The Trade (7 page)

The ceremony came and went. Jay got choked up
and his eyes went misty when he heard his name called out as Dr.
Calloway for the first time. Rick accepted his doctoral hood with
grace and dignity. Walking out of the hall the two planned when
they would get together next.

"Hey Rick, I've got a wild idea. Let's meet
on November 1
^st
at the top of Mt. Yale,” Jay said.

"What are you crazy?" Rick asked. "There'll
be snow up there by then, could be a couple of feet. And with the
wind chill it will be like ten or twenty below.”

"Oh,” Jay answered glumly. He'd forgotten
that winter came early to the mountains. Luckily his mountain-wise
friend hadn't.

"But I'll tell you what,” Rick said. "I'll
meet you at Clingman's Dome, at 11:11 on November 11 okay?"

"Where's Clingman's Dome?" Jay asked.

"That's for me to know and you to find out.
You're a bright guy. Look it up. There's a stone hut at the top.
It'll take you about five hours to make the climb and you'd better
be in better shape than you are now, I'll tell you that much,” Rick
said. The deal was struck.

“
What about between now and
then?” Jay asked.

“
Well I don’t know where
I’m going to be living, don’t have an email address, don’t have a
phone. So I’m probably going to be out of touch until then. And,
since there’s no way for you to get in touch with me, there’s no
way for you to cancel. So you have to be there.”

Chapter

"Four bucks,” the gruff toll taker announced.
Jay Calloway reached for the last of four rolls of quarters he'd
acquired for the drive to New York City. He counted out the change
and handed it across to the surly guardian of the Holland tunnel.
Even Jay's twenty seconds of fumbling had irritated the neurotic
New Yorkers and Jerseyites waiting on line for the tunnel. Horns
blasted behind him. Jay, irritable from the ten hour drive and
thirty-three dollars in tolls so far swore at them all, hoisting
the one finger salute into the rearview mirror. His conversion to
New Yorker had begun.

Half an hour later he had covered the mile
and a half from the tunnel to his new and unseen apartment building
in Battery Park City. Jay Calloway was not having many of the
typical move-to-New-York nightmares. Everything he owned fit in his
truck, there was no trailer to be unhitched and hijacked at a
corner by street punks. His apartment was in a secure building with
underground parking so all his stuff wasn't stolen from his truck
while he went up to find the manager to let him in. He didn't get
lost in the Bronx or end up in Harlem or wrecked on Times Square.
He found his company selected, company furnished, and company
stocked apartment with ease.

Too much ease. Later he would remember that
it had all seemed too perfect, and that he hadn't noticed.

Outside the apartment building, two weary men
in a dark blue car pulled up beside two other tired men and a
fatigued lady sitting in a dusty grey car.

"Good work guys,” she said. "He's in. He's
alright. The next squad is in position for the night, take tomorrow
off.”

"Thanks boss,” the men mumbled, too weary to
be happy.

"Hi mom,” Jay Calloway said into the
telephone. He had the Reds-Pirates game on ESPN and could hear the
local broadcast from his father's radio over the phone. He turned
down the sound on the tube to listen to Marty and Joe on WLW
through the phone.

"What's the matter honey?" his mother
asked.

"Nothing. I just wanted to let you know I got
here okay. No problems.”

"That's nice honey. We were a little
worried,” she replied.

Jay knew his mother well enough to know she
had indeed been worried. But Jay doubted the 'we'. He doubted his
father worried at all. The stiff handshake twelve hours earlier and
the stiffer upper lip revealed no sense of loss in the old man.

"You'll be back,” was all he'd said, and then
he'd clapped him very manly-like and very fatherly-like on the
shoulders.

Chris Sabo stole second base on the
television and the cheer came through on the radio. "Is there
anything else?" Mrs. Calloway asked.

"No. I'll check in later in the week,” Jay
replied. "Good-bye,” he said.

"Good-bye.”

He heard the line go dead. On the TV Sabo was
thrown out trying to steal third. Jay sat watching the game in
silence until the Pirates pulled 5 runs ahead with one inning to
go. Jay padded off to the small bedroom and fell onto the bed. He
was fully clothed in his road-dirty outfit and high top driving
shoes. He fell asleep almost instantly.

