This novel is dedicated to Mike Caro, for what he brought to poker which is more than words can say, I bluffed them with small hands cost me small chips and a lot of talking, I got them to go all in on a big hand cost them the pot and a lot of crying. It's not the cards you're dealt its how much you want it, and life is such, a long poker game. Thank you Mike. CHAPTER I, Block C2 Banking is like poker to you is it? Who told you that? I'd rather not say, but is it? Imagine you're seating at a poker table Right okay And all you're doing is bluffing, you can win one time or several but you can never leave the table Alright It takes one loss and you're screwed, you can never bluff again without being called So what do you do not play? No you hippie you own the table Do you beat other players, do you beat the market? Neither you stay put to net everyone's losses, because they will eventually lose at some point and that's... Where the money is? That's my sonny So you're like a casino aren't you? The fed is, we just own chips there, but it's interesting you mentioning casinos, you go there with the premise of winning money right? I'm not sure Good because that's how you lose So in fact you never lose No they're your chips, they come and go, people put up corporations, corporations issue stocks, people buy them, they win some lose some, in the end they still don't own those ships, do you have a bill on you? Five Dollars will do? Right what do you read right here? Federal Reserve Note? It's not your money, it never was it never will, you're just playing with it, it's not any different than a casino chip But you can buy things and own them, they become your property For a limited time, you see the whole system is built on a simple truth of life Which is? People think they're forever, and when their time is near they don't care much anymore, you're in it for a lifetime, play with the chips you find, win some lose some, let everything on the table for other players Were like hamsters on a wheel you mean? Oh yeah It's a gloomy perspective on life That's why we don't say it Then you probably shouldn't Ha ha ha, first time in New York? I've been here for two years Okay so here in New York people don't give a rat's ass what you say, they've heard it all before from the four corners of the globe, most will not even get mad and you will become a legend for adding anything to it From Boston you mean? Forget it Can I have my bill back? Already answered that, I should charge you a hundred For reading from a banknote? Absolutely New Jersey, NY, 1983 The alarm clock rang at 5AM in the frigid January morning like it did always, except when it went quiet because of an overnight power cut, the mother of two sprang from bed to make the breakfast she would leave on the table for her daughters and husband to start her daily hour commute One hour by rail from their New Jersey housing project flat and a twenty minutes walk after that, a cab was out of question and buses took too long, to the restaurant where she began work at 6:00 AM, doing just about anything that needed to be done, constantly reminding herself the thing she regretted the most was not getting an education But it was too late now, and her parents didn't get much of an education either, working from and early age and then making it from paycheck to paycheck as the great American prosperity passed over their heads, making some wealthier for a fact and at the same time perpetuating in masses the working poor, who would only become poorer in comparison New York was still like Frank said the place where you could make it anywhere but most of all it was difficult to make it here, as waves after waves of immigrants pursued the elusive American dream as it looked more and more like a wish, from landlord to landlord, from bill to bill, where anything that went wrong, a medical emergency, a missed paycheck, could crush everything in its wake And things, things changed faster than she could follow, the early eighties economic depression, in large cities most of all, brought with it poverty, drugs and crime, even avoiding eye contact during her train commute became not an exception but a rule as crack cocaine ravaged whole neighborhoods and communities Those where the days when the dream had gone sour, the Dollar bill was killing it choking it slowly but surely, sometimes fueled by greed, sometimes by speed another drug she heard about, anything for the Dollar bill at the corners of shabby projects that sprang up to stay, without jobs, without incomes, without hope Without even a semblance of a horizon other than other projects as far as the eye could see, all blocking the view one of the other becoming the only tangible reality, anything was anything to make it, people got murdered sometimes for a handful of Dollars and as much as life was valued as an idea, as much as it could become dirt cheap in the streets, at the corners where armed dealers knew for a fact the bag of dope they were hanging unto also meant someone shooting them dead to get another hit of a pipe Everyday people from all walks of life can tell what life is like in large cities, differently from growing up in a farm there is no soft ground under one's feet There is and there will always be the hard concrete , it fashions what that life is, as unforgiving as a piece of pavement, but they don't seem to get it, or they do after seeing more than they cared for, having heard more than they thought possible, and fearing it could happen