Years back, when actively engaged with Orillia’s Chamber of Commerce, I participated in a few large gatherings of area business people.
Unfortunately, some meetings babbled over into long-winded, painfully, unproductive affairs. I do recall a couple such ordeals brought mercifully to a galvanized-consensus end, via a calm voice of reason emanating from a silver-haired gentleman of eminent sophistication, his lone audible on both occasions.
Prior to this, I had worked on Bay Street in Toronto with another member of that fine ‘smartest-person-in-the-room’ fraternity. Yes, Jay Gordon was nearly identical to Orillia’s Mr. Lewis in this regard, lacking only Doug’s debonair demeanour, quiet charisma, tact, and charm.
You see, Jay Gordon was irascible and acerbic, at once morose and nasty – Eeyore, with an angry edge. His words were wise, though awkward in an annoying nasally voice, an octave too high. His wisdom seethed through a perpetual sneer laden with shrapnel and venom. When his message was positive, his manner was negative. Jay was blunt-force rude.
Jay is easily one of my most favourite people whom I have ever met.
He was short and round, with a physique quite like that of Curly Howard of The Three Stooges, though his Jerry Lewis hair and glasses better explained his voice.
He wore suits that were either all dull – an indeterminant green-charcoal-brown colour – or, he only owned one. Either way, a tad too small and ill-fitting, further rounding his odd stature, contradicting his razor-sharp edges. This drab attire was complemented well by off-white shirts that blended perfectly with his pale, waxy visage.
Jay Gordon had the pallor of one who was dying, because, in fact, he was.
He was also among Bay Street’s premier investment analysts during the late decades of the last century, a vaunted validator of value’s magnitude, duration, and, trend.
His bright-minded peers were quick with fair insights as per the demise of a company when it was mired in its death throes, but, long after its share price had collapsed. The “Street’s” sharpest money managers avoided such calamity by subscribing to Jay’s coroner’s-report-like prognoses, well ahead of any apparent affliction.
Jay Gordon was very well paid.
The first time I met him, I was working at a French-Canadian firm’s office in Toronto. Early on, when some of my analysis showed a modicum of merit, the wizardly old economist who had hired, mentored and befriended me, suggested lunch with an old colleague, Jay.
He chaperoned the event, prudent in his caution given my fawn-legged confidence, and Jay’s voracious vitriol, forewarned of which, I was not.
As we were introduced, through a spoonful of his slurped soup, his top lip curled up strangely, revealing small, yellowing teeth, through which he barked, “John?!” and again, “John?! … You’re not Jewish!”
I was dumbfounded, not by the subject, nor by his manner, but, by his emphasis on that word, “not.” Such line of inquiry is not uncommon, though it’s typically, “You’re not Jewish, … are you?” from a furrowed brow, conveying contempt.
“Uh, … yes, that’s right, … I am not,” was all I could manage.
“Of course,” he replied almost cheerily, through more slurped soup and a shrug. “Were you, you’d be Jack, not John,” dismissing the matter indifferently with a flick of his wrist.
Okay, … good to know?
A few years on, Jay and I were both employed by Deutsche Bank Canada, still in Toronto. I’d study him from a safe distance, loving it when he’d lapse into a blank stare when bored with a co-worker, then, simply saunter away.
One time, when I was particularly engrossed with suspicion as per a popular company’s prospects, such was the potential for some severe share price dismay, so, I sought affirmation, I confided in Jay.
Now, given that a pleasant “Good Morning,” could stoke Jay’s ire, it was with trepidation that I petitioned His Cantankerousness for that favour, a perilous realm into which none had ever ventured.
“Why not,” he inexplicably answered.
Once a week, for about a month, I bounced my evolving analytics off him, and they rebounded back with a swift kick. He’d raise that awful voice of his, supplementing it with ridicule, spit, and bile, so as to better berate me with his blistering bluster.
Such a ruckus it was, it could be heard from the first floor to the 40th, via the elevator shaft and ductwork.
After one especially searing session, the most senior of the aghast administrative assistants implored, “John! Why do you do that?”
“Judy,” I sighed, as I gathered my scattered papers, “if Jay thought me to be the halfwit that he so harangues, he’d not spend 60 minutes asserting it.”
Then, one day, there was a tiny tweak, a nod to the numeric, and, however angrily expressed, a whiff of 'well done', even warmth.
If one’s paper could withstand Jay Gordon’s grilling, a portfolio manager who might purge it, did not exist.
It’s been 30 years since I last saw Jay, but, every now and then, I extract those faded, dated papers from a flimsy file held in a crumbling cardboard box. I smile with a sigh, recalling Jay Gordon and that $15-stock, that suddenly sold for $6. We were both “ranked analysts” that year, one of many such marks for Jay; he for his acumen, me, because of he.
“Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
* * *
I’ve delved further into Jay’s story these past few days.
His baseline measure of health was “deteriorated.” When long stretches of absence – he survived six heart attacks – lapsed into some pattern of permanence, an immune system disorder then disintegrated it. Speculative speak as per his resurfacing, scarce as it was, suddenly ceased.
Soon thereafter, Jay Gordon sauntered away. He then disappeared.
Roughly 20 years ago, a Deutsche Bank colleague stopped by Orillia to say hello, and apprised me of Jay’s homelessness and ill-health, his tax evasion, and, eviction.
He sent me an article, from an impactful series, written by Peter Kuitenbrouwer of the National Post in 2001. Quoting directly: “… Mr. Gordon lost his Lexus and his home, ended up penniless and on the street, salvaging little more than the clothes on his back, his gold-filled Caran D’Ache pen, his seal-skin shoes and his Universal Geneve gold watch.”
A photograph accompanying the article shows Jay playing chess with a co-resident of Seaton House, a looming, Soviet-like edifice that serves as a 500-man shelter for Toronto’s homeless.
Kuitenbrouwer again: “Since living at Seaton House, Mr. Gordon has become a respected father figure, working to teach English to new immigrants … My parents … same thing … 60 years ago. Mr. Gordon also bought a cheap chess set so he can teach his students to play.”
A seventh heart attack killed him.
While gazing at that grainy picture – that setting, Jay’s condition – I vaguely recalled a quiet comment from a colleague, of Jay’s inner angst … his German employer. Supposedly, this was unbeknownst to those of his family not consumed by the 1900’s mid-century war.
I’ve just now read his obituary (2004) for the first time, “Long time respected Bay Street steel analyst, in his 65th year… after a long illness.“ No mention of family, nor friend.
In 2018, while attending a writer’s retreat, I submitted a fictional piece titled, “Ray Morton,” based exclusively on Jay Gordon, and now that gravestone with the smaller, more lightly etched name at its base.
A complex guy, that Jacob Moses Genziuk. I doubt few, if any, were ever completely let in.
“John,” not “Jack.” “Jake” and “Jay,” and, for that matter, even “Ray.” What’s the difference, anyway?
Hard to say.
John Epstein is a former, 25-year Orillia business owner who left southern Ontario for the north years ago, and has never been back. He is now a freelance writer, whose column will appear monthly in OrilliaMatters. He can be reached at [email protected].
