Chapter 17

July 5

The history of Wall Street begins way back in 1653. That's a very long time ago. So long that over in Europe, Shakespeare and Galileo had only recently gotten a start on being dead. On this side of the Atlantic, a group of Pilgrims living in what is now downtown Manhattan, but was then much more affordable, erected a wall to keep out local Indians and to keep in local businesses considering moves to New Jersey for tax reasons. The wall was a success on both fronts, since walking around the end of walls would not be invented for another hundred years. The path that ran alongside this wall came to be known as Wall Street, and continued under that name long after the wall itself had been torn down in the early 1700s to make way for an upscale coffee bar, which was immediately overrun by invading Indians and departing companies. 
Before the 18th century was over, this once humble dirt path would have multiple claims to fame. In 1789, it was the site of George Washington's presidential inauguration, a fact that set it apart from every other thoroughfare in the young country, along which Washington had merely slept. And of even greater long-term significance, Wall Street was rapidly becoming one of the young nation's most prominent financial centers. 
 Every day investors and auctioneers, traders and speculators would gather under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street, back in the days when trees were given street addresses. They were there to buy and sell investments, since this was long before internet chat rooms had replaced buttonwood trees as the medium through which promising financial opportunities were promoted. By late that century, it was discovered--purely by chance--that financial transactions worked just as well without the assistance of the buttonwood tree, so the New York Stock and Exchange Board was moved inside, and the tree lost out on its once-lucrative commissions. 
 Things really took off in 1790, when a risky young company known as the United States government decided to issue some bonds to finance its Revolutionary War, the governmental equivalent of an initial public offering. The U.S. government was then an untested enterprise with little earnings and considerable competition. But Wall Street decided the U.S. was worth the risk. Perhaps it was a patriotic effort on the part of these investors to support the fragile nation and its ideas of freedom and liberty. Or perhaps it was because the Revolutionary War was already over by that point, and seeing as how the U.S. had won, it seemed a pretty safe bet. Whatever their reason, America turned out to be a smart investment, and in the years to come its profits were through the roof--although things were a bit touch-and-go for a time during the War of 1812, the first of the wars named to make life easier for history students. 
 Down through the centuries, the country's gains were Wall Street's gains. By the 1980s, the performance of one's investment portfolio had replaced the performance of the local sports team and the health status of one's wife and children as the first topic raised over a beer after work. Then martinis replaced beer. Then wine replaced martinis. And we're not talking about cheap wine. Americans were rich, and getting richer every day. Thanks to their investments, many Americans could make money even if they decided to stay home in bed, which most of them didn't, because all that money wasn't going to spend itself. Stock ownership allowed the average worker to reap the benefits of production. It was the American dream. Coincidentally, it was also the Soviet dream--or what the Soviets dreamt was their dream, anyway, as the real Soviet dream always had been finding enough potatoes to make it through the winter. In America, the dream was becoming real. Wall Street was making life better for Americans. And none more so than those who worked on it.
 That Monday morning I waited with every single other person over the age of 22 in Washingtonville, New Jersey to catch the 7:04 to New York City. I'd spent Saturday, the third day of July, searching for an apartment. The search would have been simple, in that apartments are relatively common, except that I thought it best to focus my efforts on apartments that were both currently for rent and within my price range. My first paycheck wouldn't arrive for two weeks yet, but my credit card company had generously offered me a cash advance, an offer I now decided to take them up on, since it now seemed likely that I'd be able to repay them before anyone decided to do anything rash, like charge me an 18% fee or send someone around to discuss the possibility of breaking my thumbs. But fiscal considerations still saved me the trouble of looking anywhere in the borough of Manhattan. They also more-or-less eliminated Brooklyn, which was the new Manhattan, and Hoboken, New Jersey, which was the new Brooklyn, and Summit, New Jersey, which was the new Hoboken. Newark, New Jersey and the Bronx were out as well, since my contract with Johnston Brothers specified that I had to be alive in order to earn my salary. 
 My efforts with the apartment listings weren't looking any more productive than June's unpleasantness with the help wanteds, and I was seriously considering giving up on agate type entirely. But the housing issue needed to be resolved that weekend, unless I wanted to be a homeless investment banker--and that wasn't going to work, because there was no way that I could keep an eye on my shopping cart while putting in long days at the office. One possible housing solution did occur to me, but a few quick phone calls confirmed that none of the local observatories were in need of a live-in caretaker, even one with experience. Eventually I'd had no choice but to purchase a ticket on a New Jersey Transit train heading west. I'd hopped off every few stations to buy the local paper and check the rental rates in the classified section and the murder rates in the local news section, then hopped back on the train if one or both of these didn't conform with my budgetary and survival needs. 
