We stockbrokers arrived on Wall Street in droves. We arrived before the sun was up, roused from our beds by our wives, who knew that our actions in the coming hours could drastically change the course of this country’s history. We greeted each other with nervous smiles. We knew that before the day was out, we would be weary from standing and hoarse from shouting. We moved into position like starving wolves surrounding wounded prey, our faces stoic and calm, but our eyes betrayed us. For reflected in our eyes was the fear that all of us shared, the fear that we would doom our country with our actions and sentence millions of innocent people to a short life filled with nothing but hunger and poverty.
With these thought weighing heavily on our minds, the ticker started running. And then the shouting began. Hundreds of men shouting all at once, each of our voices trying to drown out the voices of the men around us, trying desperately to find a buyer for the stocks we were selling for mere pennies. The ticker tapped out its erratic rhythm as stocks were bought and sold, its never-ending din serving as a constant reminder to us that what we were doing was affecting the lives of millions. We justified our actions by telling ourselves that we had no choice, and that the stock market would crash eventually, so why shouldn’t we get what we could for our stocks right now? But we knew. We knew that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that by trying to get what we could before the crash, we were ourselves causing it. But we drove those thoughts out of our heads with thoughts of what would happen to our families if we didn’t take part in this action. So, on we went, getting progressively less and less money for each stock we sold, and in turn causing our competitors in this frantic frenzy to get less money for their stocks.

At the end of the day, my fellow stockbrokers and I went home to our houses, and greeted our families. Our wives already had dinner on the table, and our children were washing up from playing after their chores were finished. There were no conversations at the dinner table. Instead, we ate in silence, even the youngest of our children realizing that tonight was not the night for causing a fuss.

After the table was cleaned, the dishes washed, and the children put to bed, us men and our wives had a discussion. Our wives told us about their days, about the Charlene’s, or the Betty’s, or the Ruthie’s coming to borrow a cup of flour, or sugar, or a pinch of salt for the dish they were making that afternoon. We men pretended to be interested, but our wives could tell that our minds were on other things.

When our wives asked, us men responded honestly. We told our wives about the chaos of that day, and of the repercussions yet to come. We told our wives what we knew would happen now that many businesses’ stock was worth less than the paper that it was printed on. We told our wives that many companies would go out of business, that many banks would lose their main form of capital, and that they would be forced to sell the land many people took loans from them to buy, getting as much as they could for it. We told our wives about how instead of having a retirement fund, we now had barely enough money to make next month’s rent.

Our wives started to cry. They tried to muffle their sobs in a pillow, so as not to wake the children, but it was in vain. The children, awoken by the sound of their mothers’ crying, went to investigate. The mothers, comforting their children, told them nothing was wrong. “Daddy just had a bad day at work” they lied, “nothing to worry about”. We couldn’t let the children worry. After they warmed up some mugs of milk for their children, our wives sent them to bed. They went back to their rooms, asking each other in hushed voices what could be wrong. They were young, but they knew enough to know when their mother was lying to them. Had their parents found about a bad test score, or a broken toy? Or had Grandma died, or was it Uncle Joe? A million thoughts raced through their young heads, and they knew sleep wasn’t going to come soon.

In the parents’ bedrooms, there were also hushed discussions. But these discussions were of a far more somber nature. We had discussions of what would be done. Of what could even be done at all. We decided together in the end that it would be best to sleep now and deal with problems when they arose.

By morning, news of the previous day’s events had been announced in the newspapers. It was being called Black Tuesday. Reporters were calling it “The greatest economic event in history”. Many of them were prophesizing the bankruptcy of many corporations, due both to their stock now being worthless and nobody having any money to spend.

When us stockbrokers went into our offices the next morning, everything was quiet. There was no work to do, because it had all been done yesterday. Our bosses called us into meetings to inform ourselves and our coworkers that most of us were being laid off. There was not going to be enough business to justify keeping all of us on the payroll. We all went home early that day, much to our wives’ surprise. When we explained what had happened, our wives began to cry again. Some complained about how unfair it all was, while others just let out intense, wordless sobs. We tried to comfort our wives, to tell them everything would be alright, but we knew it wasn’t true. We knew that everything was not going to be alright. When our wives had finished crying, we talked together about what our options were. The conversation could not be put off any longer. Some of us decided to send our children to live with various aunts or uncles in different parts of the country, and go look for work elsewhere. Others decided to sell all of their possessions except for the clothes on their backs and move into whatever homes they could make enough to pay rent for and try to find work in the city. All of us, however, decided that something must be done.

As we all executed our various plans, we realized something. We realized that we were all in the same situation, and that there was no easy way out. We realized that although we may have different names, and faces, and histories, in the coming years, we would all be doomed if we didn’t help one another.