“But getting back to Jim Campbell for a second, I'd convinced him to buy the stock with the money in his IRA, which was the only real savings he had.” I paused and let out a troubled sigh. “And if you're wondering if I felt guilty about that, the answer is yes: I felt absolutely horrendous. Despicable. I knew he shouldn't be investing his IRA in a penny stock. It was much too risky. But I was so utterly brokeat the time that the words rent money, rent moneywere playing in my head like a broken record. In the end, they drowned everything else out, including my conscience.
“Then, the moment I hung up the phone, I was instantly awash in the admiration of my peers—quashing any residual doubts. I remember George saying to me: ‘Where did you learn to sell like that, Jordan? I've never heard anything even remotely like it! It was amazing!’ Of course, I won't deny that I relished every last drop of his admiration. And, not surprisingly, the rest of the brokers were equally taken with me. They were all staring at me wide-eyed, as if I were a god. I feltlike a god at that moment. The dark cloud that had followed me around since the meat business had finally evaporated. I felt like a new man, or, better yet, I felt like myself again.
“Right then and there, I knew that my financial problems were finally over, and I knew that Denise would finally have the things we'd talked about and dreamed about during the dark days. A world of infinitepossibility had suddenly opened, a world filled with a thousand opportunities. And from there things moved very quickly, starting when George approached me a few weeks later, asking me to train the salesmen.
“It was almost identical to what had happened in the meat business, when the manager asked me to train the salesmen. And again, just like in the meat business, my training sessions quickly turned into motivational meetings, and the room began to pump. In addition, I went about reorganizing the office, setting up the desks classroom style and instituting a dress code, and I put an end to all this nonsense of part-time stockbrokers.
“What I was trying to do, in essence, was to make the place feel like Wall Street, to make the brokers feel like truestockbrokers. And I got resistance from no one; they all followed me blindly— both George andthe salesmen—and everyone's commissions soared, especially mine. My first month, in fact, I took home a check for forty-two thousand dollars.” I paused for a moment, letting the number sink in. “And let me tell you something: It was more money than I'd had in my entire life. Straightaway, Denise and I paid off all our bills, and then we went out and bought a brand-new Jeep, a Wrangler, for thirteen thousand dollars. Then we both bought new wardrobes. I bought her her first gold watch, then a diamond tennis bracelet. And at the end of the month we stillhad ten thousand left over!
“The next month I made sixty thousand dollars, and I went out and bought the car of my dreams: a brand-new pearl-white Jaguar XJS.” I smiled at the memory. “It was the two-door model, the one with twelve cylinders and three hundred horsepower. The thing was a total beast. And while Denise refurnished our apartment, I was paying back all my old creditors from the meat business. And the next month I made another sixty thousand, and that was it; that was when Denise and I looked at each other in awe. We simply didn't know what to do with all the money. We had everything we needed, and money was pouring in faster than we could spend it. I remember one day in particular, when we were sitting at the edge of a long wooden dock in Douglaston, not far from where Investors’ Center was. It was the middle of March, and it was one of those warm winter days where you feel the first hints of spring in the air.
“I think I remember this day so vividly because it was one of the few times in my life when I'd been truly happy, truly at peace. It was late afternoon, we were sitting on two fold-up lounge chairs that we'd carried down with us, and we were holding hands, watching the sun set. I remember thinking that I'd never loved a person as much as I loved this woman, that I'd never thought it was even possibleto love someone so purely, so completely. I didn't have a single misgiving about her, not a single second thought.
“On the other side of Little Neck Bay, I could see the edge of Bayside, where Denise and I lived, where I grew up, and just behind me was the North Shore of Long Island, where I would be moving in a few years and raising a family.” I shook my head sadly. “In a million years I would have never guessed that home wouldn't include Denise and that the mother of my children would be another woman. It would seem utterly impossible at the time.
“But what I had no way of knowing back then was that the insanity—asI'd come to call it—was right around the corner, slowly creeping up on me, without me knowing it.” I shook my head once more. “In the end, it spared no one. Not me, not Denise, not my family. Almost everyone I knew and everyone I grew up with would come to work for me soon, or at least become financially dependent on me. You understand what I'm saying?”
They both nodded, then the Bastard said, “How long after this did you meet Danny?”
I thought for a moment. “Not long; maybe three or four months. I'd seen him around the building a few times, but I'd never said more than a few words to him. Kenny, however, was about to reenter my life almost immediately. It was that very weekend, in fact, or the weekend after, when he called me out of the blue and asked if I'd train him to be a stockbroker.”
“How did he know you'd gotten in the market?” asked OCD.
“From his cousin Jeff. He was one of the few people I still kept in touch with from college. Jeff had told Kenny how well I was doing. But I was totally turned off by Kenny's call at first. I mean, the last time we'd crossed paths, the guy had crashed one of my meat trucks, then left me with a three-hundred-dollar food bill. And what vague memories I didhave of him were entirely negative. There was something a bit off about him, something I couldn't put my finger on. And that was even beforeI met Victor Wang. Together, though, the two of them were like a complete freak show: the budding Blockhead and the Talking Panda.” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, let's just say my memories of Kenny were less than fond. I had him pegged as someone who loved to talk about rolling up his sleeves and working hard but hadn't the vaguest idea what the concept meant.”
“Why'd you hire him, then?” asked OCD, smiling.
I smiled back. “That's a damn good question, Greg… but let's just say the Kenny GreeneI met in the meat-and-seafood business and the Kenny GreeneI met the second time around were two different people. I mean, he was still a budding Blockhead and everything, but now, at least, he was a humblebudding Blockhead. He seemed to know his place in the world. In fact, one of the first things he said on the phone was that he wanted to meet me for a cup of coffee so he could pay back the money he owed me.
“The only problem was that I didn't need the money anymore. So I was tempted just to say to him, ‘Fuck you, pal! Where were you and your damn checkbook when I needed you?’ But, of course, I didn't. Truth is, there was something about the Blockhead that I liked. I mean, even to this day I still feel a certain warmth toward him, although I have no idea why. He's like having a giant lapdog that pisses and shits all over your house, but you know he doesn't mean anything by it; he just can't control himself. Yet every morning you can be damncertain he'll be out on your front lawn, fetching your newspaper.
“Anyway, the two of us met at a little Greek diner, just down the road from Investors’ Center, and the moment we sat down Kenny handed me a check for three hundred dollars, along with an apology for having crashed my meat truck. Then he told me how his cousin Jeff was always telling him that I was the sharpest guy around and how there was nothing more in the world he wanted than to work by my side, as my right-hand man.” I shook my head and chuckled. “It's rather ironic that Kenny had more foresight in this department than I did. He was convinced I would be the next great thing on Wall Street, while I had zero aspiration in this area. I think I was just too shell-shocked from the meat business still; that, and I was so in love with Denise that I didn't want anything to change.”