“That's how Elliot and I got into the meat-and-seafood business. And we had the perfect plan: It was almost summertime, so we would sell ices during the day and tie up all the loose ends of our business venture at night. And with the money from the beach, we'd finance our meat-and-seafood company. We even brought in another beach vendor to partner up with us, our friend Paul Burton.” I motioned to my list again. “He's on there too,” I said casually. “Paul was living with his mother at the time, in a big white house in Douglaston, Queens, and, by coincidence, the house had a big backyard, just perfect for a meat-and-seafood company. Or so we thought.
“See, despite Douglaston being a very upscale neighborhood, Paul's house was a shithole. His mother had gotten it in a divorce, about twenty years earlier, and she hadn't put a dime into it since. It was almost like a haunted house now, and the backyard was no better. It had a freestanding garage surrounded by nothing but dirt, about a half acre of it.” I smiled nostalgically. “Still, it was absolutely perfect for us. We were budding entrepreneurs, and starting out of a garage seemed very romantic. I mean, that's how Steve Jobs and Michael Dell started. Or maybe it was from out of their dorm rooms. Either way, that was how the Penguin and I financed ourselves: Billionaires of Tomorrow!
“In fact, we even went to see an accountant to make sure we hadn't missedanything!” I shrugged innocently. “And that's where the problems started. He was a referral from Elliot's father, who's a Hasidic Jew. The accountant was also a Hasidic Jew, and apparently he had as much experience with the meat-and-seafood industry as he did with eating pork chops. And after we explained our business plan to him, he smiled and said, ‘Well, it sounds like you two are going to make a fortune together. Mazel tov!’And then, for good measure, he added, ‘You're going to be very rich young men soon; very, very rich.’
“Well, what was there to say to that? Elliot and I took his words to mean that we were in desperate need of tax write-offs. In fact, we went straight from the accountant's office right to the Palm restaurant, where we spent four hundred fifty dollars on champagne and lobster. Then we leased ourselves two sports cars: I leased a Porsche and the Penguin leased a Lincoln Continental.” I rolled my eyes at the Penguin's choice of automobile. “Then we got ourselves cell phones, despite the fact that, back then, cellular service was so ridiculously expensive that only a CEO of a Fortune Five Hundred company would dare own one.
“Still, it all made perfect sense to us: We were enterpreneurs, after all, which to our way of thinking entitled us to a few things. And with all the money we were saving by starting out in Paul's backyard, we'd earned the right to lavish ourselves with a few basic luxuries. Then came opening day, September twenty-sixth, 1985. It seemed like as good a day as any to open up a meat-and-seafood company—although Mother Nature begged to differ. Or at least that's what I surmised when Hurricane Gloria came smashing into Long Island and the eye passed right over Paul's backyard. In fact, she dumped what amounted to thirty-two inches of rain on the backyard, because it happened to be at the bottom of four converging hills. And just like that, our little meat-and-seafood company became a gigantic fucking mud pit.” I shook my head in amazement. “We were out of business before we even started.”
“You never opened?” the Bastard said skeptically. “But in the Forbesarticle—”
The Witch cut off the Bastard. “According to Forbesyou were in business for quite some time.” She cocked her head to the side and stared at me accusingly.
OCD shook his head. “I don't think he meant literally,Michele.”
“Greg's right,” I said, trying not to make enemies with the Witch. “Although, on a separate note, I will tell you that agreeing to the Forbesinterview was one the biggest mistakes of my adult life. I was only twenty-eight, though, so I was a bit naive back then.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I thought I'd get a chance to tell my side of the story, to set the record straight. Stratton had been in business for only two years, so no one had even heard of us. But the woman who interviewed me stuck a tomahawk in my back, coining me a twisted version of Robin Hood, who robs from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers.“ I grimaced at the memory. “It was a nightmare, that article. A total fucking nightmare.”
“You lose brokers over it?” asked the Bastard.
“No,” I answered quickly, “the brokers loved bad press, especially thatarticle. In fact, the day after it hit they came to work dressed in medieval garb, and they were running around screaming, ‘We're your merry band! We're your band!’” I chuckled at the memory. “What bothered me about the article, though, was the picture of me they used. It was horrendous.”
OCD smiled devilishly. “You mean the one with you standing next to the rusty drainpipe?” He let out an ironic chuckle. The Mormon added, “Yeah, the one where you have an evil smile!”
I shook my head in disgust. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “The rusty drainpipe, as if Stratton were going down the drain. I know all about it. The Forbesphotographer fucked me over with that one; first he tricked me into going up to the roof, and then he casuallyasked me to stand next to the drainpipe.” I rolled my eyes. “I didn't notice it at the time, because I was too busy worrying about my hair as he snapped a thousand and one pictures, waiting until he caught me at justthe right moment, when I had this shit-eating grin on my face. And that was the picture they used.” I shook my head at my own naïveté. “And, of course, the article poked fun at my meat-and-seafood days—point being that I had no business being in the world of high finance, that I was a lowly meat salesman and nothing more. In fact, the title of the article was ‘Steaks, Stocks, What's the Difference?’”
I looked at the Witch and said, “But you happen to be right, Michele. As the article pointed out, we didstay in business for a while, although I wouldn't actually categorize it as being in business; it was more like playing catch-up ball or chasing your own tail.” I thought back for a moment. “After the hurricane was gone, Paul's backyard was submerged under three feet of water. We spent the next two weeks digging ourselves out of the mud; then, out of nowhere, the backyard turned into a sinkhole and everything began to collapse—starting with the garage, then the patio, and then, eventually, the house itself. We called in a geologist to see if the house was on a previously unknown fault line, but it wasn't.
“And we had other problems too. We'd bought a used freezer trailer—as old as the hills—figuring we could save a few bucks. But it was wildly inefficient and sucked enough power to electrify New Jersey. And, of course, the wiring in Paul's house couldn't handle the amperage”—I searched my memory for a moment—”and I think it was in early December when we nearly burned Paul's house down.” I shrugged innocently. “That's when his mother came marching into the backyard, with a rope tied around her waist so she wouldn't sink into the center of the earth, and she screamed, ‘Get the fuck out! And take those stupid pickup trucks with you!’”
I smiled at the memory. “But Paul's mother was a kind woman, and she gave us a full month to find a new warehouse. That seemed pretty reasonable at the time, although it turned out to be easier said than done. We had no credit history, and our balance sheet was a disaster, so all the better landlords rejected us.
“There were six of us at that point: Elliot, Paul, and me, and our three employees, starting with big Frank Bua, who at six foot five was the spitting image of the Gerber baby with a beard; then tiny George Barbella, who stood two inches above midget status and looked like the devil himself; and then we had an intractable steriod-head named Chucky Jones, *who looked like the Norse god Thor. He was only five foot four, though, so he looked like Thor after he'd been squashed.