Being a Man for Himself

Well, there was one good thing. They hadn't docked his pay after all and he was even paid up to the full Monday. That was good. Then Henry felt a shove. Henry had to stand his ground against the security guard as he tried to calculate in his head if he'd gotten the full severance that was outlined in his contract.

The security guard wanted Henry out of there. When Henry did start moving he followed close behind. He walked with Henry like he was a criminal to Henry's car. The guard took his parking pass and then watched as Henry drove away.

This was a fine mess he was in now. Where had this come from? Thinking back, he knew where. His mother's death. That's where this had started. They were still upset about all the time he'd taken for personal reasons. They were so small minded.

As he was sitting at the light he could almost hear Keiko's voice in his head telling him that it was because he left her that he was fired. She almost certainly believed that. She would be so happy to hear that he had no job. Even that lying asshole who'd lied about Merissa would be happy that Henry was gone.

He had no job. He had no prospects for a new job yet. He hadn't even looked at his resume in a decade. His wife was going to put him on the hook to pay over half a million dollars to debtors. Henry was fucked. He was royally fucked.

This was such a scary new world he was in. He almost gave in to despair. He almost fell. But there was another voice there. His mother. She was proud of him. Maybe she would have told him he could have handled it better but she was proud of him. He deserved better than to work at a place that was only holding him back. Of course if he wasn't able to find a job at all and he ended up homeless then beggars couldn't be choosers.

Then he had a thought. Go for it. He could go for it. He knew it would work. He just knew it would work. He had enough. The money from his previous check, this check, and severance. He had enough. It would be nice if he had more because more would turn into more profit but he had enough.

Ok, the smart move would be to look for a job. He had little more than four months salary to tide him over. He could find a job before that was all gone. That was the intelligent thing to do. That was the safe thing to do.

But that would be what Keiko would want him to do. That would be what she'd force him to do. No. His mother wanted to be proud of him. He was going to go for it. Why not? What the fuck did he have left to lose? He wasn't attached to anything anymore.

Wait. That was stupid. He could ruin his whole life. But... not really. If he didn't find a job right away who did it hurt? Not Henry. Just Keiko and all her ridiculous debt which Henry needed to know more about.

If he lost all the money he had, so what. He'd be no worse off than if he saved it, looked for a job and just couldn't find one.

Go for it, his mother's voice said in his mind. It would be a fitting punishment for Keiko. If he went and got a job, depending on what happened in court, he might end up paying alimony or helping her pay off her debt. But if he had no money then he'd be unable to pay anything.

But what if they put him in jail for non payment? Did they still do that?

Fuck it. Henry was ready. He'd go spend the rest of his life in jail if it meant Keiko was fucked. For seven years she'd fucked him over. At least in jail Henry would finally have peace. No more worries. He could just retire to a prison cell. And hey, in prison he'd eat better than he ever did being married to fucking Keiko.

Go for it. Yes. He was going to go for it. The numbers went through his head. Oh, yes, he was going to go for it. It was a big gamble with a big payoff if he was right. And as an added bonus he could attack the company financially. He knew everything about that company. He knew where all the weak points were. He probably couldn't make them go bankrupt but he could disrupt a lot of things for them.

He had a plan.

...

Henry put the cash on the broker's desk and then handed the other man a very detailed list of instructions. The older man had never seen anything like this.

"When you said on the phone that you had something specific I hadn't thought..."

"To the letter. Let me know if you don't understand something but accuracy is crucial."

"And you want this done today?"

"First thing tomorrow if possible."

Henry waited for the broker to say something. The man looked over the instructions. It looked like he was just reading for a moment but then pulled out a little green book from his desk and started to make notes and calculations on the pages that Henry had handed over.

He looked up at Henry. "You can't do this."

"Why not?"

"This transaction right here. We don't handle this kind of commodity."

"Who does?"

"I can get in touch with someone."

"What about the rest. Can you do the rest of it?"

"Let me see." He was slowly going down the list. He started nodding. "We can do it. This is going to get expensive. You're grinding your account here."

"I predict that the profits from each will be enough to pay for the next round."