to them, knowing maybe the first illusion cities take away, and New York most of all because of its sheer size it can, that it doesn't just happen to others You can tell New Yorkers from tourists right away, just by looking in their eyes, their eyes are weary, they know right under the surface there are invisible strings to the show New York is putting up, that makes tourists look everywhere and want to discover everything, they know if they're not careful how the city can crush them like it crushes people every other day of the week, all put together the Big Apple was not too different from a huge steamroller, like the ones they use to make roads Yes it can do a fantastic job, and it often does, but it's your dumb luck in you fall under it, and it's your dumb luck if you trust someone not to push you there when they can make something of it, a few bucks to fork out to the street corner dealer, that's how bad it was, because there are those and for whom anything goes, it wasn't always like that but New York in the mid eighties was almost a different planet, fueled by the crack cocaine epidemic Who do you trust, the people you know, the people around you day in day out, some in this hood some in the other and all of it put together makes for a city, and you start hearing of people who got wasted by crack, people you thought they would make it but didn't, people you had no idea but they're gone now, sold his bakery is on the street, how why because often two dumb moves is all it takes and the rock was mighty to struggle with if you let it in your blood even once Because most of all the dealer is not your friend he is not your daddy or anything, it could be him chalked on the streets the very next hour, he wants what's in your pockets, the rest all the rest is on you While someone is standing shaking begging him for more dope there are many chances you consider him a bad person, and there is an equal amount of chances that it's people who are weak, and in all of those chances put together there there are costs and consequences, there are hidden costs and hidden consequences Anyone that steps into drug abuse has to face all of it not just some of it not just what they want or can often what they don't want and can't and it destroyed many lives, just like a finger snap, on a whim, like a wall it suddenly show up with your back to it, and you either climb that wall or stay stuck as it gets taller, or as Dostoevsky would have it " Your worst sin is to have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing " and to complete his sentence when all you have is yourself, and to others for whom you have become a stranger People who had no idea where that road can lead, call it being irresponsible, call it falling into the cracks, call it what you want there is no morality to be found it's useless to look even, many things that rings true often come from a place of neglect and despair Above all no amount of morality wasn't going to change anything to the hard truths of life in the big city, people had to eat, money didn't grow on trees, choking incomes, rising inflation, joblessness and the escape explosion of crack cocaine, a candy bar on the street bench, is it going to stay there, for how long, but friend that's no candy at all what you just grabbed To say the stuff wasn't selling like candy is an understatement Little by little you have more respect for those who have white hair in your neighborhood, for the simple reason they lived long enough to have it, it's something I tell people who would listen, you grow up a sucker before you grow up, I am a banker and this is my story, the story hasn't began and yet I am already in the midst of it without knowing My old man is a firefighter and my mother to be waits tables, does dishes, cleans the restaurant, before they both make it our our New Jersey project, hoping each other make it safe to Block C2, it's good enough flats have a number, well I guess you need them to pay bills In that story New York is all around edgier than it's ever been, flipping the coin between withdrawal and overdose, broke, bleak, turning into a ghost town, true it's not everywhere I can show you pink elephants and at the same time it's here and it's real, it's so real it makes you numb to everything else, and stories of babies left to dry in a micro wave are just another story Evil, some of it plain evil as you walk in between rows of abandoned buildings where people are shooting all day long and anything can happen to anyone, even cops don't go there, they're not crazy risking their lives because a crackhead got mugged, is bleeding to death over 5 Dollars of rock Living in those hoods little by little or all of a sudden there are only two ways from there, either you start looking like those twelve years old whose gaze tell a story of being a hundred for having seen, having lived too many things than they should have, or turn as gray as the city walls all around you, trying to blend in, staying out of trouble to keep that most essential of things The hope you still hold within going on no matter how the harsh reality of those drug stricken suburbs at the city at large tries to snatch it away So if you understand where I am coming from you can understand how and why I became the head of one of the largest banks in the world, it's not a case of having nothing to lose, it's a case of having everything to lose, not a case of breaking the chains of poverty, of organized slavery, it's a case of me against the