a week in the exciting field of sales. But I wouldn’t cheat my mother.”
The man looked puzzled.
“I mean,” I quickly added, “My mother already has a car and it runs well, so I don’t think she’ll be looking for another one anytime soon.”
“You okay, kid?”
I could tell I was blowing it. What if I didn’t get this job and had to go back home to Moreland and not live with Ronnie in his apartment that was near Paula? What if I and my already-aging condom had to go back home together? The summer of ’64. The summer from hell.
“Look, kid,” said the man, as the ashes finally fell off his cigarette and onto his shoes, “I got a warehouse full of encyclopedias I need to move. I’m hiring four guys to help me. I got three. You meet me here at seven each morning. We drive out in a van and I drop each of you off in a neighborhood with a sales kit. You work the neighborhood. I pick you back up at five. You move the books, I pay you a commission. No sales, no money. You want the job or not?”
“This ad said I could make as much as a hundred twenty-five dollars a week,” I said. “Is this true?”
“Could be. More books you move, the more money you make. I ain’t no fortune-teller. I don’t know how much money you can make. It all depends on you. Now, I’m busy. Be here at seven in the morning.”
“You don’t want me to fill out an application or something?” I asked. “I have a high school diploma, and I was active in sports and clubs.”
“Kid,” the man said, and I could see he was becoming annoyed, “I don’t care if you didn’t make it through kindergarten. Either you’ll sell the books, or you won’t. You sell ’em, fine. You don’t, that’s fine, too. I’ll find somebody who can. Be here at seven.”
I walked out of the office. My first thought was, What happened to the woman with whom I had talked on the phone? She seemed pleasant enough.
And why hadn’t Zorro asked me anything about how much I liked people? It wouldn’t have been in the ad if it hadn’t been important.
He hadn’t asked anything about my references, either. I was going to put down my high school principal, my senior English teacher, and my basketball coach.
And what about all those times teachers had warned us, “Foul this up and it could go on your permanent record”?
I hadn’t fouled up one thing in high school. As far as I know, I had a completely unblemished permanent record. But this guy hadn’t asked me, “Is there anything on your permanent record I should know about before we sign a contract?”
I never even chewed gum in high school. I didn’t want it on my permanent record. I never smoked in the boys’ bathroom like Ronnie Jenkins did. What was going on here? Disillusionment had replaced all my confidence.
Just then, a woman walked out of the elevator and came toward me. “Excuse me,” I said. I introduced myself and continued, “Were you the one I talked to on the phone a little while ago? I was the one who liked people. Remember?”
The woman looked at me for a second. It was not a nice look.
“I’m Margie,” she said. “I answer the phone for Dipstick in there and go out for beer. He couldn’t make a living selling used cars because he was too big a creep even for that, so now it’s encyclopedias. What else would you like to know?”
“Can I really expect to make as much as a hundred twenty-five dollars a week in the exciting field of encyclopedia sales?” I asked.
“Wear loose-fitting shoes and don’t get too close to the door so you don’t get your nose broke when they slam the door in your face,” said Margie, as she turned and walked into room 452, slamming the door in my face.
I went back to Ronnie’s apartment and told him I had a job.
“Doing what?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I had to say, “but can I borrow your Weejuns to wear to work in the morning? Mine aren’t broken in yet.”
Dipstick’s (Zorro’s) name turned out to be Howard Barnes. He was one mean son of a bitch in the afternoon. At seven in the morning, he was Hitler with a hangover.
The next day at 7:00 A.M., four budding encyclopedia salesmen stood in front of Hitler. Two of the guys looked older than I was. They were probably in their early thirties. One continuously sniffed on a Vick’s inhaler. Another one wore a short-sleeved shirt and had a tattoo of a rather sinister-looking snake on his left forearm. I didn’t know much about the exciting field of sales at that point, but I did know having a tattoo of a snake on your arm probably wouldn’t help in winning the confidence of a potential customer.
The other guy looked to be about my age, or a year or two older. He was quite skinny, and his hair was in a state of complete anarchy. It looked like a clump of palm trees just after a hurricane hit.
The tiny office was hot and filled with Chesterfield smoke. Howard sat behind his desk and looked us over, much as a person would look over a plate of fried rat.
“I’ll be surprised if this goddamn group can sell one goddamn encyclopedia,” Harold began.
His eyes stopped at Kudzu Head.
“What’n hell’s your name?” he asked the kid.
“Larry,” the kid answered.
“What the hell kind of hair is that, Larry?” Howard asked in a manner that made it quite clear he didn’t like the name Larry or anybody named Larry.
“Just my hair,” said Larry.
“I’ve seen better-looking hair than that on fatback,” Howard sneered, despite the fact Larry bore no resemblance to John Cameron Swayze.
“Awright,” he said next, “everybody downstairs and into the van.”
I entered the exciting field of sales for the first and last time at approximately 8:30 A.M. in Pinewood Hills, a subdivision in suburban Atlanta. I was wearing the only suit I owned, a blue one. I wore a red-and-white striped tie and a white shirt, oxford cloth with buttondown collars, neither one of which was frayed, and Ronnie’s loose-fitting Weejuns.
I carried my sales kit, which was nothing more than a folded poster that showed a picture of Howard’s encyclopedias, and about a dozen order blanks.
Howard had given us precious little instruction. In fact, upon letting me out of the van at the entrance to Pinewood Hills subdivision, all he had said was, “I’ll meet you back here at five.”
There I stood.
Pinewood Hills looked to be an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The houses didn’t appear to be over five or six years old. They were mostly ranch, with covered garages sitting on half-acre lots. The lawns were neat. I noticed swing sets in a few of the backyards. My keen sales instincts said to me that meant there were children to go with them, and what better educational tool was there than a set of encyclopedias?
I opened my poster. There were fourteen volumes in each set of encyclopedias, according to the picture.
