Cerise got two free tickets to last night’s performance of Christmas Carol 1941 at Arena Stage, so I agreed to meet her at Hogate’s for dinner before the theater. Now, Hogate’s is hardly the best seafood restaurant in Washington, but it’s not bad, it’s definitely an historic landmark, and besides, Hogate’s location, on Water Street, overlooking the Yacht Basin, is undeniably romantic, particularly at night. And yesterday being December 21, night fell quite early; it was already dark at six o’clock as I strolled down the walkway that runs along the Yacht Basin behind Hogate’s. That’s where I saw him – a well-dressed, well-groomed fellow, climbing up on the railing, preparing to hurl himself down into the water.
Naturally, I rushed up and grabbed him, thwarting his obvious attempt at suicide at the very last second.
“Let me go,” he protested, “I’m ruined! I have nothing to live for!”
“That’s just the way it seems at the moment,” I countered, hustling him away from the railing. “Think! Just think for a minute, and you’ll realize how much your life means – to you, to others who care about you…”
“Nobody gives a damn about me,” he wailed as I turned him toward Water Street and began walking him there. “I’m a hedge funds manager at Bear Stearns! The sub-prime mortgage collapse wiped us out! It was house of cards, I tell you, nothing but a house of cards!” He began weeping copiously as we reached Water Street and I steered him toward Hogate’s. “Yesterday, Barclay’s Bank sued us! This morning, Roberto Ruiz, our former managing director in Dallas, and Christopher Pak, our former vice president for the Dallas office both pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court – conspiracy to commit fraud and bribery! Bid rigging in the bond market! Then we took a net loss of $859 million dollars after lunch, then, this afternoon, I heard that FIC Limited Partners is suing us – for $1.6 billion! Then, two hours ago, I got fired!”
“Oh, come on now,” I encouraged as I maneuvered him into Hogate’s lobby, “you can always get another job.”
“One that pays like the one I just lost?” He shook his head with grim certainty as I seated him next to me at the bar. “That will never happen.”
“Well,” I continued as I caught the bartender’s attention, “you must have a considerable amount of personal wealth to fall back on, anyway.”
“That’s the problem,” he sobbed, “it was all invested with Bear Stearns portfolios that collapsed!”
“Single malt scotch okay with you?” He looked up at me as I asked, noticing the bartender.
“Yeah,” he sighed, “Macallans Eighteen, on the rocks.”
“Same,” I told the bartender, turning my attention back to my serendipitous guest and extending my hand. “Tom Collins.”
“Adam Smith,” he replied, giving my hand a tentative shake. The drinks arrived, and he lost no time in taking a deep pull off his. “I… that is… I suppose I should thank you for stopping me out there by the water…”
“You’re welcome,” I replied. “But with a name like yours, I’d expect you’d have more faith in the ultimate power and righteousness of free markets.”
Smith stared back at me, puzzled. “A name like mine?”
“Well, sure,” I explained, “Adam Smith, you know, the Adam Smith, he was a great exponent of free markets and a great believer in their intrinsic power and justice.”
Smith took another swig of his Macallans. “No kidding? So I’m named after some famous investor or something?”
“A famous economic theorist, actually,” I clarified. “But I must say I’m a bit surprised you never heard of him. Didn’t they cover Adam Smith in your economics classes when you learned how to be a hedge fund manager?”
“Not really,” Smith admitted. “Hedge fund management is all done with computers these days.”
“Oh, so you’re an expert on financial modeling, computational market forecasting, and that sort of thing?”
“No,” Smith shrugged, “we have people for that. Geeks, techies, nerds, egg heads, that sort of people – the kind who are good at math and computers and stuff like that.”
“So,” I pressed on, “exactly what is it that you do – or did – for Bear Stearns?”
“Ah, well,” Smith murmured, a bit sheepishly, “we hedge fund managers are basically… um… you see we…” he drained his glass, signaling the bartender for a refill. “It’s a people-person kind of job…”
“You mean,” I inquired carefully, “that you suck up to people who control large amounts of money?”
“Yeah,” Smith nodded as he picked up his second drink. “That’s it. Suck up, play golf with people, lose golf to people, but not so it looks like you’re letting them win. Maybe, you know, arrange for a… date now and then.” Smith shrugged. “Typical Wall Street business.”
“So, where’d you learn how to be a hedge fund manager?”
“Wharton.”
“That figures,” I opined, just as I felt Cerise’s hand on my shoulder. She had her own distraught stranger in tow, and was motioning the bartender over to order drinks.
“Tom, you won’t believe what this poor man has been through,” she whispered as she sat down next to me. “I had the valet park my car at Arena Stage and started walking over here. Just as I got to the traffic light at the intersection of 9th Street and Maine Avenue, this gentleman steps off the curb right in front of an oncoming bus! I grabbed hold of his coat and pulled him back onto the sidewalk at the very last second. Turns out he was trying to kill himself.”
“No kidding?” I looked reflexively over my shoulder at Mr. Smith. “What for?”
“He’s a mortgage broker. The sub-prime debacle has left him penniless. He says he has nothing left to live for.”
“I’m ruined,” sobbed Cerise’s fellow, “completely ruined! Like a row of dominoes, all falling down, one after the other. Remy XO, in a large snifter, please.”