world And I won, because it's all I know how, some didn't like it I guess it's always the same story of success and retribution, and while you can be one of those who put your hopes in the greater good, as a banker what you do is bank them out of the way I built my reputation on two things and two things only, being fair and square and ruthless at the same time, people play by the rules I am all for it, they get out of line and I will get them one way or the other, today, tomorrow, in twenty years I don't care much about that, as good as a delivery order it will come someday sooner or later, but let's not get carried away because my mother is only a few months in 80's New York depression left such an impression on me because it would happen some 15 years later, and make most of my teen years It's good to believe in the greater good, it's worth it, here's another truth that's more personal, New York has five boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island, the cold hard truth about New York is that there is no such thing as a New Yorker, each borough is in itself as large as a city, it's good enough if you know your own hood, sometimes often in the New York of the mid eighties where this story takes place it's trouble enough to live there Chapter II, Cold Dish At first the publisher, being an intellectual, was not so fond of yet another banker story, it's when I told him about Block C2 and he figured out thousand Dollars suits and a chauffeured limousine were never in the cards that he went that's it we have a story And I believed him so Block C2 is where we're starting from and the cards well it's what you do with them, think about it for a second, it's the cards you're dealt, different cards different story, throw away your cards and that becomes your story, he said he knew me by reputation, and I could do something about it for better or worse, rule Number 1 never say anything you might regret later, rule Number 2 never fix anything that doesn't need fixing Difficult times for everyone, a toxic mix of economic depression all the while flaunting, hammering, the things of consumerism without which you were a solid nothing, nobody wanted that in the land of the American dream which New York epitomized, where the measure of success was nice flat, nice car, nice clothes and money to spend, how it could come way too often at the expense of anyone that isn't them was a fact of life, what do you do change life when shots are getting fired for 5 Dollars of crack in the wrong parts of town, and you get a clear picture of how cheap life had become, how whole neighborhoods started resembling war zones In all of this my old man and my mother were struggling to get by as I was waiting to be born in a world, rather say in a city which had just entered a dark tunnel with no light at the end to be seen, and what do you do right when all you know is decency what do you do, you cope is all you figure out early in life the only way you can cope is by wanting bigger things for yourself than what's on the cold dish If anything, sometimes often people put a better face on a situation than it really is, and you have to read in between the lines, not ask dumb questions, not say anything more, daylight doesn't need more daylight, darkness doesn't need more darkness, it is humanity who needs understanding most of all If you asked anyone they will tell you the American dream is real and something to believe in, something they believe in and how going against the grain is never the best idea you can have, my American dream started early from yet another faceless housing project for an hour long commute, and many hours more of hard work because a single job wasn't enough anymore Upon waiting tables piled up cleaning the place and doing piles of dishes to make up for tree jobs in one, while income dwindled with inflation, eating livelihoods little by little and then all at once, the life of plenty had become difficult, expensive, cumbersome, complaining only made it worse, yet you wanted to be seen to your loved ones as the mountain they could lean on, yet somehow that mountain was made smaller everyday by greed and lust for wealth, for status, mindlessly, carelessly to what it meant to those who barely made it Living in New York was more expensive than just about anywhere else you can think of, on paper it could only hold as long as everyone could and afford it, had jobs, could pay their bills, build in a better future for themselves and their own, save for their retirement not eat their savings just to afford groceries, believe in something not in nothing People worked hard to make it there in the Big Apple ever since New York became New York, and others rushed in from all over the world to do the same, making it in New York was somehow the pinnacle of what you could achieve in life, the skyline's was a testimony to it If you didn't it could only mean something was wrong with you, which was daunting, to be measured against the height of Manhattan skyscrapers And those dreams kept piling up until the recession flattened all of it as a mere nothing, and so how do you fill that void, how do you flee from what everyday life had become if you do not have it in you to face it, just once and it becomes a habit, and the habit eats you away over in a few years while no else seems to care, because they're at grips with the same thing which took a hold of just about everyone else in the block It maybe, maybe, explains what happened if there is