McClernand pulled himself erect with pride. “What about that? Go ahead, go ahead, you can come closer.” Peter edged forward. “Pick it up,” said McClernand. As soon as Peter began to lift, McClernand yelled, “Hold on! Take it by the base! There you go. Attaboy.”
Peter turned the piece this way and that, examining it. He had a pretty good idea what it was. “It’s a three-dimensional model of the box-tops market!” he said. “How . . . ingenious! And such beautiful workmanship.”
McClernand dismissed the praise with a shrug. “Oh, it was really nothing. Four different woods, not a big deal.” Then he leaned over Peter and ran his finger down the outside of the corner where the panels met. “But you might take a look at that dovetailing. Not bad, eh?”
“Beautiful.”
“And along the base, too.”
“Yes, I see that. Well, well, well, quite impressive, I must say.”
They both sat and McClernand explained. It emerged that he had spent several nights describing his box-tops vision to Manny, one of the firm’s more eccentric physicists. Taken with the idea (and without enough work to fill the twenty-three hours he spent at the firm each day), Manny wrote algorithms and formulas and code that, when entered into a computer, produced a drawing of a three-dimensional surface. McClernand had taken the computer model and spent weeks making his own version in wood and rubber. The panels measured implied volatility and the base showed the box tops’ validity term. McClernand was quite happy with the result.
After McClernand discussed his router for a while, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at Peter.
“So,” he said. “What have you got?”
“Sir?”
“What have you got? What have you come up with? Let’s have it. The projections. The data. The outlook. The firming or softening trends. The market risk, the political risk, the dispersion. Legal.”
“Er . . . you mean . . . er . . . you’re referring to the box-tops scheme?”
“Yes! Of course.”
“Of course . . . of course.” Peter cleared his throat. “Well, you see, Mac, without your leadership, I was at a loss to know how to proceed, and since I didn’t hear from you, I didn’t want to presume to go in any particular direction on my own authority.”
“You mean you’ve done nothing?”
“Nothing? Nothing? No, I wouldn’t say nothing. Of course, I’ve given the whole matter a great deal of thought, and I . . . uh . . . you know, whenever I have bought cereal, it’s really very fascinating, I’ve studied and compared the box-top coupons very carefully —”
McClernand’s face was purple, and he exploded. “Goddammit, Russell! Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with here? Oh, yeah, I know what you’re probably saying, you and the other smart-ass-kid bastards: ‘Mac McClernand, don’t hear much from him anymore. Mac McClernand, he’s all washed up. Mac McClernand, we know about him, he spends all his time making observations of his own fecal matter and carefully recording its color, consistency, and weight.’ ” McClernand looked at Peter defiantly. “Am I right?”
Peter said nothing and McClernand grunted.
“Okay, sure,” he continued, “maybe there’s been a bear market in Mac McClernand the past couple of years. Maybe there’s been a correction. Maybe there’s been a sell-off. Well, let me tell you something, sonny boy. I still know the players, I can pick up that phone and call Lou Budenz or Al Kreymbourg or Stone Blackwell — or even Seth Bernard himself, I taught him a thing or two when he was a smart-ass kid — and have your ass fired like that.” He snapped his fingers, although they didn’t really snap, and he tried it again two or three times, like someone trying to get a flame from a cigarette lighter. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Peter with disgust. “I guess the picture looks a little different to you now, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I guess Mac McClernand isn’t exactly the guy you thought he was?”
“No, sir.”
Now McClernand had a more benign expression.
“Aw, hell. I know what it’s like. You’re young and you think that you know about twenty times more than all the old farts in the firm put together, eh? Eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, who knows? You might just get lucky and learn something.” He snorted, then continued. “Right. Let’s get to work. Harvey O’Connor is our grain analyst. I want you to get on with him right away. Then Charlie Price, leisure comestibles. Talk to them, get an idea of the size, direction, forecasts for their industries. Some preliminary conversations with legal and compliance. Talk to some traders, get an idea of what kind of customers could use our product right away. But don’t let on why you’re interested.
