Hatched (34 page)

It did not have to be so. Something clearly went wrong along the way, and it may very well be related to our inability to read signs properly.

History is replete with signs that adequate observation may be rather valuable. The unmistakable Carl Jung claims to have foreseen through his dreams the calamity that was World War I, and the veritable plethora of miscues leading up to the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria would suggest that fate itself didn’t want the plan to fail, and so the war’s catalyzing moment found success in the most unlikely of alleyways. Franz Ferdinand had come to Bosnia in 1914 in order to make an inspection of the Austro-Hungarian troops stationed there. Their presence angered the Serbian freedom fighter group known as the Black Hand, which was part of a movement seeking the independence of Slavic people from Austro-Hungarian rule. Having attempted the assassination of other Austro-Hungarian officials, seven members of the group seized this opportunity and conspired to kill the archduke during his visit to Sarajevo.

This particular plan was hatched in another restaurant, called Le Bibent, Argot for “bien boire,” to “drink well.” Located on the central square of Toulouse, in the south west of France, it featured (and still to this day serves) specialties that make it appropriate for the hatching of plans. Its most celebrated eggy entrée is the Œuf parfait en cocotte, cuisiné façon Basquaise, mouillettes au Noir de Bigorre, served with wine and followed-up with a shot of café crème. Other choices include the Œufs mimosa de «Mamie Constant», the Œuf mollet roulé à la mie de pain, Etuvée de poivrons doux et lardons croustillants. And among the appetizers is the unmistakable Œuf mimosa et ventrèche de thon. For dessert? Why not: the egg-white-based Ile flottante, caramel à la fleur de sel, or, better still, the enigmatic flan aux Œuf à la vanille, subtitled les Œufs, “comme autrefois.”

We’ll never know if Gavrilo Princip, one of the instigators of World War I, ate any eggy dishes at Le Bibent, or if “comme autrefois” is a code for the fact that he did; what we do know is that on June 28, 1914, members of the Black Hand were stationed on the procession’s route, and when the cars containing the archduke and his wife passed by, two of the presumed assassins threw their bombs—but missed. Well, to be fair, they didn’t really miss, since they did manage to injure twenty people, but they did miss their actual target.

The driver of the car realized that there may be a bit of danger in the vicinity, and so managed to veer from the scene. Miraculously, he managed to pass three other assassins who had been posted at key points along the route, but none of them could act quickly enough to carry out their orders. Gavrilo Princip, presumably still basking in the glow of his wonderful meal at Le Bibent, figured that the whole plan had gone to hell, and may, for all we know, have been planning his return reservations in that isle of eggy delights.

Instead, however, the driver of the car made a detour so that the archduke could visit the twenty wounded victims in a nearby hospital, but he got lost and, amazingly, landed up on the road upon which Princip was walking, proving the fact that no matter how great the coincidence that Jude should encounter John and Tina in Long Island, there are even greater, and possibly more significant happenstances in the litterbox of history.

The car, knowledgeable perhaps of the need to fulfill the archduke’s somber fate, managed to break down right beside the would-be assassin, who dutifully fired two shots from a rather questionable firearm. The firearm, also in apparent cahoots with destiny, managed to fire two bullets: the first one burst the jugular vein of the archduke, and the second pierced the heart of his poor wife, Sofia. Both died, presumably, instantly.

That first hunk of lead, now referred to rather infamously as the ‘bullet that started World War I,’ is now on display in the Konopiště Castle, near the town of Benešov, in the Czech Republic. On its account, many have claimed Gavrilo Princip as the most important person of the twentieth century. The plan that was hatched in Toulouse led to his shot, the shot found its target, and the target’s death dutifully set off a chain reaction that led to the deaths of millions of people, most of them innocent civilians, and paved the way for the horrendous atrocities of both World Wars.

None of the preceding facts suggest that we ought to be honoring Princip, or even the eggy dishes he may have eaten in Toulouse. What we should be honoring instead is, of course, chance.

Chapter 4

As chance would have it, on the very day that Jude’s Crackerbox had broken down and John’s otherwise culinary life was being played out inside of the yolk of a shiny, red Cadillac, Ted and a group of workers were in a large Manhattan warehouse, overseeing the crating of fruits, counterfeit of course, sown over the past two months.

