IV - THE EMPEROR
I sat in the conference listening to Winde, Barry, Stein, and Rudy’s synthetic ramblings about Long Island real estate. It was the Monday after my romantic weekend that began at the Met and the horrors were running rampant through my body and soul. We called it the Monday morning BBQ; Bernstein had his five key people gather at 8.30AM for the ritual crucifixion of one of us, and I had the feeling that Monday I was holding the winning ticket; my mix of hangover and romantic nostalgia was blood in the water for the sharks.
Bernstein strolled in five minutes late, his face a fusion of misery and nausea. I was sure he had spent the whole weekend burrowing into his insipid mind and imagining how he could inflict the utmost pain on one of us. He started with Stein and went easy on him then he gave Friedman some gruff but they had been together for fifteen years so it was like barking at his wife. I was hoping Rudy would get something, but he got off with only a few bruises. I was regretting having stayed in my local talking to Merv till closing but I hadn’t wanted the magical weekend to finish.
“Edwards, what the hell is going on with this report? You say we will only do $7 million in April, when we have sold $11.5 million in leads?” The salespeople sold without really understanding if we could get the leads for the price they sold at. If we couldn’t actually get the leads, the money stayed on the table. It was the first time he really went at me, but unfortunately for him, numbers were not his strength.
“So what campaigns do you think we’re not getting the most of?” I looked him straight in the eye, the caresses were still fresh and they enlivened the fight in me as if Bernstein were attacking her instead of me.
Barry, smelling an opportunity for some easy points with his boss, jumped in. “Arthur, you have Bosley Hair replacement here for five hundred leads, they will take two-thousand.”
Then Bernstein, “Why do we hire these kids if they can’t generate leads? All we do is hire people and leave money on the table.”
They were feeling brave, but the last comment got under my skin and I could feel my blood rise and my nostrils widen. The fact that Bernstein had changed the commission structure for all the media buyers right before I came on board had left me with almost no one with experience on my team. The media buyers bought leads from a variety of sources to fulfill the sale’s orders and the buyer’s contacts and know-how were the key to the business, but it took time and training to get a new buyer up to speed.
Everything about the place reminded me why I had gone to Europe for ten years, and after that wonderful weekend I felt like going back. “Well Tom, since you changed the commission structure, we lost all but one media buyer, all the know-how and connections went out the door. That’s why I spend an inordinate amount of time hiring people, because all the people, but one, left within a month of me getting here.” I’d never mentioned the commission change, and neither had they. It was the little one they slipped me upon arrival that I had to take with a smile.
“That’s not pertinent to this meeting, we can discuss that later.” He actually looked alive as he spoke, angrily so, but at least alive.
“You asked why we hire people, I answered. As for Bosley you realize, Barry, that they lowered the price per lead and will only accept male leads over twenty-five years old. Remember, lots of women filled them out for their male partners. That means it’s more difficult for us to get the leads, and on top of that, less money per lead. We did one-thousand leads with women, and the minimum age eighteen, and the price at $35. So if you drop the price to $25, eliminate the women, and raise the minimum age, logically we will get less leads.”
Now it was Winde’s turn. “Look, you guys are not trying hard enough. These kids are not making enough phone calls.” Although my boss, it was unimaginable for Winde to try and deflect a little of the heat, it wasn’t his style and I had the distinct feeling that the three of them had set this up.
“I agree. More can always be done, but when I make this report it’s based on numbers, what we can honestly expect to produce during the month. If we find a good source and it looks like we can improve, great. But right now we have covered all the usual suspects and this is the best we can do. If we find a source tomorrow by the time they get approved by Bosley, up and running, the month will be almost over. This report is as real as I can make it.”
Bernstein twirled his tie and I could see the sadistic joy hidden inside the miserable frown. Barry was rolling his eyes again and I gave him a death stare. Bernstein, after his brief silence, began, “Look, you’re fulfilling your own prophecies, if you made a plan to come up with $10 million, that’s what you get. Sure, this report always seems to be right on, because you make it that way.” The report was a line item of each campaign we had and how much we could reasonably expect to fulfill. I did it as consciously as possible, to try and give us a clear picture of what our revenue would be for the next month but they didn’t seem to appreciate its usefulness.
“Look,” I leaned forward toward Bernstein, “I don’t pull these numbers out of my ass. If there’s a number you think is incorrect, a campaign you think we can get more leads for, let’s discuss those particulars. It’s completely transparent, line by line. This is not some conspiracy on my part to cover myself and my team.” But Bernstein and family’s Monday morning thrills we’re not be so easily denied.
Winde got the cue from Bernstein to pull a line out of the report to attack. “Arthur,” His deep voice resonated through the fat of his neck and his pudgy fingers pulled at the pages and pointed to a line. “Let’s look at 2309, there’s a signed placement order for $100,000 dollars, 5,000 leads at $20 a pop, and you put here on this report that we will only fulfill half of that, 2,500 leads. This is a good and easy campaign, when I was running the team directly, we always fulfilled this campaign. What’s the problem?”
“This is the Army campaign. The “problem” is that you sent them all the leads from one source, the Find Your Future Career Test.” One of our affiliates had created a free online career orientation test which at its conclusion asked the user if they wanted information about joining the Army, if the test taker checked the square, the lead was sent to the Army and Bernstein picked up the $20 for lead, 30% of which he paid the affiliate, in this case, the Find Your Future Career Test. It worked relatively well until Winde got greedy and had the affiliate pre-check the box, so it became an opt-out lead which means unless you said no, the lead was sent to the Army. “You fulfilled the campaigns all right, all from one source, but when you changed it to an opt-out the quality went down and the Army killed the career test in February, so we’ve been looking for new sources since then. The idea is to send them good leads that they will buy month after month not knock them over the head, make a big score and the next month have them kill the source.” Barry was rolling his eyes, Bernstein was playing with his tie and Winde was sweating.
I remembered the first meeting I had with them when they flew me to New York and we were sitting in some cheap deli talking about what I did, and realizing that they didn’t get it and Winde clearly saw that I was as shady as he was. Later, we found out that he and Barry were stealing leads from Bernstein and selling them back to him, doing the same thing that Rudy, Ryan and I were. We found their “source”, and I kept it my back pocket as insurance if he ever caught us. Looking at the three of them in the conference room I had the distinct feeling that As is above is below- they were a clear reflection of who and what was running the big show in Washington, Hollywood and Wall Street.
