Catching the Wolf of Wall Street

I nodded and accepted the book. Then, for nothing more than shits and giggles, I asked, “And what about the IRS? What’s the story with them?.”

He smiled knowingly. “The IRS doesn’t even exist; in fact, if you can find even one law in the U.S. Constitution authorizing the IRS to collect taxes, I’ll shave my head.” You mean mullet. “There’s only one amendment that even mentions income taxes, and it was never ratified.” With that he reached over to a stack of papers on his bed and handed me one off the top. “This is a list of all the U.S. senators who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Go ahead and count them: You’ll see there’s not enough for a lawful majority.”

I nodded once more and then took my required reading material and hopped up on the top bunk. I spent the next few days learning everything there was to know about redeeming my straw man. When I wasn’t reading about it, Sam was lecturing about it, as barely edible meals were slid through a tiny slot on the steel door thrice daily, to which Sam insisted that whatever I didn’t eat I flush down the toilet—including half-consumed apples and unopened packets of ketchup. After all, the evildoers at Wackenhut would recycle whatever was left over, in an attempt to cut costs.

Each morning, Sam would smile and say, “It’s time to feed the warden!” Then he would take a world-class dump and flush the toilet with a nod.

I managed to write two letters a day, one to Chandler and one to Carter. I decided it would be best to lie to them—telling them how wonderful camp was and how I was playing tennis all day and working out in the gym. The only reason I hadn’t called was that it took a bit of time to get a phone account set up.

And as one day melted into the next, Sam gave me the full low-down on the camp, which was, indeed, a cushy place to do time. For a nominal fee, he explained, I could live like a king; a cook, a butler, a maid, a masseuse, and someone to do whatever job my counselor assigned to me could all be secured for a total monthly cost of less than a thousand dollars, payable either in stamps, cigarettes, food I’d purchased from the commissary, or simply by having one of my friends on the outside send a money order to another inmate’s commissary account. And while this latter strategy was slightly against the rules, everyone was doing it, he assured me.

Finally, on the morning of my seventh day in solitary, the steel door swung open and I heard the most glorious ten words in the entire world: “On your feet, Belfort. It’s time to go to camp.”

“Thank God,” I muttered, nearly springing tears. I jumped off my top bunk with the speed of a jackrabbit and turned to Sam, taking one last look at his breathtaking mullet. “Good luck redeeming your straw man,” I said.

He winked. “I got these bastards right where I want them.”

It sure as hell looks like it, I thought.

Then I left the cell.

“I’m gonna ram this right down your throat!” barked Tony the meth dealer, who had five years left on an eight-year sentence.

“Go ahead and try,” I barked back. “It’s coming right back at you.”

It was two hours later, and Tony the meth dealer was standing approximately fifty feet away from me, on the other side of a tennis net. It was a mild winter day—sunny, in the low sixties—and Tony was preparing to serve. I was doing my best to keep my eye on him, but it was difficult. After all, there was a lot going on at the camp. Behind Tony was a soccer field, where a game was now in progress; to his right was a basketball court, where a game was also in progress; and beyond the basketball court was a grassy field where two dozen Mexicans sat at wooden picnic tables, rolling tacos and burritos for a Friday-night fiesta.

But that was only the beginning: Behind me was a baseball field; to my right were a running track, a horseshoe pit, a volleyball court, and a red-clay bocce court; and, off to my left, in the distance, were concrete walking paths that led to a handful of low-slung concrete buildings—the dining hall, the rec hall, the library, the quiet rooms, the music room, the infirmary, and the camp administration building. Scattered along the perimeter were little white signs—Out of Bounds—and beyond the signs were the flat dusty plains of the city of Taft, bordered by a rather unimpressive mountain range.

Suddenly a booming voice came over the loudspeaker: “Count time, count time! The yard is now closed. All campers return to the unit for the four p.m. stand-up count.”

