Flabbergasted: A Novel by Ray Blackston

Author:Ray Blackston
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-04-13T22:54:00+00:00

When I entered our corporate office at the corner of Rector Street, I was greeted by a young Hispanic woman seated behind the front desk. She wore a black silk top and, for a New Yorker, a friendly smile. I felt relaxed, confident.

"I'll tell Mr. Galbraith you're here," she said, reaching for the phone.

On the tenth floor, she led me down a marble hallway, the floor all swirly and glossy-gray, so shiny I could see my reflection.

"You coming?" she asked, five paces ahead.

"Yes, ma'am."

We stepped into a trading room filled with quote screens, Reuters news feeds, and spastic traders in light-blue button-downs, large sweat spots expanding at their armpits.

"Which one is he?" I asked, scanning the room.

"The mean-looking one," she said, pointing toward the window.

"Thank you, Miss Martinez."

"Good luck, Mr. Jarvis."

And I thought only Southern women had big hair.

I waded through a hundred quote screens. Traders shouted buys and sells. Stocks moving up flashed green; those moving down flashed redtens of millions of dollars moving in and out of the market as a hundred Wall Street firms just like this one watched every tick, at the same instant, with the same goal: to maximize profit. We'd become the consummate capitalists, creating wealth for clients, and ourselves, without any tangible benefit to the rest of society.

Four flat-panel monitors sat atop Vince Galbraith's oval cherry-wood desk, the desk where he barked orders to his assistant, a tall, twenty-something guy with gold suspenders wom tight over his obligatory light-blue button-down. Vince was total concentration, his eyes darting back and forth between screens with a rapidity rivaled only by air-traffic controllers. I would've bet that his parents bought him Ivy League pajamas as a kid. But he was the Big Dog in this upper-class yard, so me and my navy pinstripes stood silent, watching a nation's wealth rise and fall over his left shoulder.

"Take ten thousand G.E." he yelled, still not aware that I was standing behind him.

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