an explanation to be found at all, or there are in fact as many explanations as many broken lives They called it the drug of the Devil, and I believe that is was, for what it made people become because of it, for what it made them do for it, for the there's nothing there with which medics took people out in body bags over and over in the same buildings, for how even children were taught to catch their breath when going in front of crack kitchens not to catch the habit, because breathing crack fumes once is all it took, for how it wasn't happening in my block thank God but something I knew of even if How we all knew of somehow from an early age, watching for needles at playgrounds, diminishing the innocence youth is made of, if that's not the main thing about being a child, life is made of not just money success and power but also innocence Dreams they're not much you know but they keep you going, still at some point they have to get you somewhere or they stop making sense, and indeed in many of New York's mid eighties neighborhoods hit by the crack cocaine epidemic, the American Dream had turned into a nightmare Each year felt like ten of them, my father and mother aged more than they should as those troubled times a decade of it took a toll on the city, on New Yorkers and on life that wasn't just the same anymore That was more and more like a black hole not to fall into while others went in head first. I kept my sight on the skyline and hoped for better days, for the simple reason things couldn't be worse, for the simplest of reasons that there was in all of this still food on the table, laughter in between, years to be had, friendships to be made, and a life to live Trevor I turned and saw Trevor calmly approaching me, always made an impression he showed up somewhere, even in the midst of a school fight, they listened when he talked in his usual soft spoken tone, tall, athletic, forbidding So you're a mobster now What do you mean? What I mean sonny is that either you figure out these walls or they are going to figure you I don't get it You will someday, stick to school too Why? Because it's all you got, what we, what society can do for you is what you see, what you can learn here to become somebody in life do you understand? There's nothing else, you don't need to be in those shoes to know I am telling you right now Trevor why do you always say power to the people? What does it mean? Power to the people, absolute power to the absolute people What is the absolute people The people that has absolute power I think I see what you mean... But the people is black right? The people is the people, you cannot differentiate the people or it ceases to be the people But who are the people? The people are those who believe in the people So everyone is the people? Everyone who believes in the people are the people What if they don't are they still the people? Those who don't believe in the people are only themselves, yet the people can never look down on them as less, because the people looks above it doesn't look down, on anyone, for they are truly the people Why is the absolute power to the people? The absolute people Yes To be the people and to believe in the people is the absolute power So blacks whites Latinos even Chinatown, Hindus, Muslims all of that is the people? If, they believe in the people, and you will meet the people, the people has many faces So like people in India are the people? Oh yes India is a great people, anywhere is the people, in every town, every city in every hood, you will recognize the people and the people will recognize you if only... If you believe in the people That's right But why people are always fighting one another calling each others names Remember the people doesn't look down on others, the people only looks up and never beneath, if you're smart enough never to look down on others you will be the people, it is not easy and not hard at the same time, and the people will be there when you need them always How do you think am doing? Great, we're having this conversation Thanks a bunch And remember whatever you do, whatever the situation is, you have to believe in the people, things always come full circle Will do And so there is growing up in a New Jersey suburb where he forms a little gang of kids no to be bullied at school, and there is Trevor the school janitor an older black male who still has a lot of wiseguy in him from back in Black Panther days, and there is the measuring of people he meets one way or the other And there is the narrative of people who play a role in your life growing up in New York, people you had no idea of, different backgrounds, different origins, races, different stories How do you go from sparing change to buy a pair of socks in a drug epidemic stricken 80's New York to having your own corporate jet It's not cracks it's cliffs and you didn't fall in them, you leaped over all of it, quite literally flew over the mess and made your life a success by all measures, you're in the shoes of the guy who smiles at critics, at people who would look down upon you with ease but didn't achieve half of what you achieved life, toddlers facing a giant, not in wealth, not in inherited entitlement, but in achieving against the odds “ Well you know Rockefeller he used to pick papers at the park ”, yes how do you do that, how do you go from being paid pennies to pick trash to having your own plaza, from having to watch your step for drug needles littered at street corners on the way to