I was about to drop my racquet when I noticed that none of the other campers were paying attention to the announcement; rather, they kept doing what they were doing. It wasn’t until the next announcement, which came ten minutes later, that everyone began moseying on over. The unit was a vast space, about the size of a football field. It was crammed with a seemingly endless sea of cinder-block cubicles, bounded on one side by bathrooms and showers, on another side by TV rooms and quiet rooms, and at the front by a half-dozen administration offices, where the staff pretended to work.

I entered the unit and walked down a narrow corridor toward Bunk 12-Lower. On either side of the corridor were small cubicles, each perhaps eight by twelve feet. Like the SHU, they contained only the bare essentials—two bunk beds, two stand-up lockers, and a steel seat-desk ensemble welded to a gray cement floor.

I had briefly met my new bunkie when I first arrived, and he seemed like a decent enough guy (your typical garden-variety meth dealer). He was short, squat, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and wore a perpetually grim expression. His name was Mark, and with the exception of his two front teeth, which were missing, he seemed reasonably healthy. At this moment he was lying on his bed, reading a book. He paid little attention to me as I entered the cube and took a seat at the steel table.

I heard a snappy female voice: “Hey, Belfort!”

I looked up and—a shock! There was a sexy little number standing at the entrance to the cube, staring at me. She was no more than five foot four and had fine auburn hair that rested on a pair of delicate shoulders, which were pulled back like a cheerleader’s, accentuating perky little br**sts. She looked around thirty. She wore a men’s pink dress shirt, untucked, and a pair of skintight Levi’s. In the outside world, I wouldn’t have characterized her as outright gorgeous, but inside here she looked sexier than a Victoria’s Secret model.

She said, “I’m your counselor, Mrs. Strickland.”

What happened to Snaggletooth? I thought. “What happened to Ms. Richards?” I asked.

“She was filling in for me last week.” She stared at me for a moment, then said, “Well, you don’t look like a guy who stole a hundred million dollars. You seem much too innocent.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before, but I’m definitely guilty as charged.”

With a chuckle: “You don’t hear that too often around here! Everyone in Taft is innocent. In fact, speaking of that, how was your week in the hole with Sam Hausman?”

“He’s a f**king maniac! Did he file a lien against you yet?”

She started laughing. “No, but I’m in the minority around here; he’s done it to pretty much everyone else. I think he likes me.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I’m moving you after count; your new bunk is 42-Lower. That’s Chong’s cube.”

“Tommy Chong?”

“Yeah, I might as well have you both in the same place. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on you.” With that, Mrs. Strickland smiled and walked off without saying another word.

I had heard that Tommy Chong was in Taft; he was serving time on some ridiculous charge having to do with selling “bongs” over the Internet. From what little I knew of his case, it was a ridiculous miscarriage of justice. In fact, selling bongs wasn’t even illegal; it was only because he had sold them over the Internet (thereby crossing state lines) that he’d violated the law. In consequence, he received a ten-month sentence.

I resisted the urge to calculate the comparative fairness of our two sentences; after all, if selling bongs translated into ten months in the slammer, then what should stealing $100 million from thousands of investors, smuggling millions of dollars to Switzerland, and engaging in acts of depravity that defied the laws of man and God translate into? About ten thousand years, I figured.

“What a load of crap that is!” snapped my bunkie.

“What’s a load of crap?”

“That people like you get special treatment around here.”

“What are you taking about?”

My bunkie shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s your fault, but I’ve been here nineteen months and the only time Strickland ever said a word to me was when she told me to make my bed. Yet you’re here a few hours and she comes prancing around in her pink shirt and moves you in with Tommy Chong. Watch: She won’t even assign you to the kitchen, like every other new inmate. She’ll probably make you an orderly, which is the cushiest job here.” Then, in a friendly tone: “Anyway, it’s all good; what I’d really like to do is be your laundry man. I’ll charge you two bucks a week, plus another fifty cents for the fabric softener. You can pay me either in stamps or with cans of tuna, whatever’s easier for you.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll pay you in tuna.”

Just then a booming male voice from the front of the unit: “Count time, count time! All rise for the four p.m. stand-up count.” Mark popped off the bed and faced the entrance to the cube, as did I. A hush fell over the unit.

