Fives and Twenty-Fives (17 page)

“Turn here,” Haji Fasil said suddenly. After I did, he sighed. “We are two old men whose families live elsewhere. We have a house on the lake. We fish. We sell. We rescue stupid children from the blade.”

“Can we stay with you tonight?” Hani said, reaching up to the front with a fistful of dinar.

“Yes,” Haji Fasil said. “You are welcome. But put your money away.”

At their little farm by the lake, we arranged fallen eucalyptus logs around a fire pit and ate dinner by lantern light. Lamb, rice, and flat bread. We studied the stars as boys from hazy Baghdad are wont to do. We listened to the gentle lake waves lapping the shore just a few meters away on their little beach.

Abu Abdul pulled Mundhir by the arm and pointed to heavy things he wanted Mundhir to lift. Sometimes these things needed lifting. A valid farmer’s purpose. Other times Abu Abdul just wanted to clap and admire his new friend’s strength. After a time, he did not need to pull Mundhir’s arm. They walked together, shoulders close.

Hani stomped about the grounds alone and reported back from the darkness every few minutes to ask after Haji Fasil’s business. How much land did they have here? How many buildings? A well for water? A cistern? How close were they to the highway? Why did they bother to bring supplies to the markets? Why not make this place a market of their own?

Haji Fasil gave simple answers and feigned laziness.

He and I sat by the fire pit and waited for the others to tire.

“How did Abu Abdul lose his voice?” I asked.

“Cancer. Many years ago.”

“Ah. I saw the scar.”

“Yes.”

Cancer had taken my mother, so I knew he was lying. But I decided not to dig for the truth.

Mundhir and Abu Abdul went into the little mud shack with a lantern and emerged with Mundhir carrying a big stack of rugs and blankets. We spread them on the beach and readied for sleep while the old men retired to the house.

“Look at this beach,” Hani kept saying, the idea growing. “This could be great.”

I fell asleep thinking of ways to dislodge an idea I knew would kill us all. I wanted to crush it before it had a chance to mature. But I drifted into a dream before my thoughts, my heavy club of persuasion, could take form to do battle with his.

It was the best night of sleep I can remember.

sir it was good to see you this weekend
and hope it wont be the last time also im sorry about how shit went down in that bar and i hate that i embarrassed you like that and i want you to know that im working on that shit and also like i said you should get in touch with doc pleasant i asked around and he lives down by some place named houma about 40 mls south of
you maybe get a cup of
coffee with the guy sir might be good for you too

cpl zahn

Cure

Only a year older than me, the senior account manager already has a corner office on the twenty-fifth floor and a client list longer than my arm. I drop by late on Friday afternoon to tell him that I’m leaving and find him sprawled out across his leather sofa, half-asleep. Caught like a mischievous golden retriever, he scrambles to his feet and smoothes his tailored wool slacks, smiling.

“Bro,” he says, “get in here. Gotta talk to you. Close the door. Sit down.”

I close the door, and he slaps me on the back as he makes his way over to the desk. An e-mail catches his attention. He coughs and starts to read, clearly forgetting about me. I sit quietly, waiting for him to remember.

Everyone calls him Stall, my boss. I forget his real name. Something like Tradd Poche, or Duplessis Poche, or Tradd Duplessis-Poche. A name fermented and bottled on Prytania Street, aged three hundred years. Nothing even remotely like Stall. I didn’t give it a second thought at first hearing, but after a week in the office one of the other account managers let slip that Stall is short for “Bro-sev Stalin.” A nickname he picked up in college, I gather.

Raised at the Mardi Gras balls, taken as a legacy by his fraternity at Ole Miss, and destined for some grand, old mansion on the Avenue, my boss sits behind a mahogany desk and calls his father’s friends for business. Soon, he’ll be calling his fraternity brothers.

Yet, he seems frail to me, Stall. Like some inbred Hapsburg monarch. He’s short, and his black hair sits limp and thin across his pale scalp. His acne scars look fresh, and his teeth, though perfectly aligned, stand out against his warped jaw as the obvious work of a high-priced repairman.