Klein and Rudy kept their mouths shut, but Barry felt compelled to speak. “You know what we need for the Army campaign is another war. One more war and they will pay double for leads.” He chuckled, his fake tan glistening under an expensive silk shirt. “Hopefully the Iranians are next, but let’s not get into politics.” Winde and Bernstein dutifully laughed.
These guys could give a hoot about who had to go off and fight these wars becaus
e their kids were certainly not going to get sand in their Prada shoes fighting Iranians, Iraqis or Afghanis. For them, the kids who fought these wars were nothing but suckers who they lured into the Army with their career tests. Walking back to my office I passed by Irina’s desk and I asked her to come in for a chat. I needed to vent, and after one look at her and I could see a reflection of the weekend and I was a moment away from reaching out and touching her when Barry came in.
“Way to go kid, I loved the way you told him you didn’t pull the numbers out of your ass.” Irina raised an eyebrow.
“I think I told him I didn’t pull them out the air, but it doesn’t make a difference.” I looked at him with an exaggerated disgust which he didn’t fail to capture and was out of my office in a flash. I sat back and enjoyed my Irina as I watched her smile. Winde screamed across the office like a waitress in a cheap diner for me to go to his office. I had a meeting that afternoon with a guy I was quite sure would hire me on the spot, plus the extra money I’d made on the options trade left me prepared for battle. As I left I told Irina, “Hopefully I’ll still be your boss this afternoon.” I touched her stomach and winked as I left; I’d never touched her that way before.
“Be calm, don’t let him see you excited.” She advised as I walked passed. I felt like I had nothing to lose, so why not go out swinging. I let Winde’s door close behind me with authority and stood up leaning against the wall leaving the chair empty. I just looked at him, not wanting to make the first move.
“Arthur, sit down.”
“I’m fine standing up.”
“Look, don’t take these meetings personally, we think you are doing a good job, we just want to make sure we’re covering all are bases, getting the most we can out of this team.”
“Okay. No problem. I can defend myself.”
“Yeah, right, I can see that. You certainly laid into me and Tom. I’ve never seen anyone put things to him quite that way.”
“I would much rather have a civilized meeting where we discuss things, and hopefully come up with some ways to improve, but accusing me of softening up the numbers is not a great way to start. That’s not the way to do things, not the way things are done.”
“Look, this is not California. In New York, we rough it up a bit, but we let it blow over. Tom just wanted to make sure you didn’t take it personally.” As if I were the one who got pummeled.
“Absolutely, and the same goes for me. I hope you didn’t take any of it personally either. I was just making my case.”
“No hard feelings, just in the future, I’d prefer you didn’t criticize me in front of Bernstein, better we do that here.”
I laughed. “Winde, you have got to be kidding, right? I’ve got Tom and Barry jumping me and do you come to my defense? I can’t imagine one of my people taking it from you and Tom or Barry and not defending them. That’s what a boss does, he covers his people. When the door is closed, gloves off, agreed, but not out there. That’s not how I play.”
“First of all, everyone knows you are soft for Irina, but anyway, you’re too easy on them, it would do them good if you beat up on them a bit. You have to put pressure on them, make them nervous. It gets the fire under them.”
“She’s the most mature of them, it’s easier for me to relate to her. Anyway, that’s not how I work, I’m not the sales manager of a used car lot.” I was not thrilled with the Irina comment as I had thought I was doing a reasonable job of dissimilating, but apparently not. The used car line got him- he was pissed. But he swallowed it. “Look, I have been here for more than six months and there are some real problems with this place, forget the culture, I mean about the business.”
“I know, I know. Tell Tom.” I nodded.
“Good idea, I’ll go talk to him now. I’ll make sure there are no hard feelings and then explain some of the things I think could improve the place.”
“Go ahead.” He looked down at a report as I left. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to face the man but I had the sense that maybe it might be easier to say what had to be said while everyone was still a bit stirred up. I walked toward my office and then quickly veered toward Bernstein’s and just as I had made my turn I saw Winde plodding out of his office and he screamed across the office. “Let’s go talk to him, clear the air.” Irina looked up and I smiled at my muse, ready to do battle.
Winde began. “Tom, we just wanted to come in, make sure there were no hard feelings.” He smiled.
“That? Come on, we’re big boys.” Bernstein replied leaning back in his chair.
I began, “Sometimes I can get a little excited; I just wanted to make sure we were all okay with things- I didn’t mean any disrespect. Anyway, now that we are all friends again, I did have some ideas I wanted to throw at you, maybe they could help.”
He raised an eyebrow as to say no problem. “I’m not trying to tell you how to run things, but my gut feeling is we need to get away from buying and selling leads, and we need to start generating them. If we don’t, we are going to get squeezed out. Remember, I was on the marketing end and I understand how they think and they’re getting more sophisticated. They will realize we’re really not adding any value and they will cut us out. Bosley, for example, if we could come up with a site that talked about baldness, gave some good content, then pitched them Bosley at the end, maybe we could generate some leads of our own. For financial services, we could come up with a test for traders like How much do you know? And at the end, pitch them brokerage firms and financial education.”
He twirled his tie and it was clear that he was only interested in the easy money, squeeze people until they pop and collect his checks. It was useless. “Sure, let’s try it, sounds like good idea.” I realized then and there that I had no future in that place. Six months before I had the same feeling, but this was too quick. There was no honeymoon. It went from the altar directly to the divorce lawyer. I told them I was having lunch with a buddy of mine from a big newspaper and cut loose for the day.
I got a cab down to the New York Mercantile Exchange to meet Harry Scott, the owner of another trading education company, Winning Trade. I had at this point either worked for or done business with two of the five biggest companies in this field, Harry would be number three. The difference between the financial educators and the guys on the street hustling tourists with “which cup is the ball under” was that their shill was the entire financial media, from MarketWatch and CNBC to the Wall Street Journal. Any idiot can walk into a casino and blow ten grand. But trading options, forex, futures is intimidating and people need education before they can lose thousands speculating on the markets. I sat in the lobby and waited for him to come down with two brothers, Neal and Seth Edelstein, who owned a small brokerage firm in New Jersey and who were trying doing business with him.
The two brothers were both in their fifties, both small, bald and in bad suits and they came into the lobby first. We knew each other through a mutual contact and there was a potential side deal I was working on with them which we had previously we agreed to keep private and discuss at the upcoming Money Show in Toronto.