 Eventually I reached Washingtonville, a north Jersey town with nothing in particular to recommend it aside from a train station a little over an hour from Manhattan, affordable rents, and survivable--if uncommonly dull--streets. In fairness, there was a good bar across from the station, and, as it happened, an apartment for rent above the bar. The apartment, the landlord said proudly, had a nice view of a train station and the pleasant aroma of a bar. That was good enough for me. The landlord asked for his first and last month's rent, plus security deposit. I asked him to let me slide on the last month's part for a little while, since I didn't wish to get in too deep with any unsavory credit-card loan sharks. Out of the goodness of his heart, or perhaps the goodness of my earnings prospects, he agreed.
 I wasn't certain what my Johnston Brothers paychecks would look like after taxes, but as near as I could figure, this transaction left me with $100 to see me through the next two weeks. Together with the money in my pocket, that gave me a total of $104.54 to cover my daily transit to and from the city, plus whatever miscellaneous expenses happened to develop, including, but not limited to, any food I might require. Limited funds or no, my escape from homelessness--or apartmentlessness, at least--merited a celebratory dinner. The bar downstairs seemed a good choice, and the bouncer out front assured me the establishment was locally famous for the quality of its buffalo wings. It was such a great bar, in fact, that he further assured me that there was no chance I could get a table there, given that it was a Saturday night. There was, he added, only an outside chance he'd be willing to let me in on a weekday, since keeping people out really was the only perk of his job. I was disappointed, but the bouncer directed me next door to the town's only other bar, where the buffalo wings and beer weren't as good, but you could usually get a table. So I ate my celebratory dinner at the bar next to the bar below my apartment. The bouncer was right. The wings weren't very good. It seemed like a bad idea to blow any more of my limited funds in the second-best bar in Washingtonville, so after diner I'd gone upstairs to bed. Well, not actually bed. I couldn't yet afford a bed. I'd gone upstairs to floor.  
 
One by one the activists filed in to the meeting hall, which to be precise was not so much a hall as it was the doctor's L.L. Bean family-size dome tent--a nice red one large enough that you could almost, but not quite, sit up comfortably. Everyone on Lesser Morrell Island could fit inside. Well, everyone if you didn't count the natives, and there really was no point in counting them, since they weren't invited to the meeting anyway. They would have been, mind you, except that none of them belonged to any of the activists' organizations. This, despite the fact that sign-up sheets had been posted in their village and remained up and unsigned for nearly a week, until one of the members of the anti-liter campaign had taken them down and recycled them.
 There was a standard protocol for inter-association meetings of this sort: everyone would complain about their own causes and belittle the issues raised by the others until each participant was satisfied that he or she was the most committed to bettering the world. Then they would break for snacks.
Jeff started it off. "If these natives don't stop eating so much fruit, we're going to start to see a decline in the island's fruit bat population."
 "My 'Save the monkeys' campaign isn't getting anywhere," Laura added. "I try to tell these people that they shouldn't eat monkeys. But they won't listen. And after all the monkeys have done for them. Like when the monkeys..." Laura trailed off.
 "But what's most troubling is that they're bringing in more and more outside goods," said Brent. "It's not just food, either. They wear factory-made t-shirts instead of grass skirts and traditional woven-reed clothing. I saw one native in a 'Coors Light' T-shirt. He wouldn't take it off even when I explained to him that one of the people who owns the company that makes the beer that's advertised on the shirt supports political causes that I don't agree with."
 "It's overpopulation, that's the real problem," said Sarah, seizing the opportunity to bring the meeting around to the reason she'd called it in the first place. "We're just fooling ourselves by ignoring it."
 "I see it all the time in the hospital," admitted the Doctor. "The more people there are, the more people there are getting sick."
 "And eating monkeys," said Laura.
 "And littering," added Tommy.
 "And voting Republican," said Sarah.
 "But what can we do?" asked Dana. "We've explained to these people that there needs to be fewer of them, but they won't listen. Laura and I tried passing out condoms a few months back and they used them to carry water. When we explained what they were for, they thought we were coming on to them."