“Sullivan have you doing analytics all day?” he suddenly asks, looking up as if surprised to find me here after just a moment ago asking me in.

“Yes, Euro bonds, mostly.”

Stall scoffs. “Bro, Sullivan’s a wonk. Blow that shit off next time.”

“Really?”

“Who’s your mentor, bro? Huh? Who’s the big-swinging dick around here?”

“You?” I answer, after hesitating just a moment to join in the reference.

“Damn right, bro!” He slaps his desk. “Here’s what you gotta understand. What Sullivan doesn’t
get
. You listening?”

“I am.”

“So, they call this the wealth-management business, right? But really, it’s the Wealthy People Management Business. It’s not about the analytics. Fuck that shit. We bill as a percentage of total funds under management, not as a percentage of return on investment. About a trillion dollars got yanked from the market during the crash. But with confidence building now? There’s about to be a mad dash by all those lizard brains to put that trillion dollars
back
. The business is about getting to that money
first
. Crunch analytics all day and you end up doing maybe half a percentage point better than a monkey picking a portfolio at random. It’s about pressing
palms
, bro. Getting the funds under management. Money into the market. After that, the shit’s on autopilot.”

“Right, I understand. But, Stall, and please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m from central Alabama, okay? I don’t
know
wealthy people. My dad is a good high school football coach and a pretty bad farmer. Plus, I’m not great at pressing palms. Research, on the other hand . . . I don’t mind it. I find it relaxing, honestly.”

Stall leans back in his chair with his hands behind his head and grins. “You know why I volunteered to mentor you?” he says with an odd glow of satisfaction. “Over the holidays, even? After I had a list in front of me of, like, a hundred names?”

“No,” I say honestly.

A serious look falls across Stall’s face. “Because you’re a war hero.”

My cheeks burn and the hair stands up on my neck.

Stall doesn’t appear to notice. “You know what wealthy people like? You know what impresses them more than
other
wealthy people? Fucking war heroes.”

“Stall. Listen.”

He interrupts, “The Hero of Profane Twenty-four? Didn’t I read that on the Internet?”

“Profane Two-Four,” I correct him instinctively.

“Was that not, like, the first thing that popped up when I googled your ass? You already have a major leg up and you don’t even
know
it.”

“That article got some things wrong.” Then, trying to move the conversation onto another topic, I add with a fake laugh, “I sure haven’t met any wealthy people because of it, I can tell you
that
right now.”

Stall smiles. “Well, you’re going to! Tonight, bro!” He stands and slips on a dark sports coat, clearly tailored to hide his sloping shoulders. Subtle gray stitching pops against his light pants and pale-blue shirt.

“Yeah, I sort of have . . . plans,” I lie. Plans that involved going home to watch television, read about the heavy-weather handling qualities of the Pearson Triton, maybe drink a beer or six by myself, and fall asleep.

“So? Cancel them.” He smiles. “You’re working tonight, bro.”

I throw out a few more lame excuses as we walk down the dark hall to the elevator, but before I know what’s what, we’re in his BMW convertible. It’s cold out, but he keeps the top down as we speed through the central business district, turning without signaling, weaving and accelerating without cause, then cutting off a city bus to make a sudden right turn onto Tchoupitoulas. I get the odd sense he’s trying to impress me with all the reckless driving.

We cross into the Garden District and snap to a violent stop at a red light. Stall sighs, annoyed by all these traffic rules, and lights a Dunhill cigarette from a wide, blue pack.

“Where are we going, again?” I ask.

“Called Cure. Brand-new place. Really cool. Real nice. Like a gourmet cocktail bar. They make specialty drinks with hand-cut ice cubes and, like, bitters and essence of orange from eyedroppers and shit.”

“And—sorry—
who
are we meeting?”

“Just some friends from school.”

“Ole Miss?”

