Unemployment Novel

2009-08-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

How to Build a Career and Find Happiness During a Recession:
A Tragi-Comic Novel of Unemployment, Underemployment, Wall Street, Main Street and other Matters that Seemed to Matter at the Time

by Anonymous, Jr.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 25 and Epilogue

2009-08-02T16:05:00.002-07:00

August 13

"Hey--hey you, come back with that," Dana heard from just down the mountainside. "Don't make me come up there after you. And stop laughing at me. You know perfectly well that monkeys can't laugh." It didn't sound like Tommy or Brent, and the Doctor never came up on the mountain, claiming a mortal fear of sharp inclines. "What the hell are you going to do with it anyway? Wait, don't eat it. You're supposed to be an Uncommonly Clever Monkey. Surely you realize that no one eats roses. Wait! Stop! Oh, never mind. No I don't want the stem back. And don't stick your tongue out at me, I know it didn't taste very good. But whose fault is that? In fact, what's your name? You're out of the analyst training program."
Finally Dana had enough information to place the voice. "Gwaf?"
"Dana?" I pushed my way though another fifty feet of what passed for a path on the Lesser Merrill Island interior. It was Dana. She was decidedly more sunburned than the last time I'd seen her, and maybe a bit sweatier, but I could live with that. We shared an embrace passionate enough to draw screeches of approval from the local monkey population, which thus far hadn't impressed me as any more clever than your average Jerry Springer audience. "I brought you a single red rose all the way from the mainland, but it was eaten by that monkey back there."
"Yea, I heard the argument."
"Shouldn't an uncommonly clever monkey know better than to eat a rose?"
"He'll know better the next time. But what are you doing here? Are you on vacation?"
"No, my career has merely taken an unexpected turn. I'm going to be working here from now on."
"Here? On Lesser Morrell Island?" Dana sounded more concerned than thrilled.
"I expected you to be slightly more ecstatic about this."
"I might be ecstatic. Just let me hear the rest of it before I decide."
"The good news is that I've solved your problem about giving Sarah something to hate. And as a bonus I can guarantee you that no more of the island's monkeys are going to be sold for medical experiments or eaten by the locals."
"That's wonderful. Now what's the bad news?"
"Johnston Brothers has hired the monkeys as research analysts and we're going to open a branch office here on the island."
"No."
"Yes. I have signed contracts."
"Signed contracts with the monkeys?"
"With the chief of the village. Our lawyers are relatively certain that he has power of attorney over the monkeys."
I didn't get a response. "Well? Do you hate me?"
"I'm thinking about it."
"It gives Sarah something to protest, it gets money to the village, it gives the monkeys a purpose in life other than swinging about like idiots and eating roses that don't belong to them. It really is a fairly decent plan."
"I'm still pretty sure I hate it."
"Even though it means we can be together?" I asked.
Dana put her hands on her hips and gave me her hardest look. She was trying to get tough with me, but I couldn't help but think that she was far too cute to pull it off. "Just one question," she said. "Did you do this despite the fact that it might make things worse for the monkeys, or did you do it because it might make things better for the monkeys."
"Dana, I didn't do this for money or for monkeys. I did this to be with you. I'd follow you to the ends of the earth."
"You didn't follow me to Spanish Guyana."
"Well any place that isn't a festering shit-hole. Don't ruin the moment. The point is I did it all for you. Wait...or would you love me more if I told you I did it for the monkeys? Cause I could go with either." I didn't get an answer. Just a kiss. But it was a hell of a kiss. Just the right amount of tongue. And I decided then and there that it was okay with me if the world didn't want to make sense, so long as every now and then it didn't make sense to my advantage.

Epilogue

"Another fine day at Bucklin," Kerns thought. Not so long ago, it was exactly the sort of day that would have scared the hell out of him. Aging 1960's radical Bobby Broula was on campus to deliver his usual fiery, rhetoric-laced speech about keeping up the fight and not trusting anyone over thirty. Broula was having something of a renaissance that fall, touring college campuses in celebration of the day years before when he'd burned his draft card on the White House steps, then rolled a joint at the Lincoln Monument because a few cameramen had complained that they'd arrived late and missed the first event. It was the 30th anniversary of the whole thing, and anniversaries ending in 0 always get particular attention, for no particular reason.
Today's Bucklin students didn't have draft cards to burn of course. A lot of them probably didn't even know what a draft card was. So they'd burned their student I.D. cards instead, right there in the lecture hall, so that Broula would respect them. That was just fine with Broula. It was fine with Kerns as well. Replacement IDs cost $50, $45 of which was pure profitfor Bucklin. And all of this was fine with the students, since their parents would pick up the tab. The only unfortunate consequence was that the student detailed to drive Broula to the airport after his speech had, in a fit of anti-war fervor, accidentally burnt his driver's license as well, and badly charred his car keys.
Kerns volunteered to drive Broula himself.
"Nice speech," he said during the ride. "The students really seemed interested."
"Yea," Broula chuckled, "Us radicals from the '60s are even more popular now than we were then. I feel sorry for all those guys who O.D.ed in the seventies and missed all the fun."
"I guess it must be gratifying to see your ideals taking hold."
Broula didn't respond.
"I said…"
"Yea, I heard you. I just don't know what to say to something like that. I mean, what do these kids have to do with our ideals? All we have in common is drug abuse and self righteousness--and the fact is a lot of us from the sixties cut that out once it became obvious the shit would kill us…I mean the drugs, not the self righteousness."
"Then what was that speech about?"
"That speech was about my $3,500 speaker's fee and a chance to sleep with the co-ed of my choice, not necessarily in that order."
"You don't say."
"Trouble is, my agent booked me to speak at a school in Oregon tomorrow afternoon. No layover on campus means no lay on campus. There goes half my motivation. Fuckin' redeye flights."
"Maybe you should explain these things to your agent."
"I would," Broula said. "But he'd probably expect to get 15% of the pussy for himself."
"I see your point."
"Oh well, I guess the money has to come first. Being a sixties radical is a full-time job these days. Who would have guessed that being anti-establishment would make me rich?"
"You sound pretty cynical about the whole thing."
"No, not all of it. I'm still proud that I stood up for what I believed in 25 years ago, and I still believe that was a lousy war they wanted me to fight. But what kind of person would I be if I never questioned anything I'd ever believed? And what kind of person would I be if I still thought a bunch of 18-year-olds had all the answers? No one thinks 15-year-olds have all the answers, and you can't learn that much in three years."
"So what do you think about this generation of college students?"
Broula shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, I guess they're no different from any other generation. They're going to do their level best to be against the establishment, even if most of 'em are only doing it to fit in. They'll vote for the candidate who's farthest to the left even if they drove to the polling place in the $40,000 Audi that Daddy bought them. And they'll listen to Woody Guthrie albums because anti-establishment liberals are supposed to listen to Woody Guthrie."
"Do they?" Kerns asked. "Still listen to Woody Guthrie, I mean."
"Well, maybe not, but they still listen to Bob Dylan, and Dylan was just trying to be Guthrie, so it's the same damn thing…except that no one can understand what the hell Dylan's saying."

Well, I guess that's pretty much the story.
In the years since, Dean Kerns has established himself as one of the top college administrators on the East Coast, thanks to his deft handling of the student-center affair and his uncanny ability to attract Pacific Island students to the school. Even his marriage seems stable, despite the fact that his wife once caught him helping a coed named Shauna out of her sweater.
Kerns also has benefited from the loss of his assistant. Thomas Prester Smith made it to Tierra del Fuego; that much has been confirmed through Argentinean travel records. Once there, he rented a row boat and, apparently, set off to the south in search of his destiny. The Drake Passage that separates South America from Antarctica is not an easy stretch of water to row under the best of circumstances, certainly not for a non-profit administrator with little experience in seamanship, even less upper-body strength, and certainly no understanding that the month of August falls in the middle of the winter in the Southern Hemisphere. It's unclear what happened next. An explorer did find some footprints once, just simple snowshoe tracks preserved in the ice, heading south towards the pole. They could have belonged to anyone, I suppose. Well, anyone walking alone without dogs, sleds, or supplies across Antarctica. So maybe Smith did reach Antarctica in his little boat. And maybe he found that it was the administrative homeland he'd always wanted, and decided to stay. On the other hand, maybe Smith met his end there on the barren Antarctic ice sheet, his carcass picked clean by hungry penguins. We might never know for sure. Whatever happened, the rented rowboat was never returned, and in the years that have passed Smith has racked up a rather hefty late fee.
In the meantime, Kerns named Roger his new Interim Associate Dean, and put him in charge the Dodge Aries owner / Plymouth Reliant owner parking lot dispute. Roger promptly bit them both.

Thanks to the influx of Johnston Brothers dollars, the Lesser Merrill Islanders now live like they're something other than extras from Clan of the Cave Bear, which is just as well, because that really was a terrible movie. A few of them even took me up on my offer to help them get into a top-flight American college. The very first graduate came back to Lesser Morrell Island and opened a resort. The resort's a bit tricky to get to, but it offers one perk that you can't find at any other vacation spot in the world. If you have a poorly thought out romantic encounter and wake up regretting it, all you need to do is walk over the international dateline to the other side of the island, where it's yesterday again and you haven't even considered it yet…Or so the resort's advertising claims.
Business is booming.
Sarah and the other environmentalists aren't too fond of the resort, but they have come to love Johnston Brothers' presence on the island, in as much as they hate it with a passion. They have something to be against, and that's all they ever wanted.

Timmy, as you might recall, made a fortune from his lawsuit against Shiveler's Supermarkets, then invested it with Johnston Brothers. I'm proud to say that Timmy's savvy investments in the market have made him a millionaire. Of course, he'd started out a multi-millionaire. But for Timmy, that's not so bad.
Life on Wall Street for Andy Keller and the rest is as it's always been: either monumentally great or suicidally awful, depending on when you call--although more often the former than the latter. Andy's personal portfolio now reaches well into seven figures, which he thinks should be enough to pay for his retirement, especially since most Wall Street salesmen keel over before they hit sixty.
Mr. Gwafinn eventually did get that exceedingly generous severance package he'd long wanted. Some time after my departure, he was able to convince the board that there were other non-Johnstons in the firm who could better manage the company. The board picked a relative newcomer to Wall Street to be the new CEO. Gwafinn bought himself a beach house in Florida and intends to spend his remaining years baking himself in the sun and attempting to catch fish.
As for my former roommate Dave Orr, my memories of him grow dimmer with each passing day. I can't seem to remember anything he ever did, or a single cause that aroused his passion. I phoned down Dave's parents once to see if they knew what had become of him. They claimed not to know who I was talking about.

I guess that just leaves Dana and I. We're still on Lesser Merrill Island, and we're still together. I run the Johnston Brothers office, Dana protests against the Johnston Brothers office. It's a simple life. But we're happy.

Years Later

An 800-pound silverback gorilla leaned back in its $2,000 antique leather desk chair and surveyed the scene outside its corner office. It was the last trading day before the Christmas holiday, and a light snow was falling on Wall Street. For the gorilla, this was the culmination of a hectic decade. It had scrapped its way up through the Johnston Brothers executive hierarchy in record time, and that morning had been named CEO.
The gorilla turned back towards its desk, and pressed the intercom button for its secretary. "Get a message off to Bob Gwafinn in our Lesser Merrill Island office," it grunted. "Tell him 'Nice work, but you're fired.' My kids need jobs, you know."

Chapter 24

2009-08-02T16:05:00.001-07:00

After a month and a half on Lesser Morrell Island, the size and pace of Greater Morrell Island was almost too much for Dana to take. This quite surprised her, as Greater Morrell Island's size, frankly, wasn't very big and its pace, in all honesty, wasn't very fast.
An old pickup truck sped by at a speed approaching 25 miles an hour. Then it sped by again in the other direction. There was just the one road. The only options when you reached the end were to turn around or start a new life there. The population of Greater Morrell Island City, the only city on Greater Morrell Island, was officially 264--and there were those who suspected that the census taker had accidentally counted himself twice, or, some claimed, three times. At least 20% of that population must have been out on the street that morning, even if you only counted the census taker once. And that was more people than Dana had seen at any one time since she'd left Hawaii. She fought against that panicky feeling that prairie dogs get when they realize all the other prairie dogs have ducked back into their holes and something smells an awful lot like coyote breath. Dana reminded herself that she was a cosmopolitan person who only months earlier had felt right at home in New York City, except maybe when attempting to merge in traffic. Anyway, she had to remain strong; this wasn't a pleasure trip, it was a matter of life and death. Dana had convinced Sarah to join her for twice-monthly ferry trips to Greater Morrell Island. There were all sorts of things here on the larger island to dislike.
"Look, Sarah. I'll bet that truck doesn't get twenty miles to the gallon. And that policeman--he's carrying a baton."
But Sarah didn't need any encouragement. She dashed off to unionize the cashier at the local market, and wasn't about to be deterred by his argument that he owned the place. Dana decided to find the island's post office to see if there was any word waiting for her from One Planet, Bob, or her family. Her magazine subscriptions also had gone missing, but Dana considered this of secondary importance.
The Greater Morrell post office was a refreshing change from the hectic street. It was indoors--really indoors, mind you, not the in-tent or in-hut that she had come to consider indoors on Lesser Morrell Island. And like post offices worldwide, it offered exactly the sort of languid torpor that can be a pleasant respite from the fast-paced world. Dana breathed in the inertia.
Only someone coming from Lesser Morrell Island would have considered the post office at all remarkable. Like most post offices, it was in fact a utilitarian space. The building consisted of a single smallish room divided in half by a curtain. Dana's side of the curtain featured nothing but a wall of post-office boxes, a poster warning of an upcoming increase in the price of stamps, a deli-style number dispenser, a table, and a postal employee.
"Are you holding any mail for me?" Dana asked the employee.
"You'll have to take a number," the postal employee said, gesturing towards the number dispenser.
"But I'm the only one here."
"I'm here," he argued.
"I'm the only customer here, then."
"How can I be sure of that if you don't have the lowest number?"
So Dana took a number. It was 18. "I've got 18," she said. "Can you help me now?"
"I'm not sure," the man admitted, ashamed. "We don't have the funds for a digital number display, and I lost count a week ago."
"It seems like if there was someone with a lower number, they'd have to be around here someplace. We're the only ones in the building."
"Did you look under the front steps?" the man asked.
"Not specifically."
"Perhaps you should."
"How about if I promise that if someone comes in with a lower number before we're done, I'll let them go ahead of me."
The man thought for a moment, then nodded his head. "That is acceptable."
"Wonderful. I was just curious if you were holding any mail for me."
"One moment, I'll check," the postal employee said, and stepped behind the curtain into the sorting room. He returned six minutes later. "I don't think so, but I can't be sure, since I didn't know your name."
"It's Dana Davis," said Dana. "I'm living on Lesser Morrell Island."
The man didn't move.
"What's the matter now?"
"If you have a second request, you'll have to move to the back of the line."
"But…it's the same request…and there is no line."
The postal employee didn't budge.
Dana took another number. "I have number 19. Can you help me now?"
"I'm not certain. The odds that someone will show up with a lower number increase each time your number gets higher."
"Not really," Dana said. "I just had number 18, and now that you've helped number 18, we can establish beyond the point of doubt that it's time for you to help number 19."
"Ahhh," said the man. "You are correct. If I helped number 18, then it is now time to help number 19. The question of the numbers has haunted my dreams for many nights. I am in your debt. As a small gesture of my gratitude I will name my next child after you. What was your name again?"
"Dana Davis."
"Dana Davis Mallosopolloutu. It is a wonderful name for a child. Now I am off to sleep with my wife to get started on that child for you. Please come back tomorrow."
"Wait," Dana said. "I can't come back tomorrow. I'm living on Lesser Morrell Island, and the ferry only makes the trip back and forth twice a month, plus whenever someone offers the ferry captain $10 for a special trip. And anytime someone gives the ferry captain $10 he just uses it to get drunk and tells them to come back for the next scheduled run. I really would appreciate it if you could check to see if I have any mail waiting for me."
The man didn't move. Dana just nodded her head and took another number. "20" she said.
"Very good. You're next. How can I help you?"
"Is there any mail for me?"
"Name please?"
"Dana Davis," Dana said one more time.
"No, no mail," the man said.
"You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. I certainly would remember if there was any mail for someone who shared a name with my future child."
Then the phone rang, startling Dana, who had not heard a phone ring in some time, and startling the postal employee, who was easily startled. "It's like a madhouse here today," the postal employee said to Dana. "Three customers in ten minutes and now the phone rings." He took a deep breath and answered.
"Post Office," he said. Dana couldn't hear the other end of the conversation.
"Yes this is Greater Morrell Island."
"No, no one by that name lives here."
"Yes, I am sure. I would remember if there was someone living on Greater Morrell Island who shares a name with my future child and the woman she's named after on Lesser Morrell Island."
Dana now was intrigued enough by the half of the conversation she could hear to attempt to inquire about the other side of the debate, but the postal employee put her off with a decisive waggle of his index finger. He couldn't be expected to help two people at once.
"No, there is no way to call the one who lives on Lesser Morrell Island. There is no phone on Lesser Morrell Island. And if you want to speak to the one who is my child, you'll have to wait a minimum of nine months…and then another two to three years at least if you expect any sort of meaningful response. Perhaps even four or five years if the child is dim like its brothers."
Dana tried to snatch the phone away, but the postal employee was stronger than he looked.
"No, there is no mail service to Lesser Morrell Island either. You can arrange to have a message delivered on the ferry, but you must pay a special $10 ferry fee. Just send the letter along with the $10 to Greater Morrell Island Post Office Special Deliv…ooof." The postal employee suddenly dropped to the ground, curled up in a ball and struggled to catch his breath. Dana, seeing her opportunity, picked up the fallen receiver.
"I'm sorry, the postal employee can't talk right now. Someone has just crept up behind him and kneed him in the groin. But maybe I help you. I'm Dana Davis."
"Dana! It's really you?," I said. "It's me, Gwaf." I suppose I should have had something more profound to say after two months apart. But in my defense, I had been speaking to a government employee only moments before, which does tend to dull the senses.
My poor opening aside, we had exactly the conversation I'd hoped for. I told Dana about selling stocks on Wall Street, omitting certain relevant sections of my procedure for obtaining other firms' client lists. Dana told me about counting fruit bats and uncommonly clever monkeys on Lesser Morrell Island, and if she omitted any details of a similar nature, she hasn't fessed up to them yet. I was a bit put off by the fact that she had apparently taken to kneeing people in the groin, which wasn't the Dana I had known, but she promised she didn't intend to make a habit of it. We both agreed that living the life one had always wanted wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. The postal carrier then interrupted to ask Dana to relay to me that it might be a little longer than nine months before I could talk to Greater Morrell Island's Dana Davis, on account of the fact he didn't feel up to getting things rolling with his wife that afternoon. Then he excused himself to throw up.
I told Dana I'd work on a solution to her Sarah problem, and that in the meantime I'd remind One Planet where they'd sent her, and tell her parents not to bother with any further search parties to Spanish Guyana. In return, Dana swore she'd return to Greater Morrell Island to phone me every fortnight when the ferry made its run.
Our conversation was cut short when the ferry whistle signaled that it was time for the return trip. "Bob's right," Dana thought as she left the post office. "I never used to be the sort of person that kneed other people in the groin. That was always one of the things everyone liked about me. Men in particular. Now I'm not only kneeing people in the groin, I'm very much enjoying it, and considering doing so again should the opportunity present itself. Maybe I have changed." But Dana's train of thought was interrupted by a Greater Morrell Islander holding a slip of paper labeled "17." "Do you know if I've missed my turn?" the man asked. "I was sitting under the front stairs." Dana kneed the man in the groin then hurried to join a somewhat reinvigorated Sarah on the ferry. It was definitely time to head back home to Lesser Morrell Island. Issues involving number dispensers were exactly the sort of thing that could push a mailman over the edge.
I put down my receiver and stared out my apartment window at the train station. There was something about what Dana had said. The pieces were all there, I was sure of it. I just had to put them together…

There must be another, Smith thought. Maybe a survivor from some long-lost Antarctican tribe living down near the south pole. Maybe Santa Claus's evil twin. Someone who looked more Antarctican, anyway. Someone who could fill in for that worthless, unexceptional Roberto who had ruined Smith's perfect plan. There just had to be another one. His grand administrative dreams couldn't end like this. But neither the directory-information operator nor the college reference librarian could find a phone listing for anyone in Antarctica. Smith would have to go right to the source. Flights to Antarctica were closely regulated, a travel agent explained. In fact, all travel on the continent was severely restricted. Antarctic visitors are expected to have a worthwhile scientific objective. At very least, they're supposed to be billionaire adventurers attempting to ski across the thing to prove their superiority over all the other billionaires who had circumnavigated the globe in hot air balloons and now wouldn't shut up about it.
These restrictions would be an impediment to Smith's current objective, but he couldn't bring himself to be angry. Smith was in favor of regulation in all its forms, and was in fact quite impressed that an entire continent could be administered so closely. Antarctica must be an administrative nirvana, he thought. Clearly, this was somewhere Smith was meant to be. He arranged transit to Tierra del Fuego, the southern-most tip of Argentina. From there, he could find his way.

August 4

"Mr. Gwafinn, could we move our Thursday Tuesday lunch up to this morning?" I'd talked my way past Gwafinn's assistant Gloria. She'd been willing to look the other way since I was, after all, a relative.
Gwafinn checked his watch. It was 8:30 in the morning. "I'm really not ready for lunch just now, Bob. I just ate breakfast."
"We don't have to eat lunch. But I have a good idea that I need to discuss with you."
"I simply don't have time right now."
"Okay, then let me rephrase. I don't just have a good idea. I have a good idea about how to get the most out of your good idea."
"Well why didn't you say so in the first place? Come in, sit down." Gwafinn always had time for really good ideas, by which he meant his own. I spent the next five minutes laying out the details, then leaned back in my chair to await Gwafinn's response.
"So when you say 'Uncommonly Clever Monkeys'…"
"Rumor is they're the most intelligent monkeys in the world," I said. "And they live only on this one small island out in the middle of the Pacific."
"And you think we could lure them here to Johnston Brothers?"
"Not a chance. They like it where they are. It's a quality of life issue for them."
"You're sure?"
"It would be like trying to lure Louie Anderson out of an all-you-can-eat restaurant before closing time."
"So what are you proposing?"
"Why don't we go to the source. Set up an office on their turf, and sign them to exclusive contracts. We wouldn't have to pay New York City wages that way, and our analysts wouldn't get caught up in quarantine."
"Interesting."
"And there's an added bonus. I'm told their island straddles the international dateline. That means if the monkeys make stock picks that don't work out, we can just move a few feet east to where it's still yesterday and the recommendations never happened."
"Are you sure that's how a dateline works?"
"Are you sure it isn't?"
"Fair enough. But would the monkeys agree to this sort of thing?"
"Just between us, I've cultivated a relationship with the only living human who knows each and every one of these monkeys personally--that is, if you can know a monkey personally. Maybe she knows them monkeyally. But that's just semantics. Either way I have a feeling they'll listen to her."
Gwafinn stood and turned his back to the office, looking out his window and up Wall Street. "Bob, I'm going to be honest with you…I love it," he said. "But we have to move fast or someone else is sure to get wind of it. You're the one with connections, you'll have to take the lead."
"No problem."
"It means transferring to Lesser Morrell Island to run the branch office."
"I'm always willing to do my part."
"Glad to see you're such a team player."
"Just give me a raise, a five-year extension on my contract, and a golden parachute large enough to land an African elephant and I'm your man."
"That's my boy," Gwafinn said selling with pride. "Never forget the golden parachute. I agree to it all. Now, you take these files on our current analysts" he pushed a stack of manila folders across his desk "and see if any of our current crop of dullard monkeys are worth keeping before we sell off the lot of them for medical experiments. Gloria will call you when your new contract and the travel plans are ready to go."
Gwafinn buzzed Gloria while I grabbed the monkey files a few at a time and tucked them under my arm, stumbling over Gwafinn's antique rolodex stand in the process. When I caught my balance, I noticed that a piece of scrap paper previously stuck between two of the files had fluttered to the floor at my feet.
"There's more to life than Wall Street," I read. "That's an odd note to find on Wall Street," I thought. Then it struck me. "It's you," I said, looking at Gwafinn.
"What's me?" he asked, taking his finger off the intercom button.
I put the piece of paper on his desk. "You're the Ghost of Johnston Brothers. You're the one who's been leaving these notes for people all this time. No one's noticed because you slip the notes between files so they only appear on desks when things get reshuffled."
"Okay, you got me. But don't tell anyone."
"But why? If you wanted to change the way people act on Wall Street, why not just say and do what you believe, instead of leaving difficult-to-interpret notes for us to find?'
"Why not be more direct? I tried. Once. A long time ago. It was back when I was just a rookie research analyst. I was supposed to evaluate a re-hot Nifty Fifty company that made widgets. I knew the market for widgets was disappearing, and this company didn't even make a particularly high-quality widget to begin with. So I gave the stock a "Sell" rating. It cost me my career. I had to change my name and start over."
"Then the legends are true. Well, except for the part about you killing yourself and your corpse being hidden in the building's ventilation system."
"No, that's just dead rats you smell."
"And the notes are a last stab at providing guidance to young investment bankers."
"I had to do something to maintain my sanity. My other options were to give in and play along, or go ahead and kill myself."
"It's nice to have options," I noted. "And now you're doing this monkey project to show Wall Street how little sense it makes."
"No, I'm doing the monkey plan to get fired so I can pocket a bundle off my severance package. How was I to know people would think it's a good idea?"
"Can't you just quit?"
"Nope. I don't get the golden parachute unless I'm fired."
"Is it that nice of a golden parachute?"
"It's the best there is."
"Surly there's a better way than this to get fired."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But the board of directors is so desperate to keep the Johnston family out of power that they're willing to put up with anything from me. I've tried inappropriate sexual behavior, nepotistic hiring practices, extravagant spending on corporate accounts, and incompetence in each of its many flavors. They were all non-starters. Truth is, most of that is more or less expected from Wall Street executives. Total insanity was my last hope."
"Only instead of being declared insane, you were hailed as a visionary genius."
"I never have been a lucky man."
"But why try to get fired in the first place. I thought you driven Wall Street types kept working right up to the day you had heart attacks and died in your well-appointed corner offices."
"The driven Wall Street types, maybe. But that's not me. I only got into investment banking in the first place because I'd graduated from a small, liberal arts college without any particular skills, and with the simple goal of becoming fabulously wealthy. Wall Street seemed like my best bet."
"I think I know where you're coming from."
"You will keep quiet about all this, won't you?"
"No problem," I said. "But one more question: why did you change your name to Gwafinn of all things?"
"Gwafinn was my mother's maiden name--plus it was such a terrible name, I figured no one would think it was phony."
I took another step out the door. "Where was your mother's family from?"
"Midwest someplace."
"Kansas?"
"Maybe. Why?"
"I called my father the other day. Turns out my family used to spell it with two 'n's, too. They lopped off the extra one a couple generations back because they thought it was too ostentatious."
"Interesting," Gwafinn said, in a voice that implied he didn't really find it tremendously interesting. I took the monkey files started back to my desk.
"Oh Bob, one more thing," Gwafinn called before I reached the door. "If we're using Uncommonly Clever Monkeys as research analysts, what am I supposed to do with the 20 gorillas I hired yesterday?"
"Put them in management. Gorillas are well suited to leadership."
"Oooh, good idea. Gorillas run amok in the executive offices could be just the thing to get me fired."

By lunch everything was in place. My travel plans were set. My new contract was signed. My cardboard box was nearly filled with the varied and inconsequential personal items that had found their way to my office desk. My client list had been sold to Keller for a very reasonable percentage of future commissions. All that remained was to answer my phone, which had decided it wasn't going to let me leave without a fight.
"Former office of Bob Gwafin," I said in lieu of a greeting.
"Former? He's gone."
"Any minute now. Who may I tell me is calling?"
"It's Roger's owner."
"Roger's owner, the one dog's owner I don't mind speaking to right about now," I said. "How's everything going?"
"Swimmingly. I rule with an iron fist. I crush those who question my authority. I am the lord and master of all that I survey. I am a God. And thank you for asking."
"No, really."
"Well, I'm no longer pretending that I don't speak English when my office phone rings--and I seem to have earned the respect of my dog, Roger."
"Congratulations. That's astounding progress."
"Thanks. I owe it all to you. Well, you and Roger."
"How did things work out with your wife?"
"Extremely well. Turns out she was acting oddly because she thought I was cheating on her."
"So everything's back to normal on the home front?"
"Even better than normal. I'd had no idea that Katherine thought me capable of having an affair. I don't mind telling you it was a big boost to my confidence to learn my wife thought I was juggling two women when I'd thought myself only marginally capable of juggling one."
"That is an ego inflater."
"I might even go ahead and have an affair just to prove to myself that I'm up to the job."
"Mind some advice?"
"I'd love some."
"Don't."
"Okay, consider it done. Or consider it not done, if you prefer. You know, we make a good team. Let me know if you ever want to leave Wall Street. I'm certain I can find something for you in college administration. The money's terrible, but I think you'll find that the hours are a considerable improvement."
"Thanks. Maybe one day I'll take you up on that. But as it happens I've just today made a change of my own."
"Let me know if there's anything I can do."
"Since you mention it, there might be one thing."
"Name it."
"I'm talking off the top of my head here, but if there were some Lesser Morrell Islanders looking to enroll in college, would Bucklin be interested?"
"Sure, we'd take them. I was considering going in another direction with the student body, but I suppose I was getting a bit ahead of myself."
"What were you thinking of?"
"Well, there's this group here on campus claiming they deserve reparations because five or six generations back their ancestors were slaves. I figure I'd have all the students vote on it, then I'd expel the ones who vote against it, for their racial insensitivity. And right after I did done that, I'd expel the ones who voted in favor of it, for their insensitivity. Seems to me that anyone who thought being the distant descendants of slaves made them the victim of slavery would be guilty of diminishing the victimhood of those who actually were enslaved. And better to take the high road where insensitivity's involved, I always say."
"You'd be left in charge of a college with no students, of course."
"No faculty, either. I'd have them take part in the vote. You can fire even a tenured professor for insensitivity."
"Wouldn't not having students cut into the school's cash flow?"
"Oddly, no. Turns out the whole education thing has been something of a money loser for the college. We get a better return from the profits on our endowment investments."
"Don't you think you'd get lonely there on campus all by yourself."
"Yea, the students do kind of liven up the place. Like I said, it was just an idea. Maybe I'll have the vote, but put them all on probation instead of actually expelling them. The point is I could do it if I wanted to. It's a wonderful thing this self-confidence. I'm so glad you gave it to me."
I packed the last few personal items from my desk, waved goodbye to Keller, who was in the middle of a call and didn't bother to wave back, and boarded the elevator to begin my last commute to the suburbs. I'd only made it one floor when the elevator stopped and Rob Johnston got on board with his own cardboard box.
"Get replaced by a monkey?" I asked with what I hoped was sufficient compassion.
"Nah, I wasn't fired. I just couldn't take any more of the shrieking and biting."
"That's tough."
"It's okay. I'm not sure I was going to make it on Wall Street anyway. I thought if I had a good job at Johnston Brothers, all my problems would be solved. Turns out the only problem that was solved was the not-having-a-job problem. And once you have a job, you realize there are plenty of other problems that you hadn't previously considered. Like the problem that people expect you to be good at your job, and the problem that you can't stand your job."
"Yea, I see your point. So what are you going to do now?"
"Not sure. Maybe I'll teach. I've always wanted to teach. Or do woodworking. I've always liked woodworking. I'm pretty good at it, too."
"Maybe you could teach woodworking."
Rob brightened. "That's a great idea. Maybe I'll do that. So how about you? If I'm any judge of crap-filled cardboard boxes, it looks like you're leaving, too."
"I'm leaving New York, not the company."
"A transfer? Where are you headed?"
"I'm supposed to open a new branch office between the Toyko and Los Angeles offices," I said, a bit ashamed to be talking about a move up the pay scale while Rob's career was ending.
Rob picked up on my hesitance. "You don't have to be embarrassed about getting such a quick promotion, Gwaf. Not around me of all people. I might be a bit out of the loop sometimes, but eventually I put the names together and figured out how you got your job here without going through the training program. Don't worry, though, I won't hold it against you. It's not any different from how I got my job here."
"Rob, there's something I've got to confess to someone," I said. "But I need you to keep it quiet. Can I trust you?"
"No problem."
"I'm not really a Gwafinn. I'm just a Gwafin, one 'n'."
"Don't worry about it, Gwaf. Just between you and me, we haven't always been Johnstons. We used to be common, gutter-variety Johnsons, just like millions of other people. My great-great grandfather added the "t" so we'd stand out. That's when the family's fortunes really took off."
Our elevator reached the ground floor.
"Want to go grab a beer?" Rob asked.
"I better not. I've got a plane to catch and an apartment lease to break."
"Well, see you around," Rob said, because that's what people said, even when they wouldn't.

Chapter 23

2009-08-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

At 11:55 the man moved cautiously from behind his file cabinet.
"It's only 11:55," Smith warned.
"That's okay, my boss won't complain about the extra five minutes."
"He sounds like a very good boss."
"No, he was a very bad boss. But those are his legs you see sticking out from under the copy machine, and they haven't moved much in the past day or two, so as I said, I don't expect he'll mind.
The man walking towards Smith wore thick glasses with black plastic frames of the sort that were very popular among engineers in the 1960s who were starting to go bald on top. The man walking towards Smith was starting to go bald on top. He was clothed in a simple gray wool suit--or the tattered remains of a simple gray wool suit, anyway, which was still impressive considering that the heat in Spanish Guyana forced even the sheep to wear cotton. "Now, we can finally meet," he said. They exchanged the handshake.
"My brother," the man said, and they embraced.
"You may call me Thomas," said Smith.
"And my name is Luis. I welcome you to my lunch hour with pleasure. It has been days since I have seen another administrator. All of my colleagues who survived the shelling were conscripted into the military. I would have been conscripted, too, had I not hidden behind a stack of purchase requisition forms."
"That was quick thinking," said Smith.
"I was lucky. Had I worked any faster the week before, the piles of forms around my desk waiting to be processed would have been insufficient to provide cover."
"That is a brave and harrowing tale," said Smith. "You are a fine administrator."
"Thank you my brother," Luis said. "Now, state your business."
"Non-profit," said Smith.
"Ah, non-profit," Luis' eyes teared up behind their thick glass lenses. "Long have I dreamed of non-profit. Here, my business is for-profit. That is no life for an administrator."
"Better times," Smith comforted him. "There will be better times ahead."
"In the meantime, I will do what I can to help you in your quest. Please explain the situation."
"I'm on a vital administrative mission," Smith said. "I am not at liberty to go into details, but suffice it to say it involves intra-office politics, life-and-death consequences, and the very future of the world as we know it."
"Intra-office politics, you say? That is important. I will make this one of my very top priorities. In what non-demanding way can I help?"
"I need to find someone," Smith explained.

"Something's definitely up at Johnston Brothers," Hue Llwellan fretted. Llwellan was vice president in charge of Wall Street rumors and general paranoia for Mornall & Swain. He was very good at his job. "First they have a big round of layoffs from their research staff and won't talk to the media about it. That's odd enough on its own: when we fire people, we always talk to the press--layoffs are good for our share price. Now I get word that half the sales staff just put down deposits on Porsches."
"Porsches?" asked CEO Alan Mornall. "In this market? Could it be a cover? You know, refundable deposits."
"No, they're non-refundable. I've looked into it."
"968s?"
"911s," said Llwellan.
"911s? Jesus. You're right. This doesn't add up. Well, there's only one way to know for sure. Hire someone away from them so we get the story."
"Anyone in particular I should hire."
"Start with whoever you can get cheap, then move up the ladder until you get answers. In fact, get an intern first--that will cost us next to nothing."

"This wasn't going to stay secret forever," Gwafinn said. "We knew that right from the start. No idea in history has remained secret forever. Or at least if one has, I've never heard of it." Word had reached Gwafinn that Mornall & Swain had hired away a Johnston Brothers intern. It was well known on Wall Street that Johnston Brothers had the least-trained and, of late, worst-smelling interns this side of the hog-rendering district. Thus, the only conclusion was that the competition was looking for some information…or perhaps for subjects to use in an unsanctioned medical experiment, but those sorts of things were usually handled quietly through third-world intermediaries.
"There's only one way to prevent bad press," Gwafinn continued. "And that certainly is not by keeping quiet. If you keep quiet, you let your enemies determine the facts. But if you speak first, you get to say what's what. If you do a good enough job of it, your enemies won't have a chance, even if your facts aren't fact-facts in terms of their actually being facts, if you follow."
"Uh…" I said.
Gwafinn unlocked the top drawer of his filing cabinet and removed a memo. Only bad news ever came out of locked drawers. Good news is kept in unlocked drawers, since if anyone got a look, it could only help one's public image or share price.
"Bob, tell the clerical staff to fax copies of the monkey study to all of our major clients together with this memo I wrote concerning our new research staff. Once that's done, you and the equity sales staff can start calling our clients with the monkey's first homerun pick." Gwafinn paused. "What stock did they select, anyway?"
"I believe it was Montgomery Technologies."
"Never heard of it."
"No reason you would have. It's not much of a company."
"They must have done something to get the monkey's attention."
"They colorize old movies for television."
"There you go. Cutting-edge technology."
"Except that everyone hates watching colorized movies."
"So what keeps them going?"
"They've branched out into de-colorizing new movies."
"Is there a market for that?"
"If there were, people could just turn down the color setting on their televisions."
"Well, I'm not going to argue with a monkey. I'd look silly trying. Get the sales staff to work pushing Montgomery."

"I need some guidance."
"What? Who is this?" I asked. It was the first caller of the afternoon that hadn't mentioned monkeys at least once in his opening sentence.
"It's Roger's owner. Sorry to bother you in the office like this, but I really need some more advice. The alumni department tracked you down for me. They're very good with that sort of thing."
"Yes, I know. Listen, this really isn’t a good time. Lot going on here today. Anyway I'm trying to shift away from the spiritual guidance work and into equity sales. Perhaps there's someone down at the Native American Observatory you could ask."
"I checked. There's just this guy named Curt who keeps going on about how the alumni department is blackmailing him. He really wasn't much help. Couldn't you spare a moment?"
"Maybe just a moment. Shoot."
"I think my wife's cheating on me."
"I've got your advice. Ready?"
"I'm ready."
"No, she isn't," I said.
"That's it? That's your advice?"
"That's it."
"I've heard better."
"It's really deceptively wise," I said. "I'm rather pleased with it, considering the short notice. Look at it this way: do you love your wife? Do you want to remain married?"
"More than anything."
"Then trust me, she isn't having an affair."
"But how can I know that that's true?"
"I didn't say it was true. I said it was my advice. For all I know your wife sells $20 blow jobs on street corners, the point is it doesn't matter."
"That would matter to me," said Kerns, who had never before even considered this a possibility.
"Let me put it this way. Either my advice is correct and she isn't having an affair, in which case you're worrying over nothing. Or my advice is incorrect, in which case your worrying about your wife's waning interest in you can only serve to undermine your already shaky self-confidence and give her all the more reason to look elsewhere for a real man. If you just believe she isn't cheating on you, then your confidence will improve, and your chances of saving your marriage will improve as well. Either way, you're better off if you just take my advice that she isn't cheating on you."
"Uh…"
"But you really have to believe it."
"I have to believe my wife isn't having an affair?"
"That's right."
"And the truth means nothing?"
"The truth means everything. But it's up to you to decide what the truth is. That's something I've just figured out myself recently. Got it?"
"I guess."
"Anything else? I asked.
"No, that was all…Wait, actually there is something. Do you know someone named Dana Davis?"
"Yes, I know her," I said, bracing for the inevitable horrendously bad news.
"There was a letter addressed to you at the Native American Observatory from her. The paranoid guy named Curt didn't know what to do with it."
"There was? Do you have it?"
"Yes, I've got it right in front of me."
"Read me the return address. Where was it sent from?"
"Oh, let's see here," Roger's owner said. "It says 'One Planet, Madison Avenue, New York City.' Need the zip code?"
"No, that's okay. But does it have a postmark?"
"It's a little smudged…I think it says 'Greater Merrill Island'."
"Where?"
"Greater Merrill Island. As I recall, it's the larger of the two Merrill Islands. Although I'm not sure of that. It could be the smaller. No…no, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that it's the larger."
"And these islands are where?"
"Oh, that I wouldn't know."
"Listen carefully. It's very important that you do two things right now," I said, trying to remain calm. "First, you need to mail that letter to me at this address," I gave him the address of my New Jersey apartment.
"And second?"
"Second, you need to invest in technology stocks." Roger's owner did both. The way I figured it, if he was going to lose all his money in a divorce, he might as well lose some of it in the market first. Better I get a cut than some sleazy divorce lawyer.

July 30

Luis the administrator did not know how to find the person Smith needed. But he did know how to get in contact with the Spanish Guyanian Administrators' Back-Office Army, a military/administrative organization valiantly handling the paperwork for both the government and the rebel forces. Taking both sides, they had decided, was a sensible, cover-the-bases approach to civil war from a risk-management perspective. If it was written on a piece of paper in Spanish Guyana, a Captain in the Back-Office Army assured Smith, they had a copy of it, and often more than one copy, just to be safe. For a fellow administrator on a vital mission, it would be their pleasure to help. In exchange for a small bribe.
It was money very well spent. Within days Smith was in contact with the Antarctic boy and his middle-manager father. A meeting was arranged in a secret administrators' document depository just outside of Spanish Guyana's capital city, Pila de Basura. Smith thought it best not to venture into the city itself, which was currently was under the control of roving gangs. In fairness it should be noted that in mere weeks in power, the roving gangs had reduced the local crime rate by eight percent and illiteracy by six percent. But roving gangs have such a bad reputation.
The boy was Roberto Valasquez. He had attended all the best schools, his father Santos said, which in Spanish Guyana meant they had both books and teachers who understood what books were for, at least in a broad sense. As an added bonus, Roberto was fluent in English, his father added, which could only work to the boy's benefit once he was enrolled in Bucklin. Santos loved the idea of an American college for his son, almost as much as he loved the idea of a full scholarship. Young Roberto's college fund had taken something of a beating of late, what with world currency markets currently valuing Spanish Guyanian Pesos on par with small slips of blank paper the size and shape of Spanish Guyanian pesos.
"My boy, he will be conscripted into the army if he remains here in Spanish Guyana," Santos moaned. "And if he manages to escape that, he surely will be conscripted into the other army. You can see what we're up against."
"Yes, yes. It's quite tragic," Smith said.
"Sure, they'd probably put him in the army paperwork division, to take advantage his administrative heritage and limited upper-body strength. But even so, what chance does a boy of this sort have in the military? He would be torn to bits by their strict filing protocols." Santos grabbed hold of Roberto's weak upper arm and shook it about to prove his point. "He is not a hardened administrator like you and I."
"Then it looks like we can help each other," said Smith.
The Administrative Underground slipped Smith and his prize back out of the country. Smith's plan was coming together.

