‘And please, Jeff,’ I continued, ‘remember that the things of this world are but trifles, that whether we make money or lose money is but a speck of dust in the eye of the universe.’
Of course whether we made or lost money was the fucking universe, and every trader knew it, or if he didn’t he was soon losing money and was even sooner no longer a trader. Jeff scurried away to his own private cubicle and I continued on to my office.
In preparing the morning trades I knew I had to let moral principles be uppermost in my mind, and I’m afraid I probably overdid it. I ordered my men to buy wheat because it was the source of the staff of life, to sell cattle and pork bellies because they were being cruelly butchered for mere money, to sell the D-mark to punish the Germans for the Second World War, but buy the Swiss franc to encourage neutrality. I had them sell oil futures to cut down pollution, but buy bond futures to support the Government’s effort to clean up the pollution. As for the stock market I saw that most of the companies owned in the various BB&P-managed accounts were definitely sources of evil and would have to be sold – the tobacco stocks, oils, paper companies, advertising firms, chemical companies, banks, all defence stocks, the auto stocks – by the time I was finished I’d come up with sell orders on most of the thirty Dow Industrials, pausing only over dear old Procter and Gamble, until I remembered they produced aerosol products that were causing the ozone holes that were frying penguins all over the world.
By the time I was done, it was quite clear that my indicators must have come up with a major sell signal: my morning trading orders seemed to contain nothing but ‘sells.’ At first some brokers either phoned or tried to ease into my office to check on the validity of or reasoning behind my sell orders, but after one or two reported that I seemed stoned out of my mind and couldn’t be shaken from my sell orders, they ceased their efforts. The word spread, first through BB&P, then out into other brokerage houses: Larry Rhinehart was selling. I, one of the most creative traders to come along in years, was selling. The stock market opened lower and headed south.
A half-hour later Mr Battle was standing behind his huge glass pingpong-table desk and looking with fear in his eyes at Larry.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said nervously.
Larry, eyes glowing, yearned to communicate.
‘It’s simple,’ he said. ‘To begin to cleanse your soul you simply begin to give your fortune away to the poor.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Battle. That’s unconstitutional.’
‘In time you will be able to surrender all of your worldly goods –
‘Stop saying that!’
‘So that your spirit will be free to –’
‘No, no, no!’ snapped Mr Battle, putting his hands up to cover his ears. ‘I’ve worked hard for thirty years to earn my money and I don’t believe in giving any of it away except when the Federal government reimburses me with tax write-offs.’
‘But the holy book itself says that it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel –’
‘I don’t care about any holy book!’ exploded Mr Battle with near panic. ‘Or camels either! What’s wrong with you!? Money is the whole purpose in life!’
Larry felt a surge of sadness as he saw the fear-filled Mr Battle, and he slowly began to move around the desk towards him.
‘But dear sweet sir,’ he said earnestly, ‘I feel such overwhelming love for you.’
Mr Battle blinked at the approaching Larry and went into a frightened crouch.
‘If you knew how giving up everything would cleanse your spirit …’ continued Larry.
Mr Battle, now in terror, began backing away around the other side of his desk as Larry, arms outstretched, continued to move towards him, his face lit with the characteristic glow of the totally mad.
As he went around the far corner of his desk Mr Battle began desperately to punch at his desk phone.
‘Miss Riggers, get security! Get security!’
But with Larry almost upon him, Mr Battle finally had no choice: he began jogging towards the door.
‘Miss Riggers! Help! Somebody, help!’
Security and Mr Battle ended up concluding that Larry was no immediate threat to the community, a conclusion considerably aided by the fact that the stock market was down over thirty points and Larry had saved the firm’s clients hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling on the opening. Rumours were rife on Wall Street that Larry Rhinehart had some inside information that would break later in the day and send stocks down fifty points. To protect themselves, a lot of people sold, thus sending the Dow down fifty points.
When Larry announced at noon that he was taking the afternoon off, panic swept through the upper and lower echelons of BB&P. What should they do? Sell more? Begin buying back at these lower prices? This was a volatile day; it was Larry’s duty to stay at his post and monitor things. Larry tried to ease their concerns.
‘Take no thought for the morrow,’ he suggested. ‘Do the lilies of the field worry? Does a sparrow fall without God watching? Surely the good Lord can keep an eye on cotton futures.’ As for the stocks that they’d sold at the opening, they were all ‘bad’, and thus should not be bought back. Larry left, and behind him the word went out: don’t buy, the rout will continue.
Larry went to his bank four doors down and withdrew five thousand dollars in cash, all in tens and twenties. It was time to put his charitable feelings into practice. He had no clear plan, just the knowledge that he had to give.
Out on Broad Street, crowded now at midday, he felt suddenly self-conscious, suddenly aware of his normal being of Larry Rhinehart, aware of being dressed like a normal Wall Streeter in suit, tie and brightly shined shoes. Passing a small import-export shop with exotic-looking clothes in the window he impulsively marched in. Ten minutes later he less impulsively walked out, now wearing over his suit a brown robe that was something of a cross between a Mexican serape, a choir robe and a Franciscan monk’s robe. In any case, it definitely muddied the image of a Wall Street tycoon.
