What I’m walking into is—indescribably beautiful.

Ginger looks at me.

I stand on the podium, and look out at the crowd.

She smiles.

Arms outstretched, I yell: “3COM APRIL 120—“

W83 leaps out at me. “TWENTY BID!”

She turns and walks away.

I make a “sell” motion with my hands, like casting a spell.

“You’re wearing them THREE THOUSAND TIMES.”

I get off the podium.

“You’re done, bid side, twenty bucks,” I say to Fuckface on the phone.

Fuckface got what he wanted.

W83 got what he wanted.

I got what I wanted.

2

NEW YORK

Fuckface/Savage

“You want something to drink? A Diet Coke?”

“Yeah, I’ll take a Diet Coke.”

Dave gets me a Diet Coke.

“How many of these things do you drink a day? We should call you Dr. Phenylketonurics.”

“Is that how you pronounce that?”

“Looks like it, looks like just what it says. Contains phenylalanine.”

I’m in a conference room on the 32nd floor of our building. It’s on Sixth Avenue. I’ve lived here practically my whole life, but I still don’t know why they call it Avenue of the Americas. To me and everyone else, it is Sixth Avenue. I look at the sidewalk, and I see street vendors selling street meat. And lamb gyros, with the incorrect soft “g.” Not too long ago there were guys selling potato knishes. I take this as a sign.

“No, seriously, how many Diet Cokes do you have a day?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Five. Eight. I don’t really keep track.”

“You keep track.”

I keep track. But this is Number One.

Sixth Avenue, in midtown, gets a lot of tourists, because of Rockefeller Center. There are TV studios and stuff that people come to see, but in the winter, it is miserable, because of the skating rink and the enormous Christmas tree. This time of year it’s actually not all that bad. In any case, the tourists here are not as bad as the tourists in Times Square. Everything is worse in Times Square.

Nick comes in. Nick is wearing bold pinstripes, with a pocket square, and a two-tone shirt, with a gold tie. I would only be slightly more surprised to see him in suspenders. Nick is a former powerlifter, though he’s a lot smaller than he was a few years ago when he was hulking around the floor, neck bulging out of his collar. I think he just does cardio now. He’s from Northern New Jersey, originally, so he is already a stereotype of a stereotype. He is also going through a terrible divorce. His profanity-laced arguments with his future ex-wife on the phone are highly disturbing to anyone within earshot. He usually drops a few “C-bombs.”

“Savage, we are talking about numbers already? It’s only March. We just got paid two months ago.”

He calls me Savage, as a term of endearment. Everyone else he calls Big Boy. But people have picked up on it, and now I’m Savage to everyone on the floor. Sometimes he pronounces it with the French g, like du fromage.