For about 2 months before my boy Mark took the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Level 3 exam, he didn’t go out at all. He’d go to work, come home, hit up the gym, and then study. That was it. Done.
“Going out is fucking lame, anyway,” he’d bark from the couch when I rolled up to his place on a Friday with two Lauren Conrad lookalikes. Sitting there in sweaty mesh shorts and a T-shirt, he’d wave a #2 HB pencil in the air dismissively. “Staying in is the new going out.” Then Lauren #1 would strut over to his fridge, showing off her perfect physique in the process. She’d take an ice cube and press it seductively against her collarbone as she closed her eyes and sighed in relief from the dense heat of New York City summer. I could see the Monte Carlo simulation running in Mark’s brain; Crystal Ball says—“you will get laid.” Then, right after his eyes entered back into his skull, he would look back down begrudgingly at his practice exam and mutter to himself, unconvincingly: “Whatever. That bitch is a 6, anyway…”
He’d break down right as we were leaving, his face falling into his hands. We’d hear his sobs all the way from the street, and I’d feel the girls’ hands tighten around my arms as he started clawing away the window screen and shaking the wrought iron bars he had installed during the Level 2, specifically to save him in such situations.
You see, Mark really loved to go out. I mean loved. Obviously, we all like drinking and slaying chicks, but more so than anything, Mark just straight up loved “being out there.” “Gotta get up in the mix,” he’d coach himself if he hadn’t been out in more than two or three nights. He had to scratch that itch. The heat, it gave him clarity. He was the kind of guy who’d buy 4 bottles, not to drink them, but just for that one moment when everyone was surrounding him, cheering him on and taking pictures as he snarled and held all 4 bottles held up to his mouth in triumph. And the only time he was happier was when he was on his computer posting that ridiculous photo up on Facebook as his profile picture, his status set as “absolutely killing it.”
I don’t know very much about the “Chartered Financial Analyst” program. Generally, I’m the one chartering shit, so the concept doesn’t even really make sense. From what I gather, though, it’s a set of exams that you take to get certified to be a money manager out in Ohio and for some reason, Mark, as one of the few non-prop traders I know, also has to take it. They ask you trivial finance questions and tease your brain with provocative ethical scenarios like: “Should you steal your clients’ money? Answer yes or no.”
I do remember, a few months after graduating from college, hearing the news that a girl we knew, Jen, had somehow managed to fail the CFA Level 1 exam. There was such widespread disbelief in the community, on the same order of magnitude as when we heard someone we knew was “making a documentary.” Something like 40% of people pass the exam, and frankly, we just couldn’t wrap our heads around the concept of the 59th percentile. “I’m disgusted,” said a friend who had hooked up with Jen once, quickly making his way into the bathroom to shower and rinse his mouth out with Scope. Jen took the failure as a sign—an opportunity to “follow her dreams” and become an actress. She is now the subject of our other ex-friend’s documentary, the title: Banker Chick Gets Creative: A Riches to Rags Story.
To be fair, though, there is one redeeming aspect of the CFAs—one characteristic that is actually legit, the calculator. One of the two calculators permitted to be used on the CFAs is the HP 12C, and apart from the fact that its name sounds like some highly involved consulting framework, it is the epitome of Banker technology. The 12C embodies everything about us—elegant, bold, somehow clinging on to life in a world that no longer needs it. One look at its brushed plastic exterior and you think: “Damn, this thing is pro.”
Excel Mobile, it speaks a pure, unambiguous language: Reverse Polish, a postfix notation that eliminates non-commutative issues. So instead of having to enter 7 + (5 * 2) – 5, you’d enter: 7 5 2 * + 5 -. Direct and to the point, crisp even—exactly how Bankers think and speak. I met a model from Kraków once, and although we hit it off physically, her English struggled, blocking us from that real “same plane” level I like to reach. So as a gesture of cultural sensitivity, I decided I’d speak to her in something closer to her native tongue. Over Lil’s Wayne’s Lollipop, I pointed between us aggressively and instructed: “You, friends, 2, TIMES PLUS… panties MINUS“ Boom. “Same plane,” said her eyes.
But overall, it’s all very misguided, the concept of having to be sanctioned to practice finance by some governing body. To me, being a financier is god given, a birthright. There are no “Chartered Investment Bankers.” You cannot charter someone to be a prolific value adder. It is an art, not a trade. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been chartered to do whatever the hell kind of finance I want since I was 10, screaming at Production (Celia, my Hispanic maid) to not fuck up comb-binding my book reports. “You numbered the Table of Contents?!” I’d scream at her, winging the thing across the kitchen. And then I’d provide the brand of constructive feedback you might hear from a pissed off MD at Goldman:
“This kind of shit might fly at Banco Popular, but not in my house.”
$$$
It’s been almost three weeks now since Mark took the CFA exam, with three, perfectly actionable weekends in between. Most other guys partied their faces off after the exams, but for some reason, Mark still hasn’t really gone out. He just sits on the sofa in those unwashed mesh shorts, staring off into space. He’s a shell, a shadow of who he once was. It’s as if something inside of him has died.
“What the fuck, man?” I’ll ask with a practiced, artificial tone I like to call “emotion.”
Mark takes a moment to respond, but finally lets out: “It’s gone…”
After I ask what he means, he beats his fist against his chest and explains what has escaped him: “The fire.”
Somehow, I thought that fire might come back, that Mark might remember how great everyday life in finance is, but he hasn’t. Last weekend, I dragged him out to The Hamptons, and at Pink Ellie, he just stood in the corner alone, nursing his first bourbon. He seemed perplexed, tilting his head and looking at the world from a new, ethically conscious perspective. His 12C was still with him, cradled affectionately in his hands like a BlackBerry.
This got the attention of one genius girl, a Long Island native, who came up and asked, genuinely: “Omg, is that the new iPhone?!” Bouncing, she grabbed the boxy device from his hands. She looked at it awestruck for a moment, caressing its sharp edges. Then, hoping to zoom in, she started to pinch the ½ inch wide, very touch-insensitive screen.
Mark would have normally responded with something like “iPhone for me, girl? I’m the BlackBerry _Thunde_r,” but instead, he just gazed at her longingly. No flame was left in him, no embers even. Timid and almost monotone, he proposed: “You, foreign film, pinot noir, PLUS, PLUS, subtitles, MINUS?”
I’d say the 4G iPhone crashing to the ground was symbolic, but those things are built so fucking strong you could run over them with an H3 and they wouldn’t shatter. Mark, however, took it as a sign.
I looked over and saw him leaving the club, a shadow cast over his glass of bourbon and the calculator with his business card taped to the back. Over at our table, another guy was doing Mark’s patented pose, but the snarl was too creepy, not genuinely elated enough, and there were only 3 bottles, not 4—it just really wasn’t the same.
In that moment, I had to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged—their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone.
The 10 next to me was angling herself to most prominently display her lack of tan lines, and I let out, a little less practiced, and a little less artificial:
“I guess I just miss my friend.”