The Galleon office is nearly empty. It’s just after 4 p.m. on the Friday before the 4th of July, 1999. All I have to do is check out a few more trades and then I can run downstairs and catch my car service, compliments of DLJ. My sales trader told me they were either going out of business or being acquired, which means that they’re going to expense everything they can.

What a day… Crazy! The Fed did something…or maybe it was some economic data that came out in this morning. It’s not that I don’t remember–I actually don’t know. It is way too early in my hedge fund career to be concerned with interest rate drops or jobless claims. I’m just trying not to get fired. I take one final look at the P&L for the day – see that we’re up thirty five million. I’m gonna miss my flight if I don’t get out of here.
“Great day,” comes a yell from our investor relations office.
“Crazy right,” I say.
“Probably sixty k for you today,” she says as I stop in front of her office. I give her a blank stare. “We take twenty percent of the profits—that means we made seven million bucks today.”
“Wow,” I say.
“So today probably added 60k to your yearend bonus,” she says as I blow her a kiss and tell her I’m late.

The plane touches down at the Portland Jetport. It’s the only real airport in Maine, but compared to the airports in New York, it’s little more than a landing strip. Both my parents greet me at the gate. Yup, I’m back in Maine all right, L.L. Bean wardrobes, facial hair and those cosmopolitan accents: “I pahked the caher in the pahking lot, ayuh.” My dad takes my bags and my mom gives me a big hug.
“We’re cooking burgers on the grill tonight, but you can go out with your friends after we eat,” my mom says. I’d already told her I was going out with some fellow Bunkies in the Old Port, two girls I graduated Kennebunk High School with in 1988.

I hear a horn honk in the driveway as I take my last bite of cheeseburger. Both my parents remain seated as I wipe my mouth and thank them for the meal. “It’s great to be home,” I say. “Don’t wait up.” It’s strange: even though I’m 29 years old, when I come home to Kennebunk I still feel like I’m a teenager. Maybe it’s the drunk driving arrest I earned while riding a moped when I was 15 is still fresh in their minds. But I’m not a complete degenerate, I’m managing just fine in the city.
 
I smell Patruli. I get in the backseat and the girls are up front. Jodi and Kelli look like the cute girls you’d see at a Grateful Dead concert, cutoffs, tie-dyes and ponytails. We head back to Portland, a drive of about thirty minutes. There are about twenty bars within a five block radius, but we usually start at Cadillac Jack’s.

Jodi hands me a beer from her twelve-pack in the front seat and I sprawl out in the back. For most of the drive we play catch up. They have no clue what I do or what a hedge fund is. I keep it simple, “I trade stocks,” I say. Kelli teaches at a high school—English, I think. And Jodi does something with shoes, I’m not sure. They want to know if I’m dating anyone, if I’ve seen anybody famous, and if I’ve ever heard of the Hamptons. “Yeah,” I say smiling, “I’ve heard of the Hamptons.”
Then the conversation turns and we start talking about some of our fellow alumni. “Did you hear about Timmy Seguin,” Kelli says, more to Jodi than me in the back.
“No what,” she says.
“He got a new job down in Portsmouth, he’s makin’ a wicked lot of money.”
I lean up from the backseat and peak my head between them, “So what’s he gonna make this year?” I ask. “A million?”
Jodi gives me a quick glance with one eye scrunched and Kelli says, “He’s gonna make like sixty thousand dollars this year.” I lean back in my seat, look out the window. We’re on the outskirts of the Old Port and you can see the lobster boats and docks and buoys everywhere in the canal. “I made that much today,” I say. They both look at me like I’m nuts and I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. You’re right on the doorstep of douchedom, I warn myself.

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