We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.
- Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
What was said? Nothing, for at least a moment too long. And I knew I was done right there, that the apprehension was fatal and I should have just turned and left. But I had to go for the save – grasp at the prayer of a chance I might just salvage the mess.
I fucked that up even worse.
‘I knew I should have brought other shoes’? What the fuck kind of line is that?
Of course it made no sense. Of course it was half-stuttered, and no, the tongue-tied, doe-eyed act, however real in that instant, was nowhere near endearing. I’d only sounded stupid. Fumbling and imbecilic, as loaded and clueless as Jerry, teetering in the street, sucking furiously on a half-lit Marlboro red as the snowflakes coated the street around him.
“Hey, are we supposed to get an ack–” He hacked in the background. “An acc-cumulation?”
“Your town, not mine.”
“I don’t watch the weath–”
“Does it matter?”
No response, thank God. He was sober enough to catch the message in my deadpan inflection: Shut the fuck up. You’re screwing me over here. Again. In truth, though, Jerry was no longer an issue. I’d already missed my opening, the instant where it’s do or die. Where I should have taken the wheel and instead had looked like a fool. Or possibly far too drunk. Either way I was learning the lesson – the one that’s not supposed to hold true. The one that goes against everything they teach us as kids about being careful, acting deliberately, cautiously – that little’s ever lost in impulsiveness, and often much gained. That the meanest regrets in life are all born of hesitation. Of thinking when you should have been acting.
That and when she’s insanely, ridiculously hot, and luck hands you at a chance at a score, it might be the smarter bet to order your whiskey with water. Limit yourself to five, rather than seven or eight. And choose your wingman wisely. Where one drunk shoots himself in the foot with amazing regularity, two aren’t prone to do better.
. . .
The corkscrew drop into Logan drives your balls into your throat. One minute you’re at 20,000 feet, the next staring at the tarmac. I’ve never asked why the airport has such an approach, but it seems to prepare you for the rest of the city. Everything in Boston feels tight. Every turn on every cramped street negotiated on a dime. Every narrow alleyway squeezed by red brick buildings and office towers. Where Philly’s nothing but sprawl, spreading across the southeastern edge of Pennsylvania like a patch of rust, Boston’s dense, like San Francisco. Only minus the hills and vistas, and trapped under the iciest tunnels of the Jet Stream.
“Fuck, this is brutal.” The cold cut through my jacket as I jumped out of the cab and ran into the bar to meet Jerry. Had to be at least fifteen degrees colder than Philadelphia. I’ve never worn a topcoat with a suit. Seems like a “basket case” concept. If one jacket’s not enough, you need to get your circulation checked. But then, I never lived in Boston. Here, I could understand the practice.
“Maker’s Mark?” Jerry screamed across the bar as soon as I opened the door. He clearly knew the place. Had a corner to himself and some friends, a table littered with empties and even in the dead of winter, in the midst of brown liquor season, he was throwing back his signature Greyhounds. Vodka and grapefruit juice, rocks, with just a touch of soda. He’d been on them since our college days, so much so back then one of the local bars named the drink after him on the menu. “A Jerry O” – as in Gerald O’Malley. It gave me pain just to watch as he chased them with Marlboro Reds. All that acid and fire mixing in one place. The images alone kicked up my acid reflux.
None of it bothered Jerry, as Jerry was bulletproof. At the time, uniquely so, riding high as I’d ever seen him. Where I’d run off to law school, Jerry’d headed into finance. He’d busted his ass to get wired in the right circles and the payoff was starting to come, and though he’d bitch that he was always exhausted, the guy clearly loved his job. In the day, he ground out the drudge work, but at night he was back in college. Firing back the cocktails, Entertaining as part of his work. A major part of his work.
I envied his life at the time. Hell, I envied the life of just about anybody who got to be himself at his job, paid for being what he was. Envied anyone who’d been smart enough, self-aware enough, to pick a business that suited his personality. Particularly one like Jerry’s, where “Irish Charisma” was an asset, rather than a tic to be stifled. Mine was a world of stiffs – language parsers and connivers, people who were interested in Control, in dialogue as battle, with one overarching aim – always appear the smartest man in the room. Bent and broken personalities who got off on fucking with each other.