August 2

"Smith, is there a press conference going on in the main auditorium?" Kerns asked when he arrived that morning.
"Now that you mention it, I do believe I saw a press conference there when I walked by. Funny, that."
"And what is this press conference about?"
"Most of them are about generating awareness for ideas or products," Smith explained. "Or such is my understanding. It's not really my field."
"Yes, yes. But what specific idea or product is this press conference meant to promote awareness of?"
"You know, I really couldn't say."
"You don't know?" Kerns asked.
"I couldn't say."
"I take it your repeated use of the phrase 'I couldn't say.' Is your way of subtly evading the issue."
"I couldn't say that either," Smith said.
"Well, since no one knows anything about this press conference, I guess I'll just go and tell them that there's been a mistake and they can leave."
"I'll take care of it," Smith said, beating Kerns to the office door. "And now that I think about it, as long as the press, the college board of regents, and select members of faculty are assembled, I might just wander by and say a few words. Seems a shame to waste a perfectly good press conference."
"Funny how no one seems to know why this press conference is there," Kerns noted. "Press conferences don't usually just pop up on their own."
"Probably a statistical anomaly," Smith said. "A few reporters wind up in the same place by a coincidence, than other media outlets figure they better have someone there, too, so they won't get left out should something happen."
"And the board of regents and select members of the faculty?"
"That's a bit harder to explain…"
"Smith, why don't you just admit that you called this press conference. You're obviously planning something."
"No, really. I never plan anything. Plans just lead to scheduling conflicts."
"Go ahead and deny it, but I'm coming to your press conference," Kerns said. "Just keep in mind that whatever you're trying to pull off, I'm going to be there to stop you." It was the first direct challenge Kerns had made in his life. And it felt good.

A funny thing had happened the day the monkey plan got rolling. Montgomery Technology shares rallied. The company hadn't made any announcements or signed any new contracts. They hadn't colorized any old movies that day or de-colorized any new ones. No progress had been made in settling the lawsuit from the man turned down for employment because of his physical disability--specifically, color blindness. In fact, most of the staff had spent their morning calling other, better, firms in search of more promising jobs. So the employees had been as surprised as anyone to learn that their stock had rallied right from the opening bell. They'd been downright amazed when it soared farther still in the afternoon, since all anyone at Montgomery had done since lunch was track the value of their stock options. By the close of business, the company was worth four times as much as it had been that morning. It was a stunningly successful day. And considering how little effort Montgomery employees had expended in accomplishing this feat, the firm's CEO informed the financial press that he was confident they could do it again, tomorrow. Johnston Brothers' clients were equally thrilled. For all this had occurred on the very day that Johnston Brothers tasked its massive sales force with pushing the stock.
From that day on there was no hiding the monkey plan from the financial press. There also was no debating the media's reaction.
They loved the idea.
What choice did they have? The monkeys already had made a fortune. And the journalists knew that no one lasted long on Wall Street criticizing anything that made money. In fact, very few lasted long on Wall Street criticizing things that had never made money, but that someday might. Sure, a few curmudgeonly sorts griped that the Montgomery stock only had rallied because there was suddenly a wave of demand for the shares from Johnston Brothers customers. But money was money and pesky details were decidedly not money, so no one paid the critics much mind. Johnston Brothers' customers had made a huge profit, and everyone was happy.
Only it couldn't last. If there's one lesson that can be learned from the relatively large number of countries that followed Russia into Communism, it's that no good idea, and very few bad ones besides, ever goes unstolen. Within days the rest of The Street had adopted the new "Jungle Thinking" approach to financial analysis. Johnston Brothers' star chimps were flooded with lucrative offers to jump to the competition--or they would have been, if only they'd known how to answer their phones. Rebuffed by this unintentional and unexpected loyalty, desperate Wall Street human resource directors resorted to more drastic measures. The Bronx Zoo was forced to add extra security guards around the monkey house. Medical experimenters began skipping right from mice to unemployed humans to cope with escalating monkey prices.
Soon no investor would trust a stock pick unless it came from a monkey, or at very least a ringed-tail lemur. Shares of Red Lion Supermarkets took an unprecedented drubbing. Thousands of human financial analysts suddenly found themselves out of work. But they were resourceful sorts, and did their best to take advantage of the changing culture of Wall Street, opening banana daiquiri bars and climbing gyms throughout the area.
There was plenty of glory to go around as well. Gwafinn's picture was soon on the cover of every financial periodical in the world--or at least those that couldn't swing an interview with the real star, Chimp #8. But the glut of imitators also represented a problem. With other ideas, in other fields, patents are used to protect innovators from exactly this sort of thing. But as Gwafinn had learned to his chagrin, you can't patent a monkey. Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but flattery translated poorly to Johnston Brothers' quarterly report.
"We have to stay ahead, Bob," Gwafinn said, fuming behind his large office desk. "We cannot be seen as just one of many monkey-analyst firms. Just watch; in a few months no one will even remember that we were the first." Gwafinn was wearing a safari outfit, complete with pith helmet. "I suppose I should have realized that we would have imitators. But how could I have known it would happen so fast?" Gwafinn banged a fist on his desk, then took a deep breath. Well, no point living in the past. It looks like we're going to need another bold move."
"Maybe we could go back to human analysts," I suggested. "We could pick up some good ones cheap, now that everyone else is laying them off."
"The contrarian approach? No, too soon, too soon. If you want to be a contrarian, you have to wait at least six months, maybe even a year. Act any sooner than that, and everyone will think you're behind the times, instead of realizing you're ahead of them. Anyway, I've got a better idea. Take a look at these numbers." Gwafinn slid a computer print out across the desk towards me. "What do you see?" he asked.
"It looks like our monkeys' picks haven't done as well since all the other firms on the Street have had monkeys picking stocks as well."
"That's right. Our monkeys have been on Wall Street only a week, and already they're burning out. Burnout happens to human analysts, too, and there's only one thing to do when it does."
"Vacations?"
"Replacements. We've got to get new analysts."
"More monkeys?"
"No, no. Monkeys clearly aren't cut out for this kind of work, long term. Too much pressure. What we need to do is find someone with the stock picking ability of a monkey, but the strength and dedication of a human."
"Meaning?"
"We're switching to gorillas. 'Bigger monkeys, bigger profits.' Wait, let me write that down, it could be useful for our marketing department." He jotted his catchy monkey phrase down. "Gorillas are tough s.o.b.'s and they're smarter than the monkeys that we've been using. They're the perfect analysts. They might even be smart enough to take over the corporate finance department. What do you think?"
"Uh, I don't know, sir, I'll ask around."
"Do that. I've already arranged for 40 gorillas to be shipped in for interviews."
"Interviews with gorillas? That ought to take care of some of the overstaffing down in human resources, anyway."
"An excellent point, Bob. We keep trying to lay off those people, but they're the human resources department, so they always hire themselves back."
I got up to leave.
"This is a smart move," Gwafinn said. "An analyst shouldn't be able to sleep in the drawers of his own desk."
"Yes sir."
An oddly mischievous smile flashed on Gwafinn's face. "You think I'm insane, don't you?" he asked.
"Why do say that?" I evaded.
"I'm not, you know. Someday I hope I'll be able to make you understand that. In the meantime, all I ask is that you believe in me."
"On the bright side," I thought on my way back to my desk, "at least I work for a firm that's open to new ideas."

"Thank you all for coming," Smith began. It was a full house. Smith knew just what to say to journalists to get them to show up at a news conference. He'd said there would be food served. All the local news people had arrived right on time and stuffed themselves full of Danish. Smith had little doubt that the trip would be worth their effort on more than just the breakfast-pastry front. He strongly suspected that their stories would be picked up by all the national networks and newswires. "I realize it was short notice," Smith continued. "But we are here to witness a totally unique event in the history of campus diversity. And I, Assistant Dean Thomas Prester Smith, am privileged to be a part of it…That's P-R-E-S-T-E-R," he spelled, unprompted. "S-M-I-T-H" he added just to be safe. "So without further delay I'd like to introduce to you Bucklin College's newest student, the only Antarctican in the world," Smith announced with a flourish. "Roberto Something-or other." Roberto stepped from behind the curtain and crossed the stage to a hushed audience.
"Hello," he said in halting English. "My name is Roberto. I'm very happy to be here."
"Be quiet Roberto," Smith whispered. "They already know your name. Just stand here and act like an Antarctican."
Roberto stood smiling in front of the crowd. There were a few scattered flashbulbs, but, oddly, no awed gasp.
"I'll take your questions," Smith prompted. But there was no response. The silence was becoming uncomfortable, and Smith was about to start talking about his heroic journey into a war zone when someone else did speak. Someone way in the back of the crowd, whom Smith couldn't quite see--although the voice did sound familiar. "But," this voice said, "he's just like everyone else!"
A rumbling bubbled up from the crowd. It was true--this boy was just like everyone else. A little bit of an accent, sure. Perhaps even enough skin tone to qualify as a racial minority. But he was just a kid like all the other kids on all the other campuses across the country.
"No, he's not like everyone else," Smith shouted over the gathering tumult. "He's an Antarctican. We have papers to prove it."
"Say something, Roberto," Smith said, desperate.
"Hello, my name is Roberto," said Roberto. "I'm very happy to be here."
But it was too late. The cameras were shutting off, the reporters departing to cover the region's real news that day, a man down the coast in Harforth who had grown a 14-pound tomato. Even the assembled members of Bucklin's board of directors were leaving without so much as a promotion thrown Smith's way. "Wait!" Smith yelled after the shrinking crowd. "He's different. He's special."
"Call us back when you've grown a really big vegetable," advised the reporter from the Bridgeton Weekly Sun, before he headed for the exit with the rest of his colleagues. The reporter turned back just before he reached the door to add "or caught a really big fish." Then they were gone. Smith slumped forward onto the podium.
"Hello, my name is Roberto," consoled Roberto. "I'm very happy to be here."
"I thought your father said you were fluent," Smith moaned. "Is that all the English you know?"
"No," said Roberto. "It just seemed like the thing to say."

"Information."
"Yes, I need a number in Greater Morrell Island," I said. Dana's forwarded letter still hadn't arrived, but I was tired of waiting.
"Where?"
"Greater Morrell Island. I believe it's the larger of the two Morrell Islands, but I can't be certain of that."
"Sir, this is Manhattan information. Unless Greater Morrell Island has an apartment in town I'm not going to be able to help."
"So how am I supposed to find a number on Greater Morrell Island?"
"Try Greater Morrell Island information."
"And how can I find the number for that?"
"How should I know? All I can tell you is there's no listing here in the city."
"How can you call yourself information?" I asked.
"No listing," she explained, and billed my account $1.50.
I made a second call.
"Reference desk."
"Do you have the phone book for Greater Morrell Island?" I asked.
"One moment."
The New York Public Library is known for its skilled reference librarians. And for its numerous sleeping vagrants. But as the sleeping vagrants rarely answered the phones, I felt safe in assuming I was speaking with one of the former.
"Sort of," the reference librarian answered a few minutes later.
"Sort of?"
"We have the phone listings, but I'm not certain I'd call it a phone book."
"More of a booklet?"
"More of a leaflet."
"A leaflet? For the whole island?"
"A small leaflet. And it's only printed on one side. Would you like me to fax it to you?"
"Thank you," I said. "That would be very helpful."
Only it wasn't very helpful. None of its listings sounded at all like someplace where I could find Dana, and I read through all 22 of them twice. I considered calling a few at random, but as it was the middle of the day here, it figured to be the middle of the night there, if there was anything to this round Earth theory that had become so popular. I'd wait for the morning, by which I mean the evening, to make my call.
"Problem?" Keller asked.
"Turns out my girlfriend might not be caught in a war zone after all."
"Well that's a kick in the teeth," Keller said, and went back to pushing the latest monkey-endorsed shares.

Chapter 22

2009-08-02T16:01:00.002-07:00

July 28

The next time it was nearly much more serious than a scratch on the neck. A Lesser Morrell Island fisherman had been miles from shore when he discovered that his canoe was sinking. Someone, it seems, had drilled a series of holes, then plugged them temporarily with tree sap so the leak wouldn’t become apparent until the fisherman was well out at sea. The fisherman had tried to keep the craft afloat long enough to return to land, but it is notoriously difficult to bail and paddle at the same time, unless one is very, very skilled with one's feet. To the fisherman's dismay, he discovered that he was not.
The canoe sank, leaving the fisherman alone to bob on the surface and await his own certain death. Or what seemed likely to be his certain death anyway. As it happened, the fisherman was rescued and carried to land on the back of a passing tuna, if his account is to be considered accurate. The fisherman theorized that the tuna must have heard about the positive press dolphins received for their occasional good deed, and figured a few tuna-centered rescue stories might convince people to switch to tasty mackerel-salad sandwiches instead.
The canoe--and thus the evidence--was at the bottom of the ocean, since the tuna had drawn the line at towing the man's boat. But even without evidence, Dana was certain that Sarah was behind the near disaster. Sarah's behavior had been increasingly odd ever since the genocide discussions, to the point where most agreed that she had replaced the doctor as the island's chief nut case, although the doctor remained confident that he might yet rally and make a game of it. As Sarah had drifted ever further towards the sanity-challenged end of the mental-health spectrum, the island's others activists distanced themselves from her cause. Brent had been largely unsupportive ever since it had become clear that explosives would not be necessary. Jeff maintained that he was still for the plan, but not to the extent of actually seeing it through. Tommy had found a new home among the natives, most of whom were too nice to come right out and tell him to fuck off. Even Laura decided she "had too many things on her plate," which was her nice way of saying that if Sarah wasn't going to let her be in charge, then she could go to hell. The defections left Sarah increasingly isolated, and isolation never really has been known to improve anyone's mental health. The past few nights Sarah hadn't even returned to her tent in the activists' camp to sleep.
"It might take days or even weeks," Dana decided when news of the canoe sinking reached the activists, "but I'm going to track Sarah down."
Twenty minutes later, Dana found her. The search had moved along much faster than she had expected, on account of the fact that Sarah was not so much hiding as she was making loud hammering sounds.
"What are you doing?" Dana asked.
"Hammering," Sarah explained, without looking away from her work.
"That much I'd gathered. But why are you hammering nails into a tree?"
"It's called spiking. You put the nail into the tree at the level a logger would cut it down. Then when his chainsaw hits the nail, the chain snaps, whips around and slices him open. It's environmental. Cuts down on logging."
"Yes, I've heard of tree spiking," Dana said. "But they don't even have chainsaws here. When they want to take down a tree, they use a sharpened rock."
Sarah stopped her pounding for a moment. "Still can't hurt," she decided, and went back to hammering.
"Sarah, would you stop that for a second? I want to talk to you about the canoe sinking."
"There's been a canoe sinking?" Sarah asked, interested.
"But no one was killed. He was rescued by a fish."
"A fish? Do you mean a dolphin?"
"No, he says it was a tuna."
"I knew the dolphins would be smart enough to take my side," Sarah said. "Stupid tuna. Can't see the big picture."
"So you admit you've been killing people?"
"On the record or off the record?"
"On the record."
"No."
"Okay, then off the record."
"Still no."
"Why did you ask 'on or off the record' if you were going to give the same answer to both?"
"I just like the way it sounds. I'm thinking about going to law school some day."
"Sarah, just admit you've been trying to kill people. It's not really a crime. It's a disease, like using drugs."
"I won't admit I've done anything wrong. Hard decisions had to be made. As the political voice of the island, it was my job to make them."
"First of all, you're not the political voice of the island. The villagers never elected you to any post. They choose their leader the same way they've chosen their leaders for generations: they pick their fattest, and thus most successful, fisherman. It's not our place to argue with their traditions."
"You're taking the side of a despotic, phallo-centric power structure?"
"Despotic? Their leader's only in charge of deciding when it's time to fish. And since it's time to fish whenever the sun is out, it's not as though one leader is very much different from another. As a leader all you've brought to this island is attempted murder."
"That's not true."
"Sure it is."
"Well, even if it is true, it's not the truth I've decided to go with."
"Do you even care that people are being hurt by your high-minded theories?"
"Don't hand me that," Sarah retorted. "There's not an activist in the world who doesn't think the same way. We're all in favor of expanding the welfare system. Sure, everyone knows welfare just creates a cycle of welfare dependence for generations, but that's no excuse to be against it. We're all against big business, even though without big businesses Americans wouldn't have enough money to feed themselves, much less give to the charities that pay people like us to improve the world by being against big business. Welfare is the right thing, and being against corporate America is the right thing, just like what I'm doing here is the right thing. We're activists working for a noble cause. Consequences are irrelevant. Morality is below us."
"Don’t try to confuse the issue. We're talking about killing, and it has to stop. One man has been badly scratched. Another nearly drowned."
"But surely the natives understand that it's in their best interest," Sarah pleaded. "Surely they'll listen to reason."
"You need help. Why don't you come talk to the doctor. He's not a psychiatrist, but he does have considerable personal experience with borderline insanity."
Sarah didn't argue. In fact she looked near tears.
"Come on back to the camp, it's going to be okay," Dana said. Sarah just slumped down at the base of the tree and stared at the ground. "Sarah?"
"It's just…it's just this place," Sarah said at last. "There's no one here to protest against. And when I do protest against something, it's always something thousands of miles away that couldn't care less that I'm protesting against it. Maybe I should just go home."
"Don't give up so easily. Why don't you come back to the camp with me. We'll have something to eat, and then we'll try to think of a solution."
"I have a solution."
"A solution that doesn't involve killing."
"Oh. I don't have one of those."

With the sales department squarely on his side, Gwafinn's monkey idea didn't seem likely to end very soon. This was particularly distressing to the head of the research department, H. Kensington Johnston, H. Kensington to friends, of which he had none. It was distressing because he was now more zookeeper than research director, and it was distressing because of his rather unfortunate allergy to pet hair. Some within the Johnston Brothers hierarchy were of the opinion that at least one, and possibly both, of these tweaks to H. Kensington Johnston was Gwafinn's true motivation for his monkey initiative. I wasn't so certain. But I had to concede that it very well might have been a factor in his thinking. What other explanation was there for Gwafinn's having had dog hair shipped in and glued to the monkeys when told that the monkey hair had had little effect?
Mostly I steered clear of the monkey debate. I had my own plan to consider. If I didn't get things rolling quickly, news of Gwafinn's monkey plan would leak and the name Gwafinn, and by extension the name Gwafin, would be anathema on Wall Street. If I wasn't a certified success by then, I'd certainly be certified the son of a certifiable head case, then promptly fired. The key to my plan was finding those previously churned investors. After giving the matter considerable thought, I decided that the best solution was to hang out in bars and try to pick up women. When the chips are on the line, you've got to go with what you know. I'd just have to find the right bars and the right women. In this case, the right bars figured to be the upscale ones around Wall Street, and the right women were those who had-just-been or knew-they-would-soon-be laid off from secretarial or administrative-assistant positions at investment banks. Fortunately, there were plenty of these around, owing to the unfortunately poor economy. Anyone in this position would be depressed and anxious to get back at their former employers. All I'd have to do is seduce them into turning over client lists. Granted, it was a somewhat sleazy plan, but I had an iron-clad defense if the SEC tried to take my license to sell securities away: I'd never gotten my license in the first place. Let's see them talk their way out of that one.
I gave it a try that afternoon at a place I knew a block from Wall Street. The lunch crowd dispersed, heading back to their offices to spend a productive afternoon attempting to conceal their cocktail intake. I sized up the presumably unemployed figures who remained, and selected an empty bar stool next to a woman who looked just exactly like what I would have expected a depressed recently laid off Wall-Street secretary to look like.
"Excuse me, are you okay?" I asked.
"I'll be all right." She didn't look up from her cocktail.
"Please, tell me what's wrong. I want to be your friend."
"You want to know?" At least she looked at me this time.
"Yes, I want to know."
"Then you're not really my friend."
"What?"
"A friend would offer to hear my problems because he liked me, not because he really wanted to know. In fact, a friend would listen to my problems despite the fact that he hates listening to them. If you really want to know my problems then you're just being nosey."
"I see. So if I value the time I spend trying to help you, then I'm just prying--but if I find listening to you irritating, then I'm a friend."
"That's right."
"Then I've got some good news for you. The very sound of your voice bugs the hell out of me."
"That's better," the woman said. "I'm just depressed because I just lost my job."
"On Wall Street."
"Uh huh, Mornall & Swain."
"Good firm," I said, because that's what you're supposed to say when someone else mentions their employer.
"They're horrible," the woman corrected. It was my mistake. The rules of etiquette decree that one should reflexively complement another person's place of employment only up to the moment that person is fired. Then you should start in with the criticisms.
"You're right, of course, they're just terrible," I said. "When I said they were a good firm I meant they were a good firm back when you worked for them."
The woman fixed me with one of those looks that are so popular among those who want you to know that they know you're up to something. I retorted with a smile that I hoped said "I can be trusted," or at very least "Maybe I can't be trusted, but at least I floss after meals."
"Are you just hitting on me, or are you trying to seduce me into turning over client lists," she asked, showing considerable savvy for someone who couldn't hold a job.
"Uh…just hitting on you," I lied.
"Don't lie. You're an even worse liar than you are a seducer. Christ, with the kind of money on the line here, the least they could do is send someone around who's capable of a quality seduction."
"I could try again. I'm sure I could do better."
"No, no, I don't mean to be so critical. It's just that I've had a very bad day, what with getting fired and all. I'm sure you did your best. As it happens, I'm not very pleased about being fired, so I'll give you the client lists."
"Oh," I said. "Okay."
"You sound disappointed."
"I'll be all right."
"Don't be like that," the woman said. "You can tell me."
"It's just that, well, I was expecting a bit more intrigue. I mean, I didn't so much seduce you out of the client lists as you just decided to give them to me."
"There's no reason to be depressed about it. Everything worked out okay."
"Still, shouldn't we at least sleep together first? I kind of figured that's the way this sort of thing would work."
"Yea, I suppose you're right," the woman conceded.
So we went back to her place, and I left with a more relaxed outlook on life and a list of thirty names, a handful of whom actually bought into the no-churning pitch and signed on as my clients.

July 29

Reaching Spanish Guyana turned out to be more difficult than Smith had expected. Mostly this was on account of a civil war they'd decided to throw, which seemed to Smith a rather trivial reason to interfere with his important administrative mission. Eventually Smith had resigned himself to a flight into a neighboring Guyana--his choice of French Guiana or the original Guyana classic--followed by a short drive down the Inter-Guyana Highway. As it happened, Spanish Guyanian troops had taken to appropriating any vehicle faster than a donkey, a fact that greatly troubled local car rental agencies, although it was just fine with local donkey rental agencies. Smith rented himself a donkey and set off towards the Spanish Guyana war zone, only mildly concerned that the Bucklin College Travel Expense Reimbursement Voucher Forms did not specifically mention a per-diem limit for donkey rentals.
The border crossing had been a surprisingly simple affair. With most everyone in Spanish Guyana ready to offer a bribe to get out, the guards hardly wasted a moment on the solitary man on the rented donkey heading in. Once in Spanish Guyana, Smith knew exactly what to do. Only six miles into the country he saw what he needed. It was crude in construction--and even cruder in its current state of destruction--but there was no question about it; this was the bombed-out remains of an office building. The smoking shell of a copy machine removed all doubt. Cautiously, Smith dismounted his rental donkey. Where there were office buildings there were…
"Halt or you'll be in violation of office protocol," someone shouted in Spanish from behind a battered filing cabinet.
…there were office administrators.
"Do you speak English?" Smith called back.
"You need to sign in in the visitor's guest book in the lobby before you're allowed to enter the offices upstairs," said the voice, now in English. "It's building policy. They'll issue you a pass."
"Where's the lobby?" Smith asked.
"The second floor collapsed into it during the shelling. Perhaps you should look below the second floor."
Smith took a step forward, into the shattered remains of the second floor. "Halt. I won't warn you again, you can't enter the second floor until you sign in in the lobby guest book. I have a staple gun. I do not wish to use it, but these are desperate times."
Smith could not see the man behind the file cabinet, but he took the threat seriously. "But how can I get to the lobby guest book without stepping in the second floor now that the second floor is in the lobby?"
"I, myself, cannot see how it would be possible," the voice said.
"Then we're at an impasse."
"I'm afraid so."
"Perhaps I don't need to come in. Perhaps you can answer my question while I stand out here."
"Answering questions for passersby is not in my job description."
"What is in your job description?"
"Excuse me, sir, but did you not hear what I just said?"
"Sorry. But I'm on a very important mission. You see, I'm an administrator, like yourself."
The man considered this new information. "But how can I know that?" he asked. "How can I be 100% certain, so that there's no chance of my being held accountable for the mistake if it's not true?"
"I think you know how," Smith said. "Just shake my hand."
"Ah, the handshake." Like Smith, this man was a member in good standing of the Worldwide Administrators' Guild. Founded in the 13th century by administrators working in the back office of the European masonry industry, the administrators' guild had grown into a global organization with strong religious overtones and plenty of social drinking. An administrator could wander anywhere on the planet and still identify other administrators through the secret Administrator's Guild handshake, which was just like a regular handshake, only limper. Members of the Guild were sworn to aid other administrators in any way they could--or at very least to schedule a block of time to help them at some point in the future, so long as doing so wasn't in violation of any written company rules. "But you cannot come in, and I cannot leave the remains of my office until my lunch hour. It is company policy. We are at least forty feet apart. Our arms could not possibly reach."
"I understand. I will wait in the shade of my donkey until your lunch hour. When will that be?"
"It's the usual South American lunch hour. Noon until three."
It was already eleven. Smith would not have to wait long.

John Driscoll was the first of the interns to take part in this bold new venture in securities analysis. He wasn't selected at random; the chimps had shown a particular fondness for throwing their sell signals his direction. Some people just have a way with animals. Driscoll gazed into the research department from the safety of the intern room. Until the day before, the intern room had been the office of department head H. Kensington Johnston. It had been re-christened when Johnston had landed in the hospital with a severe allergic reaction, compounded by multiple monkey bites.
Driscoll's fellow interns stapled the stock listings to his only suit. "Be careful, that's my only suit," Driscoll cautioned. But when he thought about it, a few staples were less of a problem for a suit than the other option, a thin glaze of monkey excrement. The monkeys seemed to know that something was about to happen, Driscoll thought. They were working themselves into a frenzy. Perhaps it was the presence of the firm's board of directors behind the Plexiglas screen by the door. The monkeys could be surprisingly perceptive about office politics.
Driscoll was correct. The monkeys could tell that something was up. Anticipation was building in the research room. Like new employees in any field, most of the monkeys had been anxious and agitated ever since they first became research analysts that Monday morning. Chimp #8 was the exception. While his colleagues flew into a fury whenever an intern encroached on their territory, Chimp #8 saw that the interns were only there to provide them with food and fresh copies of the Wall Street Journal. Like the others he was a bit overwhelmed by his new environs, but he was willing to give them a chance. It was certainly roomier than the cage he had endured after his capture. And--thus far, at least--it was refreshingly short on lions and research scientists, two antagonists that could quickly derail the long-term plans of any monkey. Chimp #8 glanced again at the Hewlett-Packard Series 9000 Model 715/33 workstation on his desk and hoped his lack of computing experience wouldn't be held against him.
Before he had a chance to take another stab at the database analysis program, Chimp #8 saw an intern enter the room. "He isn't here to feed us," #8 noted to himself with mild displeasure. Chimp #8 considered the situation as his co-workers registered their displeasure with the intrusion in their usual messy yet unequivocal way. No food, and no attempt to steal his soiled copy of the Journal. Now Chimp #8 was confused. At a loss for what to do, he turned his attention to the people behind the Plexiglas screen. Chimp #8 knew power when he saw it. Those were the people calling the shots. The Bald One in particular. He was the alpha male. Today The Bald One was doing something unusual. He was holding something small and shinny--something that looked very familiar to Chimp #8. The Bald One cracked open the door that led from his Plexiglas enclosure into the research room. He looked Chimp #8 right in the eye. Then he turned towards the intern, who was busy ducking and dodging airborne sell signals. The Bald One pulled his arm back and let fly with the shinny thing.
Driscoll the intern let loose a scream of sufficient volume to grab all the chimps' attention. The monkeys paused for a moment, unsure of the cry's meaning. It wasn't a lion. They would have noticed a lion. They were pretty good at that. Perhaps it was a research scientist, they thought. Then they noticed the silver dart protruding from the intern's backside. The chimps all knew how that felt. They'd experienced the same thing before being put in cages and shipped off to this place. Soon the intern would fall asleep, they guessed. And then he'd be locked in a small cage. Well, at least he wasn't hanging from a tree branch fifty feet off the ground when it happened. Most of the chimps retreated to the safety of their filing cabinets and desk drawers to avoid any subsequent darts.
But not Chimp #8. Chimp #8 was trying to put the clues together. The dart--it looked so familiar. He glanced down at his desk. There they were, arranged neatly in his pencil holder. Chimp #8 picked one up and studied it. He saw The Bald One, now safely back behind his Plexiglas, looking straight at him and nodding his head. The Bald One pointed towards the intern and made a throwing motion. Chimp #8 looked at the intern. The man was trying to escape back into the office from which he had emerged from a minute before, but the other interns were holding the door shut. What the hell, Chimp #8 thought, and let fly.
"Yes!" yelled Gwafinn.
"Aaugh," yelled Driscoll the intern, who had taken this one in the upper left thigh. Chimp #8 was in for a surprise as well; a banana fall onto his desk from a chute that had been installed the week before as part of the firm's new, more cost-effective, analyst bonus program. In the intern room, Gwafinn's voice was heard over the intercom. "Okay, you can let that intern out now."
Gwafinn remained calm. But all around him board members--the non-Johnston board members anyway--were cheering. Chimp #8 enjoyed his bonus banana, as his colleagues looked on jealously. "It wouldn't be long now," Gwafinn thought. "There's nothing that can't be accomplished once jealousy gets involved." Of those on hand for this historic event, only the interns joined the Johnstons in their displeasure.
The board was tempted to rush over to the intern room for a look at Chimp #8's first pick. But the smell in the intern room was almost as bad as it was in the monkey room. "Send over the page the chimp hit," Gwafinn said over an intercom. Then he thought better of accepting the stained newspaper. "Scratch that. Send over a Xerox of it. And slip it under the door. You people smell awful."
In the intern room the mood was indeed dark. Driscoll had taken two darts, plus the usual coating of chimpanzee defecation. Juliana Hopkins, a fellow intern, claimed that the first dart had been thrown by the CEO. But then the other interns had long suspected that Juliana might be a chimp sympathizer. Driscoll was laid across a desk in the interns' room, the newspaper carefully removed and Xeroxed. The stock listing had blocked most of the monkey's assault, but Driscoll's odor was not pleasant, and it was doubtful that his shoes would ever regain their original shine. "This had better look good on my resume," Driscoll observed.

For the first time in his life, Kerns was a Big Man On Campus. This, frankly, was a bit depressing, in as much as he'd spent the past 35 years of his life on campuses, and he was rather tall. But Kerns was enjoying himself far too much to dwell on his decades as a Largely Irrelevant Man On Campus. Now when he ventured into a faculty office or dining hall, professors would ask him to join them. Kerns had always wondered what it felt like to be asked to join a group, and he found it was every bit as wonderful as he had imagined. And that was just the half of it. Once he was among a group, he no longer was afraid to voice his opinions. If he had something to say, everyone would listen. Kerns still didn't open his mouth much, but now his silence was one born of superiority, not fear.
There was only one remaining dragon to slay, and Kerns was married to it. Katherine had hardly spoken to him since her return from Cancun. True, the first week-and-a-half of that poor communication had been mainly Kerns' fault, in as much as he had spent it hiding in an attic. But the other week-and-a-half was on Katherine's shoulders, pure and simple. Kerns had been disappointed when Katherine had not commented on his new competency. He had been disturbed when she hadn't thanked him from solving the building shortage problem, which seemed the least she could do, since French Literature had been scheduled to merged with geology, and Katherine had never shown any great interest in rocks. And he had been downright depressed when she didn't so much as say goodnight before turning off the light each night, as a 'goodnight' is precious little action to ask of a partner in bed.
There was only one rational conclusion, Kerns decided, and it was exactly the same as the irrational conclusion he already had jumped to. Katherine was having an affair, and would soon leave him. All that remained was to divide up the possessions and arrange a custody-sharing schedule for the dog. He should have known life wouldn't let him be happy.

"How's the no-churning plan going?" Keller asked.
"Great," I said "I have three new clients with half the list still to call--and I've gotten laid. It is, in many ways, the perfect plan."
"Except that you're more-or-less required not to churn these clients once you've got 'em, so you're never going to get rich off their commissions."
"I couldn't have churned them anyway. My high moral standards wouldn't have allowed it."
"These the same high moral standards that allow you to prostitute yourself for client lists?"
"Okay, I grant you that technically I might be prostituting myself. But it's a minor issue at best, since the plan would be going even better if I wasn't insisting on the sex."
"Fair enough. But what about the ethics of cheating on your girlfriend?"
"There's a war involved. I get an automatic dispensation."
"How do you figure?"
"When there's a war, the 1,000-mile, one-month limit comes into play. As long as you're at least that far apart for at least that long you get to cheat without guilt, because you might never see each other again."
"Bullshit. You just made that rule up."
"It's a well-established rule. Except in Europe, where you have to convert the miles to kilometers, which can get a bit tricky."
"I'm going to stick with my earlier 'bullshit'."
"There's more, too. If we're separated by war for more than a full year I get to father a child out of wedlock and look back on the affair with bittersweet memories even if Dana does later turn up alive."
"Thing is, buddy, it's your girlfriend who's in the war zone, not you. Shouldn't she be the one to get the sexual dispensation?"
"She can't do that to me."
"But you can do it to her?"
"Look, we're talking about cultural customs here. Historical precedent clearly says it’s the guy that gets to cheat. Anyway whose side are you on?"
"I'm on your side, Gwafster, I'm just yanking your chain."
"If anyone was yanking my chain, I wouldn't have to cheat in the first place."
"So precisely what, as you see it, is your responsibility to this girlfriend of yours on the fidelity front?"
"I have to do my best to avoid cheating."
"And this is your best?"
"It's my best. Fortunately, that isn't very good."

"You could be against me," Dana offered over a plate of seaweed. "I wouldn't mind so much."
"It's nice of you to offer," said Sarah. "But I really need to be against something that gives me that warm glow of social outrage. You're far too nice."
Sarah had lapsed into a deep sleep after her return to the activists' camp, her days of intense righteousness having taken a toll. Now that she was awake, refreshed, and slightly more coherent, Dana was anxious to help her find a solution before there were any more well-intentioned potentially lethal attacks.
"I could be meaner," Dana said. "To be honest, I've even felt like punching a few people recently."
"But you'd punch all the right people. It wouldn't be the same."
"Maybe I could do something damaging to the planet," Dana persisted. "As long as you promise we can undo it once you're done being outraged by it. I know. I could dig for oil. I'll go get my spoon"
"It just wouldn't work. I've tried doing this half way, and see where it got us? I became a murderer."
"An attempted murderer. There's a world of difference."
"Are you calling me ineffectual?"
"No, no. I was trying to be understanding."
"See? That's exactly the sort of thing that makes you so hard to dislike."
"And let's not forget that your heart was in the right place," Dana said.
"Well, of course my heart was in the right place. I would never have killed anyone in a bad cause. That would be wrong."
"No one's questioning your values," Dana assured her. "Let's just get back to work coming up with something for you to be against. How about rocks? There are an awful lot of rocks on the island."
"What am I supposed to have against rocks?"
"Lots of things: they're uncomfortable to sit on, they don't contribute to charities, and they were used as weapons throughout prehistory."
"Sure, in prehistory. But they seem to have reformed their ways."
"True, no one seems to be working on any laser-guided rocks," Dana admitted. "But at least there are plenty of them here to dislike."
"Thanks for trying to help," Sarah said. "But I'd feel silly protesting against rocks. What's the point? Everyone already knows I'm superior to rocks. What else have you got?"
"Let's see…you can't be against animals or plants. That would be wrong. And frankly the plants, the animals, and the rocks are about all we've got to work with here on the island, aside from the natives and the activists…You're sure I can't sell you on the rocks?"
"It's hopeless. I might as well go back to the murdering. At least it was proactive."
"Just give me some time. A month. A few weeks at least. I'm sure I can come up with something."
"You better make it fast. I can't go on feeling this unproductive much longer."

Chapter 21

2009-08-02T16:01:00.001-07:00

July 26

The first ten monkeys arrived Monday morning. Each was issued a desk on the trading floor, a security badge, a set of darts, a computer, a phone, a copy of the Wall Street Journal, a membership card for the company health plan, 12 ball point pens, four pads of paper, a stapler, a staple remover, and a flea collar. On its surface, this would seem to be a tremendous opportunity for any monkey, particularly one that's other career option was on the less-happy end of medical research. But, oddly, most of the chimps did not seem altogether pleased with their new vocation. By ten a.m., two of the remaining human analysts had been bitten, and a third had simply fallen to pieces amid the incessant shrieking of his new coworkers, which was in a distinctly different and more piercing pitch than the shrieking of his previous coworkers.
A handful of top Johnston Brothers executives--although no actual Johnstons--joined Gwafinn as he surveyed the scene. Gwafinn had not been so high on the idea of interacting with low-level analysts even back when they were human, and he certainly wasn't going to stand around making small talk with a bunch of monkeys. To avoid such awkward social situations, he'd had a Plexiglas-enclosed viewing station constructed by one of the exits to the research floor. It was similar to the penalty box you might find at a hockey rink, except not so densely packed with Canadians.
"Do you suppose they're not happy with their contracts?" asked the Vice President of Business Development, a long-time Gwafinn ally.
"Maybe they sense a bear market," said the Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications. "I hear where all the birds left Tokyo just days before their market melted down back in 1990."
"Eerie," said the first vice president.
"But why aren't they using the darts?" a marketing manager asked Gwafinn. "Shouldn't they be throwing the darts at their Wall Street Journals?"
"Be patient," Gwafinn assured him. Gwafinn was known for his patience among his fellow executives, having once invested in a stock that lacked earnings momentum. "The monkeys are just establishing their territory. It looks like they're driving the human analysts out of equities towards the fixed income and corporate finance departments."
"That is smart," noted one of the vice presidents.
"Yep, equities is where the real money is here at Johnston Brothers," said the other.
They had smart monkeys after all.
By eleven o'clock the monkeys had calmed a bit. The human analysts, now largely confined to less profitable departments, looked on with apprehension as their co-workers swung from the exposed pipes of the sprinkler system and soiled their Wall Street Journals.
"Should we check where the shit lands, or wait for them to use the darts?" asked the Vice President of Business Development.
Gwafinn considered the question. "I definitely read that they'd use darts," he said at last. "But perhaps we should monitor the shit in the meantime. It might be a sell signal."
"I'll send in an intern to check," said the VP, pleased that progress was being made.

"I have a proposal for you," Kerns told the first student organization representative. "I think it will work well for all concerned."
The student leader, who was a senior in college, and thus savvy in the ways of the world, eyed Kerns with suspicion.
"Your group has more space than it needs," Kerns continued, "and the college needs more space for its operations. Why don't you lease your student center back to us?"
"You're trying to make us sell out," said the student. "We'll never sell out our ideals."
"I wouldn't dream of asking you to sell out. For one thing, I want you to lease, not sell. And for another, I'm offering you funds that can be put to far more idealistic uses than a building. As things stand now, you're much too illiquid. You don't want to be illiquid do you?"
"No," the student admitted, he didn't like the sound of being illiquid one bit, whatever it meant. "But I still don't trust you," he added.
"I understand. I'll just offer the cash to the other special interest groups." Kerns flashed a wad of hundred-dollar bills in front of the student's face.
"Wait…"
Kerns might have a lot to learn about the day-to-day management of a college. But as an economist, he was well acquainted with the power of cash.
When word of the free money got around, virtually every student-center possessing group on campus decided that they'd like to do Bucklin a favor, too, and help out with its building shortage. By the end of the day, the college held rights to lease all but six of its own buildings back from the student groups for the year at some extremely attractive rates. For the first time in months, Kerns had been able to put the fact that he was badly outnumbered to his advantage. He had what is known as a "monopsony," a term Kerns had shared with class after class of Economics 101 students, most of whom assumed he was mispronouncing another, similar, word that they already knew very well, having started games of it many times, without ever actually seeing one through to its end. But a monopsony is something very different from a monopoly--and even more different from Monopoly, since you couldn't choose to be a thimble. In a monopsony, there are many interested sellers and only one buyer--in this case, Bucklin College--a fact that tends to leave buyers in extremely advantageous negotiating positions even if they're not bargaining with college kids who considered $49.95 a lot of money, which, of course, Kerns was. Within a day, he had regained access to millions of dollars of campus buildings for a very reasonable grand total of $4,530. That was less than a Bucklin student paid for two months of classes. "Quite a bit less," Kerns thought, "once I get through upping the little bastards' tuition."
Officially, Kerns was just renting his buildings back from the groups, and risked having to go though the whole process again next year. But part two of Kerns' plan figured to be even more enjoyable than part one. "Janet," Kerns buzzed the office secretary, on the off chance she had bothered to drop by that day, "please get me the contact information for all the members of the Handicapped Students Coalition, plus any student who complained to Health Services in the past year about our buildings' air quality. We need to update them on the proper places to send their complaints." In a few weeks, Kerns would spread the rumor that as landlords, the student groups would be required to shell out for necessary building upgrades and health inspections. They'd beg him to take their student centers back forever. In the interests of the students, Kerns would be forced to comply.

July 27

"How are the monkeys doing?" I asked Gwafinn at our Tuesday Tuesday lunch.
"Things seem to be progressing. Just yesterday all they were doing was shrieking and throwing feces at the interns. But now they're shrieking less and I expect they'll soon take an interest in the darts. We don't start our human recruits in on stock picking until they've finished a month-long training program. This is saving us money already."
"Has the feces throwing dropped off as well?"
"Not noticeably, no. But we've found some new interns who mind it less."
"From an agricultural college?
"No, English majors mostly. They're just happy to have work, even as unpaid interns. But remember, if you're talking to an intern, pretend that they have a chance at promotion." Gwafinn chuckled at his joke.
"How will I know I'm talking to an intern?"
"The head-to-toe shit stains are the main tip off. Oh, and they'll be the ones to believe you if you say we promote interns."
"I heard that one of the chimps has been issuing sell recommendations."
"Oh yes, that's Chimp #8," said Gwafinn. "He's got all the makings of a superstar. We've even started feeding him more, to get more sell recommendations out of him. Unfortunately, the other chimps still seem more interested in throwing their sell recommendations at interns."
"Have you considered sending the interns into the monkey room covered with copies of the Journal?" I suggested, trying to keep in the spirit of the thing.
Gwafinn looked up with a start. "Good thinking, Bob. Damn, you've made your father proud."

"Tommy!" Dana shouted. "What are you doing with that cloth bag?" Tommy clearly was lurking in the bushes with that cloth bag, but Dana asked anyway, on the off chance that there might be some better explanation.
"I'm just doing a favor for Sarah," Tommy said.
"And is that favor attempting to kill people?"
"Well, that's not exactly how she put it."
"How exactly did she put it?"
"Same, only without 'attempting'."
"How could you? I thought you said you were on my side?"
"I am on your side. But Sarah convinced me I shouldn't go against the group decision."
"What group decision? They only have a majority because you've joined them."
"That's what makes me feel so needed."
"Listen, Tommy, you need to speak up for yourself here, and believe what I told you to believe."
"But the group…"
"If you take my side, then you wouldn't be going against the group, the group would be evenly divided," Dana said.
"Evenly divided," Tommy said, dropping the cloth bag in despair. "Then who would I follow?"
"Follow your heart. What do you think you should do? Think, Tommy. You must think for yourself."
And Tommy did think. He thought for all he was worth. Dana could see sweat gathering on his brow at a rate exceptional even for an island this close to the equator. Finally Tommy seized on an idea. He picked the cloth bag up off the ground and pulled it over his head.
"No, Tommy, that's not the answer," Dana said, and grabbed the bag back from him. "Is it this difficult for you to think for yourself, to make a decision on your own?"
"If you say so."
"That's it. I'm going to help you make the right decision. You're coming with me--and we're leaving the bag here. You're going to have a beer at George and William's bar so you know the people you were going to try to kill. After you meet them, you'll know what to do. Oh, and should it come up, you might want to avoid mentioning any role you might have had in any prior bag attacks. It's something of a touchy subject in the village."
Dana walked Tommy down to the bar, introduced him to William, then excused herself to go find Sarah. She couldn't find her, but at least Dana's plan to put Tommy in check was successful. In fact, it was even more successful than she'd dared hope. By the time she returned for him half an hour later, Tommy had joined the natives' community.

