sat on it.
I went directly to the classifieds and began to read under the “Help Wanted” section. Amid all the small type was a display ad that stopped me.
“Do you like people?” asked the ad. “Would you like to make as much as $125 per week in the exciting field of sales?”
How did they know this was just what I was looking for? I loved people. I could hang out with people the rest of my life and never get tired of it. And $125 a week? I looked back at the ad to make certain it hadn’t said “month” instead of “week.” It did say “week.”
Classes at Georgia didn’t start until the middle of September. I counted up the weeks and figured I could make nearly eighteen hundred dollars in that period, getting rich in the exciting field of sales just by liking people.
I called the number given in the ad. A woman answered. I introduced myself and explained I was the man the ad was looking for.
“First,” said the woman, “I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Go ahead,” I shot back, my confidence at eye level.
“Do you like people?”
“Do I like people? I love people. People to me are, well, what it’s all about. I mean, you give me some people, and I’ll like them right away. I don’t even care what kind of people they are. As long as I know they’re people, you can bet I’m going to like them. What’s the next question?”
“Could you come by this afternoon?”
I had the job. No question. Eighteen hundred big ones. The first thing I would do would be to buy Paula one of those Evening in Paris perfume sets, the one that also came with the powder.
The woman gave me the address of the office. I said I could be there in half an hour.
Driving to my interview, a question came to mind. Ever notice that when everything is really going great for you, annoying questions come to mind?
There you are, having just finished a term paper, and you think, This is a great term paper. Then a question pops into your mind. “I wonder if the teacher is going to count off for spelling?”
You have a date with a great-looking girl. You’re standing outside her door, awaiting her arrival, and a question pops into your mind. “Do I have a booger?”
The plane is about to take off for Cancun. You feel great. Then, a question pops into your mind. “Are Eastern’s mechanics still unhappy?”
The question as I drove to the interview was, “What will they want me to sell in the exciting field of sales?”
That hadn’t occurred to me before. They could want me to sell any number of things. My mind raced. Vacuum cleaners? Boats? Shoes?
I had an older cousin who worked in a shoe store once. He said you got to look up a lot of woman’s dresses, but it was tough on your back.
What if they wanted me to sell jewelry or soap or flower seeds or salt? This salt salesman came into the store back in Moreland once and convinced Miles Perkins, the owner, to buy six hundred boxes of salt.
Loot Starkins walked into the store next day, saw all that salt, and said to Miles, “You must sell an awful lot of salt.”
“Naw,” said Miles, “but there was a fellow come by here yesterday could flat sell the hell out of it.”
What if I couldn’t sell whatever it was they wanted me to sell? I could like people and want to make as much as $125 a week in the exciting field of sales, but what if I couldn’t convince anybody to buy whatever it was I was selling?
Would they still pay you in that case?
“Well, Lewis,” the boss would say, “how many boxes of salt did you sell today?”
“Actually, sir,” I would say, “not a one.”
“But did you like the people you met?”
“Loved ’em.”
“Fine, then, here’s your week’s check for as much as a hundred twenty-five dollars.”
But that didn’t sound realistic to me, and I noticed I was beginning to perspire. With my confidence level having sunk all the way to my thighs, I drove into the parking lot of a six-story building, got out of my car, and went inside.
I entered the elevator, went to the fourth floor, as the woman on the phone had instructed me to do (I made a mental note to point out how I had followed instructions well), and looked for an office marked 452.
I found 452. The name of the company wasn’t on the door. Just 452.
Do you knock first? How did I know? I’d never interviewed for a job before. Did you knock or did you simply open the door, walk in, and state your business? Why hadn’t they covered some of this in high school? What the hell was I supposed to do with two years of algebra and general science at this particular moment?
I decided simply to open the door, walk in, and state my business. The door was locked.
I knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked harder. Still nothing. My underarms were a rice paddy. So I banged on the window with my fist.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and there stood a man. He had a thin mustache and was wearing a black suit that was very shiny. He looked like a cross between Zorro and a salt salesman.
“Don’t let it be salt,” I said to myself. I couldn’t even sell a box to Miles Perkins back home. He still had three hundred boxes left.
“Come in, kid,” said Zorro. I noticed his shoes weren’t shined, and one of the collars on his white shirt was frayed. When he began talking to me, he talked out of the side of his mouth because on the other side there dangled an unfiltered cigarette, the ashes of which defied all laws of gravity. The cigarette, I could see, was a Chesterfield.
Then it hit me. Used cars! I’d seen used-car salesmen before. They wore shiny suits, their collars were frayed, they talked out of one side of their mouth, and they smoked Chesterfields out of the other.
I knew about used-car salesmen. They’d sell a clunker to their own mother and didn’t love the Lord. What if I spent the summer selling used cars and showed up on the campus of the University of Georgia with no morals and unshined shoes?
I looked around the office. I didn’t see the woman I had talked to on the phone. As a matter of fact, all that was in the office was the desk, one chair, one phone, and a lot of cigarette ashes on the floor.
“I spoke with the lady on the phone earlier,” I began. I noticed my voice went up on the “earlier,” and I had made my statement in nearly the form of a question.
I had noticed that about myself and about others before. Whenever one isn’t sure about one’s self, one tends to raise the level of one’s voice when one comes to the last word of one’s statements in the form of near-questions. But I don’t know why.
“What’s your name, kid?” asked Zorro.
“One,”