We got a tour of the trading floor by one of their floor traders but the lights and hysteria didn’t seem to get Harry very excited. He was from the South and had an inbred dislike for all things New York, even if he was drinking from the same trough. Harry asked for a room where we could talk and the two brothers gave us the keys to an office they used in the NYMEX. Harry was a big guy, with a mug only his mother could love. There was something swine like about his face and body and I got the feeling he was really looking me over as we walked down the hall and into the disheveled office. He sat down, put his feet up on a table and began.
“So Arthur, what can you do for me?” I’d just about had it with megalomaniacs for that day and was on the verge of explaining to him what he could do for me at the moment, in graphic detail. But I sucked it up gave him the standard, “I am a g
uru, I will make you millions” pitch which I had down so well it was starting to get stale.
The one important thing I had in my favor with all these guys was that they really didn’t understand what I did. It seemed so simple to me, but I could immediately tell from their language they were completely in the dark as to the intricacies of online marketing. It was like talking about baseball to someone who didn’t know the difference between a hit run and sacrifice bunt.
“Arthur, I can tell you know what you’re doing, and I have seen your work for Just Trade and the options folks out West. How much do you want?”
I was truly sick of working for these characters and thought the best thing to do was go out on my own. One side of me knew that it would be a disaster, but maybe it would a disaster I needed. If I was going to change, it was going to be a complete change.
“Harry, if I make the change, it’s to work for myself. I’ll handle your account for ten percent of the media buy with a ten grand minimum per month.” I also thought maybe I could double dip for a couple of months with Bernstein and pack away a few bucks until Bernstein caught on, but Harry saw right through it.
“Sorry Arthur, I need you just for me, and it isn’t going to work if you are doing business with other folks. How much do you want to work just for me?”
“Buck-eighty is the minimum I can do that for.”
“That’s a lot a money Arthur.”
“Look at the spread sheet, comes to about ten percent of what you are netting out of what I do. You make money, and so do I.”
“I understand, let me talk it over with my people and we will see. Maybe bring you down to Atlanta were we can talk it over. Arthur, are you a Christian?” Not a question one gets often in New York.
“Sure, I was raised Episcopalian.”
“Okay, let’s see what we can do about bringing you down.”
I left the building and took a deep breath, thrilled to get away from these types. It was already six o’clock and I had arranged to meet Misha at his hotel. He had given me a call the day before asking if I was free that night, his timing once again very opportune. He was staying at a nice hotel on the Upper East Side and I was really looking forward to seeing him.
He was in a large suite at a very exclusive hotel and he greeted me with a big warm smile and I immediately felt like I was finally with a man I could trust. It was warm out and I was dying for a beer. “Arthur, looks like you’ve had a long day, grab what you like from the fridge.” The man could read my mind. I brought him up to date on what I had been doing and the day I’d had.
“Seems like you have some very sought after skills, you should really think about how best to organize things, and not just from a monetary standpoint. What we do in life is extremely important, if it isn’t in line with our true selves we wind up living incoherently.” It was twilight and he left the lights off and the sounds of the street were faint. His dark blue suit fit him beautifully and his tie rested on a chair but he left the jacket on as he strolled the suite.
“That’s one of the most difficult things for me. I have very interesting skills, but I put them to use in a way this is damaging to society.” I told him about the campaigns for the Army and the online degree factories. “I can create desires in people and offer them the path to satisfy those desires, but I just wish I could be doing something productive instead of swindling folks.”
“You’ll find something, but first you need to change yourself. When you’ve raised your consciousness high enough you’ll see the right path. Work on yourself first, the rest will come.” I told him about my encounter with Enel and about the Tarot cards she’d given me and he immediately became animated.
“Very interesting encounter and the cards are good way to begin to explore the esoteric traditions. Much has been written and speculated about their origin but the important thing to remember is that they first and foremost describe a transcendental path, but to understand the cards you really have to understand astrology, Kabbalah and alchemy, in short, Hermeticism- Hermeticism is really the mother of all Western esotericism. Keep in mind, esoteric means secret or hidden, as opposed to exoteric, which means open. The exoteric traditions are the mainline religions, but the esoteric tradition is naturally secretive.
When the Greeks took control of Egypt during the time of Alexander the Great they realized that their god Hermes was very similar to the Egyptian god Thoth, and from the merging of the two came Hermes Trismegistus, the mythical father of the Hermetic tradition. When we talk about Hermeticism or esotericism it refers to the mystical initiatory rites of Egypt and Greece and the occult tradition that grew out of them: Gnosticism, alchemy, Kabbalah, astrology, the Tarot, and ceremonial magic. Within the Tarot are revealed the deepest mysteries of the Hermetic tradition. Are you familiar with the Cathars?” I wasn’t and shook my head.
“They were a Gnostic Christian sect, Christian Hermeticists if you like, that was judged heretical by the Church of Rome and was wiped out in the Albigensian crusades in the 13th century, curiously enough, right around the time the first Tarot cards appeared. It seems credible to think that the remnants of the Cathars would have put their thinking into something that avoided Christian theology like the cards. Remember, the Gnostic tradition, after the Cathars were almost completely exterminated, flowed into Kabbalah, Alchemy and the Tarot as it was their way of avoiding persecution from Rome; what wasn’t Christian wouldn’t be persecuted as heretical.”
I told him I had read The Mystical Kabbalah by Dion Fortune and he seemed pleased. He went into a bag and presented me with a book by Stephan Hoeller entitled The Royal Road and recommended I listen to the lectures on his website. He then put a Rider Waite Tarot deck on the table and sorted out the Major Arcana, which are the first twenty-two cards from The Fool to The World. He put the cards in order on the table, in rows of seven, except for The Fool which he left alone at the top. “There are three levels to the path, the first seven cards are the elements, the body if you like, the fundamental archetypes that make up a man. The Fool begins by giving The Magician his satchel, The Magician, an alchemist, then opens it and separates out the four elements-water, earth, fire, and air, represented in the same order by The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, and The Hierophant. These are the basic archetypes that we’re made of, then, in The Lovers, they are brought together again and with The Chariot the journey begins. Remember, the key idea behind the cards is the path; this is a very profound system that very few really understand. The cards have a relation to the Zodiac but be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that they are only the Zodiac, they are much more than that, but astrology can be a good place to start understanding them.