The presses that were churning out near-perfect replicas of twenty and fifty dollar bills weren’t high-tech, but they did the job admirably well—so well, in fact, that a plan that seemed to have as much chance of succeeding as Princip’s, was indeed succeeding, to the tune of 3.2 billion dollars—and counting. This phenomenal sum towered before the bare eyes of Ted, Steve, and Tom, who had gathered on this Friday afternoon to admire what a couple of billion (real) dollars, and a whole lot of undocumented Chinese workers, were able to produce. Thousands and thousands of wooden crates filled with uncut US currency transformed an otherwise nondescript warehouse into a city of rectangular wooden edifices.

How many fifty-dollar bills can be contained in a 4 by 8 by 4 plywood box? That is, how many single bills can be contained in 128 square feet of space? If there are 7,000 similarly sized boxes, and each contains the same number of bills, how many bills are in those boxes? And if, for arguments sake, the individual bills are worth $50, how much money is that? That is, how many $50 bills can be held in 896,000 square feet of space?

This was the question that the three friends were pondering together, in awe and mutual admiration, when Ted’s cellphone rang.

“Yup?” Most calls on that phone of late were from environmental groups with which Ted worked closely, and so he was informal, and his voice was kind.

“Um, hello?” The voice on the other end sounded far away, and rather lost in background noise.

Ted’s number was private, and screened, so his first impulse was to just hang up; instead, and by chance, he waited patiently on the line for a response.

“Hello? Sir? I’m sorry, um, Ted. Um, Ted? This is Jude. Jude, from the restaurant.” Pause. “From Fabergé Restaurant, the broken egg. Downtown.”

“God, I am such an idiot,” thought Jude.

“Jude! Lifesaving Jude! How are you, my friend?” Ted’s eyes twinkled.

Tom and Steve exhibited some surprise at Ted’s demeanor in regards to this kid, about whom they’d heard in the context of Ted’s stories about the collapse of Fabergé Restaurant. Ted raised his finger, indicating that he’d be a few moments. His two friends glanced at each other, then back to him.

“Great! Well, actually, not so great. I’m really, really sorry to call you like this.”

“How else are you going to call me?” quipped Ted.

“Um, well, you know what I mean. I mean, well, sorry to call you like this, like out of the blue.”

“It’s okay, what’s up, Jude?”

“I, I need help. I’m so sorry.” Jude was worried about calling a rich friend in need of something, since he assumed, rightly, that this was one of the only reasons that friends call rich friends.

“What do you need, Jude? You helped me out of that scrambled cauldron, remember? I told you, call me if you ever need anything!”

Jude relaxed. “I do need something, and I swear, I don’t know who else to call. And it all involves John, you know, that John guy who owned Fabergé Restaurant. And even Tina! And—”

“Jude?”

“Sorry. My truck broke down. I’m on Long Island. I got a lift from John. He passed by me on the road and picked me up.”

“John? Did he take you home?” Ted turned towards his friends, his eyebrows raised.

“This conversation is starting to drag on rather longer than it needs to,” mumbled Steve to Tom, and there was a whole lot of work to do.

“No, um, it was like a sex car, a—,” blurted Jude.

“A sex car?” Ted’s eyes lit up, and Tom began to squeal with laughter.

“Shhhhhh!” indicated Ted, barely able to control himself.

“Ted?”

“No, it’s okay, Jude. I’m in a bar. Rather noisy here.”

“I’m really sorry, it was so bizarre. I got them to drop me off and now my truck is on the side of the highway, and so am I. But we’re not together.” He realized that he was making no sense whatsoever.

“Are you okay, Jude?”

“I just need your help. I swear, I’m so sorry, I don’t have any money, and my truck is broken down, and I don’t even know where I am.”

“Okay, listen, Jude. Call AAA, or a garage, or something, whatever your moving guys do when your truck is broken. Have them fix it, and then call me with the bill, I’ll pay for it. Do you have enough money for a taxi?”

“Yes, I can get, um, somewhere. I’m on the 107, somewhere past Brockville.”

Ted paused and then mouthed something to his two friends. They came closer.

“What the fuck are you doing, Ted?” asked Steve. Tom, as though aware of Ted’s meaning, looked more curious.

Ted whispered into the din, and Tom leaned his ear towards Ted to hear him. “He can do it for you. What you were saying.”

Tom backed away and lifted his shoulders. Steve just shook his head.

“Jude, listen to me. Call the tow truck, arrange to fix your truck. Then take a cab to, um, do you know the Stardust Diner? It’s a couple of blocks west of Radio City, on Broadway. Meet me there.” Ted looked at his watch. “I’ll be there in an hour, that should give you enough time.”