"You better be right. If you're not then you're going to run out of money fast."

Henry took a breath. If there was a time to pull out, this was it. "I'm right."

The broker looked away from Henry to his secretary. He asked for some documents and for the next half hour Henry was reading things and signing things.

In the back of his mind he sort of wished he was already divorced or annulled or otherwise not in any way legally attached to Keiko before he did this but he had to move on this now before the market changed and before anyone else figured out what was going on.

Henry's heart sort of skipped a beat as he watched his money be taken from the broker's desk and he was given a receipt for it.

When he was back at his car he realized that the only money he had left was a credit card. If he was wrong, he'd have no way to pay it off. Still, he needed gas and that was the only way to get gas. He had to use it.

Right at six pm he got a call from Merissa. She asked if he was ok. Henry said he was happy to be able to speak to her but then she mentioned that she might get in trouble for talking to him so she had to go.

Henry ate a hamburger from a nearby fast food place. He was chewing it as the numbers scrolled across the screen of his computer that was not fully paid for yet. He had to be right. But what if he wasn't? If he were really so right why hadn't anyone else made a move? What if people he thought were suckers had better defenses than Henry knew about?

Even after ten pm Henry did not hear back from Merissa. Yeah, it figures. He wasn't going to call and pester her. If she was only barely interested before, she probably wasn't at all interested now. Who wants a man with no job? No woman, that was for sure.

Tuesday

Henry couldn't eat. He was a nervous wreck. He'd gone over the numbers again and again all night long. He had barely slept. He looked up at the time. The markets were open. The farmers over there were talking to the truck drivers. The shops were talking to the warehouse. The distribution company was talking to the factory. Henry was trying to get all the most up to date numbers he could.

Nothing. Nothing was moving. Nothing was happening. If anything the imbalance was getting bigger. Henry ran his hands through his hair. He was going to lose it all.

He pulled out his phone. If he called the broker and told him to stop everything he'd still be in time to get his money out.

No. He had to wait. He had to let it ride. Give it a chance to do something.

He paced in his apartment. He went to the sink, filled his glass with water, took a drink, and then went to the computer to see if anything had moved.

Still nothing.

It wasn't enough. He hadn't put in enough money. Where could he get more? His mother's diamond necklace? No, diamonds were worthless now. His car? No. It wasn't enough. There just wasn't enough. He wasn't able to move the markets.

Or maybe he was just wrong. Maybe all the stress from making so many changes in his life all at once had somehow made him delusional. Maybe he'd wanted to see a pattern and so his mind made him see one when it was really just static.

Eventually, Henry just couldn't take it any more and he had to get out of the apartment. He walked down the street as the sun was starting to set. He felt his stomach getting sick. Or maybe he was just hungry. He had no money to buy anything.

He could hear Keiko telling him he was an idiot. Maybe she was right.

Ok. What had happened? The fees on each transaction probably ate up all his money. That had to be it. That was why other people didn't do this sort of thing. He'd have to go to the broker the next day to get the full story and a print out of what had happened. It had to be the fees. The first few rounds hadn't been profitable enough because he hadn't put enough money into the pot or he had just been wrong about what the actors would do. Then there wasn't enough money left over to get to the next round and so the markets didn't react to him. But now that he'd tried something, surely someone would have noticed and a bigger player would move in, take all the profits and Henry would be living at the homeless shelter.

Amazingly, after his walk, Henry was so exhausted from his big emotional roller coaster that he fell right asleep as soon as he got home. It was a very deep sleep and Henry almost felt like his bed was a coffin. With nothing to live for he might as well die. He was ruined. Finished. He might not even make his original investment back.

He awoke when his phone rang. Henry's eyes popped open. He looked at the time. It was almost midnight.

He picked up his phone as he rubbed his blurry eyes. He answered and expected to hear Merissa's voice.

"Where are you?" Keiko said on the line.

Fuck. How had she gotten this number? Click. Henry was not going to talk to her.

Keiko called back. Henry didn't answer. He just refused the call. Then Keiko called again. After doing that little dance ten or so times Henry just turned his phone off.