Back on the street, he was again overwhelmed with doubt, meaning that all his old habitual feelings and attitudes came surfing in, judging what he was about to do as idiotic. Larry had been, like every man who was healthy, wealthy and wise, blind to the millions of his fellow creatures who were not healthy, wealthy and wise. Like most Wall Streeters he was normally perfectly capable of stepping over the body of a homeless man in mid-sidewalk not only without missing a stride but without missing a decimal point in the financial figures he was tossing around in his mind or with a colleague. The homeless scattered in such rich abundance about the city had become objects of such grim familiarity as garbage cans and windblown debris and were considered no more significant.
Had there been only a hundred homeless citizens, New Yorkers would have wailed and rallied together to develop programmes to care for them. But with hundreds of thousands of the homeless, and wailing and programmes having been tried for many years with no measurable effect, New Yorkers did what all healthy, wealthy and wise humans do when confronted with suffering that they haven’t directly caused and can’t see how they can significantly help: they stopped seeing it. Or, when they did see it, they felt mightily annoyed both with the sufferers and those public officials who couldn’t devise a programme to get the sufferers out of sight.
On most occasions Larry gave more generously than most – handing out dollar bills with a guilty commiserating nod and scurrying on. But today he stopped in the middle of the crowded sidewalk and, head down, tried to pray himself back into the role of saint.
‘Lord, I have pledged today to be a saint,’ he said to himself. ‘I need your help. Inspire me to think always and only of others … no matter how stupid it makes me feel …’ Yes, that was exactly it. He repeated the words to himself until he could feel again the old rush of love for poor mankind. He reached under his brown robe and drew out the first fistful of tens.
He began to move slowly along the si
dewalk, heading north, and every now and then reached out to offer a ten-dollar bill to one of the approaching New Yorkers who looked particularly unloved, whether rich-looking or poor. But New Yorkers have had long experience of what people do or want on their sidewalks and most immediately swerved to avoid him, pulling away as if from a leper offering his disease.
‘Bless you, my son,’ he said to one young man who looked as if he were close to tears. ‘Please take this.’
The young man veered away.
‘Bug off, buddy,’ he said.
Finally one man absent-mindedly took the ten that Larry was offering and, as Larry continued on, stared at it, fingered it, held it up to the light and finally, shrugging, dropped it in a litter basket he was passing.
Two or three others took the ten and after examining it, also shrugged, stared back at Larry, then pocketed the ten and moved on. In Manhattan the unexpected is the norm.
‘Bless you, my dear,’ Larry said to an attractive and innocent-looking young woman approaching him. ‘Please take this.’
The girl stopped in fear, stared briefly at the dewy-eyed Larry, then made a sharp right turn to cross the street, causing a car to brake to a screeching hall and the cab behind it to crash into its rear. Larry walked obliviously on.
When Larry tried to give to a distinguished but sad-looking older man, the man moved cautiously around Larry.
‘I already gave at the office,’ he said.
In the first hour of his walk through the Wall Street area heading north Larry was able to give away more than fifty of his tens and twenties, most of which were kept. Then his trek began to take him out away from the financial district and towards the Bowery. When on the less crowded First Avenue Larry offered a ten to a wiry young black man the man stopped and eyed Larry suspiciously.
‘What’s this for?’ he asked.
‘For you, my son,’ said Larry. ‘For your needs.’
‘Dis is entrapment, you know. I ain’t offered you nothing.’
‘I want nothing, my son,’ said Larry. ‘Only to give you my love.’
‘I knew it.’
‘I mean Platonic love, my son,’ explained Larry glowingly.
‘I don’t do none of that kinky shit,’ said the young black man and wheeled away.
By the time he reached the Bowery, Larry had attracted a following. As he moved along the litter-ridden, derelict-ridden street, a large group of winos, down-and-outs, and homeless followed him, each clutching a few ten-dollar bills. As Larry leaned down to give a sleeping or drunken derelict crumpled against a wall one of his bills, one of his escort would swoop down and snap it away so fast the poor victim, befuddled in some cases perhaps by alcohol, concluded the ten-dollar bill had only been a brief mirage.
But all good things must come to an end and, finally, Larry reached into his pockets and, after corning up with a few scattered bills, realized he was broke. As he dug fruitlessly into his pockets the trailing derelicts clustered closer.
‘You run out of blessings, kid?’ asked one old man.
‘All I have are the clothes on my back,’ announced Larry solemnly.
‘I’ll take the robe!’ shouted a woman.
‘The shoes!’ shouted the wiry man.
‘Me the shirt!’ cried another.
Soon Larry disappeared in the excited throng surrounding him.
When Larry returned to the offices of BB&P at 4.30 that afternoon it was a momentous occasion. Unbeknownst to him the stock market had decided that day – with only the slightest of nudges from Larry’s minor selling – to collapse, to take one of its infamous brief freefalls that make strong men weep and weak men weepier. Not only that, but staff-of-life wheat had rallied, and cruel cattle, hog and pork belly futures gone down. The people of BB&P knew that their clients had avoided the worst consequences of the stock market fall, thanks to Larry’s brilliant morning marching orders. And his trading in the agricultural futures was nothing short of miraculous. So that when he suddenly appeared after his four-hour disappearance, the roomful of brokers and traders and clients were prepared to burst into cheers.