My quintessential memory of Jerry in those days comes oddly not from Boston, but a weekend he spent in Philly. I remember at the height of his powers, when the stock market was really flying – when “Dow 15,000″ wasn’t a horrible joke – a dinner we had with friends at a swanky restaurant in town. He’d flown in with a couple buddies and we were doing the city right. Friday’d been a 4:00 a.m. night, Saturday an eight hour bar crawl and Saturday night? That’d be an attempt, however futile, to top the self-abuse of Friday. Hopefully without having to travel to Atlantic City.
We packed a large table with Jerry and his friends, my girlfriend Lisa and couple girlfriends of hers. From there, away it went. I’ve been to business dinners with lawyers on more occasions than I’d ever want to recall. And sure, they’ll spend a few bucks. But Jerry was off the hinges, and he had an expense account to rival the biggest partners at the biggest law firms in Philly, which he wasn’t shy about exercising. Not in any garish sense. Jerry wasn’t out to impress. The way he saw it, the price of high-living in Philadelphia, which hadn’t and never would see a boom like Boston had, was so ridiculously low he could go absolutely nuts and still spend less than he would at home.
“A bottle of this… A bottle of this… A bottle of this and–”
“I don’t drink wine.” I cut him off.
“Neither do I.”
“Do you know what you’re picking?”
“Red, made with grapes. Order a drink.”
“Johnny Walker, Black.”
“Blue.” He overruled me.
“You know what that is?”
“I know it’s better than Black.”
“A lot better than Black.”
“Let’s get a round of that for the table.”
“Excuse me?” The waitress seemed confused.
“I’ll have an 18 year old Macallan instead.” Cliff, one of Jerry’s buddies, chimed in.
“Because 17′s jailbait?”
“It’s excellent sco–”
“Right. I’d also like a round of espressos.” Jerry flipped the menu back and forth in has hands, inspecting it as though it were missing pages.
“You want a round of espressos, a round of Johnny Walker Blues, and the wine?”
“And the Macallan.” Cliff thought she’d missed his order. Hardly implausible.
“I don’t know if we have the 18 year Mc–”
“It’s on the list.”
“I can go check, but I think we might be sold out of–”
“Probably not.” I stepped in to grease the discussion. “If you have Blue, you still have Macallan.”
“How’s that work?” Jerry shot me a glance.
“It doesn’t, but I’d rather find out later.” There’s no irritation on earth – not sitting for two hours in a doctor’s waiting room, trapped in a traffic jam behind a monstrous ten car pileup… suffering through a six hour continuing legal education class – worse than the feeling of a long, sustained buzz fading. If you start with drinks at noon, you’ll hit the wall around 6:00. A cold shower and a massive infusion of caffeine will get you through an hour or two, but if you don’t booze hard at dinner, as soon as you take your seat, you’ll find yourself sinking like a stone.
“In what order do you want all of this?” The waitress smirked at Jerry, half-figuring the order a joke.
“At once.” We’d been drinking since lunch at that point. Everything tasted the same.
“Do you have any champagne?” Lisa shot me a When in Rome… look. “I’ll have a glass of whatever’s handy.”
“Instead of the wine?”
“And the wine.”
“And the scotch?”
“I don’t know if I want a scotch.” She couldn’t leave things alone.
“Okay, so we have six Johnny Walker Blues, the bottles of wine, seven espressos, and a champagne.”
“And the Macallan.”
“So then seven Blues, the wine, seven espressos, one champagne and–”
“Five Blues.” All I could think as Cliff annoyed the woman was, She’s totally spitting in our food. Huge phlegm balls. “I’m having the Macallan.”
“What if we don’t have the 18 year old?”
“The 12 year old.”
“I prefer that one. Much tighter.”
“Pathetic.” Lisa shook her head at me.
“What?”
“Too easy.”