school to having La Guardia airport halt traffic so your jet can land first And I am not saying that we can't, but if we won't we can either applaud heartily what we are incapable of or decently keep quiet about why that is, the one thing we can't do is disdain someone who has reached further than we could, having started beneath where we stood, nevermind all of the differences life is made of, that often do not diminish achievements and only make them greater Chapter III, Back Draft You remind me of Asian Delight John Asian who? It's an all you can eat at Chinatown, you should visit, there's a vast room it's pretty dark, there's an old lady and everything there is spicy, and on each table there is a large pitcher of water, you only eat there once but the old lady she's used to it, because mostly you're eating little and drinking an awful lot of water Our interest rates you mean? What do we do with them? It's the spice you put in the food, and everything is going downhill, because? Yes? Because Fiat money is based on thrust John, so either you put some trust back in that Dollar bill or in no time people will ask you for gold coins, and they will be damn right ...You know why it's dark in there John? Why? Because the old lady she knows about savings Are you saying she would do a better job at the fed? Earning Dollars in the dark minus the price of curry and exchanging them in Sichuan, no she should be at the IMF not at the fed You're probably right... New Jersey, NY, 1985 The call came early on a rainy September morning, it is all blurry now, I remember I was scrambling my scrambled eggs like I was used to every morning, out of the numb boredom of school children looking forward but not really to another long day of studies I saw my mother's face change, her posture slump as if the weight of the world suddenly fell on her shoulders as she looked desperately at us Having battled an apartment fire all through the night my fire fighter father had passed in the line of duty, buried under the rubble that had collapsed on the corridor where he was progressing in thick black smoke as a mother and her two daughters shouted for help on the other end, trapped by a wall of flames A hero, but a dead hero nonetheless, a widowed wife and two children in a city barely making itself whose future looked as grim, as gray and somber as the projects that had sprang up everywhere and a cost of living that meant for many working two even tree jobs, while many others got swept away by joblessness, crime and drugs For hours on end he spent his time in the narrow stairs besides the elevator where a wire meshed small window faced the skyline on the other side of the Hudson in sharp contrast to the projects where he lives, there everything is wealth power success, not poverty, crime and unemployment The skyline played that inspirational role, it often did maybe always will, for a kid whose only chance in life is a tuition for a private school provided by the Mayor of New York upon the intervention of the Fire Department Chief, as the least they could do to honor the memory of a man who dedicated his life to being a firefighter and died in the line of duty, was regarded by every other, and especially younger firefighters, as that invincible giant taking on the blaze and defeating it And it is because a section of the corridor collapsed over him other firefighters could find an opening to save that women and her two children, also the skyline is not just what it seems to be about, in the New York of the 80's drugs are everywhere, they're either crack, the rock, cooked in kitchens for the poor or expensive pure Colombian cocaine for the rich and especially in the finance industry, they even earned a nickname for it, the yuppies He sees it at play, how it's not all suburbs and poverty stricken neighborhoods, but already knows what drugs do to people There is also the stark contrast of his old and new school, the Mayor was from a wealthy family, whom does he call for a school tuition another acquaintance from the Upper East Side who had recently donated millions down for a new gymnasium and a library bearing his name Where our protagonist walks for miles not to be seen taking the subway to make it home, while chauffeured limousines are waiting in long lines to pick up the other kids There's ups and downs, the school has uniforms his is always impeccably neat, his mother takes pride in making it so, so it's not you're born into wealth and you start from a position of having not deserving, life is not about having or deserving, it's about what you achieve, and the more difficult the more challenging it is for you to achieve the more it is a measure of success, success is not what everyone has, they can have it but success comes with notches, climbing a hill is not climbing a tall mountain and never will be My mother put her hands on my shoulders, on the first day of school at Trinity in my neatly pressed school uniform, with a beaming smile and a look in her eyes that told volumes about how all her efforts had been vindicated, the countless hours tending tables, cleaning dishes and mopping the floor before coming late each night, the passing of my father who had dedicated his life not just to saving others, but to providing us with a better future in the land where his father had arrived speaking only little English, barely enough to offer private courses as a math teacher, how I carried all the aspirations they ever had not just for me but for themselves