Frank held the apple in one hand, took a bite, and said, Here’s a typical bond rated triple A, your handsome and perfect glossy fresh orchard apple.
Wendy took it from his hand and bit into the flesh. Tastes okay to me.
Bemused, Frank continued: Over here’s what a so-called junk bond is. He pointed to the bowl of zabaglione. Sure, now this has custard and apples and blueberries and other fruits and of course it is far more delicious, he said, but some of the fruit in this zabaglione started out too bruised for the grocery, some were too ripe to eat on their own, and so on. Who wants a taste?
I’ll try some, I love zabaglione, said Gabby and took the spoon from Frank’s hand and after taking a scoop nearly swallowed the entire utensil without a gag. When she pulled the spoon out she said, Hmm, cinnamon and spices. So tell me, Frank, why am I eating a junk bond?
Flavours, more flavours is one thing. A bond is an apple. You buy a good apple or a bad apple. A high-yield bond is a mix, a zabaglione. It’s a sauce theory of investment. My bond packages come in all kinds of flavours. And how many different ways can you think to package zabaglione? Frank asked them. Champagne flutes, bowls, jars, cans, tubes. Applesauce has a higher profit margin than apples. Applesauce has more options. I specialize in packaging the financial equivalent of applesaucegrade bonds up to zabaglione. What’s your pipe dream for Strays, Wendy? he asked, because that’s what I want to promise. And he touched her fingers at an opportune time when Gabby wasn’t paying attention, as if to subtly remind Wendy that she was the hands-on centre of this deal.
Biggest of my biggest dreams? Phew, let me see …, Wendy looked back through her life to the beginning but she wasn’t about to tell him she wanted to meet Ronald Reagan, and the image of Hick Elmdales kept interrupting the sequence until the two trains of thought seemed to be one. She ground her teeth. She said, Gee, you know, that’s funny because my mother is Jewish, so am I, but not really, actually I’m a superstitious atheist. We never went to any synagogues or church, but Mom and I loved Christmas. Mom loved wrapping and unwrapping presents, pretending there was a Santa Claus, a Jesus, a manger, she loved the songs. In my lifetime she stage-managed three versions of White Christmas and four A Christmas Carols. Christmas was the biggest day of the year for us. My daydreams all year long were about what I might get Christmas morning. I used to get to stay up late on Christmas Eve so we could watch Christmas specials on television together. I always thought it would be fun to surprise Mom one December with my own cartoon Christmas special. I guess that Charlie Brown special made a big impression, gave me the idea to draw comic strips. So I guess what I would love someday is to make a Strays animated Christmas special.
Frank stared so hard at Wendy she felt ready to crack. Then he burst out in laughter. Gabrielle joined in, then took a long drink and shook her head. Her cheeks had gone red.
You want a Christmas cartoon for Strays, Frank said, okay, now that is perfect. Did you hear that, Gabrielle?
I did. I can’t believe it but I did.
Now that is something I can promise you, Wendy, Frank said and snapped his fingers. You can bank on Christmas. Wall Street’s favourite time of year.
I’m stunned. I couldn’t have hoped for better, said Gabby.
There you go. A Christmas special, he said and laughed again. I love it. I more than love it. Christmas is big business, Wendy. My parents don’t celebrate, they find it nauseating, but I do. I give presents at the office. Money, too, but actual gifts. I love it. Christmas gives me a tan. And you told me she was going to be tough to convince.
Hear this girl an hour ago, Frank, before I got her to come to dinner she was talking about quitting. Now she’s pitching a Christmas cartoon. Gabby downed the glass of wine in front of her that was Frank’s. Tell him, Wendy, how you wanted to quit and I convinced you not to.
Did you really want to quit? And do what?
I thought it was obvious. Fifty regional papers is a bust. No fans. Etcetera. Drawing skills of a savage.
I’m your fan. You’re a zabaglione, said Frank. My favourite.
You want to add me to your applesauce, is that it?
That’s right, he said, I do, except in the real world, those apples are people’s dreams and their livelihoods are at stake. I find ways of connecting people who can make each other’s dreams come true. First thing every morning I read Strays in the Spectator. I love Buck, that dog’s such a dreamer you can learn from him. And that rabbit reminds me of myself the way he turns a dime into a dollar.
