There was a loud rapping knock on the door of room 224 and it burst open. Steve Sibowitz’s shadow stood blocking out the dim light coming through the doorway. He held a metal saucepan in one hand and a spoon in the other.
“Wake up everyone, it’s a brand new day!” he shouted and created a loud rattling sound by bashing the spoon against the saucepan. Then he disappeared, off to surprise his next assignation.
The occupants lay sprawled across the room and drowsily muttered obscenities and protests, while the radio in the corner happily clattered away. Mikey's eyes blinked open and he lazily turned over, and in so doing dragged the bedclothes off Humvat once again. In the same half-awake zombie state he'd remained all night, Humvat dragged them back. Mikey blinked and, suddenly aware of another presence in his bed, turned himself over and prodded Humvat.
“Who the hell are you?” he enquired, as though he'd discovered a casual lover in his bed, someone acquired during an evening of drunken carousal.
Humvat kept his eyes closed. “My name is Humvat and I am here to make a treasure chest of monies.” he sighed.
“What is time?” he continued.
Mikey yawned, farted and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s seven am”.
Humvat attempted to scream but his tiredness only allowed him the strength of a sigh. Mikey rose from the bed, taking the covers with him. Humvat reached out for them once again but found they weren't there. He opened his own eyes, yawned and also farted.
“Sweet Baqra,” he thought to himself. “I'm turning into one of these people already”.
Twenty minutes later Humvat made his way through the lobby. Parvark was already there and they immediately sought out each other like common victims of a traumatic experience, the only people in humanity who can sense and comprehend one another’s suffering.
“I'm exhausted. I spent an entire night listening to the radio and fighting for blankets. I hardly slept at all.” yawned Humvat.
“You're lucky.” yawned Parvark . “I was forced to either share a bed with a fat boy, and take the risk of being crushed during the night, or sleep on the floor. I chose the floor but the television was on all night in my room and I didn't sleep a wink”.
They stared at each other in the exasperated manner exhausted people do, waiting for the other one to succumb and say something that could be seized upon as an injury or insult, to be snapped up and thrown back.
“I think the people in my room were taking drugs. Let's leave this place now, while we still have a chance.” continued Parvark, but before Humvat could respond Sibowitz's voice was booming through the lobby.
“Okay people, it's time for the morning sales training program!”
Everyone shuffled into the conference room in varying degrees of consciousness. Humvat noticed two familiar faces amongst the crowd. He smiled and tapped the first on the shoulder.
“Hi.” beamed Janine in response. Then he pointed towards the second face and asked “Is David Johnson? I thought he sent away last night?”
She nodded. “David gets fired most nights and rehired next day. He'll probably be at tonight's WAL meeting. Tony's not really such a monster, you know”.
Those who were most alert grabbed the limited number of chairs available while the rest made do with claiming a spot on the floor.
“Last night Tony was explaining the concepts of MindTone thinking and how you should harness its powers for your own benefit.” bellowed Sibowitz like an instructor at a military camp.
“But the power of MindTone is not just about reacting to negative people and situations and turning them into positives. At root it is a feeling you have within yourself about yourself. It is much more than just a state of mind. It is a state of self awareness which exists within your very soul”.
He looked around the room. “Anyone see Jimmy Rees here today?” There was a sea of shaking heads.
“Anyone ever see Jimmy Rees at one of these sales training exercises?” There was an equal sea of shaking heads. “Well, there's a good reason for that. Jimmy Rees has found positive MindTone and his inner self. He doesn't come to these sessions any more because there's nothing we can teach him. Each and every day Jimmy Rees is consistently our top sales performer”.
He paused for a few seconds in the same way Valento had done the previous night, in order to establish an irregular rhythm.
“Jimmy has discovered one of the best ways to turn sales presentations into closed deals is to sell yourself, not just the product, to prospects. He is comfortable with himself. He has inner MindTone. His positive MindTone oozes out of him like an aura. He knocks on prospect's doors and almost instantly he becomes their friend. Within seconds they are saying to themselves 'Well, if Jimmy Rees is going to allow me to share in this opportunity then I'll take it, because even though I only just met Jimmy I trust him. He wouldn't dream of selling me a turkey', and he even has them insisting on purchasing greater quantities than he's trying to sell them”.
Sibowitz paused again so the audience could ingest his words into their minds. He was aware the art of both speaking and being understood simultaneously was to not make too many points at any one time, but this was his secret for the moment and he didn't feel any need to share it. Nor was he about to share the logical leap that if this premise applied to selling Deterjeron, then it could equally apply to selling anything.
Given his similar background and training, Humvat would normally have quickly spotted these theatrics. But his tiredness meant that instead of examining the theories and picking over them like a scientist at a microscope, his fuzzy brain was barely hanging onto the coat tails of the rapidly disappearing words.
Sibowitz continued. “So the first lesson for this morning is if you want other people to believe in you then you must first believe in yourself. And the second lesson is if you want to be in the luxurious position whereby you don't have to attend these sales training exercises then be as successful in selling Deterjeron as Jimmy Rees is”.
He then took the register, placing ticks against the names of attendees and crosses against those who skipped class. They would be fined thirty dollars for the privilege. Humvat and Parvark noted with concealed irritation that their names were once again not called out, and thus still not yet on the register. They could have lingered on in bed instead of being force fed this condensed education in the finer arts of selling. As they were leaving the room Sibowitz called them aside.
“Humvat, today you're gonna be with me on sales crew one and Parvark, you're with Debbie on sales crew two”.
They each felt a gnawing trepidation in their stomach at the thought of being separated once again and turned loose amongst the absurd existence inhabited by their crewmates.
