Bank
Page 19
“How many cavities?” the Defeated One snorts.
Postal Boy seems a bit out of it.
“What?”
“The dentist?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, two of them in the back. The molars. They want me to schedule an appointment for next week, but no way that’s happening with the Crazy Brit bringing me in on this biotech project.”
I swivel around.
“You’re helping out on this?”
“Looks like it.”
I pump my fist in the air. Forget the implication that the Crazy Brit obviously doesn’t think I’m competent enough to be the sole analyst staffed on this deal.
“What does he have you doing?”
“Looks like some precedent transactions.”
“Hallelujah. Sorry, Postal, I mean, I feel your pain, but it helps to share the hurt, you know?”
“Hey, it’s the least I can do,” he murmurs. “You helped me out during crunch time before, remember?”
“Good point. Alrighty, back to work.”
I swivel around toward my monitor. I’m finally making progress on the DCF model, when from just outside the office comes, “So, it’s crazy about Clyde, huh?”
The Prodigal Son swaggers into the room and hoists himself up onto one of the filing cabinets. Postal Boy’s left eye twitches frantically; the Defeated One clenches his jaw. I really can’t deal with this right now, so I continue to work on the DCF model.
“It’s just really fucked up,” the Prodigal Son continues.
“Yeah,” Postal Boy chimes in.
“Just so frickin’ weeeeeird. Makes you wonder about it, dude.”
“Wonder about what?” Postal Boy offers.
The Prodigal Son cracks his knuckles.
“Makes you think that maybe something was in that bottle, ya know what I’m saying?”
My typing is starkly out of place in the ensuing silence.
Postal Boy suggests meekly, “Perhaps somebody had it in for the Toad?”
God, won’t he just shut up, already? The Prodigal Son leans back on his perch, chuckling hoarsely.
“Could very well be, dude. Could very well be. Though the bottle was originally handed to me by none other than your pal Clyde.”
The Defeated One scowls. “What are you suggesting—”
“This is what I’m thinking,” the Prodigal Son says, his voice dropping a few octaves. “I think you fuckers had it in for me. Clyde couldn’t have been in on it solo; he’s too much of a stoner to have schemed it up all by himself.”
“But, but,” Postal Boy stammers, “that’s ridiculous—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” the Prodigal Son stops him, his face hardening. “Let me finish, bitch.”
He launches himself off the filing cabinet and lands with a thud on the soles of his feet.
“So, this is the deal, you pricks. There won’t be any take-downs around these parts; it’d be too hard to disguise the bruises I’m itching to pummel into your puny bodies. But let me tell you, you all better be ready.”
He points to each of us in turn. It would be a goofy gesture if he didn’t have the imposing size advantage. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and swaggers out of the office. There is a prolonged silence before the Defeated One exhales sharply.
“Sheeeet.”
From: TheSycophant@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
Where is the DCF model, already? I requested it by ten this morning. What time is it on my watch right now? Yes, that’s right, 10:30. Call me with an explanation IMMEDIATELY.
From: TheCrazyBrit@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
These comps are rubbish. Anerva and Pathogenix merged last August, yet you still have Anerva listed as a stand-alone company?! And what is this hogwash of Serenticum being a subsidiary of its parent? Is it too much to ask for even an iota of precision in your work?
From: TheSycophant@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
10:45 . . .
From: TheCrazyBrit@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
And another thing—I am sick and tired of this lousy formatting. I don’t care if this is the Bank’s generic template; I’ve attached the format from Barclays and I’d like you to adhere to it from now on.
From: TheSycophant@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
11:10 . . .
From: Dad@yahoo.com
To: Me@theBank.com
Are you alive? Your mother’s birthday was last week; she would have appreciated a call from her son. I’ve tried to tide things over but she’s still very upset. I suggest you get a hold of her sooner rather than later.
From: ThePhilanderingManagingDirector@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
Clyde, we need to back up a fee proposal for a Client by 4:30. Check circulars for every North American mining transaction over $500M and calculate advisory fee as percentage of equity. Thanks, bud.
From: TheCrazyBrit@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
Am I to believe you are still struggling with putting those comps into the new format?!
From: TheDefeatedOne@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
Mumbles, coffee break in five minutes. You have no choice in the matter.
From: Me@theBank.com
To: TheCrazyBrit@theBank.com
Piss off. Can’t you see I’m dying over here?
Oh fuck. I didn’t just do what I think I did.
I scramble through the Options menu, trying to figure out some way of retracting the message, but it’s already too late:
From: TheCrazyBrit@theBank.com
To: Me@theBank.com
WHAT?!
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
Default plan: I push the keyboard out of the way and rest my head on the desk. Closing my eyes, inhaling, exhaling, I repeat the Defeated One’s mantra—
nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this nobody’s going to die from this
—?until the words no longer have any meaning.
I’m half-asleep at two in the morning, my body a lump of barely twitching flesh, but when I slip back into focus, I’m still plugging away at my spreadsheet, so I guess I’m still here. My brilliant strategy boiled down to telling the Crazy Brit the truth: The message was intended for the Defeated One, he shouldn’t take any offense by it, and, besides, I’m really, really sorry. It seemed to work. I was dismissed with a frosty stare-down, ordering me back to my comps.