“Can I have a champagne also?” Susan, one of Lisa’s friends, decided to adjust as well.
“In place of your wine?”
“In place of the scotch.”
“So it’s four Blues, the three bottles of wine, seven espressos, two champagnes, one Macallan 18 year old, or if not that, a 12 year old, and what was the order on this?”
“Just bring it all. All of it at once.” I knew what would otherwise ensue. Somebody’d add to or modify the list, and we’d be there until midnight reading the thing over and over. So we have four Blues, two neat, one with water, one with ice, three champagnes, three bottles of wine, one Macallan 18, or if not an 18 a 12, if not a 12 a Lagavulin or an Oban, three skim lattes, two double espressos, one half-caff espresso– And a partridge in a fucking pear tree. I could also tell from the waitress’s look that she was thinking about seeing the manager, asking if she should get Jerry’s credit card number in advance. That delay would be death.
“What’s your hurry?”
“Scotch, Jerry? For women? You don’t order scotch for chicks.”
“Umm… we’re sitting right here.” Lisa started in with me. “At the table.”
“If you like scotch, why didn’t you take the scotch?”
Silence.
“Exactly.” Some tastes aren’t shared by women, at least not generally speaking. The Who, Lynyrd Skynrd, fantasy-themed role playing video games, Dirty Harry movies, corned meats, Judas Priest, stout, boilermakers, bratwurst, Black Sabbath, Blade Runner, billiards, UFC, NWA, FMF, FFMF, AC/DC, Apocalypse Now, the joy of cluttering an apartment with $4,000 worth of stereo equipment and three foot high subwoofers, Merle Haggard, Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii and… scotch.
The waitress came back ten minutes later with an extra set of hands. They laid down the glasses, cups, saucers and flutes about the table and plunked a tasting glass in Jerry’s face. I leaned in to grab a drink and knocked it into his lap. In a million other moments, this is where you say you’re sorry.
“You ass!”
“You weren’t getting laid anyway.”
“Oh, really?”
“Look at yourself.”
“What?”
“You’re soaked in wine.”
“You’ll pay for this.”
“Actually, I think you are.”
He grabbed the glass of scotch and threw it back. “We’ll need another round of those.”
“Na zdrowie!” I toasted the table and we all followed Jerry’s lead.
The waitress just stared as Jerry poured a glass of ice water on his pants and futilely rubbed the wine stain with a napkin.
“And I’ll have one this time.” Lisa slapped an empty flute in front of me.
“Was that 18 or 12?” Cliff bugged the waitress again.
“What did it taste like?” Jerry picked up his head.
“I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember? You insisted on it.”
“I drank it too fast.”
“Six more Blues and a Macallan?” The waitress’s assistant took over.
“I’ll have a beer.” Cliff just couldn’t make things easy.
“Amstel, Sam Adams, Chimay, Heineken, Bass, Guinness Stout, Sapporo, Harp–”
“Do you have Miller Light?”
“Miller Light?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Bud Light?”
“Can you be half as annoying right now?” Jerry snapped.
“Chimay then.”
“Excellent.”
“The big bottle, right?”
“I think.”
“You know what? On second thought, I’ll just have another Macallan.”
“What the fu–” As Jerry threw his hands in the air, his chair teetered back thirty degrees.
The waitress’s eyes froze on him, and it wasn’t hard to see what was going through her head. If he falls, he’ll land in the middle of aisle, taking out service tray for the table behind us. The wine, the espresso, it’ll be everywhere…And God help us if he reaches for the tablecloth to catch himself. He’ll drag the whole thing out with him – soak the chairs and everyone around in a rainbow of stain inducing fluids. This was Philadelphia… Patrons sue for that kind of shit.
“How about we order.” I broke up the moment.
Jerry leaned in, picked up the menu and scanned the front page. “We’ll take it.”
“Which entree?” The waitress smiled, no doubt thrilled all four legs of his chair were on the floor.
“Everything.”
“Every– Which everything?”
“Everything. Every dish.”