A few moments later, two guards came walking by at an overly brisk pace, glancing in as they passed. Their pace was so brisk, in fact, that I was certain that they hadn’t even counted us; they just assumed we were all here. Either way, a few minutes later the same booming voice screamed, “Clear,” and the noise level picked up again and campers began strolling about the unit, like athletes in a locker room.

With a bang of knuckles, I bid my new laundry man farewell and headed down the narrow corridor to 42-Lower. When I reached the cubicle, I found Tommy sitting on his bed, going through a stack of mail. He was much more handsome than I remembered from his movies, although I was always so stoned when I’d watched them that I might have been hallucinating at the time. He was slender and tan, with a full head of silvery gray hair and a well-trimmed beard of the same rich color.

“Tommy…” I said open-endedly.

He looked up and smiled. “Yeah. Jordan, right?”

I nodded, and we shook hands in the traditional fashion, which is to say, without banging knuckles. We then spent the next few minutes making small talk. Apparently news traveled fast here, because Tommy seemed to know as much about my case as I knew about his.

“So they actually made that Boiler Room movie about you?” he asked.

“Not really,” I answered. “It’s loosely based on the firm I owned, but it was written from the perspective of a very low-level employee. It doesn’t even begin to tell the story. I mean, there was a scene where they took a bus to Atlantic City…” and as I went about explaining the many shortfalls of Boiler Room, my mind began to double-track.

On track one, the words were coming out automatically: “… and I can promise you that my brokers never took a bus anywhere; in fact, they would have been stoned to death if they got caught. It was all private jets and limousines…”

And on track two, my internal monologue was saying, Jesus, I can’t believe how different Tommy Chong is than I expected him to be. Just look at his face drop as I tell him about my former life of insanity. I would have thought this stuff would be second nature to him, yet he seems genuinely shocked at my depravity!

Just then another inmate appeared at the entrance to the cube. He was in his mid-fifties and looked like a broken-down version of Robin Williams. He had a wavy gray beard, lush enough for a family of sparrows to live in. With mock formality, he said, “Mr. Belfort: David, humbly at your service.” He bowed. “I would like to be your butler. I will do anything you ask of me—make your bed, clean your cube, bring you coffee in the morning; there is no task too great or too small.” Now he looked at Tommy. “Mr. Chong, I’m sure, will vouch for the professionalism of my services.”

I looked at Tommy, trying to keep a straight face.

“David’s a good man,” Tommy said. “You should hire him.”

“How much?” I asked David.

“Seven books a month,” he replied proudly. “And I make an excellent vanilla latte. I steal syrup from the kitchen.”

“Sure, why not?” I said. After all, a book of stamps was only $7.20. So, for $50.40, I would have myself a real jailhouse butler. “You can start tomorrow.”

David bowed and then walked away.

Tommy said, “Just be careful if he offers you any cooked food. He’s been in jail for twenty years, and he spends most of his day catching squirrels; then he marinates them in soy sauce and cooks them in the microwave.” He shrugged. “They taste pretty good, from what I hear.”

I took a moment to run that scenario through my mind and found myself wondering how he was actually catching the squirrels. Must be setting traps, I figured. Then I heard another voice. “Hey, Jordan?”

I looked up and saw a short Mexican man standing there. “What’s up?” I said with a smile.

“I’m Jimmy, the head orderly. Mrs. Strickland told me you’ll be working for me.” Good old Mrs. Strickland! “I assume you don’t actually want to work, right?”

“Absolutely not,” I replied quickly. “How much will it cost?”

“A hundred bucks a month, and you’ll never touch a broom handle.”

“Done,” I said. “How do you want to get paid?”

“Have a friend on the outside send a money order to my sister each month. Then she’ll send it to me.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and the moment he walked away, an Italian-looking guy with an enormous rack of pearly whites poked his head in. “Are you Jordan?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, how can I help you?”

“I’m Russo, the guy who gets things around here. I was watching you play tennis before. You’re pretty good, but I think you’d be much better with the right racquet.”

