Trading Places
The Hunt For Captain Bob Johnson
When American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower, the kid next to me — well, he was a kid then — said on the phone to his dad: “Dad, a bomb just went off in the Towers.” Before I could even register what happened, I recalled seeing a snapshot of a giant silver projectile impacting the building in my mind; my brain somehow took a picture of the fuselage hitting the tower just before it exploded. Not yet knowing the scope of what was to unfold, I looked at Brett and corrected him, “No, dude, I saw a missile fly into it.”
Disbelief mixed with confusion. Naive shock flittered across the trading floor. The televisions, usually tuned to CNBC without volume, were now all swapped to the news with the volume to the top. First reports suggested an errant small craft had somehow flown into the building but, even in those early minutes, that idea sounded ludicrous. Salesmen and traders alike, all with jackets off, ties dangling, and pressed white shirts ready to absorb coffee stains, slowly stumbled up to the window to press their noses — not from blood lust but simply from an impulse to understand what had just happened.
But I felt unease and stayed back at the desk to call someone I could trust: Patrick Hannigan, an alchemist of hand jive and code signals on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who stood at a phone bank “on the rail” — a raised barrier at the edge of the pit — using sign language to relay orders to traders among the horde. On my first day at Goldman, Patrick and I had a small mix up on a 10 lot of S&P500 futures resulting in a tiny error. I told him I would pull the tape recording of our original conversation to see who was at fault. I knew I could trust Patrick when, without missing a beat, he said: “Hey fucko, I been doin’ this 20 years and you been doin’ it 20 minutes: who do you think fucked up?” And I didn’t like him any less that he swore like a truck driver and drank like me.
Those guys on the floor were, precisely, the only blue collar citizens within Goldman Sachs. And they served as my lifeline to sanity in those early years when my feelings of insecurity and inferiority clashed with an occasional desire to say: “you know what, you’re not that smart and I’ll slap the shit out of you.” The CME guys also dipped tobacco, despite floor fines prohibiting it, and quit drinking for lent — taking a special 24 hour dispensation for St. Patrick’s Day, of course, because God loves drunks, fools and the Irish.
When the second plane hit the South Tower, I told Patrick, “The other building just blew up.” He said calmly: “Listen motherfucker, you’re not going to die today. Get the fuck out of there, and take the stairs.” Because he said it, I believed it. A sense of calm and resolution came over me. I popped open the stairwell door and jumped down half-flights of stairs putting my hands on the rails and swinging my feet down to hit the next landing like a little kid. Starting from the 50th floor, the top of the building, I was probably among the first 5% of people out of One New York Plaza. I called Patrick first when I got home 12 hours later that night. Then I threw away my clothes.
It’s interesting who we choose to stay in touch with when the business is done. Likewise, it’s just as telling who cares to stay in touch when you splatter your life into a wall. I’ve had the privilege of doing both.
When I finished my rolling tour of UC Davis alumni, I bumped into Michael Daffey at Burning Man, which put in my mind to undertake the same mission, only rather than seeing Phi Delts, to track down onetime Goldman Sachs colleagues. Some have been hard to book because they’re lives are full. Some have been easy because they’re rich and retired. And some I know better than even to try. But none did I work harder to locate and see than Bob Johnson. We called him “Captain Bob” and he ran the CME floor, which we affectionately called “Bob’s Big Top.”
Like the Little Old Lady Who Swallowed the Spider, to find Bob, I called Rebecca. I called Rebecca to call Jack. I called Jack to call Mike (Dawley). I called Mike to call Bob. And I called Bob to call Patrick. Well, that, and I called him just to call Bob. Usually you’d never find one without the other anyway. When it came time to drink, those two would use hand signals to relay Budweiser orders from one end of the bar to the other. When one of them tiptoed out the back door to home, he’d wink at the other. Bob was Lennon to Patrick’s McCartney. They had personalities fit for late night television and voices for radio. They showed laser precision transacting nuclear weapons yet exhibited chaotic, colorful personalities. Outsiders, they proudly thought everyone at Goldman was a chump and they weren’t wrong. And, the CME guys were fun, funny, and decent — an exceptionally rare combination in a business that’s only and all about money.
One of very few people with whom, no matter how great one’s expectations, it’s always better to see him than expected, Captain Bob was the most fun I’ve had in 50,000 miles. And, as an added bonus, we hung out with a dude who I scarcely knew at Goldman, also from the CME floor, who now lives in a disused 42,000 square foot bank complex which holds his collection of oddball cars and nickelodeon music machines.
I had no idea he was so cool when we worked at Goldman. But, then again, if I did, I guess he wouldn’t have been that cool. And I got Patrick’s number too. The rest of you can come and find me.