 "We should shut down the hospital," Sarah said.
 "We can't do that," Dana said. "The doctor might lose his funding."
 "Well, we have to do something about this," said Jeff. "If things continue like they are, the whole world will be overpopulated by the time our grandchildren are born.
 "If only they'd listened to me about the communism," said Sarah. "Then I could just tell them to have fewer children, and they'd have to listen." 
There was a long pause, before Jeff worked up the nerve to say what needed to be said. "Well, if we can't stop them from reproducing, there's only one other solution to overpopulation."
The others stared at their Teva-shod feet. Only Sarah, who prided herself on being proactive, was willing to speak up. "I know this is a major step, people, but we've spent our lives making tough decisions and difficult sacrifices for the good of the world. And none of it will mean a thing if we're not willing to take that final step." Sarah turned to Jeff for support. "For the good of the people," she prompted.
 "For the good of the people," Jeff agreed, then turned to Laura, seated on his left.
 "For the good of the people," agreed Laura. And around the dome tent it went.
 "For the good of the people," said the Doctor.
 "For the good of the people," said Tommy, who would never consider going against a group.
 "I really just want to build my dam…and maybe blow it up occasionally, when it becomes necessary," said Brent, who was hesitant to agree to any plan that might put his funding in jeopardy. "…but if it's for the good of the people, I suppose there's no choice."
All eyes were upon Dana. But Dana was wavering. There was something about this that just didn't seem right to her, even if all the right people were behind it.
 "Dana?" Jeff encouraged.
 "Dana, don't tell us you're one of them," Sarah said, not specifying who she meant by them, and not needing to. Them was anyone who didn't agree with her.
 "For the good of the people," Dana mumbled, finally, a bit quietly for the taste of some present.
 "Then it's unanimous," said Jeff. "For the good of the people, we must kill every last one of them."
 Then the meeting broke for snacks. 
 
Smith scanned his copy of the agenda before the Process and Procedure Council meeting. The Process and Procedure Council was the true power broker on campus, not withstanding the fact that it never actually did anything. The point was it could do things, all sorts of things, even if no one but Smith saw its potential. The incredible truth of the matter was that the Council could do almost anything it chose…or at least it could do almost anything it chose when one was considering matters of Bucklin campus process and procedure, but for a man like Smith who considered little else, this was virtually the same thing. 
 Smith had invested significant time and effort in lobbying for his seat on the Council the last time one had opened up. He'd mentioned his candidacy to any college regent who'd listen. He'd virtually begged Jergensen for his support. He'd even hired a PR firm. In the end he'd caught a lucky break when no one else had wanted the job. Landing this council seat had been Smith's proudest achievement, one only slightly diminished by the fact that Kerns had been given Jergensen's former seat on his first day as an administrator, simply because he was the new Dean. "Status report on the student housing shortage," Smith read off the agenda, "…discussions on updating the campus drug policy from 'don't, or you'll be expelled' to the more up-to-date 'please try not to, or you'll be asked to 'please try not to' again'…fraternity hazing guidelines…college statement against mistreatment of America's prisoners…Special General Budgetary Process Exemption implementation vote…and closing statement by the Dean." Perfect. Nothing but the sorts of routine procedural matters that left all ordinary minds in a deep fog. But Smith had an extraordinary mind. Sometimes Smith suspected his brain was wired specifically for administration, as Mozart's had been wired for music, or Warhol's for self-promotion. The Special General Budgetary Process Exemption implementation vote was his concern. He'd slipped it in as far down the list as he could. By the time they got to it, Smith and Smith alone would have his wits about him, the others having long since succumbed to the hypnotic haze of irrelevance and lapsed into a docile, zombie-like state of pliability. Just to be safe, Smith had seen to it that both pots of coffee contained decaf. Then he'd had the campus audio/visual club pipe in the sounds of ocean waves.
The meeting dragged. It's a common misconception that meetings drag because their topics are dry or their participants slow-witted. The truth is, many meetings drag because one or more of their participants is a master of the subtle art of meeting dragging. In wars, those with superior forces have the advantage. In debates, those with superior rhetorical skills have the advantage. In meetings, those with no pressing plans for later that day have the advantage. Smith was a meeting-dragger of the first order. He insisted that every topic be explained in full. He insisted that every option be explained in full. He insisted on using words like "mission-critical" and "measurable impactfullness" as if they were punctuation--or at very least as if they were words. 