“What do you got?”

“A Head, Liquidmetal. In mint condition.”

“How much?”

“ Seventy-five bucks.”

“I’ll take it. How do you want to get paid?”

He waved me off. “Don’t worry about it; we’ll work it out later. You and I are gonna do a lot of business together; let me go fetch the racquet.” He walked off.

I looked at Tommy and said, “What a freak show this place is!”

“Oh, you have no idea,” he shot back. “This isn’t exactly what you call ‘hard time.’ In fact, at nighttime, people sneak out into the fields and pick up packages from their friends; some of them even meet their wives for sex. It’s a total free-for-all.”

And indeed it was.

As Tommy and I spent the next few day trading war stories, a seemingly endless stream of inmates offered their services to me. There was Miguel, the Mexican masseur ($10 for a sixty-minute rubdown with no happy ending); Teddy, the Chinese portrait master (for $200 you’d give him a snapshot of your children and he’d re-create it in watercolor); Jimmy, the redneck leather man (for $75 he’d make you a Western-style pocketbook to ship home to your wife); Danny, the g*y barber (for six cans of tuna you’d get a trim, while he tried to rub his dick against your kneecap)… and on and on it went. Of course, there were all the jailhouse chefs, who, using a combination of food bought in the commissary, grown in the garden, smuggled in through the fields, and stolen from the kitchen, cooked gourmet meals in a microwave oven.

And just like that I was hooked up: living the Life behind bars.

Yet it wasn’t until the fourth night of war stories that Tommy brought something to my attention that would end up changing my life forever. “I’ve been around some insane people,” he said, “but you, my friend, definitely take the cake. I had my wife Google you because I thought you were full of shit—especially that nonsense about sinking the yacht. I mean, that’s outlandish! Who sinks a yacht? But she said it’s all on the Internet.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a mixture of sadness and pride. “I guess I lived a pretty f**ked-up life.”

Tommy shrugged. “It might be f**ked up, but the stories are totally hysterical, especially the way you tell them, with all the nicknames: the Blockhead, the Chinaman, Mad Max, the Cobbler, the Drizzler, and especially the Duchess, who I’d like to meet one day.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m sure I can arrange it in a few years. We actually get along pretty well these days. No more throwing things around.”

Tommy raised his eyebrows. “I’ll tell you what you really oughtta do.”

“What?”

“Write a book.”

I started laughing. “Write a book? How am I gonna write a book? I don’t know how to write! I mean, I can write, but not a whole book. Now, if you wanna talk about speaking, that’s something I can do. I’m a really great speaker, I promise you. You put me in front of a room and I’ll make people cry.”

“There’s no difference,” he said confidently. “Writing is all about a voice, and you have one of the best voices I’ve ever heard. Just write down your story exactly the way you tell it to me.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” I said, and then I spent the next week trying to find a starting point for my story. Some very bizarre things had happened to me—in fact, my whole life seemed to be a series of bizarre events strung together, one after the other. I decided to make a list of them.

Before long, I found myself wondering why so many bizarre things kept happening to me. I came to the conclusion that things weren’t just happening to me; I was bringing them on myself. It was as if I were a glutton for punishment. At the top of the list was the yacht debacle, and at the bottom of the list was midge-tossing. I decided to give writing it a whirl.

With pen and paper in hand, I sat in one of the quiet rooms and began writing my memoir. Two weeks later, I was still on the first paragraph. I read it to myself. Then I read it again. Christ—it was f**king terrible! It was some ridiculousness about men in self-constructed ivory towers wanting to jump out after the crash of 1987. Who gave a shit? I didn’t. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I write?

I decided to take a different tack: I would talk about my parents and how they liked to eat at the same diner all the time. I quickly wrote four pages. I looked at them. They were damn good, so I rushed them over to Tommy for a critique.

“Okay,” he said eagerly. “Let’s see what we got here,” and he started reading, and reading… and why wasn’t he laughing? There was a terrific joke in that first paragraph, and he had blown right by it.