In a small room down the hall, two men
talked.

"Did the phone equipment work?"

"Yes.”

“
That’s kinda cool how our
TV plays what his TV plays.”

“
Yeah it is.”

"Good. He's asleep now. You take the first
shift.”

On the first morning in his new apartment in
Battery Park City, Jay awoke tired and confused. His feet had
swollen in his shoes and his scruffy face was rough and oily from
the road. It took several long minutes laying in his new bed to
figure out where he was and why he was there. Through foggy eyes it
came back to him. It was Tuesday morning, he was in New York, and
he would start work at MacKenzie Lazarus in six days. He was going
to settle in and explore and get established before starting work.
Finally Jay had his frame of reference established and the
momentary morning panic that he so often felt came under
control.

Jay rose and showered and dressed and ate.
While eating his cold cereal and watching the morning news on CNN
he made his plans for the day.

"I'm going to find the doctor, the dentist,
the dry cleaner, the drugstore, and the grocery store on the list
Bill Beck gave me,” Jay said. “And then there just might be some
time for some Centipede or Galaga.” He'd never been one to talk to
himself but he was quickly picking up that peculiar habit of
lonely, single New Yorkers. He made several calls for directions
and pulled on his sweater. He stepped out into the dark shadows
between the tall buildings that were crowded into his neighborhood
on the South West tip of Manhattan. Traders, athletes, television
personalities, and all types of the assorted nouveau were the
denizens of this new community. Any sized apartment was available
in Battery Park City, from studios to luxurious two story, three
bedroom units. Though it was clean, safe, within walking distance
of Wall St., the World Trade Center, and the World Financial
Center, it still hadn't caught on with native, territorial, and
fiercely tribal New Yorkers who usually refused to leave the
neighborhood in which they were born and raised. Not surprisingly
therefore, most of the people who lived in Battery Park City
weren't originally from New York.

Jay walked west towards the Hudson River. A
Mercedes limousine's wheels rumbled as the large vehicle sped over
the newly bricked road. Jay hugged his sweater tighter around him.
Though the television had said it was 60 degrees out, it felt more
like 50. He saw no-one on his walk to the river.

"Nine million people live here and there's
not one person on my street,” he mumbled. It would be the first of
many surprises for Jay that day.

"Good morning. I'm Jay Calloway. I called
earlier.”

"Good morning Mr. Calloway,” the perky
receptionist answered. "How may we help you.”

"Oh I just wanted to make sure I could find
your office before it was an emergency,” Jay said. The young blonde
girl looked at him, as if expecting him to say something or do
something more. But nothing came to mind. Jay lingered and then
shuffled his feet and made to leave.

"Maybe I should make an appointment for a
checkup,” he offered. The girl pulled out her book and they set it
up. Jay noticed her long, manicured nails and wondered how she
could hold a pen or type with them. They finished their business
and Jay drifted out.

"Who was that?" the dentist asked, seeing Jay
walk out.

"Just another lonely new boy in town,” she
answered. They chuckled a melancholy laugh, feeling sad and sorry
for the boy, remembering when they too had been all alone in the
big city.

Jay emerged into the street and couldn't
believe his eyes. In the twenty minutes he'd been inside, the
deserted street had erupted to overflowing with people. Whereas
before he had felt the empty loneliness of the shadowed concrete
canyons, now he felt a brief rush of exhilaration as the multitudes
swelled around him. The downtown lunch crowd was out on this late
spring day. Secretaries from Brooklyn and Jersey with big hair and
long, painted nails. Wall St. traders in baggy multicolored
jackets. Pasty skinned computer nerds and data clerks crawling out
of their electronic caves for a few brief minutes in the sun. Jay
saw them all rush by in a hurry to be somewhere, to be someone. It
was chaos screaming for everyone to do and be more.

Jay soaked in the energy. He headed towards
the shining towers of the World Financial Center for lunch. A new
spring was in his step. He figured a nice Italian sandwich at one
of the sidewalk restaurants he'd seen would be nice. Approximately
1,500 of his closest friends had a similar idea. Jay had the brief
revelation that even if you had an idea that was one in a million,
nine other New Yorker's had certainly already had that same idea
twice that day.

