Some Books Aren’t for Reading
Page 15
A table in front displays literature with titles like The Truth about the Devil; Confirming and Defending our Faith in the 21st Century; Train Up a Child in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord. Several stacks of plastic chairs are piled nearly to the ceiling. Another set of large doors, now closed, presumably lead to the sanctuary. The music, however, comes from elsewhere. I follow the sound.
Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer.
The singing is boisterous and beautiful, full and rich. It seems to come from down a hallway that leads off this reception area. I pass down a long hall with beige walls lined with pictures of what must be Pastor James Albert Lightfoot, a portly and energetic-looking middle-aged black man most often dressed in church robes, sometimes in ensemble with members of the congregation but often with celebrities, including one with Magic Johnson’s hand draped over the shoulder of Pastor Lightfoot. That photo bears Magic’s signature. At the end of the hallway the singing becomes loud.
Not the preacher, not the sinner, but it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Not the preacher, not the sinner, but it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer.
I enter a large open doorway that leads into a meeting room/cafeteria and the choir. It is a mixed chorus of about twenty men and women dressed in street clothes, arranged in a corner of the room near the coffee urns. In front of them, the choir director waves cadence. To the side a woman plays an old upright piano.
They are all black people except a short white guy with long, greasy black hair in the second row, two from the end, singing his heart out. This is the first time I have seen Helmet Head without his helmet. Essentially naked. Although his exposed locks are oily and irregular, they are pulled back into a tight ponytail and his face seems shaven and scrubbed. He wears a checked shirt and clean jeans. In this context he looks a little less crazy and a little more like a reformed indigent—a chronic inebriate who has just been outfitted and made over by the volunteers at a downtown mission. I lock eyes with him for a second and then he turns toward the choir director as he takes a half a step forward to sing solo as the rest of the choir hums in counterpoint.
Not my mother, not my father, but it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
Not my mother, not my father, but it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
His voice is a high tenor, surpassingly smooth, perfectly on key and ethereally, eerily beautiful with a modest and tasteful trill. Other choir members close their eyes reverently as they breathe in its melodious magnificence.
I am, of course, stunned. The choir finishes the stanza and the song in rousing, toe-tapping enthusiasm.
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, oh Lord
Standing in the need of prayer.
Chapter 18
The morning after I bought the 500 shares of JDSU, I needed to be in the office for a 7 AM conference call with marketing managers from Chrysler/Mercedes, who were located in Michigan and Stuttgart respectively, to pitch a tie-in with one of our clients, Turtle Wax. We wanted them to share the cost of our print and TV spots if we featured a Dodge truck. These arranged marriages rarely work out, but I was bending to the wishes of our client to pursue it.
I left for the office just after dawn on the morning of April 4. In April, LA skies are free of June gloom—the clouds that are drawn in from the ocean in early summer. There was a refreshing dew on the ground. In the front yard True’s irises were blooming. I hopped in the Volvo and turned on the morning NPR news for the short commute to the office. Cardinal O’Connor of New York had died. My mother was a fan of his. Also Vice President Gore had said at a speech the night before that Governor George Bush of Texas would gut social security if elected President. I made a mental note to be wealthy enough not to have to worry about that possibility. I was waiting for the news of the market opening a few minutes earlier. I didn’t have strong expectations, although I felt there might be a slight upward tick—maybe ten points at the open. The update came on as I pulled into the Sather and Knowlton parking lot.
“We’re having a substantial selloff this morning. The Dow opened down 315 points at 10,684 and the NASDAQ had dropped 442 points at the open and was at a six-month low of 3891. They are hovering around those numbers right now with the Dow at 10,701 and the NASDAQ at 3902. The selloff doesn’t seem to be related to any particular news, but rather a general unease in the market and profit-taking for some investors.”
Oh my fucking God! Where is JDSU? They mention Apple and Cisco and Intel, all down about 10 or 15 percent.
I wound up mumbling to myself as I drove. “It will come back. It will come back. It always does. Just hold on and don’t panic. The important thing is to be calm, hold fast.” The market had been choppy for a while. Certainly this was a big retreat, but there was every reason to expect it to come back. For all I knew JDSU could be bucking the trend. Apple and Intel were bound by the number of people who were willing to shell out for computers and it is possible we have reached the other side of the parabola on demand. Not so for broadband. It was newer and hotter. Broadband was just on the beginning side of its ascent. Investors couldn’t be so shortsighted that they didn’t see that.
I had to open the office myself and turn on the lights. It was a few minutes before seven when I unlocked the door. I went to my office and turned on my computer. As I waited for the boot-up my phone rang with the conference call operator.
“This is the AT&T conference operator. Is this Mr. Fourchette? We have Mr. Solaris and Mr. Morris now. Are you ready to join?”
Shit. They were already on. Starting to sweat, I clicked the browser icon on my desktop as I spoke.