Francis is a rascal.
One thing that helps me in pitch is an origin story. I love hearing about your childhood. Where did you get the idea for Strays?
I took a walk around Bernal Heights, she said. I love walks. I’m prone to wander.
A stray yourself.
Yes.
No, no, said Gabby. That’s no help, is it? Tell him what you mean by go for a walk. What a flake. She doesn’t mean like in some meditative way. The Wendy I know is a materialist, aren’t you? You’ve never had a spiritual thought your entire life, have you?
Probably not, Wendy said. I like ghost stories, though.
She lives next door to a huge park full of stray pets. The whole cast of Strays.
Oh. I see. Frank turned to her for confirmation. True?
You know Bernal Heights? I live on the main floor of that five-storey hodgepodge apartment at the top of the hill. Looks like a fountain from Hieronymus Bosch or that big church it’s taking a hundred years to build in Barcelona. Except dilapidated to hell. The peak is a big wonderful rolling shoe-shaped park reserved for a microwave tower and the local dogwalkers. There’s a little forest around the antenna. But it’s mostly couch grass and wild shrubweed, thistle, a few trees. It’s very steep and chilly so I rarely see more than like a few others out on a bracing stroll or throwing the dog a ball. Windy. Fog blows in like icecubes and the next minute you bake under the sun, so it’s a gamble what to wear. Plus I go at odd hours. Dusk and eventide. Dawns and predawns. I go when the foragers come out. All the city’s lost pets live there. As soon as I moved to the manor I started to see the dogs and cats who roamed the hill. Packs and solo. I followed them to the south face, into thickets. I found rabbits and snakes. Raccoons. Rats. Owls. Great urban wildlife sanctuary. Those parrots who roost at Telegraph Hill fly by frequently. It’s because of the illegal dump spot. I’d find all these animals rooting around in the trash people leave behind at the dead-end of the gravel road on the south side of the hill. All my characters, I found them there in the trash. So now whenever I need a fresh idea I go a-walkin’ on the south side of the hill and watch my critters.
That is a precious story. Frank put down his fork next to the bowl of zabaglione and clapped his hands. Have you seen these animals, Gabrielle? I have to.
Yes, I mean, no. I got a tour and saw the rabbit thistle and the dump but I didn’t see any dogs or cats. It was midday.
Well, I can’t wait to come for a predawn visit to see the real-life counterparts from your strip. The actual Buck, I can’t wait. That’s cute as hell. If I’m going to sell, sell, sell, I need my personal tour for my pitch. But a tip: you shouldn’t share that location in future interviews or your Strays animal habitat will be trampled by all the new fans you get who come to see it on tours.
Oh, they always say popularity is a mixed blessing, Gabby mused happily and maybe without noticing, collected Frank’s fork in order to taste a portion of his antipasto.
Odd time to notice the Rolex on Frank’s wrist but it must have cost more than his entire suit, shoes and tie and all. What did Gabby say at coffee, a billion-dollar Rolex? No, Rolodex, but still, and—don’t look— but what did that say about the synthetic wig, why didn’t he spend some money on that rug instead? It made her wonder about this man’s sense of priority, herself included.
The gist of what Wendy understood Frank Fleecen would do for her—licensing and merchandise would be folded right into the investment loans he underwrote. Thi
s add-on improved the chance that the companies issuing Hexen Diamond Mistral bonds could repay. Especially if Gabby could increase readership and Wendy could keep them laughing. The circularity of this deal made her strip’s popularity almost the inevitable outcome of total market saturation. Sure, a pet store franchise ought to use her characters, sure, a gas station should do a promotional mug. He regularly underwrote enormous mergers between restaurant chains and motel chains, paper and pasta factories, all of whom desperately needed something profitable to license or manufacture to pay back the loan (average twenty-two percent interest on a loan, fourteen percent return on a bond). Don’t think junk, think high yield, think zabaglione bonds, applesauce bonds, think investments in America’s future.