 In only a few short hours, the Council meeting lurched towards Smith's budgetary topic. "Now just a small matter on the budget, Smith began…"
 "Point of order," Kerns interjected, with a suddenness that roused one or two of the other board members from their mental slumbers. "I'm afraid the budget isn't on today's agenda."
 "Certainly it is…look here, item number five, 'Special General Budgetary Process Exemption Implementation vote.'"
 "Oh, Thomas, I'm afraid you have an out-of-date copy of the finalized agenda," Kerns said, shaking his head. "The formalized finalized agenda doesn't include that item."
 "What formalized finalized agenda? There is only one finalized agenda. That's why they call it finalized."
 "I'm afraid that's a matter for the Agenda Finalization Formalization Committee to decide."
 "There's no such thing as an 'Agenda Finalization Formalization Committee,' either. You just made that up."
 "Well, if you don't think they exist, maybe that's something you should take up with them. In the meantime, your budgetary matter isn't on the formalized finalized agenda, so there really isn't much we can do." Kerns slid his copy of the agenda over the Smith, and indeed number five was missing--number six hadn't become number five, mind you, five was just missing, a suspicious blank line in its place. 
 "I don't understand," said Smith. "What happened to number five? Did you do this?"
 "I'd like to answer," said Kerns. "But that topic isn't on the agenda either."
 "It’s not like it would be disastrous if we deviated from the agenda just this once," Smith said.
Now all the other administrators were fully awake. 
 "Are you feeling all right Thomas?" Kerns asked. "You don't sound like yourself."
Smith was most certainly not feeling all right. In fact, he had a feeling that something was very, very wrong. Two things actually. One, the agenda had been altered, and two, Kerns had just out-protocoled him in front of his fellow administrators. Worse yet, Smith had a hunch that these two problems were about to come together to form a third, previously unforeseen and unimaginatively painful, problem.
 "Moving on to the final item on the formalized finalized agenda," Kerns continued with a hard gaze in Smith's direction, "my closing statement. I'll keep it brief. I just want to say how honored I am to be working with all of you here on the campus Process and Procedure Council."
Smith let out his breath. He could live with that.
 "…And," Kerns continued, "I'd like to make a proposal. I believe the members of this council should be less tied to their offices. I suggest that each quarter, the college finance an informational excursion for one member of this august body to the destination of his choice to study procedural and administrative practices in that region."
One of the board members spoke up. "These 'informational excursions' you mentioned…will there be any specific requirements?"
 "Only that you don't come home early."
 "And exactly how would these 'informational excursions' differ from, say, a paid vacation to the location of our choice?"
 "It would be nice if you could attend a meeting or two while you're there. But I don't think we need to be sticklers about that sort of thing."
 "Can we bring our wives?" someone asked.
 "Yes," Kerns said.
 "Do we have to bring our wives?" someone else asked.
 "No," Kerns said.
There was a rippling excitement in the room. 
 "Gentlemen," Smith said, his talent for spotting procedural quandaries sharper than most, "it's all very well to talk about three-month paid vacations, but as members of the Policy and Procedure Council we have a higher calling. If one of us is away every quarter, we'll never again have 100% turnout for a Council meeting. And without 100% attendance, our bylaws don't allow for votes on changes in budgetary practices…or for votes on changes in the bylaws that would allow for changes in the rules covering votes on changes in budgetary practices. You can see the fix we'd be in."
 "But Thomas," one of the other board members said. "Three-month paid vacations. Three-month paid vacations."
 "Budgetary practice modifications," countered Smith. "Budgetary process modifications."
But the battle was lost. Kerns' travel proposal passed by a 7-0 margin. Even Smith had voted for Kerns' plan, although he knew quite well it meant his Special General Budgetary Process Exemption would never see the light of day. It had been that, or be the only one in the room to vote nay when everyone else was voting yea. And, for Smith, such a thing was unthinkable. 
 The Special General Budgetary Process Exemption had been like a child to Smith. He'd created it. He'd built a coalition to support it. All that had remained was to see it off into the world of college bureaucracy, where it would have lived a happy and productive life, swallowing dollars and knocking the legs out from attempts at fiscal responsibilities in ways that only Smith would know how to prevent. Smith mourned the Special General Budgetary Process Exemption's demise. So few things in life are both Special and General. Dean Kerns had killed his child. There was no turning back now.