Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

Why couldn’t Eric become another Gabelli, another Peter Lynch? Why couldn’t Eric manage a billion dollars? It wasn’t that hard, it was just knowing the right people, getting the dough and doing what he had been doing—

But again, ask yourself: do you deserve the credit for the success of Tom’s portfolio?

Sammy had returned to the office a week after the fight with Joe in which Sammy had implied that Joe kept Eric employed only because of Tom’s money. Hoping for a retraction, Eric pressed Sammy about the argument, although Sammy seemed not to want to discuss it. Eric prevailed and got an apology. Sammy explained that he had been upset for weeks, convinced his father had little faith in him, and so he’d taken that out on Eric. Eric believed that was the truth.

But Eric didn’t think Sammy believed his own apology. It was the obvious excuse and so Sammy said it. The retraction, once extracted, made Eric feel worse.

So what do I care what Sammy thinks?

What do I care what I think if I’m making money?

But it wasn’t enough. This market might be a unique opportunity. Wall Street was awash with geniuses, dozens of people in their twenties and thirties casting huge nets into a harbor fluttering and shimmering with millions in salaries and bonuses. By comparison, Eric wasn’t doing that well. Eric was still on the street corner, the hustling end of the business, leafleting the suckers to get them inside the casino. The Harvard M.B.A.’s and lawyers, with their merger and acquisition magic, their junk bunk financing, their respectable pimping — they were making the real money. Wall Street was on a bender, and it would come to an end, it always had before, and Eric might come away with little more than a hangover. He had to steal some of the valuables, stuff his pockets, make enough of an impression on the host to be invited back for the quiet gatherings that hard times would bring.

Eric became obsessed with catching the wave just before all those flopping, gleaming fish were sucked back to the ocean depths. Eric went to the Strand, a secondhand bookstore, and bought a load of books on the 1929 crash. What everyone forgets, Eric told an attentive but bewildered Nina, is that you can make even bigger money when everything falls apart. Actually, the biggest fortunes were made in the year following the ’29 crash.

Eric tried to talk to Joe about his desire to be prepared to short the market, to ride the wave out to sea, and smile gaily back at those fishermen, their nets suddenly empty.

“Are you crazy?” Joe answered. “This bull market is a runaway train. I can understand considering getting off. But stepping in front of it?”

“If you think it’s a runaway train, then why are we still in the first car?”

“We have our stops to protect us.”

“That’s just avoiding losing money, Joe. We make money when the market goes up, we’re aggressive, why can’t we be aggressive when it goes down?”

“We will be! I made plenty of money in ’seventy-four. I did all right in ’eighty-one. But you have to wait until the trend develops. We’re not in the business of picking tops and bottoms.”

Joe was content with the money they made. To Joe, his income of half a million a year was extraordinary, way beyond the expectations of his youth. Joe, naturally, thought a young man Eric’s age should be happy with two hundred thousand per annum. Certainly, if a seer had come to Eric five years before and shown him his present circumstances, Eric would have assumed his future self would be happy.

But he felt diminished by his surroundings, a town house shadowed by skyscrapers, a doorman hustling tips while inside the luxury apartments twenty-nine-year-old Ivy Leaguers made millions.

So quit. Contact the brokerage houses and try to land a job as an equity fund manager. Call Tom and ask him to arrange a luncheon of his rich friends for me to pitch to.

Or — more to the point — take off the leash. Buy the S&P futures, take a big position in the biotechnology stocks, double up sometimes instead of getting stopped out, be bolder, be bolder, be bolder!

But this was Nina’s family’s money. Her future presumably. Eventually, his son’s. He had to take care, go slow, listen to Joe—

Fridays faced Eric with an uninterrupted weekend of these arguments. And then, after only a month at FIT, Nina’s work impressed one of her teachers, one of the many on the faculty who also ran businesses, and he asked Nina to apprentice three afternoons and occasional evenings a week, in order to work on the spring line. That meant Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Friday nights Eric had almost all of Luke’s care to himself. Nina urged Eric to ask Pearl to stay late, but Eric felt it was wrong to sit in the house and let some black woman be with his son while he was right there, perfectly able. Besides, wasn’t that one of the benefits of his work? The market closed at four. He could be home by five, five-thirty at the latest; he could read his material after Luke was in bed. On the nights Nina had to stay late, Eric could be alone to dream, to yell at himself, to question his ideas, to get tough, to get ready for the day that was coming soon when he would catch the wave and ride away laughing on a sea of money.

The third Friday he was alone with Luke, Eric had, over Joe’s objections, bought a small position in one of the new genetic-engineering stocks, DNA Technology. DNA had dipped on an overall down day for the market, and Eric wanted to jump on at the low price. Joe argued, and whined, and teased. But Eric bought anyway, and then Joe said his worst: “All right, have it your way. But you’re on your own. Just your father-in-law, nobody else.”

Joe’s words were like a curse, a poisonous cloud hovering about Eric’s shoulders. Eric went home in this gloomy atmosphere. Pearl greeted him nervously.

What? She’s worried I don’t have her money?

Eric immediately produced her salary, two hundred and fifty dollars, to forestall any concern, counting out the bills and placing them on the kitchen counter.

We should pay her more, he thought. It’s too much already, he also thought.

“We went to the park to play with Byron. You know, he’s a rough boy, not like Luke. So sweet. Well, Byron was teasing this other boy—”

Eric looked into the living room for Luke. Usually, at the sound of Eric’s key in the lock, Luke was at the door, little man, way down below, his head tilted up to see Daddy, his bright blue eyes open with excitement and wonder. No one had ever waited for Eric with such longing or hugged Eric with so tight an embrace of joy.

“—and he threw some sand. It got into Luke’s eye.”

Eric saw Luke. He was huddled, collapsed really, into a corner of the couch. Luke’s blanket covered half of his face. The television was on, but Luke had only one eye on it.

“I put some water in it. My, he didn’t like that. But, you know, to clean it out—”

“Hi, Daddy,” Luke said in a sad, small, tired voice.

“Let me see your eye,” Eric said, in a calm voice, but he was terrified to look. Luke lowered the blanket reluctantly.

It was wet. The surrounding skin was red. Eric reached to lift the lids, but Luke pulled his head away.

“I just want to look,” Eric said.

“I put some salt in the water and boiled it first to make sure it was purified,” Pearl said.

“Salt?” Eric thought: that’s got to be wrong.

“He says it feels better now. I think it’s all washed out,” Pearl went on in a hasty tone of apology. “This big boy threw sand in his eyes. I yelled at the woman taking care of him. I’ve seen her. She’s no good. She don’t pay no mind to what he does.”

“I’m sure it’s okay,” Eric said. He prayed it was. He had no idea what to do. Call a doctor? And say what? He’d sound like a fool. Take him to a doctor? On Friday night? They’re all heading to the suburbs. He kissed Luke on the forehead. The skin felt soft and weak and moist — newborn again.