“He says he’s being investigated for predatory lending practices,” Cerise confided. “But look at him – he’s such a sweet old guy. How could he be guilty of bilking anybody?”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I cautioned, “on the other hand, however, a lot of honest mortgage brokers got pulled in the whirlpool when the sub-prime market went down the drain. He could very well just be a victim of circumstances.”
“Collins, party of two!” A busboy nearby dutifully surveyed the bar patrons for a reaction. “Right here,” I answered, taking Cerise by the arm, “and see that these two gentlemen get whatever they like,” I told the bartender, pointing at Mr. Smith and Cerise’s mortgage broker, “just put it on my tab.”
Hogate’s has a number of tables located near large windows looking out over the Yacht Basin, and Cerise had made sure to get one for us, in order to maximize that air of romance she craves. Yes, she’s quite the romantic when she wants to be, and last night, down by the water, with everything decorated for the holidays, it was quite romantic, indeed. If I knew that the food we were about to be served was nothing special, at least the scenery at that table in Hogate’s was extraordinary – yachts dripping with sparkling strands of holiday lights, wreaths and greenery strung everywhere – with such assistance, we quickly and easily slipped into a Yule season trance of comfortable intimacy.
No sooner had our waiter brought the appetizers, however, than a commotion broke out at the bar. It was on the other side from where we were sitting, so I couldn’t see who was involved, but the sight of three large doormen converging on the far side of the bar led me to the unmistakable conclusion that one or more patrons were being asked to leave.
Then Cerise and I resumed our reverie, enjoying the view, until two figures stumbled out onto the walkway in front of the water. My first impression was that Cerise, the other diners and I were about to witness a couple of anonymous amateur pugilists filled with a bit too much holiday cheer settle an argument about the Redskins or some similar subject guys feel compelled to beat each other up about. On closer inspection, though, I realized that it was Mr. Smith and Cerise’s mortgage broker, duking it out like jocks at a frat kegger.
The windows at Hogate’s are reasonably thick, but there was no breeze outside and it was rather quiet down by the water at that hour. Besides, they were yelling at the top of the lungs.
“You swindling bastard,” Smith screamed at the mortgage broker, “This whole [expletive] mess was your [expletive] fault! I’m going to hand you your [expletive]!”
“[Expletive] you,” the broker shot back furiously, “you lying, thieving scum bag [expletive] [expletive] hedge fund whore!”
“Better a [expletive] whore than a [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] like you!” Smith staggered forward, throwing an awkward roundhouse right.
Had the mortgage broker not also been thoroughly snockered himself, he could easily have ducked, but, being remarkably pickled for a person who could still remain standing, he only managed a half-hearted attempt, allowing Smith to graze the top of his head. The broker counter-punched with a left to Smith’s midsection, doubling him over, but missed an attempted right uppercut completely, allowing Smith to fall into him, pushing them both to the concrete, with Smith on top.
At this point, it ceased to resemble a drunken boxing match and began instead to look like two highly inebriated, out-of-shape business men trying to engage in Ultimate Fighting. The broker turned Smith over with a hip roll, and Smith soon had his legs locked high around the broker’s torso. Within moments, they had reached that point in a UF match that looks for all the world like two gay guys mating.
I turned my attention away from the combatants for a moment, only to see Cerise, staring out the window, a jumbo shrimp poised half way on its journey to her elegant lips. “You know Tom,” she observed, having noticed me watching her, “it’s simply amazing to think that an hour ago, each of those men was totally focussed on suicide; and now, each of them is totally focussed on murdering the other one.”
“No shortage of irony in the sub-prime mortgage bubble collapse,” I concurred as I resumed watching the struggle outside, “and more than enough blame to go around, too.”
By that time, Smith had the upper hand, and was beating the mortgage broker’s head on the concrete. When at last he was convinced the broker was totally knocked out, Smith dragged him to the railing, hoisted the broker up on top and pushed.
Over he went – pulling Smith into the Yacht Basin after him.
As she watched Smith’s feet disappear over the railing after the mortgage broker, Cerise put down her steamed shrimp and pouted at me, distraught and concerned.
“Shouldn’t we do something?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I pondered, “haven’t we done enough? And what about all these other people, sitting here at these window seats? Didn’t they just see what we did? Why don’t they do something? Excuse me,” I continued, turning to the gentleman in a couple who were seated next to us, “did you see what those two guys just did out there?”
“Sure did,” the fellow replied.
“So,” I pressed on, “are you going to do something – notify the management so they can call a rescue squad, the fire department, the harbor patrol or the police?”
“No,” he said, smiling, “I most certainly am not. I recognized one of them. He sold my next door neighbor a sub-prime mortgage.”
“So?” Cerise couldn’t resist getting in on the conversation.
“So my next door neighbor defaulted on his mortgage two months ago, and now my house is worth three hundred thousand dollars less than it was this time last year.”
“Makes sense to me,” I agreed.
Meanwhile, a rescue squad arrived and everyone at the window seats continued to put their repasts on hold in order to observe. Smith and the mortgage broker emerged from the Yacht Basin completely drenched, but the cold water seemed to have revived both of them considerably, and the rescue squad expended considerable effort keeping them apart.
“What’s this,” asked a young man who, having just arrived for the denouement, gazed out the window at Smith, the broker and the rescue squad with keen interest, “a couple of pathetic bozos in some kind of bum fight?”
“Young man,” I quickly corrected, “those pathetic bozos may be bums tonight, but six months ago, they were both millionaires.”