“Any ord–” She cut herself short before finishing the question, realizing she knew the answer.
Bring it all once. All of it.
I looked right and saw a pair of couples nearby staring at Jerry as he fumbled with the sugar above his espresso with one hand and poured wine for Susan with the other. The table was a junkyard. They hadn’t even brought the food yet and the thing was covered with glasses, barely a space for a butter dish, let alone the fifteen or so entrees he’d just requested. A white-haired man in glasses stared Jerry up and down, all but assuredly wondering why – how – a snickering thirty year old was throwing such a bacchanal. No doubt he had some questions: What ever happened to “the ladder?” To the slow and steady advance? To wing tips, point collar shirts and knowing your proper place… sitting at your desk for a decade, waiting your turn in the limelight?
Welcome to the new age, old man. Those who grab for it, get. And it all comes early these days.
To be continued.
Scenes like this are what motivated me to work hard in college so I could get out of the restaurant business and find a good job when I graduated… and then the economy knocked wine all over my pants.
This entry sounds promising. Anytime I read corned meats and AC/DC in the same sentence I get optimistic.
PL: They go perfectly together.
I had a good slot at the cracker factory. It’s overrated.
I’m honored to be the first to say it. Welcome back.
PL: Did I leave?
I’ve loved the title of this story ever since I first read it used by Palahniuk in Haunted.
PL: It’s a great concept. BTW, which is Chuck’s best book? I’ve got a few from when I was able to read more (can’t read too much when writing… it infects your prose), and I’ve been meaning to read them at the beach in August.
Bad logic. I’m a big defender a fan of impulsiveness, most of my adventures come from it. but its not fair to say ” that little’s ever lost in impulsiveness, and often much gained.” it sounds just about true, but thats because we remember the times we regret our hesitation, and not the times we clenched our jaws and decided against throwing a fist at the 235 pound jacked prick who stepped out of line. The bourbon tells you to stand up for yourself, to show him his place. the brain hesitates, thinks of the cost of reconstructive surgery in case of a bad loss and that the pleasure of these victories fades before the hangover does in case of a win. Or when you realize that the only victory with a cop is him walking away without ending a good night.
The true victory is knowing when to fold your hand because the other guy is willing to call your bluff, and it is a bluff, and knowing when to raise the prick all in. Its the balance between the instinct that knows when to trust impulse with the one that kicks in when it has learned to think twice in that situation. A good balance will separate the damaged and failed from those who seem to get away with anything.
It’s a great post and i cant wait to see where its going. hopefully when I hit 30 in a decade ill be lucky enought that the economys in a place where my finance job earns me an expense account like that… Tho I do prefer single malts to blends. Blue is the smoothest booze I’ve ever had, but the single malts have more interesting flavors and more bite. not as intense as bourbon, but a step in the right direction.
PL: Each piece has its own subjective logic. And of course, every pronouncement always has a caveat. Hence, my distaste for “self help” literature.
Fantastic read, miss having friends around who could provide Johnny Blue. Maybe I’ll be there one day, but doubtful.
As far as Mr. Palahniuk, you can’t go wrong with Fight Club. I think Survivor is probably his best work, and the subplot of how we’re all raised to be little cogs in the working machine should be entertaining to you.
PL: Thanks. If you want Johnny Blue cheap, take a cruise. $10 a glass on a boat.
agreed with FLGator. Haven’t seen one of these in a while. I hope you inject pages of ranting in the next installment. I know you spoke about how you had to cut out a lot to make it work in book medium, but if you released an uncut version of your old posts, I would buy that and throw the first copy away.
PL: Someday, assuming we get the rights aligned, this website will be a book. I haven’t invested this time and care to create something to be lost in ether and terminal ADD of the internet.
For a straight story, I’d go with Fight Club. He goes in a different direction with most of his books, and he loves to play with style. Palahniuk is definitely the guy you don’t want to read while you’re trying to maintain a voice. If you want a more tabula rasa experience, try Lullaby. More experimental stuff would be Haunted or Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey.
