electric whir of the golf cart. That would be Rocco Night, or perhaps Rocco Day, depending on when their shifts changed. Either way, some Rocco was coming out to fetch me. It was amazing how everything always seemed to work out. When I fell down, there was always someone to pick me up; when I got caught driving under the influence, there was always some crooked judge or corrupt police officer to make an accommodation; and when I passed out at the dinner table and found myself drowning in the soup du jour, there was always my wife, or, if not her, then some benevolent hooker, who would come to my aid with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

It was as if I was bulletproof or something. How many times had I cheated death? It was impossible to say. But did I really want to die? Was my guilt and remorse eating at me that voraciously—so much, in fact, that I was trying to take my own life? I mean, it was mind-boggling, now that I thought about it! I had risked my life a thousand times yet hadn’t gotten so much as a scratch. I had driven drunk, flown stoned, walked off the edge of a building, scuba dived during a blackout, gambled away millions of dollars at casinos all over the world, and I still didn’t look a day over twenty-one.

I had lots of nicknames: Gordon Gekko, Don Corleone, Kaiser Soze; they even called me the King. But my favorite was the Wolf of Wall Street, because that was me to a T. I was the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing: I looked like a kid and acted like a kid, but I was no kid. I was thirty-one going on sixty, living dog years—aging seven years for every year. But I was rich and powerful and had a gorgeous wife and a four-month-old baby daughter who was living, breathing perfection.

Like they say, it was all good, and it all seemed to work. Somehow, and I wasn’t sure how, I would end up beneath a $12,000 silk comforter, sleeping inside a royal bedchamber draped with enough white Chinese silk to make silk parachutes for an entire squadron of paratroopers. And my wife…well, she would forgive me. After all, she always had.

And with that thought, I passed out.