Significant to all Frank’s exhortations was his ongoing financial relationship with client Piper Shepherd, owner of Shepherd Media, a regional threat buying up southern television channels and city newspapers and launching his own syndicate to represent journalists, illustrators, and comic strips like Strays and a dozen other fledglings, each with its own editor in a similarly touch-and-go situation to Gabby Scavalda’s, in so much as their careers were concerned. The ladder Gabby wanted to climb, Wendy couldn’t tell if the artist was even considered on the ladder, a different ladder, or none at all. Another thing: it was no secret Shepherd Media was in the midst of a buying frenzy. In Piper Shepherd’s bid to become the new Pulitzer or Hearst, Shepherd Media brought work to Hexen Diamond Mistral, an epic need for loans to bankroll the mergers & acquisitions, and part of what attracted Frank to Wendy’s comic was the synchronicity of it already being a part of this emerging empire. Therefore he strongly agreed with Gabby’s strategy that from now on he make sure all future Shepherd Media buyouts included Strays in the boilerplate contracts. Frank estimated that within six months she would see ten times as many newspaper subscriptions.
Why do I get the sense you’re both trying very hard to convince me of something I should really want so badly anyway?
Because we are, Gabby said, we are trying to—, can’t you see you’re young, you’re not looking at this from the same vantage point as us, and you’re from this generation that doesn’t give a shit about—excuse my language—about bank accounts or commitment or careers, your peers want to smack around classic taboos and rebel against a jury of your peers, they don’t want to develop the patience to crank out a comic strip perfect enough to turn into a rubber stamp every time, every panel, every day, for the rest of your life. Gabby spat in Wendy’s face as she spoke and stung Wendy’s thigh with slaps meant to emphasize her points. I’m sure all your punk friends think you should be doing this for free, right? You’re young, Wendy, and this is a serious thing we’re asking, more serious than what it takes to be in forty papers.
Wendy laughed and said, Know what else I want besides a cartoon? I want my own café too, like this one, with classy waiters, and full of my own memorabilia. Look at that picture of Coppola lounging with underage Cambodian whores.
Then we have a deal? Frank stood and pressed two fingers to his temple, saluted her, and welcomed Wendy to the client list of Hexen Diamond Mistral’s high-yield bonds division. As Gabby applauded, tourists around them took notice of the noise, all except for the man in the corduroy blazer eating solo, who stared out the window, and the waiter came to Frank Fleecen’s side in a polite way.
Will there be anything else?
Champagne, Frank waved a hand in front of their waiter’s nose. If this is a real celebration then do we deserve champagne or what? Are we in business? Waiter, a bottle of your bubbliest Clicquot.
And three more bowls of your zabaglione, please, cried Wendy.
5
Buzzing drunk, the three new business partners left Coppola’s café and standing on the sidewalk under the sodium streetlights watching tourists they decided instead of splitting up so soon it would be better to escort Gabby Scavalda back to her hotel. It was not far away, fifteen minutes’ walk so why take a cab. Gabby loved if they would take her back, tugging on Frank’s sleeve, please.
You can’t see the stars at night over a foggy San Francisco. No matter how hard Wendy tried to read her fortune in the skies, the streetlights glowing off the dark moisture veiled in a phosphorescent orange the cosmos hanging overhead. So they made their way through the thickest vapours into the bright neon briars of Chinatown, laughing, passing under the sleek flashing lights, making giddy predictions for the future, the famed noodle houses and not-so-good dim sum restaurants, imported-goods stores, tarot card readers, porno theatres, food carts, racist tourists, and incontinent slummers getting in everyone’s way. By chance they passed by Justine Witlaw’s second-floor art gallery near Pine Street, a loft space that was the location for some pretty pretentious stuff, Wendy thought, but what did she know. Not all bad, she hinted.
Frank said he had been inside and agreed, there was only one good artist there, in fact he’d bought some pictures from Justine.
Gabby nudged her cartoonist. Your mutual friend Jonjay. What I tell you?
That’s whose pictures I bought, yes, of course, Jonjay’s. What sort of a fly in the ointment is he today? Frank said with a condescending shake of his head.
He’s missing in action, said Wendy. Maybe in Japan.
Jonjay, the one-eyed king, cursed kid, orphan from another world— what else did I hear the PhDs call him? Tailgater?
Not genius? said Wendy, arching a heel behind her so that her shoe hung by a toe.