The twelve signs of the Zodiac, plus the seven classical planets, and three of the four elements make up the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana and you, the reader, are the fourth element, earth. For example, the first card, The Fool corresponds to air, the second card, The Magician to Mercury, The High Priestess to the Moon, The Empress to Venus, and finally we get to The Emperor which corresponds to the first sign of the zodiac Aires, then The Hierophant to Taurus, the second sign of the zodiac, then The Lovers, to Gemini, the third sign of the zodiac, and so on.” He presented me with a book on astrology by Dane Rudyar and told me that it was a good introduction. “But remember, the card is more than just a symbol for the astrological element it corresponds to, it is much more, it’s an archetype all its own and you will eventually learn to feel those archetypes, but for now astrology can help orient you while learning the meaning of the Major Arcana- the first twenty-two cards.”
“I always thought divination was the primary purpose?” I asked.
“It’s certainly a part of it and there does seem to be a synchronicity between the archetypes and the how the cards appear in the spreads. Doing the divinations is a way to get in touch with the archetypes and understand them. Just don’t do them for yourself; it’s not a good idea
, better to do them for others. You can also pair them up, each card has a pair, for example, The Lovers and The Devil are a pair, meaning they directly relate to each other, in this case, the two sides of desire for the flesh.” He put The Devil card next to The Lovers. “At this point in the path, with The Lovers, the connection is a joyous one, the conjunction of the two opposites. But by this point” he pointed to The Devil, “It inverts, and that same desire that brought joy early in the path with The Lovers now has chained you to the desire for the flesh. The Devil is blocking the path and has an important lesson to teach before you can continue on.”
“But wouldn’t the unification of the male and female be considered good?” I asked.
“Yes, but not as long it’s connected to the material or the flesh. Think about it like spiritual materialism. Are you still chained to the things of this world? Be in the world, not of it. That’s not an easy lesson to learn but without breaking those chains it’s impossible to ascend. So many people turn to spiritual paths in search of material things; they want prosperity, love, a career etc., you can’t have both- you must die to the material desire before you can reach for something higher.”
He continued, “You see many people in the world obsessed with romantic love, as if it were their ultimate goal. They truly believe that romantic love is the highest form of human experience, just look at how much of our cultural narrative revolves around it. It’s a reflection, a lower octave of something much higher and transcendent. It’s a glimpse of the divine, a very small appetizer but not the main course; the real thing is something much more profound.” I heard him, but it didn’t register with me, not then. Without telling him so much, he understood.
“Arthur, the material world, the world of the flesh in the end will only bring material things or pleasures of the flesh and the consequent frustrations. It’s not to say there’s anything bad about it. We’re humans living in these bodies and we must eat, protect ourselves and procreate but remember what Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone”, what he meant was that we need a spiritual life. And not only do we need it; it’s the “better half” as he told Martha. What’s interesting about the need to physically unite the opposites is that they mirror the much higher spiritual unification, but they can’t replace it. That’s the power of these two cards. What works at the physical and emotional level in The Lovers doesn’t work at the transpersonal level. It’s no coincidence that The Devil is the first card of the transcendent level of the cards; he guards the gate, he’s the dragon that must be slain in the mythic stories before the hero can move on.
Another good example is The Hierophant and The Tower. The dogma of The Hierophant must eventually be destroyed if one wants to move upward. What works in the initial stages of development, the dogma of religion represented by The Hierophant, must eventually be discarded if one wants to grow- you have to slay the Buddha. You’re going through some of this with your ideas about the political system. One can’t see the world for what it is if one is tied to his tribe, country, and religious group and so on. Those things serve a purpose and for most people they’re enough; they never move beyond that. But if you want to move on you must break those chains of dogma and the flesh. I know it may seem difficult now, just keep it in mind.”
I nodded. “Yes, it’s amazing how much we’re programmed to believe what they want us to believe. But who are they? The so called puppet masters. Do they know what they’re doing, are they conscious of it?”
“You, in your work, know how to manipulate people, guide them toward certain products and actions. Do you know what you’re doing? Do you know whether the products are really worthwhile? Do the owners of these products know?”
“Of course they do.”
“So you can probably assume that the folks who promote these worldviews know exactly what they’re selling. Joseph Campbell said something very interesting; he said that religion was misunderstood myth. The myth reverts to narrative to transmit a very complex, transcendental truth, something too profound to simply explain. For example, could anyone explain in prose the meaning of Bach’s music? The same happens with myth; the myth can’t be translated just like Bach’s music can’t. But The Hierophant worships the words and it works up to a certain point, but only to a certain point. When one reaches The Tower those suppositions, that dogma, must go up in flames.”
Dinner was sent up to the room and he continued discussing the cards. “Here in the middle you have the Wheel of Fortune which is not only paired to Justice, but is side by side with it in the deck and these two cards form the Karma of the Universe, a feedback loop.” Then he separated out The Hangman and The Hermit and placed them together on the table. “The Hangman is paired to The Hermit. Once one begins to look inward and leave the material world at The Hermit all of a sudden the world looks upside down, as in The Hangman- what’s up is down, what was good is bad. I think you might be feeling a bit like The Hangman now, it tends to occur to people around your age. You know Jung, in general, wasn’t interested in treating people under forty and in the Kabbalah they say you must be over forty and married before you begin with it. There’s a time for everything and I think you’ve reached that time.”
We ate and he asked me more about my work, about the details of what I did. I was apprehensive about discussing Irina. I felt in a sense the relationship with Misha was something that existed on a higher plane but he seemed to pull it out me, asking about my team and their backgrounds. I felt he knew immediately what was going on as soon as I mentioned her name. “Well, one must follow his heart, sometimes we have no choice with these things; it’s something bigger than we are. If you look at The Lovers card you see there are three figures, she is looking up at the angel and he is looking at her. Sometimes through love we get a glimpse of the divine. The Lovers are the union of The High Priestess and The Hierophant, The Emperor and The Empress. Just keep in mind The High Priestess often drowns her lover; the man often must die for the spiritual child to later be born.”
The hours seemed to fly by as he talked of the cards and we drank good wine. He was warm without pandering, authoritative without being pedantic. I’d never met anyone quite like him.
