So I am trying to do two things, I am trying to get a badge to become a floor trader and I am trying to bench 350 pounds. I can currently bench 335, which is three plates and one ten on each side. I could probably throw up 350 if I cheated and arched my back and bounced it off my chest, but I won’t do it. I lower the bar slowly, controlling it, stop a half an inch above my chest, lock my arms, and slowly raise it. I am going to bench 350 with perfect fucking form, I am going to do it with integrity. I lift weights constantly, which on the trading floor is an advantage because it is a surprisingly physically demanding place to work, and you can make money off sheer intimidation. I can also put up almost 400 on decline. And I am going to get Rage, the other clerk, to take a picture of it, it’s cool when you get that much weight on the bar because the bar actually starts to sag a little, just like in those old Popeye cartoons. I’ve also thought about getting like, a real photographer to take some pictures of me. You know, black and white shots of me in my underwear, Calvin Klein shit. Maybe even nude. I’m not going to look like this forever, I gotta get this on the historical tape.

Girlfriend is into the guns. She told me so, on the first date. Fucking shit, I can’t even remember where we were. It is all kind of a blur.

“Do you work out?” she asked.

“I do.”

“I can tell.”

“I am okay with you liking me for my body, not my mind,” I said.

She laughs. “Very mature.”

“Very mature,” I say, in a retard voice, mocking her. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“So you’re robbing the cradle. The floor must be great for you. It’s a target-rich environment.”

She laughs again. “I’ve seen a lot,” she says, starts to say something else, and stops. “So why do you want to be a trader?” she asks.

“Because I’m good at math.”

“Lots of people who are good at math don’t want to be traders.”

“It’s fun.”

She half-winks at me. “How do you know? You haven’t done it yet.”

“I just know.”

“You just know,” she says, twirling her spaghetti. Oh that’s where we were, at that shitty Italian place up on Van Ness. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the money,” she says.

“Actually, no.”

“That’s what they all say in the beginning.”

“Is that a fact?”

“That’s a fact.” Eats a meatball.

“What do they say in the end?”

“Make it stop.”

* * * *

So I arrive in the office, kinda cold, because I never wear a jacket, kinda revved up, because today is going to be the biggest trade of the year. I empty my pockets onto the desk and the light on my phone is flashing like a nun buoy. I listen, and it’s girlfriend. “We—we need to talk,” she says, in a cell phone-message-robot voice. “Can I see you later?”