"So Kerns thinks he can outmaneuver me, does he?" Associate Dean Thomas Prester Smith was pacing about his office like a caged animal, although as a mid-level administrator at a smallish college, it wasn't a particularly fearsome animal. "True, Kerns might have saved me from a savage rake beating by solving the building shortage. But that's hardly the point. He made me look bad by undermining my solution to the problem. How can I show my face on campus? How can I ever hope to land another job in academia?" Smith imagined that the rest of the college world was exchanging tales of his failure, never imagining that few had ever heard of him, and that those who had mostly just remembered the shuffling. Right now Smith was so mad that his shuffling suffered. "The man has no idea who he's up against," Smith fumed. "Or more accurately, he probably does have an idea that he's up against me, but he doesn't understand how dangerous that is."
In point of fact, Smith had just one plan left. One final stab at rescuing his once promising career. But it wasn't just any plan. It was a big plan. A proactive plan. A history-making plan. A plan that would leave elite colleges and universities around the country clamoring for his services and that bastard Kerns exposed as an administrative dilettante. It was a plan so big that the Regents might just hand Smith the job he should have had in the first place, Dean of Bucklin College…if he could pull it off. With every circuit he paced around his office Smith glanced not out his window at Bucklin's campus, as was his custom, but rather at the world map he had posted on his office wall. "It could work," he muttered. "It could work." He'd find out soon enough. The plan was already in motion.
After the fiasco with the Budgetary Exemption, Smith had been a bit slier with these machinations. True, some rather extensive travel was required, and that did necessitate official approval from Kerns. But Smith had been careful to bury his real intentions under a blizzard of irrelevant facts and barely-relevant half-truths in his travel application. Then, just to be safe, he'd gone back and replaced the half-truths with quarter-truths. Kerns had been suspicious, but eventually he did provide his official approval. At least Smith thought it was an official approval. Trouble was, Dean Kerns was just agreeing with everyone these days, without really giving official official approvals at all. Plans submitted in writing came back with requests for more details. Detailed submissions came back with requests for executive summaries. When pressed for an answer, Kerns would cite some economics theory and rattle on till you drifted off, then he'd sneak out of the room. If you managed to stay awake, he would pretend to drift off himself, then make you start over from the beginning when he woke. It was all extremely frustrating, and, Smith was man enough to admit, devilishly brilliant. Kerns was becoming more competent by the hour. And that was all the more reason for Smith to leave immediately.
As far as his travel proposal was concerned, Smith was heading to South America on a routine diversity recruiting assignment. Such trips were increasingly common, in that many foreign countries were overflowing with exactly the sorts of minority students that American colleges needed to survive. According to his official travel request, Smith would be forging alliances with high school guidance counselors and college-study-abroad program directors in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Guyana, Paraguay and the too-often-overlooked secondary guay, Uruguay. Smith's real plan was considerably more focused. He was after not South American minority students in general, but one student in particular--one whose story originated even further to the south.
Long ago, Smith had stumbled onto a fact that somehow had escaped the notice of his fellow college-recruiting directors. Nearly twenty years before, he'd learned, the forward-thinking leaders of a small nation called Spanish Guyana had sent a pregnant Spanish Guyanian citizen--Smith believed it had been a woman--to Antarctica, where, predictably enough, she had given birth. Spanish Guyana claimed the voyage was necessitated by overcrowded maternity wards in local hospitals. The real reason had been that Spanish Guyana, feeling a tad impotent on the world stage, wished to conquer a foreign land. Now it's certainly correct that conquering foreign lands is a tried-and-true path towards success. But this was the late twentieth century; all the really attractive lands already had long since been conquered. With few options, Spanish Guyana set its sights on one of the few undeveloped properties that remained: Antarctica. The traditional opening move in these situations is to send a few citizens to colonize the stretch of dirt you wish to control, and indeed that had been Spanish Guyana's original plan. In fact, a sizable order had been placed for long underwear. But before the plan had been put in motion, a clever Spanish Guyanian provincial governor had stuck on a better idea: if Spanish Guyana controlled the only Antarctican, he reasoned, then Spanish Guyana would control Antarctica, without all the hassles involved in colonization and long-underwear purchasing. They'd simply have to wait until their Antarctican was old enough to vote. The Antarctic baby plan was born.
The idea seemed solid enough on its surface. Only too late did Spanish Guyana find that it fell apart on one minor detail: Antarctica was not a democracy. It was a land governed by brute force--or it would have been, except the only ones there were penguins, which are not a particularly forceful bird. This troubling state of affairs rendered Spanish Guyana's Antarctic voting edge valueless. And as for the brute force route to conquest, an invasion of Antarctica would have invited reprisals by other countries, and Spanish Guyana--a country that's military had once accidentally surrendered to itself after seeing its reflection in a mirror--knew it was out of its depth. The country gave up on the whole Antarctic idea, and turned their attention back to stemming that pesky outbreak of plague.
A few years later the point was moot. Scientists discovered that it really was quite cold in Antarctica more or less year round, so the continent likely would never develop into a profitable vacation spot or farming colony. Given this grim prognosis, the civilized nations of the world shook hands, agreed to share Antarctica equally in the spirit of brotherhood and harmony, and in the future only fight over places that had enough oil under them to make them worth everyone's trouble.
Spanish Guyana's place in Antarctic lore was soon forgotten--by everyone except Smith. For Smith, the central issue remained unresolved: what had happened to that Antarctic baby? Unless it had been raised by penguins, a possibility Smith was willing to consider, the child figured to have grown up back in Spanish Guyana. This child, the only individual from continent larger than Europe, probably only thought about his unique heritage when filling out forms that asked for place of birth, and maybe when looking for an anecdote to tell at parties. But whether he knew it or not, this child was the Holy Grail of campus diversity, and Smith had been waiting for the right moment to search for the grail ever since. Now the child was 18, and Smith needed a victory. It couldn't wait any longer. It was time for the Antarctic baby to enroll in college.
Smith unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. Smith might have been the only administrator on campus who actually believed a desk lock would keep someone out who really wanted to get into his files. He certainly was the only administrator on campus who thought someone might really want to get into his files. Smith gave a last, suspicious look around his office, unnecessarily, perhaps, since he'd already taken the time to lock his office door and check behind his curtains. Then he removed the drawer entirely. Behind it, taped securely to the inside of the desk frame was his secret file. In it was every article Smith had tracked down about the Antarctic baby. It didn't amount to much--not even a name. All Smith knew was that the child was a boy, the son of a government functionary high enough in the scheme of things to be entrusted with such an important assignment, yet low enough in the pecking order that he could be ordered to send his wife to a barren, icy wasteland to produce his first born. A middle manager. In short, Smith was looking for the child of a man very much like himself. That, thought Smith, would be his advantage.

Chapter 20

2009-08-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

July 16

"You're 34, you're 35, and you're 36--actually, I believe you already were 29," Dana said. "Now get back where you belong and stop trying to confuse me." The monkey did as it was told. Animal counting was a welcome break from the tumult of the activists' camp. And the counting had been considerably more enjoyable since Dana had finished with the fruit bats and lizards and moved on to the famous Lesser Morrell Island Uncommonly Clever Monkeys. Well, not famous, exactly. They were much too clever to be famous.
These monkeys had made it a point to lie low until the whole humanity craze died down a bit. In the meantime, they were tentatively willing to go along with Dana's monkey-counting idea, so long as she didn't try to put those awful numbered tags on them. When you're a monkey, there's nothing worse than having a brightly colored number tag around your neck. It makes you stand out like a peacock in neon nail polish when you're trying to hide from a native with a hankering for some monkey stew. Once Dana's happy lack of numbered tags had been established, the monkeys relaxed a bit, though they remained concerned that she might try some sort of Jane-Goodall-live-among-the-animals thing. Not that it isn't nice to have guests now and again, but some people just won't take a hint when it's time to leave.
Dana had been counting hard all morning and was just about to break for lunch when both she and the monkeys were startled to hear the pounding beat of drums in the distance. Dana wasn't quite sure how to interpret the sound; in her experience Lesser Morrell Island had been refreshingly drum-free, so there was little precedent for the situation. She looked to the monkeys for guidance, but they appeared uncertain themselves. Sensible, uncommonly clever monkeys that they were, they held a short conference and concluded that, for safety's sake, it probably was best to panic. Then they started in with the requisite screeching and running about. That was good enough for Dana, who dashed back down the mountainside towards the activists' compound as quickly as one can dash through dense, panicked-monkey infested undergrowth.

I reached for my phone, gathering my resolve for one last call before heading home for the weekend. I'd uncovered a new source of potential clients: the list of claimants in a recent lawsuit against a con man who'd preyed upon the rich and gullible. The way I figured it, if they'd let a con man talk them out of most of their money, they might trust me with whatever remained. It was a good idea in theory, but in practice I'd had little luck. Most of the con man's victims were unwilling to consider any investments that didn't guarantee returns of 100% or better in the first month. But persistence is one of the keys to the life of a salesman, and there was still one name left on the list. I picked up my receiver to make the call--then I put it back down. It was six o'clock. The rich, gullible person at the other end of this phone number might be sitting down to dinner. Rich, gullible people are people, too, after a fashion. Our jails are bursting at the seams with those guilty of no more than assault and murder, while salesmen who place calls to residential phones during mealtimes continue to walk the streets free men. But that didn't mean theirs was a group I particularly cared to join. There had to be a better way.
"Is this all you want out of life?" I asked Keller the next time he was free. "To sit at a long row of phones every day for forty years selling stocks."
"No, of course not. I want an office."
"I'm talking about something even better than that. A more interesting life. Some excitement. Something to get you out of bed everyday other than a train schedule and the promise of a few dollars."
"First of all, my friend, we're not talking about a few dollars here, we're talking about millions of dollars. And second, we're not really talking about millions of dollars, we're talking about the stuff that millions of dollars can buy. And that's more-or-less anything you want. Don't you want anything you want? Because I know it's exactly what I want."
"What if what I want to do is run screaming from the building every time I picture myself doing what I'm doing now for the next forty years?"
"Then you'd better get pretty good at this, because they're not going to tolerate that much running and screaming from a bad salesman."
"I think you're missing the point here."
"No, Gwaf, I think you're missing the point. You've lucked your way into an incredible opportunity, and by some miracle you might even be halfway decent at it. Don't throw that away because you're having a mid-life crisis two weeks into your career. For one thing, that would mean age 22 is the middle of your life, which doesn't bode well for any plans you might have for your golden years. And for another, what else are you going to do? Was your life that great before you came here? Are you really that good at anything more interesting?" Andy's phone rang, signaling that our conversation was over.
"I'm taking off," I said to Andy, who waved a hand more-or-less in my direction and yelled into his phone.
"Then there's the churning," I explained to the commuter unfortunate enough to take the seat next to me on the train back to Jersey. "It's not that I'm one to have much sympathy for the fool in the 'fool and his money…' saying--especially considering that most of these fools have more money than they know what to do with--but I am having some trouble justifying the whole thing. It's funny, I never wrestled with a moral dilemma in my life until I got to Wall Street. But now that I'm here, with big money on the line, it seems like I'm wrestling with a moral dilemma every day. Well, maybe not wrestling with one, exactly, but at very least I'm calling it names and circling it warily. Then again, maybe falling back on moral excuses is just a convenient way to avoid responsibility for my failure if I can't make it on Wall Street. What do you think?"
"Que?" the man offered. I was going to have to find a better counselor. Or learn Spanish. Probably easier to do the former, I decided, especially since the train was almost to my stop.
"What I need is a plan," I said to the woman on the stool next to me at Urie's, the bar next to the bar below my apartment. The place was packed, as always on Friday evenings, full of people who couldn't get into Artie's, the better, more popular bar next door. "If I don't come up with something quick, I'm either going to be miserable at my job or a failure at it. Maybe both."
"You should just shut up and be happy you have a job," the woman suggested. "Everyone else is losing theirs. Look around. This place is full of people who are out of work."
"You think?"
"Actually, no. This place is full of people who are hanging onto their jobs. The better bar next door is full of people who are unemployed. They don't have to go to work, so they can grab all the tables before the rest of us are done for the day. Lucky bastards."
"You know, I've never even gotten in over there. Is it really that nice?"
"Are you kidding? They have great food, great beer, and it's full of attractive, successful people."
"Unemployed, attractive, successful people?"
"They're successful by definition. They've got tables over there and I'm stuck over here in a conversation that doesn't make sense with a guy who can't stop complaining."
"It's not the conversation that doesn't make any sense, it's my job."
"Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhear what you've been saying," said a man standing right behind us. "And I think I can solve all of our problems. I'll give you that plan you need," he told me, "but I want your bar stool in return. That way, everyone wins. You get your plan, this young woman gets to start a new conversation with a less depressing man, and I get to sit down. I've been standing here for half an hour waiting for a seat to open up."
"That sounds great," I said. "But how do I know your plan's any good?"
"Listen, I'll be straight with you," said the man. "If you wanted a good plan, you should have gotten a seat next to a more attractive woman over at the better bar next door. For a seat in this second-rate bar next to this good-but-not-great looking woman, all I've got is a half-baked piece of folk wisdom that you might or might not be able to turn into something. Take it or leave it."
"I do appreciate your candor," I said. "There isn't enough honesty in the world these days. And frankly I wasn't getting anywhere with this woman, so I am tempted."
"Go ahead," prompted the woman. "This other guy's no prize either, but he's bound to be less depressing to talk to than you."
"Even after he called you 'not-great looking'?"
"He called me 'good-but-not-great looking.' That's about the best you can expect to do over here in terms of smooth talk. The really suave guys are all next door."
"Okay," I decided. "You've got a deal. Now what's this half-assed piece of guidance."
"Here goes," said the man, clearing his throat. "If a situation doesn't make sense, then there's got to be a way to exploit it."
"Come again?"
"You say your job doesn't make sense. If it truly doesn't make sense--and it's not just that it does make sense but you can't figure it out, which, looking at you, is a possibility--then there's an inefficiency. And inefficiencies can be exploited. Instead of trying to play along by rules that don't make sense, you should try rewriting the rule book."
"Actually, that's pretty good for second-rate bar advice," I stood up from my stool.
"Thank you," the man said, taking my seat.
"I mean it," I said. "I used to be a spiritual guide--just part-time, you understand--and this advice is really very solid. If you don't mind my asking, how'd you come up with it?"
"I saw you sitting at the bar boring the hell out of this woman and I thought to myself, here's an inefficiency. Based on the sleazy dress and excessive makeup, this woman clearly is looking for action, while this loser sitting next to her is looking for advice that she isn't smart enough to provide. Me, I can provide the advice, and earn greater utility from the seat next to this woman, who I intend to buy exactly one drink, take back to her place, screw within an inch of her life, then never see again."
"You sir, are a genius."
"No, no," he waved me off. "I'm just a simple man, properly motivated. Sex is one of the most basic of life's urges, you know. Plus, I like to make this world a better place when I can. Now, my lady, what would you like to drink?" The man turned back to the stool next to him. "Miss?" But the seat was now filled by a largish man in a poorly styled suit. "Excuse me, friend, did you see what happened to the woman who was sitting on this stool a moment ago?"
"I think she took off right around the sleazy dress comment," I said.
"But that doesn't make any sense," he protested. "She must have known the dress was sleazy. She clearly was here to get laid. I was ready and willing to provide said service."
"Just one of those things in life that defies reason, I'm afraid."
"Well, fuck," he said. "If I'm not getting the girl, then our deal's off. I'm afraid I'll have to ask for that advice back. Hey, buddy, come back. You owe me my advice. Hey, Buddy."
But I was already half way out the door. And I was keeping his advice. In fact, I was already half way to turning his half-baked folk wisdom into a real plan of action.

"What are those drums?" Dana asked the Doctor when she reached the tents.
"It seems to be coming from the native village, but we're not certain what they mean. Laura's gone down to ask."
The activists were no less confused than the monkeys, although they at least had thus far resisted the urge to take to run about waving their arms in the air.
"Maybe they're starting a band," Tommy ventured. "I play a little bass. Think they'd let me join?"
"You know, I've often wondered what inspires someone to become a bass player," the doctor said. "Wouldn't it have been more interesting to play the guitar instead?"
"There's Laura," Dana interrupted. The group gathered around for her report.
"I'm told they're war drums," Laura said. "The villagers say you can't really get in the spirit of a war without some good drumming first."
"They're going to war?" asked Dana. "These people haven't had a war in nearly a century."
"They say they've been provoked. One of the fishermen claims someone sneaked up behind him and tried to suffocate him with a bag. He might have been killed--except the bag was made of a relatively breathable fabric. That, and it had a hole on one side."
"You mean to say they're going to war against…" Dana began.
"They're going to war against Greater Morrell Island," Laura said.
"Why Greater Morrell Island?"
"Tradition. Whenever something goes wrong on Lesser Morrell Island they always assume Greater Morrell Island is to blame. It's just their way. Who are we to criticize?"
"I take it the fisherman didn't see who held the bag over his head?" Dana asked.
"He said he was afraid to look behind him after the person left, in case the attacker was still lurking around with a knife or gun."
"Why would someone with a knife or gun try to kill him with a cloth bag first?"
"I didn't ask."
"Don't you think we should do something?" Dana asked.
"It's hardly our place to interfere with their society," said Laura.
"We’ve already interfered with their society," Dana said.
The others stared at her blankly.
"You mean the rest of you don't think it was one of us who did this? Even after all the talk about murder with cloth bags just a week ago?"
"No," the others agreed.
"How about you Sarah?" Dana asked. "You've been uncharacteristically quiet. Do you have anything to add to the conversation?"
"I'd rather reserve my opinion."
"What does opinion have to do with it? I think you know who did this, and I think it's probably you."
"I don't think there's enough evidence to say at this point." Sarah stalked off.
"I'm going to go speak with the natives," Dana said.

The number of departments must be cut in half, Smith had explained to the faculty assembled outside his office. But since prejudice must not be shown against any particular department--and since it was a virtual impossibility to lay off a tenured professor anyhow--the only solution was for each of the departments to be merged with another. Nothing would be lost. Every professor would have a department, every subject matter would be covered. All the professors had to do was find the middle ground between the two merged disciplines and lecture on that.
Smith's original plan had been to combine departments with their closest relative--biology with chemistry, American History with American Civilization, et cetera. But in practice this only added to his problems. When word got out that the African studies and Latin American studies departments were to be merged, they complained that they were being ghettoized. The Theater department complained that combining them with the Gay Studies department only fostered an unfair stereotype, and held firm to this stance even when reminded that for sixteen years running the campus production had been a musical. And nobody wanted to join the math department, since they were no fun at parties.
In the end, Smith decided that the only equitable option was to arrange the marriages by lot.
Smith was still writing the names of their various academic departments on small slips of paper as the department heads gathered on the fourth floor of the administration building. No one could find a hat, owing to the same fashion trends that have doomed so many of our nation's haberdashers, so Smith shuffled the slips together in the Class of 1822 Cup, a trophy awarded each year to the student with the highest grades in Latin. At least it had been awarded to the student with the highest grades in Latin until 1982, when the school cancelled its Latin program. From 1982 through 1988, the trophy had served as an ashtray. Then the school had banned smoking. Now the Cup, showing the grit of a true survivor, had found a new purpose.
Smith drew the first slip. "Computer Science," he read. "The computer science department will be merged with…" Smith drew another slip.

Truth was, Dana didn't know many of the natives. There's a natural gulf between social activists and the societies they represent. Social activists tend to chalk this up to the societies' not wishing to embarrass the activists by showering them with thanks. But Dana did know George and William, the bar owners she'd met on her boat ride to the island.
Dana found their bar packed that day. Or it would have been packed if not for the fact that it was an outdoor bar, and it's notoriously difficult to fill such a place. Most of the young men from the village seemed to be there, although many of them were too busy drinking to notice her.
"George," Dana yelled over the drumming, which was much louder here. "George!"
George heard her the second time. "Oh, it's you. You are feeling better after your seasickness, I hope?" He spoke loudly to be heard over the drums.
"Much better. But I want to talk to you about this war."
"What?"
"The war, the war," Dana shouted.
"What? Wait a second." George turned behind him to a short wave radio unit and turned down the volume. Suddenly the drums disappeared. A few of his patrons glanced up at the unexpected silence.
"That was the radio?"
"Yes, it's the war drums channel. Very popular in these parts."
"Oh. I kind of assumed you had your own drummers."
"It's a small island. Manpower is always an issue."
"I can imagine. You get excellent bass from that radio."
"Thank you. My brother William found a solar-powered sub-woofer on Greater Morrell Island. But what was it that you wished to discuss?"
"I wanted to talk with you because I'd heard you were going to war."
"That's right. We're leaving any minute."
"Uh, then why is everyone drinking so heavily?" The men were pounding Cook Island Beer at a rate that would make a frat boy proud, right before it would make him vomit.
"It is our tradition to drink beer before battle. It is our belief that the alcohol makes us impervious to our enemy's weapons. We also believe it makes us witty and more attractive to women, but that's of secondary importance right now."
"But how could your traditional warfare rites include beer? Your last war was nearly 100 years ago, and you couldn't have had beer here then."
"Well, back then we used fermented betel nut juice, but not anymore."
"Why the change?"
"Have you ever tried to squeeze the juice from a betel nut? It is very hard. Many a bartender was lost." George shook his head in sorrow. Dana got back to the point.
"So you're going to war as soon as you're through drinking?"
"We have no choice. We've been attacked."
"By Greater Morrell Island?"
"Who else?"
"But how can you be sure they did it?"
"They're always to blame. We haven't been to war with anyone else in centuries."
"But what if it wasn't them this time?"
George shook Dana off. "Doesn't matter. We couldn't possibly reach any other islands in our canoes. They're the only ones we can go to war with."
"But maybe war isn't the answer this time. No one's been killed."
"Yes but look at Samuel's neck. He was badly scratched by the bag's zipper. He's really quite put out by the whole thing."
Most of the men seemed to be listening now, if only because this was the best entertainment option, what with the radio turned off and the timer that went with the Boggle game having gone missing. Dana looked in the direction George was pointing and saw a man with a three-inch scratch on his neck. "Ooh," Dana said in sympathy.
"Plus he says the bag smelled terribly of chickpeas," George added.
"It was a nightmare," said Samuel.
"But did you see a Greater Morrell Islander? And did anyone see a boat leaving the cove? If there was no boat, how did the attacker get here? Surely someone would have seen it. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions."
"But Dana, jumping to conclusions is one of our culture's proudest traditions. Without jumping to conclusions, we never would have known that the mountain was inhabited by invisible monsters, that the spirits of our ancestors protect us, or that we are the chosen people."
"Chosen for what?"
"Not sure yet. But we figure it's something pretty good."
"George, Greater Morrell Island has hundreds of men, and they have things like guns and powerboats. There are only about thirty of you, you're all drunk, and one of you is badly scratched. Plus, all you have to cover the 60 miles to Greater Morrell Island with are your outrigger canoes, and all you have to fight with are the wooden spears you use for fishing. This is foolish."
"We will fight Greater Morrell Island the same way our forefathers fought Greater Morrell Island."
"I know the history" Dana countered. "Your forefathers were slaughtered. None of them have ever even gotten past Greater Morrell Island's shore defenses, and the shore defenses are just a handful of lifeguards armed with whistles and those floaty things. The only reason any of your warriors ever have gotten back to Lesser Morrell Island alive is that some of the war canoes always get lost, miss the battle entirely, and came back here to look for a map."
"It worked before, it can work again," said George
"There's nothing I can say to convince you to stay?"
"Nothing."
"Not even if I point out that if you go to war with Greater Merrill Island, they'll probably stop supplying you with essentials like beer and 100% cotton tee-shirts."
That got their attention.
"They wouldn't," said Samuel.
"They certainly would," said Dana. "You'll be back to drinking fermented betel nuts and wearing woven-grass clothing."
"Woven grass is very itchy," George conceded. "And if I never drank another betel nut I would die a happy man."
"Then perhaps this can be settled without bloodshed," said Dana.
"There already had been bloodshed," Samuel reminded her, pointing at his neck. "And we're honor bound to seek revenge for bloodshed."
"But did you actually shed blood?" George asked. "Sometimes when I get a scratch like that, it just turns red and doesn't actually bleed."
"It's a good point," said William, who had remained silent up till then but wasn't looking forward to squeezing betel nuts either. "There's no blood on your shirt. If you'd bled it probably would be on your shirt."
"But we're already so drunk," said Samuel. "It would be a shame to waste our imperviousness to injury without going to war."
"Why don't you go home to your wives and take advantage of the fact that the beer also has made you all so witty and attractive to women," Dana suggested.
"You know," said Samuel, "That's not a bad idea. Women love scars. I better get home before this scratch on my neck disappears."
Dana had had a feeling they might like the suggestion. And now she had a feeling that it was a good time for her to get the hell out of a bar full of drunken would-be warriors looking to get some.

July 19

Kerns' week off campus was over. It had taken ten days, which is more days than one expects to find in the average week, but Kerns was a patient man. He'd been willing to wait the week out however long it took.
Truth be told--not that he ever intended to tell it--Kerns had spent virtually the entire week not at a conference about travel budgets, but holed up in an attic. Specifically, the attic of the house he'd moved out of a month ago when he and Katherine had taken up residence in the Dean's traditional home on Federal Street. For ten days, Kerns had sat there in the attic in front of the small, hexagonal attic window, monitoring the campus through a low-powered telescope he'd borrowed from the Native American Observatory. He'd left his window-front post only for meals and to walk Roger, who had stayed faithfully at his side despite the fact that it was rather stuffy in the attic for someone covered in fur, and despite the fact that Kerns had never let him look through the telescope.
Kerns couldn't be certain--not without returning to campus--but he suspected that everything had gone just as he'd planned during his absence. This optimism was based largely on his observations of Friday afternoon. Kerns re-checked his notes from that day to be sure. "Friday. 3:25 p.m.: Success. An unruly pack of faculty members is burning Smith in effigy on the quad." At the time Kerns had felt certain that this is what he'd seen. Since then, it had occurred to him that his analysis of the evidence might have been in error. What if it had been Kerns, not Smith, who had been burned in effigy? It was hard to say for sure, effigy craftsmanship being what it is. But Kerns remained optimistic. "It must have been Smith they toasted in proxy," he explained to Roger. "Since Smith wasn't among the crowd setting the fire. And it seems very unlike Smith to miss out on a good mob panic."
Roger wagged his tail.
"No point putting it off any longer," Kerns decided. He dropped his dog and suitcase off at the Federal Street house and strolled back to campus. A crowd of faculty members brandishing torches and plastic rakes--none of them owned a pitchfork--spotted him just before he entered the administration building. Kerns had intended to play it cool, but that was before he knew there were garden implements being wielded in anger. Instead he made the snap decision to abandon his cool and sprint to the building. Kerns might not have made it, except that campus security had established a security perimeter around the entry. Once safely inside, Kerns realized that the real danger probably had been minimal, as the faculty members couldn't seem to keep their torches lit, and were thus forced to start from scratch every time they saw someone who looked like he could use a good roasting.
After a bit of searching, Kerns found Smith, unshaven and considerably more pungent than he remembered him, hiding behind a potted plant in the building's main meeting room. "Trouble on campus?" Kerns asked casually.
"Animals. They're all animals."
"You mean squirrels, koala bears, that kind of thing?"
"The faculty. They all want to kill me. They've got torches and plastic rakes, and I think one of them has a Garden Weasel. I just wanted to compromise. It was a good plan. Everybody came out a loser, but in equal amounts. But they just weren't willing to form a consensus, even when I told them they had to."
"Interesting."
Kerns headed back outside to address the assembled faculty mob from behind the relative safety of the security barricade.
"Kerns is trying to merge all the departments," yelled a professor of French Biology.
"The man's insane," said an associate professor of Computer Science Archaeology. "If you don't return the departments to the way they were, I won't be able to provide my students with the skills they need to go out into the real world and teach archaeology."
"I understand," Kerns said. "I'll straighten everything out." The promise so surprised the faculty that they stopped trying to light their torches and plastic rakes for the moment and allowed Kerns retreat back into the administration building. Once inside, he promptly arranged meetings with the summer representatives of each of the student groups that now controlled the campus.

July 20

"Mr. Gwafinn, I have a plan," I began when I met with my nominal father that Tuesday for lunch. "Actually, I think it might be more of a revelation than a plan. I'm really quite proud of it."
"Me too, Bob, me too."
"Thank you," I said. "But how can you be proud of my revelation before you know what it is?"
"For the same reason that parents hang their children's drawings on their refrigerators even when they suck," said Gwafinn. "But actually by 'me too' I meant to imply that I, too, had had a revelation, not that I, too, was proud of yours."
"Really? You had one, too?"
"You sound surprised."
"No, no."
"You don't think me capable of revelations."
"Oh, it's not that," I said.
"What then?"
"Well…"
"Out with it, my boy."
"It's just that I've had only a relatively small number of revelations in my life, and most of the ones I have up to this point have concerned what I'd previously been doing wrong with girls. It's a bit deflating to bring one's first top-notch business-oriented revelation to a bi-weekly Tuesday lunch and find out that they're as commonplace as the napkins."
"I see your point," Gwafinn said. "Tell you what. If it will make you feel any better, we can call mine a 'key strategy decision,' as opposed to an out-and-out revelation. Would that help any?"
"Actually I think it might," I said, brightening. "So would you like to hear about my revelation?"
"No, let's talk about my 'key strategy decision' instead. It's much more important…" Gwafinn proceeded to tell me all about his 'key strategy decision' in a barely audible whisper, having recently become concerned about the possibility of spies in the cafeteria. He leaned so far towards me over the table that his lapel joined his tie in his soup.
"What do you think?" he asked finally.
"That depends," I hedged. "I'm not certain I heard properly. Did you say 'monkeys'?"
"Yes, yes, of course monkeys," Gwafinn said. "But for God's sake keep your voice down."
"And is 'monkeys' a Wall Street Acronym like those Spiders that aren't really spiders or that Sally Mae girl that everyone's always talking about but no one's actually slept with."
"No, no, no. Actual living, breathing monkeys, Bob, presuming moneys breathe…I'm no animal expert," Gwafinn said. "Don't you understand? Monkeys are where this industry is headed. There's no escaping it. There was a time when investors insisted on the sort of analysis that only human beings could provide. But those days are over. Today's investor wants low expenses. We can't cut our expenses any more and still pay the kind of wages human stock analysts expect--well, not the sort of wages human employees expect on Wall Street, anyway. Monkeys are the obvious solution."
"But I still don't think low wages alone can explain this. What do monkeys have to do with stock picking?"
"Plenty, as I understand it. I just read this study that's getting a lot of attention in the press. I'll have Gloria send you a copy. It turns out that over the past ten years, we could have done just as well having monkeys throw darts at the Wall Street Journal we did by trusting our research department."
"But…" I protested.
"Yes?"
"But…" I tried again.
"Isn't nature incredible," Gwafinn continued. "If you'd asked me last week what we should do with the monkeys, I'd have said 'Get rid of them, they're obsolete. Humans are better.' Turns out they have this natural ability with darts--or maybe it's a natural ability with stock picking. It's difficult to say. Could be one of those things we'll just never know, like how flies develop from spoiled food or why Saran Wrap sticks like that…"
"But…"
"Really makes you think"
"But Mr. Gwaf…I mean Dad," Gwafinn smiled like a proud parent whenever I called him Dad. "I think if you read the fine print on that study you'll see that those monkeys are pretty much hypothetical. They might have beaten our research department, but the monkeys still don't beat the average stock. The study's point is just that it's hard to do better than random chance."
Mr. Gwafinn was getting exasperated. "Well, of course if you're looking at all monkeys together they'll only be average," he whispered as forcefully as it's possible to whisper. "But we're going to get the very best monkeys."
There followed an uncomfortable silence as I waited for one of those punch lines that never seemed to come. "You want the monkeys who are best with darts?"
"Absolutely. There must be rankings published somewhere."
"You're going to fire the entire research department, and replace them with chimps trained at pub games."
"No, no, not the entire research department. At least not at first. We'll fire a few, bring in the chimps, and most of the rest will see which way the wind is blowing and leave on their own. We'll save a bundle on severance pay that way. Besides, it'll probably be a while before the monkeys are up to handling some of the more complicated derivatives and currency markets. Tricky stuff, that."
Gwafinn looked at me for agreement, but I just stared back.
"Honestly, Bob, I'm a little concerned that you're not seeing this my way. I need to know I can count on you to keep the sales department in my corner. That's why I had a son in the first place. Anyway, you have to agree with me. It's in your contract."
"Do I have to agree with you, or just agree with you?"
"You have to agree with me."
"I was afraid of that."
"So I can count on you? If we can't count on family, we're no better than animals."
What was the reasonable thing to do here, I wondered. Stand up for one's beliefs and Johnston Brothers' investors, or be true to one's contractual agreements, adopted father and career ambitions. Finally I settled on a response: "Is the sales department safe?"
"Absolutely."
"Then I'm with you all the way."
"I knew I could count on you to see things clearly," Gwafinn responded, a smile spreading across his face. "So what was yours?"
"What was my what?"
"Your revelation."
"Oh, that. Well, nothing so dramatic as yours. I mean, all the principle players are likely to be human."
"That's okay, Bob, many fine plans rely on humans."
"Well, I just figured I could get my hands on client lists from other firms, call them up and tell them they're being churned and present myself as the trustworthy, non-churning investment alternative."
"Interesting. Are you confident you can get your hands on these client lists?"
"I have an idea or two."
"Maybe the chimps could help out somehow."
"I'll look into that."
"But you're still on board with my monkey plan?"
"For the sake of argument, let's say I am."
"Fine, fine. Then proceed with your idea too if you like."

July 21

"Guys, I've got something to tell you that's equal parts confidential and absurd," I said to the equity sales staff. "But before I begin, I need to ask you to treat this with the highest possible degree of discretion and credulousness. Agreed?"
I got a few nonchalant nods in response. Callesse had a hard enough time getting these guys to put down their phones for the once-a-week morning meeting. Asking them to listen to a rookie salesman was pushing the limit. Waiting for polite responses to my questions would have been a total waste of time.
"It has come to my attention through certain unofficial channels that Johnston Brothers will soon fire the bulk of its research department," I said. "They will be replaced with a room full of chimps armed with darts and copies of the Wall Street Journal."
At least I had their attention. At least I assumed I had their attention. Two or three of the salesmen--the younger salesmen--did show their surprise by momentarily glancing up from their coffee. But the more seasoned salesmen would have offered no outward expression and gone right on sipping their coffee even if I'd just told them that their coffee had been poisoned. To show surprise is to make a tacit admission that one didn't already have the information that has been conveyed. No successful Wall Street operator ever admitted ignorance of any crucial piece of information, even those that were false. When I made the monkey announcement, a few of the better salesmen had even nodded silently, to create the impression that they'd expected just such a development all along, and in fact already had factored it into their fourth-quarter portfolio recommendations. I admired their skills. "Well, that's about it," I said. "Any questions?"
There was the customary ten-second pause while everyone made it a point to act uninterested.
Dan Levine, the dean of the sales staff, broke the silence. "So they're finally making the move to chimps with darts, eh?" he grunted in his well-practiced off-hand manner.
"That's about the size of it, Dan, yes."
"'Bout time," said Levine.
"So everyone's okay with this?" I asked.
Everyone went right on acting nonchalant. They munched their Danish and sipped their coffee just as they would at any Wednesday-morning meeting. A comment was made about the quality of the day's Danish, and another about the size of the ass of a particular female trader from the Treasuries desk, who, it seemed, already was familiar with the many virtues of Danish. But there was something different about the salesmen…After a minute or two I was able to put my finger on it: they were quiet. It was the first time I'd ever seen many of them with their mouths shut for such a length of time. Normally they were shouting at customers, at the research staff, at each other, at their assistants, or at no one in particular, just to keep in practice.
"Okay with it?" said Levine finally. "It's tremendous."
"It is?" I asked.
"Well, the sales staff is safe, isn't it?"
"Apparently."
"Then think about it. With the market the way it is, we were looking at staff reductions in both sales and research. But now it looks like research is taking the whole hit. Better yet, we used to have to split our sales commissions with the analysts. But monkeys don't expect year-end bonuses, and who cares if they do, cause they're not getting them. Fuck the monkeys."
A cheer went up from the sales floor. High-fives were exchanged. Backs were slapped. Deposits were put on expensive cars that this year's anticipated bonuses would not otherwise have justified. Champagne somehow appeared, and toasts were made. Someone hired a stripper. The news spread from equity sales to fixed income sales and outward to the furthest reaches of the Johnston Brothers' sales empire. There was jubilation. "But no one tell the research department." I shouted. "This is confidential."

Chapter 19

2009-08-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

July 14

"We're not really going to do this, are we Dr. Mudgett?" Dana asked down at the hospital.
"Do what? The blood tests?"
"No not the blood tests, the other thing."
"Oh, the population curtailment project. To be honest, I've been more focused on the blood tests."
"How can you be thinking about blood tests when there's been open discussion of mass murder."
"I'm project oriented."
"Oh," Dana said. "So you haven't been thinking about the other thing at all? I haven't been able to sleep at night worrying about it. It's a major decision."
"Yes, I suppose."
"I have to admit, I think there's something wrong about murder, even if it is for all the right reasons."
The doctor fixed a hard gaze on Dana. "Are you engaging in short-term thinking, or are you just an idealist?"
"I'm an idealist," Dana said.
"Oh, that's okay, then. There's nothing wrong with a little pie-eyed idealism, even if it does get in the way of progressive policy being put into action. It takes all types, after all."
"Do you think we're really going to go through with it?"
"Blood tests?"
"Murders. I'm talking about the murders."
"Oh, right, right. Hard to say. It's not something anyone on the island would be likely to do on his or her own. But by working together, people can achieve great things…actually that's kind of profound. I'd better jot it down in my journal in case someone wants to write a biography of me later." Mudgett did so then continued. "I'd say they need a majority to move a project this ambitious forward. Four out of the seven people on the island."
"A majority not counting the natives?"
"No, no, of course not counting the natives."
"I think Sarah would go through with it," Dana said.
"Yes, I think so, too. And Laura probably will join in if the project goes forward, since Laura can't stand to see any project go forward unless she's part of it."
"What about Brent?"
"If something needs to be blown up, Brent's your man. I'm not so sure if he's as gung-ho about bag killings, but time will tell."
"To be safe, I'm going to count him as a 'yes.' That's three of seven. But I can't believe Jeff would do something like this."
"Jeff's idea of confrontational is a firm letter," said the doctor. "He might agree with this, but he'll never agree with doing this. When the time comes to move forward, he'll find a suitable ideological reason to move back."
"That's two against," Dana said.
"And for my part, I feel I must remain above the fray on this one, on account of my sacred oath as a physician."
"So that's three who figure to be for and two who figure to be against, with one abstaining."
"That means it could come down to Tommy," the doctor observed. "That one's too tough to call."
"Tommy's too tough to call? I can't imagine Tommy taking any stand this decisive. There's no way he'll do it."
"Unless I've misread the man entirely, Tommy has no real convictions at all," said the doctor. "He only became an activist to fit in with a group. He might just as easily have joined a soccer team or a pottery class, except that those activities require skills and end after an hour or two each day. Social activism is open to anyone, it supplies an entire way of life, a set of ready-made opinions, and a group of people who have to pretend to like you because they agree with you."
"So Tommy won't go ahead with this," Dana said, relieved.
"That's not what I said. I said he's too tough to call. How can we even try to guess what he thinks about this issue when it's all but certain that he hasn't bothered to think about it himself to this point, nor does he intend to think about it later? Tommy will continue to go along with whichever way the group seems to be leaning until someone tells him how important it is for him to take their side, and then he will, if only because it makes him feel needed."
"Jeff's his best friend. Don't you think he'll just do what Jeff does?"
"Perhaps, but Jeff lacks the ability to make an impassioned appeal to win Tommy's support, just as Jeff lacks the ability to make an impassioned appeal to make Tommy go away. That's the only reason why Jeff is Tommy's best friend in the first place."
"Sarah might make an impassioned appeal."
"She might, and more importantly, Tommy might read something into it."
"You mean Sarah might make a pass at Tommy just to sway his opinion."
"Maybe, but she wouldn't really even have to. Tommy might just imagine that she has."
"I'm pretty sure Tommy is gay."
"No, I think Tommy would be willing to go either way, should an opportunity present itself. Tommy is not a man of firm convictions. But I'll tell you this. If you care about stopping this, you'd better do something, because Tommy wants to go along with the group, and at the moment, the group is 3-2 against you…with one abstaining."

"What are you so depressed about?" Andy asked that afternoon.
"Oh, I guess I'm just a bit conflicted about some of my recent transactions," I said.
"You're depressed about work? Fuck that, you've doing fine. And I don't just say that so you'll remember me when your father has promoted you despite your poor job performance."
I'm pretty sure the second half of that was just Keller's idea of a joke. "It's not my job performance, exactly. It's more because I've adopted a somewhat active trading strategy with one of my clients."
"Oh, so that's it. You churned some son of a bitch and now your conscience is catching up with you. Get over it. The guy had it coming."
"What makes you say that? You've never met the guy."
"I dunno. Just seemed like the thing to say. Are you saying he didn't have it coming?"
"No, he had it coming alright. He didn't even deserve to have the money in the first place. I just figured I ought to feel a bit guilty about it, for the sake of my eternal soul."
"Well how long do you expect this guilt thing to last? I don't like sitting next to depressed people. It just reminds me how shitty the bonuses are going to be this year."
"Why would it remind you of that?
"Shitty bonuses are the only thing that ever make me depressed. I guess I tend to assume that everyone else is on the same page."
"Tell you what, give me about thirty more seconds, then, for you, I'll suppress my moral qualms. But for the next half a minute I'm going to stew over the fact that I'm not doing more to be a productive member of society. Like actually making something."
"You do make something. You make the markets more efficient. You make it easier for people to reach their retirement goals."
"I call people and suggest that they invest in one stock rather than another without any real track record to prove that my recommendations are any better than they could do themselves picking stocks at random. They might as well ask the kid who bags their groceries for stock tips."
"Bullshit," Keller said. "You're playing a vital role here, even if you're not really more qualified than some piece-of-shit kid with an emasculating job. You're giving people the confidence to invest in the stock market. Without professionals offering their suggestions, most people would just keep their money in bank CDs or hidden under their mattress."
"Okay, if we're such a necessary part of the process, why are do-it-yourself discount brokers like Charles Schwab so popular?"
"They're only popular when the market's going up. In good times, any moron can make money in the market. Since everyone's a genius, a lot of them decide they don't need us. But after the market starts going down, everyone relies on the professionals."
"Even though the professionals are losing money too?"
"Yep. When a professional losses money, it's a temporary and unavoidable market risk. When an individual losses money, it's his own stupidity. No one wants to feel stupid, so they come to us."
"They come to us to lose money"
"That's right."
"In that case I'm really good at this job."
"You're damn right."
"Thanks for the pep talk."
"What kind of person would I be if I wasn't there for a friend? I mean, this might be a cutthroat business but..." But Keller's phone rang, so he left the thought unfinished.

