OF BULLS AND BOITES

By CALVIN TRILLIN

Before I could polish my theory on why the stock market went down so precipitously, the stock market went back up again. This sort of thing has happened to me before. I sometimes think most people go about their business with no consideration at all for those of us who have to provide theories for explaining absolutely everything.

Last year, for instance, I spent a lot of time on a theory designed to explain why Kenneth Starr had decided to quit as the Whitewater special prosecutor. It was based on the possibility that Starr, like many of the rest of us, had awakened one morning and been struck with the disquieting realization that he'd completely forgotten what the original Whitewater crime was supposed to have been. Then Starr decided not to quit after all. My only consolation was the thought that with so many investigations of Bill Clinton going on, someday I'll probably be able to rework the theory and apply it to someone else.

I hated to give up the stock-market theory I was working on. It was based on the premise that investors gradually lost confidence in the market by patronizing New York City restaurants. In pricey New York restaurants these days, there are two types of patrons whose presence--almost always in packs--can make a diner who's celebrating a special occasion wonder what would have been so bad about just making do with Chinese takeout. One type consists of men dressed all in black--a group the New York Press, a downtown weekly, has called the "Comme des Knuckleheads crowd," after a downtown store called Comme des Garcons, which specializes in black clothing for wannabe hipsters. The Comme des Knuckleheads usually remain clustered in a mob at the bar, since they are hoping to be joined by models late in the evening, and models don't actually eat.

The second type is from Wall Street. The party tends to consist of maybe eight youngish men in identical dark suits. They take a table and drape their suit jackets over their chairbacks so that their red suspenders can be displayed. Then they wave around thick cigars as they shout at each other at trading-pit volume about what brand of single-malt Scotch they prefer.

Don't forget that the bull market has coincided with--helped to cause, in fact--a golden era in New York that has brought more and more visitors to the city and thus to the city's restaurants. According to my theory, it must have eventually dawned on a critical mass of diners (many of them already in a state of irritation from having had to shoulder their way past a mob of noisy Knuckleheads at the bar) that if the bozos in red suspenders across the room were in charge on Wall Street, the system had to be deeply flawed. Panic naturally followed.

I was still working out the kinks in the theory when the market bounced back. Naturally, I was pleased to see people get their nest eggs back, even if it meant the abandonment of my theory. And I wouldn't want to see the guys with red suspenders lose so much money that they started hurling themselves out windows. On the other hand, what if they lost just enough money that they had to start eating at home?