Ten Journeys

by Various

  The second revelation was the apartment. Only four rooms – two bedrooms, living room with kitchenette in the corner, miniscule bachelor-pad bathroom – but in New York, it’s all in the address. His was Ninetieth and Park. His mother looked at the view, and for a blessed minute, she stopped complaining.

  The third revelation was the office. He snuck into the building like a thief, convinced he was going to be found out. A woman met him in reception, a certain age as they say, but damn, she looked good.

  “I’m Cornelia,” she told him. “You must be Jack.”

  “Yes,” he said, thinking damn, even the secretaries here are hot, all those years I wasted in Idaho...

  “You’ve got one month’s trial,” she said. “You’ll report direct to me until we re-staff, picking up where Bradley’s team left off. And I warn you, we’re up against it. Nick’s dead, Ruby’s on sick leave, and Brad’s idea of a useful contribution is to throw it all up to live in Idaho and send you down here instead.” She looked him up and down. He felt oddly naked, oddly exposed. “So I hope you’re everything he said you were.”

  “What did he say I was?” asked Jack, busily adjusting his ideas.

  “He said you were a bankrupt farmer-boy with a grudge against the system,” she said absently. Jack nearly swallowed his tongue. “But he always knew how to spot talent, that man. Well, I guess no-one lasts forever. Come with me.”

  Took him into a high glass palace up in the clouds. He had a desk, a phone, a computer, a window, a pile of paperwork, a compensation package he didn’t even begin to understand, a desk neighbour by the name of Jerry. Sat down, made some small talk, him and Jerry getting on famously, and then this... vision.

  Blonde hair in a chignon, beautiful blue eyes behind thickrimmed glasses, lovely body encased in a grey suit, pretty black heels. Only the heels gave her away at first. Other than those, she was pure Wall Street, a suit with a head on top. But those heels told a different story. Her smile was the other clue, warm and sweet, unexpected.

  Jerry caught him looking, grinned.

  “That’s Aisling Carroll. You know McLain Carroll, right? Red Giant’s founding father? She’s his daughter, interning for a year. She’s doing an MBA at Harvard. Way too good for us.”

  The daughter of the Red Giant, thought Jack. She’s beautiful. Then, across the office, he saw this huge slab of meat with a shock of red hair, inexpertly crammed into a pinstriped suit by some poor, terrified tailor. The slab glared at Jack, like it wanted to kill him.

  “That’s why we don’t mess with her,” said Jerry.

  “That’s her daddy?”

  “Booya.” Jerry lowered his voice. “So, d’you reckon the story’s true?”

  “What story?”

  Jerry looked at him incredulously.

  “Where’d you say you were from?”

  “Idaho.”

  “They have negotiable currency yet down there in Idaho?” Jack lobbed a pencil over the partition; got it right in the middle of Jerry’s forehead, perfect bulls-eye. “Ow... well, the story goes like this. Mr Carroll got his start at one of the other big places – Lehmann’s, I think – then he went out on his own, founded Red Giant from nothing. Grew overnight, just about. Man’s got the magic touch. Somebody at one of the big firms wasn’t happy. One more at the feed-trough means that much less for everyone else, right? So, he decided to try and take Red Giant down. He got a couple of other Masters of the Universe lined up, and they made a plan. Horned in on his deals and priced him out of the market. Tried to cut off his lines of credit, that kind of thing. Mr Carroll got word of it. Next thing that happens... ”

  Dramatic pause; Jack’s eyes like saucers. Jerry glanced over his shoulder, whispered so softly Jack had to strain to hear him.

  “The guy who started it all off? They found him in the Hudson River.”

  “Doing what?”

  Jerry laughed.

  “Floating, you dimwit.”

  “Floating? What ?”

  “Face-down. And that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that all his teeth had been pulled.” Jack swallowed. Jerry shrugged. “Red Giant never looked back.”

  Jack stared at McLain Carroll, his new Lord and Master. McLain Carroll gave him a look like Jack was next in line for a one-man river-cruise. Jack looked away and bit his lip.

  “Shit. He hates me already.”

