So that’s basically how I found my way to JLS. This was back three years ago, and they sent me out here with TRE to start this place up. And I’ve bopped around a little, but mostly traded in the MSFT pit, not making any damn money. But I’ve also never lost money, which is important. Guys will blow themselves up left and right, especially nowadays. You just cannot be short gamma in anything. Not when stocks are moving fifty bucks a day in some cases. So I got safe hands, and TRE thinks I am going to figure it out someday. And I am. I might have figured it out tonight.

* * * *

Instead of embarrassing myself at Starbucks, I go to Venue. The girls there do not have purple hair, although they are pretty busted. I am going there even though the clerk is going there, to get my coffee. He can get the bagel and I’ll get the coffee. It’s pointless, but whatever. Like I said, my head is still buzzing. So the Mexican guy there always gives me a smile. He knows everyone, even though I don’t come down here that much. As it turns out, the clerk doesn’t even notice I’m in line behind him; he’s hypnotized by the brutal chick behind the counter. Creepy.

Most of the time when I tell people I work on the trading floor, they say, “Oh, the exchange building on Pine Street?” Actually, no, I’m around the corner in the building that doesn’t look like an exchange. It just looks like a regular building. The stock exchange is for stock. They don’t do options on the stock floor. They do options on the options floor. But there is no sign on the options floor, so you only know if you are in the know. Besides, I think the stock floor is a charity case or something. I don’t know why anyone would route an order there. It is like Jurassic Park. You should see the old guys coming out of that building. I didn’t know that dudes in San Fran even got that old.

So naturally they hire a gay guy to be the receptionist, and this guy does not mess around. Traders are a bunch of cretins, so all day long it is gay and faggot and cocksucker, it doesn’t faze this guy a bit. He just sits there with his pink-striped shirts and gives you the eye of judgment. I haven’t made friends with him, because that would be smart, but I don’t think anyone else is friends with him, either. In general, nobody messes with him at all. Traders respect the threat of force, and there is something about this guy that suggests he could have your badge taken away if he wanted to. Though this guy probably comes in straight from the Bijou Theatre in the morning. You know, with the marquee out front, that says things like Big Hairy Chests/All You Can Eat. I heard they have mattresses in the basement.