PL: Thanks. I read Hitchens a while back and it totally screwed up my voice. The man’s prose is so impeccable it made me feel like a fool to even considering publishing in English.
People say he’s pedantic. Those people are fools. Including me, as I think I’ve made the criticism in the past. If you wnat to read writing, read his columns in Vanity Fair. Nobody works the language the way he does.
Preach on. I’ve lost track of the number of women who wasted good scotch by consuming and then immediately declaring their distaste.
You knew you didn’t like scotch.
Guys like Jerry were behind my abortive attempt to go into Finance, I just don’t take enough joy in it. It’s more of a hobby with me, pity it took me a year or so to realise it.
PL: Mis-steps are gifts. The shifts and attendant learning keep you that much more interesting than the usual monkeys at cocktail gatherings.
Traditionally, Greyhounds are made with gin. And they’re delicious.
Sounds like the makings of a great night out, can’t wait to read the rest.
PL: Huh. I’ll have to try that. Thanks.
I happen to like scotch. Not alot, but sometimes.
PL: I never said I was infallible. That’s the Pope’s fantasy.
Friend, working hard in College doesn’t mean squat right now. It’s all about your major. A 2.7GPA in Bio-mechanical engineering trumps a 3.6 in Anthropology any day. Guess which team I played on?
As for the Palahniuk books…His latest “Pygmy” has such an extreme narrative that there is no way that it’ll end up polluting yours. I’m about 30 pages into it and it’s…Jarring to say the least. Other notable mention goes to Survivor, but for opposite reasons.
PL: Thanks for the recommendations. On the rest, I’ll leave those truths to stand on their own.
Live at Pompeii is gold and Glengarry is an early Boiler Room. I liked the paragraph of shit chicks don’t like, but the mass confusion and “fuck it, we’ll take everything” style is probably my favorite part of this story.
What job do you think will be the new “new age job” that doesn’t need a decade of desk jockeying?
ps – I know you this wasn’t directed at me, but imho Lullaby or FC is Chuck’s finest
PL: Finance will come back. I also think a whole new health care industry is going to emerge from the chaatic, imbecillic nonsense these waterheads are crafting in DC. Emphasis in caring for the old, and providing finite services for ala carte fees.
Rumors of us all eventually being thrown into one health care pool are ludicrous. The market will find a way around the collectivist facets of the reform, and people will make money on it. A smart lawyer might start learning the ins and outs of what’s coming, and how docs can cream maximum profits out of the new system. That service will likely be in great demand going forward.
Another great story, another question from a novice to a master.
Every time a holiday or special visit or whatever it happens to be comes around, I always find myself starting early, getting drunk fast, and then crashing around 8pm. I’ve always found that if I can grit myself through until about 10pm, then I’m good to go until about 3am. But those couple of hours from about 7 until about 11 are fucking awful. You’re still drunk but your body physically can’t keep up with the empty glasses. Any suggestions for making it through that?
PL: Cocaine? I kid… Avoid that. Somebody once told me to eat protein, that carbs will slow you down. And drink water along the way.
The Red Bull always works as well.
“You drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW. *That’s* my name.”
Despite being a thankless and frequently stressful line of work where success is something that you occasionally obtain from rejection after rejection, there’s something to be said about sales.
You’re on your own and have that independence, but nothing is gauranteed and unlike so many other jobs where what you actually do is obfuscated by other things- job performance in sales is usually pretty obvious.
And as wise man once said “Money’s out there. You pick it up, it’s yours. You don’t, I got no sympathy for you.”
PL: Sales is the only honest lying. If you can hoodwink a man face to face, on even footing (not by “framing” the argument he’s allowed to hear through use of court rules) he deserves it.
l’esprit, not l’espirit
PL: I’d like to say that was the first time I spelled a title wrong. Third, I think.
But it explains a bit about what cheating in high school French will get you.
Hey, in all this mess it seems some people are taking the road less traveled (I find the “Why China?” SFC reader responses misguided). Thought you may find this interesting in relation to your previous post about risk:
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/07/28/2012055.aspx
Thanks.
