I chose not to share any of those thoughts with George, and all I said was, “You have nothing to worry about, George. Whatever happens, you’ll always be taken care of. Janet and I will get an office close by, and there’s a thousand things Nadine and I need you for.” I smiled broadly and made my tone very upbeat. “Just think, one day you’ll be chauffeuring Nadine and me to Chandler’s wedding. Can you imagine?”
George nodded and smiled broadly, revealing his world-class choppers, and he humbly replied, “I like my job very much, Mr. Belfort. You’re the best boss I ever have. Mrs. Belfort too. Everybody love you two. It’s sad you gotta leave here. It won’t be the same no more. Danny ain’t like you. He don’t treat people good. People gonna leave.”
I was too baffled over the first half of George’s statement to even focus on the second half. Had he actually said he liked his job? And that he loved me? Well, admittedly, the whole love thing was a figure of speech, but there was no denying that George had just said he loved his job and respected me as a boss. It seemed ironic after everything I’d put him through: the hookers…the drugs…the midnight rides through Central Park with strippers…the gym bags full of cash that I’d had him pick up from Elliot Lavigne.
Yet, on the other hand, I had never disrespected him, had I? Even in my darkest and most decadent hours, I’d always made an effort to be respectful to George. While it was true that I’d had some very bizarre thoughts about him, I had never shared them with another living soul, except, of course, the Duchess, who was my wife, which made her exempt. And even then, it was all in good fun. I was not a prejudiced man. In fact, what Jew in their right mind could be? We were the most persecuted people on earth.
All at once I found myself feeling bad that I had ever questioned George’s loyalty. He was a good man. A decent man. Who was I to read a thousand and one things into everything he said or, for that matter, didn’t say?
With a warm smile, I said, “Truth is, George, no one can predict the future, certainly not myself. Who’s to say what becomes of Stratton Oakmont? I guess only time will tell.
“Anyway, I remember when you first came to work for me, you used to try to open the limo door for me. You’d run around the side and try to beat me to it.” I chuckled at the memory. “It used to drive you crazy. Anyway, the reason I never let you open the door for me was because I respected you too much to just sit in the back of the limo and pretend like I had a broken arm or something. I always thought of it as an insult to you.”
Then I added, “But since today’s my last day, why don’t you open up the door for me, just once, and make believe you’re a real f**king limo driver! Pretend like you’re working for a fat-ass WASP. You can escort me into the boardroom. In fact, you might actually get a kick out of Danny’s morning meeting. He should be giving it right now.”
“…and the study sampled more than ten thousand men,” said Danny over the loudspeaker, “following their sexual habits for more than five years. I think you’re gonna be absolutely shocked when I tell you some of the findings.” With that, he pursed his lips, nodded his head, and began pacing back and forth, as if to say, “Prepare to hear the truly depraved nature of the male animal.”
Jesus Christ! I thought. I’m not even gone yet and he’s already running amok! I turned to George and took a moment to gauge his reaction, but he didn’t seem that shocked. He had his head tipped to the side and a look on his face that so much as said, “I can’t wait to find out how this whole thing relates to stocks!”
“You see,” continued Danny, wearing a gray pinstripe suit and phony WASP glasses, “what the study found is that ten percent of the entire male population are stone-cold faggots.” And here he paused to let the full implication of his words sink in.
Here comes another lawsuit! I looked around the room…and I saw a lot of confused looks, as if everyone was trying to make heads or tails of what he was saying. There were a few isolated snickers but no outright laughter.
Apparently, Danny wasn’t pleased with the crowd’s response—or lack thereof—so he plowed on with relish: “I say again,” continued the man the SEC considered the lesser of two evils, “the study found that ten percent of the male population takes it up the ass! Yes, ten percent are fudge-packers! It’s a huge number! Huge! All those men taking it up the Hershey Highway! Sucking cock! And—”
Danny was forced to give up his rant as the boardroom quickly degenerated into a state of pandemonium. The Strattonites began hooting and howling and clapping and cheering. Half the room was now standing; many were exchanging high-fives. But toward the front, in the section where the sales assistants were concentrated, no one was standing. All I could see were a bunch of long blond manes tilted at extreme angles, as the young females leaned over in their chairs and whispered in one another’s ears, shaking their heads in amazement.
Just then George said in a confused tone, “I don’ understand. What’s this gotta do with the stock market? Why’s he talkin’ ’bout g*y people?”
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “It’s complicated, George, although there really is no reason other than that he’s trying to create a common enemy, kind of like Hitler did in the thirties.” And it’s only by sheer coincidence, I thought, that he’s not bashing black people right now. That very thought inspired me to add, “Anyway, you don’t have to listen to this shit. Why don’t you come back at the end of the day, around four-thirty, okay?”
George nodded and walked away, more nervous than ever, no doubt.
