"Alexis," I said, turning onto her street, "have you ever rotated through various churches in order to meet guys?"
"Sure," she replied. "Do it all the time. But sometimes I wonder if the right guy is also out there rotating churches each Sunday, and we just pass like ships in the rain."
"You mean the night?"
"Whatever."
I pulled into her driveway and shut off the engine. "T.J. isn't the right guy?"
"Nah, but we'll probably get back together anyway."
"Which denominations are on your rotation?" I asked, cutting the headlights.
She looked startled. "My what?"
"On your church rotation ... to meet guys."
"Oh, besides North Hills, lemme see ... three Lutheran churches, a few months as a Methodist, and two Baptist. And you?"
"Not that many, but I'm sorta new in town and-"
"Keep practicing. You seem to fit in well."
I said thanks, but something didn't feel right, and now I was wondering if such strategies were viral. "How many girls in the singles class do you think are doing this?"
"Rotating through churches to meet guys?"
"Yeah."
"At least half of them," she said, checking herself in the mirror. "Maybe more. I have girlfriends who actually rate churches as to the quality of guys. They enter the data on a spreadsheet, update it each Monday, and e-mail it out around Greenville."
Though stunned by this disclosure, I pressed on. "Alexis, even 1, a virtual church rookie, can figure out that God is gonna frown on that sort of behavior."
"We don't think so."
"Who is we?"
She rolled her eyes. "The girls on the e-mail list, Jay. We want husbands, and we intend to find them."
There was simply no fitting response. But I could not say good night yet, either-the desire to know more overwhelmed me. "So how does North Hills Presbyterian rank?"
"Consistently in the top ten."
"Out of how many?"
"Last week's update had sixty-five churches on it."
I fiddled with my keys for a moment. "Do your parents care that you do this?"
She reached for the door handle. "Well, Jay, I talked it over with my mom, and she actually encourages me. It's the same method she uses to network for clients."
I was afraid to ask. "Alexis, I'm afraid to ask, but what does your mom do?"
"She sells real estate."
At her door she asked if we could talk more sometime about God, but just talk, because she was sure she'd be getting back with T.J.
I said maybe and kissed her on the cheek, right below her little silver piercing.
Not sure why. Just seemed like the thing to do.
Sunday morning, I slipped into pew twenty-three during the opening prayer. A guest preacher took the stage, a black man named Tyrus Williams. He had a receding hairline but plenty of volume. Beside me was the old guy with his psychedelic Bible pages, though I was staring at the groovy blue panes in the stained glass.
Very seventies, those blue panes.
Tyrus asked us, then commanded us, to jot down the following terms: Eternal Being, Divine Presence, Universal Force. Not being a jotter, I was content to watch him pound the podium.
"We have taken `Holy, Holy, Holy' and turned it into `vague, vague, and very vague' . . . all this vaguery and the need to be inoffensive has saturated our country, saturated us to the point where an Eggo waffle might become known as a circular grid of battered substance."
All eyes were riveted on Tyrus as he grabbed the podium with both hands. "The word waffle might offend those who prefer pancakes, so let's all go have breakfast at the Circular Grid of Battered Substance House."
Two pews in front of me, Lydia, Nancy, and five Numericals giggled into bulletins.
Tyrus continued, wiping sweat from his forehead as he gained momentum. "Too many folks are scared of the word Jesus. They treat the name Jesus like a lemon meringue pie. Will stick their pinkie finger in for a taste but avoid a full slice because they think, over the long term ... it might do something bad to 'em."
Maybe it was the interracial atmosphere, or maybe it was because I was hungry and found his pie-and-waffle talk alluring, but the man had my attention now; the groovy blue panes no longer a distraction, faded away like the last beacons of disco.
"But we know that isn't true," said Tyrus, pounding again. "It cannot be true. For the Scriptures tell us to come and taste that our Lord is good ... He is good.... He is good! ... He was good yesterday, he is good today, he will be good tomorrow.... Is there a witness in the house?"
Silence.