Watching her, Frank said, I have two of those pictures he drew using the I Ching. Intriguing stuff. Not the usual blasphemous contemporary shimsham. And the one on the wall in my office I like the best because he drew it based on bets he placed on a game of roulette.
Gabby loped along behind in her effort to keep up as the two in front got to talking. At last Gabby saw her opening in the pedestrian traffic to run up beside them and repeat that she must get a chance to meet this Jonjay everyone talks so much about.
Some people never change, Frank said. They’ve been around forever. He’s that type. You see him in paintings in the Frick. He’s the hieroglyph in the graffiti. Didn’t I hear he used to draw from his imagination? Frank blinked up at the neon coin laundry sign as if for confirmation. That’s what I heard.
Oh, sure, he still does on occasion, said Wendy. Haven’t you seen his comic book? It’s amazing. I haven’t seen him since Cleveland a year ago. Any idea where he might be?
Last time I saw him? Must have been … five years ago at the Stanford math labs. He was auditing advanced physics classes on stochastic processes. We met at random.
Wendy slapped her forehead. Funny, I could have sworn Jonjay was like nineteen years old, I thought he was younger than Hick.
Timeless asshole, said Frank and slapped his hip where the Motorola was holstered like a cowboy’s pistol. He looks like a child, doesn’t he? But I know he must be more like fifty, sixty. Older than me.
Fifty! As if! Older than you? As if, said Wendy, giggling uncertainly and losing her balance on a cobble. Jesus.
Watch your step, said Gabby and tried to wedge her way between the two. I wonder if Jim Davis has a similar deal to ours for Garfield—it’s the ubiquity I hope we can achieve—
Look for Jonjay at the end of chaos, on top of a terminal horizon of chaos, Frank laughed through his nose. Chaos is where you can find Jonjay. I happen to share this obsession with him, with ways to interpret randomness. Drunk walks. Stochastics. He was toying with chaos, all kinds of chaos, and I went to visit him at the Stanford labs to find out if he or someone with an actual degree could improve upon a model of my own. Since my days as an undergraduate I’d been tinkering with an equation that modified the standard approach to random movements. But Jonjay improved mine, all right. I threw mine in the trash after I saw what he had— well.
So you ripped him off? Wendy kidded him, but when Frank didn’t follow up with any laugh of his own she realized he probably had stolen Jonjay’s formula. That’s what a car
toonist would do anyways, she said.
The students he was hanging out with back then are all millionaire microchip engineers now, but even among them, he was a natural. One of those synesthesiacs who can see math. The PhDs did not love him hovering around.
I wonder if that’s where he is right now, back at Stanford. Wendy considered investigating on Hick’s and her own behalf.
They saw Gabby to the lobby of her hotel and embraced and palavered a moment longer. It’s been so good to see you, Gabby, Wendy said and draped her arms around her editor.
Now hasn’t this been a historic night out? We’re in business. Yes, bring on the multitudes.
Awesome applesauce. Wendy kissed her editor on each cheek. Her editor gallantly shook Frank’s hand and giggled. She could see Gabby gnaw over the triangle of the situation. With Wendy right there she couldn’t very well dangle the hotel key from a finger and ask Frank up to her room for a drink. So after a few uncomfortable pauses in the farewells, Gabby blew them a kiss and got into the old wrought-iron elevator, leaving Frank and Wendy alone in the lobby under a candelabra chandelier, an octopus’s tangle of goldenrod limbs with slender flickering bulbs at the ends.
Well, gee whiz …, said Wendy, kicking up a heel and yawning into the palm of her hand. What a doozy of a day. I got a real injection of adulthood. Like I was bit by a radioactive guru. I feel supermature. Did my hair turn white?
You look radiant. I’m parched just looking at you. What’s the intelligent thing for me to do right now?
Hmm, intelligent’s not my department.
I should not go home to San Jose. That’s what a responsible man in my state of insobriety would do. I should book a room in this hotel.
Never occurred to me. Sounds expensive compared to a cab or walking it off.
I’m too drunk for roads, sidewalks. Can barely stand. Not even the backseat of a taxi. I can’t picture myself going all the way to San Jose, not at this hour, no. Frank stared for less than a second at his Rolex. I start work at four in the morning on a weekday and end my day at eleven at night.
The Road Narrows As You Go Page 4