Smith used to love being left in charge. The very best thing about being second in command was that every now and then the commander had to sleep or vacation or use the toilet. Whenever Jergensen had so much as doze off in a meeting, Smith would puff out his chest and start issuing orders to anyone who would listen. On those rare occasions when Jergensen actually left campus, Smith would strut proudly around the quad, all but forgetting his trademark shuffle, imagining looks of respect on the faces of everyone he saw, even those who didn't know who the hell he was. This was different. This time he'd only been promoted to captain because the ship was sinking and the previous captain apparently had some reservations about being the one required to go down with it.
Now the wolves, or more precisely the faculty, were at his Smith's door. And dialing his phone number. And one or two were trying to throw things through his fourth-floor window. They all were either waiting to complain about the current state of affairs, or getting a jump on complaining about the likely future state of affairs. Smith needed a plan, and he needed one fast, since he was barricaded in his office and he really needed to use the bathroom. But it was so hard to think under those conditions. The faculty members at his door finally seemed to have figured out that Smith didn't intend to leave his office, no matter how many times they pulled the fire alarm. So instead, they'd taken to sliding written suggestions under his door. At least Smith hoped that's what they were doing. It was either that or they were going to shove a match onto the pile and start a real fire.
"I know you can hear me in there," a professor shouted. "I've made a list of all the departments that can be eliminated. It's pretty much everything except sociology. I'll just slip the list under the door."
"Don't listen to him," called another voice. "I've done some research and it turns out we can eliminate anything we want except psychology. If we were suspend psychology classes for even a semester, all the best theories might be discredited by the time we start back up."
"He's a madman," said the first voice. "Without a sociology department, we won't be able to research things that seem obvious but probably still need to be studied anyway, just to be sure."
Smith put his fingers in his ears and ducked under his desk. Kerns had passed the buck with all the skill of someone who realized that the thing to be passed wasn't so much a buck, but rather a seemingly unsolvable problem of no real monetary value. Smith's admiration for the man now nearly matched his loathing, although it still trailed far behind his disgust. Smith wondered again if Kerns had been a college administrator all along, and merely had posed as an economics professor to slip in the back door and take Smith's job. If so, it had been an admirably long-term plan. Smith had traced Kerns' records back to elementary school. Kerns had been the only second grader in the history of Franklin Pierce Elementary to stand up in front of his class and say he wanted to be an economist when he grew up. The other children had mocked his choice, but young Kerns had been ready with graphs, statistics, and a wide range of incomprehensible formulae to defend his position.
"What to do? What to do?" Smith asked himself as he hid under his desk. The faculty was short of offices, the students were short of dorms, and the weather had better hold next year, because there were going to be a lot of lectures held out on the quad if additional classrooms didn't turn up. Keeping everyone happy under these conditions would be a near-impossible task…But should he be able to pull it off, he'd be a hero.
There seemed only one reasonable solution. Smith would solve the building shortage the only way he knew: through compromise.

July 15

Funny things these qualms. Officially, qualms can come from sudden attacks of illness, pain, nausea, or morals, which just goes to show you the kind of company that morals keep. Hypocritical little bastards. Odd thing was, my qualms had decided they liked me enough to stick around for a while, even though I'd made it abundantly clear to them that they weren't welcome. It wasn't that I felt bad about costing Timmy a portion of his multi-million-dollar deli-slicer windfall. Without me he wouldn’t have had that money in the first place, and by no moral standard did he deserve to keep it. My qualms mostly were amassing in preparation for the day when I churned some other, non-Timmy person, someone who might very well have worked hard for their money. That was the sort of thing that would keep my qualms happy at feeding time.
I mentioned my concerns to Gwafinn that Thursday during our twice-weekly Tuesday lunch. Gwafinn had insisted that we eat lunch together in the building cafeteria every Tuesday, just to make sure everyone knew he'd hired his son. When the message didn't seem to be spreading fast enough, he'd decided we should have our Tuesday lunch on Thursdays as well. Gwafinn was unmoved by my moral concerns, just as he previously had been unmoved by my concerns that Tuesday's lunch probably should be confined to Tuesdays.
"What's your job title here at Johnston Brothers," he asked.
"I'm an equities salesman."
"Salesman? Not consultant? Not advisor? Not mystic guide?"
"Just salesman."
"Now if you walked into a used car dealership and put all your faith in the used car salesman, would you have a right to be mad when drive away in an AMC Pacer, or did you get what you deserved."
"I suppose the latter."
"Of course the latter."
"But we're not a used-car dealership. This is Wall Street. We have professional ethics to uphold. I have a license from the government to sell securities--or I'm supposed to anyway, although the truth is I haven't found time to get it yet and everyone lets me slide because they think I'm your son. Surely we can't just try to steal all our clients' money."
"Right indeed. And I'm pleased to see such fine morals in the younger generation. As your contractual father, it proves that I raised you well. We certainly do not try to steal all of our clients' money here at Johnston Brothers. But if we find that we accidentally wind up with all of their money due to the trading strategies that they themselves have agreed to, that's a different thing altogether."
"So it's 'a fool and his money are soon parted,' like Mark Twain said?"
"Twain blew most of his money on bad investments," Gwafinn noted.
"What does that prove?"
"It proves that some 19th-century stock promoter was good at his job."
"And it doesn't matter that the stocks I'm selling might not be any good?"
"The stocks you're selling are the very best. They all receive top ratings from one of the country's leading investment banks."
"That is to say, 'they're good stocks because we say they're good stocks.'"
"Exactly. Why do you think anything is considered good in any field."
"You're saying it's for no reason other than the fact someone says it is?"
"What else? Let's consider an example; say an archaeologist digs up an old painting…"
"Vase."
"What?"
"Make it an old vase. They don't dig up old paintings."
"Okay, if it's important to you, this archaeologist finds an old vase right below the old painting. He proclaims it a valuable relic and his colleagues agree. So it's valuable. It's worth millions even though it's smashed to pieces, it's thousands of years out of style, and you could buy a better vase at Wal-Mart for $4.95 if you wait for one to be marked down from their already impressive everyday low prices. This old, broken, million-dollar relic lands in a museum where thousands of people a day make special trips to appreciate it, despite the fact that they've already seen pictures of it on television, and it's not like staring at an old vase in person is any different than staring at it on a TV screen. With me so far?"
"I think."
"Good, because here's the interesting part. A year later someone comes forward and proves it's a hoax, that the vase isn't old at all. And a funny thing happens. People stop coming to see it. The museum takes it off display, It's worthless. Only it's the same damn vase."
"Yes, but it wasn't really the vase itself that was valuable," I argued. "It was the age and place in history…"
"Okay, forget the vase," Gwafinn cut me off. "Consider a fashionable woman walking down Fifth Avenue. There are herds of them up there. Pick any one of them you like for a little scientific experiment. One year she'll buys a wardrobe full of mid-length hems and gray colors. She wouldn't be caught dead without them. The next year these things are out of fashion, so she puts them away forever and wears short hems and pastels instead. Was she wrong then, or is she wrong now?"
"There is no 'right' or 'wrong,' it's just fashion."
"Try telling her that. What's 'right' is what enough of the right people believe is right. What's 'wrong' is what the right people believe is wrong, and not coincidentally, what's 'wrong' also is what the wrong people believe is right. Truth is what people believe it to be."
"But…certainly there are absolute truths."
"Maybe a few, Gwafinn conceded. "Only they have a funny habit of turning out to be wrong." Gwafinn checked his watch. "Always glad to talk philosophy with you, Bob, but I've got to go. I'm working on a big, top secret project. Oh, that reminds me, I need you to go feel out the research department, and if possible the Johnstons as well, to see if they've figured out what I'm planning."
"What are you planning?"
Gwafinn looked exasperated. "Didn't I just tell you it's top secret," he said. Then he helped himself to my apple and left me sitting at the cafeteria table.
Something was troubling me. It wasn't the issues that Gwafinn had raised concerning the meaning of truth. It wasn't the fact that I might not have it in me to be a superstar equity salesman, and after only a week and a half I already was becoming a little bored with the life of a competent equity salesman. It wasn't that I had been put on a secret mission so secret that even I wasn't allowed to know what it was. No, I believe it had more to do with a topic Gwafinn had raised earlier in our conversation, during his used-car salesman analogy. Until fairly recently, I had driven an AMC Pacer.

"So Tommy, what are you doing?" Dana asked. Tommy was, as it happened, sitting on a rock staring out at the ocean.
"Nothing," said Tommy, suddenly concerned that he probably should have been doing something. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," said Dana, much to Tommy's relief. As long as someone else was doing nothing, too, he was in the clear. Dana took a seat next to him. "I've just been thinking about the last big meeting."
Alarm bells went off in Tommy's head. Had the others been talking about him at the meeting? No, that wasn't possible. He had been careful to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. "What about it?"
"You know," said Dana. "The whole population-control proposal."
"Oh, right. That." Tommy was pleased that it did indeed have nothing to do with him.
"What did you think of it?"
"Oh, you know."
Dana waited a moment, but it appeared that was all Tommy had to say on the subject. "Could you be a touch more specific? I'm trying to gauge opinions."
"What have the others said?"
"You're the first one I've asked."
"I am? Why?"
"Because your opinion is important to me?"
"It is?"
"Absolutely. I think your opinion on this could be crucial to the future of this island."
"Really?" Tommy asked.
"That's why I'm so relieved to hear you agree with me that it's a bad idea."
"Absolutely."
"I'm glad we had this talk," Dana said.
"My pleasure. It's a cause I strongly believe in."
"You mean it's a cause you're strongly against."
"Right, right, that's what I meant.
"I knew it was."
"That was easy," Dana thought, and figured Sarah's progressive genocide project could now be laid to rest alongside Jeff's "one-life, one-vote" expanded democracy idea that had bogged down in the insect-registration process, and Laura's "sleep is wasted time" initiative that, ironically, still gave Dana nightmares.

"Check on the research department" and "check on the Johnstons." I knew how to do both of those things in a single lunch, even if Gwafinn wouldn't tell me specifically what I was supposed to be checking for.
"Gwaf--what are you doing here?" asked Rob Johnston. Rob was the youngest of the Johnstons, a member of the research department, and, as it happened, someone I knew from Bucklin College. It was he who had doomed me to a lifetime of unemployment and depression, albeit a lifetime of unemployment and depression that had lasted only a month, by using his last name to screw me out of the Johnston Brothers' job.
"Oh hi, Rob, good to see you," I said, doing my best to sound like someone who had just bumped into someone else by accident, a fact that wasn't 100% true, in as much as it was completely false. "I just came on board."
Ideally, I would have liked to find someone in research that I could trust implicitly. But since nothing said by anyone is research ever could be trusted implicitly, I settled on the next best thing: someone I probably couldn't trust, but whom I could read like a book. One of those large-print books they made for old people and those who enjoyed reading at a great distance. Rob might have been a Johnston to my Gwafinn--apparently destined to become the Hatfields and McCoys of Wall Street, only with less spitting--but I'd played poker with him more than a few times at Bucklin. As a poker player, Rob had many weaknesses, including, but not limited to, a total inability to bluff. He balanced these weaknesses against his one great strength, a truly first-rate bankroll. Considering the low stakes of our poker games, this one strength alone was enough to guarantee that Rob was certain to leave the table with more money than the rest of us, even if he hadn't won a single hand. Rob was rather proud of the resulting string of victories.
"You know, I'm glad you're working here," Rob continued. "I always thought you were a smart guy. And I felt bad when I got the job just because of my last name." So far, so good. Rob had reacted as though he truly didn't know that I was the supposed son of his family's arch-enemy. And I could tell he wasn't bluffing.
"Don't worry about it Rob." I'd decided to let him slide on the whole nepotism thing. "Tell, you what, why don't we go grab lunch and catch up?"

"Oh, I don't know what's going on in the upper reaches of the Johnston family hierarchy," Rob said over a burger. "No one ever tells us anything down in research. Besides, I'm the lowest Johnston on the totem pole, and it's a pretty big pole."
"You've got no idea if they're planning a revolt against the new CEO?"
"The feeling I get is they're all worried about their jobs. Maybe they're planning to wait out the recession then make a play for power when the economy turns around. No one wants to be captain of a sinking ship."
"You think?"
"Just a guess."
So much for breaching the Johnston wall of secrecy. "So how's life in the research department?" I asked.
"Not bad, I suppose. I pretty much just keep my head down and give everything the same rating that everyone else does."
"Any major rumors flying around the department?"
"Not that I've heard. Of course, people tend to keep the best rumors to themselves in research. They call them 'inside information.'"
That about did it for Gwafinn's questions. Now all that was left was making polite chit-chat until the check came. "What have they got you covering?" I asked.
"I'm in charge of paper stocks…that is, the stocks of companies that make paper. Turns out the stocks themselves are all pretty much made of paper, which threw me a bit at first."
"How's the paper sector look?"
"Must be good. I'm giving everything a 'Buy.'"
"You know, Rob, I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but life actually made more sense in college. I mean, I wasn't doing anything particularly useful then, either, but at least I'd figured out how to do it."
"College? Hell, I haven't been really good at anything since the sixth grade. Life was so much simpler when work could be submitted in diorama form. Man, I used to kick ass at dioramas. Sometimes I think I should find a shoebox and some pipecleaners and turn in my stock reports as dioramas."
"Better hold off unless you want to face the wrath of the SEC's Arts & Crafts Board."
"Yea. You're probably right. So how's life in sales? And for that matter, when exactly did you get hired? I didn't see you in the training program."
"Life in sales is very…educational," I answered, evading the first question and avoiding the second one entirely. "Lots of stuff we never covered in economics class."
"Tell me about it," Rob said. "I haven't seen a widget since I've been here."

Chapter 18

2009-08-02T15:57:00.002-07:00

July 6

I finally heard about the war in Spanish Guyana that morning. I probably should have heard sooner, in that it was one of those wars that involved killing, and it was taking place in the country where my girlfriend was supposed to be. But in my defense, the only news I'd had time for lately had been the financial news, and there were precious few equities that rose and fell based on trouble in Spanish Guyana. Finally, July sixth's Wall Street Journal had included a short item mentioning the surprisingly mild effect the unspeakable horrors inflicted on the Spanish Guyanian population were having on worldwide aluminum prices.
"Great news," I told Keller that morning. "My girlfriend's trapped in a war zone."
"Based on your reaction, I guess it's safe to say you were ready to move on romantically," Keller said.
"No, no. I still care about her very deeply. That's why I'm so pleased she's in a war zone."
"Once again, in something that is in--or can be translated into--English." Keller glanced at his watch to make sure he had time for an explanation before the opening bell.
"It's simple. I haven't had so much as a postcard from her in a month, so I'd begun to suspect she'd left me and not even had the decency to tell me that I was just too much man for her."
"Okay, I'm with you so far."
"But based on what I now know, there's a good chance she hasn't ended our relationship, she's merely become a prisoner of war. True, she might be enduring unspeakable horrors. But she's still interested in me."
"Assuming she's survived."
"Right, assuming she's survived."
"So you're rooting for the woman you claim to care about to be enduring unspeakable horrors."
"No, no, no, of course not. I'm rooting for her to be detained in a horror-free environment."
"But you'd take the horrors over the breakup?"
"Maybe."
"That's cold."
"Bullshit. It means I care. Taking the pro-horrors side of the argument means I might hate myself for wishing such a thing, but I only wish it because I care about Dana and don't want our relationship to be over. If I take the pro-breakup stance, I might end up hating Dana for leaving me. So it's a matter who would I rather hate. The fact I'm willing to hate myself over her is a sign of my commitment to the relationship."
"My friend, I have good news for you and I have bad news. The good news is, with logic like that you're going to do fine on Wall Street."
"And the bad news?"
"You're insane. That, or you're in love."
"There's a difference?"
"Yup. Love's going to cost you more in presents."
"Ah shit,"
"What?" Keller asked.
"Now I've got another problem. "Dana's birthday. It's four days from now."
"You sure?"
"Sure I'm sure. Think I'm an idiot? Birthday's one of the first things I check. Women love nothing better than to not tell you their birthday so they can hold it over you when you don't remember it. I'm not going to fall for that. On our third date I bribed a waiter to ask for her I.D. when she ordered a glass of wine. He wrote down her birthday and slipped it to me with the check."
"Clever," Keller said.
"Thanks."
"I take it you haven't bought her anything."
"I thought she'd left me."
"Don't you think the fact that she's apparently caught in a South American prison and you couldn't possibly get the gift to her, assuming she's still alive, might get you off the hook in the present department?"
"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"
"Yea, you're right. You better get something, or you'll never hear the end of it."
"Not that Dana's the materialistic type," I said.
"Of course not. Women rarely are."
"It's just that they expect some sort of store-purchased gesture on their birthday. And Christmas."
"And Valentines," Keller added. "And anniversaries. But it's purely as a sign of love."
"We're not married. At least I don't have to worry about the anniversaries."
"Doesn't matter. They've started counting anniversaries of first dates. It reduces our disincentive to proposing."
"Really? Dating anniversaries? I've never heard of those. But then I've never had a relationship last a full year."
"Yea, me neither," Keller admitted.
"You don't suppose that says anything about the two of us, do you?" I asked.
"It says you better get her something nice."
I got her something nice. I even gave up on the wild idea of consuming food on my lunch hour to get it. But once I had it, I still didn't know what to do with it. It was the same problem dogs faced with tennis balls, albeit with less drool. I suppose I could have dropped the present in the mail. But items over a certain dollar value simply shouldn't be cast off into the dual ethers of civil wars and South American postal systems, not when you've just put yourself in hock to a credit card company to acquire them. So I cut out early that afternoon, wrestled a cab away from a fellow New Yorker who was too old to fight back effectively, and battled the up-town traffic to One Planet's Madison Avenue offices.
I arrived at three minutes to five. When the elevator opened on the eighth floor I could see the glass doors of the One Planet office right in front of me. Unfortunately, a man inside the office could see me as well. He grabbed a key from his desk and made a run for the lock, but I beat him by a step and forced my way in.
"We're closing up for the day," he said, walking back to his desk and turning off his computer. "Whatever it is, you'll have to come back tomorrow."
"This can't wait," I told him. The man's officemates hurriedly shut down their own computers and dashed past us towards the door, just in case my reason for dropping by involved them.
"People always say things can't wait. But in my experience, everything can wait."
"Great," I said. "Then whatever you have planned for this evening can wait, because you're staying here till you explain to me what's going on with Dana Davis."
"Who?"
"Dana Davis. She's one of your people. You sent her to Spanish Guyana. I haven't heard from her since."
"No one's being sent to Spanish Guyana," the man explained. "There's a war going on."
"Which brings us to the second reason for my concern."
"We're all concerned."
"Ah ha! If you're concerned about her, then you've heard of her."
"Not necessarily. I'm concerned about everyone. That's what we do here. We become concerned." He passed me one of his business cards. "Rick Lyle," it read. "Associate Concern Coordinator."
"So Dana is caught in the middle of this war?"
"We're looking into that."
"Then you don't know where Dana is?"
"Oops, that's five o'clock. I've got to lock up the office." Lyle flipped off the overhead lights and headed for the door. I blocked his path.
"Listen," Lyle said. "I'd like to stay, but we run an Earth-friendly office here. The lights, air conditioning, and computers all are turned off promptly at five o'clock."
"Then you and I are going to stand here in a dark, stuffy, technologically-bereft office until you tell me what's going on with Dana."
"Is that a threat?" said Lyle, alarmed. "Are you threatening me? I'll call our lawyer." He looked behind him for the office lawyer.
"It's after five. Your lawyer's gone home along with everyone else. And anyway, that wasn't a threat. But this is: if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'm going to have to flick the office lights back on."
"You wouldn't."
I flicked the lights on.
"Noooo…" Lyle screamed, and flicked them back off. "You son of a bitch. These are fluorescent bulbs. They consume a significant amount of energy in the moment they're activated because of a chemical process involving..."
I flicked the lights back on. Lyle flicked them off.
"What do you have against mother Earth? We all have to live…"
I flicked the lights back on. He flailed at the switch to turn them off.
"Okay, you win. We don't know where Dana is. All the letters we send to her in Spanish Guyana come back marked 'Undeliverable-Genocide.' There's a rumor around the office that someone might have sent her somewhere else, but no one seems to know where exactly."
"So you've lost her."
"No, we haven't lost her. You can't lose a person. She's around somewhere. I'm sure she'll turn up." Lyle reached to flip the light switch off before realizing that I hadn't switched it back on.
"I have one more question, and it's very important," I said. Lyle kept one hand over the light switch to be safe. "Where, exactly, am I supposed to send her birthday present?" I showed him the necklace I'd selected.
"Oooh, that's nice," he commented. But he didn't know where.

"I did it," Kerns said. "I knew I could do it. Well, okay, I didn't know I could, but I no longer assumed I couldn't, and that's pretty good progress in a few weeks." Kerns rounded the corner and headed back home. "I out administered the best administrator in the college. First, I planned ahead to intercept the agenda. Second, I recognized the potential for danger. And third, I dealt with it with speed and finality. Then fourth, I went out for a beer to celebrate with the rest of the Council, just to rub Smith's face in it. It was a total victory--well, except when I ordered that non-alcoholic beer. I think that might have cost me some points in the Council's eyes. Plus, it tasted like goat piss. But that's a small price to pay. I won. I won. Tell the truth, you didn't think I could did you?"
Roger didn't answer, he just ran along trying to keep pace with the lanky Kerns' suddenly swift stride. But Roger's respect for the Dean had grown. And like any dog, he appreciated the fact that his owner had been employing his council on a regular basis. Roger had even stopped telling the other dogs he met in the park that he was adopted.
"Of course, nothing's ever free," Kerns added, his mood suddenly darkening as the pair returned home from their mid-day walk. "Smith isn't the sort to give up without a fight. Or more accurately, he is the sort to give up without a fight in an actual fight, but he's most certainly not the sort to give up without a fight in an intra-office administrative power struggle. No, Smith will fight to the death, so long as there's no chance of actual injury. Of that much we can be certain." Kerns unclipped Roger's leash from his collar. Roger's ears drooped at the suddenly depressing tone of the Dean's voice.
"In fact, today's rousing success might inspire such a backlash that it turns out to be the greatest failure of my life. What chance do I have? I might as well quit now…" Kerns slumped down on the living room sofa and cradled his forehead in his hands.
Thinking quickly, Roger jumped in the Dean's lap and licked the man's nose.
"Roger," the Dean said. "You've never licked my nose before. You tried to bite it once, but as I conceded at the time, that was mostly my fault. Does this mean…you have faith in me?"
Roger licked Kerns' nose again, and wagged his tail for emphasis. "You're right. I can do this. I'm headed back to the office. Thank you, Roger."
Roger jumped off the Dean's lap as the man rushed off. Then the little Pekinese curled up on the couch and slept the sleep of a dog that had never once needed to question that he did his job well.

July 7

If there's anything more dangerous than a true believer, it's a true believer with a fact on her side. And Sarah had one. It's been a well-known fact ever since the 1960s that our planet is only a few years away from the massive starvation, devastating plagues, and lethally long lines at restrooms that are the inevitable result of overpopulation. Sage men like Paul Ehrlich had been in the vanguard. But they were such brilliant thinkers, so far ahead of their time, that even world events hadn't been able to keep up with their predictions. The disaster they knew the world could not avoid in the 1970s, the one it certainly couldn't avoid in the 1980s, was still staring us dead in the eyes as we rolled through the 1990s then on into the next millennium. And now there was no question that our doom was imminent. After all, world population had been at the point of disaster decades before, and there were many, many more people now.
Sarah helped herself to a handful of granola, a fat-laden snack food favored by hikers and others who assume that it must be good for them, since it was eaten by all the right people. Then she got down to business.
"Okay everyone. I was very pleased by the progress we made at our last meeting. We came to a difficult decision regarding population control. A crucial decision. But I can't help but notice that nothing much has happened since then."
"What was supposed to happen?" Jeff asked.
"Well, deciding to do something really is only half the battle here. Our decision will have more long-term significance, planet-wise, if we follow it up by actually doing the thing we've decided to do."
Jeff looked startled. "That's an awfully big step," he said. "I thought we were just going to decide to do it and leave it at that, like we usually do."
"No, not this time," Sarah said. "This time none of us are leaving this tent until we have a plan in motion." She zipped the tent closed. "I don't care if it takes all night."
The others exchanged nervous glances.
"Or are you not committed to the planet?"
No one argued.
"Doctor," Sarah continued.
"Me?" the doctor asked, startled to be singled out.
"Yes, you. I think you are best equipped to handle this vital assignment. The villagers will let you give them injections without much of a fuss. All we have to do is select the right thing to inject, and the population problem is solved."
"I, uh…" the doctor said.
"You're not soft on overpopulation, are you doctor?"
"No, it's not that. It's just that poisoning the villagers…it might hurt my chances at continued funding. My organization, Doctors with Passports, does have some very strict policy guidelines, you understand."
"So it's about money?" Sarah asked.
"No, no, not entirely. I'm also quite busy with taking blood tests at the moment. And there's something else, now that I think of it. Murder falls into something of a moral gray area concerning an oath that I was once required to take."
Sarah didn't like it, but the others agreed that it would be wrong to ask the doctor to go back on an oath.
"Well, okay," Sarah said at last. "But without the doctor's help, the rest of us are going to have to work that much harder. Now does anyone here have any experience with killing…for the good of the planet, I mean?"
None of them did. They were more the idea-oriented sorts. But everyone was willing to help out by offering his or her opinion. Guns, they all agreed, were not a viable option. They all had protested against guns many times in their lives, and none were willing to back down now, even in a good cause. As it happened, this was just as well, since none of them would have known how to acquire a gun on Lesser Morrell Island. Certain other weapons were just as clearly unacceptable. Many of their number had rallied against land mines and nuclear weapons, for example, which meant that those, too, were not options--even if they had been options, which, of course, they never were. Chemical and biological weapons were added to the black list, too. It was very frustrating to see one alternative after the next crossed off the list. The activists' own deeply-held moral beliefs were making it impossible to carry out their agenda. How was a liberal supposed to commit genocide, anyway?
History offered a few suggestions, Sarah reminded the group: Stalin had used the brutal conditions of forced labor camps to weed out the extraneous and troublesome members of his population. But, as Brent pointed out, here on the Island they lacked the manpower and infrastructure to arrange such a thing. And anyway it would have been tricky to recreate the brutal conditions of the Siberian steppe in their generally pleasant Pacific climate.
Lenin had had small landowners shot, fortunate as he was he to live before guns became unfashionable. Mao, perhaps the most effective left-wing genocide role model, had rather cleverly done most of his best genocide work through starvation. But food was abundant in these parts, what with the ocean so full of nourishing fish and the trees so full of succulent fruits and monkeys.
A liberal in search of mass-murder advice could do worse than to look to Pol Pot for advice, added Jeff. The man had done away with upwards of 15% of a country of eight million in relatively short order. Most of this killing was done with guns and disease, but Pol Pot was a true renaissance leader, and had never settling on a single favorite method of population control. But then, like most historical role models in the field of progressive genocide, Pol Pot had had tremendous amounts of help when it became necessary to wipe out his country's unnecessary citizens. Back in the old days there were always plenty of people willing to rally around a good idea.
In the end it was clear that the Lesser Morrell Island group would need to come up with its own answers. It was an awesome responsibility, they knew, as future generations would no doubt look back upon them for guidance, as college students today look up to Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Poison had its supporters, especially an organic poison such as cyanide or strychnine. It seemed such a natural, earth-based approach, and less violent and confrontational besides. "The sort of murder weapon that Gandhi might have used," commented Laura. Gandhi was one of her heroes. Gandhi and Stalin. But as far as the doctor knew, no deadly poison came from a plant indigenous to their island. For her part, Sarah was in favor of simply fomenting unrest among the natives until they set upon each other. But while they wouldn't come right out and say it, the others were not certain that Sarah's political skills were up to fomenting unrest, having once seen her fare poorly in a debate against a photo of a political candidate with whom she disagreed.
In time, answers came. None of the group had ever specifically protested against knives or spears, they realized. And suffocation or drowning remained wide open as well. Sarah and Laura in particular favored suffocation or drowning over spears, which seemed much too phallic and male-oriented. But Jeff leaned towards spears, as suffocation tended to involve plastic bags, an obvious problem for an environmentalist. It seemed they were once again at an impasse. But in the spirit of compromise, Jeff agreed to suffocation--so long as they used cloth bags.
A decision had been reached.

The mysteriously altered agenda had been no accident. Smith had asked around, and there was indeed no such thing as an Agenda Finalization Formalization Committee--or at least there hadn't been until eight minutes before the Council meeting, at which point one had miraculously been formed and approved by the Dean himself. But that information was of little use to Smith now. Smith had underestimated Kerns, and it had cost him. In retrospect, Smith thought, he had no one to blame but himself. But since that was no good, he resolved to blame the government, since it hadn't properly warned him of the danger. Whoever was at fault, the results had been devastating. Not only had Kerns been able to block Smith's plan, he'd found a way to squelch it forever. Smith chastised himself again for spelling out "Special General Budgetary Process Exemption" on the agenda when a simple "Budgetary Procedure" would have sufficed. He resolved to never again do anything with such a high degree of clarity.
"There's still no need to panic," Smith thought. "Kerns might have learned how to avoid future errors, but that didn't mean he can get out of past ones."

July 12

My Wall Street career continued to lurch towards respectability. I'd hardly finished investing Timmy's money when I found a third client, the manager of a mid-sized pension fund, by positioning myself next to successful looking sorts on the train heading home from the city and pouring over Johnston Brothers research reports until I caught their attention. Few transit systems in the country are better designed for investment sales than the New York City commuter rail. Try hopping into luxury cars sitting in traffic in L.A. and see how much progress you make. Carjackers have ruined that once promising profit center for everyone. Even my boss, Mr. Callesse, seemed impressed by my rapid progress. Not that he would come right out and offer praise or encouragement, since by long tradition praise on Wall Street was conveyed only through a form of non-verbal communication known as the year-end bonus. But Callesse did admit that Johnston Brothers had a few potential client leads more promising than the phone book, and eventually he consented to give me a few.
Only two weeks on the job and my life was settling into a pattern of train rides and phone calls, quickly eaten meals and failed attempts to get into the always-crowded bar below my apartment. It was beyond question an incredibly happy time for me, and I was certain that the only reason I wasn't in fact incredibly happy was that I'd gotten into the habit of being incredibly unhappy over the summer, and habits always are hard to break.

"The ticking time bomb," Smith thought. "It's my strongest remaining hand to play…assuming a bomb can be a hand. "Better yet, I don't have to do much to play it. It was just looming out there waiting to swallow Kerns up…that is, assuming a bomb that's a hand can loom and swallow." Smith had a feeling that this was the day. Always a man to consider faculty meetings exciting, today's left him giddy with anticipation.
"Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome our new dean, Dean Jack Kerns, the dean," Smith announced to the faculty.
"Thank you, Thomas," Kerns said, taking the podium to a heartening, if obligatory, round of applause. It was his first formal address to the Bucklin faculty since taking over for Jergensen back in April. It was also the first time Kerns had ever said anything to which his wife, a member of the faculty recently returned from Cancun, had been more-or-less required to listen. "I'd like to welcome you all back to campus," Kerns continued. "I trust your summer sabbaticals were productive." By the looks of their tans, they had been. "As most of you no doubt already know, Bucklin College has entered a new phase in the advancement of American education. We have, you might say, given the campus back to the students. Specifically, we have agreed to provide a range of student centers so extensive that virtually every group in our highly diverse campus culture now has a place where it can go when it wishes to exclude everyone else. We have created an environment so friendly to special interests that there's virtually no room left for any interests that aren't special. In short, we have achieved the primary goals of any progressive educational establishment."
Kerns paused for more applause from the faculty. He searched Katherine out in the crowd and wondered what she thought of his rousing speech. He'd never before roused anyone in his life, and suspected Katherine would be surprised to find him capable of it. If she was, she was hiding it well. Katherine wasn't even applauding along with her colleagues.
"But of course nothing worth doing is worth doing cheaply, and certain compromises will have to be made in the weeks, decades, and generations ahead. In fact, some of you might already have noticed that campus special interest groups have taken over your classrooms, labs, and offices."
"Yea, what's with that, Kerns?" anthropology professor Herbert Schmelling interrupted. "There's a pair of Turkish students in my building night and day. I mean, I like a glass of raki as much as the next anthropologist, but all the tambur music is starting to get to me."
"Turks? Christ, Herb, you're lucky," said Lucile Halley, professor of Biochemistry. "I'm stuck with something called the Androgynous Students Alliance. It wouldn't be so bad, expect that they've taken all the signs down off the restroom doors, and I don't know which one I'm supposed to use."
"Unfortunately, there was simply no avoiding these sacrifices," Kerns said.
"No avoiding them?" asked music department assistant professor John Woloschuk. "How was there no avoiding giving away the music building to the campus nudists' club? Do you have any idea what they've been doing with my woodwinds?"
Well, at least Katherine wasn't joining in with the carping. Actually, she hardly said a word to him since her return, which was making it even trickier for Kerns to gather evidence of an affair. Still, he'd decided to continue to act paranoid and suspicious around his wife, if only to avoid looking like a fool later if it turned out to be true.
"Now listen, everyone," Kerns said. "Just last fall, this entire faculty voted unanimously that the primary goals of this college should be--and I quote--'to bring together the peoples of the world and make the Earth a better place'. Now, was that statement truly representative of your feelings, or were you just making an empty politically correct statement that seemed unlikely to have any actual bearing on your lives as tenured intellectuals at a pricey New England college?"
There was some shifting around in seats, but no one argued.
"Okay, then. Nice to see we're all still on the same page," Kerns continued. "Because it isn't just the offices. We're also short on classroom space, so there's no possible way that we can offer as many classes as we have in the past. But the good news is I've explained the problem to the student groups, and they say they're willing to take fewer classes, or, if necessary, no classes at all. I think that's very sporting of them."
There was no applause anymore. Just worried murmuring sounds.
"I can tell you all have your concerns. It's natural to have concerns in times of change. But I'm certain that all of this can be settled to everyone's satisfaction…or at very least to the satisfaction of those groups and individuals that complain the loudest and most often." Kerns paused for a beat. "So at this point I'd like to turn the meeting back over to the man behind the entire student center program, Associate Dean Thomas Prester Smith. He's in charge of handling all aspects of the transition. As for me, I'm going to be at out of town for the next week at an important conference on reducing university travel budgets, so please address all your input on this matter directly to Smith, and please do so as soon as possible, since he'll need to have a solution in place by the time I return. Remember, we're got to have everything up and running by the Fall semester, and that's not too far off."
"But what…" was all Smith got out before Kerns' pager beeped.
"Oops, got to take that. See you in a week, Thomas. The office secretary knows where to find me if you need me." This was true. But it wouldn't help Smith. Kerns had given the secretary the week off. As an added precaution, he'd also informed her that someone would call if they needed her to come back early, thereby guaranteeing that nothing in the world would convince the secretary to answer the phone for the next seven days.

"The end is near," I read. "This is the time for action." A second unsigned scrap of paper had appeared on my desk. This one was decidedly more apocalyptic, though not appreciably less enigmatic, than the first. I looked around, but didn't see anyone who looked even vaguely like a doomsayer. But then it was rare on Wall Street to see anyone who even looked a little bearish. I dug the earlier "Don't play their game" note out of a drawer, and confirmed they were written by the same hand. I never had figured out what the first note meant, but to be on the safe side, I had avoided office games of all kinds, including poker and garbage-can basketball.
This note was a bit tougher to follow blindly.
"Did you ever get a sort of an odd note left on your desk, maybe as a joke or something?" I asked Keller the next time he hung up his phone.
"What kind of a note?" Keller asked, distracted by his computer screen.
"Just a cryptic piece of unsigned advice scrawled on a torn piece of paper."
"Oh, that kind of note," Keller said, paying more attention. "You've heard from the Ghost of Johnston Brothers."
"Fuck you, Keller, I'm being serious."
"I'm being serious, too, Gwaf Jr.," he said, using the technically inaccurate nickname that he'd been trying to hang on me for a few days now, much to the delight of the ersatz Gwaf, Sr. "Johnston Brothers has been haunted for years, only the ghost usually sticks to the research department. He must have taken a special interest in you."
"I'm not going to sit here and let you yank my chain." I reached for my phone.
"I'm not making this up."
"You're saying you believe in ghosts."
"Not exactly. But this one's a well-established rumor. And once a falsehood is well-established, the person repeating it can't be criticized for bringing it up. It's like cults. After a few hundred years, they become religions, and then you have to respect them."
"Yea, but this office building hasn't been here a few hundred years. Only since the late 1960s."
"So our ghost is only a few decades old. That's long enough for a ghost. It's not like I'm asking you to worship the thing. The point is, these notes have been appearing on Johnston Brothers' employees desks a few a year since before we were born. No one ever sees anyone leaving them, and no one knows what they're supposed to mean. But there is a theory…"
I waited until it became clear Keller wasn't going to continue unless I gave in and admitted that I was listening to his bullshit. "Okay, hit me with the theory."
Keller smiled at his victory. "The theory is it's related to the Johnston Brothers analyst who tried to rate a Nifty-Fifty stock 'sell' during the bull market back in the early 1970s."
"I thought that was just a myth."
"No, I have it on reliable office gossip that that part at least is true. They fired the analyst, of course, and apparently the guy just disappeared off the face of the Earth. The story goes he sneaked back in here one night and killed himself down on the research floor. Then the company hid his body in the ventilation system to avoid the scandal, or maybe because they were afraid a suicidal analyst could spook the markets. Now the ghost of the bearish research analyst haunts the building swearing revenge on young Johnston Brothers employees."
"And you believe this?"
"It would explain the smell coming from the ventilation system every summer."
"For the record, the notes I've received aren't really threats," I said. "In fact, the first one was more like ethical guidance."
"On Wall Street, ethical guidance is the worst curse of all."
"Still, it seems fairly implausible."
"Just something to keep in mind." Keller reached for his phone. "Hey, if you do meet the ghost, ask him if there's any way he can give us a clue where the market's heading. Nothing like a little spectral market analysis to give us a leg up on the competition."
"You mean to say that if I get one question to ask someone communicating with me from beyond the grave, you don't want to know the meaning of life, or if there's a God, what you want is next month's Nasdaq figures."
"And don't overlook the Big Board," Keller advised, then went back to yelling into his phone.

Katherine had expanded her disinterest in Kerns to include not looking him in the eye when he dropped by her office to explain that he would, indeed, be leaving immediately for a week on vital Bucklin business. Kerns tried to explain that he was caught up in the blood sport that is small-college administration, but his wife gave him no hint that she gave a damn. Kerns would have liked to tell Katherine everything. What he was secretly planning, how this job already had changed him--and how deeply he truly loved her. But it was embarrassing enough to relay travel plans to someone who wasn't listening. Kerns wasn't about to bare his soul.
At least he had Roger as an ally. Even after Katherine's return, the little dog did not follow her from room to room, anxious to lend Katherine his assistance in her daily activities, as had long been his custom. Instead Roger sat loyally by Kerns in the study, ready to spring to his defense should the need arise. Roger could sense the tension in Kerns, and was sure he and this gangly packmate were locked in a desperate battle of some sort. Roger wasn't 100% certain what they were up against, but he'd learned from experience that there were very few problems that couldn't be solved by high-pitched yapping and maybe a swift nip on an ankle.
Out of this new found sense of loyalty, Roger followed Kerns that day as he threw some clothes in a suitcase and headed for the front door. "It probably would make more sense for you to stay here, considering what I have in mind," Kerns told his furry compatriot. Roger did not turn back. "Still, it is nice to have an ally, even a short, yippy one. And you are good at keeping a secret. Okay, you can come along. I'll just leave Katherine a note explaining that you've decided to come with me." Kerns left his note, then led Roger the two blocks to their former residence, the house Kerns and his wife continued to own and pay a significant mortgage on, even as they lived in the official Dean's residence on Federal Street. "We don't want to be homeless after you've been fired, my darling," Katherine had explained while sending the mortgage check a month back, in that endearing fake French accent of hers.