“This is Mitchell Fourchette. I’m ready.”
I exchanged pleasantries with Dodge’s Solaris in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Turtle Wax’s Morris in Westmount, Illinois. They apologized for getting me up early. Meanwhile my browser’s home page came up. In the right top corner was a window with stock averages and the NASDAQ was at 3760—down almost 500 points. It hit me like a punch in the gut. The conference operator came back on.
“Misters Fourchette, Morris and Solaris? Mr. Lieb in Stuttgart is delayed a moment but he says he will be with you shortly.”
Oh Jesus. I forgot what we were even supposed to be talking about. I pulled out my file that had a copy of the proposal and mockups of the print ads. I tried to think of my pitch. Maybe Morris would pick up the slack for me. Why in the hell did we even have to talk to Stuttgart on a fucking small-time ad barter deal on a fucking American Dodge truck?
I look at the Dodge file, but I have an eye on the NASDAQ ticker on my monitor. The numbers are in red to drive the point home. 3780! Morris and Solaris are talking about basketball while we wait for Lieb. The previous night the Lakers had begun the playoffs by beating Utah. Being in LA I know I was expected to add local color about Kobe and Shaq. Screw it. I was shutting up. I clicked onto speakerphone and then hit the mute button.
I tapped “JDSU” in the lookup box under the ticker. A couple of seconds later the window came up with the current price of $102¼. Oh please no! I had lost sixteen thousand dollars. I could never tell True that I had lost sixteen thousand dollars of her dad’s money. Wait! Wait!! Wait!!! The low was $82 and now it was $102. It was on
the rise. The worst was over. I refreshed the screen and the number moved to $103. I had just made back $800! I would survive this. It was not the first time I had a setback. Relax. I remained silent while the guys talked basketball. It was a cinch that once Germany joined the conference the basketball chitchat would be over.
“Did you see Karl Malone try to shoot a layup over Shaq just before the half and Shaq just fucking stood there in the key and grabbed the ball out of the air with one hand like it was a goddamn tangerine?!”
“They need like a separate league for guys who weigh over two-fifty. He’s gonna wind up hurting somebody.”
I opened my Schein account page, put in my password and navigated to “My Portfolio.” I wasn’t expecting it to be pretty, but I steeled myself with the belief that however low it was now it would eventually rise.
“I bet if you lean on him, Mitchell could get you tickets up front the next time you get to L.A.—Hey, Mitchell. You still alive?”
I punch off the mute button.
“Yeah. I’m going over my notes. I got you on speaker.”
Wait. There was some kind of error here. My share balance on JDSU was listed as zero. The current price column showed that JDSU had gone up a little more to $104½, but not only was it saying that there were zero shares in my account it also said zero in the current value column. And it said minus $12,559 in the total net account value. How could that be?
Maybe Schein never recorded the trade. Could I have been that lucky? But I had seen the confirmation. I wasn’t hallucinating. Maybe my check bounced. Maybe there was a problem transferring the funds and they rescinded the trade. Do they rescind trades? I don’t know. But what was this? Qualcomm was also reading a zero balance in the shares owned column. How could that be? Let me refresh the screen.
“Gentlemen, Mr. Lieb is joining the conference,” the operator said. “The conference is complete.”
“Hello. I am sorry I am delayed. We are all here?” said Lieb in his heavy German accent.
“Ron Solaris here.”
“Don Morris at Turtle Wax HQ”
I had zero fucking shares? I needed to look at the account history. I needed to bring up that screen.
“Are you there, Mitchell?”
The page was slow to load. Don’s voice was a cattle prod. Oops.
“Sorry. I’m here. Hello everyone.”
The page popped up. It listed the five hundred shares I had bought at $122 yesterday afternoon, but it said that they had all been sold at 8:05 AM this morning at $82. What? And my Qualcomm had also been sold. Everything had been sold! Did someone hack my account? Oh my fucking God! Somebody has hacked my account and stolen everything!!
“Mitchell, do you want to start things off here?”
I had been robbed! And there was a negative balance in the account!
“Uh…guys. I have an emergency here. I have to reschedule.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m really sorry. I’ll call to reschedule.”
I hung up the line before anyone could say anything else and dialed the Schein 800 number. I had to pass through two voice menus to get to the trading desk and then I needed to key in my account number and password before I could speak to an alleged human being.
“Mr. Fourchette? This is Daniel Ames at the Seymour Schein trading desk speaking on a recorded line. How can I help you?”
“I think somebody may have hacked my account.”
“Can you give me your account number please?”
“You just made me key it into the phone. Are you telling me you don’t have it?”
“For verification purposes, I need your account number and your social.”
Of course they weren’t the enemy. I gave Daniel the information he required and I resolved to act calmly in my best interest.
“Let me pull up your account here.” I heard the tapping of keys—a hopeful sign. The tapping of keys and the display of pixels could lead to a resolution.