“Now, what Manny and I did here, it was all theoretical, treating a box top basically like an option. To put some more meat on it, we’re going to have the data — get our hands around the size of the market and its flows, the new issues trading right now, if you know what I mean — and then extrapolate to the potential for a secondary market. We need the number of cereal boxes sold domestically and worldwide each year, and the number of box tops that were redeemed, say, for the past fifty years.” McClernand went on at length in this vein. “Let’s have some regressions, see how box tops stack up with stocks, T-bills, milk-solid forward prices, the EAFE, monthly change in private nonfarm employment . . .”
Finally, he wrapped up with a flourish: “We’re gonna do it! We’re gonna do it! And this is just the beginning!” After staring off for a moment, transported, he turned sharply to Peter. “Well, go on!” he barked out. “Get your ass in gear!”
“Yes, sir.” Peter rose and nodded and stepped toward the door.
“Hold it! Just a second.”
Peter turned.
McClernand was wearing a big grin. “Go ahead,” he said, motioning. “Take it up to your office. You can keep it for a while.”
“Yes, sir.” Peter moved to pick up the model.
“By the base!” McClernand cried.
Peter traveled through the corridors and in the elevators of Beeche and Company carrying his unusual trophy, which received stares, and then, when he reached his office, he set it down on his desk. He had stared at it for a few minutes when his phone rang.
It was McClernand. “Say, Pete,” he said, “right after you left, I realized that since we’ve gotten the ball rolling we ought to let Gregg Thropp in on what we’re up to. You can’t start early enough getting someone like him on board. So I gave him a call and I was just about to tell him all about it, when I thought, Now, wait a minute, here’s a chance for Pete to show off for the boss! So I just gave him some hints but said that if he really wanted to know, he should talk to Pete Russell. He was very interested. Seemed like he was peeing in his pants, to tell you the truth, he was so eager to hear all about it, especially from you. He wants to see you right away.”
Peter had gone into a kind of trance.
“Pete? Pete? You still with me?”
“Uh . . . oh . . . yes, Mac. Right. I’ll check in with Gregg.”
“Just lookin’ out for my boy!”
“Yes, Mac. I appreciate that.”
Peter stared at the phone for a moment, then went up to Thropp’s office. There he found Thropp stretched out with his feet on his desk and his hands behind his head as if he were sunbathing.
“Ah, it’s the Champ,” he said. “Please. Have a seat.”
Peter sat. Thropp looked at him with a big smile. Then he sighed, stretched, and brought his feet down. He cleared his throat and spoke in a sincere and serious tone.
“Peter,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do. Do you remember some time ago when I promised to utterly destroy you?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well,” Thropp said, shaking his head in dismay, “I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t followed through. Every Monday, making out my to-do list for the week, I’ve put down, ‘Peter Russell: destru
ction of.’ But I’m afraid that I’ve still dropped the ball. There’s no excuse.”
“Please, Gregg,” said Peter, “don’t go to any extra trouble on my account.”
“No, no. A commitment is a commitment.” Thropp smiled. “Now, I just got off the phone with Mac McClernand and he mentioned very briefly what you guys were working on, but I don’t know if I followed. What is it again?”
Peter fidgeted for a moment, before muttering, “Breakfast-cereal box tops.”
Thropp cupped his ear with his hand. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
“Breakfast-cereal box tops,” Peter said more loudly.
“Goodness, I must be going deaf. Speak up, please.”
“Breakfast-cereal box tops!”
“Oh yes, that’s right!” Thropp said brightly. “Breakfast-cereal box tops. I thought that’s what Mac told me, but I wasn’t sure.” He looked at Peter with eager interest. “What has he got in mind to do with them?”
Peter fidgeted some more and his throat went dry. “He . . . well, he thinks . . . he wants the firm to establish a secondary market for them, where people could trade them. Once they become established as securities, he thinks that they would begin to function as money. The dollar, the yen, the euro are all flawed, and gold is a joke, he says, so eventually he sees box tops becoming the world’s reserve currency. All the while Beeche is trading them, we’ll also be acquiring them for our own account, so when everyone gives up on the dollar, we’ll have the largest holdings anywhere and can, you know, dominate the world, and all that.”