July 13

There's a phrase often repeated in investment companies' literature, mainly at the insistence of the investment companies' lawyers: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." In other words, if an investment made a pile of money last year and a second pile of money this year, it might seem reasonable to believe it will make a third pile of money next year. But in truth, the odds are just as good that the investment will instead take one of its first two piles back. The mistake is assuming that one can extrapolate from the past to produce an accurate vision of the future. You might be jumping on board the bandwagon just as the band's about to launch into an extended Foghat medley. That's life. You never can tell.
It pays to consider this lesson in non-investment-related phases of life as well. A month ago, when I saw visions of my future, they all involved dumpster diving. I was extrapolating from my then present station as an unemployed loser to produce a grim vision of the future, one that involved a descent into madness, despair, and four-day-old baked goods. In the past month, my position in the world had changed dramatically. And again I was extrapolating, perhaps unjustifiably. My future, it seemed, was all around me, row after row of people just like me, only with a bit more job experience, a bit less hair, and quite possibly a few pieces of furniture in their apartments.
If this is what I wanted out of life--and I must confess, it did look pretty good compared to the dumpster-based option--then all I had to do was establish myself as a competent equities salesman. Competency in this line of work equaled a very comfortable existence. This life included a nice car, a nice house, a nice wife, two nice kids, a nice piece on the side, then a nice alimony settlement, with some nice child support payments thrown in if you didn't wait until they were grown and out of the house. Yes, a competent equity salesman could afford all these basic necessities, with enough left to blow on luxuries like home electronics and a retirement plan. And all you had to do in return was spend twelve hours a day in front of a computer screen with a phone in your hand and your heart in your throat for, oh, three or four decades. It was a good life. But for some, it just wasn’t enough. Some competent equities salesmen eventually took long, hard looks at their lives and priorities and decided there must to be something more. Twelve hours at a desk and a nice stack of cash suddenly left them feeling empty. These competent equity salesmen would then settle on what they really wanted in life. And, inevitably, what they wanted was superstar equity salesmen. For superstars, the time, effort, and job might have been just as daunting--but the stack of cash was a whole lot higher.
"How long have you been doing this?" I asked Keller over lunch. "How long have you been selling equities?"
"Oh, forever. Well, it feels like forever. I guess it's actually been a little over a year. But on Wall Street that's long enough to qualify as forever."
"How about Callesse? How long has he been here?"
"He's been here forever, too."
"He's only been here one year and he's already the department manager?"
"No, he's been here at least seven years," said Keller. "So I guess that's seven forevers."
"Is that how long it takes to get really good at this?"
"Nope. It takes less than a year to get good at this. I can say that for a fact, because if you're not good at it after the first year, they fire you."
"Yea, but I'm not talking competent, I'm talking superstar. What does it take to be a superstar?"
"Christ. Don't tell me you think I'm your mentor."
"Hell no. This is Wall Street. There's no such thing as a mentor on Wall Street. You're just someone I'm going to use as a stepping stone on my climb to power, then cast aside when I don't need you anymore."
"Oh, that's different then," Keller said. "As long as I'm not your mentor. You asked how long it takes to get great at this. Well, time is irrelevant. It takes three things to be a superstar, and only one of them really matters: you've got to work harder, you've got to be smarter, but above all else you can't let anything stand in your way--even if what's trying to stand in your way is that you don't want to work any harder and you're not really any smarter."
"So it's just tenacity?"
"It's not just tenacity; a lot of it has to do with ethics."
"Really? Ethics? On Wall Street?"
"Exactly. Superstars don't have them. Oh, I suppose they have some. For example, if a superstar equity salesman was standing on a subway platform, he probably should resist the urge to push other commuters into the path of oncoming trains. Those fellow subway riders might one day become clients, after all."
"But you're saying that's as far as the superstar's ethics go?" I asked.
"Let's just say the superstar equity salesman realizes that there are exceptions to ethical rules. If this salesman needed to find a way to get on an oncoming express train not scheduled to stop at that station, say, and a fellow subway rider was all he had available to push into its path, well, let's call that a gray area. The point is the superstar equity salesman can make these sorts of snap decisions. That's part of what makes him so special."
"It does seem a tad extreme."
"That was just a hypothetical example. The main ethical gray area isn't subway transit. It's portfolio management. A competent equity salesman spends his career building up solid, working relationships with investors and professional buy-side portfolio managers, right?"
"That had been my assumption."
"Everyone's working together to make money?"
"I'm guessing this is a trick question."
"Correct. But don't spoil my fun."
"Okay, then, yes, we're all working together to make money."
"Wrong," chided Keller. "And I'll tell you why. How do our clients make money?"
"They make money when their investments make money."
"And how do you and I and Johnston Brothers make money?"
"We make money by taking a commission when our clients trade shares though us."
"See the problem here? Our clients make money by holding good stocks. And the emphasis there is on holding--all the research proves that buy-and-hold beats buy-and-sell-and-then-buy-something-else-then-do-it-again. But we make more money if they do the latter. Our interests are fundamentally opposed to those of our customers."
"And superstar salesmen take advantage of this?"
"All salesmen take advantage of this. Superstar salesmen base their lives on this. Listen, you can have a perfectly fine career on Wall Street by doing the right thing and looking out for your clients. You can have a nice summer house on Martha's Vineyard, and your children can go to a decent college-prep nursery school. But if you want your Martha's Vineyard summer house to be on the water, and you want your children to go to the very best college-prep nursery school--or for that matter if you want them to go to the very best college-prep nursery school on the water in Martha's Vineyard--then you've got to churn."
"Churn?"
"That's what it's called. Well, that's what it's called by those who don't think it's a good idea. People who think it's a good idea call it 'adopting an active trading strategy'."
"Who thinks it's a good idea?"
"Mostly just superstar salesmen and those who want to become them."
"Then adopting an active trading strategy is the key. Why isn't everyone doing this?"
"Everyone does. But for most of us mere mortals, it's the exception, not the rule, cause it isn't as easy as it sounds. Look at it this way: you know how tough it is to convince that person to trust you and buy the stocks you recommend. Well, if you want to adopt an active trading strategy, then you've got to convince someone to trust your advice and invest in stock A as you suggest--then you've got to call them back a while later and convince them that stock A isn't the place to be at all, they need to switch to stock B. Then you have to convince them to switch to stock C, then stock D and then E and…well, I could continue, but you know how the alphabet goes. And you have to do all of this without the client losing faith in your abilities to pick the right stocks for them."
"I can see that it has its challenges. But the upside…"
"The upside is you've turned one client into a whole bunch of clients--or at least a whole bunch of commissions."
"Do you do this?"
"Sometimes. When I think I can get away with it. I'm no superstar, not yet. But as it happens, some clients actually like to jump in and out of investments. Makes them feel involved."
"And they don't realize they'll lose in the end?"
"There are people who keep going back to casinos and people who keep buying lottery tickets. There's no explaining it; all we can hope to do is make money off it."
"Don't the clients ever realize we're working at cross purposes?"
"Now and then," Keller said. "But it's not like Wall Street's the only place you find this kind of thing. Dentists use exactly the same scam. They tell their customers they need a root canal, or three caps, or whatever they feel like doing that day. The more pain they inflict on their customers, the more cash the customers have to fork over. It's brilliant."
"I'm not sure dentistry is a scam."
"No? These are people that actually can say they've got a bridge to sell you, and make you ante up for it. Believe me, the nitrous oxide isn't the only reason they're laughing."
"Maybe I should have been a dentist."
"Nah, dentists and investment bankers both get to screw our clients and have them come back for more, but we're still better off," Keller said. "Investment bankers don't have to worry about being nice to children or getting soaked in other peoples' spit."
"It must be this combination of factors that makes investment banking the thrilling challenge that attracts the best and brightest business school grads each year."
"Don't be cynical. It attracted you, too. And now that I've explained the birds and the bees to you, I'll bet you try to churn someone before the month is out."
"No bet." I wasn't going to last the month. I wasn't even going to last the afternoon. But I resolved to start slowly. I picked just one of my clients, and advised him to adopt an 'active trading strategy.' It was an aggressive investment strategy, I admitted to the client. But as I explained at the time "Life's full of risks, Timmy." Besides, if worst came to worst, life's also full of sharp objects, ambulance-chasing lawyers, and deep-pocketed companies. And Timmy did have three limbs left.

Chapter 17

2009-08-02T15:57:00.001-07:00

July 5

The history of Wall Street begins way back in 1653. That's a very long time ago. So long that over in Europe, Shakespeare and Galileo had only recently gotten a start on being dead. On this side of the Atlantic, a group of Pilgrims living in what is now downtown Manhattan, but was then much more affordable, erected a wall to keep out local Indians and to keep in local businesses considering moves to New Jersey for tax reasons. The wall was a success on both fronts, since walking around the end of walls would not be invented for another hundred years. The path that ran alongside this wall came to be known as Wall Street, and continued under that name long after the wall itself had been torn down in the early 1700s to make way for an upscale coffee bar, which was immediately overrun by invading Indians and departing companies.
Before the 18th century was over, this once humble dirt path would have multiple claims to fame. In 1789, it was the site of George Washington's presidential inauguration, a fact that set it apart from every other thoroughfare in the young country, along which Washington had merely slept. And of even greater long-term significance, Wall Street was rapidly becoming one of the young nation's most prominent financial centers.
Every day investors and auctioneers, traders and speculators would gather under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street, back in the days when trees were given street addresses. They were there to buy and sell investments, since this was long before internet chat rooms had replaced buttonwood trees as the medium through which promising financial opportunities were promoted. By late that century, it was discovered--purely by chance--that financial transactions worked just as well without the assistance of the buttonwood tree, so the New York Stock and Exchange Board was moved inside, and the tree lost out on its once-lucrative commissions.
Things really took off in 1790, when a risky young company known as the United States government decided to issue some bonds to finance its Revolutionary War, the governmental equivalent of an initial public offering. The U.S. government was then an untested enterprise with little earnings and considerable competition. But Wall Street decided the U.S. was worth the risk. Perhaps it was a patriotic effort on the part of these investors to support the fragile nation and its ideas of freedom and liberty. Or perhaps it was because the Revolutionary War was already over by that point, and seeing as how the U.S. had won, it seemed a pretty safe bet. Whatever their reason, America turned out to be a smart investment, and in the years to come its profits were through the roof--although things were a bit touch-and-go for a time during the War of 1812, the first of the wars named to make life easier for history students.
Down through the centuries, the country's gains were Wall Street's gains. By the 1980s, the performance of one's investment portfolio had replaced the performance of the local sports team and the health status of one's wife and children as the first topic raised over a beer after work. Then martinis replaced beer. Then wine replaced martinis. And we're not talking about cheap wine. Americans were rich, and getting richer every day. Thanks to their investments, many Americans could make money even if they decided to stay home in bed, which most of them didn't, because all that money wasn't going to spend itself. Stock ownership allowed the average worker to reap the benefits of production. It was the American dream. Coincidentally, it was also the Soviet dream--or what the Soviets dreamt was their dream, anyway, as the real Soviet dream always had been finding enough potatoes to make it through the winter. In America, the dream was becoming real. Wall Street was making life better for Americans. And none more so than those who worked on it.
That Monday morning I waited with every single other person over the age of 22 in Washingtonville, New Jersey to catch the 7:04 to New York City. I'd spent Saturday, the third day of July, searching for an apartment. The search would have been simple, in that apartments are relatively common, except that I thought it best to focus my efforts on apartments that were both currently for rent and within my price range. My first paycheck wouldn't arrive for two weeks yet, but my credit card company had generously offered me a cash advance, an offer I now decided to take them up on, since it now seemed likely that I'd be able to repay them before anyone decided to do anything rash, like charge me an 18% fee or send someone around to discuss the possibility of breaking my thumbs. But fiscal considerations still saved me the trouble of looking anywhere in the borough of Manhattan. They also more-or-less eliminated Brooklyn, which was the new Manhattan, and Hoboken, New Jersey, which was the new Brooklyn, and Summit, New Jersey, which was the new Hoboken. Newark, New Jersey and the Bronx were out as well, since my contract with Johnston Brothers specified that I had to be alive in order to earn my salary.
My efforts with the apartment listings weren't looking any more productive than June's unpleasantness with the help wanteds, and I was seriously considering giving up on agate type entirely. But the housing issue needed to be resolved that weekend, unless I wanted to be a homeless investment banker--and that wasn't going to work, because there was no way that I could keep an eye on my shopping cart while putting in long days at the office. One possible housing solution did occur to me, but a few quick phone calls confirmed that none of the local observatories were in need of a live-in caretaker, even one with experience. Eventually I'd had no choice but to purchase a ticket on a New Jersey Transit train heading west. I'd hopped off every few stations to buy the local paper and check the rental rates in the classified section and the murder rates in the local news section, then hopped back on the train if one or both of these didn't conform with my budgetary and survival needs.
Eventually I reached Washingtonville, a north Jersey town with nothing in particular to recommend it aside from a train station a little over an hour from Manhattan, affordable rents, and survivable--if uncommonly dull--streets. In fairness, there was a good bar across from the station, and, as it happened, an apartment for rent above the bar. The apartment, the landlord said proudly, had a nice view of a train station and the pleasant aroma of a bar. That was good enough for me. The landlord asked for his first and last month's rent, plus security deposit. I asked him to let me slide on the last month's part for a little while, since I didn't wish to get in too deep with any unsavory credit-card loan sharks. Out of the goodness of his heart, or perhaps the goodness of my earnings prospects, he agreed.
I wasn't certain what my Johnston Brothers paychecks would look like after taxes, but as near as I could figure, this transaction left me with $100 to see me through the next two weeks. Together with the money in my pocket, that gave me a total of $104.54 to cover my daily transit to and from the city, plus whatever miscellaneous expenses happened to develop, including, but not limited to, any food I might require. Limited funds or no, my escape from homelessness--or apartmentlessness, at least--merited a celebratory dinner. The bar downstairs seemed a good choice, and the bouncer out front assured me the establishment was locally famous for the quality of its buffalo wings. It was such a great bar, in fact, that he further assured me that there was no chance I could get a table there, given that it was a Saturday night. There was, he added, only an outside chance he'd be willing to let me in on a weekday, since keeping people out really was the only perk of his job. I was disappointed, but the bouncer directed me next door to the town's only other bar, where the buffalo wings and beer weren't as good, but you could usually get a table. So I ate my celebratory dinner at the bar next to the bar below my apartment. The bouncer was right. The wings weren't very good. It seemed like a bad idea to blow any more of my limited funds in the second-best bar in Washingtonville, so after diner I'd gone upstairs to bed. Well, not actually bed. I couldn't yet afford a bed. I'd gone upstairs to floor.

One by one the activists filed in to the meeting hall, which to be precise was not so much a hall as it was the doctor's L.L. Bean family-size dome tent--a nice red one large enough that you could almost, but not quite, sit up comfortably. Everyone on Lesser Morrell Island could fit inside. Well, everyone if you didn't count the natives, and there really was no point in counting them, since they weren't invited to the meeting anyway. They would have been, mind you, except that none of them belonged to any of the activists' organizations. This, despite the fact that sign-up sheets had been posted in their village and remained up and unsigned for nearly a week, until one of the members of the anti-liter campaign had taken them down and recycled them.
There was a standard protocol for inter-association meetings of this sort: everyone would complain about their own causes and belittle the issues raised by the others until each participant was satisfied that he or she was the most committed to bettering the world. Then they would break for snacks.
Jeff started it off. "If these natives don't stop eating so much fruit, we're going to start to see a decline in the island's fruit bat population."
"My 'Save the monkeys' campaign isn't getting anywhere," Laura added. "I try to tell these people that they shouldn't eat monkeys. But they won't listen. And after all the monkeys have done for them. Like when the monkeys..." Laura trailed off.
"But what's most troubling is that they're bringing in more and more outside goods," said Brent. "It's not just food, either. They wear factory-made t-shirts instead of grass skirts and traditional woven-reed clothing. I saw one native in a 'Coors Light' T-shirt. He wouldn't take it off even when I explained to him that one of the people who owns the company that makes the beer that's advertised on the shirt supports political causes that I don't agree with."
"It's overpopulation, that's the real problem," said Sarah, seizing the opportunity to bring the meeting around to the reason she'd called it in the first place. "We're just fooling ourselves by ignoring it."
"I see it all the time in the hospital," admitted the Doctor. "The more people there are, the more people there are getting sick."
"And eating monkeys," said Laura.
"And littering," added Tommy.
"And voting Republican," said Sarah.
"But what can we do?" asked Dana. "We've explained to these people that there needs to be fewer of them, but they won't listen. Laura and I tried passing out condoms a few months back and they used them to carry water. When we explained what they were for, they thought we were coming on to them."
"We should shut down the hospital," Sarah said.
"We can't do that," Dana said. "The doctor might lose his funding."
"Well, we have to do something about this," said Jeff. "If things continue like they are, the whole world will be overpopulated by the time our grandchildren are born.
"If only they'd listened to me about the communism," said Sarah. "Then I could just tell them to have fewer children, and they'd have to listen."
There was a long pause, before Jeff worked up the nerve to say what needed to be said. "Well, if we can't stop them from reproducing, there's only one other solution to overpopulation."
The others stared at their Teva-shod feet. Only Sarah, who prided herself on being proactive, was willing to speak up. "I know this is a major step, people, but we've spent our lives making tough decisions and difficult sacrifices for the good of the world. And none of it will mean a thing if we're not willing to take that final step." Sarah turned to Jeff for support. "For the good of the people," she prompted.
"For the good of the people," Jeff agreed, then turned to Laura, seated on his left.
"For the good of the people," agreed Laura. And around the dome tent it went.
"For the good of the people," said the Doctor.
"For the good of the people," said Tommy, who would never consider going against a group.
"I really just want to build my dam…and maybe blow it up occasionally, when it becomes necessary," said Brent, who was hesitant to agree to any plan that might put his funding in jeopardy. "…but if it's for the good of the people, I suppose there's no choice."
All eyes were upon Dana. But Dana was wavering. There was something about this that just didn't seem right to her, even if all the right people were behind it.
"Dana?" Jeff encouraged.
"Dana, don't tell us you're one of them," Sarah said, not specifying who she meant by them, and not needing to. Them was anyone who didn't agree with her.
"For the good of the people," Dana mumbled, finally, a bit quietly for the taste of some present.
"Then it's unanimous," said Jeff. "For the good of the people, we must kill every last one of them."
Then the meeting broke for snacks.

Smith scanned his copy of the agenda before the Process and Procedure Council meeting. The Process and Procedure Council was the true power broker on campus, not withstanding the fact that it never actually did anything. The point was it could do things, all sorts of things, even if no one but Smith saw its potential. The incredible truth of the matter was that the Council could do almost anything it chose…or at least it could do almost anything it chose when one was considering matters of Bucklin campus process and procedure, but for a man like Smith who considered little else, this was virtually the same thing.
Smith had invested significant time and effort in lobbying for his seat on the Council the last time one had opened up. He'd mentioned his candidacy to any college regent who'd listen. He'd virtually begged Jergensen for his support. He'd even hired a PR firm. In the end he'd caught a lucky break when no one else had wanted the job. Landing this council seat had been Smith's proudest achievement, one only slightly diminished by the fact that Kerns had been given Jergensen's former seat on his first day as an administrator, simply because he was the new Dean. "Status report on the student housing shortage," Smith read off the agenda, "…discussions on updating the campus drug policy from 'don't, or you'll be expelled' to the more up-to-date 'please try not to, or you'll be asked to 'please try not to' again'…fraternity hazing guidelines…college statement against mistreatment of America's prisoners…Special General Budgetary Process Exemption implementation vote…and closing statement by the Dean." Perfect. Nothing but the sorts of routine procedural matters that left all ordinary minds in a deep fog. But Smith had an extraordinary mind. Sometimes Smith suspected his brain was wired specifically for administration, as Mozart's had been wired for music, or Warhol's for self-promotion. The Special General Budgetary Process Exemption implementation vote was his concern. He'd slipped it in as far down the list as he could. By the time they got to it, Smith and Smith alone would have his wits about him, the others having long since succumbed to the hypnotic haze of irrelevance and lapsed into a docile, zombie-like state of pliability. Just to be safe, Smith had seen to it that both pots of coffee contained decaf. Then he'd had the campus audio/visual club pipe in the sounds of ocean waves.
The meeting dragged. It's a common misconception that meetings drag because their topics are dry or their participants slow-witted. The truth is, many meetings drag because one or more of their participants is a master of the subtle art of meeting dragging. In wars, those with superior forces have the advantage. In debates, those with superior rhetorical skills have the advantage. In meetings, those with no pressing plans for later that day have the advantage. Smith was a meeting-dragger of the first order. He insisted that every topic be explained in full. He insisted that every option be explained in full. He insisted on using words like "mission-critical" and "measurable impactfullness" as if they were punctuation--or at very least as if they were words.
In only a few short hours, the Council meeting lurched towards Smith's budgetary topic. "Now just a small matter on the budget, Smith began…"
"Point of order," Kerns interjected, with a suddenness that roused one or two of the other board members from their mental slumbers. "I'm afraid the budget isn't on today's agenda."
"Certainly it is…look here, item number five, 'Special General Budgetary Process Exemption Implementation vote.'"
"Oh, Thomas, I'm afraid you have an out-of-date copy of the finalized agenda," Kerns said, shaking his head. "The formalized finalized agenda doesn't include that item."
"What formalized finalized agenda? There is only one finalized agenda. That's why they call it finalized."
"I'm afraid that's a matter for the Agenda Finalization Formalization Committee to decide."
"There's no such thing as an 'Agenda Finalization Formalization Committee,' either. You just made that up."
"Well, if you don't think they exist, maybe that's something you should take up with them. In the meantime, your budgetary matter isn't on the formalized finalized agenda, so there really isn't much we can do." Kerns slid his copy of the agenda over the Smith, and indeed number five was missing--number six hadn't become number five, mind you, five was just missing, a suspicious blank line in its place.
"I don't understand," said Smith. "What happened to number five? Did you do this?"
"I'd like to answer," said Kerns. "But that topic isn't on the agenda either."
"It’s not like it would be disastrous if we deviated from the agenda just this once," Smith said.
Now all the other administrators were fully awake.
"Are you feeling all right Thomas?" Kerns asked. "You don't sound like yourself."
Smith was most certainly not feeling all right. In fact, he had a feeling that something was very, very wrong. Two things actually. One, the agenda had been altered, and two, Kerns had just out-protocoled him in front of his fellow administrators. Worse yet, Smith had a hunch that these two problems were about to come together to form a third, previously unforeseen and unimaginatively painful, problem.
"Moving on to the final item on the formalized finalized agenda," Kerns continued with a hard gaze in Smith's direction, "my closing statement. I'll keep it brief. I just want to say how honored I am to be working with all of you here on the campus Process and Procedure Council."
Smith let out his breath. He could live with that.
"…And," Kerns continued, "I'd like to make a proposal. I believe the members of this council should be less tied to their offices. I suggest that each quarter, the college finance an informational excursion for one member of this august body to the destination of his choice to study procedural and administrative practices in that region."
One of the board members spoke up. "These 'informational excursions' you mentioned…will there be any specific requirements?"
"Only that you don't come home early."
"And exactly how would these 'informational excursions' differ from, say, a paid vacation to the location of our choice?"
"It would be nice if you could attend a meeting or two while you're there. But I don't think we need to be sticklers about that sort of thing."
"Can we bring our wives?" someone asked.
"Yes," Kerns said.
"Do we have to bring our wives?" someone else asked.
"No," Kerns said.
There was a rippling excitement in the room.
"Gentlemen," Smith said, his talent for spotting procedural quandaries sharper than most, "it's all very well to talk about three-month paid vacations, but as members of the Policy and Procedure Council we have a higher calling. If one of us is away every quarter, we'll never again have 100% turnout for a Council meeting. And without 100% attendance, our bylaws don't allow for votes on changes in budgetary practices…or for votes on changes in the bylaws that would allow for changes in the rules covering votes on changes in budgetary practices. You can see the fix we'd be in."
"But Thomas," one of the other board members said. "Three-month paid vacations. Three-month paid vacations."
"Budgetary practice modifications," countered Smith. "Budgetary process modifications."
But the battle was lost. Kerns' travel proposal passed by a 7-0 margin. Even Smith had voted for Kerns' plan, although he knew quite well it meant his Special General Budgetary Process Exemption would never see the light of day. It had been that, or be the only one in the room to vote nay when everyone else was voting yea. And, for Smith, such a thing was unthinkable.
The Special General Budgetary Process Exemption had been like a child to Smith. He'd created it. He'd built a coalition to support it. All that had remained was to see it off into the world of college bureaucracy, where it would have lived a happy and productive life, swallowing dollars and knocking the legs out from attempts at fiscal responsibilities in ways that only Smith would know how to prevent. Smith mourned the Special General Budgetary Process Exemption's demise. So few things in life are both Special and General. Dean Kerns had killed his child. There was no turning back now.

Chapter 16

2009-08-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

July 1

"Dear Bob," Dana wrote. "I'm sorry I haven't written sooner, but things have been a bit hectic. You might have heard that there's a war in Spanish Guyana. But don't worry." Dana stopped to considered her words. "Well, I'm not saying not to worry about the war," she added. "Obviously worry about that. I mean, it's a war. Everyone should worry about wars. There's just no need to worry about me, since I'm not there. I was detained briefly by the government then put on a plane back out.
"I think I was treated well during my detainment, but I can't know for sure, since I'm not certain whether the rebels are good guys or bad guys yet, on account of the fact that I've been a little out of touch here on Lesser Morrell Island.
"And I've got a surprise," Dana continued. "One Planet reassigned me to--guess where?--Lesser Morrell Island!"
Dana never had been very good at keeping surprises secret.
"It's a tiny island in the South Pacific where it's just me, the natives, palm trees, parrots, monkeys, lizards, beetles, an astounding number of fruit bats, and a few other activists.
"It isn't easy here. There's lots of work to do, and not much contact with the outside world. I miss you tremendously. Please write. Just send the letters to the One Planet office in New York, and they'll find me. Oh, and if you would, let my parents know where I am. I only have the one envelope. Miss you. Love, Dana."
Dana thought she should write more, but she was finding it difficult to construct a coherent sentence without drag-and-drop editing and the sage-like presence of the spell-check program. Anyway, time was short. William and George were boarding the ferry for Greater Morrell Island any minute, and it's not like there would be a mailman around if her letter didn't go with them. Here on Lesser Morrell Island, virtually all messages were exchanged verbally. Those considered too important for word of mouth were not written down and mailed but rather, in keeping with local custom, conveyed through the Sacred Dance of Important Communication. As far as Dana was concerned, this was an example of folk wisdom at its very best. While a written message often contains news that the recipient might not wish to hear, everyone tends to interpret a dance to mean whatever they want them to mean. Everyone remains happy and bloodshed is avoided.
Things were very different on Greater Morrell Island. Greater Morrell Island had lost the art of the Sacred Dance of Important Communication. But they did have overnight money-grams. Life is a tradeoff. In fact, as a U.S. protectorate Greater Morrell Island had everything from welfare payments to American post offices. It was the only location serviced by the United States postal system to vote resoundingly for the "Fat Elvis" stamp.
Dana quickly sealed her letter, addressed it to the Bucklin College Observatory, and gave it to William along with $5, which she hoped was enough to cover postage from half a globe away. Since Greater Morrell Island was a U.S. protectorate, the true cost was much closer to thirty cents, but William figured Dana could spare the money.

"May I help you?" asked the woman with the telephone receiver attached to the side of her head.
"Yes, My name's Bob Gwafin…actually, make that Bob Gwafinn," I told the receptionist, then was sorry I'd lied. "I'm starting here today."
"Starting what here today?"
"Starting working here today. I was hired yesterday."
"No, that can't be."
"And why can't it be?"
"Because this is July and all of the trainees start in June. That's when we have the trainee training program to train the trainees," explained the woman, who then went back to answering her phone.
I stood in polite, uncomfortable silence until I had determined beyond significant doubt that the receptionist didn't intend to waste any more time on me, and that her phone didn't intend to stop ringing.
"I don't mean to argue," I said, since that's how polite people prefaced their arguments. "But I was in fact hired yesterday."
"Hired to do what?"
"No one up to this juncture has thought it necessary to clarify that point."
"I don't believe you."
"I have a contract," I said, producing my copy of the contract I'd signed yesterday. The receptionist took a call.
"You have a contract to work here, but you don't know what you're supposed to be doing."
"I was told to ask someone at reception and let them figure it out."
"I see. Well, get me a cup of coffee."
I got the woman a cup of coffee from the pot in the reception area. "Good," she said when I returned. "Now go pick up my laundry." She handed me a ticket.
"I don't think Johnston Brother hired me to do your errands."
"But you can't say for certain that they didn't."
"No," I admitted. "But I think I'm probably above you in the hierarchy."
"Does it say that in your contract?"
"Not that I know of, but…"
"Then get my laundry."
"Listen, I'm bound to be above you. They're paying me more than you."
"You can't know that. You don't know how much I'm making. Now are you going to get my laundry or not?"
"Listen, maybe you ought to contact Mr. Gwafinn to straighten this out."
"Who?"
"Mr. Gwafinn, the new CEO. He's the one who hired me yesterday."
"You're telling me that the new CEO bypassed our entire hiring process in order to retain you for no particular job?"
"That's right."
"And now you expect me to call Mr. Gwafinn, and tell him that a Mr…"
"My name also is Mr. Gwafinn," I lied, but only slightly.
This time the connection registered.
"Please follow me," the receptionist said, hanging up on her latest caller.
"Gwafinn? Did you say your name was Gwafinn?" Human resources director Theodore Johnston was clearly concerned.
"I said my name was Gwafin," I corrected, since I'd resolved to be as honest as possible.
"And you were hired by Mr. Gwafinn, the CEO?"
"That's right."
"The name--that's just a coincidence, I suppose?"
"Oh, no," I answered. "It's no coincidence. My name's definitely why I was hired."
Johnston glanced at my contract--I'd left its unusual adoption addendum at home. "Aren't you missing one of the 'n's in Gwafinn?"
"Efficiency," I explained.
"I see. And you don't know what position Mr. Gwafinn had in mind for you?"
"That didn't seem to a particular point of concern for him."
"Well," said Johnston at great length. "I'll have to discuss this with the special hirings panel."
"Special hirings panel?"
"The executive panel that handles staffing through atypical means?
"Atypical means?"
"Not through the standard interview process."
"And what should I do until this panel meets?"
"Wait right over there," he said, gesturing to the area just outside his office.
"Wait by that cubicle? For how long?"
"Oh, just a few minutes. The panel is convening at this very moment."
"That's fortunate."
"It's not a coincidence. I called the meeting while we were speaking."
"Um…How could you have called a meeting? I've only been here five minutes, and you never picked up the phone."
"We have a system in place to handle these sorts of emergencies," answered Johnston, again pressing the red panic button concealed under his desk. A worried looking man burst into the room.
"Ah, the first of the panel to arrive," said Theodore Johnston. "Bob, if you could just wait outside."
Six more men had hurried into the office by the time I'd settled in my cubicle. Normally, the sight of eight unhappy-looking people in expensive suits discussing my future would have been exactly the sort of thing to make me nervous. But I knew I didn't have to be nervous about these men. I knew this because they so clearly were nervous about me.

"But we can't just send him away," said Carlton Johnston. "Gwafinn's in charge now. And you can be damn sure this is his way of letting us know it."
"You don't suppose he's going to start firing Johnstons?" asked Cameron Johnston, possibly the dimmest of the Johnstons, probably the laziest, and certainly the most distant relation, the last of which also made him the most vulnerable. "I mean, the board wouldn't stand for it. You wouldn't--would you, Dad?"
"Relax, Cameron," responded Jonathan Johnston. "And stop calling me Dad at business meetings. You know very well that you were adopted. Anyway, if he thought he could get away with firing us, he'd have done it already. The little prick's just hiring his own son as a show of power."
"Speaking of which, since when does he have a son?" asked Theodore. "I didn't even know he'd been married except that once for tax purposes. Maybe this little bastard's a bastard. We should look into it. It could be a real black eye for Gwafinn."
"I doubt he'd have hired him if he was," said Theodore. "More likely he's kept his son in hiding to prevent our finding him."
"How very Old Testament," commented Charles Johnston, not without a touch of admiration.
"Yes, I see it now," said Jonathan. "Gwafinn always was a suspicious son of a bitch. It would be just like him to have a son raised in secrecy to spring on us at just the right moment."
"This is all well and good," said Theodore. "But what do we do with this kid?"
"Well, what skills does he have?" asked Cameron.
"He just graduated from a very expensive liberal arts college," said Theodore.
"I see, then. None."
"Should we just bury him in the research department where we can ignore his reports and let him stagnate?" asked Theodore.
"He'd probably do the least harm in research," said Jonathan. "That is why we bury most of the sons of partners there."
The comment drew some angry looks.
"Of course that's not to say that's the only reason sons of partners are sent to research," Jonathan added quickly. "Anyway, research is getting a bit over-staffed. Perhaps it's better to stick him in sales. Harder to hide an imbecile in sales. Could be a real blot on Gwafinn's record if his son's a failure."
"And if he succeeds?" asked Cameron.
"Then we'll let our competition hire him away from us. I have a friend in the personnel department over at Mornall & Swain who owes me a favor."
"And if he won't go?"
Jonathan Johnston thought that one over for a moment. "Well, then maybe we could adopt him. Being a Johnston could be a real boost for his career here on Wall Street. If the kid's got the brains to make a good show of it here, then I'm sure he'll have enough savvy to want to be one of us. We'll put together an attractive package for him. Everyone's willing to switch teams if the price is right."

A few minutes later I watched six members of the Special Hirings Panel file back out of the office. They looked less worried than when they first arrived, I thought, but none of the glances in my direction could have been referred to as "friendly" with any degree of accuracy. Theodore Johnston and a man I later identified as Jonathan Johnston called me back into the office. Jonathan managed to bend his lips into a smile of sorts. Theodore made no effort to conceal his hostility.
"We've talked it over, and we're happy to say we'll be able to offer you a position here at Johnston Brothers," said Jonathan.
"Thank you," I said. "But to be precise Mr. Gwafinn already offered me a position. All that's left to be decided is exactly what that position will be." Under different circumstances I might not have looked for an argument with my new boss, but I was fairly certain that as a Gwafin, if not a Gwafinn, cow-towing to Johnstons wasn't part of my job description, whatever that job description might turn out to be.
"Even so, final say on personnel decisions including hiring and placement within the firm is the purview of the personnel department," countered Jonathan, who didn't take shit from anyone unless there was serious money to be made by doing so.
"We also control the payroll department, so don't get too cocky if you want your paycheck to arrive on time," Theodore added. "I could garnish your wages back to the stone ages."
"There's no need for threats, Thomas," Jonathan said, readying his next threat. "I'm certain Mr. Gwafinn realizes that as such an unconventional hire, there will be many people watching him. But even with this pressure, I'm confident that he'll do just fine. If that wasn't the case, the elder Mr. Gwafinn would have to have been a fool to have hired him…Oh, yes, and Bob, we've decided the best position for you here at Johnston Brothers is with our sales staff. Best of luck."
This wasn't what I had expected. It was my understanding that the general breakdown of positions available at an investment bank was corporate finance, for people who understood mergers and acquisitions; sales, for people who knew how to talk people out of their money; and research, for people like me who knew how to get a job on Wall Street but nothing much else of tremendous use.
In research, one was expected to visit a company, stare at its balance sheets whilst making knowing clicking sounds with one's tongue, then give the stock whatever rating everyone else on Wall Street was giving it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this was a Buy or a Strong Buy. You could, in theory, give the stock a negative rating, such as Hold. But if you did this, the company's CEO might not speak to you on your next visit, and then how could you be expected to make an accurate rating of the stock?
The sales department was a very different matter. Over an early lunch--my first business lunch if one discounted the cookies I had wolfed down to stave off unconsciousness after selling my plasma--I expressed my concerns to my contractually stipulated father. Gwafinn was anxious for us to be seen eating lunch together, to reinforce that fact that I was his son. I'm not at all certain that he was anywhere near as anxious to actually engage in conversations with me. "Truth is, Mr. Gwafinn, all I know about sales is that things sell better when they're stacked in pyramids near the front of a supermarket."
"So? That's more than I knew when I started out. Try to work with that pyramid thing. Just don't use the word pyramid. People will think it's a pyramid scheme, and we don't need that kind of publicity."
"But I don't even understand the stocks I'm selling," I said. "My economics professors didn't mention stocks very much. They were mostly interested in selling widgets. Every class for four years we talked about widgets. Well, except for Professor Vallen. He was more concerned with making excuses for why Communism hasn't worked as well as he'd figured just yet. But other than that, it was quite widget-oriented."
"Bob, you're getting yourself worked up about nothing. Sales isn't about what you're selling. It's about selling yourself. Just make the customers like you."
"Selling myself? You make it sound like you're hiring prostitutes."
Gwafinn paused. "No…no, that's probably an SEC violation of some sort…and I expect they'd want to be paid up front. Still, would make for interesting office Christmas parties. I like the way you think, Bob."
I took a bite of my egg salad sandwich and wondered if I should mention that I had been kidding. Gwafinn took a bite of his own egg salad sandwich and thought, I suspect, about prostitutes.
"But what if I'm trying to sell someone a stock and they ask me a question about it?" I persisted. "What should I do? And don't I need a license of some sort to sell securities?"
"Whoops, it's 11:30. I've got a conference call I can't miss. Good luck."

"I saw a fruit bat on my way up here," Tommy Binder said. "Did you count that one yet?"
"I counted him yesterday," Dana said, in what she strongly suspected would be a futile effort to shut Tommy up. "Shouldn't you be running the literacy program?" There were still quite a few lizards left to be counted, and Dana didn't feel like wasting yet another afternoon not hurting Tommy's feelings while trying to get him to fuck off, something people as nice as Dana never can bring themselves to come right out and say.
"Yea, I should be," Tommy admitted. "But Sarah is on another one of her maximum-political-activism jags, and listening to all that rhetoric gives me the hiccups. Sometimes I think Sarah might have some sort of a problem, the way she acts. Like maybe a chemical dependency."
"Not unless peroxide counts," Dana mumbled.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing, just counting lizards," Dana said, appalled at herself for even thinking something so mean. "The heat must be getting to me," she thought. "The heat, and the fact at I'm surrounded by a bunch of chattering idiots day and night…There it is again. That was a very mean thought. What's happening to me?"
"I figured it would be nice and peaceful if I came up here on the mountainside and helped you count fruit bats," Tommy said.
"It was nice and peaceful until you got here," Dana thought. But out loud she said "I already got all the fruit bats."
"Okay, the lizards then. Did you look under this rock?" Tommy asked, turning over a rock. "No lizards. But there's a pretty big spider. Do spiders count? OH GOD, IT'S ON MY LEG, IT'S ON MY LEG. HELP! HELP! DANA, HELP ME."
Dana brushed the spider off Tommy's leg. "Maybe you'd better go see the doctor about that spider bite," she advised.
"It didn't bite me," Tommy said.
"Well, not yet, no--BUT LOOK OUT, IT'S COMING BACK." Dana pointed towards Tommy's other leg.
That did the trick. Dana listened as Tommy's screams grew more distant, and finally were replaced by the sound of a medium-sized man tumbling down a relatively steep, gravely incline. She wouldn't be bothered by Tommy anymore that afternoon.
"I just did something very mean," Dana said to a lizard. "That isn't me. It isn't me at all. I'm never mean. Maybe I should see the doctor. Except that Tommy will be there having his imaginary spider bite examined. And the Doctor's a nut case…There it is again," Dana caught herself. "Calling the doctor a nut case was extremely mean. I'm supposed to show compassion for the insane, and at least a modicum of tolerance for the slightly off kilter. Oh God, this is really becoming a problem. I don't want to be mean. I hate mean people."
The lizard didn't know how to help, so Dana counted it and continued with her work. "But on the bright side," she allowed. "I did get rid of Tommy."

By 11:45, I'd found my way to the sales department on the 35th floor.
"May I help you?" the sales department receptionist asked.
"Yea, My name's Bob Gwafin. I'm starting here today."
"Starting what?"
"Starting working."
"Are you transferring from another office? I wasn't told anything about this."
"No, I was just hired."
"From another firm?"
"No, out of school.
"That isn't possible."
"No, it's possible. It just isn't very rational. Listen, I just went through this routine with the main desk receptionist two hours ago. Maybe we could skip ahead to the part where you dump the problem on someone else."
The receptionist thought that idea was just fine, and dumped me on the head of equity sales, Gerald Callesse. I was pleased to see he wasn't a Johnston. That is, unless he had married into the family. Or had descended from a maternal line. They might all be Johnstons, I realized and fought back one of those Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-I'm-the-only-one-here-who-isn't-a-pod-person moments.
"And you are?" Callesse asked.
"My name's Bob Gwafin. I'm starting here today."
"Starting what?"
"Starting working."
"Are you transferring from another office? I wasn't told anything about this."
"No, I was just hired."
"From another firm?"
"No, out of school.
"That isn't possible," I said in concert with Callesse.
"Listen, I know it isn't possible," I explained. "But somehow that hasn't prevented it from happening. I was hired by the new CEO Mr. Gwafinn just yesterday. Here, I have a signed contract."
Callesse glared at his receptionist. She clearly wasn't at fault, but he couldn't very well glare at the new CEO. "Goddamn receptionist," he grumbled for good measure. "But have you been through our training program?"
"No."
"Do you have any experience in this field? Are you some sort of prodigy or something? Is there any reason at all you've been hired? Do you have any idea how odd it is for you to be hired while everyone else on Wall Street is worried about layoffs?"
"No, no, my last name is Gwafin, and yes."
"You say your name was 'Gwafinn'?"
"That's right, more or less, in answer to question three."
"I see," said Callesse, counting back through his questions to make sure there had been no mistake. "So I take it you're..." but he trailed off in mid sentence. He had meant to confirm that his new employee was related to the new CEO, but since the answer to that question seemed obvious, and since saying he was a relation of the CEO would give the young Gwafinn a psychological advantage in their future dealings, the wise course was to leave the whole matter alone. "Sorry about the confusion," Callesse said instead. "It's just that most new hires of this sort are assigned to Research. I'm not even sure we have an open desk. I'll put Jennifer in charge of figuring this out."
Callesse glanced down at my contract. "Doesn't 'Gwafinn' have a second 'n'?" he asked.
"It skips a generation," I explained, and took back the contract before he noticed that there was an addendum missing.
Fortunately, Jennifer, as the sales department receptionist was known to those who had bothered to ask her name, was a smart woman who had worked on Wall Street for years. While other receptionists had lost their jobs in the recent recession, Jennifer knew the first rule of success in a cut-throat business: When faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, just pass it along to someone even less powerful than yourself. On paper, no one in the Johnston Brothers' offices had less power than Jennifer--at least until the cleaning crews came around at midnight--but in practice power is a fluid thing. At any given moment, there was always one person in the office with less power than the receptionist. That individual was, of course, the worst performing salesman. Like the bottom-dog in a wolf pack, the worst salesman on the floor takes abuse from anyone and everyone, regardless of job title or pay scale.
Jennifer walked me to a desk.
"You can sit here for now. It's Bill Lahey's desk, but Bill can share a desk with someone else. Or work standing up. Or quit. He's out this morning anyway."
"Uh, maybe I should be the one to share a desk--I am new here."
"No, no," said Jennifer, who was not about to fall for that one. "Bill hasn't been pulling his weight around here anyway. So screw him." If it came down to a power play between Jennifer the generally effective receptionist and Bill the non-selling salesman, Bill would find few allies. A receptionist might have little clout, but Lahey carried the stigma of failure. "Here, you can take Bill's computer, too. And his lunch. Poor bastard's been bringing a brown-bag lunch. I guess he saw the writing on the wall and started trying to save money. Here--he keeps the lunch in his second drawer. Come to think of it, I'm going to see about having Lahey fired. That would be the best move from a desk-management perspective."
Taking Bill Lahey's job, desk, and lunch did make me a bit uncomfortable, but when you think about it everyone takes a job that someone else might have had. It's just that most people don't have to look at a framed 8"x10" desk-top picture of the other man's wife while it happens. Nice looking woman, I thought as I listened to Jennifer explain how to use Bill Lahey's phone system. I wondered if Lahey's wife would swap him for me as easily as his employer had. I looked deep into the desktop photo's eyes and decided that, yes, she probably would. But I'd worry about that later. For now, I munched on an apple from Lahey's lunch bag and listened to Jennifer explain how to make a conference call.
Once Jennifer left, I was on my own. For the first time in my life I was a professional in a respected position in society. This felt very good. What felt less good was the realization that once I'd finished Lahey's apple, I hadn't a clue what to do next. So I ate slower. But this didn't strike me as a long-term solution to the problem.
A lack of confidence was something I had rarely been accused of during the first 21 ¾ of my years upon this planet. My recent bout of unemployment had, however, shaved a few points off my ego. I adjusted Bill Lahey's desk chair and I wondered how long it would be until Jennifer would be giving this desk away again. The old me would never have given failure a moment's thought. The new me figured it was at least worth considering, and very possibly worth obsessing over. All in all, I would have felt much better if a single person had bothered to tell me what I was supposed to be doing. That is, aside from Jennifer, who had done a quite credible job explaining the phones.
I was faced with my first big business decision: Should I admit I didn't know what the hell to do and look like an ass now, or try to bluff my way through it and risk looking like an even bigger ass later? Callesse didn't seem like the sort of boss who saw it as his job to provide guidance, exactly. More the sort to offer motivational threats and constructive insults. He hadn't stopped yelling into his phone since our brief meeting had ended, and the odds were astronomically low that whoever was at the other end of that phone line was any more incompetent than I. Callesse's face had turned red, and his veins were bulging. If I asked him to tell me how to do my job, the very best I could hope for would be that his head might burst before he had a chance to lunge at my throat. The smart play, I decided, was to hide my incompetence from such a boss for as long as possible. Ideally until I was ready for retirement. But looking around the room, I didn't see anyone else to ask. I'd just have to keep my head low and buy time until I could figure things out on my own.
For a firm with a century-old reputation as a money factory, the salesroom was not what you'd call showy. Just row after row of metal desks, computer screens, ringing phones, and humming florescent lights. The only sunlight arrived filtered through the executive offices that formed a perimeter around the floor. My fellow salesmen--a couple hundred I'd estimate, virtually all male, virtually all white, and virtually all well groomed--at least when the market was rising--sat hunched over their desks yelling into phones and pounding on computer keyboards. Every man wore a white oxford shirt and fashionable tie, every chair had a suit jacket slung over its back. If not for the quality of the ties it might have been a telemarketing outfit in Omaha. Nebraskans just can't seem to get a handle on men's fashions.
Well, I thought, the first step in not appearing to be an idiot is not appearing at all. I took off my suit jacket, slung it over the back of my chair, and picked up my phone's receiver. Despite Jennifer's lesson, the telephone would be my first challenge. First two challenges, really, since I had no idea of, first, whom to call and, second, what to say if against all odds I should manage to reach them. At a loss, I said in my most professional voice "Get me Peterson." Silence, I figured, makes one stand out in a sea of commotion. I could talk even if no one was listening. I'd make my pitch to the dial tone.
Within an hour I'd made some small progress. I'd spent the time eavesdropping on my colleague one desk to my right, jotting down key phrases that seemed likely to come in handy later. It didn't seem so very complicated. One stock was "showing tremendous momentum," he'd say. Another a "steady income producer," and all were "highly recommended by our top-ranked research department." He was not new-car-salesman aggressive, nor even new-appliance-salesman pushy. Instead he relied on the weight of the Johnston Brothers name, pointed out that down markets were when suckers sold and savvy operators bought, and avoided outrageous guarantees about future stock performance. I could do all of those things. Of course I had no way to know if I had selected a capable role model, but this man did have exactly that trait that's most necessary in a guru: he was the first person I'd come across in a moment of desperation who seemed to have any answers. Under different circumstances, I might have joined this man's cult, moved to Idaho, and stockpiled weapons for humanity's inevitable showdown with the giant space-zombies foretold by his teachings.

