The Wangs vs. the World(32)
And then, in unison, the three had lifted their small glasses of water up to their pointed noses and taken a chorus of quick, polite sips. Charles burned, but he kept it down, a flat palm inside his chest pressing down his heart before it exploded in a splatting fury. Instead, he ran through the numbers again, wondering if they’d somehow missed his explanation of the holiday season. It seemed impossible—these men were all supposed to be retail specialists; they should be familiar with the insatiable American need to end each calendar year with a frenzy of purchases—but how else to account for their stubborn reluctance to understand that recovery was just a blush-happy gaggle of teens away?
“The lipstick index,” said Charles. “Leonard Lauder. 2001. Right after 9/11, America was in a recession that was more than just recession, right? The whole country depressed. Everyone sad. Nothing the same ever again.”
He had paused there and looked at the three faces before him. Their pupils had widened a bit at the mention of 9/11, and they’d all assumed an appropriate air of seriousness and concern. Oh yes, he’d thought, Charles Wang? for the save!
“Nobody was buying anything, except for lipstick. That’s right! Lipstick sales go up 11 percent after 9/11.”
Charles waited for a moment. None of the three had batted an eye.
“So maybe we start another recession now, but even if we do, lipstick go up!”
Banker #1, Charles’s old nemesis, Marsh, shook his head. “Lipstick sales have been steadily declining since 2007.”
These literal-minded motherf*ckers were ruining America.
“Lipstick do not just mean lipstick!” shouted Charles. “Lipstick mean all makeup! Anything that make a woman feel good, feel rich, feel like she is taking care of herself but not cost too much, that mean lipstick! We think it going to be nail polish this time around! Everybody get creative! A canvas on your pinky! Small luxuries! Manageable delights!”
“Please, Mr. Wang,” said Banker #2, reaching out one bony hand and placing it on Charles’s shoulder. “There’s no need to get so riled up. Let’s just carry on this discussion peacefully.”
Charles stood up.
“No more discussion.”
He slammed together his notes and pushed away his small glass of water.
“Your no is only a no, is that correct?”
Banker #3 had a bit more fight to him. “Mr. Wang, it is a no. It’s your decision now whether you want to look for another investor or whether you want to cut your losses and fold the business immediately before things get worse. Because it’s going to get worse.”
Pessimistic fools, Charles had thought.
“I come to you as a courtesy,” he said. “If you are not interested in getting for yourselves a larger stake, then I go elsewhere.”
“Our recommendation would be to restructure your existing loan and then fold the business. If you do that, you’ll still be able to retain your personal assets. But if you decide to take your chances, then we sincerely hope that you have better luck elsewhere,” soothed Banker #2, before shutting the door behind Charles.
But he didn’t. There was no better luck.
Other loan institutions, entrepreneurial investors, larger beauty companies, current manufacturing clients, old friends—not a one wanted to invest in the Failure.
Another payment due date came and went. Two months of payroll came out of Charles’s personal accounts, a loan to himself that demanded a bitter interest. A third. A fourth. The ads, the international fashion week sponsorships, they were cut, bits of ballast flung out into a stormy financial sea. In the end not one of them weighed enough to make any real impact.
And then, against all reason, the bank called the entire loan—factories and house included. A phone call, a notarized letter, and that was it. Back to nothing.
Even in failure, Charles Wang was a success. Looked at from one level up, from a perspective devoid of good or bad, where action trumped stasis, this was a perfect failure. Swift and complete. None of the usual built-in fail-safes managed to float him—instead, Charles had somehow tricked himself into erecting a needless financial deck of cards that went up only to be toppled by a historically anomalous financial tornado.
I couldn’t rescue the Wangs, Charles had thought then. The Wangs will never win. Our failures will ever be epic and our sorrows will ever be great.
εε
ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY, one by one, foreclosed house by shuttered business, in cold bedrooms and empty boardrooms and cars turned into homes, people had the same thoughts.
I couldn’t rescue myself.
I will never win.
My failure will always be epic and my sorrow will always be great.
I alone among all people am most uniquely cursed.
In the intervening weeks, as they slowly began to poke their heads out of their own private failures, each would come to find that the curse was, in fact, not theirs alone. Instead, it was spread across the country: a club, a collective, a movement, a great populist uprising of failure in the face of years of shared national success.
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Phoenix, AZ
THE LAST THING Andrew had done the night before was to slip his top five pairs of sneakers—original issue Infrared Air Max 90s, Maison Martin Margiela Replica 22s, Common Projects Achilles Mids, beat-up checkerboard Vans, and a pair of never worn Air Jordan 4 Undefeateds—into felt dust bags and roll those in T-shirts before laying each mummified pair heel to toe in his duffel. Everything in his minifridge went into a big Postal Service bin that he’d left out in the lounge area. It would all be demolished by now. He’d sold his flat screen to poor Mac McSpaley, who was always trying to hang out with Andrew and his friends. He knew that Mac would buy the TV even if it was with tips that the skinny double-E major earned working at the sandwich stand on the quad. A job where he had to wear an apron. Poor, poor Mac McSpaley. Now Andrew had a soft wad of small bills stuffed in his back pocket and a vaguely guilty feeling that he expected would dissipate once he left campus.