JR (18 page)

offer to set me up in my own shoe business I wear shoe size like what are you going to put where it says here be sure to give size? I mean like if you put in your real size they know right off how big you are they won't send you shit, or if you put some grownup size then you're like going along these here traveled highways where every place of

business is your prospect and potential book match customer carrying this here handsome Professional Carrying Case selling these matches wearing this demonstrator pair of these here grownup size shoes like some crazy looking…

—Okay then look, what do you want for those surplus Army stuff catalogs.

—Nothing. All you've got is crap.

—You said they were crap too.

—Yeah but they're better crap than your shoe stuff and your match thing what's in there, let's see. Dead men do tell tales, often the fingerprint expert is called upon… What do you want for it. And this wait, this guy with his fingers all grown together fingerprinting and identification magazine look, I'll give you this surplus stuff catalog for all this stuff, okay?

—What, that one lousy thing for all this?

—No but wait I got more. Look. Department of Defense, Sealed Bid Sale offering tab cards, tires, crane engines…

—What else.

—Look. General Services Administration, Region Seven, sales of civilian agency surplus property, see? Automotive, Medical, clothing, hand tools and wait hey look, Spot Bid Sale, Defense Logistics Services Center, pipe fittings, valves, hardware, generator sets, test sets and stands, electrical…

—Is that all?

—All what do you mean, all, there's six of them here with this look, this Reference Guide about how you get all this…

—Okay look what do you want for it, look I'll …

—We can't hey, we're there…

—Boys and girls? Let's wait till everyone gets out…

—Boy this train should have had a wreck hey look at all the lousy teachers on it…

—When we can't even get room in the cafeteria for driver training because they took the Senior Citizens' painting class out of the gym when they started the prenatal care program there what's going to happen to the adult hobby show?

—For the kind of evaluative criterions you find in these kind of enviremental settings…

—With the educational discount a lawnmower like that should be about forty-two dollars, so I said…

—When they tried to tell me I didn't know enough math to teach it I showed them enough units for the certificates and you should have seen their faces…

—like they do it in Russia so I said…

—Like it says here to gain the creative tension necessary to make deadline negotiations meaningful you need an impending social crisis like…

—Seeing her in the hospital and she says Leroy motioned them right out in front of that truck so I said you better get a better story to tell your insurance company…

—With the textbook and the workbook and the tests and the answer key but no teacher manual how do they expect…

—A short story out of it which if I published it somewheres there's three semester hours credit right there…

—Boys and girls? I think everyone's out, stand and file out the front and wait on the platform here, get your feet off the seat, who has the money for our share in, there it is yes Mister Bast maybe you wouldn't mind taking it? Mister Bast is joining us today boys and girls…

—No but wait…

—Can we stop at the girls' room Mrs Joubert? Like this one on the train the door was stuck and…

—Mrs Joubert what about lunch…

—Watch the stairs there don't push!

—Wait I'm sorry I didn't mean, I thought you just meant on the train…

—Nine, eleven twelve are there? thirteen? You didn't happen to count them Mister Bast?

—No but no but I'm sorry I thought you just meant to help you on the train I, I have to go somewhere I came in today to look for a job and, and wait maybe I could do it tomorrow I …

—It's my fault no I wouldn't think of it we'll be, stop that running! We'll be fine Mister Bast really we, oh the money yes…

—But I, maybe on the way back maybe I can…

—Our train's around four yes and thank you, oh and I hope your job works out boys and girls stay together…! they dodged ahead through the flood of hats, haircuts, briskly folded newspapers, —five, six one at a time now one at a time…! engulfed in the roar of the subway until they burst from the pavement where the sun cut a path across Trinity Church —eight, nine I should have counted wait for the light!