Unfortunately, Larry had emerged from the elevators dressed only in his underpants, socks and a torn and dirty T-shirt, and accompanied by two New York City policemen.
It was a momentous occasion. All work in BB&P came to a halt as one and all turned to stare at their returning ?hero?, who stood, in his shorts, gazing at them benevolently from between the two cops.
What happened next is a tribute to the fearless and undeviating value system of lower Manhattan. Lesser men would have seen a man who was a little crazy, dressed as if he was ready for Bellevue, in the custody of police. The workforce at BB&P saw through all this. They saw a man who had just saved (and thus made) a ton of money. After perhaps a ten-second hesitation to remember their value system, the men and women of BB&P burst into applause, then cheers. They hailed the conquering hero. The conquering hero blessed them.
FROM LUKE’S JOURNAL
With Chance there are no limits on change since there is no reason or purpose or morality to limit them. When Chance rolls out her developmental Dice – whether biologically, culturally or individually – she rolls out failure after failure after failure, and then, once a day. decade or millennium, rolls out a combination that the most intelligent and purposeful of creators could never have imagined or produced.
As long as the individual takes himself or his society seriously, then there must be control and purpose, and the possibilities of change are limited. When the flow of individuals and societies are seen as elaborate games, then the changing of the rules in order to make the games more fun. more challenging, more interesting, becomes a more acceptable possibility. Of course men today usually take their games themselves with such seriousness that rule changes are almost as difficult to come by as modifying Moses’s ten commandments.
52
By the end of that afternoon I was intoxicated with doing good. I was mad, of course, insane by most standard definitions, because I was letting some saintly force within me that normally never got expressed run wild over my usual selves.
After I’d sent Miss Claybell out to buy me some new clothes – simple garb for a simple person: black sweat-pants and sweatshirt and sneakers made in Bulgaria – I spent the last part of the afternoon in my office, not to go over my supposedly miraculous indicators as my colleagues assumed, but to write out cheques for various charities, some on my own account, others on BB&P’s behalf. By the time I was done I’d given away close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, half from me, half from BB&P. Although it had just been the Christmas season, a part of me wasn’t absolutely sure Mr Battle would approve.
As I busily worked giving away the firm’s funds various people came in to congratulate me on the day’s trading – Brad and Jeff and even Vic Lissome. Vic even admired my black sweat-pants and shin.
‘I’d give anything to be able to dress like that,’ said Vic lugubriously and then weaved his way out of the office for some refreshment.
By the time I’d finished my acts of charity the offices were mostly empty and it was seven in the evening. As I serenely stood up to leave I became aware of someone standing in the doorway: it was Honoria.
We hadn’t had much contact since my descent into the dicelife, just the one formal and unsatisfactory evening out and two or three phone calls. As she stood silently in my doorway, dressed in a simpler and less elegant dress than was her usual style – a stodgy grey and a bit baggy even – all my conflicts about whether to re-establish my old life or to blow it to smithereens came rushing in. We were both silent for almost twenty seconds, the only sound the hum of dormant computers and monitors being used by dedicated type-A personalities.
‘I have to see you,’ she announced. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘How did you know I was here this late?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been waiting down in the lobby since 5.30.’
Somehow the picture of Honoria waiting in a
lobby for anyone reawoke the saint; I hurried over and put my arm around her.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘What’s the trouble?’
She stood stiffly in my arms, her eyes not meeting mine but looking past me as if studying a stock monitor.
‘You haven’t phoned me in almost two weeks,’ she said
‘I’m sorry. I’ve been leading a selfish life.’
Honoria now turned slightly in my loose embrace and for the first time looked up into my eyes.
‘I’ve been selfish too,’ she said, still in that low, unauthoritative voice that seemed so different. ‘I let your financial troubles alienate me when I should have been there for you, supporting you in your hour of need.’
‘No, it was my fault. I took my losses too seriously. I forgot that getting and spending is all chaff on the wind. I should have called you.’
Honoria began to search my eyes, apparently thrown a little off balance by my responses.
‘I … I have something … rather … strange to tell you,’ she said, and again, after her long searching of my eyes, she lowered her face. ‘It may upset you.’
‘Go ahead and tell me,’ I said, squeezing her shoulder. ‘Nothing will upset me. I’m really happy to see you again.’ In the mood I was in that day I was overjoyed to see just about everyone.
‘Oh, Larry, I’ve been such a selfish shit,’ she said, her head averted. ‘You’re the only decent person in my life and I’ve thrown you away. You can never love me again.’
‘Nori, I’ll always love you.’
Again Honoria raised her head to search my eyes, then sighed.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.
Even a saint gets knocked off kilter every now and then: I stared down at her in frozen benevolence.
‘I was never unpregnant,’ Honoria continued. ‘I lied to you that time last month. After I saw how upset you were I couldn’t go through with the abortion I’d planned.’