“I was slowly losing patience with her. With a bit of edge in my tone, I said, ‘I'm not going to dental school, Mom, and that's final!’
“ ‘No, it's not final!’
“ ‘Yes, it is final!’
“And back and forth we went, until, finally, Mad Max stepped in. ‘Will you two stop it!’ he screamed. ‘I mean, Jesus!’ And he shook his head in disbelief. Then he looked at my mother and said, ‘He's not going to dental school, Leah. What's the use?’ And then he looked at me and smiled warmly. With a hint of a British accent, he asked, ‘What type of salesman would you like to be, son? What do you see yourself selling?’”
“Your father's British?” asked OCD. “I didn't know that.” OCD's tone dripped with surprise, as if someone had given him some very bad information.
“No, he's not actually British,” I replied. “He just speaks with a British accent when he's trying to act reasonable. That's my father's other persona: Sir Max. It's his lovable alter ego. See, when Mad Max becomes Sir Max, he puckers up his lips and speaks with a hint of British aristocracy. It's pretty remarkable, actually, considering he's never even visited England.” I turned the corners of my mouth down and shrugged, as if to say, “Some things simply defy logic and aren't worth pondering.” Then I said, “But Sir Max is the best. He never loses his temper. He's totally reasonable in all situations.”
“So what did you tell Sir Max?” asked the Bastard.
“Well, at first I hemmed and hawed a bit—talking about the possibility of selling medical supplies or dental supplies, something that would fit in with my degree. Then, as if it were an afterthought, I brought up the subject of Elliot Loewenstern and meat and seafood. My mother, of course, immediately began torturing me, using her own brand of Jewish guilt, which is your run-of-the-mill Jewish guilt mixed with passive-aggressiveness and sarcasm.
“‘My son, the meat salesman!’ she started muttering. ‘That's just wonderful! He drops out of dental school to peddle meat. A mother should only beso lucky.’ She added a few more choice words, and then the phone started ringing and Sir Max morphed back into Mad Max, and started cursing, ‘That motherfucking goddamn piece-a-shit phone! Who the hell has the gall to call this house on a goddamn Tuesday afternoon? Inconsiderate bastard! The fucking gall!’ And my mother jumped off the couch and ran to the phone like Jesse Owens, as she pled with my father: ‘Calm down, Max! Calm down! I'm getting it—I'm getting it!’ But Mad Max was still mumbling curses under his breath: ‘That rat bastard! Whocalls the house on a goddamn Tuesday afternoon?’”
With mock seriousness, I said, “My father reallyhated it when that phone rang! I'm telling you: Nothing drove him crazier.”
“Why?” asked OCD.
I shrugged. “For the most part, it had to do with my father being resistant to change. He hates it in any shape or form. In fact, for the last thirty-six years he's had the same address, the same phone number, the same dry cleaner, the same auto mechanic—he even has the same Chinese laundry service! And he knows all the owners on a first-name basis, so he'll say things like, ‘Pepe 1*over at the dry cleaner said this, or Wing 2*at the Chinese laundry said that, or Jimmy *over at the Sunoco station said something else.’ It's totally unbelievable.” I shook my head back and forth, emphasizing the point. “When the phone rings, it brings an unwanted stimulus into his environment, creating the potential for change. Whether the call brings good news or bad news doesn't matter to him; he flips out either way.” I shrugged again, as if this was just another expected happening at Chez Belfort. Then I said, “Now, under normalcircumstances, the worst thing my mother can say after she picks up the phone is, ‘Max! It's for you!’ But once Mad Max picks up the phone, he'll become Sir Max again, using his British accent. ‘Oh, how may I help you? Righty-o, then! Cheerio, my friend!’And he'll stay Sir Max until he hangs up the phone, at which point he'll turn right back into Mad Max again and curse his way back to his chair, then fire up another Merit.
“Anyway, when my mother answered the phone that day, it wasn't for my father. It was for me, and, of all people, it was the Penguin. So my father started muttering, ‘That cocksucking phone! It's always the same with it. And this fucking Penguin character! What rock did he crawl out from underneath? That stupid Penguin, waddling fool
By now we were all in hysterics. The Bastard recovered first. “So did Mad Max go ballistic about the meat business?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “The moment I hung up, I told them I'd landed a job as a meat-and-seafood salesman, which caused Saint Leah to start flipping out, which then caused Sir Max to reemerge.” I paused for a moment, then said, “No, my problems didn't start until the next morning, when the Penguin pulled up in front of my building in his company vehicle, which turned out to be a Toyota pickup truck. ‘What the fuck is that?’ I snapped. ‘Don't tell me this is the company vehicle you were talking about!’
“ ‘Yeah, ain't she a beaut?’ he replied, and then he popped out of the truck, dressed in jeans and sneakers, and he waddled over and put his arm on my shoulder. Then he stared at the truck and said, ‘Whaddaya think?’
“‘It's a real piece-a-shit!’ I snarled, and then I noticed a big white freezer box on the back on the truck. ‘What the fuck is that, Penguin? It looks like a coffin!’ I saw a trail of gray dry-ice smoke rising up from out of one of the corners of the box. ‘And what the fuck is that?’ I said, pointing to the smoke.
“Elliot flashed me a knowing smile, then he held up an index finger and said, ‘Here! I'll show you,’ and he went waddling over to the passenger side and opened the lid of the freezer box. ‘Check out the food,’ he chirped proudly, and he started pulling out boxes, one by one, and showing me the food. Each box was the size of an attaché case, and it had a different cut of meat in it or a different type of fish. And there was everything—filet mignon, shrimp, lobster tails, lamb chops, pork chops, veal chops, fillet of sole, salmon steaks, crab legs. He even had prepared foods, like chicken Kiev and chicken cordon bleu. I'd never seen anything like it.
“By the time he was done, we were literally surrounded by more than two dozen boxes, and I was more confused than ever. There was something bothering me, but I couldn't place my finger on it. ‘How do we get the restaurants to buy from us?’ I asked. ‘Are our prices cheaper? Do we have better food?’
“The Penguin looked at me deadpan and said, ‘Who said anything about selling to restaurants?’”
I looked at the Bastard and shook my head. With a hint of a chuckle, I said, “I think I knew everything right then and there, and all that came afterward was merely incidental. When I didn't run back upstairs and reapply to dental school, I sealed my fate.” I shrugged. “The next decade of my life—meaning, the very insanity of Stratton Oakmont—was now a foregone conclusion.”
The Bastard leaned forward in his seat, obviously intrigued. “What makes you say that?” he asked.
I thought for a moment. “Well, let's just say that, right then and there, I knew what I was getting myself involved in. I knew it was a”—I avoided using the word scam,not only because the meat-and-seafood business wasn't an outright scam but also because I didn't want my captors thinking of me as a career scam artist. Better they should view Stratton as a blip in an otherwise semi-law-abiding life—”bit of a hustle,” I said carefully. “Or maybe even morethan a bit. But I figured, since the food was so good, how much harm could I cause?”
I shrugged at my own rationalization. “Anyway, it was about a twenty-minute ride to the warehouse, and on the way Elliot explained the ins and outs to me. Everything was being sold door to door, either to homes or to businesses but never to restaurants. The food wasn't priced that way. ‘We sell at retail, not wholesale,’ the Penguin informed me. And while he didn't come right out and say it, he inferred that our prices weren't cheap. ‘It's all about convenience,’ he kept chirping. ‘We deliver restaurant-quality food right to their door. And we'll even pack their freezers for them!’ He kept repeating the last part, even called himself a professional freezer packer, as if that made up for the fact that he was overcharging everyone.