THE HIEROPHANT
Harry Scott was shoveling a wide assortment of the buffet breakfast into his porcine head while I watched on, drinking coffee and in bad need of a cigarette. He had flown me down to Atlanta for the weekend and I was out of practice doing business breakfasts, especially on a Saturday morning. We had agreed to start things up slowly, with me continuing to work for the New Yorkers while I did some initial media buys for Harry for five grand a month.
He was in the middle of giving me his ‘Who am I speech’ and the more I heard the more he scared me. Harry was from a rural southern background. He had been a Marine, then got into the multi-level marketing racket. He didn’t come across as terribly charismatic but must have succeeded in the MLM world through sheer force of will, which he had in abundance. The southern accent put a quaint seasoning on a sordid story: “I was living in Tampa, driving a Ferrari, making tons of money, but blowing it as fast as I made it. But through the grace of God I met Bitty and then I woke up one day in my apartment after a weekend of partying and found out I was broke; my partner had stolen everything, nothing left, Bitty held me and I cried.” Imagining him crying was a tough one. “I had one dollar left, and we prayed to Jesus- we prayed for him to release me from the affliction of alcohol and drugs, and lead me to forgiveness. I still have that dollar, and now another sixty million or so tied up in Winning Trades and a few other assets.” That part of his pitch must have been a leftover from his MLM days where it was so important to show the suckers how rich you were. I made a big effort not to look disgusted and focused on the easy five grand a month.
“You’ve done a great job Harry, you’re making it work when the other guys are starting to misfire. Once you lock in a brokerage firm, or buy one,
you’ll have a gold mine here.” He was too savvy to believe I wasn’t pandering, but he still enjoyed it.
“Yep, that’s the next step. But these people from New York, I just don’t trust them. I like to do business with Christians because everything I do is for Christ. All the bad is me, he does all the good. You know, one of these guys I was talking to in New York, Indian or something, I asked him, what do you actually believe in, and you know what he told me? He said, ‘Harry, I believe in Fire.’ He actually prays to a match. I can’t do business with people like that.” It never fazed Harry that ninety-percent of the people he was hustling were Christians, Jesus didn’t care about that. The Lord just didn’t like letting fire worshipers get a piece of the action.
“Bitty’s brother’s a preacher, he’s actually a pretty good trader, too. He’s coming out with a newsletter for us and might even become a speaker at the seminars.” The urge to make a smart ass remark was tremendous but I kept reminding myself about the money. “We have two preachers already on the payroll. I want you to understand that this a Christian company, it’s important for us. We don’t condone illicit behavior, I don’t drink or smoke, and we don’t have any alcohol at our events or meetings. We’re servants of Christ, that’s who runs this company, not me.”
“I understand Harry, and in my own way, I’m quite religious too. You know, I was looking at your paid online seminars and that’s where I would like to start. The key to the business, I’m convinced, is going to be the paid online seminar. You have no limitations geographically, the only pre-requisite is English as a language, the potential there is very great.”
“Arthur, I have a goal.” I realized that the ‘about us’ part of his introduction wasn’t quite over. “I want to be a billionaire. I believe that day when I was left with one dollar, drunk, crying in Bitty’s arms, that Jesus took mercy on us. I felt him tell me, ‘Harry, if you straighten up your act, I’ll make you a billionaire.’ And I’m going to do it. Just to wrap up my story, Bitty had some money saved up and I took a Harlen Kaper’s trading course, lost most of her money learning to trade, but than made it back. Eventually I became one of his speakers, one of his best speakers, and when he went belly up I started out on my own, out of a garage, with almost nothing. We believe in running a very tight operation. Our entire customer service team works out of their homes, only the IT folks have an office. We play it hard and tight, and that’s why were making it work out there while the other guys are starting to sputter.” He was definitely the boss and wanted to make sure I knew it. “To answer your question, I really can’t let you work on the online paid seminars because I have to split the profits with the speakers, and it isn’t going to work for me. I want you on the free seminars, drive as many visitors there as you can.”
I agreed but I found it incredible that these guys would not take a chance on trying something with a much bigger potential. I had pitched the same idea to three of them, paid online seminars, and all three had declined. “Tell me Arthur, what would you think of moving to Atlanta, if things work out? Would you be willing to make a change? I want this to be trial, and if it works, I want to bring you on board.” I had learned my lesson and put on the biggest excited smile I could.
“I would love it- I’m so tired of New York. The place is evil and I just don’t fit in there. I would love to come down here and settle down.” He appeared to buy it and with that we finished the ‘who are we segment of the interview’ and I got on with the task at hand- making Harry Scott, servant of Christ, a billionaire.
It was a warm Friday afternoon in the middle of May of 2007 and I was anxious to make something happen with Irina. I felt like I needed her and that she’d been sent my way for a reason but there were two obstacles. One of course was that I was her boss and while it was a problem, it didn’t seem insurmountable. The second one was the boyfriend who was becoming a larger issue than I had expected. I saw her go into the bathroom and come out a few minutes later with makeup on and her hair styled as she walked toward my office.
“You look very nice. Same lucky guy as always?”
“Yes, of course. I’m not a silly girl.” I looked at her and wished I could bring her with me to see my cousin in New Jersey, though me bringing along a Russian paramour probably wouldn’t have gone over to well with them. The day before I had asked her through instant messenger if she wanted to go the MOMA with me after work but she declined, saying that her boyfriend might not like the idea. She had taken the upper hand quite easily, and she knew it. I’d gone from being the boss to just another petty admirer in only a few minutes on messenger and the change was clear in her demeanor and in mine. I told her about the lake house I was going to and how I would probably do some sailing. “Maybe I’ll take you sailing sometime, you might like it.”
“Maybe. Have a good time, I have to go, I can’t be late, bye.” And she was off and I was left empty. It had been many years since I’d felt that way and I knew exactly what it meant.
My cousin had sent a car service to pick me up and it navigated slowly out of Manhattan into New Jersey. The mass of cars, the chaos and the horrible landscapes only depressed me more. On and on it drove while I sat in the back and stewed, determined to tie on a good load that night and hope for something better in the morning. I knew I had to put her out of mind, forget her at least romantically. It was the only answer, but I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength if I had to see her every day. All sorts of scenarios ran through my mind, each unconvincing while the car pulled up to the gated entrance of the lake community. I got out and called my cousin.