The Defeated One and Postal Boy return from the Most Depressing Donut Store in Downtown. I’m all but ready to burst into tears of gratitude when the Defeated One plunks an extra-large tumbler of viscous coffee and a six-pack of doughnut holes on my desk. I’ve wolfed down four of the holes by the time the Defeated One has crossed the room and sat back down at his desk. The caffeine and sugar race through my system, nudging me awake.
“The Prodigal Son’s blowup was pretty crazy, huh?” The Defeated One kicks off his shoes.
He takes a sip of his mocha and winces.
“This coffee is terrible. That place is damn lucky they’ve got a monopoly on us chain-and-balls. Hey, Postal, if that fucker ever tries to mess with you, run down the corridor kicking and screaming, you hear? Three-on-one; we could definitely take him down.”
“Thanks,” Postal Boy mumbles between mouthfuls of doughnut.
“How are those precedent transactions coming along?” I ask.
“Pretty good. And your stuff?”
I shake my head. “It’s killing me. Philanderer’s ‘minor’ request for advisory fee percentages wiped out all my time today. Took, like, six hours to crank out.”
“That sucks, man.”
“Ah, well. The story of our lives, right?”
I turn back to my spreadsheet. A
nother half hour to get these comps done, then two hours to put through the Sycophant’s changes to the DCF, then home by five, meaning I’ll get three hours of sleep. It would be just another fun-filled evening at the Bank if I didn’t have my dinner date with the Woman With The Scarf to think about. I can’t exactly pull off the suave Don Juan bit if I conk out on her couch.
“Where’s the Star?” Postal Boy asks.
“Some opera thing with his girlfriend. Said he was coming back in at three,” the Defeated One snorts. “Quite the trooper, that one.”
I’ve finished four comps before Postal Boy gets up and closes the door. He sits back down in the Star’s chair.
“Guys, I have to talk to you about something.”
His voice is trembling slightly. Oh please, not another breakdown. I eye him over my shoulder.
“Postal, can’t we leave this until the morning? I’ve got all this work I still need to plow through.”
Postal Boy is squirming around in discomfort, eyes downcast.
“No, I mean, I, uh, I really need to talk to you guys about this right now.”
I sigh and swivel around to face him.
“All right, Postal, what’s the deal?”
“I, uh, I’m not even sure how to say this—”
“Come on, Postal, I really don’t have time for this. Just spit it out, already.”
He takes a deep breath and does just that:
“I’m resigning tomorrow.”
I swivel back around to my monitor. I continue typing, but the room stays eerily silent. Turning back to him, I say, “You’re fucking with us, right?”
Postal Boy shakes his head sadly.
“All right, Postal. Very funny. But seriously, you’ve got to be fucking with us, right?”
He’s wearing a strange conflicted expression, the same look I’d have if the situation were reversed. He’s definitely serious.
“You can’t do this,” I spurt out. “You just can’t. Not after Clyde, the Crazy Brit . . .”
I stand up, suddenly furious, my rage no doubt fueled by all the doughnut holes I consumed, and I start yelling at him:
“Over my dead body you’re leaving this office without admitting this is one incredibly stupid joke!”
Peering at me, his eyes glistening, he says, “Look—”
Clenching my fists, I growl, “You stupid little shit—”
Then, from the other corner of the room:
“Leave him alone.”
The Defeated One; I’d forgotten about him completely.
Whipping around, I say, “What the hell, man? You’re just going to sit back and let Postal get away with this? It was the same thing with Clyde, right? You preach all this loyalty mumbo-jumbo, but you don’t believe a word of it.”
The Defeated One doesn’t so much as flinch at this.
“Postal is making the right decision for himself.”
“Bullshit! How do you know that?”
“Otherwise he wouldn’t be making it.”
“What the—god, to fucking hell with you too!”
I sit back down and glare at my spreadsheet. In the periphery, the Defeated One asks, “Where are you off to?”
Postal Boy’s voice is still quavering.
“Procter and Gamble. Brand-management position.”
“A nine-to-five, huh?”
“I guess so.”
“When did you have time to interview with them?”
“Yesterday was the final round. They left a message on my cell this morning.”
The Defeated One slaps his knee.
“The dentist appointment trick. I knew it!”
A lingering silence before Postal Boy drones softly at me, “I’ll finish off the precedent transactions tonight. Just in case they don’t want me to stay on for the two weeks.”
“Just go,” I mutter, my voice dripping contempt.
I know I’m not being the better man, but to hell with it; who ever said being the better man was a virtue? I hear the groan of his chair, the creaking of the door, and, finally, footsteps retreating down the corridor.