"I know y'all are mostly white Presbyterians, but can't a man get a witness?"
"Amen and amen," came meekly from behind me. I turned for a peek and saw it was Jamie Delaney, wife with child. Seated beside her, Ransom gave me the thumbs-up.
"Our Lord compared to fat grams," boomed the voice of Tyrus. "That's how far we've fallen."
Blessed and dismissed, I glanced down to reread my first attempt at a scribbled sermon note: Jesus and the lemon meringue pie. But I didn't get this Presbyterian fascination with food-food in the sermons, food hurled from missionaries, fruits of the spirit, and powdered donuts. Good grief.
Up the burgundy carpet, the congregation moved slow and sluggish, moping along with the idle apathy of molasses. I was shuffling toward sunlight when someone tapped my shoulder.
"Hi, Jay. Thanks again for the French dinner."
"My pleasure, Alexis." After I pushed open one side of North Hills's intricately detailed double door, she walked past, smiled, and stopped to chat. Her dress was deep red, her raven hair was pulled to one side, and she wore the same silver bracelet from our date.
"You going to singles class?" she asked.
"Yes. Yes I am. And you?"
"Nope. With good timing, I can hit two churches in one Sunday. So I'm scooting across town to check out the Pentecostals."
As I left the building, I got the departure nod from Bulletin Guy. I nodded back, then turned to Alexis, who was hurrying down the front steps. "Hey, you do know they're a bit more, um, proactive. In their style of worship, I mean."
Down the sidewalk now, she spoke over her shoulder. "I can be proactive."
I paused on the stairs and leaned into a wrought-iron railing. "I'll bet you can. So how do the Pentecostals rank?"
She stopped and turned to face me. "A Pentecostal church was number one last week."
"Ya think North Hills Prez can stay in the top ten?"
"Maybe ... if you and Steve Cole start wearing ties."
After watching her get in her car and drive away, I loped across the parking lot to the singles class. But a note on the door said our teacher was sick and had no substitute.
As I drove home, a random thought hit me, actually hit me, right in the nose. What if I were to continue rotating through churches to meet the right girl, and the right girl was also out there rotating, and we picked different denominations every week? We'd simply crisscross in the same city without ever meeting-while decades passed and my blond went to gray and her eggs died.
I'd be sixty-eight, off to Litchfield Beach on yet another singles retreat, hobbling up to a seafood buffet, humming pop songs, and watching lobsters go to hell.
Luggage spilled from the closet as I began preparing for my New York interview. Navy pinstripe suit, white button-down, red tie. Be at the airport by 7:00 A.M.
The flight left Greenville at 7:40, and by 8:15 1 was inside Charlotte International, munching on a waffle and waiting to change planes.
I always asked for a window seat, and on most flights, with the jet high above the clouds, I would even use the high altitude to try and make up for experiences that my generation had missed.
Like the draft.
I would pretend to be in an Allied bomber over Europe in 1944 and make high-pitched noises through my nose. Probably not normal for a guy in a pinstripe suit to do such things, but in four hours I'd be sitt
ing across from some Ivy League blue blood grilling me about my market savvy, and this helped me relax.
And deep down, I knew that my vocation of staring at little numbers flashing across a computer screen-prosperity masquerading as video game-was only possible because others went before me, staring not at computer screens but at mortars, missiles, and machine-gun bullets.
We throw money at stocks; they threw themselves over grenades.
Mercy.
The ones who made it back home, the survivors, they should have the five-bedroom on the golf course. We should give it to 'em. Car of their choice, too.
In five seconds we'd be over Normandy, and I could sense the incoming artillery. But my concentration got interrupted as the pilot said we could unbuckle our seat belts, and that below us, it was sunny in Virginia.
"My son makes those noises, too," said the pantsuited lady seated next to me. "Usually in the back of the minivan after I pick him up from preschool."
She could've just asked me to stop; no need to be sarcastic. I gave no response, just sat there picturing her leaving a restaurant with her husband, him unlocking her door, her not returning the favor.