Pl: Thanks, will look.
This was a lively piece, really great at portraying the situation. Also, I like how you started with a snippet showing where the story is going; it’s a sort of curiosity tug that I think keeps the reader from getting confused.
Just one question: Is the “Nostrovia” supposed to be “Na zdrowie?” It’s the Polish way of saying cheers, it sounds as you spelled it but maybe I’m missing it entirely.
PL: And somewhere, my grandfather just rolled in his grave. I really need to spellcheck this stuff. A phonetic… Appalling.
Rant (the book) is over rated…in my opinion. Parts seemed forced, and bordering on the obscene simply for shock value. Like yelling boo at a room full of babies in the dark…or Michael Jackson (was that to soon).
Sadly I don’t see an expense account by teaching high school English…but damn if summers off don’t help.
PL: Well, in fairness, the guy is a commercial juggernaut now. He’s got to write “Fight Club” over and over and make sure he taps into late adolescent male rage. You have to serve up a shitload of blood, guts and fucking to keep the sector the audience fixated on the surface angles of the story buying the next installment.
It’s odd he’d be revered by the same people who are subjects of this editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/weekinreview/21schuessler.html?scp=16&sq=catcher%20rye&st=cse His stuff seems fixated on blowing up the game, rather than winning at it. But, like I said, I’m not a student of his work.
Odd thing I’ve noticed in trying to read “Choke” is his writing reminds me of these Martin Amis books my wife has lying around. It’s choppy – like the sentences are jabs, and it seems deliberate. Definitely bounces off the pages.
Awesome start to the story, hope this one goes on for quite a few more entries.
Chuck’s prose is jumpy in all of his book’s I’ve read, in “Fight Club” it took me some getting used to but then just pulled me in deeper. Fucking with your internal grammar makes the themes all the more real in a way.
“Choke” is probably my sentimental favorite, it deals with different themes than Fight Club, gets into religion a lot, and has this quote which has stuck with me:
“Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die.
But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.
If you change the way people think, she said. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives.
And that’s the only lasting thing you can create.”
For the most part reading his books has been an experience of “what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck – JESUS THAT’S PROFOUND!! – what the fuck…”
He gets a lot more surreal after Fight Club, but even in Rant as out-there as it is, there are still a few anecdotes and moments that make it worth reading. Very intelligent writer, you have to just let go and trust where he’s taking you will be worth your while.
PL: I like that quote. One of the rare points from a book that holds objective truth. Ideas are like cancer. Hard as hell for one to get started – you need a million things to fall into place to create the mutations. But if it happens, they can cause all sorts of changes.
Beliefs, not so much. They get stagnant, become institutionalized.
“That the meanest regrets in life are all born of hesitation.”
-You, above
“When you die you’re going to regret the things you don’t do.”
-Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
PL: Close to what I’m going for, but not quite where this winds up.
“Na zdrowie”–was so excited when I read that line, my fellow pollock. I’m sure your grandfather understands the spelling mistake. Its not an easy language, with all of its cz, sz, ski’s, and what not. I’m fluent and still reguarly misspell EVERYTHING.
PL: I’m mostly Irish, but the blood’s got a few backgrounds in it. Where else would I get drinking genes. The Irish like to drink, but they can’t handle half as much as the Eastern Europeans.
I’ve also used “Salute.”
Echoing some of your readers’ sentiments…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS3WNt7yRU
PL: You’ll get the next slice of this piece in a few days. I’m busy as hell with business shit, so the edits on Part II have been held up.
“Na zdrowie!”
Where’d you pick that up?
In Russian we say it “Na zdorowie!”
The o after d makes a difference and probably easier to pronounce, and sounds more authentic.
When you say it, put the emphasis on the second o, so:
“Na zdorOvie!”
PL: I’ve picked up loads off odd toasts over the years. “To evil” is still a favorite. I’ve a buddy who still cracks me up using that one. Think it has to do with placement, and delivery. He deadpans it and leaves people confused in a perfect way.