As with everything at the Bank, quitting has its own hierarchy of rules. At one end of the spectrum, you have the analysts who cop out of their two or three years a bit early to go back to school. While this is a slight deviation from the natural order of things, these quitters are typically sent off amicably: a fountain pen, a mass-produced letter of recommendation, a final round of beers with folks they’ll happily never see again. At the other end of the spectrum, you have those who defect to another investment bank. It’s the ultimate sacrilege in the eyes of the Toad and his underlings, implying this other bank is superior to our own, a sentiment that can only lead to rumblings of ill will. These analysts are escorted directly to the elevators, but not before the Toad hints that every senior person will be “watching” them, waiting to screw them over at every future opportunity. Nevertheless, you know these courageous souls are smirking all the way down those thirty-two stories—that is, until the reality has sunk in that the other bank is no better than what they left behind. And, finally, there is the gray region in the middle for those who decide to enter industry. It’s not another bank, but neither is it something so tame as academia. These resignations can go either way, depending on how much people like you. In Postal Boy’s case, because he wasn’t a complete bastard, they decided to keep him around for another two weeks.
Just great. On top of the Sycophant and the Crazy Brit brutalizing me to the point where I tremble every time my phone rings, there’s now an awkwardness between Postal Boy and me hovering over everything like a soggy blanket. It’s not that I haven’t considered making the peace, I really have, but then I’ll get submerged by a new wave of deadlines, and by the time I’m in the clear, I’m left feeling too drained to bother.
I’m fifteen minutes late when I ring her doorbell. She opens the door a crack and says just that:
“You’re fifteen minutes late.”
“I’m really—”
Swinging open the door and smiling at my discomfort, she says, “I’m just messing around. I gave it a fifty-fifty probability you’d even show up in the first place. Come on in.”
She’s wearing a black cashmere sweater, a short black skirt, a thin silver necklace instead of the usual scarf. Everything so streamlined, so perfectly precise. What’s amazing about it is that it’s all for my benefit.
“These are for you,” I say, handing her a bouquet of tired roses.
The roses are borderline passable, but it’s the best I could find at the Iranian mini-mart next to Han’s. Her eyes light up regardless.
“Thank you very much,” she says as she gives me a peck on the lips. “Why don’t you just relax on the couch and I’ll find a vase for these.”
While she’s puttering in the kitchen, I soak in my surroundings. Her apartment is small but pleasant, and marvelously clean: gleaming hardwood floors, the big fluffy couch, a vase filled with shiny black pebbles, a framed Matisse lithograph above an orderly bookshelf holding all the Harry Potter novels. The aroma of fresh rosemary wafts from the kitchen. All in all, it’s an environment that could only have sprung from the soothing hands of a woman.
Three doors lead off the living room. When she joins me on the couch, bringing two glasses of wine, I ask, “So, you have a roommate?”
We clink glasses and take the first sip.
“Yeah. She’s a management consultant. Always traveling, so it’s quite a sweet deal, really, almost like I live here alone.”
“This seems like a great place,” I say.
“Thanks. We call it the ‘sunny shoebox.’ A bit on the cramped side, but we get tons of sunlight.”
We finish our wine, and the transformation is complete: Less than a half hour ago I was the quintessential stress-monkey, and now I feel a polar-opposite mellowness.
“Dinner is just about ready. You hungry yet?”
“Starved.”
I help bring out the dishes from
the kitchen: sweet potatoes in a maple glaze, arugula salad with toasted pecans, a golden-brown roast chicken.
“This looks incredible,” I enthuse, refilling our wineglasses.
“You haven’t even tasted it yet. The chicken is an old family recipe.”
We clink glasses again. “Bon appétit.”
I take a bite of the chicken and it’s succulent perfection. I haven’t had a decent home-cooked meal in what, five years now? Ever since my mom decided she was fed up with cooking for the holidays and resorted to Chinese takeout instead.
“This is delicious,” I comment between mouthfuls of sweet potato.
“I’m glad you like it,” she beams. “So, anyway, how was your day?”
I tell her about Postal Boy quitting on us.
“They sure are dropping like flies down at the Bank, huh?”
“Seriously. With Clyde getting fired like that, our posse has been reduced to two.”
“And you’re envious, of course?”
“Pardon?”
“Well, he escaped, didn’t he?”
Taking a sip of wine, I reply, “Yeah, I guess so. I never really thought about it from that angle, to tell you the truth. Though I wouldn’t want to be working for P and G, selling detergent or whatever.”
She loads my plate up with more chicken.
“I have this theory that everybody should quit and get fired at least once in their lives. They’re both important formative experiences.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, getting fired forces you to cope with instability, to realize you’ll end up on both feet even if the world doesn’t work out the way you want it to. And quitting; it’s the ultimate in self-liberation, right? Especially because it’s usually so difficult to just get up and walk away. One summer I was a waitress at an Italian restaurant. Terrible, terrible job. It was all under the table, so I didn’t have to pay taxes, but the owner was this anal-retentive bastard. If we dropped a plate, we had to pay for the whole meal, and we got yelled at for not answering the phone fast enough, and all this other ridiculous crap. Then one day—I think I dropped a plate, maybe—I just snapped. I told him to fuck off and marched straight out of there in the middle of my dinner shift.”