  Jerry looked Jack straight in the eye.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But he’ll leave you alone as long as you bring in the money.”

  Jack flicked rapidly through the files, gradually realised he was supposed to be doing a deal with a couple of maverick inventors for the rights to a voice-recognition system for MP3 players. He stared at the pages of figures. And something clicked. I can do this, he thought. I can actually freakin’ do this.

  Like I said; the men in this story, they’re all dead now.

  Course they got to know each other, Jack and Aisling. She was beautiful, and outta reach, more than enough to attract him. As for Jack, he had that farmer-boy physique, the build that comes effortlessly when you work on the land. In that polluted corporate ocean, filled with hungry young sharks fighting to stay in shape, he stood out like a tall ear of corn; strong, golden, and totally outta place. Plus, as it turned out, they both had this fantastic idea that they were going to be good. Shared dream; bringing ethics to Wall Street. How could they resist each other?

  First, the high-octane business discussions, the junior staff all working crazy hours, Aisling and Jack fitting in nicely. Meeting by the coffee machine, nothing planned just more often than not. Come break-time they’d both be there. Next, that wilful blindness. You both act like it’s all still spontaneous, but still, a lull in the working day and God damn, there you both are by the coffee, what are the odds? All the rest of the coffee crowd getting wise to it, making a point of staying out of the way; Jerry giving way last of all, a bit jealous, a bit reluctant to concede defeat. Then at last, the first time you slip over into the edge into personal...

  “Why are you here?” she asked him one hot October night. Just the two of them left in the building. “You seem far too... nice.”

  So he told her the story he hadn’t even told Jerry, the farm in Idaho, the shame, the guilt of losing his birthright.

  “I want to do better than they did by me,” he said earnestly. “I want to make the money-men play fair.”

  She looked at him like she’d just seen him properly for the first time.

  “So why do you do it? He asked her. “Why work so hard? With your dad running the place and all?”

  She blushed like a rose. He felt his heart squeeze with it.

  “That’s why I have to work so hard. Everyone else has to fight for the chances I’ve got. I’ve got to... ” she sighed and pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’ve got to earn it.”

  You can fall in love with the smallest damned things. Jack fell for the way she looked when she pushed those glasses up her nose. Just that, and he was a goner. He kissed her, soft, innocent.

  She let him, for just a second, then pushed him away.

  “No,” she said, her face little girl serious. “I don’t do office relationships.”

  But he could hear her breathing faster; he knew that, with time, with patience, she’d be his.

  Could have been happy, too, if they’d met on any other street than that one. But as it was, the Money Train was already waiting at the station, the porter beckoning them aboard.

  You ain’t married. No, I ain’t asking a question, I’m telling you. Fact. You ain’t married. How do I know? Cuz you’re down here at one in the morning drinking with a homeless guy, that’s how. So you won’t know what it’s like to build a life together. Jack and Aisling. A pigeon pair of starry-eyed dreamers. She wouldn’t even date him till she went back to Harvard, and when they did get started they took it slowly. Both afraid of damaging this precious, fragile thing that was slowly growing between them. They finally fell into bed together
one golden Spring afternoon when Jack got his first promotion. Ah, they came fast to him then. Wall Street’s good to its golden boys.

  Still, they kept it quiet for the longest time, hiding where noone from Wall Street ever looked. Took the boat to see the Statue of Liberty, holding hands like teenagers. Went to the top of the Chrysler, took in a view even better than the one from Red Giant’s offices. Rode the subway to Coney Island, Jack winning and winning on the shooting galleries.

  The monster in the closet was Mr Red Giant, who still didn’t know Jack was slipping around with his daughter. Coupla nights Jack actually woke up in a cold sweat, dreaming of deep water filling his lungs. But by that time, the little ole farmer boy from Idaho was an established asset to Red Giant. A lead producer, bringing home the bacon time after time, and they rewarded him accordingly. First an office, then a corner office. All the time that compensation package creeping upwards and upwards. Then came a suite with its own bathroom attached. Can’t have the reigning monarchs pissing in the same urinals as the aspiring heirs, one of those hungry little suckers might just reach over and chop his dick right off. You think I’m joking, dontcha? Easy to see you ain’t never ridden the Money Train.

