Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(10)

Without the helmets in the way, the girls manage to rub, nibble, and pull my clothes off. I lock the door this time and we massage each other and I cross every line except actually having sex. The girls are nice enough not to say anything about this one way or another.

? ? ?

The next week back at Cornell I accept the official job offer and a few months after that I show up for my first day at Bear. Mark had already left to work for a broker in Tokyo, but Dave and Sam are there and don’t retire for a few more years.

In a four-month period I go from knowing nothing about Bear to making it my career. I don’t remember consciously wanting it or choosing it. It chose me, as though the system picked me up and put me on a track and all I had to do was roll downhill. I didn’t think about whether I was going any place I wanted to be, because I didn’t have to work to get there. It was all passive on my part. I just thought about all the guys going to med school or law school and working hard for less money. It was years before I thought anything more about it than that.

I look out the window of the taxi and notice I’m almost home.





4 | CHARLIE


November 15, 2005

THE TAXI DROPS ME IN FRONT OF MY GREENWICH Village brick apartment building and I see Charlie in his usual spot by the door and I smile at having made it home. He’s worked the night shift at that same door longer than the six years that Julia and I have lived here. With each argument that Julia and I have had over the years, he and I have become a little closer. He has too much class ever to say anything about it, but I think he likes me more than her.

For me, Charlie’s been a doorman, a part-time shrink, and a pretty good friend. He’s about my height, a little gray, with intelligent eyes, a kind face, and slow, deliberate speech that is comforting. Picture the 1990s version of Christopher Plummer with a lingering South Carolina accent.

“How are you, Nick?”

“I’m all right.” I lean against the brick of the building and cross one ankle over the other to settle in for a few minutes of conversation rather than head straight up.

“Better shape than last night.” There is amusement without judgment in his voice, which I appreciate. “How’s Julia?”

Hearing the name in a southern accent reminds me why I don’t even like the name Julia much. It feels like counting to three in French. Three syllables make the rest of the world work too hard to talk to you. There’s a built-in presumptuousness. “Okay, I guess. You’ve probably seen her more this week than I have.”

“How’s that business a hers doin’?” Julia’s interior design business is about two years and three unprofitable clients old, and she’s managed to turn our extra bedroom and half of the rest of our apartment upside down setting up a home office. This has had me pulling my hair out, which Charlie knows and uses to playfully press my buttons.

“It’s a living,” I say, wondering in what sense that could possibly be true. “We’ve got a few things to work out with it. I’m not sure it’s a great idea. It’s adding some stress in the household.” I shake my head like the old men who sit around in barbershops and talk a lot about sports and nothing all day. “What are you going to do?”

Charlie nods his head slowly back and takes a loud, pensive breath like Yoda. I love this about him. “You know I grew up by the water, outside Charleston.” I nod. I know this. “You know how you know which way the wind’s blowin’?” I nod the other way. I have no idea. “It’s the seagulls.” He smiles. “You see, seagulls the world over, they always point their bodies straight into the wind. Like an arrow. So, you out on your boat in the harbor, tryin’ to get your bearings, and you got to figure out the winds, you jus look over to a seagull standin’ on top of a pylon and he’ll let you know just exactly where the wind’s comin’ from.” He smiles again and gently pokes a finger into my chest. “Nick, you got to find yourself a seagull.”

Clearly Julia is the typhoon in this metaphor. “Charlie, you’re my seagull. Why the hell do you think I’m always leaning against this wall talking to your ugly mug?”

Another loud inhale and a soft laugh as a taxi blares its horn on Sixth Avenue behind me. “Yeah? Things are worse than I thought.”

In less than a two-hour span, I’d had crash courses in the philosophy of Charlie and the philosophy of William. These are different schools altogether. What’s the closest analogue for this contrast? Lincoln to Caligula? Socrates to Torquemada?

“Well, you South Carolinians have it pretty well figured out. Goddamn seagulls.” I find that after talking with Charlie for a while, I sometimes take on aspects of his diction. It’s infectious. “Pretty well figured out” is not my usual way of talking.

“Life’s a little simpler down there.”

“Can’t you find a way to bring simple with you wherever you go?”

“Most places, Nick. Not here.”

I find myself agreeing in the way a person realizes they’ve agreed with something all their life but haven’t been able to put a finger on it before. From this little Manhattan island, the rest of the country looks roughly the same. There is a difference between Manhattan and everyplace else. To make a real change, a person has to move farther into the wild, like Thoreau. Or farther from the wild, like Tarzan coming to town. Or in my terms, from New York City to anywhere else or from anywhere else to New York City. This city isn’t like anything.