Cloud cover wrapped our jet in swirling wisps of gray as beams of sunlight pierced the cumulus, the atmosphere on fast-forward. The pilot said we were approaching the city.
We descended over the Hudson River, and all my right-side window mates joined me to gaze out at the sunlit financial district, seconds later at the Empire State Building, then at the giant green rectangle of Central Park. The city looked intimidating with its row after row of concrete towers-a more polished and refined concrete than Myrtle Beach, however, and containing, most certainly, fewer bottle blondes.
Thirty minutes later, a cab dropped me off at Broad and Wall. The first thing I noticed was how much black they wear in New York City: Europeans in black, minorities in black, upscale women in black, old men in black, and college girls in the black garments of youth.
And me in a navy pinstripe and red tie.
Not a happy color, black, but the Yanks wore it well. And they all looked straight ahead as they trekked the sidewalks. Survival mode.
In South Carolina, I'd been getting used to casual waves, various shades of beige, and the fact that, in the health-conscious Palmetto State, barbecue was considered a vegetable.
After one more perusal of the skyscrapers and the fashions, I concluded that none of those things ever happened here.
When I entered our corporate office at the corner of Rector Street, I was greeted by a young Hispanic woman seated behind the front desk. She wore a black silk top and, for a New Yorker, a friendly smile. I felt relaxed, confident.
"I'll tell Mr. Galbraith you're here," she said, reaching for the phone.
On the tenth floor, she led me down a marble hallway, the floor all swirly and glossy-gray, so shiny I could see my reflection.
"You coming?" she asked, five paces ahead.
"Yes, ma'am."
We stepped into a trading room filled with quote screens, Reuters news feeds, and spastic traders in light-blue button-downs, large sweat spots expanding at their armpits.
"Which one is he?" I asked, scanning the room.
"The mean-looking one," she said, pointing toward the window.
"Thank you, Miss Martinez."
"Good luck, Mr. Jarvis."
And I thought only Southern women had big hair.
I waded through a hundred quote screens. Traders shouted buys and sells. Stocks moving up flashed green; those moving down flashed redtens of millions of dollars moving in and out of the market as a hundred Wall Street firms just like this one watched every tick, at the same instant, with the same goal: to maximize profit. We'd become the consummate capitalists, creating wealth for clients, and ourselves, without any tangible benefit to the rest of society.
Four flat-panel monitors sat atop Vince Galbraith's oval cherry-wood desk, the desk where he barked orders to his assistant, a tall, twenty-something guy with gold suspenders wom tight over his obligatory light-blue button-down. Vince was total concentration, his eyes darting back and forth between screens with a rapidity rivaled only by air-traffic controllers. I would've bet that his parents bought him Ivy League pajamas as a kid. But he was the Big Dog in this upper-class yard, so me and my navy pinstripes stood silent, watching a nation's wealth rise and fall over his left shoulder.
"Take ten thousand G.E." he yelled, still not aware that I was standing behind him.
"The offer just dropped to five, sir," said the assistant, his eyes locked on the bid and ask.
"Then take the five and bid up an eighth for another five," barked Vince.
"I wouldn't get too heavy with G.E.," I said, interrupting. "They're half financial conglomerate now, and if the Fed raises rates ... could be dicey."
Vince turned and looked at me as if I'd just told a Ph.D. in math how to convert fractions to decimals. "Duh," he said. "The Fed news is already priced in the stock."
I knew that.
He eyed my navy suit. "You're Jarvis, eh? I've heard about you. No deep accents allowed here, though. Confuses the clerks at the stock exchange."
"Slightly Texan," I said. "Nothing offensive."
"That's good," he said, "real good, because no one here would understand `I'd lyke to buy fo-thousand shayuhs of Mayburry R.F.D., puhleez."'
I gave no response to that.
He looked me over again, sizing me up before turning his attention back to the markets. "Did Brophy tell you to grow that scruff so you'd look older?"
"He told our whole office to grow it."
"Doesn't help. I tried it myself," he said, scanning his screens. "So, whaddaya like right now? I mean right now."
