Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

Byron cringed. “Yes!” he shouted, as if furious. But his body cringed and seemed afraid.

“Okay,” Peter said.

“The sheets’ll have to be changed,” Byron said.

“Nah,” Peter answered. “Let’s mail them to somebody.”

“What?” Byron smiled.

“Let’s mail them to somebody for a Christmas present.”

Byron laughed. “Terrible present.”

“Okay. Then we’ll have Francine put them in the laundry.”

“Mommy says I have to put them in. I did it, so I have to clean them.”

Right. That was the advice of their pediatrician. Make him take responsibility.

Responsibility. There wasn’t an adult who really took responsibility for anything. Not if he had enough power or money to pass it on.

“You want me to do it now?” Byron asked quietly.

“No,” Peter said. He liked having Byron there for company. A hungry little man, absorbed by the kitchen television, dangling his feet, his mouth stretched wide to capture food. “Francine’ll take care of it.”

“No! Mommy said—”

“Hey, Byron,” Peter heard himself answer with impatient anger. “I’m your father. If I say Francine does it, then Francine does it.”

Byron shrugged his shoulders, lifting them so high they touched his ears. “Okay with me,” he said.

Peter opened the newspaper. He glanced at the reviews. His eye was caught by an ad for a children’s movie. He could take off this afternoon. Byron had never been to the movies. He proposed the notion and got a bigger reaction than he had expected.

“Oh, yeah! Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Byron kissed him and then danced across the kitchen floor. “We’re going to the movies!” he proclaimed.

This is my chance, Peter told himself. Let’s see if I like being a father.

“IT HURTS, Daddy!”

Eric pressed his fingers into his palm, pushing the nails in to silence himself with pain.

“It hurts, Daddy!”

I know it does. He’s not lying. He’s gone four times in six days and the stools were still hard. It’s not his diet, Eric knew that much. Eric had been copying Luke’s breakfasts and dinners and now he found himself barely able to retain anything.

“Ugghhhh,” Luke groaned, his face red. There was a loud plop and Luke jerked his legs. “It splashed me!” he said with a smile.

“Don’t worry about it,” Eric mumbled.

“It feels cold,” Luke said. “Ughhhh,” he groaned, and his face went red again. Another plop. “I did it.”

“Good. You’re a big boy. I’ll get your M & M’s while you wipe yourself.”

“You know, now that I’m pooping more,” Luke said in a cocktail-party tone, as if he were discussing last summer’s trip to Venice, or an interesting exhibit at the museum, or the most recent movie, “I mean, after all,” Luke said. “I have gone a lot lately, right Daddy?”

“Wipe yourself. I’ll get the M & M’s.”

“But it still hurts,” Luke said. “You told me that when people go regularly, it hurts less and less.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Luke. Everybody has to go.”

“I know! I know that! But—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He walked out.

Luke’s bowel movements were all he thought about these days, except, of course, for the stocks. They had become part of his mind, a piece of his brain, flashing and beeping day and night, in the soapy rivulets while showering, hovering above his bed at night, glaring whenever he closed his eyes for a moment, dancing when Nina kissed him, branded across her breasts, big on the living-room walls, numbers everywhere, betraying him, killing him.

He got the M & M’s. He gave Luke the whole bag this time.

“ All of them?” Luke said, appalled.

“You’ve been a big boy. You can have them all.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t want all of them.”

“Okay, then have as many as you want.”

A few weeks before, Joe had taken away all accounts from Eric’s supervision except for Tom’s and Tom’s friends, a group they had nicknamed the Boston Beans. In the past quarter, Eric’s management was down 3 percent while the S&P average was up 12 and Joe’s management up 18. Two of the five Boston Beans had withdrawn their money yesterday. And Tom, who never initiated a call, had phoned that day.

“We’re not doing well, apparently,” Tom said in that goddamned voice, the tone as soft as a pretty melody, the meaning as cold and hard as a tile floor.

Eric babbled excuses. “Well, we’ve made our money in the growth issues, and they’re not participating at the moment, but they always lag the Dow, they’ll come back—”

When Eric finished the call, Sammy mumbled, “Trouble in paradise.” Eric wanted to punch him, but he couldn’t even manage a yell.

At the end of the day, Joe called Eric into his office for a private conference.

“I’m going to manage the rest of the Boston Beans. Maybe I should do Tom’s also? Give you a rest?”

Two of five Boston Beans had withdrawn their money. If Joe had been managing them, they not only would have stayed but might have increased their investment. What could Eric say?

I can say, I’m managing that money. I made it, I can lose it.

But Eric was mute, not argumentative at all. Instead, Eric was uncertain whether he should even continue to handle Tom’s money. If he gave up the Boston Beans, why should he continue to handle Tom? And if he continued to handle Tom, then why should he give up the Boston Beans?

He wished they had nicknamed the Boston money something else. With Luke’s diet in his belly, the word “beans” made his bowels churn.

“I think you could be a little burned out,” Joe said. “You’ve done remarkably — one of the hottest runs ever — for two years. Maybe you should back off. Give yourself a chance to grow some new ideas.”

“It doesn’t make sense for you to handle Boston and not Tom.”

“Then I’ll handle Tom also,” Joe said. “Maybe you want a week off?”

What is this shit? He’s going to manage them and I’ll continue to get my management fee?

“Let me think about it. For the moment, let’s keep things as they are.”

“I want to reposition the Boston money,” Joe said. “You handle Tom.”

“No,” Eric said. “Tom will be suspicious if that happens.”

“I’ll explain it—”

“No,” Eric repeated, volume climbing in his voice.

“You’ve lost two accounts!” Joe shouted. “I don’t want to lose the rest! At least get out of some of the hi-tech garbage. You told me we were taking profits in New Systems a year ago! You’re getting killed. This is a flight to quality. They want—”

“Joe, I read the papers. Everybody is saying the same thing!”

“And who are you suddenly! To disagree!”

I’m Eric, the Wizard of Wall Street. One day I’ll duck into limousines, past the hoards of admirers, my camel-hair coat swirling around my legs, my jaw set, my brain a machine that never knows fear, or hesitation, or error.

“Think about it,” Joe said. “One week and then if nothing changes, I may have to call the Boston Beans and even your father-in-law and tell them I don’t agree with your current approach.”

That would finish Eric. They’d either give Joe control or withdraw.

“You know something, Daddy?” Luke shouted. He was dancing across the living room floor, ecstatic now that the sludge was out of his system. “I’ll have better ideas when I’m older. Right?”

“Better ideas?” Eric said. He tried to think back to the meeting with Joe again, to continue the rerun, but Luke had said — Maybe I can’t adjust on the stocks because I’m busy with his damn bowels. If Nina were a real wife, if she cared about money! If she only knew what money means on this earth!