As I stood there, watching the morning riot, I couldn’t help but wonder why Danny always distilled his meetings down to sex. Obviously, he was looking for a few cheap laughs, but there were other ways to get them, ways that didn’t interfere with getting the hidden message across. The hidden message being that, in spite of everything, Stratton Oakmont was a legitimate brokerage firm trying to make its clients money—and the only reason it wasn’t making its clients money was because of an evil conspiracy of short-sellers, who plagued the markets, like locusts, spreading vicious rumors about Stratton Oakmont and any other honest brokerage firm that stood in their way. And, of course, also embedded in that message was the fact that one day, in the not-so-distant future, the fundamental value of all these companies would come shining through, and the stocks would come roaring back, rising up like a phoenix amid the ashes, at which time all Stratton’s clients would make a fortune.
I had explained this to Danny on numerous occasions, how deep down all human beings (save a handful of sociopaths) were possessed with a subconscious desire to do the right thing. That was why a subliminal message was supposed to be embedded within each meeting—that when they smiled and dialed and ripped people’s eyeballs out, they were fulfilling not only their own hedonistic desires of wealth and peer recognition but also their subconscious desire to do the right thing. Then and only then could you motivate them to achieve goals they had never dreamed themselves capable of.
Just then, Danny extended his arms out to the side, and slowly the room began to quiet down. He said, “Okay, now here’s the truly interesting part, or, should I say, the disturbing part. See, if ten percent of all men are closet homosexuals, and there are one thousand men sitting in this room, that means that camping out within our midst are one hundred homos, looking to butt-fuck us every time we turn our backs!”
All at once heads began turning suspiciously. Even the little blond sales assistants were looking around—casting suspicious gazes from their heavily made-up orbital sockets. There was a low-level murmur in the room, which I couldn’t quite make out. But the message was clear: “Find ’em and lynch ’em!”
I watched with great anticipation as a thousand necks craned this way and that…accusatory glances were thrown around the room by the hundreds…young, toned arms extended in all directions, each one with a pointed finger on the end of it. Then came some random screaming of names:
“Teskowitz*7 is a homo!”
“O’Reilly’s*8 a f**king queer! Stand up, O’Reilly!”
“What about Irv and Scott*9 ?” two Strattonites screamed in unison.
“Yeah, Scott and Irv! Scott blew Irv!”
But after a minute of finger-pointing and some not-so-baseless accusations against Scott and Irv, no one had come clean. So Danny lifted his arms once more and asked for quiet. “Listen,” he said accusingly, “I know who some of you are, and there are two ways we can do this: the easy way or the hard way. Now, look: Everybody knows Scott blew Irv, and you didn’t see Scott losing his job over it, did you?”
From somewhere in the boardroom came the defensive voice of Scott: “I didn’t blow Irv! It’s just—”
Danny cut him off with a booming voice over the loudspeakers: “Enough, Scott, enough! The more you deny it, the more guilty you seem. So drop it! I just feel sorry for your wife and kids to have to be shamed by you like that.” Danny shook his head in disgust and then turned away from Scott. “Anyway,” continued Stratton’s new CEO, “that heinous act had more to do with power than sex. And Irv has now proved to us that he’s a true man of power—getting one of the junior brokers to blow him. So the whole act is exempt, and Scott is forgiven.
“Now that I’ve shown you how tolerant I am of that sort of behavior, isn’t there one true man among you who has the balls—and, for that matter, the common f**king decency—to stand up and show themselves?”
Out of nowhere, a young Strattonite with a weak chin and an even weaker sense of judgment stood up and said in a loud, forthright voice, “I’m gay, and I’m proud of it!” And the boardroom went wild. In a matter of seconds, objects were flying in his direction like lethal projectiles. Then came hisses and catcalls, and then screams:
“You f**king homo! Get the f**k out of here!”
“Tar and feather the cocksucker!”
“Watch your drinks! He’s gonna try to date-rape you!”
Well, I thought, this morning’s meeting was officially over, called early on account of insanity. And what, if anything, had this meeting accomplished? I wasn’t quite sure, other than it painted a truly grim picture of what was in store for Stratton Oakmont—starting tomorrow.
Why should I be surprised?
An hour later I was sitting behind my desk and using those five words to console myself, as I listened to Mad Max go ballistic on Danny and me over my buyout agreement, which had been the brainchild of my accountant, Dennis Gaito, nicknamed the Chef due to his love of cooking the books. In short, the agreement called for Stratton to pay me $1 million a month for fifteen years, with most of it being paid under the terms of a noncompete agreement, meaning I was agreeing not to compete with Stratton in the brokerage business.
Nevertheless, in spite of the agreement raising a few eyebrows, it wasn’t actually illegal (on the face of it), and I had been successfully able to bully the firm’s lawyers into approving it although the collective wisdom was that while the agreement was legal, it didn’t quite pass the smell test.