Great. Now he was going to need a new phone number. But maybe there was a way to block specific phone numbers. He'd have to look into it.

As long as he was up he went to his computer. The numbers were different. He rubbed his eyes a bit more. Yes. Something had changed. Was it good? Was it bad? He couldn't tell. Asia was woken up. Henry needed more data.

That was the good thing about working for the company. They had access to lots of data.

He went back to bed. He wondered if Merissa would be up. Should he call her? No. It was too late to call. Besides, she would have called him if she wanted to talk to him.

Wednesday

Right as it opened, Henry was there at the broker's office. He wanted that sheet saying exactly what had happened to all his money. When he went to the annulment hearing he could show it to the judge to prove he had no more money for Keiko to mooch. He had no job and no money. The only thing she could steal from him now was his life.

The broker called Henry in. The old man was smiling with a very smug 'I told you so' kind of grin on his face. Henry wondered if the old man had really done everything that Henry had asked for or if he had just revved Henry's account until all his money was gone. Would there be any way to prove anything if that's what had happened?

"Mr. Cooper. Here. On me." said the old man as he offered Henry a shot glass of whiskey.

"I don't drink."

"Suit yourself."

"I came to find out what exactly happened."

"Oh, I bet you did. Say, Sarah, didn't I say he'd be down here first thing in the morning."

The secretary called back that he had.

"Well. What happened?"

"She's printing it out."

"Do I have any money left?"

The broker raised an eyebrow and started to laugh. Henry was not amused. He did not like being condescended to.

"Well?" Henry pressed.

"You make it sound like you expected to lose your shirt."

"Didn't I?"

"Hell no. Sarah, hurry up. The boy's anxious."

The secretary brought the print out fresh from the machine and the paper was still hot. The broker slapped the young woman on the ass as she left. To Henry's amazement she wasn't upset. She giggled and just went about her business. Henry didn't say anything and just let his eyes look over the numbers. He'd need a bit of an explanation of what some of this was but the gist was...

"How much is this?" Henry asked.

"In my wildest dreams I've never seen anything like this. Now this isn't cash, you understand. This isn't liquid at all. You can't expect to get all of this if you want a pay out right now."

"But what am I looking at here?"

"You're a millionaire, Mr. Cooper. You're a millionaire 16 times over. So take a drink. You earned it. I know I need one. I'm going to retire off this."

"What happened?"

"At first, nothing. I did like you wrote on the paper. You were sitting on a big fat pile of shares that were worthless as far as I could tell. I got word after hours that some guys in Japan were getting interested and then the next thing I knew it doubled, then that tripled, and then it just kept going up and up. You were right about everything. Once it started, it was like clockwork and you predicted it all. I ain't never seen a turn around that fast."

"You got to the end?"

"Oh, yeah. How did you do this? How did you know?"

"It used to be my job. When do I get some money I can spend at the store?"

"Depends. Which shares do you want to sell?"

Once that meeting was done Henry took a trip to his lawyer's office. He felt she sort of needed to know his new status as far as work, his wife's debt, and the fact that he was now filthy, stinking rich. She advised him to not go flashing his money around until the annulment was over.

After that it was off to the bank. He so much wanted to tell them that the situation had change. He really wanted to rub it in their face. But he held back. He showed them the preliminary documents from his lawyer. It wasn't an annulment but it would be enough to keep his wife from just marching in there and convincing them to let her withdraw any money.

Back in his car Henry wondered how to play this. Did he need to get divorced? Did he need an annulment? Yes. He still needed it because he wanted to be a father and he wanted to have sex. He really wanted to have sex. It hadn't been in his mind recently but now that he was secure, he wanted pussy. He wanted lots of pussy. He wanted to make up for all the fucking he'd missed out on. He would prefer that pussy be attached to a reasonable and decent human being he could have an emotional relationship with but if he couldn't get that then there was no reason to deny himself some other pussy.

Before pussy he had to make sure of something. He needed to know who was on his side and who wasn't. Now that everyone believed him to be broke with no job, how would they treat him?

...

