The PALM spinoff is seconds away. COMS is ripping around 3 bucks at a clip and PALM is getting ready to launch into space. All of Wall Street is watching this spinoff, and I have to go to the bathroom so badly that I am closing my eyes and clenching my fists from the pain.

* * * *

Have you ever noticed that when you close your eyes, when you close them really hard, and you look at the inside of your eyelids, you can see colors and starbursts? There is light where there is darkness. It’s like a hallucination, almost. I can see colors swirling around, the pain is no longer tangible, it’s like an abstraction, just a thought, a sensation, swirling around my eyes.

The roller coaster at the top of the hill. Looking down.

I remember walking onto this trading floor for the first time, years ago. I couldn’t make sense of it—men yelling at each other. Over time, you begin to make sense of the chaos. You can hear individual voices. Then, you start to interpret the voices. You know which voices mean money and which ones don’t. You learn what requires your attention and what doesn’t. You learn when to stand and fight and when to get out of the way.

I can hear chaos around me. I can hear Tod trying to field five orders at a time. I can hear Johan and Tully trying to pitch in. I can hear Nick yelling at all three of them. I can hear the cash guys yelling at each other. I’m not looking at the screens, but I know what’s happening based on the noise: PALM has ripped 60 points higher in a giant financial orgasm, and these options that I am supposed to be trading are ground zero for the financial world.

Tod is poking my shoulder.

“What?” I say, not opening my eyes.

“Savage.”

“What?”

“Look.”

I look up, dazed, at New Girl.

I make eye contact with her.

With her black eyes.

Release.

She is saying something. She is speaking under water.

She is saying something.

Release.

“Savage!”

She is looking at me strangely, with disapproval.

“3Com April 120 calls, three thousand?”

Oh.

Release.

I look at the screens.

“Twenty at twenty-four.”

She turns, walks back to her desk, says something.

Release.

“You okay buddy?”

“Oh yeah, I’m okay.”

She’s back at her desk, packing her shit.

Oh no. This trade is toxic.

I hit the T22 light.

“Sup bra.”

“Apr 120 calls, 3Com, on the hop.” I hear screaming.

I’m still on the phone.

Release.

So good.

Peters says: “Sold at twenty!”

T22: “TWENTY BID BRA”

This might be the most toxic trade of all time.

“Sold to you.”

Release.

So good.

I couldn’t take the trade. I had to give it to the floor. It was the wrong time.

It was the wrong time.

There’s nothing like the feeling of a warm, wet diaper.

Squeg/New Girl/nderivs

It’s not like I never been in a place like this b4. I’m from around here we gone out 4 this and that. I know enough how 2 eat when u give me a cloth napkin and 7 knifes and forks. There aint nothing worse than bad table manners, nothin in tha world. Like CN over there chewin with his mouth open, makin smacking noises and leavin hiz napkin on tha table. I’m not suppozed 2 see tha food when u eat it. I know this and I am from Queens.