“I know it, yes, I have been there. Christ, thank you, Ted!”

“Watch out for Christ, Jude!” Ted smiled broadly. “See you soon.”

Chapter 5

“What the fuck do you mean, this is a sign? This is a pain in the ass, Ted. We still have to figure out—”

“Tom, it’s fine. We will make the public statement. Harrison’s Shipping is on board. They have enough trucks. We have all this,” Ted motioned towards the huge crates, “and it’ll be cut by next week. It’s fine. But if you still want to go back to Nashville, this guy can bring you there. He’s a mover!”

Since the collapse of Fabergé Restaurant, the hatched plan had been tuned up, greased, oiled, and put into high gear. All of the products required for the production of the last non-plastic greenbacks to be produced in the US—the paper, presses, packing equipment—had been stored in the warehouse, now a factory, for several years, and it had proven remarkably easy to procure the few more printing presses that they deemed necessary for the volume of currency they’d hoped to produce.

Most surprisingly was that Ted’s plan, that he’d spoken of for years, had worked perfectly. His idea was to recruit workers at the very last moment, to ensure that there wouldn’t be too much discussion or untoward questions. He had rounded up an entire workforce with the help of “snakes,” the Chinese version of Mexican coyotes, intermediaries who helped smuggle undocumented workers into the US. And thanks to Ted’s seemingly endless contacts from inside of China, he was able to round up a large quorum of highly qualified printers. The flow of Chinese immigrants into New York was primarily funneled into the needle trade, because it was apparent that for the manufacturer of high-end clothing—and in particular expensive pieces like bras and panties that were labor rather than resource-intensive—it was worth paying immigrant workers in the United States, rather than indigenous workers overseas. The model for this kind of production was fashioned by a Canadian guy for a firm that came to be known, rather ironically, as American Apparel.

US production saved manufacturers the cost of shipping and import duties that cut unnecessarily into the otherwise gargantuan profits made on luxury items. The Chinese workers were ideal for this, because they were hard working, adept, and mostly ignored in NYC, which meant that they had very little contact with Americans. At the same time, Chinese immigrants are seldom noticed or bothered by Homeland Security, an agency that was veritably consumed by the undocumented Latin-American imbroglio and the hype surrounding potential Muslim terrorists.

Ted, who loved any and all reasons to hone employ his uncanny Chinese language acuity, knew a few members of the Chinese community, and knew from them that a large percentage of those in NY weren’t in fact trained for either knitting or sewing (although they became adept at both). Their real and untapped abilities were in areas relating to printing, and many were highly trained typesetters, pre-press technicians, type makers, bindery workers, and printing-machine operators. This was the consequence of the Chinese government’s huge efforts to create the hordes of tool and dye makers, skilled craftsmen and highly specialized tradespeople required to work in a country that actually made things. The tradespeople who were most likely to come to the US were people who wanted a different life, and many avid readers and writers, including hordes of people who had been directly involved in journalism and printing. These were the emigrants who had first-hand knowledge of what America could offer, not to them, of course, but to their children. The first generation would slave and suffer low wages and humiliation, but their children would learn the language and eventually frequent the very elite American educational institutions. Most first-generation Chinese had little interaction with the US population, because they didn’t speak English, which meant that the second generation would be integrated because they combined communication abilities with a superb work ethic and a culture that fosters excellent training.

And so when Ted went in search of one hundred highly trained printers, typesetters, printing-press operators, and technicians, he found more than one thousand qualified workers who were ready to go to work. They were part of a gigantic, American workforce that was living in the shadows of New York, going to work at 4:00 a.m. They worked in crowded, high-end schmata factories and returned home after dark, and so nobody was more the wise when they traded domains from clothing to currency. Ted of course had to pay their “ransoms,” the outlandish sums that they needed to pay off their snakes, amounts that would have kept them enslaved to particular factories for a decade or more. Furthermore, since integration into American society was virtually non-existent, and since they had zero contact with authorities, by choice and for their own survival, Ted figured that he could hire them without fear of them wondering why it was that “currency wallpaper,” as he described it, had all of a sudden become so fashionable. The fact that this wallpaper had two sides, was impeccably printed, and bore obvious resemblance to the original after which it was modeled was, as Ted explained (when necessary), a sign of the professionalism of his company.