—Hey look at the graveyard…

—Boys and girls? yes look at the tombstones some of them are over two hundred years old oh look, look at that one with the weeping cherub carved on it isn't it dear… and they gaped obediently at the bird dropping coursing down that weathered angel's cheek until the light changed and released them across Broadway and down Wall in disheveled Indian file staggered seriatim by a stench rising from the sidewalk grating at No. 11 until George Washington's extended hand flung their attention fragmented round the corner into Broad where the lofty pediment at No. 20 threatened to spill its stone comedy of naked labor yoked, high above their heads, to the lively dominion seething within, buffeted by the anxiety of lifetimes' savings adrift in windbreakers and flowered hats toward the visitors' gallery where football field hyperbole addressed them in a voice strategically boxed along the rail.

—on the Exchange floor which is made of solid maple…

—Boy what a mess.

—Hey I thought we're going to the Museum of Natural History.

—thousand brokers who have the privilege of trading stocks on the floor…

—We getting tested on this Mrs Joubert?

—that look like hieroglyphics on the ticker tape band you see

running high above the…

—See that little guy waving down there hey? I bet if I spit…

—stock of companies that provide jobs for millions of Americans in every walk of…

—Where we going hey, Mrs Joubert? We're supposed to go buy this here stock off somebody down in that…

—No this way, this way, someone from the company's meeting us here… she quested through the modest playland of corporation exhibits off the gallery where questions posed fabricated to answers that flashed at the touch of a button, racks offered free picture postcards, pamphlets, booklets, brochures on Investment Facts, The Language of Investing, How to Invest on a Budget, A Glossary of Investment Terms —I think I see him, Mister Davidoff? We're over here…

—So these are our new owners!

—Boys and girls this is Mister Davi…

—Better keep the profits coming in hadn't we, he elbowed his way toward her from a height whose precise statistical average left him looking shorter than any adult he approached —look like a pretty shrewd bunch … he paused there taking them in at a glance as he seemed to anything that moved —well! We all set?

—Nine, ten oh there… she turned at a glimpse of diamond-patterned sweater dodging from push button information on How To Read a Stock Table, —come along now let's follow Mister Davidoff…

—I got sixteen postcards wha'd you get…

—Quit pushing … the elevator doors gasped closed like the breath held till they opened —where we going now hey…

—Icecream, there's a guy out there selling icecream hey…

—Where we going now…

—Right up here everybody… Mister Davidoff wheeled her off balance toward the figure ahead commanding the Treasury steps whose greeting he returned with a wave of bonhomie and introduced all round —standing here in the cradle of American history boys and girls where he took the oath as our first president… he threatened passersby with instructive left jabs —under a buttonwood tree back in seventeen ninety-two when merchants met there to buy and sell securities and over here, here look right over here the pits in this wall boys and girls, see them here … ? But her gaze, shifting, evading the stabs of his free hand, rose to rest on the magnificent chandelier glittering serene through the lazy drift of a full American flag reflected from the fortress behind them rising, falling back on gentle billows, shifting planes of reflection and reality where the still points of light pierced the engulfing warmth of the sun —left by a bomb planted by a Russian anarchist that killed a dozen innocent people right where you youngsters are standing right now, and when J P Morgan heard what's the matter…

—Nothing no, I was just a little dizzy.

—Shall I get you a …

—No I'm quite all right I, I haven't felt awfully well all day if you'll get them across…

And Davidoff found himself standing alone —on the northernmost line of defense of this tiny Dutch settlement, and once we cross Wall Street boys and girls, he led in a brave stride off the curb, —we're in Indian country… pausing past the dark mass of—An Italian Renaissance palace in Italy, but it's really the Federal Reserve Bank and there are millions of dollars right under your feet, in vaults five stories down in bed rock… and they kicked at the filthy pavement experimentally, eddying round him finally as he stopped at a portal plaqued Crawley & Bro. over vicious chevaux-de-frise, to allot them to the elevators within.

—Boy, hey…

—Look at that one… !

—Boy hey what would you do if they were all alive?

But of all the eyes fixed on them only the blue ones moved, as the blonde behind the desk ahead looked up; the others simply stared with hapless fixity relieved, in the wild hog, by some remembered ferocity, by rue in an antelope —like a regular jungle hey…

—What I told you, the Museum of Nat…

—Where's the snakes? They got any snakes Mrs Joubert?

