The Bullies of Wall Street CHAPTER 1 MATT Matt felt puffs of warm, wet air hitting his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw the source: a large, shiny black nose just a few inches from his face. Two wide-set brown eyes stared at him intently. Attila had probably been awake for hours, patiently waiting for Matt to get up. Matt lobbed his arm over the old German shepherd''s neck and scratched him behind the ears. Matt''s mom usually didn''t let Attila sleep with him. But she had given in to Matt''s pleas the night before, realizing that it would be the last he would share with his dog. Matt had never known a day without Attila.
His parents had adopted him from a dog shelter twelve years ago, just a few months before Matt was born. He was a big puppy, with huge paws, which was why Matt''s dad, a history teacher, decided to name him after Attila the Hun, the ferocious fifth-century warrior who had conquered much of Europe. Attila eventually grew into his paws, weighing over a hundred pounds, big for a German shepherd. His size was now a problem, as Matt''s parents couldn''t find a place for them to live that would take a dog of his size. The family was moving soon, and all of the apartments they had looked at either prohibited pets or allowed only small ones. Matt didn''t want to get up. He wanted to lie there forever with his dog, thinking back over all of the good years they had spent together. Attila used to be the fastest and smartest dog of any in his neighborhood, making Matt the envy of every kid on his block.
His friends would come to his house and beg for the privilege of throwing sticks for Attila to fetch and watching him perform tricks. The usual "sit," "beg," and "roll over" commands were nothing for Attila. He could climb the ladder of Matt''s backyard playground set and slide down the slide. He could jump through a hoola hoop and catch Frisbees six feet in the air. He could play tug-of-war with four kids on the other side of the rope, and still win. He didn''t just shake. He high-fived. But that was when Attila was younger.
Attila walked slowly now, suffering from arthritis in his hips, which Dad said was common in shepherds. His hearing was almost gone too, so he could no longer always hear Matt''s commands. Matt started to sob softly, and then came an all-out bawl. He gathered up the old dog''s coarse, dry fur in his fist and squeezed. Attila belly-crawled closer to him to lick the salty tears from his cheeks. Who would adopt this old dog, who only had a few years left? Who would take in this deaf fellow, who sometimes had accidents in the house and needed help going up and down the stairs? Matt''s parents had assured him that the shelter would find a good home for Attila. But Matt had read in the newspaper that lots of families like his were losing their homes and having to give up their pets. The shelters had too many dogs for adoption already.
After a time, when they ran out of room, they had to put some "to sleep," which was a nice way of saying that they gave the dogs drugs that made their hearts stop. Why did they have to move at all? Matt loved their house, with its big fenced-in backyard. He had lived there his entire life. He loved his upstairs bedroom, with the window that overlooked a maple tree that his dad said was a hundred years old. In the summer that tree was full of huge green leaves bigger than Matt''s hands, which turned to shades of bright orange and crimson in the fall. Matt used to climb that tree often to tease Attila, hiding from him among those humongous leaves. Now they were moving to an apartment where he would share a bedroom with his brother. They wouldn''t even have a yard, only a small balcony.
Many of his friends'' families had already left his Boston neighborhood. About one-third of the houses on his block were empty. Some of the families had to give up their houses because the parents lost their jobs. But many others, like Matt''s family, simply couldn''t afford to keep paying for their houses. Matt''s dad had tried to explain it around the dinner table one night. "I made a mistake," he told them simply. He said that they had borrowed money on their house with something called a 2/28 mortgage, but when he had done it, he hadn''t fully understood how the mortgage worked. Unlike their old mortgage, the loan payments on this mortgage had gone up suddenly, and Matt''s parents didn''t make enough money to afford those higher payments.
They were several months behind on the loan, and the man who had arranged for the mortgage was telling them that they could no longer keep the house. "If we don''t leave," his dad solemnly told them, "he said the sheriff will come and make us leave." Matt vaguely remembered a man coming to their house a few years earlier, encouraging his parents to take out a new loan that he called a "refinancing." They were all excited because the man said they would get enough money to replace their leaky roof and have some left over for a nice vacation. They thought this man was trying to help them. His dad took the loan and replaced the roof, but instead of taking a vacation, he put the extra money in a savings account for Matt''s college. But now, his dad told them, "All of our savings are gone." Matt''s college account was gone.
Everything. His parents had used it all up trying to make the higher payments so they could keep their house. Matt had never seen his dad cry, but he did that night. And then things got even worse when they couldn''t find a new place to live that would take Attila. Matt''s thoughts were interrupted by his mother calling him to breakfast from the kitchen downstairs. He climbed out of bed and saw Attila struggling to follow. He gently wrapped his arms around the old dog''s hindquarters, lifted him to a standing position, and helped him walk to the edge of the bed, where Matt had built a ramp out of sofa cushions. With Matt holding up his hindquarters, the dog shuffled down the cushions onto the floor.
Matt pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and ran his fingers through his hair as Attila patiently waited. Then together they left the bedroom and slowly made their way down the stairs, Attila softly whimpering in pain with each step. Matt took Attila outside behind the old tool shed where Attila always did his business. Then they found a sunny patch in the backyard and lay down together, Matt on his back, gazing up at the clear sky. He knew this could be the last time the dog would enjoy the coolness of thick grass underneath him and the warmth of the morning sun. Matt winced at the memory of his visit to the shelter with his parents a few weeks earlier to make arrangements for Attila. He had had to fight off tears when he saw the small chain-link pens the dogs lived in, with their hard gray concrete floors. Matt''s mom brought Matt an egg sandwich and sat next to him on the grass while he ate it.
Pretty soon Matt''s dad and brother joined them in the backyard. They sat in a circle around Attila, simultaneously giving him scratches in all his favorite places: behind his ears, his neck, his tummy, and on his hind end, right above his tail. "We have to go now," Matt''s dad finally said. "Matt, get Attila''s dog bed and blanket, and put them in the car." Matt retrieved Attila''s bedding from the corner of the kitchen where he usually slept and carefully arranged it in the backseat of their minivan. When Matt was finished, his dad picked Attila up and gently laid him in the car. Matt and his brother squeezed in on either side of the dog and petted him all the long way to the shelter. Matt rolled down his window and, with his brother''s help, got Attila close enough to the window that the old dog could stick his nose out and feel the wind rushing by.
The shelter''s staff were expecting them when they arrived and had already prepared Attila''s pen. The family made a little parade back to Attila''s new home. A shelter worker led the way, followed by Matt''s dad, carrying Attila, Matt with the dog bed and blanket, his mom with Attila''s food bowl, and his little brother with some chew toys. They all stood around him in the pen, hugging and kissing him one final time. As they left, the old dog looked confused and struggled to follow them out before the shelter worker closed the gate. Attila looked at Matt through the chain link, questioning, his ears and tail down, as if he thought he had done something wrong. Why was he in this strange, cold place? Why was Matt leaving him? Matt didn''t understand either. The rest of the day the family spent packing and moving all of their stuff to their new two-bedroom apartment.
Matt hated the cramped apartment. He hated not having a yard. He hated the extra mile he had to walk to get to school. But most of all, he hated not having Attila. Every Saturday morning for three months the family made the long drive from their new apartment to the shelter to visit their beloved pet. At each visit they would ask the shelter workers if any families had asked about adopting the old dog. The answer was always no. Then one Saturday the woman who ran the shelter asked to talk with Matt''s parents privately.
Matt and his brother took Attila to a small courtyard behind the shelter while their parents met with the woman. Above the courtyard''s high concrete walls they could see the tips of trees whose brownin.