I wrote this early in 2002. It’s about 1500 words, approximately a ten-minute read.
Aftershocks Near Ground Zero Girls in light blue jackets were crying. After 20 years of trading gold futures, Billy, their company's point man, was leaving the Exchange. Although he hadn't been himself since 9/11, I was surprised. He was tough. I'd expected him to overcome his pain. His older brother had been in one of the towers, identified through DNA testing. He'd had a glaze over his eyes since he'd returned to the floor. He'd always approached his work with blue collar intensity, often screaming obscenities. He'd lost the will to continue that fight.
My first direct experience with him, long before I was assigned to gold, was on a softball field. He knocked me on my butt at secondbase with a clean, hard slide, after which he took my hand, helped me up, and apologized, although he'd done nothing wrong. Our team had the last laugh that day. We were good, winning three straight Wall St. League championships. Billy lost a lot of money betting against us. Although I didn't like the way he threatened people in the pit, I respected him. Another broker summed him up precisely: "He's real; he's not a phony."
One day when the market was dead, Billy and Wally took to berating each other and each other's wives. They decided to settle it like men, dueling with black magic markers, staining each other's shirt, laughing themselves silly. Aside from that hard slide, it is the image of him I will always remember.
Darrin returned to work later than most of us. Several chose not to come back. We re-opened the Monday following the attack, the first business near ground zero to do so. A month later there was concern, due to air quality, about re-opening Stuyvesant High School. We were a lot closer to the fire. I guess we were expendable.
Darrin, 300 pounds, had to be helped into the building. Eventually, he was able to do it on his own. He was popular. Sometimes, when things were dull, he was persuaded to do his dance. The sight of this roly-poly figure jigger-bugging would have everyone laughing. He loved the Mets. They've lost a big fan. One morning he didn't wake up. Maybe all the fluctuations in weight through the years weakened his heart. I'd seen him as light as 190. He was 33, married but a few years.
Dave was one of the world's good guys. He lived large. My earliest recollection of him was of his wolfing down a salami hero at 8 AM. His tailgate parties at the Meadowlands were legendary. He was a season ticket holder for the Giants. He headed a charitable foundation. The wing of a hospital bore his family name. He was a big pussycat, unless crossed. Few dared it. One clerk, despite a warning, kept making unwelcomed advances to his sister. Dave boarded an elevator with the guy, politely asking another man to wait for the next. When the doors opened on the ground floor, Dave walked off, and the guy lay sprawled, groaning.
Once, during a hectic session, raising my head from a handheld computer used to enter trades, I noted how terrible he looked. He was sweating bullets, skin pasty. Weeks later, frustrated at how the gold market had slowed, he secured a seat trading energy, where it was always busy. One night he didn't wake up. He was 43. The line at his wake stretched for blocks. Firemen and police officers stopped their vehicles before the hall and went inside to pay their respects.
"Did you hear?" said Kevin, the floor supervisor, entering the pit one afternoon. I assumed someone else had died. It was far worse, something unimaginable, sickening. Skippy's daughter, six, had been snatched from her front lawn. Only weeks ago he'd moved out of the city, out to the suburbs where it was safe. He was one of the nicest guys I'd ever met, unchanged by wealth. He'd transferred to the energy markets just as they were beginning to boom, and eventually started his own company. I was not surprised at his success. He'd been our lead-off man, playing so intelligently, drawing walks, laying down perfect bunts, always throwing to the right base. And what a character he was. Always smiling, even the opposition couldn't get mad at him. "Put a tent over that circus," he'd yell when an opponent made an error; "Put a band aid over that cut."
"What's goin' on?" said Kevin, the perennial MVP of the team. "Is it some kind of jinx?"
I wasn't sure myself.
That night Skippy was on TV, pleading for his daughter's return. My stomach was in knots, having once read that the statistics in such cases were not favorable. Fortunately, the kidnapper lost nerve. The child was released unharmed. Finally, we felt we'd all won one.
On Friday, January 11th, four months to the day of the attack, before the market opened, Joey approached, weeping. Bob, whom Joey had flanked for years, had died. As I comforted Joey, I could hear Frankie wailing in the background. Frankie had flanked Bob's other side. I was stunned. Bob seemed indestructible, too ornery to die. He was not popular. He reminded me of a line a player once used to describe the great Vince Lombardi: "He treats us all alike -- like dogs."
62, Bob slugged it out with men ten, 20, 30 years his junior. He did not seem to suffer that slowing of the thought process, which, in my case, scared the dickens out of me. He was hardcore. I'd hated him with a passion when I first worked in gold. Eventually I realized his demeanor was 50% act. I came to look forward to greeting him just to hear him curse me out. Long-termers swore that he had mellowed, that he'd been much fiercer in his younger days. That must have been fun.
Whenever I substituted for the supervisor, I was sure to be ridiculed. It was a while before I realized that half the time it was being done just to get my goat. I called Bob and Joe "The Devil and Bob Fahngool." Since there were hundreds of people on each trading floor, scores of others in offices, we used nicknames for clarity. There was Cigar, Flipper, Fat Joe, Joe Piss, Joey K, Joey Elvis, Joey Gotz-in-gool. I called this Joe "Joey Forked-Tongue" because of the way he was always misleading me.
"You got the Judotz's number?" he asked, wiping away tears. That was our buddy, Dougie, who was on vacation. "He won't believe me. Whenever Bob's out and he asks me where he is, I say: 'The World Trade Center, between the seventieth and eightieth floors.'"
"You guys are nuts," I said.
You wouldn't believe what they say about each other's wife. That's life at the Exchange -- complete irreverence. It may be the last place where free speech actually exists, where outbursts are tolerated as human and not something unforgivable, where there is no selective outrage. It teems with life, is ideal for anyone fascinated by humanity.
Larry, who bought four copies of my novel (
Close to the Edge), gave one to Bob. One day Bob approached and told me he'd read the book. I didn't believe him, of course. It wasn't the type of book he would like, but I was flattered nonetheless, as he seemed impressed that I'd actually wrote one. When he heard I played guitar, he told me he played violin as a boy. I almost fell down laughing, trying to picture it. He was the type you would expect to break a violin over a sissy's head.
He was hit hard by Dave's death, a rare show of vulnerability. He'd failed to persuade Dave to change his ways. He'd quit smoking himself three months ago, complaining of stiffness in his shoulder. The doctor suggested exercise. Soon there was numbness in his fingers, the nails turning blue. Joey urged him to go back to the doctor. Bob responded typically: "Whatta they know?" (expletive deleted). Now he too was gone, as the Towers were, replaced by an empty space. When I leave the ring to go to the podium, I pass through the point on the top step where Bob had stood, where he would curse me or sandwich me with Joey. I'd never thought I would miss it.
We're all wondering when, if, the demoralizing run will end. Many appear to have grown numb. Given our population, we frequently observe a minute of silence, usually in memory of an old-timer. The bad news seems endless. Others with whom I was unfamiliar have died, one only 31. A young co-worker buried his father and an uncle within a month. Another's wife suffered a second miscarriage. Haven't we used up what Shakespeare called the thousand natural shocks to which flesh is heir? We carry on, wondering what Bob Fahngool would have said about this or that, shaking our heads, chuckling.
I hope the departed are up there somewhere watching, laughing at our foolishness. Normalcy has returned. Life may pause, but it will not cease for anyone, even the great. Our eyes glaze occasionally, then we forget, we recall, we forget, we recall, forget, recall, forget. Such is humanity.
