In the Tank to the Bank

Circa 1972
"He said that he was going to jump out the window of his 9th floor room in the Century Plaza Hotel in L.A.!" My first ex-wife's response to my poor banker's frantic phone call was "So what do you want me to do about it?" Then she hung up. My whole world was coming to an end. I was a big time stock broker in Palo Alto, CA, and the stock market was in the tank. I was drinking A LOT and in those perilous times I decided to raise money to drill for oil in Israel (a story in itself).

I was in L.A. calling on a few executives of the now gone bye, bye MCA which was loaded with big time rich Jews. I wanted to see if they would participate in my drilling adventure. It was a labor of love for me…I had become an ardent Zionist. But the MCA office was like a tomb. Most of the executives had borrowed money against their MCA stock whose price had fallen off a cliff. They were underwater, and their bankers were calling it to their attention.

After my unsuccessful visit, I went back the the hotel and stretched out for a few minutes before going to the bar. The phone rang, and my banker informed me that the bank examiner would be at the bank the next day. He asked me what was I going to do about my outsized, underwater loan. He had loaned me too much money on non transferable, investment letter stock. I said "Look Walter, I'm down here in L.A at the Century Plaza hotel. I'm busted on my ass. What the hell do you expect me to do?" He screamed that I had to do something. "Okay", I said, "I'm on the 9th floor of the Century Plaza Hotel. I'm going to lay the phone down, open the window and go out of it!" and I hung up. He panicked and called my first ex-wife who basically told him that she would look forward to hearing the news of my demise. I had a ton of life insurance as well as her hard core dislike/resentment of me.

That night at the downstairs bar and restaurant, I was overwhelmingly depressed by my impending doom. A hooker came up to me and asked if I'd like a "trick". I said,"Listen sweetheart, if Gina Lollobrigida got on top of me naked I'd probably piss". That really turned the hooker off, and she was gone in a flash. No follow up requests. I was grateful.

For the record, when my life moved back up the roller coaster, my shaky bank loans were ALWAYS repaid…although very, very slowly. Incidentally, threatening suicide is very a old school Jewish thing (and I am old). It gets everybody's attention.