He laughs. “High school, bro.”

He parks on Freret Street, in front of a shuttered tuxedo-rental shop, just across the street from this Cure place. The tuxedo shop has obviously been closed since Katrina. The whole neighborhood still carries the faint scent of mold, of sun-dried debris. The bar is about the only sign of life for three blocks. Still, it’s progress, a sign of serious investment. The owners, I can see, gutted the old brick storefront and rebuilt the bar from scratch. Warm, recessed lighting glows out through new plate-glass windows, and shelves of upscale liquor climb the walls behind the bar, up to a twenty-foot ceiling of pressed tin. I watch a bartender in a bow tie climb a ladder on wheels, like the kind you’d see in an elegant library, and grab one of the expensive bottles up top. There’s a strangely etymological motif, too, I notice, with framed extracts from Victorian texts on long wires, and exotic beetles preserved in mid-dissection behind glass.

Someone’s clearly betting big that this block is going to anchor a new kind of New Orleans neighborhood, like something you’d see in downtown Austin or San Diego. I imagine their spreadsheets littered with sunk costs and projections. Soon, all these gutted houses, from which dockworkers and truck drivers would have walked around the corner to rent tuxedos for their modest but venerable Mardi Gras balls, will be picked up for a song by young college graduates and renovated. Maybe they’ll stay to raise families, these urban pioneers, but probably not.

I hear young voices coming down the street, laughing and carrying on. The group, a well-dressed contingent equally divided between guys and girls, turns the corner. Just the kind of folks the investors are banking on.

“
Look
at this motley crew,” Stall bellows, jumping out of his convertible. A receiving line follows in which he shakes each guy’s hand while giving a half hug and kisses each girl on the cheek while placing his hand ever so lightly on her upper arm.

I stand off to the side, hands shoved in my pockets.

Finished with his friends, Stall turns to me. “Everyone, this is my buddy Pete. My intern for the Christmas break, MBA candidate at Tulane. And did I mention? Iraq War hero.”

I wave, try to smile, then stick the hand back into my coat pocket.

The pioneers are quiet for a moment, their eyes wide. One girl chuckles.

“Damn, hell of an introduction, Pete,” the tallest guy says finally. He walks over, shakes my hand, and slaps my shoulder. The rest of them follow with faux kisses and firm handshakes. My head swims and I don’t even catch half their names.

Stall whispers something private in my ear about “feeling good,” but it’s drowned out by chatter, everyone in the group suddenly in loud conversation with everyone else simultaneously, and I don’t quite catch his full meaning.

I follow them all into the bar with Stall’s hand on my back. He rubs my shoulder with the other hand. “Yeah, you’re feeling good, bro.”

It’s louder inside. A modern remix of an eighties rap song pumps cleanly from the new speakers. Old-fashioned lightbulbs hang on cords running all the way up to the ceiling. The filaments glow in a deep, comforting orange without seeming to give off much useful light.

We weave through the crowd and grab a booth in the corner, girls on one side, guys on the other. Stall tucks himself in back, dead center, three-deep with wealthy people on either side of him. They’re still talking feverishly about something, or someone, who’s recently disappointed them. Stall officiates the discussion like a referee, calling foul on spurious opinions, ad hominem attacks, or less polite thrusts of rhetoric.

I take a seat on the end, grab a drinks menu. Nothing on the list looks even remotely familiar to me. The drinks all have names like the Start and Finish, the Thousand Blue Eyes, and the Art of Discussion. Under each is a dense paragraph detailing all the ingredients and how it’s prepared. If only they had a familiar beer or bourbon. At this point, I’m just looking to get drunk.

I slap the menu closed and rub my forehead, lost and embarrassed. The guy next to me, Brown Hair and Tweed Jacket, elbows me deliberately. I come to, squinting through dim yet somehow aggressive lighting, to see that the table has gone quiet and everyone’s looking at me.

An insistent female voice calls out from above. “Mr. Donovan?”