Boy Plunger

He had a way with numbers. He could see things in them no one else could. Patterns. Patterns of numbers across a ticker. He'd watch the numbers, and then he'd know.

By twenty-nine he had made his first million. On the market. In time he would make much more. Time and numbers. A matter of betting on numbers and watching them move. The movement of numbers in time. Studying the underlying conditions, understanding the movement, feeling the direction, and then placing your bet.

He lived for the market. He always came back. He'd go away but never for long. He'd always come back. No win was enough. He had to keep showing them, him, he was right.

The Great Crash of 1929 was his greatest triumph. Unshakable proof that he was right. He had bet against the greatest bull market ever, and he had won. On those two days, Black Monday and Black Tuesday, he made his greatest fortune, as others jumped from their windows and took guns to their heads. But I think he died that day. He actually killed himself some 10 years later. He killed himself when he was 63, a year older then Hemingway. He sat down in a bar in Manhattan, drank an old-fashioned, wrote a few words in his notebook, went to the coat-room, took out his Colt, and pulled the trigger with it aimed at his head.

But I think he died in 1929. On the day of the greatest market move ever, I think he stopped moving for good. After the Great Crash he was never the same. That's what they said. He was bankrupt some 4 years later. He had lost it all. And he didn't seem to care. He had been bankrupt before, of course, but this was different.

This time there was no fight left. There was no movement left. He had already reached the end.

He had been right. Emphatically right. To the greatest extent that one could be right. In 1929 he was as right as one could ever hope to be.

But having put his life to this pursuit, and having finally achieved it, there was now something missing. There was no more motion. There was nothing but a tortuous pause.

He lasted in that pause for 10 years. But no one can live without movement. No one can stand the glare of God.

I wonder if he knew it at the time. Back in 1929, and he was in his office, and the quotes were coming up on the board and each one of them was lower then the last. He was there sitting at his desk, watching his markers put up new quotes, but they couldn't keep up with the prices because they were dropping too fast. So there he was, sitting and watching his ultimate proof come to fruition, the undeniable proof that he was right, and I wonder if he knew it. I wonder if he knew this was really his greatest loss. The end of his movement. I wonder if he knew that this was the end.

- posted by Sigurd9/25/2004 10:54:00 PM