  Ah, the Money Train; God help us all, the Money Train. First you hear the scream of the whistle, so loud it hurts your ears. Then there’s this – unearthly thing – twice the height of a man, and maybe a hundred feet long, thundering down the rails towards you, grabbing the air out from your lungs, sucking you into its path so you have to hold onto something. It rolls into the platform, you think, Man, that’s the scariest thing I ever saw. You look at the wheels, the steam, the sweating men shovelling coal. Looks like one of Lucifer’s Angels, sent forth from the gates of Hell to claim you.

  And then, the door opens, and there’s a man waving you on, and damn if that ain’t a ticket in your hand.

  You pat the red velvet seats as you sit down. Just a few stops, you think to yourself, then I’ll get off. You can’t quite believe it when the wheels start turning. And to start with, man, what a rush. You take your turn shovelling coal; brutal, backbreaking work, so hard you can hardly take it, but it’s worth it, because you know what’s coming up next. And then you take your break in the restaurant car, and you just can’t believe you made it. They invited you in, you’re sat right here on the Money Train with the crisp linen napkins and the bottles of champagne. Just a few stops. Just a few stops and then, I swear, I’ll get off.

  Then, the scary thing. You get used to it. That speed, that noise, it starts to seem natural. You get used to the heat, the swaying motion, the world going by in a blur. You remember how it feels to be one of those folks at the level crossing, forced to stop while the Money Train goes by, and you like the feeling. The whole world stops for you! People bring you stuff on silver platters, the prices are insane, but hell, who cares, right? You’re on the Money Train! Who gives a shit about the mark-up?

  And before you know it, the Money Train’s got you good. Ain’t no way you’re getting off, not until the Money Train has taken everything you had when you got on. Not until the man in the uniform comes by and says, Hey buddy, this is your stop. You want to stay on longer, but it ain’t never been your ride, someone else was working the strings the whole time, figuring out when to shove you back out into the cold. The whole infernal contraption screeches to a halt, and the porter flings open the door and tosses you out. And then you’re standing on the plat- form in a cloud of smoke, watching the train roll out again, and you’re poorer and older and dirtier. Stood someplace you never intended on going, and you can finally see again how fucking insane the whole thing is. But the Money Train don’t care. It just rolls on and on, out of the station, taking the next poor suckers on to the end of their personal line.

  So where did it all go wrong for Jack and Aisling? They started out with such high hopes, such magnificent fuckin’ ideals. But there ain’t nobody alive can reform the Money Train; it gets to everyone in the end. And then one night, Jack met Charlie. After that, it was only a matter of time. Doomsday clock at the station counting down, numbers flicking over one by one, counting the hours and minutes and seconds till the crash.

  Jack and Jerry in a bar in Harlem. Two City slickers out on the razzle, celebrating their first truly obscene bonus. Jerry introduced them, maybe just being friendly, maybe trying to drive the thin end of that wedge between Jack and Aisling, who knew? Nobody made him say yes. “Hey, Jack, say hello to Charlie,” said Jerry, slumped on his stool, and there was no denying the buzz between them, the instant connection. Five minutes later, they were locked in a cubicle in the men’s room, Jack lost and screaming in ecstasy.

  “Oh, my God, Jesus fucking Christ, that’s so fucking beautiful.”

  And when he came down from the peak, the sound of someone in the next cubicle banging on the wall, “Hey, buddy, you wanna keep the noise down in there?” Jack laughed and banged back, “whatsa matter, pal, you never been in love?”

  Jack and Charlie lost in each other. He didn’t care who heard them together, didn’t care about anything. He’d never felt anything like it. She set him on fire, every part of his body buzzed, tingled, sang. He felt like he could conquer the world. He staggered back into the bar, swimmy-eyed and grinning like a madman.

  “Pretty good fun, huh?”

  “Pretty good fun,” said Jack, in a daze.

