Sink by Raphael Rosen

Author:Raphael Rosen [Rosen, Raphael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781514360286
Publisher: Castle Foundations Press
Published: 2015-10-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Monday morning came, slow and loud. I had wished for an earthquake, a hurricane, a terrorist attack, a war, anything so long as it started before work. I took a long shower. I meditated upon my Honey Nut Cheerios. The Journal had a story on troubles at Moffett Sloan and another on shareholders in Pepsi, Pfizer, and other corporates demanding more transparency from management.

Outside, it drizzled and there were no cabs. The sidewalk to the subway was slippery.

At Retiro, I dawdled on the train. The platform thinned out, and I merged into the slow crushing crowd proceeding up Ramos Mejía. Normally, I raced into the taxi lanes to circumvent the masses, and I cut back to the right if cabs came, and I hustled up the block and across Libertador right into our building. This morning I shuffled along with the crowd, past ads that proliferated along the station’s stone walls – Elect Marrone, Buy Samsung E496 only $469, Kellogg’s, Quilmes for your friends for your soul, Carrefour Special. I felt an elbow in my back: a short, middle-aged woman stormed forward, unapologetic. Several commuters turned off at the alfajor stand whose vendor sold breakfast cookies, his hands wheeling while a short cigarette hung from his lips. I followed a half dozen workers through the heavy revolving door into our lobby; the security guard yawned while playing on a gaming device.

The vanity mirror above the sink was dirty. Not covered in filth and scratches like the surviving mirrors in the Retiro bus station, but too dirty for the private bathroom of a financial magnate. Finger smudges streaked the center, and dried flecks of soap pimpled the bottom. I picked at them, and had to stop myself. My mother got crow’s feet in her early thirties. Already, I had reached that milestone. My hair was a mess, too, a dozen stray frizzes, the layering uneven. My face looked too round; my eyelids hung.

I re-read the 1,000 word sermon I’d prepared. How I knew we’d now drawn down half our emergency line. That I’d checked the cash accounts and even after borrowing $20 million, we only had $8 million remaining. And yes I knew some of the outflow was from year-end tax payments and that another chunk was guaranteed disbursements, but the majority of it was coming from additional payments to cover our monthly payments to lenders who were hammering us with usurious rates. How the drop off I’d noticed and called Berg about two months ago was no fluke. And not just Berg, but the CDO payments from Zerle, Citi, Goldman, Lerner, and Nordquist, too. I’d graphed seven different colored cliffs representing the last three months of CDO cash flows. “Ana, look at these.” Lavender and cyan and tangerine trails plunging earthward. It was Microsoft’s variegated jungle warning us. And I concluded, “We need to act, Ana. Tell me, what is the plan?”

I’d nearly emailed it, but in New York, Brian Neusmith had emailed Ana a manifesto bemoaning a lack of supervision and professional development.

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