My mother’s sister had married a man from New York, and she had two boys, Tim and Bill Lyne, and the brothers couldn’t have been more different. Tim, who I was waiting for, was an investment banker with Lehman Brothers. He was tall, thin, grey hair, early fifties, extremely smart and very direct. His brother Bill, who we called Wild Bill, was a detective with the NYPD and was for the most part, off his rocker.
Tim had on Bermuda shorts and a white polo. “Arthur, good to see you. We should get you changed and comfortable.” I was greatly relieved that I was seeing Tim this weekend, and not his brother Wild Bill who had given up drinking and turned into a practicing and somewhat evangelizing member of AA.
After getting changed I walked out on the deck and there before me lay a cold mug of beer. “It’s great to have you in New York. When was the last time we saw each other? Madrid, no?” Tim asked.
“Exactly, I remember that night, we had a good time. That was five years ago, I think.”
“Glad to see you back in the States, we were afraid you had gone completely native.” Tim cared about ‘juice’, and I didn’t have enough for him. However, the extreme amounts of money he was making, paired with a wife from an old New England family gave him the need to fulfill a patriarchal role in the family and my international background made me somewhat palatable to his wife, though he kept me well out of the way of his banker buddies. Needless to say, his brother Wild Bill was not a ‘regular’ at the lake house. Tim’s wife Genevieve walked out on the deck with their two children, Alexander who was seventeen, and Katherine who was fifteen.
It felt good to immerse myself in the family conversation on the deck and escape from thinking of Irina. At the end of the deck there was a floating boathouse with a small aluminum boat and a runabout, both with 10 hp outboard engines, the maximum size allowed on the lake. Alexander and Katherine took the runabout out to visit a friend while the three of us relaxed and had a few drinks. Genevieve was a bit older than Tim, very thin, and well taken care of, and she was thankfully a smoker when the kids weren’t around. We got to talking about the sub-prime mortgage crisis which was just starting to get into the news. Having had done the online marketing for a commercial bank, I couldn’t understand how they were getting these loans approved.
“Tim, when I worked in Cofinoga, doing their online marketing, we couldn’t ge
t a three-thousand euro loan approved for a guy who hadn’t been at the same job for a year, and now they are giving 300k to people without jobs or income, how are they getting the risk department to approve this stuff? It makes no sense to me.” When I worked at the bank, I’d had the risk speech drilled into my head countless times. They wouldn’t even tell us which media sources were better quality from a risk perspective, just in case we tried to push the ads there to much and change the risk profile for that source.
“Arthur, we’re not a commercial bank. We buy, package, and sell. We’re not sitting on these things. The problem we might have is one of liquidity since we’re leveraged about fifty times, and a lot of our collateral, as well as other’s, is tied up in the sub-prime stuff.”
“But Tim, as I understand it, at least in Europe, when bank has a loan go bad, they have to put back into reserves the entire amount of the loan, which certainly puts a damper on that leverage.”
“Of course, but remember, here, the banks don’t have to do that until they foreclose, and they can record the loan payments even though they are not receiving them up until the time they take possession of the house, which will make for some interesting stalling tactics on the banks foreclosure procedures if the real-estate market really starts to tank. Almost nobody understands how banks work. You for instance, college educated, lived abroad, speaks languages, worked in marketing for a bank. Let me ask you, how do banks function, let’s say, with a mortgage?”
I confidently answered Tim’s question. “We borrowed at low interest rates, paid low or no interest on deposits, and lent at a much higher rate, making a spread. The bank buys and sells money.”
Tim laughed, humility not being his strong suit. “My dear cousin, I see you have bought that bankers nursery rhyme about “borrow at two, lend at six, on the golf course at three.” That’s a fantasy. Banks create the money they lend. The borrower gives the bank a promissory note, from which the bank creates the money which it loans. As the borrower pays back the money, the money is destroyed, and in exchange for “monetizing” the note, the bank gets paid interest. The trick of banking is to make people think they are paying interest because the money they are borrowing is someone else’s hard earned deposit, which of course is just not true. Banks create money, which in their accounting is a liability, while the asset is the promissory note. It’s a fantastic business, that’s what attracted me to it. Banks generally can lend ten times reserves, if you take a mortgage at 6%, the bank is grossing 60% on it, while it’s paying people 3% on their savings accounts.
“Jesus, I used to ask my boss, ‘How are we were making any money when our marketing cost per 5K euro loan was six hundred euros?’ Never made any sense to me at all. Now it does. You guys are some sharp cookies, no wonder you make the big bucks.” It all began to make sense, they were making about ten times the interest rate, gross, not the five or six percent spread I thought they were. “So let me get this straight. On a car loan, they’re putting in reserve one tenth of the loan amount, and are creating out of thin air the actual money to be loaned, so on a 10% car loan, they are making 100% gross?”
“Exactly. But like you mentioned before, if the loan goes sour, they have to cough up, in real money, the amount of the loan and put it on reserve. That’s going to be the problem because so much of all banks assets are tied up in sub-prime packages. When the liquidity run begins, and it will, people are going to start selling in a panic, and there won’t be any buyers.”
“But what about the ‘soft landing’ that I’ve heard them toss around?”
“Not going to work. If you look at the real estate market, it’s gone parabolic and is clearly topping. The shit’s going to fly. Will be interesting, trust me.”
“What do you think would happen if people really understood how much banks are making on these loans? I mean, you never hear politicians, or The New York Times talk about this. Seems strange. I mean, I believe you, but why isn’t it ever talked about. Jesus, Krugman, you think he would talk about it.”
“Arthur, you really are quite naive. We run the show. Do you think any publicly traded media company is ever going to go after us? What do you think will happen to their stock price? Sure, you have lunatics like my brother who are always talking about this. He tells people not to pay their mortgage, that the loans are a fraud like that Daly case from the seventies. But don’t get me wrong, I think the system is quite effective. People can get loans at very reasonable rates. Come on, a policeman can get 300K mortgage for 5% but if banks only loaned real money, deposits or borrowed money, that cop would be paying at least 25%. Not such a bad deal, sure, the banks make good money, but, we also do a service, we monetize debt. Only problem I see is that things have become too inflated. Easy money creation has some bad side effects, like poor capital allocation in that it makes it too easy to speculate and much less interesting to actually invest in manufacturing.”
“What happens mechanically when the debt is monetized?”