I did not hesitate. "OPEC sticking to their quotas means more pressure to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. I like Transocean."
"What's that symbol? R what?" he shouted, looking left and right for a response. "Will someone please tell me the bleepin' symbol?"
"RIG."
"RIG is up three-eighths, heavy volume," said the assistant.
"Stick a bid in for ten thousand at the last trade," yelled Vince.
I couldn't believe he was buying my idea. "I didn't know you were going to-"
"What?" he asked. "This is the interview. If Jay make money, Jay might get job in New York; but if Jay lose money, Jay go back South and watch Hee Haw. Okay? Say, you wanna Diet Coke?"
"A regular Coke." The cocky, Ivy League blue blood.
"We got the ten thousand RIG, sir," said the assistant. "But it's down a quarter now from our price."
Vince pierced me with his stare. I didn't budge. Wasn't breathing, but I also didn't budge.
"I'd buy another ten thou," I said, swinging for the fences. "The pullbacks have been short lately with the underlying strength in crude-oil prices."
He shook his head, wiped his brow. "Take five thousand more RIG," he said to the assistant, but there was doubt in his voice. We had just bought fifteen thousand shares of a fifty-dollar stock, spent three-quarters of a million bucks from the house account and I wished Mr. Gruber could see this and where was that cola?
"A couple of fifty-thousand share blocks of RIG just crossed the tape, sir. It's up a half," said the assistant. He handed me a Diet Coke, took a swig from his own, and for several minutes we sat transfixed, united in the continual darting of three pair of eyes.
"Now it's up a full point!" he said.
Two more traders scurried over from neighboring desks to view the action. I watched pigeons flutter at the window, then took a casual glance at my watch, as if my Pop-Tarts should be coming up soon.
"What time do the Yankees play tonight?" I inquired.
All business, their eyes shifted from the monitors to me, anxiously looking for a decision. I waited ten more seconds, then gave one. "Okay, Vince, I'd sell a chunk."
"How much?" he demanded.
"Ten thousand shares, but scale out of it. Sell five thou, then three, then two. Feed t
he shares to the market like it's a duck waddling up a bank."
"Oh, gimme a break, Janis."
We sold ten thousand shares at the end of the day for a point-and-ahalf profit, or fifteen thousand dollars. Took all of an hour and forty-five minutes.
He and his assistant lost three thousand bucks on their G.E.
Vince Galbraith took me to dinner at Sardi's, where we enjoyed filet mignon and fudge cheesecake below the red frames of celebrity. While I would describe no one in the place as dressed to the nines, the majority of patrons and all the waiters were at least to the eights, and I would even give the beggar we passed on the sidewalk, in his black trousers and dirty fedora, a solid five.
Impressive place, Sardi's. On every wall, the red frames held comic sketches of famous people, though I couldn't tell if the one over Vince's shoulder was Archie Bunker or Sergeant Schultz. I went with Archie and ate my dessert.
"I almost hate to admit it, Jarvis," said Vince, sipping an espresso, "but you're at the top of my list for the position."
"Sounds good. How many more interviews you giving?"
He took a last bite of cheesecake, savored it for a moment, and made eye contact. "Three more. Then I'll make my decision within a couple weeks."
I gently wiped my mouth and said, "You may not wanna wait that long."
He looked perturbed. "And just what, pray tell, is your reasoning?"
"The South, Vince ... we might rise again."
Vince rolled his eyes, dropped a forty-dollar tip on the red tablecloth, and said he needed to get going, that he lived in Connecticut and it took him a subway, a cab, and a train to get there.
On the walk to my hotel room, I remembered to stare straight ahead while traversing below the bright lights, trying my best not to appear friendly. Just act the part and stay stone faced.
My hotel was only three blocks away, on 45th, but a small crowd piled up at the intersection with 6th. They all stood silent and disengaged, waiting on the sign to say "walk." Across the street, another crowd waited to move toward us, their stares paralleling our own. Must've been a city ordinance against sight lines crossing.
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 15