While Peter spoke, Thropp gave him sympathetic nods and said, “Mm-hm. Mm-hm. I see.” But then he could restrain himself no longer. He began to sputter, then to chuckle, then to laugh, and then suddenly his whole body was shaken by successive waves of huge guffaws. He reached a stage when he heaved but no sound came out of his gaping mouth. His face turned bright red and tears came to his eyes. Partially regaining the power of speech, he was able to say only “B-b-b-box tops!” before becoming convulsed once again. Three or four times, the fit seemed to have passed, and Thropp would wipe his eyes and sigh. “Oh, man. God. Perfect, perfect.” But then he’d say “Box tops” and erupt again. Throughout, Peter sat there quietly, trying to maintain as much dignity as possible.
Finally, Thropp had more or less recovered and was able to converse. “Champ, I’m excited for you,” he said, “I really am. This is a great opportunity . . . for you to go down in flames!” Thropp cackled. Then he looked at Peter with loathing. “Russell, get this: you’re McClernand’s rent boy. When he says ‘Jump!’ you’re not going to just say ‘How high?’ but also ‘May I please suck your cock first?’ Understand?” He cackled again. “This is wonderful. Not in my wildest dreams! Oh, are you going to suffer. And you’re a guy who, when you suffer, I’m happy. You’re the Christian that a lion is eating for lunch; I’m the emperor. You’re the spy; I’m the guy attaching electrodes to your scrotum. You’re the wart; I’m the person who’s got the wart and who likes to pick it until it’s gone altogether.”
“Those would be genital warts.”
“Now get out of here.”
“All right, Gregg,” Peter said as he stood, “I’ll leave. But I have just one thing to say.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“You. Are. Incredibly. Short.”
“Get out!”
Peter had returned to his office and was doing a postmortem on his discussion with Thropp. It was always good to try to find the positives you could take away from moments of adversity. Also — lessons. The important thing was to learn something from these experiences. After several minutes, Peter had to admit that the positives remained elusive. Surely, though, with the perspective of a little time, they would emerge! As for the lessons, yes, there was at least one lesson — that his situation was a total, complete, unmitigated, horrendous, epochal disaster.
Okay, so things professionally are a “challenge” right now. You’ve got to expect that from time to time. Work through it. See it as an opportunity. And, in any case, at least you’ve got a wonderful home life. Oh, wait . . .
Charlotte. Four months of marriage to Charlotte had been everything he had expected, only slightly worse.
They had gone to Italy for their wedding trip. Peter had enjoyed that. In the evening, they had eaten gelato while walking on streets that looked out on the Mediterranean. The food had been incredible. He liked the way the cypresses, so upright and regular, were the only upright and regular element in the landscape. Charlotte and he had had romantic times showing each other favorite streets in cities that they had visited before they met. Nevertheless, almost instantly Charlotte had begun to drive him crazy. It wasn’t just that when she used an Italian word or name with him in conversation, she would pronounce it with a full-strength Italian accent (Pi-AZ-za Sahn MARRRRco); that was no surprise and the kind of thing to which he had become inured. No, what was driving him crazy was that, like so many women with their new husbands, it seemed she had set herself the task of civilizing him. Thus, whenever Peter wanted to do something any tourist would want to do, see the world-famous view or ruin, she would frown a little, and say, “Oh, you don’t really want to do that, do you? Didn’t you say you’d done that years ago?” To Peter’s mind, if you saw the sun set over the Mediterranean from the ideal corniche or walked through a two-thousand-year-old site once a decade, you would not be overdoing it. But Charlotte preferred to visit the old abattoir district, which, beginning a few years earlier when a disused counting house had been renovated by married Dutch architects (identical glasses), was now attracting an interesting mix of people from all over the EU. Of course, Charlotte would never object to anything as being “touristy”; that would have made it too obvious that she was worried about distinguishing herself from the tourists. Rather, she adopted the air of a virtual native, and, as a (virtual) native, of course she never even thought about the main attractions. Peter would not have minded this if it had meant that they stayed in a pleasant residential neighborhood and went to a few museums and churches. But no. She would drag Peter to the old abattoir district or to the “undiscovered” side of the lagoon where, it was true, you didn’t see the average tourist, but where you did see tourists a lot like Peter and Charlotte. “You don’t really want to go there, do you?” “You don’t really want to eat that, do you?” “You don’t really want to see those paintings, do you? That period here was so vulgar.”
