Love In The Air

“Yes, sir! All taken care of!”

“Okay! Well, Peter, please, come on in.”

McClernand put his hand on Peter’s back and guided him through the door, then turned to Sheila. “Move my five o’clock back to five-thirty,” he said. “Oh—and hold my calls.”

Mac McClernand was in his sixties. He had an egg-shaped body, and his pants, held up by suspenders, rode at the latitude of greatest circumference. Freckles covered his hands and face, and his flesh tone was taupe. His furzelike hair seemed to hover above his scalp, and Peter could not determine whether that was because of its natural buoyancy, or because it was a comb-over, or because it was fake.

They had sat, and McClernand was leaning far back in his desk chair and looking at Peter so that his chin and jaw disappeared in folds of flesh. His hands were clasped, except for his index fingers, which were extended together; studying Peter, he tapped his mouth with their tips.

“So. Peter,” he said finally. “I guess we’re going to do a little work together.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hear good things about you. You’ve made quite a name for yourself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Of course, they only send me the best.” McClernand laughed, baring his grayish teeth. Presently his laugh turned into a phlegmy, wheezing, racking cough. He covered his mouth with a handkerchief and bent over, coughing so long and hard that his face turned red and his eyes teared.

Peter half rose from his seat. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, fine,” McClernand said in a stage whisper. After a moment or two he brought the eruptions under control, took a gulp from a glass of water, and wiped his brow and eyes.

“Harrumm. Harrumrummrum. Damn allergies. So where were we? Oh yes. Yes, I’ve been told damn good things about you.”

“I’m certainly glad to hear that.”

McClernand smiled a bit devilishly.

“But,” he said, “but … I guess maybe you took a knock with that new idea of yours.”

“It was very preliminary.”

Holding up his hand, McClernand knit his brow and pursed his lips and nodded. “Oh, I know, I know. It was very preliminary, just something to kick around. Of course.” He chuckled and shook his head. “But still, I guess they figured it wouldn’t do you any harm to buddy up with an old bastard who’s seen a thing or two in his time, eh?”

“Yes.”

As he looked at Peter, McClernand’s expression softened, becoming almost paternal. He nodded his head slowly. “You know,” he said, “you remind me of myself when I was just coming along.”

Oh God! Peter almost blurted out. “Really?”

“Yes, yes indeed,” McClernand said. He beamed at Peter. He made a mumbly-grumbly noise. Then he clapped his hands, rubbed them together, and said, “Okay, then. Let’s get to work.”

He swiveled in his chair and lifted an object off a shelf. Then, holding it with care between his hands, he gently set it down on his desk. He adjusted it fussily so that it was parallel to the desk’s edge. Then he took his hands away slowly, as if it were carefully balanced. He had been mumbly-grumbling throughout this operation, but now, leaning back in his chair, he stopped and sighed. He gestured to the object with an open hand, smiling. “Peter,” he said, “what do you see in front of you?”

It was a breakfast-cereal box.

Peter was unsure of what to say. There didn’t seem to be many alternatives. “A breakfast-cereal box?”

“Ha!” McClernand said. “Not a wrong answer. But not the right one either. Look again. Tell me what you see.”

What Peter saw was a breakfast-cereal box.

“I … I don’t know,” he said. He smiled. He was a good sport! “I give up!” he said brightly.

McClernand nodded. “I’ll tell you what that is,” he said. And then he leaned forward, fixed his eyes on Peter, and said in a low voice, “It’s money.” Then he leaned back in his chair again, still looking at Peter but now with his former devilish grin.

Money. Right. Yet there was nothing to do but carry on. “Money?” Peter asked. “How so?”

“Pick up the box and tell me what it says on the top flap.”

Peter picked up the box. “‘May fight heart disease.’”

“No! Not that! Further over on the side.”

“Well, there’s a thing here. It says that the company will give your school ten cents for every one of these coupons you send in.”

“Very good,” said McClernand. He stood up and began to pace behind his desk. “I suppose I would be correct in saying that in many cases you can send the cereal manufacturer some box tops and receive a toy in return, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Peter, let’s think a little about that coupon. It’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it? Now, what—”

“Cardboard, actually.”

“All right, cardboard,” McClernand said with a look of annoyance. “Now, what happens when you send this piece of cardboard to the cereal manufacturer? The manufacturer gives something of value to you, or rather, in certain cases, to a third party as directed by you. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell me, the piece of paper—or rather, cardboard—does it have any intrinsic value?”

“No.”

“But it represents a claim on an asset, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what does that sound like?” McClernand, still pacing, was taking great pleasure in this use of the Socratic method.

“A stock certificate, a bond, any security, really.”

“Bingo!” McClernand said. “Just think, Peter, there are millions upon millions of boxes of cereal sitting in kitchen cupboards or closets or on kitchen counters at this very moment, each one with a top—a top that is not doing anything for anybody. People don’t want to bother to redeem their box tops. They don’t want the toy, or they don’t care enough about their school.

“What if those very same box tops could be sold for cash? Eh? Do you see where I’m going? If someone could sell a ten-cent box top for five cents, and a school could buy it for five cents and redeem it for ten cents, wouldn’t everyone come out ahead? Or if you needed twelve box tops for a toy, you could buy them for cash, rather than spending the money to buy the extra cereal boxes. You see, don’t you?

“But first, there has to be a box-top market. To create that market somebody has to act as an intermediary. And do you know who that’s going to be? Beeche and Company. And then, once the market is launched and flourishing, the paper will begin to trade on its own, as an investment or speculation. Think of the volume! With the firm taking a little bit on either side, the profits will be phenomenal!

“Of course, there are all sorts of challenges and uncertainties—the Internet auction people; taxes; regs; there’s an option aspect, since most cereal box tops expire; and so forth. But that’s where you come in, laddie.” McClernand smiled at Peter with pride and affection. Then his expression slowly changed to one of mystical transport.

“So,” he said quietly, “that’s the idea. But we aren’t stopping there. No. No. We aren’t stopping there.”

Peter had had a feeling that they weren’t stopping there. The worst thing about all this, he thought, was that he must have sounded just like McClernand to everyone at Thropp’s meeting. Maybe they did belong together.

“It won’t be long,” McClernand was saying, “before banks start to accept cereal box tops for deposit and to make loans accordingly. Securities firms will allow you to write checks based on your holdings. The same way people used discounted paper in the past as money, they’ll start using box tops. You know what will happen, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “The Fed isn’t going to stand back and lose control of the money supply. So they’ll want to step in.” McClernand smiled quiveringly at Peter and continued in almost a whisper.

“It’s only a matter of time before the dollar goes completely in the tank. Everybody knows that the euro is a piece of crap. So you see? You see? The world is going to need a new reserve currency. Gold?” He let out a braying laugh and exclaimed, “Gold? Pathetic! No. No! The cereal box top!”

Then his voice grew soft again and even more intense. “All this time, while we are making a market in them, we are slowly accumulating and accumulating and accumulating, so when it all comes together, who will have amassed holdings of cereal box tops that are greater than even those of the United States government? Us, Peter, us! Beeche and Company!” McClernand closed his eyes for a moment of silent meditation, then popped them open with a big grin. “Quite a play, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Peter.

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