But she'd sunk back on a leather bench, left the assault to their guide's officious requests for —the photographer, has he showed up yet? Nobody from my office here? One of our PR boys was, oh and Shirl has Monty called? I'm expecting a call from Monty here and the cars, the limousines…

A loud buzz cut him off. She pushed her nail polish aside and responded to the box at her elbow. —Yes sir, yes sir … oh and Mister Crawley, Mister Davidoff is here with… yes sir.

—And Shirl, tell him…

—He'll be right out, she said, as an unencumbered massive panel behind her proved to be a door.

—What in God's… !

—I want you to meet a real live stock broker boys and girls, this is Mister Crawley, he came on with the sweep he had used to introduce them to the father of their country —oh and Crawley, he added in a hoarse aside, —don't try any fast ones on them. They're a pretty shrewd bunch!

—Well try not to take a lot of your time, Mister Crawley, said Mrs Joubert. —We just wanted the class to learn something about actually buying stock through a broker…

—No trouble no trouble at all, for you. Shirley? Get that Diamond Cable certificate out, the one…

—Yes sir. Telephone.

—For me … ? Davidoff's arm shot out and the reach of heavy tweed over his shoulder came near garroting him with its cord. —If it's Monty better let me…

—Crawley here. What? No, I don't know what the hell's going on there nobody does … What? no, it's not just two or three stocks, it's the whole market… do what? Certainly not. If you want to quote me you can say the long overdue technical readjustments taking place in our present dynamic market situation offer no convincing evidence of the sort that has characterized long-term deterioration in past major business downturns. What might appear at this ah, this juncture as conflicting behavior, the conflicting behavior of prevailing economic forces… right. Expect a certain leveling off period when… right. Right. Any time … Shirley? any more papers call tell them I'm out, he finished handing back the phone, turning, —now. These young ladies and gentlemen are here to buy some stock are they?

—Right this way boys and girls.

—They, wait a minute here… !

—Just want to get them inside for the pictures.

—Pictures?

—It's Mister Moncrieff, sir.

—Oh here, wait! sorry… Davidoff let the door go in their faces —he said he'd call me here if …

—Monty? Crawley here.

—Tell him I…

—Hold on a minute. Just get them settled in there will you Dave? I'll be right along. Now, Monty? You did, eh? So did I. Nobody knows what the hell's going on over there… Box? How the hell would he know he's right in the midst of it, he … you will? What time do you leave for Washington, I'll be … close that door there will you Shirley? I said I'll be…

—Boy!

—More!

—Still no snakes?

—What's that skinny one up there with the great big eyes, it looks sad.

—You'd be sad too if you…

—It says kudu.

—Well now, said Davidoff sitting, —we're a long way from that old buttonwood tree aren't we, boys and girls… and he'd barely shot his cuffs, treating them all to a double bolt of sapphires, when the panel door easing open brought him to his feet. —What is it, Shirl… ? But the blonde stopped a step inside to bend over Mrs Joubert, who nodded and excused herself. —Yes, well… he sat again slowly watching the door ease closed, —Are there, does anybody have a question?

A sweatered arm shot up from a distant bastion of brown leather. — What's a warrant?

—A stock warrant, eh? I think that had better wait until you boys and girls know a little more about the price of apples, you with me? Now first off, what's the whole point of this stock market, anyhow. It's to bring together people who want to buy with people who want to

sell. Now if you're selling something, something definite … He shaped the space before him with empty hands into —A basket, baskets let's say. You may have a tough time finding somebody that wants to buy exactly your kind of baskets. But if you own stock in a company that makes baskets, you can sell it in a minute. There's always a buyer waiting somewhere, maybe five thousand miles away, somebody you don't know and never even have to see. Are you with me?

—Yeah but what about all these baskets? Like suppose this here company makes all these baskets which they can't sell them either?

—Well, we start right off with the old law of supply and demand don't we, they probably wouldn't have started making baskets in the first place unless…