“Look, imagine if you want to buy this house, and you give me an IOU that says you will pay me a million dollars over ten years, at 5%. That is just a piece of paper, I can’t really do anything with it. What the bank does is take that paper and turn it into cash. Banks are allowed to create money in exchange for IOU’s, that’s the part most people don’t get. Monetizing debt simply means converting IOU’s into cash.”
Genevieve had been silent the whole time and finally asked me if I would like to smoke a cigarette with her. We walked to the railing at the end of the deck and smoked. I asked her what their plans were for the summer.
“Katherine will be taking a trip with her school to Italy, and Alex is going to lacrosse camp. If you could do me a favor.” Tim had gone inside for a moment.
“Sure.”
“Wild Bill has gone a bit off the deep end with his Truther stuff, you know, all that 9/11 conspiracy stuff. He’s been publishing things on these conspiracy sites, some of it very anti-Semitic. He uses a pseudonym but I’m afraid he will get outed. He is putting Tim’s career and our family’s future in danger.” It was all news to me. I hadn’t spoken to Bill in ages, and the last time we met it was one of those ugly drunk scenes that put a big damper on our relationship.
“But he’s been on the wagon for a while, right?”
“That’s part of the problem. First he became very involved in AA, and still is. At first we were very happy for him because his drinking had gotten really bad. But it seems he’s applied his compulsive behaviors to other areas. Last time he was out here, things got very tense. You know how Tim is, you can imagine the two of them arguing about 9/11, Israel and the rest of it. Look, if he wants to have his views, fine, but the least he can do is take into account the kids. If you could talk to him. I think he would love to see you, and maybe you can just gently nudge him, get him to tone it down a bit. Alexander adores him, and Tim is worried about his influence. It’s gotten to the point that Tim checks the computer to see if Alex has been on Wild Bill’s site or any of those conspiracy sites.”
“I have been meaning to call him anyway, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, it would me so much to us.” As I walked back to the deck chairs I saw I had an SMS message from Irina. “Wish I were sailing with you.” The way the message picked me up was terrifying. It felt too good for comfort. What to answer? The obvious, I was all in. “Wish you were here too, maybe next me.” I could have thought about what was happening but I preferred to just enjoy that feeling of being very alive.
The next morning I got hold of Alexander and we took the Sunfish for a sail around the lake, which had a small island in the middle with a few homes. Sailing was one of the few out door activities that I still got excited about and I was showing Alex how to maneuver the small boat. I gave him the tiller as we headed into a light wind and had him practice making a few tacks. I was curious as to what he thought of his uncle. “How is your Uncl
e Bill doing? I haven’t seen him in years, we used to have fun together when we were your age.”
“Well, he is doing well, but we’re worried about some of his radical ideas.” I wasn’t thrilled with the ‘we’ part, not exactly what I wanted to hear. “I think dad is right- people who are not successful, like Uncle Bill, look for scapegoats in these conspiracies.” It didn’t seem like Genevieve had anything to worry about and my initial impression was that Alex would make a good corporate Kool Aid drinker. But then he continued. “What are your thoughts on 9/11, who do you think did it?”
I didn’t want to lie to him, but on the other hand, I didn’t feel right adding fuel to Wild Bill’s fire. I laughed a bit to take the edge off. “I’m no Truther, if that is what you are asking.” That wasn’t a lie. My ideas at that point were best defined as mass confusion. “But as far as the details go, it could be some things were left out of the official story, but I really don’t know. I think your father has a much better idea of what happened. He was always much more up on current events.” I hoped that would do it, but he wouldn’t let it slide. We were coming up close to the shore and I told him he should tack. Very smooth, he had a nice feel for the boat.
“What things were left out, do you think?” Now I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to cause problems with my cousin’s family.
“Alex, you know that this is a sensitive topic, and I don’t feel right contradicting your parents. I wasn’t even here when it happened, I was in Europe.”
“Don’t worry Uncle Arthur. I’ve actually read a lot of those conspiracy sites. I just didn’t want to blurt it out. At my school, we have to be real careful what we say and at home, it’s a no fly zone, as dad says. It’ll stay between you and me, I promise, I won’t say anything.”
“Please don’t, I really wouldn’t feel right causing any kind of discord between you and your folks. But if it’s between you and me, I don’t buy how the buildings collapsed. I can’t say I know it was something other than what officially happened. Let’s just say I haven’t heard an explanation that convinces me. The other thing is the piloting. As far as I can tell, it was quite a bit better than you would expect of people with their training, but then again, I’m not a pilot. What do you think?”
“I think it was an inside job. Have you seen the BBC video of the reporter saying Building 7 had collapsed, and behind her you see it still standing?”
“Yeah, I saw that one. How could they know it was going to collapse? What indications did they have? It seems simple enough to explain. For example, “We saw x and y structural damage, and it was clear with that damage it would collapse. I have no idea what happened, and I really don’t subscribe to any of the conspiracy theories, I just know that there’s a lot of information either hidden or missing. But listen, keep this all under your hat, not just with the family, but also with teachers, friends. Nowadays, the official story is gospel, contradict it and you’re a heretic.” He nodded and we sailed back to the house and spent a quite evening with the family around the barbeque.
The next morning five chairs were lined up in a row at the edge of the deck. When I walked into the kitchen Tim was up, urging me to get ready for the service. “Are we going to church?” I hadn’t been to church in years and wasn’t looking forward to it.
“No, church is coming to us. We have a floating wooden dock that a local pastor gives a sermon on to the whole community. Come on, it’s very interesting.” Outside, without the aid of coffee or cigarettes, I watched a large wooden raft with an electric engine gently float around the lake, about two-hundred yards too our left and coming toward us. On it were the preacher, an organist, guitar player and a singer. At ten on the dot he began his sermon and we sat in silence and listened to him go on about the sacrifice of Christ. “Our Lord died, and washed our sins away with his blood, cleansed us with his sacrifice. God loved us so much that he was willing to sacrifice his only son for our sake, redeem us with his blood.” And on and on. My mind was with Irina and I thought about her the entire ride back to the city.
Wild Bill was taking the thirty-two footer towards Manhasset on a reach. We had a nice breeze, a cooler full of Cokes and a couple of sandwiches and I was remembering our younger days when he taught me how to sail. I called him after the weekend with Tim and he was very glad to hear from me. He was a few years older than Tim, but much larger. His big gut bounced with the waves and he looked at me from behind a pair of obnoxious sunglasses and a very old NYPD tee-shirt. We’d caught up and he was hell-bent on getting me to help him to promote his website and I told him I would connect him with some people. “But Bill, just be careful, you know, Alex and Katherine are getting ready to apply for college, just make sure that your name stays out of it. I’m pretty sure Homeland Security already knows who you are.”
