That was a long car ride home with Dad, after that wrestling tournament.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to train for next year.”

“Yeah.”

“Team came in second, still a good showing.”

“Yeah.”

“When does track season start?”

With my father, you had to listen to what wasn’t being said. Like, that I gave up and got beat by a cupcake and caused the team to lose the state championship.

I am thinking of a trading floor. Where everyone is getting rich, except for me.

I forgot to go up to Coit Tower. There’s still time.

I have never been carried off the field on my teammates’ shoulders, like my brother. He was a football player. He told me, once, that the best feeling in the world was to be carried off the field on your teammates’ shoulders. In this game, the trading game, you don’t get carried off the field. The guys in the MSFT pit aren’t going to carry me off the field. Winning is making money quietly. Money isn’t the most important thing in the world, but where I work, money is winning.

I am a loser, sometimes.

Maybe I’ll go check out the real estate on Telegraph Hill. Maybe I’ll go visit Scottish accounting wife. Maybe I’ll just call her up and listen to her sing to me over the phone.

I call Pops sometimes. He lets the machine pick up. I’ll call one day, the next day, then I’ll give up. The only time I get through is if Mom picks up, then she gives the phone to my father. We have non-conversations and I listen to what isn’t said.

“What have you been up to, Dad?”

“Mowing the lawn, chasing your mother around, the usual. What’s on your mind?”

“Had a good month at work, Dad.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Nothing spectacular, just fifty grand I managed to scratch together.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s pretty good—sixty percent goes to overhead, but that’s still decent money. Not like some of these big hitters, though.”

“Maybe you should try and be like them.”

“I do try.”

“Your brother gets home from flight school next week. Should I have him call you?”

What isn’t said is that I’m still the kid that dropped out of Marine OCS and now I will be the kid that did a line of blow. And I will probably do many more. I am still high and I am wondering what is going to happen when I come down.

Maybe I’m going to go to work today and start trading three thousand lots. Maybe I’ll make ten million this year. Will that do it? My brother couldn’t do what I do. He couldn’t stand there in the pit all day getting spit on, yelled at, getting cut out of trades. He couldn’t go completely apeshit just to get a lousy fifty-lot. Those people cannot even comprehend it. Mom thinks I’m a stockbroker. Dad thinks I should just try harder. If trying could make ten million a year, I’d be doing it.