You never know what it is you're going to miss the first time you spend a year on a small, inaccessible island. For some it's easy access to one's close friends and relatives. For others it’s the past three centuries of technological progress. For Sarah it had been righteous indignation. Everyone on Lesser Morrell Island was either a native or a fellow activist. This was all well and good in principle, but in practice it seriously curtailed Sarah's opportunities for luscious umbrage. Until she landed on Lesser Morrell Island, Sarah had never gone a month without finding at least one opportunity to call someone a bourgeois pig, a time-tested, if old-school, insult that she felt had unfairly fallen out of use since the 1960s. Sarah even bragged to fellow activists that 'bourgeois pig' had been her first words. In point of fact, Sarah's first words had been "Mama" and "Dada," but that was merely because her bourgeois-pig parents had brainwashed her into saying it, which should hardly count against her.
Here on the island, opportunities to accuse others of bourgeois pig-dom were painfully few. Only rarely did Sarah even get to call anyone a "tool of the establishment." And whole days had passed without a single opening to tell someone that he was "part of the problem." In desperation, Sarah had taken to writing self-righteous and accusatory notes concerning shore erosion and lawn-fertilizer spill-off to beach-front property owners. These she sealed in empty bottles that she tossed into the ocean. Sarah did this only late at night, to avoid becoming saddled with a reputation as someone who threw empty bottles into the ocean. Her fellow island activists did eventually learn Sarah's dark secret, since she had not considered the advantages of waiting for an out-going tide. But the others were tolerant. For starters, tolerance was easier than coming up with another way to recycle glass bottles on a remote Pacific island. But there was more to it than that. They knew Sarah; they saw her predicament. Sarah's passion for accusing others of crimes against the planet simply needed an outlet. The others even understood that this passion would be directed against them from time to time, if only because Sarah periodically ran short of empty bottles. The other activists understood all of this. They just didn't like it.
"I don't understand how you can justify working in that place," Sarah said, apropos of nothing. Sarah often didn't see how things could be justified. To Sarah, the fact that she didn't see how something could be justified was precisely the same as saying it was unjustifiable, and she tended to lash out if the behavior wasn't halted immediately.
"That place?" Dana asked. "Do you mean the hospital? What's wrong with the hospital?" Dana helped out around the hospital when she could find the time.
"What's wrong with it? It's the number one threat to the environment of this region." Sarah, it seemed, had found something on the island to be against.
"You said the number one threat was our dam. That's why we blew it up, remember. Then you said it was excessive fishing, so we handed out those environmental brochures. Then you said it was that no one could read our environmental brochures, so we joined the literacy campaign. Then you said it was the loss of cultural heritage, so we told the natives to forget the English they'd learned. Then you said it was littering, so we had Tommy take back the environmental brochures before anyone could litter with them."
"Don't you see, all this time we've just been addressing the symptoms. The greatest threat to the planet's environment is overpopulation. Any serious environmentalist knows that. And the greatest cause of overpopulation in this region is the hospital. Hospitals make death rates go down and birth rates go up. Where do you think that's going to lead?"
"But the hospital is there to help people," Dana protested. "I like helping people. Helping is good."
"But are you really helping people, or are you just taking the short-term solution?"
There was no response to this charge. The "short-term solution" accusation was the "did-too-plus-infinity" trump card of environmental activism.
"Well, what would you have us do?" Dana asked. "It's not like our hospital is increasing lifespans much. Just the other day I accidentally handed out the wrong medication, if it's any help."
"That's not enough."
"What do you propose?"
"We have to take action."
"And by take action you mean…"
"We have to call a meeting."

I'd given up on my first prospective client, the dial tone, when it had voiced its hesitance to invest in the volatile stock market by making loud beeping sounds in my ear and warning me to hang up or dial a number. I'd taken its advice and dialed a number. The best one I could think of at the time was the number for Time of Day. Time of Day seemed slightly impatient with my sales pitch as well, in as much as it kept reminding me of the time. But it never actually cut me off, which I took as a positive sign. I continued to press the recording to do some planning for its future until I saw my neighbor and unintentional guru hang up, lean back in his chair, and rake his fingers through his expensive haircut. The haircut immediately sprang back into place. Clearly I had chosen my guru wisely. Sensing an opening, I told Time of Day that I would call back tomorrow when he'd had a chance to think over what we'd discussed, and hung up. Time of Day remained noncommittal.
"Andy Keller" my neighbor said, extending a hand.
"Bob Gwafin"
"What's your department?" Keller asked.
"Sales."
"That much I'd surmised, since this is the sales floor. The question I had hoped to have answered is what, exactly, are you selling?"
"That's where it starts to get a little fuzzy."
"How fuzzy?"
"Irish Wolf Hound."
"I see. They didn't assign you a department?"
"No, they just assigned me this desk, this phone, and this bag lunch."
"Hmm," said Keller, leaning back in his chair. "Most salesmen get assigned to a department. 'Course most salesmen also go through the training program, and only a few steal other salesmen's bag lunches. Tell you what, I'm kinda busy here, but I'll give you a quick piece of advice in exchange for half of Lahey's chicken salad sandwich."
"Sure…but I think he brought tuna salad today."
"Tuna salad? Disgusting. No deal."
Keller reached for his phone.
"Wait," I stopped him. "I'll give you the whole sandwich--and his soda. But I really could use that advice."
"Deal," said Keller, who preferred tuna anyway, but knew a strong negotiating position when he saw one. "Here's my advice: Sell equities. That's where the money is here at Johnston Brothers. Anyway, most of us on this side of the room are selling equities. That's what Lahey was trying to sell, and you are taking his desk."
"Yea, I'm sorry about doing that to Lahey."
"Fuck Lahey. He had his chance and he fucked it up. Now he's gone."
I handed over the bag lunch. "So what equities should I sell?"
"Whatever equities you think you can get people to buy."
"What people?"
"Any people you think will buy them."
"Yea, but which people are those?"
"People with money. Pension fund managers, insurance companies, lottery winners, NFL running backs, widows, coin-operated Laundromat chain owners, you name it. We're not picky here at Johnston Brothers. Just make sure they're ready to fork over at least six figures, or it's not worth your time."
"Come'on man. I need a hint here. Who do I call."
"I'd like to help you, my friend, really I would. But if I've got a lead, I'm not handing it to you, certainly not in this market…and come to think of it, not really in any other market, either. You're going to have to find your own clients. As far as I know, Lahey only found one in three months. Now they've given his desk to some asshole who steals other people's lunches. It's a tough world. And as near as I can tell, you've already wasted the first hour of your professional career without selling anything. At this rate you'll be unemployed in a month."
With that Keller picked up his phone and started yelling at whomever was unfortunate enough to be at the other end. I stared at my phone and tried to calculate what my odds were of finding a client with "six figures minimum" by dialing numbers at random. I could start by eliminating any area codes in Arkansas or Mississippi, I thought, which would improve the odds a bit. That's when I noticed a scrap of paper on my desk, one that hadn't been there before. Turning it over, I read: "Bob, You seem like a good guy. Some free advice: Don't play their game."
The note was not signed. I looked around, but didn't spot anyone looking in my direction. I studied Keller, but saw no hint that the message was his work. I shoved the paper in my pocket, put the receiver to my ear, and dialed up Time of Day. "Don't play their game?" I repeated to myself. Was there someone on the Johnston Brothers sales floor looking to instill morals in young salesmen? Or trying to confuse one? It could be a Johnston attempting to drive me insane.
"At the sound of the tone, the time will be 1:12" said Time of Day.
"Yea, give me Womack," I answered, then started in with the most impassioned sales pitch that that talky clock had ever heard, occasionally switching to nods and grunts of agreement to better eavesdrop on Keller's pitches to his likely-more-promising candidates.

It had been a different Dean Kerns in recent days, Smith noted. Or more accurately, it had been the same Kerns, only with a previously unimaginable degree of administrative savvy. And if anything, that was worse, since had it actually been a different Dean Kerns, Smith could have tracked down the original, incompetent, version and returned him to his station. The prospect of a savvy Kerns was going to require a more involved response on Smith's part, if he didn't want to end up playing second fiddle to the man for the next two decades. As it happened, Smith didn't want that very much at all.
In a meeting that morning, a student had proposed that the college quad be handed over to a commune of organic farmers who would raise crops to feed the oppressed peoples of the world. Kerns had agreed it was good for people to have food, then suggested the student come back with a full report explaining his program in the context of the economics of global crop prices. When the student tried to protest, Kerns chided him that the college didn't want to accidentally undercut world food prices, thereby threatening the livelihood of small farmers. Faced with this logic, the student could only drop his head, admit that he didn't want to threaten the livelihood of small farmers, agree to look into this economics thing, locate an economics book in the library, get bored before completing the first page, and go outside to play Frisbee on the quad instead. It was a total victory for Kerns, and not the only one Smith had witnessed of late.
As a test, Smith had himself proposed that the college finance the economic study in question…and Kerns had artfully handed off budgetary approval to a committee that Smith had never heard of. And Smith had heard of all the committees. Smith was on all the committees, or all those that would have him, anyway. "This was no coincidence," Smith thought. "Kerns has somehow gotten a hold of the idea that he's smart enough to do his job, and the man's too stupid to realize that he's wrong."
This was a problem. Smith only had accepted the Assistant Dean position at Bucklin because Dean Jergensen had been at death's door. Or on death's front walk with a nice bottle of Chardonnay under his arm, anyway. It had never occurred to him that Jergensen's job wouldn't simply be handed to the next man in the chain of command as a matter of course. It was like being Vice President, Smith had reasoned. If you could knock off the President, the big chair was yours. It was in the Constitution. Only too late did Smith re-read the 25th Amendment, and discover it did not specifically cover college-administration promotion policy. Remarkably, a check of the Bucklin College charter revealed no rules concerning succession of powers there, either. It was as if the college was expected to find a new dean without an explicit written policy covering exactly who that new dean would be. A decision to be made without an explicit written policy. Smith shuddered at the thought.
As for Kerns, the man was barely into his fifties, just a few years older than Smith himself. Kerns had a strong heart, no family history of cancer, and an aversion to risky situations so finely honed that it bordered on cowardice. Smith would never get his promotion through the time-honored tradition of waiting for one's superiors to die. "Still there's no need for panic," Smith remained himself. "Whatever Kerns might have learned in the past few weeks, he's still a novice in the cut-throat world of policy and administration. He can't compete. Not against me."
Smith had been an administrator all his life. Well, all his adult life, anyway. As a child he had merely played at being an administrator. When the other children in his neighborhood pretended that their cardboard box was a spaceship heading to Mars, Kerns had secured another box and pretended it was the NASA offices. He would insist that the other children complete the necessary forms for takeoff approval, Martian landing clearance, deep-space insurance coverage, and all the other paperwork that's de rigueur for such a massive undertaking. Most days his playmates would submit to only a few documents before the notoriously rigorous Martian quarantine protocols caused them to give up on space travel entirely, and change the game to one of beating young Smith with all the vigor children can muster after they've been filling out forms for a while and anyway were a bit tuckered out from a long voyage in a cardboard rocket. But Smith was okay with this new game as well, so long as the other kids filled out the necessary forms before the beating. It was one form per punch, with special dispensation needed for kicks. They rarely persisted for long.
This lifetime of training had given Smith real-world administrative skills that Kerns couldn't possibly match. It also had provided him with the ability to take a punch, which was a nice talent to have in reserve, should all else fail. Things were still a long way from the punch-taking phase, but Smith was becoming concerned.
He paced around his office, back and forth, back and forth, then for a change, around and around. Smith shuffled his feet when he walked, hands clenched behind his back, shoulders hunched. It was an odd gait, and that very oddity was a point of pride for Smith. When he had set out on his career in academia fourteen years prior, Smith had been the blandest, most inconspicuous of personalities. That was just fine at the time, since like most low-level administrators, Smith's goal had been to blend into the woodwork where he wouldn't be saddled with any important, and thus potentially career-damaging, assignments. But when Smith decided to strive for something more meaningful in life--something like a high-level administration position--that very anonymity became his bane. Smith worked for a college, a non-profit entity. In an atmosphere where financial success rarely was given much thought, the only way for an ambitious young administrator to stand out was, well, to stand out. So Smith had cultivated a handlebar mustache, only to find that his upper lip wasn't up to the job. He had developed a fake accent, but with so many professors speaking versions of English that were for all intents and purposes languages of their own, a minor speech flaw earned him little mention. Then he'd hit on the odd walk. Like so many great ideas in history, Smith had stuck on this solution purely by accident, noting the large number of people who inquired about a limp he had obtained quite honestly, by rolling over his own foot with an office chair. Smith promptly took a long weekend to produce and practice an even more noteworthy walk.
Over the following months, Smith had worked the components of the new stride into his standard locomotion, wary of a sudden change arousing suspicion. It had, to date, been the most important decision of his career. At his previous place of employment, Wilson University in Delaware, he had been known not as "you know, that administrator…no the other one," as he had in all prior places of employment, but as "Shuffling Smith," a name he quite liked. Within weeks, Smith was earning promotions and gaining serious consideration at the annual administration awards banquets.
"I can handle Kerns all right," Smith assured himself. "At this afternoon's administrative meeting, I'll just trot out the heavy artillery. I'll use the one weapon that wins any administrative pissing contest--the budget."

By 1:30 that afternoon I had the banter down and I knew which stocks Johnston Brothers was pushing. All I had to do was find a client. That was the one thing I couldn't learn surreptitiously from my guru. Sure, I could watch him dial. But it's not like I could then try the same number myself. How would I explain why I was calling right after my colleague? And why should I think I could make a sale where a more experienced salesman couldn't? Anyway, Keller made his most successful calls through his phone's pre-programmed speed-dial buttons. Must be the best of his existing clients. I took another look at my own phone. Twenty speed dial buttons, twenty names penciled in beside them. If Lahey was on his way out anyway…
The first read "Home." Probably not a client. The second read "Julia," no last name. Probably the wife's office number, I guessed. The photo on the desk wore a ring, so I knew Lahey was married, and "Home" figured to be his wife's home number as well. That seemed to leave 'wife's office' as the only reasonable conclusion. I considered calling Julia to let her know that I was taking over her husband's life and would be around to see her soon, but decided to let it ride--at least until I had discussed the matter with Lahey. Just seemed like the classy way to handle it. Speed-dials three through twenty were last names. I hung up on time of day without so much as a goodbye and reached for button #3--then stopped. Number three could very well be Lahey's best or longest-standing client. Better to perfect my patter before trying the big time. So I pushed #20, "Talbot."
Talbot answered after one ring. "At the sound of the tone," said Talbot, "the time will be 1:35." I was back on the phone with my first prospect. Lahey, it seemed, was a man so insecure about his position at Johnston Brothers that he had filled his speed dials up with fictional names so that anyone glancing at his desk wouldn't know he had fewer than 20 clients worth speed-dialing.
Working backwards, I found that buttons 4-20 all connected me with Time of Day, with the exception of #10, which put me in touch with a job placement firm, and #11, which rang up the Depression Hotline. It seemed that Lahey was not oblivious to his tenuous employment status. It also seemed that the rumors had been right. There was only one speed-dial left untried; thus in three months on the job, Lahey had accumulated a grand total of one client--if indeed he had accumulated any at all. Perhaps Lahey had been spreading the rumor of a single client just to build up his reputation around the sales floor.
I hit #3, "Bahnsen."
"Hello?" a woman's voice answered.
"Yes, Mr. Bahnsen, please," I said, making a sexist but statistically valid assmption that a woman whose voice suggested that she was, charitably, in her fifties probably left the investments to her husband.
"May I tell him who's calling?"
"Yes, Ma'am, this is Bob Gwafin at Johnston Brothers."
"Oh, is this about Bill?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it is, yes," I said.
A moment later, Mr. Bahnsen was on.
"Hello?"
"Yes, Mr. Bahnsen, my name is Bob Gwafin. I'm just calling to let you know that I'll be taking over Bill Lahey's accounts here at Johnston Brothers."
"Taking over his accounts?" Bahnsen sounded concerned. "Is he okay?"
"If you mean his health, then yes, as far as I know--well, aside from a bit of depression," I surmised from button number 11. "But he'll be leaving Johnston Brothers soon, so we thought it was better to transfer his accounts now rather than later."
"But why is Bill leaving Johnston Brothers? He hasn't said a word about it--and he was so happy to land a position there."
"I'm sure he was going to let you know soon. It's common knowledge here on the sales floor that you're his favorite client." This was true enough.
"Well I ought to be his favorite client," said Bahnsen. "I am his father in law. And I think I better speak to Bill about this before I agree to let someone else take over my accounts. Perhaps he's leaving for a better opportunity at a different investment bank."
"I'm going to be honest with you here, Mr. Bahnsen. Bill isn't leaving Johnston Brothers for a better opportunity. He's leaving because he's too big of a man to keep hanging around the office of a company that's just fired him."
"Bill's been fired."
"Yes sir, or he will be soon anyway."
"For what reason?"
"I suppose there are always many reasons one can point to in a situation like this," I hedged.
"What reason primarily?"
"Primarily for the reason that he's a lousy salesman."
"'Lousy'? That's putting it rather harshly. Is there a chance you could tell me how many clients Bill has acquired aside from myself?"
"None."
"I really do think you should tell me."
"I just did, Mr. Bahnsen."
"Oh…I see."
"Listen, I'm really sorry. I'd hate to have to find out that my son in law was a loser."
"Well, there were signs," Bahnsen admitted, his previous bluster having left him. "He didn't do all that well in school…and he never showed any great ambition…and he tends to laugh at those lite beer ads on television. Still, I thought he might make a go of it when I pulled some strings and got him the job at Johnston Brothers."
"You've done all a father-in-law could," I offered. "But you have to think of your own interests now. For example, the funds you had invested through Johnston Brothers. We should discuss how you'd like those handled."
"To be honest, I only invested with Johnston Brothers because Bill was there. Now that he's not, I'll probably move my money elsewhere."
"Mr. Bahnsen, need I remind you of the potentially dire tax consequences of such a move?" I asked. It was a stab in the dark, but I thought a safe one. Whatever is done in this world, it's likely to have potentially dire tax consequences.
"No…but…"
"Let me ask you this," I interrupted. "Would you have entrusted your life savings to your son-in-law if he was the mop-and-bucket man at your neighborhood McDonald's?"
"No…"
"No, of course not. You're a reasonable person. You trusted Bill not because he was a member of the family, but because he was a member of the family who worked at Johnston Brothers. Now Bill is no longer with Johnston Brothers--or won't be shortly anyway. I am with Johnston Brothers. I'm the guy they brought in to clean up the mess Bill has made of things. The only sensible thing to do is let the better man handle the account."
"But we're not even related," Mr. Bahnsen protested, though not vehemently.
"So introduce me to your daughter." I was on a roll. Within a few minutes, I had my first client. I was rather pleased with myself, too, until Lahey returned to what he apparently still considered his desk a few minutes later. Obviously no one else had bothered to explain the situation to him. It really seemed like a job for the human resources department, but I took the initiative and gave him a rough sketch of what had happened since he'd left that morning. Lahey looked a bit pale when I told him about his job, and even paler when I threw in the details of a small misstep I'd made towards the end of my conversation with Bahnsen.
"You told my father-in-law about Julia?" Lahey stammered.
"Yes, but only because I assumed she was your wife. Of course I realize now that that was a mistake, but is it my fault you're cheating on your wife--and put your mistress on speed dial? For God's sake, Bill, you're juggling a wife and mistress as a first year Wall Street salesman? No wonder your work has suffered."
"Hey, you son of a bitch, I don't need to take that shit from a man who just took my job, stole my client, ruined my marriage, and ate my tuna salad sandwich all in less than two hours."
"Now wait just a minute," I countered. "I didn't eat your sandwich. I traded it."
"Traded it? For what?"
"It was a standard business deal," I answered, a bit defensively. "I don't think it would be very ethical for me to disclose the terms to a third party."
I did feel for Lahey, but the conversation was dragging on and, frankly, it was starting to make me a little uncomfortable. So when Keller looked up from his computer screen long enough to suggest to Lahey and me that he'd solve our problem if one of us would go get him another Coke, I readily accepted. "Fuck off, Bill," Keller told Lahey, then turned back to his computer. I would have to start thinking of these solutions on my own or I'd spend my whole life running back and forth to the soda machine, and Keller's caffeine intake would reach unhealthy levels.
To give credit where credit is due, Keller's solution did work, eventually. Lahey continued to stand behind my chair for a while, in some sort of trance as near as I could tell. It was a quiet trance, so I had no rational reason to complain. Still, I wasn't displeased when security arrived to escort him from the building. "Imagine cheating on this beautiful woman," I said to the picture on my desk, shaking my head once to emphasize my concern at the declining moral standards in our society.
But I couldn't afford to waste any more time worrying about the past. I was a Wall Street equities salesman, and I already had an idea where I could find my second client. Last I'd heard, there was a one-handed former grocery bagger in Bridgeton, Maine who had a sizable lawsuit settlement coming his way from an on-the-job accident. I might have cost Timmy an appendage, but I'd earned him a fortune. If you thought about it long enough, you might even conclude he owed me.
Well, I concluded he owed me, anyway. And you're too late to do anything about it.

Chapter 15

2009-08-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

June 30

As near as I could tell, I was the only traveler at the airport that day who had checked a garbage bag. To look at the positive side of things, this figured to make spotting my luggage on the baggage carousel in New York a significantly easier task. In retrospect, I probably should have scouted around for a cardboard box. Lots of people travel with cardboard boxes. As a rule, these boxes tend to contain some sort of consumer product originally shipped in a cardboard box and intended as a gift. A souvenir replica of the Statue of Liberty, for example, or a nice selection of cheeses from Wisconsin. No one but the X-ray machine operator and I would have known that my box contained my life's possessions. Something to consider for next time, I thought as I made sure my luggage's twist-tie was secure for the trip.
My confidence rose measurably once my garbage bag was checked. The airline rep voiced some concern that trash bags might not qualify as luggage under FAA guidelines, but I pointed out that he couldn't be certain that they didn't, and the man didn't call my bluff. Not after I'd threatened to find the most disgusting, refuse-filled trash bag in the airport and make him check that one, too, to take full advantage of my two-bag allotment if I received any more flack on the luggage front. With my garbage bag in the loving hands of trained airline baggage handlers, I became just another suit-wearing, USA-Today-reading business traveler waiting to board the morning flight to New York City. Sure, my suit wasn't of the highest quality, and yes, I'd found my copy of USA Today lying discarded on an airport seat, but why quibble over details? The point was I had the suit and the USA Today, the official garment and official reading material of those who had ventured at least five hundred miles from home in the pursuit of cash. Ergo, I was a business traveler. Ipso facto social acceptability. A guy in a tee shirt and jeans sat down in the row of seats just across from me in the terminal. I shot him a condescending look, to get in the spirit of the thing.
It had been two months since I'd paid attention to any world event that had occurred outside of my earshot, but I was pleased to note that I hadn't missed anything important. Or at least if I had missed anything, no one at USA Today had gotten wind of it either. The grand sweep of world events tends to be like an episode of Scooby-Doo; nine times out of ten you can tune in half way through and not need anyone to fill you in on what you missed. And that tenth time out of ten only seems different. It always turns out that the ghost pirates aren't real.
As I recall, that day's big news stories involved politics, weather, and sports. Actually, I don't recall. But had it been anything other than politics, weather, and sports, I figure it would have made more of an impression. Out of respect for my newly rekindled career path I flipped to the financial section, furrowed my brow and nodded knowingly, which, truth be told, was about all I knew how to do when viewing a financial section.

I'd hitchhiked from Bridgeton to the Portland airport, a distance of a little more than 30 miles. You don't see hitchhikers on the road too much anymore. Their numbers have dropped since so many of them either have been arrested for killing the people who picked them up, or killed themselves by the people who picked them up. One might expect this decline in hitchhiker quantity, coupled with the ever-increasing number of vehicles on the road, to create a supply-demand imbalance that would work in favor of any remaining hitchhikers. My economics training suggested that there should be four cars pulled over to the side of the road, all bidding for one hitchhiker's services. But in truth it isn't easy to hitch a ride these days, and those carrying garbage bags face longer odds than most. So I resorted to a trick I'd learned while hitchhiking to sell my plasma earlier that month: I wore my suit and carried a gas can. These props created for passing motorists the impression that I was a gainfully employed, vehicle-owning individual much like themselves who had, through the distractions of a busy and productive life, failed to keep careful track of his gasoline supply. Such a person inevitably would find a ride much sooner than would an unemployed loser carrying his worldly possessions in a Hefty bag.
There was just one downside to this plan: when someone did pick me up, they tended to pull over at the next gas station and become concerned when I failed to disembark. Fortunately, my second ride of the day, a carpool of middle-managers heading off to a busy day of middle-management nodded knowingly when I explained I was late for a flight. Middle managers understand being late for flights. They got me to the airport with time to spare. I let them keep my gas can.
The flight from Portland, Maine to New York City took only 55 minutes, not enough time for an airline meal. I was provided with a glass of juice, which isn't much to sustain a person through a crucial job interview. Fortunately, when I explained my problem to the stewardess she provided me with a small bag of sympathy peanuts.
Oddly, my garbage bag wasn't lost or accidentally discarded in transit. This was a minor disappointment, since I couldn't have helped but turn a profit had the airline been required to compensate me for lost possessions. I took the train downtown and checked my bag at a locker in the station to avoid the inevitable odd looks one gets upon arriving for a job interview with one's refuse.
The whole voyage had gone extremely well, much better than I'd had any right to expect. The airline tickets had been booked as promised, the office security guard didn't turn me away at the door. I'd spent the morning jumping from car to plane to commuter train, and I'd still made it on time. The first indication that something might be amiss didn't occur until I stepped into the interviewer's office.
It was the largest office that I'd ever seen. Had it contained a bed, it would have been the largest apartment I'd ever seen. Had it contained fish, it would have been the third-largest lake I'd ever seen. This was not human resources. No, to merit an office of this grandeur, you must have the ability to do something beyond the hiring others to do the things that you haven't the ability to do. You must either be able to produce an amazing amount of revenue…or be able to convince others that you produce an amazing amount of revenue. At very least you must be related to, or sleeping with, someone who produces an amazing amount of revenue. Any way you played it, there had to be an amazing amount of revenue in there somewhere.
"Nice office," I said, since anyone who would inhabit such an office clearly expected impressed comments from visitors. Such comments were, after all, the only return on the $150,000 they'd invested in oriental rugs.
"Thank you," said the relatively small bald man behind the extraordinarily large mahogany desk. "Had it been my decision, I wouldn't have asked for anything quite so spacious, of course, but my decorator assured me that a desk of this size would look silly in a smaller space."
"Yes, I see her point."
"His point, actually. Lawrence is the best straight male decorator on the East Coast. Actually, he might be the only straight male decorator on the East Coast…and as long as we're on the subject, it's possible he's just pretending to be straight."
"Oh?"
"Lawrence is under the impression that being a straight decorator will qualify him for decorating contracts under government minority set-asides."
"A straight decorator qualifies for government set asides?"
"If he has a close relationship with Senator Jack Carroll he does."
"And your decorator had a close relationship with Senator Carroll?"
"Lawrence is sleeping with him. But then you didn't come here to discuss the politics of office decoration."
The man was right of course, I hadn't traveled all that way to discuss any aspect of office decoration. But then, aside for the vague promise of employment, I wasn't quite sure why I had flown 400 miles that morning. And this was only the top item on the list of things I didn't know even though it really seemed that I should. Running a close second was the identity of the man seated across the beautifully stained hardwood floor to which drawers and legs had been added so that it might pass as a desk. The man hadn't mentioned his name when we spoke on the phone, and it wasn't going to help my chances of landing a job if I admitted I didn't know who he was at this stage. If I hadn't asked his assistant's name when she contacted me about the airline tickets, I might still be wandering around the Johnston Brothers' offices in search of the appropriate executive.
"So, down to business," the man said. "When can you start?"
"Start what?" I asked, taken by surprise.
"Start working. What else?"
"What? Really? Just like that? Don't you even want to ask me any questions?"
The man looked a bit disturbed. "I just asked you a question: 'When can you start?' Then I asked you another, 'What else?' That's two questions on my part with zero answers from you. I'm willing to live without a response to my 'What else?' question, but to be frank I had rather hoped for some feedback on the whole 'When can you start?' issue."
"I can start whenever you like."
"Good. Then start right away. Your presence here is extremely important."
"It is? What will I be doing?"
"Oh, that doesn't matter." The man's phone rang. "I've got to take this. Glad to have you on board. My assistant, Gloria, will take care of the details."
"Uh…thank you," I managed, but the man had already turned his attention to the call. I should have been thrilled, of course. But at the time I was too busy being confused.
I wandered stunned from the office. "I was told you'd take care of the details on my job," I told Gloria.
"What sort of details remain to be covered?" she asked.
"Well, I suppose what I'll be doing and how much I'll be paid for doing it."
"In other words, you accepted a job without bothering to ask what the job is or how much it pays."
"Correct."
"What did you two talk about in there?"
"Mostly interior decoration and politics."
"You complimented him on his office, didn't you?"
"It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
"So what were you told about this yet-to-be-determined position here."
"That it's very important and I need to start right away."
"But not what the job actually is."
"That seemed less of a priority."
"Did it occur to you wonder what was going on?"
"Certainly."
"But you didn't want to ask and risk screwing up a good thing."
"Sounds like you have a pretty good grasp of the situation."
"I believe I do."
"Great. Then could you explain it to me?" I asked.
"No," Gloria explained.
"Have you noticed that this whole job offer has been like something out of a Hitchcock movie?" I asked the assistant.
"Are you afraid of birds?"
"No."
"Heights?"
"No."
"Ever dressed as your mother and slashed hotel guests?"
"No, but…"
"Then I don't see the connection. And anyway, I wouldn't worry about the vertigo too much, since you won't get a window office."
"I meant it's like those Hitchcock movies when a man, usually Cary Grant, but occasionally Robert Donat, is pulled out of his normal routine and thrust into a huge conspiracy that usually results in numerous attempts on his life."
"And you're Cary Grant?"
"In this scenario, yes."
She studied my face. "No, Cary Grant was much more attractive than you," Gloria said finally.
"I think you're missing the larger point here. Is anyone ever going to explain to me why an unidentified man behind a preposterously large desk has just offered me a very important job doing nothing in particular?"
"I'm not supposed to say until you take the job."
"Is there a job?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll take it. Now you can tell me."
"You have to sign the contract first." Gloria produced a contract from a manila folder.
I signed and initialed everywhere she pointed. "Just out of curiosity--not because it’s a deal breaker or anything--did signing this contract just implicate me in a massive fraud cover-up or international murder-for-hire scheme?"
"Not that I know of," Gloria said.
"Well there goes my guess."
"I think it's a fairly standard one-year employment contract…only with a few added wrinkles, such as a very strict non-disclosure agreement--one that covers what I'm about to tell you. Do you understand?"
"I've understood absolutely nothing that's happened in the past three days, but don't let that stop you."
Gloria leaned in conspiratorially. I leaned in as well so she'd know I was a team player. "The man who just hired you is the CEO of Johnston Brothers"
"That was a Johnston?" I asked.
"No, his name is George Gwafinn."
"Gwafin? You mean…we're related?"
"Of course you're related. You're his son."
"No, my father lives in Kansas. He's a quality inspector at a barbed-wire factory."
"Do you want this job?" Gloria asked.
"No, I need this job. I want to believe I'm not going insane."
"Then the man in that office is your father, you're his son, and--most importantly--you love your father. It's all in the contract. Do you understand now?"
"How can anyone hope to understand love?"
"Don't go getting all philosophical on me. You're bound by contract to love your father."
"Contracts to ensure love. That might catch on."
"In or out?"
"Just a second here. You're asking me to disown my family, the people who raised me and took care of me relatively well for 18 years in exchange for a job. I think I need to give it a bit of thought."
"How much thought?"
"I'm done now. I'll do it."
"Good. And by the way, you're not legally disowning your family. This is just a corporate adoption."
"A corporate adoption?"
"It's not so uncommon as you might think."
"It isn't?"
"You have to consider Mr. Gwafinn's position. Johnstons ran Johnston Brothers for 92 years, starting with the firm's founding in 1901 and ending this past Friday, noonish. Now Mr. Gwafinn's in charge, but there are still 41 Johnstons on the payroll including three on the board, assuming none of the older ones keeled over this morning on their way to work. Those 41 Johnstons were not exactly thrilled when the non-Johnstons on the board voted to turn the company over to a fellow non-Johnston. I think it struck them as a bit nepotistic. Anyway, the upshot is that any one of these 41 Johnstons would be happy to stab Mr. Gwafinn in the back or, if he won't turn around, the front. Mr. Gwafinn is up against both history and superior numbers. By hiring his son, he's ensuring he has at least one ally in the company--and he's showing that he has enough power to hire whomever he wants. It was the perfect plan, except for one minor hitch."
"Mr. Gwafinn doesn't have any children." I deduced. "So you found someone with the same last name."
"Mr. Gwafinn didn't have any children," the assistant corrected. "Now he does. You. Truth is, Mr. Gwafinn has never even been married, except once years ago, for tax purposes."
"And I've got a new father and a new job."
"And a new "n" on the end of your last name," Gloria added. "Mr. Gwafinn uses a double n, so now you do, too."
"Does anyone know about this except us?"
"The extra n?"
"The contract."
"No one else."
"He must have tremendous faith in your discretion."
"Why wouldn't he? I'm his niece."
"Real niece or corporate-adoption niece?" I asked.
"Sorry, my contract says I can't answer that."
"I understand," I said, and suddenly felt quite squeamish about my earlier efforts to peak down the blouse of a woman who turned out to be my cousin.
Gloria didn't know exactly what my new job would be, and wasn't about to bother Gwafinn with such trivial matters. But the contract answered my other pressing question--I would receive the standard $65,000-plus-bonus offered to all Johnston Brothers' rookies. That was just fine with me, even though as the son of the CEO I might have expected a little more. Gloria suggested I report to Reception the following morning to let them decide what to do with me. In the meantime, she gave me $800 in petty cash and told me to get a couple of suits that wouldn't reflect poorly on my new father. Instead, I purchased just one suit that wouldn't reflect poorly on my new father, and used the rest of the cash to pay for a couple nights in a hotel of the sort that would have reflected poorly even on my old father, a man who has been known to sleep in the back of his pickup truck rather than spring for the Holiday Inn. I'd try to find an apartment that weekend.
That evening I called Tony the Italian Native American at his parents' house in New Jersey to explain that I'd handed off my post as Observatory watchman.
"Don't worry about it, Gwaf," Tony said when briefed on the situation. "I was lucky to have you and Dave there guarding the place I long as I did. I'm sure Curt will do fine."
"To be honest, you probably didn't even need a watchman. I'm not certain it was ever in any real risk."
"Dave was staying there?"
"Until he disappeared."
"Then it was at risk."
"I meant there wasn't any risk that the administration would try to take it back. Actually, the greater risk might be if they find Dave's bongs lying around the place."
"Oh, I doubt they'd give me any static over a few bongs. If it comes up I'll just say they're peace pipes or something."
"Plastic peace pipes covered in Grateful Dead logos? Will they go for that?"
"They went for a Native American from Bayonne."
"Good point. Any idea on what you're going to do with your astronomy building? It's considerably larger than the average dorm room."
"I'm thinking about turning it into a support center for Native American tribes whose casinos have gone under. I feel I should give something back to my people."
"That's a great idea, Tony, but you're Italian."
"They run casinos, we run casinos-- I'm sure we have more in common than we realize."
"Fair enough."
"Thanks for the call, Gwaf. And congratulations again on the job."
"Yea, thanks."
"You don't sound so enthusiastic. Isn't this your dream job?"
"It's a good job. But, yea, something is bothering me."
"You mean the ethical dilemma of accepting a job offer made because of implied nepotism after decrying the inequity of things like nepotism for so long?" I'd already explained the details to Tony, in clear violation of my contract.
"At first I thought it might be that," I said. "But now I'm pretty sure I'm okay with the implied nepotism."
"What then?"
"Well, for a while this afternoon I thought what was bothering me was that this whole thing wasn't bothering me. I've sort of taken this it in stride, and that doesn't exactly speak well of my character."
"Uh huh."
"But I've done some thinking, and I'm pretty sure that's not it either."
"No?"
"I think what's really bothering me is that I'm not at all bothered by the fact that I'm not bothered about not being bothered. I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. I figure it's got to be that, or the fact that I don't get my own office. I mean me, the son of the fucking CEO, without an office."
"Or the fact that you have to have your name changed to cash your paycheck."
"No one's going to notice a missing 'n'. If they do, I'll tell them it's a typo. And if it comes to it, having my name changed is no big deal, just a few forms really. I looked into it."
"You'd give up your family name, just like that? After your father pricked his fingers to the bone testing barbed wire every day at work to feed and clothe you?"
"I wouldn't be giving up the family name, I'd be increasing it by one 'n.' If anything, I'd be adding to the family name."
"You know, Bob, I think you'll do just fine on Wall Street."
"Gee, thanks Tony," I said. I choose to ignore both sarcasm and the backhanded nature of compliments when doing so is in my interest. "If you're looking for a job on Wall Street when you graduate, give me a call. I might be able to hook you up. Of course, you'd probably have to change your name so people think you're my brother."
"No problem. The college already is pressuring me to change my name to something more Native-American sounding for recruiting purposes. What do you think of Tony Hung-like-buffalo?"
"How 'bout something that honors your Jersey roots like Tony What-are-you-lookin-at?"
"I don't know. That might not be Native American enough."
"How would you know?"
"A fair point. Anyway, I might just let the college decide. I mean, what does a name matter anyway?"
"More than I ever realized."

Chapter 14

2009-08-02T15:54:00.001-07:00

Dana's days were busier than ever. In between her other vital commitments, she now had to find time for a scientific survey. Jeff Tabac had received word that the environmental group Planet First was in need of a part-time project manager on Lesser Morrell Island. The Planet First folks were engaged in the laudable mission of cataloging the world's fauna and, time permitting, its flora. Now and then, they'd use their data to prove that one species or another was headed towards extinction, or at very least lower turnout at its annual convention. But for the most part they just liked to keep an accurate count of animals. If they didn't, who would?
When Jeff begged off, Dana agreed to take the job--even though One Planet and Planet First didn't exactly get along, owing to their rather one-sided history in the inter-office environmental softball league. Dana had to do something with her time: she still hadn't received any instructions from One Planet.
Animal counting is not an easy job under the best of circumstances. For one thing, science is yet to devise a way to convince a colony of pygmy marmosets to stand in orderly rows for any extended period of time. And there's an unfortunate tendency among many wild animals to respond to surveys by goring their questioners. Dana caught a break on that score, since Lesser Morrell Island lacked any creatures large enough to seriously consider mauling an environmentalist, even if deep in their animal souls, that's what they'd have liked to do. But the island did have its share of animal-counting challenges, most of them related to fruit bats.
Fruit bats are tricky to count; don't believe anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. For starters, studies have found that all fruit bats tend to look pretty much the same, even to other fruit bats. And they seem to have an inherent aversion to the counting process. Perhaps the bats are concerned that any human attention will lead to their being cooked and eaten. Such a thing must be a worry to a fruit bat, whose only natural defense against predators is its unappetizing ugliness, and we all know how little that's helped the lobsters. Or maybe the bats fear the counting will start them down a slippery slope towards the sort of onerous income tax rates that your typical fruit bat would just as soon avoid.
Whatever their reasons, it's a well-known fact that whenever a fruit bat sees a human, it becomes all panicky and flustered and, as a species that doesn't handle pressure particularly well, winds up tangled in the human's hair. Certainly this was Dana's experience with the creature. Time and again, she would locate a cave just brimming with napping fruit bats and begin her count. She would get up to about 10, or perhaps 20 if the bats were particularly tired after a long night of terrorizing the local fruit population. But inevitably the fruit bats would wake up, spot Dana, then get all flustered and fly about shrieking and getting tangled in her hair, which is enough to distract even the best of fruit-bat counters.
Dana spent weeks counting and recounting the same swirling fruit bats until she figured she must have counted every one in a given cave at least two or three times just to be safe. Then she'd move on to the next cave.
In the end, under "fruit bats" in her report, she simply wrote "Plenty."
Fortunately, the job wasn't all fruit bats. There also were plenty of parrots, lizards, and of course those Uncommonly Clever Monkeys, who wouldn't have been so bad to count except that Dana had become certain that they were laughing at her each time she miscounted. There also were some migratory birds, and a truly astounding array of insects, but Dana wasn't sure that these fell under her purview.
All in all, the creatures that made Lesser Morrell Island their home didn't have it too bad. What with the cornucopia of bananas, mangoes, coconut, yams, breadfruit, hibiscus, and something called a betelnut that was more appetizing than it sounded, there was plenty of food that was pretty much willing to sit still and be eaten without a lot of running and catching. There wasn't much need for running in fear, either. If you were bigger than a beetle, no one was going to try to eat you, except maybe the natives, and there weren't too many of those. And even if you were unlucky enough to be smaller than a beetle, usually all you had to do was outwit a few lizards to stay alive.
Fruit bats aside, Dana liked the animal-counting assignment. It gave her an opportunity to explore the interior of the island, including the remains of a volcano that she very much hoped was extinct. It also gave her some time away from her fellow activists, whom she liked and respected--but only because Dana tended to like everyone, and she had to respect them, on account of their politics. Had Dana freed herself from these quirks of her personality, she no doubt would have been sick of the lot of them.