“I should have 500 shares of JDSU and 200 shares of Qualcomm and it says they’ve been sold and my account has a negative balance.”
I felt like I was telling the oncologist that they must have my biopsy mixed up with somebody else’s.
“I’m looking at your account here and I see that you bought five hundred shares of JDSU at one hundred twenty-two dollars yesterday at fifty percent margin. It appears that JDSU fell quite a bit yesterday and that your account was liquidated.”
“What do you mean liquidated?”
“Sold. It was sold to pay your margin deficit.”
“You sold my shares?”
“It looks like your share value put you substantially below the maintenance requirements.”
“How can you do that?”
“Do what, Mr. Fourchette?”
“Sell my shares without telling me.”
“I’m sorry. It’s explained in the agreement you signed when you originally chose Seymour Schein.”
“That you can liquidate my account?”
“Margin accounts have very specific rules.”
“Don’t you have to call me before you do that? I thought you had to call me.”
“It’s in our agreement as well. Usually if there is time or if the account is either slightly in deficit or about to go into deficit we try to give the client a heads-up. But I see JDSU fell over fifty percent. It pretty much runs on automatic at that point.”
“But it went back up. It went down and then it came back up.”
“I’m looking here and I see that it’s at one hundred and four dollars now.”
“Then if you hadn’t just run to sell my shares, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Fourchette. I can understand why you might be concerned.”
“Is there someone I can speak to there? Can I speak to your supervisor?”
“I’ll be glad to get a senior trader on the line if you’d like to hold, Mr. Fourchette. Do you mind waiting?”
“Do I mind waiting? I don’t mind waiting. Waiting isn’t my problem. Schein ripping me off for sixty thousand is my problem.”
“I’ll get someone on the line for you.”
“Could you play some nice soft rock on the line while you’ve got me on hold?”
“Mr. Fourchette?”
“Some fucked-up watered-down version of ‘Light My Fire’ or something? Isn’t that what you guys do?”
“Actually I don’t think they play music when we go off line.”
“Whatever. Are you in San Francisco?” San Francisco is their headquarters. I don’t know why I asked or why I cared.
“No, I’m in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
“Well, how does it feel to be fucking somebody from two thousand miles away?”
“I’m going to put you on hold for a minute so I can get a senior trader.”
None of this was going according to plan. He was supposed to tell me that there was a computer error on my account and I was supposed to be agreeable and complimentary. Meanwhile the second line on my phone was blinking and I know it was Mr. Turtle Wax calling to ream my ass. What would I tell True? Someone clicked in on the Schein line.
“Mr. Fourchette? This is Alan Seligman, senior trader at Seymour Schein. How may I help you?”
“You can put back the sixty thousand dollars into my account.”
“I understand your account was swept after you failed to meet the house margin requirements. I’m sorry about that.”
“Is St. Paul weeping?”
“Sir?”
“Or does St. Paul think it’s very amusing?”
“St. Paul?”
“Minnesota.”
“I’m in San Francisco, Mr. Fourchette.”
The San Francisco main office. That had to be good. Maybe they were taking me more seriously.
“What can I do to get my account balance restored?”
“Restored?”
“My money back.”
“I have gone over your trades a
nd everything seems to be in order. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”
“What if I go to the SEC?”
“You should feel free to do what you feel is right, Mr. Fourchette, but I think the agreement between you and Schein is pretty clear and we are both legally bound by it.”
“Maybe I’ll find a lawyer who would take issue with that.”
“That would be your decision. I know that it must be painful.”
“You do?”
‘Yes sir.”
My phone line started blinking.
“You know I have a call waiting on the other line.”
“Would you like to call back later, Mr. Fourchette? I can give you my direct number.”
“Do you think this is amusing?”
“No sir. I don’t think it’s at all amusing.”
“Do the words ‘class action’ have any meaning for you?”
“Sir?”
“I get the feeling I’m being patronized and I think I want to consult with my attorney right now.”
“That would certainly be your prerogative, sir.”
“My other line is blinking.”
“Yes sir. That’s what you said.”
“I know what I said.”
“Yes sir. It would certainly be your right to consult with an attorney. Do you have a copy of our agreement? I could send you one.”
“Do you think Seymour Schein wants his customers to be treated this way?”
“You mean Mr. Schein himself?”
“Yes. Your overlord—Mr. Schein himself.”
“I am trying to be courteous, Mr. Fourchette.”
“Would you like to explain to my wife and child what happened?”
“Sir…”
“Maybe you would like to tell my son that his college money has been taken from him.”
“I would just like to remind you…”
“You can tell him Seymour Schein took his college money.”
“I’m sorry, sir. But I need to remind you that there is a negative balance on your account right now of twelve thousand five hundred and fifty-nine dollars and you’ll need to make it up by Monday.”
“I’m going to take the other line now.”