Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

Eric almost woke up when he realized that all the discretionary money of the firm, fifty million dollars, danced from stock to stock at his tune. Sammy nicknamed Eric the Wizard, duplicating Eric’s fantasies. Of course, Sammy said it with a sneer, but a thin one, and he listened respectfully when Eric talked, his previously hectoring tone erased by Eric’s profits.

Everybody loves a winner.

Everybody but Nina.

For eight years Eric had felt shame, embarrassed that he hadn’t produced for Nina, that he wasn’t a figure of success for her to be proud of, and now, now that he stood gleaming in triumph for all the world to see, she walked past him as though he were a familiar statue covered with pigeon shit.

She’s jealous ’cause her family is so proud of me, Eric decided, and thus forgave, or at least ignored, Nina’s cool behavior.

Eric didn’t have time for Nina anyway. Eric’s success with Tom’s money was bragged about at Boston dinner parties, and country-club foursomes. That meant nights out with prospective and current clients.

It changed his relationship with Luke. Luke sadly lowering his head as Eric approached for a good-bye kiss, Luke pretending another evening without Daddy was okay, Luke talking while Eric tried to read the endless flow of business reporting, tried to brand himself with more information — yes, yes, yes, Luke, okay, Daddy has to read, Daddy has to think — Luke’s watching Eric go with baleful eyes became almost a nightly event.

But Eric had to keep on. The money rushed in, what he had most wanted, what he had thirsted for, waves of it, and he needed new ideas, he couldn’t just keep buying the same stocks. Tom’s friends gave Eric even more than Tom had originally. These days, if Eric tried to take a position in a thinly traded stock, his own buying would send the price up 3 to 4 percent.

And then one day, one innocuous day, Eric’s luck hit the wall.

The averages all went to new highs. But three-quarters of Eric’s stocks didn’t move at all. The portfolios — their daily value printed out with ruthless accuracy at the market close and put in Eric’s hands to study at home — showed a slight loss.

Okay. Not serious.

The next day, another record for the Dow Industrials, for the S&P Five Hundred, third-highest trading volume in Stock Exchange history. The few picks Joe had stuck with, boring, obvious blue-chip stocks, went wild. Eric’s stocks, the high-flying OTC growth issues, just died, dumb spectators at the carnival.

Sammy was on Eric immediately: “Your stuff’s looking constipated.”

The word enraged Eric. Constipation was Luke’s one flaw, a problem that had gotten worse with every solution, a single malfunction that threatened the entire mechanism. The doctor’s chocolate laxative did nothing. Days went by with nothing coming out and Luke got less active with each one, until finally Luke sat immobilized, frightened to do anything, because—

Because why? Whose fault was this difficulty? Luke’s anatomy or some mistake that Eric and Nina had made?

“Get off my back!” Eric shouted at Sammy. Eric had been too good, too strong, too brilliant to be the meek Eric anymore.

Joe sternly glanced at Eric’s noise. Eric stared that old man down. I am this firm, Eric thought. They would have lost most of their clients if we’d stuck with Joe’s lemminglike picks, buying whatever the institutions did, a coattail investment strategy that a six-year-old could imitate. “You want to look at my performance compared to the S and P over the last year?” Eric yelled in answer to Sammy, but he looked at Joe.

“Whoa!” Sammy teased. “Hey, Wizard, don’t turn me into a toad!”

With the growth of their assets, the firm had new employees, two additional secretaries, Carlton still there to handle the smaller clients, and a solemn Conservative Jew, Aram, who ran the computer programs that kept their books. Everyone was seated at the circular table and they all laughed or smiled at Sammy’s mockery.

“I can’t work like this! I can’t handle this kind of money if I’m gonna have everyone in my hair all the time!” Eric shouted at Joe. It was like working in a subway car, everywhere you turned a face. No silence, no rest, phones always tweeting like sick birds, Quotron keys clacking dully like lamed crickets.

“Take it easy,” Joe said, and glanced at Sammy with something like a private exchange.

“What does that mean?” Eric demanded. “Take it easy! I’m a big winner for two years. And two fucking days! Two lousy goddamn fucking days my stuff doesn’t move and this asshole’s on my back! I don’t have to come in here, you know. I can sit at home and phone in the trades. Hell, I can call the floor myself, I don’t need Sammy to do it for me.” He was blasting into the atmosphere, breaking up gloriously, sparks flying into the night sky, free of their gravity, ten years of their drag, free and alone—

“I was kidding!” Sammy squeaked. Sammy was scared.

He should be, Eric thought. I could insist Joe send Sammy home to his mother.

“I’m sorry! Jesus Christ! I’m sorry,” Sammy pleaded.

Why, the little prick was almost begging.

“I’m going for a walk,” Eric said. Eric knew the liquid fuel of his rage would burn out and he’d feel stupid, crashing to earth with stammering apologies. He wanted to go before humiliation followed righteousness.

He went outside during the trading day. When had he ever done that, except for a quick bite to eat? He loved the numbers of the Quotron, changing with a little blip, a quick dance, never still, a new game every day. Now that he had a past to live up to, they were terrible, but once the promise of tomorrow had been his friend, a consolation.

What a relief to be away, away from the possibility of erosion. What should he do? Close out his positions? Had the market topped? Was this October 1929?

He could lose it all: the income, the respect, the control of Nina’s family money. Tom had even talked of creating a trust for Luke. Eric was so close to victory.

On the street, he was lost. Away from the money, he was confused. Eric bought a hot dog from an Asian on a street corner, even though he had already eaten. It tasted horrible, nothing like the kosher franks Eric used to get as a kid from the neighborhood deli in Washington Heights. The deli was owned by a white sausage of a man: Morris. Morris made the franks behind the tall glass display of his meats and handed the buns over the top of that cliff. On his wrist, stretched bluish black numbers were tattooed. “Enjoy,” Morris said. God, they were good. Hot and thick and juicy, the mustard tangy, the sauerkraut warm and crunchy, the bun crust firm.

And Eric liked the numbers on Morris’s wrist — an 8 on the end undulated as the skin flexed to lower the food.

Eric was seven when his father told him what the numbers meant. Their color was uneven, faded here, greenish there, their shapes twisted — a consequence of attempts to erase them. Before Eric knew better, he thought they were a spy’s secret code.

Once Eric knew the truth, the next time he got a frank, Eric’s hand trembled when he took it from Morris.

“Enjoy.”

“I’m sorry,” the little confused Eric answered.

What a schmuck, Eric thought, throwing out what was left of the Asian’s hot dog. Morris didn’t need my pity.

Were the Quotron’s numbers going to betray him also?

Why can’t Luke move his bowels?

Luke screamed and screamed while huge, impossible turds came out, usually only halfway. Pearl had told Eric and Nina that sometimes she had to pull them out—

Ugh. It was disgusting. Three o’clock. The last hour. Eric went back to the room with no privacy, to the endless scoreboard.