Of all the short stories I’ve written, “Wankers” is my absolute favorite. It’s also now published in one of my absolute favorite lit mags, The Legendary. The Legendary specializes in sharp, edgy writing and was set to publish “Wankers” back in June, but then took a break to do a complete relaunch of the site.

Well, now the site is live and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of the relaunch. The timing worked out pretty well, too. I wrote “Wankers” back in December 2013 when Occupy Wall Street was fresh in my mind, then “Wolf of Wall Street” came out and “Wankers” seemed derivative, even though it was written well before the movie came out. But now, with the U.S. presidential campaign in full swing and Bernie Sanders conjuring up a populist movement with his anti-Wall Street fervor — much of it based on the Street’s greed and arrogance — the story feels timely and relevant again.

“Wankers” at its core is a gross and intentional exaggeration, but it still says something (in my opinion). It speaks to the image problem these guys (and they are mostly guys) have created for themselves through years of indifference in their Ivory Towers, and why ordinary people harbor so much anger toward them.

Here’s the intro to “Wankers” and you can read it on The Legendary by clicking here. Caution: There is not one inch of this story that’s not ripe with awful, terrible things and horrible potty mouth. These characters are not good people, folks.

How we get down

Dickhead Pete’s ‘We Are the 1% Party’ got a little bit out of hand last night. Cristal Beirut. Belvedere Unfiltered Jello shots (for the ladies, natch). Johnny Walker Blue. Ice luge. Hot new interns (dude interns not invited, natch). Anorexic models. Spin the bottle. Fuck the bottle. Prude intern exit stage left. Anorexic transvestite model. Fist fight. Lines of coke. Eli Manning. Lines of coke with Eli Manning. Bad head: non-prude hot intern. Puke on non-prude hot intern. Exit stage left. Good head: anorexic transvestite model. 4:30 a.m.: pass out. 5:15 a.m.: alarm. 5:33 a.m.: break alarm. Shit-shower-shave. Visine. Advil. More Visine. Boot coked-up models (tranvestite and original recipe). Depart Tribeca bachelor pad. Red Bull. 5:59 a.m.: arrive at office.

Not bad for a Wednesday night.

DP lives for this shit. The last time he showed up at work this bombed, Ron Chancellor called him into his office. Ron was starting up a new division – Innovative Investments – and he wanted DP to be his lead dog, his general in the field.

Memory:

Ron: “So what do you say, DP? You game?”

DP: “Who are you talking to, boss? Fuck yeah I’m game.”

Ron was a legend at Goldlynch. You don’t turn that dude down when he comes calling. And Innovative Investments was like nothing the bank had ever done. No limitations. No asset classifications. Most important, no questions. Mission: max returns. The recession was over, investors were tired of conservative bullshit, asset-backed securities were dead. Goldlynch needed to invent a new game to keep their good name as the smartest guys in the room. Innovative Investments was it.

“DP, you are a tremendous dickhead,” Ron said. “But you’ve got the touch. You shit money. Pick your team. You get a blank check this quarter. Get me 15 percent-plus returns and you get another one next quarter. See how we play this game?”

Good times.