  Next morning, he couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror. Had to go to work without a shave, screaming horrors sat on his shoulder, gibbering in his ear. What had he been thinking? He was a nice boy, a good boy, raised right and clean and decent, knew better than to behave like that. Charlie was poison, she was toxic, the deadest of cul-de-sacs. He was meeting Aisling for lunch, their favourite restaurant. Couldn’t make himself walk over there, felt like he didn’t deserve to be near her. Felt like he wanted to die. Felt like he wanted to see Charlie again, need burned into his brain, pushed the thought away.

  He called Aisling, put her off till the evening. Took a company limo down Fifth Avenue to Tiffany’s, marched in and laid his sliver of necromantic plastic on the counter. “I want to spend as much money as I possibly can,” he declared firmly, and naturally they obliged. He wasn’t the first one, not even the first that day. The clerks at Tiffany’s all know when Bonus Time rolls around on Wall Street.

  Proposed that night over a criminally expensive meal; she cried as soon as she saw that little turquoise box. She was a nice girl, but she had the same weakness girls have everywhere – the rainbow flash from a diamond blinds them.

  She should have seen that night it was already too late for them. Spending enough on one meal to keep a poor family afloat for a year; beguiled by a rock mined in conditions so obscene they’d neither of ‘em have lasted a day there. They’d set out with good intentions, but the system already had its claws in them.

  But there ain’t nothing so blind as a woman with a ring on her finger. Nothing apart from the man who thinks he’s just bought her off with it.

  Fast-forward a little. Mr Red Giant’s first instinct was to take Jackie boy somewhere nice and quiet-like and get going with the pliers, but they finally came to an arrangement. One thing Jack had learned by now, just about anything’s for sale for the right price. Ole Red laid out Jack’s targets for the next quarter, an impossible number that made Jack swallow hard. Then he doubled them. Then he grinned, and tripled them. If Jack made his numbers – Red would consent to the wedding.

  Nearly killed Jack, but he did it. The look on Red’s face when Jack brought him the paperwork. Enough to turn milk sour through an iron door.

  Wedding of the century, naturally. Tulle and ribbons; live music and dead guests. Jerry was Best Man; from the look on Red’s face, Jack was the Worst Man He’d Ever Laid Eyes On, but Jack was too happy to care.

  “I guess I was wrong about New York,” said his mother, sniffing.

  “The day you step out of line’s the day I kill you,” growled Red, glaring.

  �
�I’d buy a gun and keep it handy,” said Jerry, only halfjoking.

  “Do you take this woman... ?” said the priest, on auto-pilot.

  “Yes,” said Jack, to all of them. He’d raided the palace and carried off the princess. Red could rant and storm, but Aisling would be in Jack’s bed that night. And in the bathroom, while Aisling danced with her daddy, Jack the little laddie was biting his lip and trying to keep quiet as Charlie took him up and up into that high, soaring emptiness only she knew how to help him reach.

  Afterwards he leant his forehead on the mirror, staring at his reflection. Flushed cheeks, bright eyes, powered by his pounding heart.

  “Never again,” he told himself.

  Never again.

  The Money Train just kept rolling for Jack and Aisling, deal after deal after killer, impossible deal. After Jack closed on the voicerec deal, there was the Freedive project – supposed to go to Prickly Tree, but the boss-man topped himself and Jack managed to buy the rights while the company floundered. You ever Freedived, College Boy? Nah, I thought not. Strictly for the super-rich, probably only a few thousand people in the whole world can afford it. Little nosepiece that pulls the air right outta the water, damnedest thing you ever saw in your life. After that, some domestic-appliance work – dull but profitable. The money just kept pouring in. Seems we Americans just can’t get enough of our cute little toasters and our adorable little waffle-makers.

  What, the Freediving thing? Nah, I ain’t tried it either. Maybe I ain’t even heard of it. Maybe I’m just making it up to mess with ya. This is a story, remember, not even my own; just something I heard in a bar one day. You ain’t never getting my tale outta me, College Boy. All I got for you is Jack’s train-ride, and it ain’t got the happiest of endings.