After months of disuse, my brain once again had a reason to wake up in the morning right along with the rest of me. Trouble was, I couldn't be entirely sure the damn thing was still up and running. When someone goes crazy, they always seem to be the last to know. Would I be able to tell if I'd gone stupid? Do people even go stupid? Was the fact that I couldn't remember if people 'went stupid' a sign that I had gone stupid? These were matters that concerned me very deeply at the time. I peppered myself with questions I was likely to hear on my interview to test my brain's response: Why do you want to work for us? Why should we hire you? What are you doing here? Who told you to come? But I honestly couldn't tell if I'd gone stupid.
For the purposes of analysis, I asked myself some baseball trivia questions that I knew I'd been able to answer just a few months before. I was pleased to note that I still remembered that Bill Wambsganss had turned the only unassisted triple play in World Series history...though for the life of me, I couldn't remember why this fact is considered important by anyone other than Mr. Wambsganss and perhaps his family.
I had another momentary bout of panic when I realized I couldn't recall anything I had learned in college, although this passed when it occurred to me that I hadn't learned anything worth remembering in the first place. In the end, I concluded that I probably hadn't gone stupid, so if I was stupid it was probably a condition I'd been able to successfully overcome in the past.
Sanity was a different matter. I had been living alone for some time, and "he'd been unemployed and living alone in a deserted observatory," was one of those phrases that sounded as if it was likely to come before "said acquaintances of the deranged, carrot-peeler wielding man believed responsible for the bizzare attempt on Ted Koppel's life."
To avoid any possibility that my well-reasoned answers to interview questions would come out as paranoid theories about the Freemasons, I decided I'd better check with an objective observer. I tracked down Curt Nissent, a former classmate who had flunked a pair of Psychology courses the year before, possibly in a well-thought-out effort to remain a student for another semester and thereby qualify for a campus job this summer. I hadn't contacted Curt since graduation, even though we had been pretty good friends. I'd been too embarrassed about the whole total-failure-of-my-life thing. He hadn't contacted me either, mostly since he was feeling embarrassed about the failing-two-classes thing. For my current purpose, this lack of contact was a plus, since it would aid Curt in comparing my current level of sanity against my pre-unemployment state of mental health.
"Curt, this is Bob Gwafin," I said when I reached him at the fraternity house that was renting him a room for the summer. "I need your help. I've been living alone in the observatory pretending to be an Indian this summer, but now I have a top-secret interview with an investment bank in New York and I have to get the job or the alumni department might have me killed. I need you to help me figure out if I've gone insane."
"No problem, Gwaf," Curt said. "Based on what you've just told me, you're definitely insane."
"Damn, I was afraid of that. Do you think it's possible I could hide it from the interviewers long enough to get the job."
"Yea, maybe. But as a psychology major I don't know if it would be ethical for me to help a paranoid schizophrenic such as yourself hide from his mental problems."
"Was it ethical for you to intentionally fail two classes to avoid graduation?"
"Who says I failed them intentionally?"
"Come on, Curt, you're way too smart to fail a Bucklin class. Your dog is way too smart to fail a Bucklin class."
"My dog is dead, Gwaf."
"I stand by my statement."
"So I had a bad semester."
"Come on, it's next to impossible to fail at Bucklin. You must have had to sit next to the dumbest person in the room and copy off his exams to manage an F."
"Okay, I give up. I'll help you pretend to be sane. Just don't tell anyone I cheated on exams. I could get thrown out of school."
"Deal. Why don't you come over to the observatory so we can talk in person. I think the alumni department has this line bugged."
Curt knocked on my door fifteen minutes later. "Okay, you're not insane," he said.
"See how easy it is to compromise your ethics?"
"No, no, I really think you might really be sane."
"Is this some sort of positive reinforcement technique?"
"Nope. As soon as I hung up from our call--before I could even contact my psychology department advisor to ask him if I could study your delusions for my senior thesis--an alumni-department rep knocked on my door and threatened to have me thrown out of Bucklin for copying off the exam of a stupid person if I didn't promise to tithe them 10% of my income for the rest of my life. When I denied it, they played me a tape of our conversation. So someone really is tapping your line, and now I see that you really are living in an observatory. I guess that means there's a chance you're not delusional."
"Well, that's a relief."
"But that's not to say you struck me as a beacon of stability before this summer."
"Hey, I don't need perfection, I just need enough sanity to get me through a job interview."
"Then I think you'll be fine. Just try not to mention the secret plots to kill you during the interview."
"Check. Thanks for stopping by."
"Wait a minute," Curt said. "What about me. It just cost me 10% of my lifetime earnings to find out you might be sane. To be honest, I'd rather have kept the money and had you locked away where you wouldn't have been a danger to yourself or others."
"Oh, don't worry about the alumni department, they're probably bluffing. Think about it; if they get you kicked out, then you're not an alumnus and they'll never get dollar one out of you. I'll bet you can talk them down to 5%."
"Still…"
"Tell you what, Curt, I'll make it up to you. If I get this job, you can live in the observatory for free until September."
"That only saves me $200 in rent."
"Hey, every penny counts when you're being blackmailed. Do you want the observatory or not?"
"Yea, I guess so."
"Great. There are only a few conditions. You have to keep an eye on the place so everything's in good shape when Tony Pasqualli comes back in September."
"What does Tony have to do with…"
"And you have to act like you have profound guidance for a man who might or might not be accompanied by a small dog named Roger," I continued.
"What was that again?"
"And, of course, you have to pretend to be a Native American, should the need arise."
"There is still a chance that you're insane, you know."
"Christ, we're not back on that, are we? Listen, I also need some advice on packing. If you were going to New York for a job interview but you might stay forever, would you bring an overnight bag or everything you owned?"
"Huh?"
"I might be back here in a day, I might never be back--well, at least not until my ten-year class reunion, and then only if I'm successful enough to rub it in everyone's else's face, yet not so successful that I have better things to do."
"Are you confident you'll get the job?"
"I'm not even confident that there is a job. But either way, a case could be made for never returning. I figure I'm at least a shade more likely to find employment in a part of the country that contains employers."
"Do you have enough luggage to pack everything you own?"
"Actually, I don't have any luggage--well, I have one piece of luggage, but based on what I've been told, it no longer is within the gravitational well of planet Earth."
"Once again?"
"Let's just say I've found a way to make a suitcase disappear that doesn't involve a transfer at O'Hare and leave it at that. It's been a baffling couple of months. I'm going to go out to get some luggage. You wait here."
I returned a few minutes later with a garbage bag I'd liberated from one of the campus trashcans.
"Luggage," I explained.
"You're going to pack your things in a trash bag? Are you traveling by plane or garbage truck?"
"Yes, yes, you're very funny for a man who just lost between 5 and 10% of all the money he'll ever make. This is the best luggage option in my price range. It's a durable, three-ply bag, and it's hardly been used."
"Hardly?"
"Nothing sticky, anyway. It's a first-class bag. And I've decided to pack all the clothes I can fit in this luggage, and abandon the rest of my stuff here. I might call you later and have you mail it down to me."
"Is this your stuff, the pile of moldy clothes and bongs?"
"No, that's Dave Orr's stuff, which you can have, since he's disappeared along with my suitcase. My stuff is in the other room. It's the pile of moldy clothes and record albums."
"You're leaving your albums?"
"I really haven't enjoyed them very much recently."
"Changing tastes?"
"Pawned the stereo."
"Ah."
"I might want the albums back at some point," I said. "You are, however, welcome to my old textbooks and class notes."
"That's big of you."
"Now I've got to go collect cans for their deposits so I can afford to get from the airport to Wall Street. I could be wrong, but I suspect there's not much hitchhiking in New York City. Care to join me? It's five cents a can."
"No, I'd just have to give 10% of my take to the alumni department, and it's sort of a low-profit business to begin with."
"Sorry to rush out on you like this, but my flight leaves Wednesday morning, and that could be any day now."
"It's the day after tomorrow."
"That's handy information, thanks. Apparently I lost a day at some point, which sucks, because it's not like I can appeal to a referee and have the day I lost added to the end of my life."
"You didn't know what day it was today?"
"Well, I knew it was today. It's not like I was walking around thinking it was tomorrow or yesterday."
"But you didn't know what day of the week?"
"I thought I did. I thought it was Sunday. Of course I realized it couldn't be Sunday when the Johnston Brothers executive was in his office. Plus, there was a Hound-of-the-Baskervilles-like lack of church bells this morning."
"So many clues…"
"There's a lesson here," I continued. "If you're ever someplace with no newspapers and you're going to mistakenly think a day is another day, it pays to mistakenly think it's a Sunday, since that's the easiest day to differentiate from the others. In the future, when I'm not certain what day it is, I'm going to assume it's Sunday. You know, for safety sake. "
"Gwaf, about this job interview," Curt said. "If you don't want to appear insane, you might want to say as little as possible."
"Am I really that bad? Shit. And I've gone out of my way not to mention the Freemasons."
"I appreciate that."
"They do rule the world, you know, Curt."
"Just go collect your goddamn cans."
I couldn't hope to collect enough cans to pay for a New York hotel room--at a nickel a can, that would take well into four-figure cans, more than a small New England town could possibly abandon on its median strips in a given week. So I decided to take it for granted that Johnston Brothers would cover such things. If they didn't, no one figured to notice one more loser living on the streets. But as this was apparently Monday, there was a good chance that enough discarded cans remained in the Bridgeton town park from the weekend to keep me in subway tokens and bus fare. I took my new luggage and walked to the park to collect cans, without the least bit self-consciousness.
"I'm going to be an investment banker," I explained to a woman who gave me an odd look when I rooted through a trash bin.

June 29

"The odd thing about these Lesser Morrell Islanders is how little they seem to like living on Lesser Morrell Island," Dana commented over dinner. It had been her turn to cook for the group. She'd put together a meal of coconuts, mangoes and boiled kelp. All of the group's meals featured some combination of coconuts, mangoes and boiled kelp. Each one of them was a vegetarian, so fish was simply not an option. And no one could agree how to prepare a betelnut.
"Life on a small, isolated island isn't for everyone," said Doctor Mudgett, digging into a mango.
"True, but seeing as it's their island, you'd think it would be for them," said Dana. "Yet all they can talk about is how great it would be to have the things that people on Greater Morrell Island have. And from what I've seen, all the Greater Morrell Islanders want are the things people in America have. You'd think that electric lights was the greatest thing since sliced bread."
"Personally, I think I'd rather have electric lights than sliced bread," said the doctor. "And in fairness, the people of Lesser Morrell Island don't have either."
"Well, the greatest thing since grilled fish, then," Dana said. "They have plenty of those."
"And some of them might be quite tasty between a couple slices of rye with a cold beer straight from the fridge."
"Whose side are you on, doctor?" asked Sarah, who was always willing to jump into a conversation when someone threatened to deviate from the party line.
"I don't mean to argue with you. I would hate to see this beautiful island turn into a Club Med where beautiful young women wearing next to nothing frolic in the surf…"
"Doctor!"
"Sorry, sorry…The mind's starting to get away from me. I've been away from civilization too long. Anyway, all I'm saying is that deep down, as a man of science, I don't believe that a few touches of modernity are necessarily a bad thing. Medicine, for example. I'm in favor of it. And sliced bread, since the subject's been raised. There's a place in San Francisco that makes a sourdough so delicious that it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it."
"And I suppose you never bother to think about the innocent yeast that's slaughtered to make bread?" asked Sarah. "Oh that's right, someone's just a vegetarian, not a vegan."
"So we're back to that are we. For the last time, I'm not anti-vegan. I just happen to believe that drinking milk doesn't make life worse for cows. It's my understanding that most cows are pretty much okay with it."
"I can't listen to this, I can't," said Sarah, dropping her boiled kelp and heading back to her tent.
"In the future, it might be wise not to bring up the vegetarian/vegan debate," the doctor advised Dana. "It's something of a sore point around here."
"Me? I didn't say anything about it," said Dana. "At least I didn't mean to. I was pointing out that the Lesser Morrell Islanders all seem to dream about leaving Lesser Morrell Island."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I mean, where are they going to go? These people couldn't survive anywhere else. They'd be eaten alive on Greater Morrell Island, for God's sake…I mean that figuratively, mind you, those other rumors haven't been true for decades now. Lesser Morrell Islanders can't even fathom what it would mean to live in the real world. They just like to talk big."
"I'm not so sure."
"Dana, let me tell you a story. About ten years ago, a young Lesser Morrell Islander did make it further than Greater Morrell Island. He hadn't meant to, you understand, he'd just meant to sail to Greater Morrell Island for supplies. But he got on the wrong ferry for the return trip and wound up in Maui. This man didn't have enough money for the return passage to Lesser Morrell Island, but he wasn't short of courage. He decided to find work in Hawaii, save carefully, and one day return home to Lesser Morrell Island a success. When the police found him he had been robbed, beaten, and driven nearly insane. The authorities sent him back home and he hasn't left since."
"It isn't easy to adjust to a new culture."
"Did I mention he'd only lasted fifteen minutes? The man barely survived a quarter hour in a vacation paradise. No one from this island has gone any further than Greater Morrell Island since then, and no one is going to. They don't have it in them."
"Well, even if they don't leave the island, there's another way for them to ruin this society; they could bring modern technology here. There's nothing keeping them from doing that."
"Sure there is. Money. They don't have any. The official currency of the island is the puffer fish. Sony isn't going to sell you a television no matter how many puffer fish you've got."
"So poverty is necessary for the survival of this culture?"
"Can you think of any rich people who'd willingly bake themselves under a hot sun 365 days a year trying desperately to catch fish?"
"You just described most of Florida."
"That's not a fair comparison. Those are old people. Decision making skills start to falter at a certain age. But everyone on Lesser Morrell Island is younger than 50."
"Speaking of which, doctor, why is it that these people all die so young?" Dana asked. "They eat fish and fruit all their lives, and get plenty of exercise. Yet some of the wizened village elders are aren't so much older than me."
"It's genetic."
"Really?"
"That and they keep falling out of their boats. Anyway, you can't blame poor medical care."
"I can't?"
"Nope. It's in my contract. If anyone blames poor medical care, I get to inject them with whatever I like."
"That's in your contract?"
"Maybe not officially in the contract. But it's something you might want to keep in mind before you start asking about why all the natives die so young."
"Doctor!"
"Sorry, that just slipped out. You know, I'm starting to think I might have spent too much time living on islands. Sooner or later being stuck on a tiny patch of land in the middle of the ocean gets to you, you know. And I've been living on islands ever since I went to that Caribbean medical school."
"I think I understand."
"It's the waves that do it."
"The waves?"
"The waves never stop coming. You try to run away, but there are waves all around you. Wave after wave after wave."
"Doctor?"
"I'm okay. I'm okay. Really I am. Are you going to finish your kelp?"
Dana handed over her kelp.

Chapter 13

2009-08-02T15:53:00.002-07:00

June 28

From my perspective, June 27th, a Sunday, had been very much like June 26. The 26th had been, in turn, quite similar to June 25. The 25th had been extremely comparable to June 24. And the 24th had been a precise replica of the 23rd, if only because I had neglected to cross the 23rd off on my calendar the first time through, dooming myself to live it again in its entirety, at least so far as I knew. The passage of time had ceased to have much meaning in my world, and figured to continue to do so until Bucklin's students flooded back to campus, at which point campus regulations regarding vagrancy, as well as any remaining pride I might possess, would compel me to move along.
This infestation of college students was scheduled to occur on August 30. There was little hope of a reprieve. Bucklin had been scheduling school years for 200-some-odd years, and each had begun promptly on schedule. Bucklin students had somehow found their way to campus through wars, railroad strikes, and a pesky Influenza Pandemic that killed off a third of the student body...yet never dropped class attendance rates down to anywhere their current lamentable levels. In fact, from my perspective, the coming school year seemed destined to begin ahead of schedule, since I had not yet discovered my oversight with the calendar on the 23rd.
Monday June 28th broke the monotony. My goal for the day was to sleep late, then spend the afternoon searching for a hovel or hollow tree within my price range, so I would have someplace to sleep come September. Instead, I was awakened at ten in the morning by an unexpected and exciting call. In as much as the phone had been disconnected since the end of May, I was willing to consider any actions on its part unexpected and exciting. I sat up on my bed, by which I mean the office sofa, to consider my options.
The proper course of action might seem obvious on the surface. Indeed, many people confronted by a ringing phone simply jump right in, happily taking up their receivers to find out who's at the other end, as if this was the only path available. But I'd grown a bit skittish about the whole phone-answering and human-interaction experience in recent months, an unavoidable consequence of the fact that none of the news I had received qualified as good news by even the most forgiving of standards. Still, I found the idea of speaking to another human did hold a sort of nostalgic charm. I labeled "answer the phone" option A. The alternate path was slightly more defensive: I could let the phone ring, while I hid under the office desk curled up in the fetal position, quietly begging for it to stop. I had to admit, this idea, too, was not without its allure. I'd call it option B. On the downside, option B did seem a bit defeatist. Now to weigh between the two options… Then the phone stopped ringing.
"That solves that problem," I thought, pleased to have had cleared the day's first hurdle. I got up to brush my teeth. I'd run out of toothpaste the week before, but I'd found plenty of liquid hand soap stored under the bathroom sink. It didn't taste as good as toothpaste, but one gets used to such things. Anyway, it's not like there's a positve correlation between comfort and effect dental care. Odds are, dentists will start recommening brushing with hand soap any day now.
I had just finished soaping down my upper left molars when the phone rang again. I was more awake this time, and thus largely able to contain my earlier inclination to hide under office furniture. I settled on option A. Why not? I wasn't expecting the results of any major medical tests, and all I had left at that point was my health. I strode confidently toward the phone. I didn't feel confident, but one must at least consider the possibility that phones can smell fear.
Not until my hand lifted the receiver did the thought strike me: while I wasn't expecting the results of any medical tests, the folks at Portland Biotechnics had been processing my blood on a regular basis. They very probably had turned up some hidden flaw that would prevent me from selling plasma at $20 a week and that, to add insult to injury, would then kill me. Or was that adding injury to insult? Either way, I didn't like the sound of it, and my confident front was badly shaken by the time the receiver reached my ear.
"Hello." I said, as this seemed as good a place to start as any.
"I want to thank you for your advice," said a vaguely familiar voice.
"You're welcome," I responded out of reflex. I was too relieved that my blood wasn't trying to kill me--at least so far as this caller knew--to worry about such details as to whom I was speaking.
"It was wonderful advice."
"Don't mention it," I answered. "I'm glad it helped."
"But I need some more."
"You do?"
"Yes, I am in definite need of more advice."
"Was there a problem with the original advice?"
"No, no. The advice was fine. I loved the advice. I've had great success with it on more than one occasion. However I'm afraid there are times when additional options are required."
"There are?"
"I'm afraid so."
"You've had problems?"
"A few minor problems, yes."
"How minor?"
"I wasn't actually strung up, but it was touch and go there for a while."
"And you’re sure you want more advice after those initial results?"
"Oh yes, I'm quite confident that the advice was sound, and only the execution was lacking. In fact it was going rather well until I made one or two small tactical errors."
"I see."
"It might be helpful at this juncture if you could tell me what number you think you dialed so I can point out that you're thanking the wrong person."
"I don't think I have the wrong person--I remember your voice. Isn't this the Native American Observatory? I asked them to reconnect the line to the Observatory."
"Yes, it is, but…"
"I don't expect this advice for free, of course. If there's anything at all I can do for you, all you need to do is ask."
"Oh, well that changes everything," I said. Actually, it didn't change everything. It didn't change the fact that I didn't know who the caller was or what he was talking about. Nor did it change the fact that someone who has screwed up his own life as badly as I had screwed up mine should be vigorously dissuaded, if not legally barred, from offering advice to others. Asking my counsel was like relying on the guidance of a fortune teller who operated out of a trailer home or basement office; if they knew anything useful about the future--or the present, for that matter--why the hell couldn't they afford a permanent, above ground place of business? But as I was currently unemployed and soon to be homeless, I was hardly in a position to turn down anyone willing to do anything for me in exchange for a bit of advice. "I have some great advice that is perfectly tailored to your individual situation," I said.
"Wonderful."
"Now, if you could just tell me who you are, who you think I am, where we've met before, and what your problem is."
"Uh…You don't recall."
"Certainly I recall. I recall every moment of our engrossing encounter as if it happened this very week."
"It did happen this very week."
"Don't interrupt. I simply believe that reviewing the background often is a good way to make sure everyone's on the same page."
"Oh, yes. Very sensible. Let's see, you want to know who I am, when we met, who I think you are, and what my problem is…Okay, here goes, I'm Roger's owner. We met when Roger went poking around your Native American Observatory. You're the Native American from the observatory."
"Oh yes, Roger. Laconic sort...about twelve inches high...furry?" I'd thought Roger and his owner had been a dream. The plasma selling hadn't done wonders for my memory.
"That's him."
"And the advice I gave?"
"You advised Roger that he ought to be happy with what he has, and you advised me to agree with people. Roger seems to have taken your advice to heart, in as much as he didn't try to run away this morning, a pursuit that until now has been the greatest passion of his life. As for me, agreeing with everyone worked wonders at first…but I ran into one or two minor hiccups, and was wondering if you had anything else."
"What exactly went wrong?"
"When I tried to agree with someone I ended up insulting him."
"Yes, I see where that could be a problem. And you say you weren't trying to insult him?"
"No, of course not. I was trying to pander to him. It's just so very difficult to agree with people when you don't know what portion of reality they agree with, and what portion they consider heresy."
"I do see your point, but I hope you don't give up on the agreeing with everyone just yet. These things can take some practice, but with work you'll be able to agree with even the most irrational positions."
"Oh, I do hope you're right."
"But in the meantime, let's try to come up with that new advice you'd hoped for. Was there anything specific you were looking for?"
"No, nothing specific really. I was hoping for some sort of grand, profound statement that I could reflect upon throughout my life and career."
"Grand and profound, eh? Well, it's a bit hard for me to sound very philosophical at the moment, since it's daytime and I'm not suffering from extreme blood loss as I was during our earlier encounter. Maybe we could kick some ideas around for a while until I come up with something."
"I thought you said you had some great advice all ready for me."
"Hey, who's the spiritual advisor here? Believe me, it works better this way."
"Brainstorming session. Okay, if that's how these things work. I've never had a spiritual advisor before."
"Really? I thought everyone had a spiritual advisor these days. To be honest, my time is so filled up with the spiritual advising sometimes that I hardly have time for anything else."
"I can imagine. Well, how should we get started? I need help in so many areas. I'm really pretty bad at everything."
"Everything?"
"Well, I suppose I'm pretty good at what I used to do. In my field I was considered quite solid. Satisfactory, even."
"Great, there's your answer."
"Where? Where's my answer?" Roger's owner asked, afraid that it might run off before he'd spotted it.
"You have an area of strength," I said. "Whenever someone tries to better you in an area of weakness, just bring the issue back around to your area of strength so they'll be on the defensive."
"Even if the points are totally unrelated?"
"Especially if they're unrelated. As long as it's established that you know more on the subject than your adversary, they'll have to take your word that the point you're making is relevant."
"Interesting idea," Kerns admitted. "Very interesting. But again I'm struck by how little your guidance sounds like the peaceful, one-with-the planet stuff that Native Americans are known for."
"It doesn't?"
"Not even close."
"Well, I really shouldn't tell you this, but we're preparing for a bloody revolution."
"A bloody revolution? After all this time?"
"But don't tell anyone."
"Any chance it could be a bloodless revolution?"
"Always a chance I suppose. But before we stray too far from the subject, you mentioned that you might be able to do something for me."
"Anything I can do, you have my word," said Roger's owner. "What do you need?"
"What I find myself in need of at the moment is a job."
"I thought the spiritual guiding kept you busy."
"Yes, but I'm afraid it just isn't paying the bills like it used to. Those 1-900 psychic hotlines have been eating into the profit margins, you understand."
"I'm very sorry to hear that. Are you looking for an opening in the spiritual guidance field?"
"Something related to spiritual guidance, anyway. Perhaps investment banking, for example. But I'm flexible. Can you help?"
"Perhaps. I'll talk to the career services office this very morning."
Mentioning the 'career services office' probably meant that Roger's owner was indeed affiliated with the college, as I had suspected.
"If by 'career services office' you mean Bucklin's career services office, they have my resume on file. Just tell them to look under the name Gwafin."
"Gwafin. How interesting. What does it mean?"
"It means me."
"Oh…" Roger's owner sounded a bit disappointed. "I thought your names had some sort of deeper meaning."
"Well, I suppose it could mean 'The Oracle on the Hill' in Navaho."
"Really?"
"It's possible, I guess. Why not? Something has to mean 'The Oracle on the Hill."
"The Oracle on the Hill," repeated Roger's owner. "That's just perfect."
"Yes, I thought you might like it."
"I'll contact you there in the Native American Observatory as soon as I find out something about that job."
"Hmm…"
"Problem?" Roger's owner asked.
"I was just thinking that we probably should come up with a better name than the Native American Observatory--sounds like some sort of cross between a reservation and a zoo."
"Yes, that's an excellent point."
"See? You're already improving at agreeing with people who say dumb things. It can be a powerful weapon."
"I'll use it in a way that brings honor to your people."
"That's all my people can ask."

By her fourth day on the island, Dana felt right at home. It's easy to feel good when one's working for a cause one believes in, and even easier when working for two. Dana had decided to spend her mornings working with Brent's humanitarian organization "Power to the People," constructing a dam to bring electricity to the island. In the afternoon, Dana helped one of the island's environmental groups, "The Green Lands' Turn." Mostly the GLT was interested in stopping the construction of the dam, since it would irreparably harm the ecosystem of the river. Dana felt equally committed to both causes, and decided that her time was best divided evenly between them.
It was late afternoon--either 5 or 6 p.m., depending on where one was standing on Lesser Morrell Island in relation to the date line--so Dana was busy improving the environment. To be precise, she was improving the environment by planting explosives at the base of a nearly completed dam. It was a dramatic, proactive move, perhaps even a controversial one in some circles. But the Green Lands' Turn did not consider themselves extremists. To show their willingness to work within the system, they had decided to wait until after the Power to the People staff had left for the day before detonating any bombs.
There was, of course, a chance that one of the Power People people could return unexpectedly. But this was a longshot, in as much as every member of the dam-building team also was an active member of the GLT, and thus their present whereabouts could be accounted for with a reasonable degree of certainty. Still, the GLT activists wore disguises so as not to be recognized by any Power types who might happen by. Dana was not sure where they'd found seven pairs of novelty glasses with fake nose-and-mustache so far from civilization.
She glanced up at the GLT lookout to make sure all was well. The man was well trained, and he knew the area. In fact, on most days he served as the Power security guard. The lookout signaled that all was indeed well, then resumed scanning the forest lest he arrive suddenly and take himself by surprise.
Dana looked up at the top of the dam, where the group's explosives expert neared the completion of his work. The GLT was fortunate to have found such a skilled person in the region. As luck would have it, he was in the area to construct the dam, and had volunteered for this assignment. Everyone here is so willing to help, Dana thought with no small measure of pride. Her part of the job complete, Dana decided that this would probably be a good time to seek higher ground, away from any possible explosions or sudden rushes of water. She began climbing the once and future river bank towards safety.
Dana's heart was racing with the danger. What if the GLT's explosives went off too soon? What if the lookout suddenly turned back into the guard? She sneaked a glance at a fellow team member as she passed by, but could read nothing in his expression behind the novelty glasses. Then everyone was running. Where explosives are involved, following the crowd often is a good thing, so Dana ran as well. Soon she heard the blast, and ensuing shower of debris on the forest canopy.
The island's ecology stood to benefit from the destruction of this dam throughout the ages. Whatever else Dana did for the rest of her life, she could know she made this contribution.

The phone was ringing again when I returned to the observatory. I'd been out early for my daily trip to the campus gym. I was quite proud that I'd made to it to the gym each day that summer without exception. Once there I would come up with an excuse for not exercising, then take a shower. I could have tried to stay in shape, of course. I certainly had the time. But if trips to the gym required work, I might start skipping them altogether, and repetition is the most important factor when it comes to conditioning. Anyway, I needed the showers more than the muscles. The Observatory was a little lacking in the bathtub department.
"Mr. Gwafin, it's me, Roger's owner," said Roger's owner. "Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. I finally got a hold of someone down in the career services office and they have something for you--actually, they've been trying to find you for a week now."
"You’re kidding--where?"
"They say they've been looking everywhere. Of course, we're talking about Career Services employees, so that probably means they looked to see if you were in their waiting room."
"No, I mean where's the job?"
"Johnston Brothers, the investment bank. They want you to come down to New York for a second interview."
"Oh, that," I said, deflated. "They told me about that when they were here on campus. They want me to come down for an interview, only there's no job and I'd have to pay my own travel expenses."
"Hmm. That would seem to take a level of excitement off the whole interview experience," admitted Roger's owner. "Still, I think you should give them a call. The people in the career services office seemed very upbeat. It's been a tough year for them you know, what with so many of our graduates being unemployed and all."
"Yes, I can imagine how much they must be suffering."
"So you'll call?"
"Sure, why not." I took down the number. "I just need to find a phone that allows long-distance calls. This one seems to think I'm better off interacting with only local residents since it came back to life this morning." I hadn't expected to get through to Spanish Guyana, but nothing is lost in trying.
"You can use the phone at the career services office…actually, you better head down to the alumni offices instead. The career services people tend to take the afternoons off in the summer."
"But the alumni people will be there?"
"Oh yes. They never close. I'll let them know you're coming."
"Sounds good."
"If there is a job you'll probably move to New York."
"I suppose so."
"I'll miss your council. It's been nice to have someone to turn to. It's a very powerless feeling, this being in charge. Any final words of advice?"
"I hadn't realized you were in charge," I said, honestly surprised that anyone would have put Roger's owner in charge of anything more complicated than Roger. "There is one lesson about leadership I believe you need to learn. When you're the boss, you can have everyone's problems, or everyone can have your problems--it's up to you."
"I'm going to jot that down," said Kerns. "I want to think about it later. But what should I do if I need more advice?"
"Just ask Roger. He's a very wise dog."
"Really?"
"Well, he won't give you any bad advice anyway. And that puts him miles ahead of most advice givers."
"Are you saying that I don't really need any more advice, and deep down I now have everything I need within myself?"
"Ahhh, yea, sure. What the hell. But just to be on the safe side, you'd better run any big decisions by Roger first."
Wonderful. Now I'd have to spend half an hour on the phone with the Johnston Brothers personnel department explaining that I wasn't coming down to New York unless they either paid for the trip or pretended that there was a job available. Still, I decided to make the call. There was nothing to lose, even if there was nothing to gain. Anyway it gave me a chance to enter the mysterious Alumni Affairs building, something I hadn't done while a student on campus. No one I knew had ever set foot in the building, although rumors persisted of a nirvana of complementary coffee and cookies.
I was about to head over when I caught a look at myself in the bathroom mirror. It had been some time since I had shaved or, for that matter, donned leg wear that extended below my knees. This shouldn't have mattered, since I was just making a phone call, and the acceptance of videophone technology by society has been painfully slow, but there was something about the alumni building that suggested a degree of formality--or at least basic hygiene. So I shaved. And washed my face. And combed my hair with a serious, professional part on the left, in place of my usual, devil-may-care part on the right. I even put on my suit, which had hung undisturbed in a storage closet since I'd moved in in June. If I remained unemployed much longer, it had a shot to come back into style.
When I entered the alumni building, I was glad I'd taken the time to clean myself up. Inside it was less like a college building, and more like a college building as envisioned by someone working without a budget. The carpet was so new that I felt guilty for walking on it. The paint on the walls was so fresh that I would have felt guilty for walking on them, too...though if I could have walked on the walls, it might have been a neat enough trick to be worth the smudges.
There wasn't a corner in sight that didn't contain either a vase of flowers or a Bucklin employee. And there wasn't a Bucklin employee who didn't sport a well-tailored suit, a rarity not just for a college campus, but the whole state of Maine. As a rule, anyone wearing a suit in Maine was either trying to sell you something you didn't need, heading to court concerning something they'd just as soon not discuss, or en route to a funeral, possibly their own.
Social acceptance wasn't the only reason I was glad I'd worn my suit. The alumni building's air was conditioned within an inch of its life. There was just one reason for anyone not storing meat to keep a building this cold in the summer: to prove they could. Bucklin's alumni department was so well funded that they could afford to turn their air conditioning up well past the point of discomfort, and they wanted you to know it the moment you walked in the door.
I noted with pleasure that the alumni building legends were true in another department as well: the reception area featured not just a coffee urn, but a plate piled so high with cookies that the top wafers swayed slightly in the air conditioner's breeze. I helped myself to a cup of coffee to combat the cold, but decided it would be prudent to get my phone call taken care of before attempting to swipe such a staggering quantity of cookies. I gave some thought to making a grab for the coffee urn as well. The idea of running full speed with a hot vessel filled with a colored fluid whilst wearing one's only suit had certain downsides worth considering...but it was very good coffee.
A badly frostbitten receptionist directed me to an office on the second floor, where I met Foster Castleman VI, the director of alumni giving. Mr. Castleman was, well, exactly what one would expect a Foster Castleman VI to be, which is to say he came from a long line of people successful enough that they could live with the fact that they were all named Foster Castleman. To put it another way, he was nothing like the typical college employee. If he hadn't taken the alumni fund-raising job, he'd probably have been running a bank somewhere. Foster Castleman VI might have been running a bank in his spare time for all I knew. A man who looks that distinguished walks into a bank and I suspect they just offer him the place. Then there was his wardrobe. If suits could talk, Castleman's would not have spoken to mine.
Yet this sixth incarnation of Foster Castleman turned out to be a very reasonable man. He consented to let me use his office phone, in exchange only for my agreeing to donate $100 of my first Johnston Brothers' bonus to Bucklin should I land the job. A hundred dollars might seem like a significant sum for a phone call, but the joke was on him since I knew there was no job. The negotiations complete, Castleman politely withdrew so I could make my call in private. For my part, I politely ignored the suspicious clicks I heard on the line as I dialed.
"Gwafin," said the voice at the other end after a single ring.
"That's right," I stammered. "How did you know."
"How did I know what? And who is this?"
"How did you know who I am, and I'm Bob Gwafin, to answer both your questions."
"You’re who?"
"I'm Gwafin."
"You're Gwafin?" There was a pause. "Oh yes. Mr. Gwafin. You’ll be calling about the job."
"That's right."
"I'm very much looking forward to meeting you. How soon can you be in New York?"
"I'd have to look into travel arrangements…," I said, trying to estimate the time required to hitchhike 300 miles, allowing for the inevitable attempts on my life in and around New Haven, Connecticut.
"Oh, we can take care of that at our end. How's Wednesday? I'll tell my assistant to have a ticket waiting for you at the airport."
"Wednesday would be fine," I answered, mostly because any day would be fine as long as someone else was paying.
"Great. She'll call you back with the details. Where can you be reached?"
I gave him the Observatory number, thereby dooming myself to hours of standing watch over a phone, since the Observatory phone had no Observatory answering machine.
"If my assistant asks you in what name to reserve the ticket," the man continued, "just tell her Gwafin. And remember: we can't trust anyone."
Castleman reentered his office as soon as I'd hung up.
"Not exactly a typical way to end business call," I said. "And against all expectations it sounds like they're actually willing to pay my travel costs. Could I be dreaming this whole thing?"
"No, I don't think so," answered Castleman. "Because I'm here, too, and the alumni department doesn't have a way of inserting its representatives into the dreams of alumni. Not yet."
"Yet…you mean you're working on it?"
"Officially I have no comment on that...but I can say that we're very actively working on a way to block that dream where you suddenly realize you've forgotten to attend class all semester and it's the morning of the final exam. Terrible for fund raising, that one."
"I can imagine."
"If it helps, it's possible that this is my dream," said Castleman. "I dream about our alumni landing good jobs all the time."
"No I don't think that's it," I said. "Actually, this feels less like a dream and more like something that would happen to Cary Grant in a Hitchcock film."
"A Hitchcock film?"
"You know, where an ordinary man is suddenly drawn into a web of intrigue. That wouldn't be so bad, I guess. I mean it's not like Grant's characters were ever actually killed in one of those movies… They just were nearly killed many, many times."
"We are talking about Johnston Brothers, after all," offered Castleman. "What's a few attempts on your life compared to a good job at Johnston Brothers?"
"And attempts on my life are really just a worst-case scenario--or an attempt at a worst-case scenario, anyway. Chances are, it's merely a matter of some sort of underhanded financial scheme for which I'll be set up as the patsy."
"Yes, that does seem more likely, now that you mention it."
"I could live with that," I said. "Those guys who get caught in financial scams usually wind up in minimum-security prisons. Sounds pretty cushy."
"It would be a roof over your head and three meals a day," said Castleman.
"Three meals. That would be something. Maybe this will work out after all. I'll keep you posted."
"Oh, don't bother. We'll keep tabs on you."
"But if I get the job I'll have to move to New York. How will you know where I am?"
"We're the Alumni Affairs Office. We know everything. There are Bucklin students living in caves in Tibet that still receive calls during our annual fund-raising drive."
"I knew it--you were eavesdropping on my phone call to Johnston Brothers."
"That would be unethical."
"But you don't deny it, do you?"
"You're one to talk. You're willing to break the law and risk a prison term just for a chance at a job."
"A minimum-security prison term for a chance at a good job, if you don't mind. I'm not a monster."
"Tell you what. I'll overlook the questionable elements of what I just heard while illegally listening in on your call in exchange for your ignoring my illegally listening in on your call--plus another donation of $100."
"That's extortion."
"Okay," admitted Castleman. "You got me there. It was extortion. Tell you what. I'll forget about the second $100 donation if you forget about the extortion attempt."
"How about this," I offered. "I'll forget about the extortion, the illegal eavesdropping, and I won't start a rumor that you've implanted tracking chips in the necks of Bucklin graduates in exchange for your overlooking the questionable nature of the job I'm about to jump at, plus you forget about both $100 donations."
"Hmm. Well played," said Castleman. "I'm not usually one to give up on an agreed upon donation--if I did that, our enforcers would be out of work--but I'll go along this one time, since that tracking chip rumor could open up a can of worms that I'd just as soon leave closed. And $100 is less than I'd have to pay to have you killed to keep your mouth shut--at least it is if you land the Johnston Brothers' job. If you're living on the street, I can have you killed for a price so low I'd be a fool not to jump at it."
We shook on the agreement. "Well, I'd better get back to my observatory. That odd investment banker's assistant might be trying to reach me as we speak."
"Oh don't worry, no one's called your number yet."
"You're tapping my phone?"
"Nothing of the sort. We're simply monitoring the usage of college long distance. Nothing unethical about that."
"Fine, go ahead, tap my phone. But as long as you know everything about every Bucklin graduate, perhaps you wouldn't mind answering a question for me: where exactly is my former roommate, Dave Orr? He has my suitcase, and it looks like I'll need it back."
Castleman appeared shaken by the name. "Did you say Orr?"
"That's right. Dave Orr."
"Truth is, Orr's something of an interesting case. Just between you and me, he seems to have disappeared."
"Disappeared? What does that mean?"
"To be honest, we don't know what it means. We've never lost anyone before. Never. And Judge Crater went to school here. If Orr was anywhere on this planet, or buried below its surface, or in a low orbit around it, alumni affairs sources ought to know about it."
"Figures. No one but Dave could set out to see the world and miss," I said. "Well, if you can't find Dave, do you happen to know what happened to the suitcase he was carrying?"
"We have nothing on the suitcase, either," admitted Castleman.
"That's a shame," I said. "I could have used that suitcase."
"This whole Orr Affair is quite disturbing…Incidentally, if you do run into your roommate again one day, it would be very helpful to us if you could attach some sort of transponder to him."
I was so flustered by the whole sequence of events that I forgot to take the plate of cookies on my way out.

Chapter 12

2009-08-02T15:53:00.001-07:00

June 24

That Indian was right. Kerns was sure of it. He resolved to send a deli platter over to the observatory in thanks. Kerns had been up late into the night considering options and plotting stratagems. He had never plotted a stratagem before in his life for fear his wife would disapprove, but now he found he rather enjoyed it. For once, Kerns decided, he would stand up to his problems, and stand up for himself. Specifically, he would agree with everyone regardless of what they said. The more he thought about it, the more Kerns suspected that he could do this without even resorting to lies, which seemed an unscrupulous and cowardly way out. Kerns would find something in whatever was said to agree with, and simply ignore the rest.
The next time some one came to him and said that what the school really needed a 100-foot high statue of some long-dead Socialist revolutionary he'd never heard of, he wouldn't say "What the hell are you talking about? Get out of my office," as he'd so often been inclined to, or even "I'll have to think about it," as he actually had been saying. He'd say "I think it's a wonderful idea for the school to have a sense of history," and then try to change the subject. If pressed, he'd insist that the idea be brought before a board or group that would never agree. Since no board or group on campus ever agreed on anything, this did not figure to be a major challenge. When extreme measures were called for, Kerns would require the approval of the Special Intra-Campus Steering Committee, a group that was certain not to approve any plans, mostly on account of the fact that it didn't exist.
Only it did exist, Kerns reminded himself. A campus group exists once the paperwork has been filed and approved by a college officer. Kerns had submitted and approved the paperwork himself that very morning. Then he'd posted a note on the door to the group's designated meeting room stating that this month's meeting was cancelled, as were all future monthly meetings, until such time as a resolution to the contrary was raised during one of the Committee's meetings according to accepted rules of order. "Those with complaints," Kerns had added with a flourish, "are free to take them up with the group's president, who would be duly elected at the first meeting." As the Indian had suggested, Kerns could now pass the buck to someone who didn't exist. Kerns was, quite justly, proud. With these few simple precautions in place, he could be on record in agreement with anything and everything, with a virtual guarantee that nothing would come of it.
But then planning was the simple part. The bit would be dealing with his adversaries--the students and faculty of the college--in person. Such encounters would require tact, guile, and savvy, three skill sets Kerns had had little need to muck around with up to this point in his life. As daunting as all this was, Kerns knew it was best to get started right away. It already was well into June, and he needed to be ready when the full-fledged assault of students landed in September. Kerns asked the office secretary, a large woman named Janet with a fondness for days off, to schedule meetings with four of the student groups he'd been ducking. "Schedule them for this afternoon," he'd said. For the first time since his promotion, Kerns didn't dread going to a student group meeting. Out of habit, however, he did throw up.
It all started rather well. That afternoon Dean Kerns agreed with a group of three students who felt they were being badly exploited, a group of two who were sure that humanity was sewing the seeds of its own destruction, and a lone student who thought he deserved a better grade in Chemistry 212, mostly because he was being badly exploited and had been distracted the previous term by those who were sewing the seeds of his destruction. The meetings had gone swimmingly. Kerns had sat behind his desk, nodding gravely, and muttering "Yes, yes, I couldn't agree more," when given even the slightest opening. With everyone taking the same side of the debates, things had remained quite civil. And as an added benefit, the meetings had ended in record time. When each of the first two student groups filed out, Kerns implored them to keep up their important work. He referred the Chemistry student to the Academic Performance Sub-Committee of the Special Intra-Campus Steering Committee, and assured him that he'd throw the full weight of his office behind this vital effort.
The first real trouble came during the fourth and final meeting of the day, the administration's monthly conference with the Student Coalition Against Racism, who this month, as it happened, had some complaints they wished to air about racism. The Student Coalition Against Racism was a particularly powerful campus organization, and they had not taken kindly to Kerns' ducking their May meeting. Kerns had known they wouldn't like it of course, but he had concluded, perhaps correctly, that not showing up was better than showing up and saying the wrong thing, since this way at least they'd have to find him before they could hurt him. Smith had taken Kerns' place at the May meeting and now took a seat by his side for the June meeting. Smith's presence at past meetings, conferences, and informal chats only had added to Kerns' tension. But things had gone so well all afternoon that the Dean was anxious to show off his newfound administrative chops to someone who would understand their value. Smith might have been a weasel, Kerns thought, but the man had enviable political skills. Kerns suspected that Smith had never been on the wrong side of an argument in his life. Kerns further suspected that Smith had ever been on either side of an argument in his life. If a point was in debate, Smith was firmly on the side of abstention.
The Dean sat and listened through the meeting's early minutes, muttering "Yes, yes, you're right of course," and jotting down notes when it seemed like someone believed they had said something too important to be lost to the mists of time. Smith was shifting around uncomfortably in his chair. Kerns could tell he sensed the change in his boss. The Dean was beating Smith to the agree. Kerns was becoming confident. But unfamiliar as he was with confidence, he failed to note that even the smallest trace of confidence has a way of growing into a robust overconfidence. Eventually this overconfidence cost him. Kerns saw what on the surface appeared to be an ideal opportunity for agreement and fell right into a trap.
"By all means, I agree completely that the color of a person's skin doesn't have anything to do with intelligence or job performance," Kerns said triumphantly, and quite honestly. He had held off offering his own opinions all day, instead just agreeing with others. And in retrospect, perhaps he simply should have continued nodding his head and kept his mouth shut. But now everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to continue. So Kerns pressed on. "I mean, just look at Indian-Americans. Despite India's economic, social and political problems, within one generation of coming to the U.S. the average Indian family has a standard of living that's actually above that of the typical American family."
A hush fell over the room.
Then Smith's beeper sounded. "You're on your own," he whispered to Kerns, using the beeper as an excuse to bolt from the meeting.
"I have to find out how he gets his beeper to sound on command like that," Kerns thought. He'd seen Smith use the trick too often to believe it a coincidence. Kerns could see from the apoplectic expressions around the table that he'd done something wrong again. And indeed, for the next two hours he sat quietly, pretending to take notes as the meeting's participants questioned his data, mostly by shouting obscenities at him. But Kerns was learning.
This afternoon's mistake had taught him a very valuable lesson. Kerns almost smiled when he realized how far he'd come as an administrator in such a short time. Today's moral: don't try to offer facts or opinions. Only open your mouth to agree, and leave it at that. In the future, Kerns would compliment every person, group, and team he met on their remarkable achievements, even if they hadn't any. His only opinion would be complete support. After the meeting broke up, Kerns flipped his daily planner open to a page he had been using to record the pearls of wisdom that he had picked up in the past six weeks.
"1. Nothing is anyone's fault, unless it happens to be your fault" it read. "2. Anything referred to a student committee will result in inaction. Arrange for additional student committees. 3. If anyone ever asks you to give up a comfortable position for a powerful position, say no. If it really was a powerful position, they wouldn't be offering it to you. 4. Everyone's out to get you, except maybe the dog, who seems to be wavering." To this he added his latest observation. "5. Just agree with everything."
After a moment's thought, he added one more: "6. Get more advice from those who have helped in the past."