Ah, well. Charlotte was happy, and when she was not being smug, she was sweet. She was slightly giddy, having had the marriage burden lifted from her. Less pinched by anxiety, she also became freer and more passionate in the passionate arena of life. This was a development that Peter had to confess he viewed with mixed feelings. Charlotte would put her hand on his chest in bed; he would feel it through his cotton pajama top. Later, she would rest her hand, a moist pad with short tendrils, on his naked chest. She might then trail the tip of her index finger along the line of his profile. “Oh, what a beautiful boy,” she would say. He would return the compliment, and add some others, and he would do so hovering in a no-man’s-land of partially believing what he said, wanting to believe it, and utterly disbelieving it. Sometimes when that sat fully clothed in their fully illuminated living room, Charlotte wanted to talk to him in an intimate way, to stroke and pet him. She would place her hand against his cheek and bring her own face so close to his that he could not focus properly and saw two noses and four eyes. “Oh, Peter,” she would say. “Baby. I love you so much.” Her breath was hot, moist, and musty. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I want you so much as a man and I hope you want me as a woman.” This embarrassed Peter, but he blamed himself. How could he be so uptight! So scared of intimacy! Guilt-ridden, stupefied, and self-conscious, he would do the only thing one could do in such a situation — he would embrace Charlotte and kiss her. This would be a long kiss, eyes shut. When it ended, Charlotte would smile and put her forehead on his, then frisk aw
ay to the kitchen, with one grinning backward glance. Watching her, Peter could not help but notice how woodenly she moved, yet her earnest desire to be a lithe woman of sensuality was so apparent as to be heartbreaking.
At the moment, though, these were not matters that Peter had to contend with, because Charlotte was intensely preoccupied with her job. The AGSPF was holding an important conference in Paris, and much of the planning had fallen to her. For weeks she had been coming home at night exhausted and tense. She ate little for supper and then sat on the floor in the living room working on her laptop with her papers spread out around her. She drank green tea and tried to decide if she should stay up late enough so that she could call Hanoi. Peter would receive a full report of her troubles that day: “Ibrahim Soulaiyman al Sherif al Muhammad bin al Hashem refuses to come to the convocation breakfast! I just cannot believe it. He was giving one of the addresses! It’s because Jacques Becqx is speaking. Apparently, at a conference a few years ago, M. Becqx ordered a dozen pizzas to be delivered to M. Soulaiyman al Sherif’s hotel room, or that’s what M. Soulaiyman al Sherif said. M. Becqx denied it and threatened an angry démarche from his government. Anyway, it seems they’re both still angry about it.” A sigh. A moment of thought. “I suppose we could ask Muhammad Ibrahim al Sherif al bin Soulaiyman-Hashem.” Then there was the official, male, from Mauritius who wanted a translator, female, to accompany him at the AGSPF’s expense. Charlotte had to explain that the AGSPF would balk at paying for a translator to attend a conference of people whose whole purpose for gathering was that they spoke the same language. The official had now submitted new papers in which the same woman was listed as a “hydrologist.” Peter was patient and helpful, he hoped. In a way, it was better like this. A swamped Charlotte kept him at a distance. This could work, Peter thought to himself. He could remain supportively at her side. He could listen; he could help. That could be okay. For a lifetime? It depended on your expectations.
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