"What'll it be?" the waitress asked. Jay
hadn't seen her turn to face him. He'd been daydreaming about all
the people. Trying to imagine where they all came from and what
they could all possibly do. He couldn't imagine so many people in
one place at one time. There were more people crowded into this one
little block than could fit into Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium
for a World Series game.

"And it's just a regular old Tuesday lunch
hour,” Jay said to himself.

"A meatball sandwich, no onions and a diet
coke please,” Jay ordered. He'd learn to lose the 'please' quickly
enough.

"Cheese?" the young waitress asked, annoyed
that she'd had to do so.

"Pardon me?" Jay responded. He'd never heard
of a meatball sub without cheese so he wasn't sure what she was
asking.

"I said, do you want cheese on your
sandwich?"

"What kind do you have?"

She rolled her eyes. "Provolone, Cheddar, or
Mozzarella?" she rattled off. Jay took note of the tone of her
voice. It was grating. He thought she must be angry at someone or
ready to scream or something. The hard edge and urgency and
simmering hint of violence that were in her words put Jay
ill-at-ease. His earlier good feelings were rapidly
dissipating.

"Provolone,” he ordered.

"Lemon?" the waitress asked.

"On a meatball sandwich?" Jay asked
incredulously. He couldn't believe it.

"No asshole, in your freakin' soda. You want
lemon in your soda or no?"

"No lemon,” Jay answered meekly. She'd
intimidated him. She stalked off leaving him confused about this
place and these people and the things they did to their soda and
lunchtime customers.

"Who puts lemon in soda?" Jay asked
himself.

He could feel the energy all around him, but
he couldn't understand it. He sensed he would do great things here,
be part of some large thing, but he was starting to know the
isolation of being a nameless, faceless foreigner who had most
recently been a big fish in a small pond and now, in New York City,
had yet to find the water.

The grocery store and dry cleaner were new
experiences to him as well. Being used to the wide open
well-stocked spaces of the Kroger Super Stores in the Midwest, he
found the crowded, noisy, under-stocked, over-priced, new but
already dirty hole-in-the-wall that was the sole grocery in his
area very unsatisfactory.
No wonder this neighborhood hasn't
caught on
, he thought, though he could have spoken out loud.
The entire staff at the grocery was Lebanese. The dry cleaners had
been Asian.

Weary from his travels and carrying three
sacks of essentials he returned to his apartment. It was almost 3
o'clock. He'd been out five hours but felt like he'd endured an
entire month of being pushed and shoved and hurried along and
spoken to by people who seemed to be in a bad mood for no
particular reason. And he felt dirty. The accumulated filth and
pollution that plague New York had not yet defaced Battery Park
City, but Jay still felt the grit of the city in his pores. He
headed for the showers.

After an early supper and a Mets game on the
tube, he flopped into bed. Alone, lonely and exhausted. It would
become his habit. Hard days, lonely nights, exhausted, fitful
sleep.

In his dream he was walking along the Hudson.
Tonia Taggert was beside him. His hand held hers. The sun was
setting a glorious riot of red and orange behind the Statue of
Liberty. He turned to her. She looked up into his eyes. The
unspoken words leapt between them. Their lips came together and he
could feel her body press up against him. He could feel the
firmness of her breasts, the heat from her breath.

Chapter

"So how's everything going so far?" Bill Beck
asked. Jay held the phone against his left shoulder, with his right
hand he worked the remote control, channel surfing for anything of
interest. After four days in New York City, spent mostly walking
around, watching TV, and playing Galaga at the World Trade Center
arcade, he was starting to get cabin fever. He was ready to do
something, meet some people. Bill's call couldn't have come at a
better time.

"Not bad,” Jay lied. He sucked in his breath
to talk, but Bill beat him to it. He found New Yorker's were always
getting their words in before him.

"Well the reason I called was to let you know
about a happy hour after work tonight. I know you don't start until
Monday but I thought you might want to meet some of the guys, and
gals, from the office. You up for it?" Bill asked.