Henry met his brother at a diner near a truck stop. Henry's original plan was to go all the way to his brother's house but when Henry had called, his brother Ron told him it had to be at the diner.

As soon as Henry sat down his brother scowled at him. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Nothing."

"I had to go get your wife out of jail. Fucking don't give me that. What the fuck, man?"

"I'm leaving Keiko. Is anyone surprised?"

"She said you hit her?"

"Ask her where?"

"At your house."

"No. Ask her where on her body I hit her. Then ask her again another day and see if it's the same."

"Did you fucking hit your wife, man?"

"I'd be in jail if I did?"

"Fucking hell. Talk straight, man."

"Look. I didn't come down here to talk about that."

"Well, we need to talk about it because she's at my house now."

"Why is she at your house?"

"Something about not paying the mortgage or..."

"So you're on her side?"

"Did you hit her?"

"I didn't come here to talk about that. I came here to ask for a loan."

"A loan? You got to be fucking crazy. For what?"

"I lost my job."

"You got to be fucking kidding me, man."

The two brothers sat there looking at each other for a bit.

"Well?" Henry asked.

"No. You go make your own way. I'm already out of pocket in this mess."

"Can I ask you not to tell her I got fired?"

"She's your wife."

"No, she's not."

"Then I can't help you."

...

Henry drove away from that meeting feeling rather sad that his brother had picked the wrong side. Still, he was probably just doing what he thought was right the way so many men had been taught. Henry could still give his niece and nephew a good Christmas.

The next stop was a long way away. He was going to have to stay in a hotel that night and continue the next day.

Henry was still on the road when he got a call from Merissa.

"I came by your place but you weren't there." she said.

"I had to go see a guy out of town. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Oh. Ok. Be safe."

"What are they saying about me back at the office?"

"They're blaming you for everything. All of the sudden all these problems surfaced and everyone's saying it's your fault."

"Yeah, I sort of expected that to happen."

"Are you ok? Do you have money?"

"No. That's why I need to go see this guy."

"Oh. Well, if you keep it quiet I can probably let you stay at my place."

"I don't know if it will come to that but if I needed to borrow say... $100 or something like that, could I count on you?"

"Sure. I'll do what I can."

"Thanks. And hey, be careful. Some of the guys at the office know you're my friend so try to keep them from putting a target on your back."

The call was over and Henry was wondering which exit from the interstate he should try in order to find a good place to sleep for the night. His phone rang again. It was his brother.

Henry refused the call.

His brother called again a few minutes later. That was odd behavior for Ron so Henry answered.

"Hey man."

"What do you want?" Henry asked.

"Keiko wants to talk to you."

"Nope."

"Come on, man."

"You're lucky I'll even talk to you."

"Alright. I'm sorry about what I said before. I just hate that I'm in the middle of this."

"Fine but I'm not talking to her."

"Come on. She says she won't go home until she gets to talk to you."

"Then call the cops and have them throw her out."

"I can't do that. She's your wife."

"You want me to call the police for you?"

"No. I want you to just talk to her."

"Fine. Put her on."

Henry waited and then Keiko's voice came to the line. "Where are you?" she asked in a pensive tone.

"Why are you lying about me? I never hit you."

"Why did you leave?"

"You wouldn't let me adopt so why should I stay with you?"

There was silence for a moment. "You can't make that kind of decision without consulting me. It affects my life, too."

"Is that what you were thinking when you put us half a million dollars in debt?"

"uh... because... uh..."

"Yeah. I know. Were you going to consult with me about that? You know, since it affects my life, too."

She hung up on him. Henry started laughing as he drove. He'd won. He'd finally won an argument with her. Happy day.

Thursday

It was nearing check out time. Henry was on the phone with the broker getting the latest update on his financials. He was listening to what the broker saw on his system and Henry was putting the numbers into his model on his computer. He hit update and watch the numbers dance. He'd worked for a good part of the night on the motel's wifi to try and get up to date numbers. He still didn't have access to everything from the company but he was closer. Step by step he was building his information system up and if he ever saw another opportunity like he'd seen before he'd be there to strike again.