A minute later he looked up. “This really sucks!” he said.
“Really?”
He nodded quickly. “Oh, yeah, it's really bad. I mean, it's absolutely terrible. It doesn't have a single redeeming quality.” He shrugged. “Start over.”
“What are you talking about? Didn't you read that first paragraph?”
Tommy looked me square in the eye and said, “Who gives a shit about the diner? It's f**king boring, and it's ordinary. Let me tell you something, Jordan. There are two things about writing you can never forget: First, it's all about conflict. Without conflict, no one gives a shit. Second, it's about the most of. You know what the most of means?”
I shrugged, still wounded by Tommy's contemptuous dismissal of my diner story.
He said, “It means you always write about the extreme of something. The most of this, the most of that, the prettiest girl, the richest man, the most rip-roaring drug addiction, the most insane yacht trip.” He smiled warmly. “Now, that was what your life was all about: the most of. You get the picture?”
Indeed I did, and indeed I couldn't write it.
In fact, for a month straight, day and night, I did nothing but write—only to have Tommy review my work and say things like: “It's wooden; it's irrelevant; it's boring; it sucks moose cock.” Until, finally, I gave up.
With my tail between my legs, I walked into the prison library, searching for a book to read. After a few minutes I stumbled upon The Bonfire of the Vanities. I vaguely remembered seeing the movie, and, as I recalled, it absolutely sucked. Still, it had something to do with Wall Street, so I picked it up and read the first two paragraphs….What utter nonsense it was! Who would read this crap?
I closed the book and looked at the cover. Tom Wolfe. Who the f**k was he? Out of curiosity, I reread the first few paragraphs, trying to figure out what was going on. It was very confusing. Apparently there was a riot in progress, an indoor riot. I kept reading, trying to stay focused. Now he was talking about a lady; he can't see her, but he knows by the sound of her voice what she must look like: Two hundred pounds, if she's an ounce! Built like an oil burner! With that, I dropped the book and started laughing out loud. And that was it. I was hooked.
I read that book from cover to cover—698 pages in a single day— and I laughed out loud the entire time. I was blown away. Mesmerized. Not only was it the most brilliant book I had ever read but also there was something about the writing style that resonated with my soul, or as Tom Wolfe might have put it: With my heart and soul and liver and loins.
I swear to God, I must have read that book two dozen times, until I knew every word by heart. And then I read it again, to learn grammar. Then I paid my trusted laundry man, Mark the meth dealer (who happened to be an avid reader), ten cans of tuna to go through the book with a fine-tooth comb and write down every simile and analogy on a separate piece of paper. Then I read it over and over again until I could recite them in my sleep. And before I knew it, a voice popped into my head: my writer's voice. It was ironic, glib, obnoxious, self-serving, and often despicable, but, as Tommy explained it, it was funny as all hell.
However, I wouldn't actually write my memoir in jail; I would simply learn how to write. In fact, when I came out twenty months later, I didn't have a single page. The date was November 1, 2005, and I was scared as all hell. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I think most people write out of inspiration or desperation. In my case, it was desperation all the way. I had an unspeakable past and an uncertain future, and no way to reconcile the two.
So I sat down in front of my laptop and wrote what I thought to be the perfect opening sentence. It was how I felt while I was in jail all those months, and it was how I felt my first day on Wall Street. In point of fact, it was how I felt at that very moment, staring at the blank computer screen.
“You're lower than pond scum,” I wrote.