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,” I replied, “No, no, it’s not. I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else. My name is Lewis. Lewis Grizzard, and I like people and I would also like to make as much as a hundred twenty-five dollars 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