“How are they going to know? The whole thing is done on Blogger, with a pseudonym.”
“But Bill, they can trace the IP to your house. I took a look at the site after we talked on the phone, I’m pretty sure you are on their watch list. It’s not a big deal, just don’t ever put your name anywhere for Tim and the kid’s sake.”
“Okay, yeah, you’re probably right. But I want to get the word out there. Until we start mobilizing, nothing is going to happen. The shit is going to hit the fan, and the question you have to ask your self is, are you ready? You need silver, gold, and at least three months food.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit drastic? I mean, with all the wealthy folks in New York City, I can’t see it getting cut off.”
“Arty, New York will be the worst place on earth, trust me. Have you ever talked to Tim about all the shenanigans they are pulling at Lehman? It’s one big Ponzi scheme. Sure, he’s getting paid big bucks to be a part of it- he’s a smart guy. But when the shit goes down, you think his bosses are going to be hanging around here? They’ll be in Tel Aviv on the beach. I’ve been studying this stuff like crazy, it’s like an obsession.” He spoke very fast, but it all came from the heart; there was no room for decorum. “You know, when you quit drinking, it’s rough the first year, but after that, you think you’re okay, and then you start to realize why you drank. Holy Shit, that’s worse than the drinking, coming to terms with all that shit. Family shit, the bullshit at work, sex. I realized I was a fucking sex maniac. I spent six months on porn sites and porn chat. Then I realized that was another obsession. Shit, what I didn’t find in a bottle, I was looking for in a pussy. But then I got that under control, I’m banging this hot little Dominican babe now, see her a couple times a week. But then I realized all this bullshit we have been fed all our lives, total fucking crock of shit. The Civil War, what the fuck was that about, kill 600,000 guys for what? The Union? That was the fucking end of this country. Then you get the Fed. Don’t get me talking about the Fed.” I couldn’t believe the same mother gave birth to these two.
“How long have been off the sauce?”
“Two years, four months.”
“Congratulations.”
“By the way, remember last time we met? Look, I want to apologize, I was fucked out of my head, talking about your dad and shit. Really, I’m very sorry.” I remember him wildly drunk saying my father was some kind of a spy, not a nice memory. I was truly glad he was off the booze.
“It’s water under the bridge. You’re my cousin, I love you.” An SMS from Irina. “Swimming today. So nice, where are you?” It was starting to become real. The wind filling the sails, relaxing with my cousin. It was like magic.
“Thanks bro. You getttin any pussy man?”
“Doing what I can. Kinda hooked on a girl from work, but nothing has happened yet.” The last week the flirting was starting to heat up and I knew I either had to pull the trigger or lay off completely. She was on my mind all the time and I couldn’t help but talk about her.
“Oh Arty, be careful, these broads nowadays, you look at them twice and the
y are calling Shitwitz and Edelstein in a New York minute to take all your money. Timmy got taken to the cleaners, some little whore at Lehman, got twenty grand out of him. He didn’t even bang her. Made some stupid comment. Be careful. How old is she?”
“Twenty-nine, Russian.”
“Oh, I love those little Russians, you whoremaster.”
“We’ll see.”
“But really Arty. You look at the Fed, the media, they fucking control everything. This war in Iraq shit, all cooked up by the “Israel First” neo-cons. Those guys are over there fighting for Israel, has nothing to do with America. And the newspapers, they never say shit about it. Ask people, why are we in Iraq? ‘Dunna know’. People are fucking asleep, completely asleep. Then religion. I started looking into that. What a crock of shit. Why the hell are we worshipping this Yahweh guy? Who the fuck is he? Some bullshit God they pulled out of their asses. Yeah, I’m gonna worship a guy who is bloodthirsty lunatic. Abraham, slice up your son for me. Jesus, my son, nail him up. How the fuck did we get suckered into that one. Second World War, oh boy, yeah, what the hell do we care if Nazi’s are killing Communists, what dog do we have in that fight? Save the French! Fuck them, not worth it. Would you send your kid off to die on some beach for the French, when Marshal Petain, their big hero, was all luvy duvy with the Nazi’s?” I shook my head. We were passing Hart Island, it was around noon, an overcast day, not to hot, and a nice breeze speeding us along.
“So you’re not a Christian anymore?”
“I’m a Christian all right, just not Bible thumping retard. I have been reading the Gnostic gospels. I love them, they say all that shit about Adam and Eve is ass backwards, God is the devil and the devil is good. Make’s a hell of a lot of sense to me. Look, everything in this world is completely backwards. Best approach is to believe exactly the opposite of what they say, about everything”
“Are you really ready for some sort of event, something that’s going to throw the whole system out of whack?”
“Look, I’ve got a place upstate, small, but with a little land, a wind mill for electricity, off the grid, and stocked with wood for an entire winter. I want to take you up there, show it to you. I’ve got enough ammo to a fight small war, dried foods, some silver. I’m ready man. The shit’s going down. By the way, you’re welcome to come up if shit happens, I’ll pick you up, don’t worry. We’ll get out.”
“Thanks man, I can see something has really happened to you. You’ve taken the red pill. I know how you feel, I feel it too, but I’m so stuck in the system. All day working for these pricks, I wish I could get out.”
“You can, just start by turning off the television, stop reading their newspapers, stop buying their shit, using their banks. And for God’s sake, stop the drinking and smoking. It’s like a hook, they dummy you up with the booze. Work and drink, you don’t know what the hell is going on. Look, I don’t mean to preach, but really, once you sober up, it frees you. But I can see you are almost there. Don’t worry, you’ll figure a way out. Shit, I still have to put up with the fucking job for another six months. Then I retire and get my pension. You know, you can’t talk to people, they’re all a bunch of zombies. Ninety-nine percent of people, you say this stuff to them and they go ballistic, like you were talking about their mother. We’re all programmed, all running the same operating system, with the sports, the movies, the credit cards. Give it up man.” He gave me the helm and I listened to him as I guided us out into the Long Island Sound and dreamed about Irina.
Your Love Incomplete Page 3
