Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(23)

“Nick, you play squash, don’t you?” Oliver asks this in a louder voice and directly at me the way a teacher would with a liked but wayward student who isn’t paying attention in class.

“Sure, I still play sometimes.”

“Nicky used to be ranked in the country when he was a teenager.” Julia gives me a wink and a push against my shoulder.

“Not too many people played squash in the country back then. Getting ranked wasn’t so hard. Just had to play enough tournaments.” This is a little bit modest but mostly just true.

“That’s great, Nick. Do you keep it up? What rating are you now?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t played since I was a kid.”

“I’m a B. I’d say a high B. Haven’t played much lately, but last week I beat a guy who’s a solid B.”

I imagine an era ten thousand years ago when, draped in animal skins, I could leap from my chair and club Oliver to death across the skull, then enjoy my victory by eating the food from the table with my bare hands, making loud grunting noises, and dragging off the women for sex.

But not in this century. Not in the 21 Club. Here survival of the fittest is based on a new set of traits and in my industry Oliver has them in spades.

Humans aren’t just a few steps out of the jungle. Humans never left the jungle. The jungle just changed around us. There are those who are selected not to survive, but the selection process is no longer so immediately fatal.

Oliver is waiting for some response, but I have no idea what skill is required to be a B player.

Oliver continues, “Anyway, this guy who’s a B used to play in high school and is getting back into the game. Grew up playing hardball and needs to get up to speed on softball. Nobody plays hardball anymore. I try to play a few times a week when it’s not so busy. I picked the game up about twelve years ago and got addicted to it. Never played in high school. We should play sometime.”

“What sports did you play in high school?”

“None. I wasn’t that into sports then,” he says.

“Maybe that’s why you’re so into them now.” Julia gives me a sharp look that is meant only for me, but she’s angry and everyone notices.

She recovers quickly. “Have you been getting squash lessons for the kids?”

“Oh, yes,” says Sybil.

I let the talk move away from me like releasing a feather from two fingers and I listen to it swirl around from squash to schools to vacations to nannies and maids until it drifts too far away. I hear voices but not the conversation and it feels remote as if they are sitting at another table, and I continue with my dinner and gin.

From this perspective I can see the conversation move in physical form like colorful tubes of fluid transfer, moving from person to person and getting redirected back and forth across the table. Julia looks radiant, glowing brighter than the rest. She is strikingly beautiful in a complex way so that you can get lost in her all over again. It is one thing to have a beauty that gets attention, and quite another to have a beauty that holds it.

There is something distinctive about her presence that I can see without really looking, see with only a casual glance across a room or at a long distance when she is just the slight movement of a tiny shape among a group of other shapes. I can know it is her the way a parent would know their child playing with other children far across a field. But this hasn’t taken years of a mother’s care and learned watchful eye. I felt this force within Julia the moment we met. To be up close next to her can still fill me up, as though I’m standing inches from a painting I had before only seen reproduced in books. I still love her.





8 | JACK WILSON


November 24, 2005

I’M ROPED INTO A DINNER WITH THE GUYS AT CHAPPY who cover our desk. It’s Thanksgiving and they are looking for something fun to do, which typically means something without their families. I’m still feeling resentment toward Julia over the dinner with Oliver and Sybil. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is but I feel it. On an intellectual level, I know the healthy thing to do is go tell her I feel resentful and try to address it directly. On an emotional and every other level, I’m repelled at the idea of that kind of conversation with her. It makes me uncomfortable and I’m not sure I even want to admit to her or to myself that a dinner with Oliver can make me feel resentful. Anyway, a Thanksgiving night work event gives me an excuse to do something away from home with Chappy.

When we buy or sell in and out of positions, we often put the trade through Chappy, who will find the other party in the transaction for us, sometimes keeping us or the other party anonymous so the rest of the Street doesn’t know our positions. Chappy never takes a risk on a position; they don’t actually buy anything themselves, they just broker two parties together and take a piece of the transaction. We put a lot of trades through Chappy, so they like to make sure we’re properly entertained and don’t take our business to another brokerage shop. We spread it around to a few shops, but it’s human nature to give a little back to the guys who just sprung for a nice dinner. And even more so if that dinner is followed by a lap dance and cocaine.

Doing drugs can form a bond between men. The way couples can build on the foundation of the first big laugh shared or the revealing of a secret, when men get high together it is an intimate act, revealing in its own way. The person has shared something with the other, knows something about the other as though they are part of a special club that likely doesn’t include even a person’s wife, kids, or parents.