June 25

It had been two million years, give or take a few hundred millennia. Two million years since the piece of land that would eventually become Dana's home first poked its head above sea level. It must have been a very proud day for this lump of volcanic rock, considering how long it had taken to climb all the way up from the ocean floor. And it must have been something of a let down when the tide rose a few hours later and sent the nascent island back underwater. But then when you're a rock, you can afford to be patient.
The volcanic activity far below had just enough juice left to push three hundred feet higher before petering out, leaving behind a truly magnificent mountain thousands of feet in height as a testament to its immense power. Unfortunately, as only the very tip of this mountain was visible above the Pacific, and a marginally larger piece of rock existed just a short distance away, this monument of nature was destined to get saddled with the somewhat degrading handle "Lesser Morrell Island." Perhaps this name gave the island an inferiority complex. Perhaps some stone mounds just don't have greatness in them. Whatever the reason, this slab of stone had managed to escape the sort of attention and activity that had so marked the history of so many other, better known, locations.
True, the island did have two claims to fame, but neither was substantial enough to afford it any more notoriety than that earned by your average medical oddity or town named after a game show. The first of these marginally notable characteristics concerned the island's wildlife. The Lesser Morrell Island Uncommonly Clever Monkey generally was regarded as an extraordinarily intelligent species--perhaps the smartest monkey yet devised. The only ones to question these chimps' intellect were Lesser Morrell Island's human inhabitants, who liked to point out that they often had success trapping and eating the monkeys, whereas the monkeys only occasionally had success trapping and eating them. Such dissenting opinions aside, it's a well-known fact among medical researchers that if you have a group of monkeys from various monkey-producing countries assembled for a hazardous and painful medical-research assignment, most of the Lesser Morrell Island monkeys will figure out a way to get themselves assigned to the so-called "control group" where all they have to do is loll around downing placebos. Those that don't end up in the control group somehow wind up assigned to the research team.
The second of Lesser Morrell Island's second-rate claims to fame was cartographical. Or perhaps it was chronological. It all depended on how you looked at it, assuming you bothered to look at it at all, which most people, quite rightly, didn't. Owing to an oversight at the International Meridian Conference of 1884, Lesser Morrell Island was the only piece of land north of Antarctica bisected by the international dateline. This error could have been corrected, of course, but it hardly seemed worth the trouble, as the Lesser Morrell Islanders had never considered the dateline much of a bother. In fact, despite repeated attempts, they had never even been able to find the darn thing. The islanders eventually concluded that this so-called 'dateline' separating today from tomorrow was just a myth subscribed to by off-islanders. But the Lesser Morrell Islanders understood that people cling jealously to their myths, so they never argued. When an outsider mentioned the dateline, they would agree that it was treasured feature of their island, although difficult to see with the untrained eye. Then the Lesser Morrell Islanders would exchange a conspiratorial wink and offer to take the off-islander out scouting for this elusive prey, for a very reasonable fee.
The dateline anomaly was an interesting bit of trivia. But that and the cunning monkey thing still made for an embarrassingly brief listing in the annual Who's Who of Land Masses. In fairness, a four-square-mile patch of lava rock placed neatly in the middle of a rather sizable ocean never really had much of a chance to become a second Athens--or even a second Athens, Georgia. But one could not help but notice that Lesser Morrell Island had escaped even the fleeting glory afforded many of its fellow distant specs of earth. Tahiti and Bora Bora, for example, were known around the globe, and they were not so very much larger than Lesser Morrell Island. Easter Island had found a niche in the world of sculpture. Howland, Pitcairn, Bikini, Midway, they all had their pages in history. A cynic might conclude that Lesser Morrell Island had simply arrived on the scene two million years ago and then stopped trying.

The human history of Lesser Morrell Island, such as it was, began perhaps 4,000 years ago, when a boat full of natives from Greater Morrell Island lost its way in a storm. By chance, or perhaps by destiny if one believes in such things, these first Lesser Morrell Islanders stumbled upon the one small cove that allowed entry to the island from its otherwise prohibitively rocky coastline. These Lesser Morrell Islanders were amazed by what they found, but mostly this was because they were the sort to be easily amazed. In truth it was an island exactly like Greater Morrell Island, only populated by largish birds content to stroll about on land, blissfully unaware that other birds have shown a bit of initiative and taken to the skies. Within a few short years--the blink of an eye in historical terms--these new Lesser Morrell Islanders realized that such walking birds were easier to catch than the ones on Greater Morrell Island that insisted on flapping off at the slightest provocation. The natives decided to stay.
Of course the problem with flightless birds is that you never can eat just one. Within a generation, all the flightless birds were gone, and all the recipes for flightless bird casseroles were rendered useless. Unable to build any new flightless birds, the natives returned to fishing, which they had never particularly liked, on account of the fact they had a history of losing their way in storms, which is the sort of thing that sticks with you.
Every now and again throughout the succeeding millennia a group of men from outside the island would come by in a boat. Generally, such floating foreigners be intent on putting Lesser Morrell Island to use for their own purposes, perhaps as a home, a port, or just a nice vacation spot where one could wage war and rape any women or remaining flightless birds that might happen by. But thankfully, such occasions were rare. The island's challenging coastline helped the Lesser Morrell Islanders hold off their foes, most of whom would quickly give up and head off to Greater Morrell Island instead, where there was more to pillage, and the women were…well, let's just say if you had a few beads or a couple of nice, shiny shells there was hardly any need for rape.
But while life for the Lesser Morrell Islanders had stood virtually still, change was swirling all around them on the other islands of the Pacific. Technically speaking, every piece of land within thousands of miles had fallen under the control of the Portuguese in 1525, when a party of Portuguese ships in search of the Spice Islands wound up in completely the wrong place. Making the best of a bad situation, the Portuguese declared all the islands in the vicinity to be possessions of Portugal. This was their legal right since they had found them first, something they did their best to explain to the islands' inhabitants.
Historians will note that in declaring these new lands to be theirs these Portuguese were representative of a new, enlightened Europe. Earlier seafaring tradition had held that upon discovery of a piece of land you couldn't recognize, you simply declared it to be the place you'd been looking for in the first place. But the Portuguese were clever in the ways of the world, and within months realized that these couldn't be the Spice Islands, since they had no spices, just assorted fruits and lizards.
Eventually the Portuguese sailed on, never having set foot on the portion of their new territory now known as Lesser Morrell Island. As it happened, they never found the Spice Islands, either, as those islands had taken the sensible precaution of changing their name to Indonesia and telling any dangerous looking foreigners who happened by in search of spices that they should sail two weeks south, three weeks east, then stop and ask for directions. The Portuguese expedition fell for the ruse, as did the search party sent after them. This marked the beginning of the end of Portuguese sea power. For the next 500 years, the nation would be content to sit around growing overly sweet wine grapes and flaunting their power over the Azores.
Before long the Spanish took over the region from the Portuguese, their claim to the region resting on the long-established legal principle of just-try-and-stop-us. No one did try to stop them, since the rest of Europe was busy claiming other portions of the globe that had a bit more land to them. For their part, the local populations of the Pacific Islands didn't even realize the Spanish weren't Portuguese. To this day the people of the Pacific are said to consider the Spanish language to be poorly spoken Portuguese, whereas the rest of the world knows that it's actually Portuguese that's poorly spoken Spanish. But like the Portuguese, the Spanish never set foot on tiny Lesser Morrell Island, since there were so many other islands in the area that seemed more likely to contain huge piles of gold or, baring that, a nice fountain of youth.
From 1899 through 1914 the Germans were in control, but they never bothered to stop by and didn't keep up the payments, so between 1914 and 1945 things were run by the Japanese. The Japanese did have a more dramatic effect on the Pacific Islands than did their predecessors, what with thousands upon thousands of them moving in and driving up real estate values and golf-club membership costs. But since Lesser Morrell Island was much too mountainous for even a decent nine-hole course, the Lesser Morrell Islanders remained blissfully unaware that anyone but them considered the island theirs. After that unpleasantness in the 1940s cleared out the Japanese, the United Nations put the United States in charge of the area, as the UN itself was tied up with more important matters, such as deciding which day should be International United Nations Day.
Finally, in the late 1970s, the islands of the Pacific began teaming up to form nations themselves. These young nations didn't really get much attention on the world stage, since you can't have a good border dispute when you live on islands, and the press never really got itself very worked up over the short-lived macadamia-nut cartel. Still, on many of the islands in Lesser Morrell's neighborhood, this was a time of exciting progress. The people of the Island of Truk now saw that they wouldn't draw vacationers with a name like Truk--not when they were up against places with exciting names like Maui and Atlantic City. So they changed their name to Chuuk. Meanwhile on Nui they installed a phone. Eight years later, they installed another. Within months, the two were connected, and use skyrocketed. Wrong numbers were not a problem.
None of this change had much of an effect on Lesser Morrell Island, mostly because no one had bothered to tell them about it. The island's lack of a port suitable for large vessels, together with its uneven terrain disadvantageous to aircraft runways, had successfully curtailed interest by foreigners of all flavors. The Lesser Morrell Islanders had won the war against colonization without even knowing that it had been fought.
Only during World War II did any outside power show even the mildest of interest in Lesser Morrell Island, and that was just a token, half-hearted interest, something akin to the obligatory attention Rock Hudson paid his leading ladies. Specifically, the Japanese had stationed a single soldier on the island in 1941, not so much for any real strategic purpose, but rather out of a sense of punctiliousness for which the Japanese long have been known. The soldier, a raw recruit of 18, was ordered to defend this land with his life and to remain at his post even if it seemed obvious that the war had been over for decades and everyone had just forgotten to let him know, which, predictably enough, was how things turned out.
When the U.S. Marine Corps reclaimed the Pacific in a series of bloody battles in 1944, Lesser Morrell Island was overlooked by a careless admiral's aide who assumed it to be nothing more than a crumb from the tuna sandwich he was eating as he reviewed the map. Thus the island was spared from bloodshed, although it was left with a Japanese soldier who insisted on raiding the natives' food supplies every few weeks. The locals finally put a stop to this behavior in the 1960s by inviting the soldier to dinner. The man accepted, if only because it had been a long 20 years eating alone in the woods and he was interested to find out the news from the war and maybe some baseball scores. The Lesser Morrell Islanders, who didn't want to disappoint the soldier, and anyway knew a good opportunity for a practical joke when they saw one, told him the war was going well, but it figured to rage on for another decade or two.
Contented, the man returned to the woods, coming down only for dinner and later to publicize a book about his 40 years on Lesser Morrell Island. Tragically, the book didn't sell well, as it hit the market just months after four other books written by Japanese soldiers who was still fighting World War II on other islands, and a fifth by a soldier who was still fighting the Meiji Restoration of 1868. But this mattered little as Lesser Morrell Island's soldier died only weeks after his book's release, leaving all proceeds from his volume to the war effort.
Despite the poor book sales, the soldier came to be seen as a hero in Japan, one of the last of a great generation willing to do whatever they were told in the name of country and honor without a second thought, or for that matter, without much evidence of a first. The man's family was said to be extremely proud.
The people of Lesser Morrell Island hardly had stopped talking about the death of their soldier when fresh groups of outsiders began dropping by ten or twelve years later. First came missionaries. They were nice enough sorts, although the islanders did find them a bit preachy. And then came a new type of outsider that claimed not to be soldiers or missionaries. They were social activists, they explained, people of science and humanity who wished only to study the Lesser Morrell Islanders and their homeland. The Lesser Morrell Islanders suggested that if these people wanted to see something really interesting, they ought to go to Greater Morrell Island, where they had all kinds of neat stuff like electric lights and video poker. The outsiders said that wasn't the kind of thing that interested them. Lesser Morrell Island was more their speed, they insisted, since it hadn't been spoiled by foreigners. And after talking it over amongst themselves, the Lesser Morrell Islanders said, fine, come to our island and study us, but stay away from our sisters.

Dana had been on Lesser Morrell Island for three days, and the experience had been the greatest of her life, except maybe when it was too hot. Which, thus far, had been always. And the dateline expedition she'd agreed to had been a bit of a bust. But Dana had come into this with her eyes open: social activism was like art films or tofu. You didn't expect to enjoy it, you just did it to prove that you're one of those people who enjoy such things.
There had been something of an altruistic rush to the island in the past year or two, as a wide range of social crusaders had swept down on one of the few remaining places on the globe still untouched by outsiders. Environmentalists and social crusaders, like antiques dealers and classic car collectors, like things in unaltered condition. It's a tenet of the social activist belief system that separates them rather markedly from, say, industrialists and property developers, who tend to argue that improvements are, well, improvements. Each side can site precedent to defend its position. On the one hand, advances in technology, medicine, and agriculture have helped improve the lives of billions. On the other, without traditional, unspoiled peoples and places, there's a good chance the world would have lost the simple joys of beetle eating and animism.
Lesser Morrell Island's phalanx of activists included Jeff Tabac, tall and thin, forever forced to duck through the island's low doors and under tree branches. Jeff had spent much of the past year under tent roofs, and now stood with a permanent hunch even when in the relatively roomy outdoors. With the financial backing of a well-known international organization, Jeff had started Lesser Morrell Island's first environmental program. When he feared that he wasn't doing enough, he had started three others.
Jeff's closest friend was Tommy Binder. Tommy was an ordinary man, unspectacular in appearance and uninspired in intellect. He was, simply put, extra-ordinary--or he would have been, if that term hadn't already been employed to describe quite the opposite. Tommy might well have been the most ordinary man who had ever lived, and he hoped that this might count as something exceptional, although deep down in his ordinary soul he knew it didn't. Tommy was the island's most recent arrival, Dana aside, a fact that had left him a bit over-eager to fit in, which, of course, further reduced his chances of actually doing so. Tommy had been sent to the island to start a literacy program. He also had started an island anti-litter campaign, mostly because Jeff had misread his sign-up sheet for literacy volunteers and Tommy hadn't wanted to disappoint him.
It had been a productive partnership. Together, Jeff and Tommy had reduced the litter problem on Lesser Morrell Island by nearly 100%. Jeff had noted that the main source of litter on the island was all the printed reading materials that Tommy passed out as part of his literacy campaign. In a bold pre-emptive strike on litter, Jeff had Tommy stop handing out reading materials.
Then there was Laura Pressinger, an energetic, driven woman who would have been perfectly described by the term "perky," except that she preferred terms like "energetic" and "driven," made it a point to be involved with every vital cause on the island. She was regional president of, and received funding from, no fewer than 10 different social activism organizations. And although she was rumored to be the sole member of at least eight of the local chapters of those ten groups, the others admired her skills in juggling so many leadership responsibilities and the boundless commitment it reflected.
Brent Gonner was a hydroelectric engineer on the island to construct a dam for a group known as Power to the People. The other activists thought Brent might be a bit conceited, perhaps because his hydrological engineering degree meant that he could be making big money somewhere else. In truth, Brent wasn't a very good hydrological engineer, and probably could not have been. But he saw no reason for the others to know this, and went right on acting a bit conceited, peering questioningly over the top of his wire rim glasses whenever someone said something with which he might or might not agree.
No one was quite sure what organization had funded Sarah Skeller's stay on Lesser Morrell Island. But everyone knew her focus. Sarah had created--and named herself the head of--three groups, each of which strove to foment political revolution among the island's natives. It isn't an easy thing to foment political revolution in a place that contained no politics, so Sarah's task was not an easy one.
First Sarah had tried to form a local cell of the Communist party. For a week, she had marched around the small native village with a Chinese flag and Mao jacket. When she stopped marching, she told the local people that they must give her everything they had and let her decide who deserved what. To Sarah’s dismay, this plan had drawn little support from the proletariat. So Sarah turned to Socialism, and told the Lesser Morrell Islanders they should at least turn over half of what they had. As socialists, they wouldn't even be required to march around the village, except maybe once a year on May Day. But still Sarah sensed reluctance. In desperation she had started a local chapter of the Democratic party and begged the villagers to give her at least some of their possessions, in exchange for which she would make promises she couldn't possibly keep but otherwise would stay more-or-less out of their way. Taking pity, or perhaps just anxious to shut Sarah up, the natives had agreed, and given her four pieces of fruit and a carved bowl. In return, Sarah promised that she would take care of the old, the sick, and the needy. She then went home and ate the fruit. It was a small victory, but an important one in that it set a precedent. In four years, Sarah would be able to return and demand even more fruit and carved bowls.
Finally, there was Doctor Mudgett. He ran only one organization, the hospital, and that wasn't really an activist group so much as it was, well, a hospital. The doctor thus received little respect from the other more active members of the local political community. Still, Mudgett was allowed to join the others in their get togethers, partly out of sense of inclusiveness, but mostly because his tent was the only one large enough to fit the whole group. Every now and then Sarah made noises about liberating the tent from Mudgett's possession. It would have been for the common good, most agreed, but such a move would have risked alienating the doctor and thereby cutting off the region's supply of recreational pharmaceuticals.
Besides, Mudgett was a big bear of a man with a mean-looking beard who the others were not very anxious to cross. The doctor had such an ursine presence that Jeff, who had once spent three months protecting the grizzlies in the Canadian north, until he had been quite badly mauled, felt a subconscious need to defend Mudgett…as well as a very conscience fear that the doctor one day would rip him to shreds. Adding to Jeff's fear was the unavoidable fact that Mudgett had been on Lesser Morrell Island longer than anyone apart from the Morrell Islanders; the long-term island confinement, it seemed, had begun to drain away the physician's finite supply of sanity.
Dana wondered how she could fit in. Her trip to the middle of the Pacific had been arranged so quickly that no one had bothered to worry about what she might do whilst there. Dana's original mandate, to help distribute food to the impoverished people of Spanish Guyana, did not apply as well here on Lesser Morrell Island. These natives were by all appearances extremely well fed. And, as it happened, Dana had no food to distribute. In fact, she could only hope that the natives could spare some of their food for her.
This was not her first problem, however. Before Dana could worry about her mandate or the possibility that she might starve, she had to establish herself among the island's activists. The others were not be anxious to accept another outsider into their territory, particularly when that outsider represented One Planet, an organization so large and successful at fund raising that it was roundly despised by smaller, lesser known groups that were trying to save the world in exactly the same ways. Fortunately, Dana had a trump card. She recently had been held in a South American prison. Or, at very least, in a South American airport conference room, which under the circumstances would have to do. For an activist, there are few better coups than a good stretch of South American imprisonment. There were social activists who took their vacations in South America then loitered and jay-walked with abandon just to have some South American jail time on their resumes. The only thing more impressive was to be killed for a cause, but that was a bit drastic as career moves go.
"Great, just what this island needs, another foreigner," the first fellow activist Dana came across on Lesser Morrell Island had said. Dana would later learn that he was Tommy, an insecure man who had arrived only a week earlier. "I suppose you're an expert on Lesser Morrell Island?"
"I'm afraid not," Dana responded, ready to try out her trump card. "I've been a bit out of the loop--I was only released from a South American prison a few days ago."
The man simply dropped his head and wandered off, defeated, wishing he, too, could have been imprisoned by a repressive government.
This conversation was repeated along more-or-less the same lines with each new activist and environmentalist Dana happened across. One or two mentioned that they, too, had been unjustly imprisoned, for chaining themselves to gates in Arizona or creating a nuisance in Washington or unpaid parking tickets in New Jersey. But their stories fell short and they knew it. Left no other option, Dana's peers accepted her into their community. Dana was allotted a cot in one of the four army-surplus canvas pup tents that the activists had raised on bamboo platforms a few hundred yards up the coast from the natives' village, informed that Tuesday would be her day to prepare the meals, and warned not to bother with any Gilligan's Island jokes, since that's what everyone else had done when they first arrived and now they were all pretty much sick of them, especially the natives, who had never found the show very compelling in the first place.
With the introductions out of the way, all Dana had to do was determine how best to improve this corner of the world. At least she had choices. The six activists who had preceded her already had started at least 20 social, environmental, and political organizations and initiatives. It spoke to the drive and commitment of these activists that they had launched more than three organizations apiece in such short order. The natives themselves had started no organizations in the many millennia that they had been here, Dana noted, purely for the sake of comparison, not because she thought it reflected negatively on them. It was simply their way, and it was not Dana's place to criticize. Fortunately, the activists were now there to make things right.

Chapter 11

2009-08-02T15:51:00.002-07:00

Dana actually sort of enjoyed spending the morning on a smallish prop plane, a fact that she did not fully appreciate until she had spent the afternoon on a smallish ferryboat. The ferry was the only way to cross the Straights of Morrell, the 60-mile wide stretch of ocean separating the largely irrelevant Greater Morrell Island from the totally irrelevant Lesser Morrell Island.
Should the need to cross the Straights of Morrell in a smallish boat arise again--and it seemed certain to arise at least one more time if she ever intended to leave the island--Dana swore she'd remember to take some Dramamine. Assuming Dramamine was available n Lesser Morrell Island. Which it almost certainly wouldn't be, since a seafaring people like the Lesser Morrell Islanders weren't likely to need such a thing.
The pair of Lesser Morrell Islanders with her on this final leg of her journey certainly showed no signs of seasickness. The men, it developed, were returning from Greater Morrell Island with consumer items unavailable on their island, which is to say pretty much everything except for fish and coconuts. They were Dana's first Lesser Morrell Islanders, and she was eager to make a good first impression. But as it is notoriously difficult to make a good first impression whilst one is busy vomiting over the side of a boat, Dana settled for not accidentally vomiting on them, which figured to be a social faux pas, differing local customs or no.
One doesn't so much get over seasickness on a short trip as one gets used to it. Dana eventually got used to hers enough to say hello to her fellow passengers. Fortunately, they spoke very credible English, which worked out very well for Dana, who spoke little Morrellitian. Most Morrell Islanders spoke English, the men explained, or at least a Pidgin English that in terms of clarity falls somewhere between proper English and the version of English spoken by the English.
"The missionaries taught us the language," the men explained.
"There are missionaries on Lesser Morrell Island?" Dana asked, surprised.
"Not for a while now. We had some differences."
"Differences?"
"They were always going on about this man who wanted to tell us how to do everything. We told them that if it was so important, then this man ought to come and tell us himself."
"What did the missionaries say to that?"
"They said this man was busy with running the universe, and anyway that he'd been dead 2,000 years, not that that had slowed him up too much. Eventually we reached a compromise with the missionaries and they left for another island."
"What was the compromise?"
"We agreed to eat fish on Fridays and maintain their church."
"And do you?"
"Sure. We eat fish everyday anyway."
"And the church?"
"Where do you think we keep the fish?"
The men were William and George, brothers who ran Lesser Morrell Island's only established business, the Island Bar. Owning the bar made them very big men on Lesser Morrell Island, even if the enterprise did consist only of warm Cook Island Beer sold on the front porch of their hut. On Greater Morrell Island, however, they were very small men, as was anyone from Lesser Morrell Island.
"They think we are backwards people because we don't own telephones or cars…or anything else we can't buy in Greater Morrell Island and bring back on this ferry," explained George.
"And they own the ferry," added William.
Both brothers said they'd be happy to get back to their own island where they could once again look down on other people. William looked towards the boat's captain, a Greater Morrell Islander who wasn't about to return the gaze of a Lesser Morrell Islander.
These first two Lesser Morrell Islanders seemed nice enough, Dana decided. They expressed concern for her sea sickness, and they did their best to stifle their laughter when they exchanged what almost certainly were jibes at her expense in their own language. But there were some troubling signs that Lesser Morrell Island might not be as unspoiled as she had hoped. To begin with, there were the names; William and George. That was hardly authentic, even if the men did assure her that their last name was Mo'oouloughibili!olo, which more than met with her approval. There was the men's wardrobe: tee shirts, blue jeans, and baseball caps, not the grass skirts Dana had been more-or-less expecting. "Grass skirts really do itch," explained William. There was the importation of Western consumer goods; such things could irreparably alter a culture, although deep down Dana was pleased to know she would be spending the year in a place that understood the value of a good toilet paper. Finally, there was the fact that William and George were not surprised that she'd be spending a year on their island.
"What are you going to do on Lesser Morrell Island?" William asked.
"Good," Dana explained.
"That's what they all say," said George. Then George said something to William in their own language and both broke into laughter.
Dana politely excused herself to throw up.

The worst thing about being unemployed, I had decided--even worse than the lack of food or a 401(k) plan with 100% matching--was the lack of purpose. Every day was just another day, without challenges, without accomplishments, without the possibility of success or the threat of failure. This is why I had of late become obsessed with thoughts of manure. Manure, spread on a field, helps crops grow. In other words, even excrement has a purpose. I didn't. If spread on a field, I would just lie there waiting for a combine to roll by and end my misery. Few people are lucky enough to know exactly where they stand in the grand scheme of things. I had established beyond debate that I was somewhere below shit.
I'd grown complacent, I realized now. When the summer began, I'd hated the fact that I was unemployed. And I still did. But at the beginning of the summer I'd also tried to do something about it. Now I just sat around hating it. At this particular moment, I was hating unemployment while lying on Dave's desk under the telescope staring at clouds.
Dave was right. They did look like bigger clouds.
"I've got to get up and do something," I thought. But nothing happened.
"I've got to get up and do something," I said, out loud this time. Still nothing. It seemed like something was supposed to happen after one makes such a statement, but just what that might be eluded me.
"What's wrong with me?" I wondered. "I used to have so many plans, so many ideas. Now all I can think about was where my next meal is coming from." As soon as I thought this, I was sorry I had. Now I really had to get up and do something or I wouldn't be able to get my mind off my stomach. So I got up and paced.
I had visited virtually every office in the Bridgeton area in search of work with no luck. It's not as though this had required weeks of pounding the pavement. The Bridgeton business district consisted of exactly one street. It wasn't a particularly long street. There were campus jobs, but these were reserved for current students. Curt Nissent, a classmate of mine who had flunked a few courses this spring and therefore not graduated, had a campus job. Since I had earned passing grades, I wasn't qualified.
The answer, of course, was to leave Bridgeton for a larger city with more employers. But I was hesitant to lit off for a new city with no job secured and no place to live. Here at least I had free housing. How could I possibly move to New York or Boston? I didn't have the bus fare to get there, let alone the thousands of dollars I'd need to pay the first-month's rent, last-month's rent, and security deposit that landlords worldwide consider their birthright.
Or there was grad school. I had no particular desire to spend any more of my life in classrooms, I couldn't think of any subject that might warrant an additional two-though-six years of my attention, and the application deadlines for the coming term had long since passed anyway. But none of this had stopped me from weighing the option of late, a sure sign that my desperation was on the rise.
Not for the first time, I even considered that when the summer ended, I'd have little choice but to ask my parents for money. I might even have to return home to Kansas.
Kansas, mind you.
"Kansas is the death of hope," I explained to the clouds. Kansas. That was enough to get me out of the house and in search of some employment.

June 23

Kerns hated the second half of June. Hated it with all his heart. Not just the second half of this June, you understand, the second halves of Junes in general. Kerns despised the very idea of the last half of the last month of the first half of the year. He wasn't altogether fond of the first half of June either, but that was only because he knew the second half was looming, not because of anything June 1-15 had done to him personally.
Kerns did have a good reason to hate the subsequent fortnight-and-change. Specifically, it was easier than hating his wife, Katherine, whom of course he loved very much--except in the second half of June, when he loathed her with a passion. Well, as much passion as an economist could muster.
It was in the second half of June each year that Kerns' wife, a tenured Bucklin professor as Kerns himself had been until two months before, took a fifteen-day sabbatical to attend a conference and catch up and all the latest developments in her field, 19th-century French literature. During the early years of his marriage, Kerns had looked forward to these weeks with great anticipation. Not that he took full advantage of the freedom as many married men would, mind you--economists only think about sewing wild oats if they're studying agricultural production--but it's always nice to have some time to oneself, especially when one knows it won't last too long.
In recent years, however, Kerns had become convinced that his wife's real reason for leaving town each year was to cheat on him. He was virtually certain of it. All he lacked was even the slightest bit of credible evidence. Kerns found this lack of evidence troubling, as he was an economist, and economics is a science, and a good scientist must be careful not to jump to conclusions without due cause. So Kerns had set out to find the evidence as only an economist can. With a chart. He had graphed his wife's amorousness in the days following her return from her conference each year using a set of objective criteria. Then he'd measured that against the days following other stretches in which he could be certain she had not had sex for a period of two weeks. His results to date…were inconclusive. But, then, some trends take decades to develop.
In fairness, Kerns was forced to concede that a significant amount of evidence in fact pointed away from his affair thesis. For one, if his wife was cheating on him, she must be doing so only in these two weeks each June. For the rest of the year she was either at home with him, teaching classes on campus, or in her office. Until Kerns had moved to the administration building that April, Katherine's office had been only 50 yards from his own. He had been able to see right into her window from the comfort of his desk chair--assuming the desk chair was rolled into the northwest corner of his office, and he was standing on its armrests. Kerns didn't spy on his wife, mind you. As a caring husband, he just wished to confirm her safety. Four or five times an hour. The upshot was, unless Katherine was having an affair only on the left side of her office where Kerns' view was obscured--and that seemed a bit brazen for a woman who had of her own free will married an economist--it must have been just these two weeks each June.
Kerns wasn't ready to consider the lack of evidence fatal to his thesis. Evidence only took one so far. Economics might have been a science in a sense, but it was a social science, and there's always been a place in the social sciences for rank speculation unsupported by anything except suspicion. The entire field of psychology is founded on this principle. So Kerns decided that he'd go right on being suspicious. And the more time he spent being suspicious, the more certain he became that he was correct. Katherine seemed much too excited about this year's conference…and why was a French literature conference being held in Cancun, anyway?
"There's probably nothing to worry about," Kerns tried to convince himself, in his better moments. Perhaps he was just being overly sensitive about Katherine's trip because now of all times he needed a wife's unbending support. Not that Katherine had ever really provided him with unbending support in the traditional sense. Usually when Kerns had something important to say, Katherine heard him out, mulled over the facts for a moment, then called him an idiot. But she called him an idiot in a loving, patient way that Kerns had come to appreciate, and with just that trace of a French accent Kerns found so adorable, even if he knew that Katherine was from Nutley, Connecticut and had only affected the accent because she taught French Literature and it seemed appropriate. There have been marriages based on less. But Kerns didn't have even that to help him now. It was late June and Kerns was alone, all alone, without a soul in the world he could trust, except his dog, a Pekinese named Roger, who, truth be known, preferred Katherine and didn't think much of the second half of June either.

"Please roll up your sleeve."
I suppose I'd found a purpose in life. The same way that a maple tree finds a purpose in life. While all of the region's other employers had slammed their doors in my face, the fine folks at Portland Biotechnics had taken me in. And all I had to do was sell them my blood.
Well, technically, you can't sell your blood. People expect you to donate your blood. Cheap bastards. But there is something of a loophole, in that it is possible to sell one's blood plasma. As it happens, swapping one's blood plasma for cash isn't exactly like giving away one's blood. First off, while the blood donation people are content to stop themselves at a pint, plasma buyers feel entitled to drain a bit more. I believe it's something in the neighborhood of a gallon. At least that's how it appears to the naked eye as the plasma flows out of one's arm. And second, the plasma removal process is a bit more complex than a quick needle in the arm. Specifically, there are two quick needles in the arm. One leads to, the other from a device that can best be visualized by imagining what the Slurpee machine might look like, had it been invented by Dracula. This device separates the plasma from the rest of the blood, keeps the former, and returns the latter to one's person. Portland Biotechnics uses this device because it allows them to take more syrup from their human maple trees each time they visit while not actually killing them, which would add to their clean-up costs. An additional benefit is that these maple trees now can be drained not just more but more often. The Red Cross won't let you donate blood more than once a month even if you weren't planning to use the blood yourself anyway. But Portland Biotechnics will buy your plasma every week at $20 a pop. This comes to over $1,000 a year, which wasn't what I'd hoped for in a starting salary, but it was five times what your typical Bangladeshi makes, so who was I to complain?
Okay, maybe I'd complain a little. I'd just have to remember to cut it out around any Bangladeshis I might happen across.
Thing is, this wasn't a perfect plan, a fact that I had found myself admitting about every plan I'd had in recent months. For starters, there was little room for growth. It's not like I'd be able to work harder and produce more plasma next week. And there were transport issues. Plasma clinics are not located in well-to-do college towns. Portland Biotechnics was, coincidentally enough, located in Portland, half an hour by car, a fact that presumed, incorrectly as it happened, that I had a car.
This meant hitchhiking. For those who have never had the pleasure, hitchhiking is a time-consuming and degrading procedure whereby you stand by the road while dozens of cars swoop by, deem you too questionable-looking to be worth the risk of stopping, and drive on. If you persist, eventually someone will happen by and determine that you represent no risk to them. Most often they reach this conclusion because they so clearly represent a greater risk to you. This individual then stops, offers you a ride, and for the duration of your journey treats you to his opinions about politics, religion, or how quickly the country is going to hell and with what caliber its problems might best be solved.
There was an additional nuisance to my new vocation as well, one that in retrospect can only be considered the expected price of a career in bleeding oneself. Specifically, the weekly plasma loss left me tired and woozy for the return trip to Bridgeton. Orange drink and cookies were available in the clinic, at very reasonable prices, to help the recently bled regain a bit of strength. But such luxuries cut deeply into the profit margin from a $20 plasma sale, so I kept my consumption to a minimum. The result of this economy was nearly disastrous. After my first visit session I stumbled hazily into traffic while attempting to thumb a ride home. Fortunately, the driver of the oncoming vehicle was an experienced motorist who was able to slam on his brakes, swerve to avoid me, and still have the presence of mind to flip me the bird and call me an asshole before passing, as prescribed by state law.
I was a bit curious to know what would have happened if the car had hit me. The whole incident occurred right in front of Portland Biotechnics. I've theorized that someone from the clinic would have rushed out to my side and offered to sell my own plasma back to me at a slightly inflated price. Or perhaps the nurse would have dashed out into the street with a big sponge to gather the rest of my blood before it spilled into the gutter.
So it wasn't a dream job. But then when one's housing is free, and when--unlike in Bangladesh--the need for flood insurance is minimal, $20 a week can go a long way. That is, assuming that one doesn't expect the finer things out of life. As in anything finer than spaghetti cooked on a hot plate seven times a week followed by an evening gawking at stars. "If only I'd majored in astronomy," I thought one Saturday night as I stared up through the telescope, "I could at least think of myself as a devoted eccentric and not just a total loser."
As it happened, it was in the evening following a Portland Biotechnics visit that I first met Roger, the individual who was destined to change my life. I'd been half-heartedly studying stars in the descending darkness, waiting for my body to get on with replacing its lost plasma so I could once again think straight, when I heard something moving near the door. I'd left the door open in the hopes of catching a breeze. There was no breeze, but I had, it seemed, managed to catch a small dog. Or perhaps it a mid-sized woodchuck. At the time I wasn't sure, since it was pretty dark and Roger, like most small dogs and through no fault of his own, looked more like a woodchuck than he did any sort of legitimate dog. But even at that early juncture, I'd felt confident in guessing dog, in as much as the animal was trailing a leash behind it, and woodchucks never have caught on as pets.
The likely dog gave a quick glance in my direction, then focused most of its attention on sniffing around my hotplate.
"Sorry little dog, the food's all gone," I said. "But don't worry. It wasn't very good to begin with."
Finding nothing requiring its immediate attention around the hotplate, the dog came over to the second most interesting item in the room, me. "I see by the leash that you've escaped from someone, little dog," I said to the little dog. "You'd better head home. Take it from me. If they're feeding you regular and there's a roof over your head, you've got it better than you think."
I scratched the dog's head and it licked my arm, a symbiotic relationship if ever there was one. The dog had tags on its collar. I probably could find an address on a tag and return it, except I'd have to start by getting up and turning on the lights, which would have taken more energy than I had available at that moment. This proved to be just as well, as the dog's owner, panting considerably harder than his charge, followed m new friend through the door only a minute later.
"Roger?" the owner asked hesitantly, groping around in the dark.
When the dog--who I now was able to identify as Roger--made no particular effort to respond, I decided the prudent move would be for me to answer in his place. Otherwise the lights would come on, this person would see someone there lying in the dark, get scared, scream, call campus security, and cause a general unpleasantness for all concerned that, like most general unpleasantnesses, I'd just as soon avoid.
"If Roger is a smallish dog with an interest in sniffing around saucepans, he's over here."
The man reacted with a start to my voice. "Yes, that sounds like Roger all right," said Roger's owner. His apprehension was appreciable. But this was to be expected. He was speaking to a stranger lying on a desk in a darkened observatory. "I'm sorry to intrude. Roger seems to be conducting a search for someone who'll make a better owner than me until my wife gets back to town."
"It's no trouble," I said. "I was just explaining to Roger that he'd probably be wise to head back home." The truth was Roger had shown few signs that he had taken my advice to heart, although he did follow the conversation, or at least look in the direction of whoever had last said "Roger."
"I'm glad to hear he's getting sound advice," the dog owner offered. "I could use some myself."
"Well, I'm a little groggy on account of the blood loss, but I'll give it a whirl if you like." Any conversation was welcome after a few hours lying in the dark watching stars.
"Blood loss? Some Native American ritual?"
"Something like that," I said. Must be someone who knew about recent developments on campus. "What's the problem?" I considered trying to sound more Native American, but in as much as it seemed unlikely that your average college-educated Native American sounds very much like Jay Silverheels, I set the idea aside.
"I suppose the problem is that I'm terrible at my job and everyone's out to get me."
"Technically that's two problems," I noted. "Perhaps we should focus on just one or the other."
"Oh yes, I suppose it is two problems. Well, why don't we focus on the everyone being out to get me. If I could take care of that, I could live with the being-terrible-at-my-job thing."
"Fair enough. Any idea why everyone's against you."
"Mostly it seems to be because I'm so terrible at my job," Roger's owner admitted. Roger himself had lost interest in the conversation now that no one was saying his name and had returned to my hotplate to give the saucepan a good licking. "But I think it might also be because they all seem to be insane."
"I see."
"I'm not paranoid, you understand. They really all hate me, and they're the ones who are crazy. I'm not crazy."
"I don't think you're crazy," I said, mostly because whether or not he was crazy, saying he wasn't seemed the prudent move when it came to conversing with strangers in unlit observatories.
"What do you think I should do?"
"Give me a moment to think about it," I said. "You want those you work with to like you, or at very least not to hate you. Getting someone to like someone else is not a simple thing, in as much as most people are, at their core, self-interested jackasses."
"It's a tricky problem all right."
"Fortunately, there is a loophole. While other people are notoriously difficult to like, just about everyone has a significantly more positive opinion of themselves. From this we can deduce that there is an answer whether one was trying to ingratiate oneself with a woman or a co-worker. If you want people to like you, all you have to do is agree with them."
Roger's owner mulled this over for a moment. Roger finished with my saucepan and continued his exploring. Roger had no need for such advice, as everyone already liked him on account of the fact he was furry. "But how can I agree with them if they're wrong?" Roger's owner asked finally.
"I'm not telling you to believe what other people say, because if they're like the other people I know, they're almost certainly wrong. And I'm not suggesting that you act on what they say, because to do so would assuredly be disastrous. I'm just telling you to agree with them."
"To agree with them?"
"That's right."
"To agree with them without actually agreeing with them."
"Exactly."
"So if someone comes to me and says I need to give them money for some reason or other that doesn't make sense to me?"
"Tell them they make a good point and that you're on their side."
"Even if they make a bad point and I'm not on their side?"
"Now you've got it."
"And won't they then expect me to give them the money?"
"Probably."
"But I don't?"
"Of course not."
"Won't this make them even madder?"
"Yes, it will. But it doesn't have to make them madder at you. If you remain steadfast in your agreement with them, their anger can be diverted elsewhere."
"Isn't this unfair to whomever eventually receives this anger?"
"Potentially. Fortunately there always seems to be someone around who deserves such treatment for one reason or another."
"Yes, I suppose that's true. But what if this person is clever enough to point the anger back in my direction?"
"Be clever yourself. You must find a way to turn it upon someone who cannot turn it back…try turning the anger back upon itself…or better yet, try turning it upon someone who doesn't exist."
"It all sounds very Machiavellian. I was unaware that Native American philosophies could be so practical."
"Well, it's not all spirit guides, you know. We've had to change with the times."
"I can see that now. I can see everything very clearly now. I must get home to plan." Roger's owner called Roger to his side with such unexpected conviction that Roger found himself complying, if only out of surprise. The tall man took the far end of the leash and strode purposefully from the observatory with Roger following as quickly as someone working with four-inch legs can manage. For my part, I fell into a deep blood-loss-induced sleep and forgot the whole encounter by morning.

Unemployment Novel

Table of Contents

Chapter 25 and Epilogue

Chapter 24

Chapter 23

Chapter 22

Chapter 21

Chapter 20

Chapter 19

Chapter 18

Chapter 17

Chapter 16

Chapter 15

Chapter 14

Chapter 13

Chapter 12

Chapter 11