They trudged around the motel car park and located the respective vans which would transport them out into the tamed wilderness of American suburbia. Parvark discovered sales crew two loading boxes of Deterjeron onto a van. One of them introduced himself as Willard from Washington and they exchanged handshakes. Once the loading was completed, Willard opened a plastic sandwich bag, took out a small paper square and passed the bag around his compatriots who each did the same thing. They then stood in a ceremonial circle, shouted in unison a battle cry of “Into the MindTone zone!” and popped the paper squares into their mouths.
“What is happening?” asked Parvark.
“If you're still around after a week you'll find out.” revealed Willard as he motioned him to board the van. “After you've gone through the initiation ceremony”.
Parvark wondered for a moment what this might entail and then decided he didn't really wish to know after all.
Debbie, the sales crew leader, appeared with the van keys, sat in the driving seat and drove out of the motel car park and onto the road. Within minutes they were driving along a freeway with advertising billboards shooting past them and Parvark found himself in the uneasy state of being both exhausted and unable to sleep. As he drifted between a sleepy awakening and an alert
unconsciousness he noticed his fellow crew members were laughing and giggling hysterically, though he himself couldn’t detect the point of the game they were playing, which was simply waving their hands in front of each other's faces. What on earth was this all about? After half an hour or so the van stopped at a gas station to fill up. One of the girls in the crew announced she was going to take the opportunity to get out and stretch her legs. Parvark thought about how innocently attractive she was with her long blond hair and brightly coloured dungarees.
She unsteadily staggered out of the door and as she placed her feet on the ground outside she looked down upon herself with surprise and shrieked “Wow! Weird! I could have sworn these jeans were pink when I put them on this morning!”
Parvark raised his eyebrows. He could swear they were still pink, so one of them must be wrong and he didn’t think it was him.
Meanwhile sales crew number one arrived at the destination Sibowitz had chosen and he drove the van up and down the deserted streets. Periodically he dropped off a crew member like a parachutist, clutching the comfort of a sample bottle of Deterjeron instead of a parachute. Eventually only Humvat and a boy named Grant remained. Sibowitz stopped the van and said over his shoulder “Okay Grant, this is Humvat's first day so I'm gonna team him up with you. I want you to show him the ropes and how to make some good sales”.
Grant groaned. “Bullshit man! Why do I get to pull the rookie short straw again?”
“Because you're my most experienced crew member and the one I trust most.” ordered Sibowitz. “Now get moving and teach this man how it's done”.
Grant stomped out of the van, opened up the back door and started cursing as he rooted for the last sample bottle.
“Now listen Humvat,” whispered Sibowitz. “Grant is good but he can be moody. Don't go upsetting him and giving him a negative attitude, okay?”
Humvat nodded that he understood and got out of the van.
Grant and Humvat stood on the sidewalk as the van disappeared around the corner.
“Oh man,” moaned Grant. “I always get to teach the new recruits. This sucks”.
Then he turned to Humvat. “No disrespect intended man, but it happens all the time”.
He looked up and down the wide suburban street. The orderly lines of houses proudly stood where until recently a natural disorder had lain. This harnessing of nature was reinforced by each front yard. There were perfectly manicured lawns of soft green grass bordered by an assortment of palm trees, umbrella trees with their huge leaves and Cypress conifers, which were strangely out of place. Flower bed garlands of brown ferns, yellow trumpets, pink, red and orange orchids reiterated the overwhelming human victory over nature.
“Better get the show on the road, I suppose.” Grant sighed. He traipsed up the nearest driveway and knocked on the door but there was no response. The same thing happened at the next three houses. He stood there scratching his neck as a lone purple wasp buzzed around, angrily foraging around a nearby dustbin. Its normally plentiful diet of aphids, midges and other small insects had become strangely scarce and it was reduced to pirating whatever meagre supplies it could find.
“This is fucking great!” cursed Grant, kicking a bluish flower into the road. “That motherfucker Sibowitz has dropped us smack in the middle of a commuter belt. This place is a fucking ghost town”.
He then kicked at the bin and beat a hasty retreat as the wasp turned on him, sensing it was being deprived of what passed for a feast nowadays. As they ambled down the road Grant decided to save time and effort by seeking signs of activity in each house, and ignoring those he deemed temporarily devoid of life.
They came across one long road where it seemed like every single house had a placard planted in the front yard, announcing it to be for sale, with “Any reasonable offer considered”.
Grant looked along them, up and down, and shuddered. “Ain’t nobody wants to see that sort of shit going on.” he muttered.
Then he quickly moved onto the next street, ushering Humvat to follow him.
“Here's a live one.” he triumphantly declared, pointing at a car parked in the drive and a child's bicycle sprawled on the front lawn of a huge three storey house.
They rang the door bell and waited for a while, but there was no sign of life inside. As they turned away the door opened and before them stood a strikingly beautiful woman wrapped in a white silk dressing gown. She was elegantly tall and thin where the perfect woman was supposed to be thin, but curvy where she was supposed to be curvy, and long straight peroxide blond hair cascaded over her shoulders. Even without the cover of make-up her wide eyes, high cheekbones and thick lips were the essence of sensuality. Both males felt an awkwardness descend upon them and temporary lost the faculty of co-ordinated speech.
“Can I help you?” she gazed at them.
Grant recovered first. “Ma'am, may I ask you a question?”
She slowly, suspiciously, looked him up and down.
“You can ask.” she replied.
“May we come in?” asked Grant. Humvat raised his eyebrows in exasperation. This wasn't sales training – it was a lesson in seduction technique, and a pretty poor one at that.
“Sure.” she answered vapidly. She looked strangely at Humvat. “You look vaguely familiar. Have we met before?”
He silently shook his head as, without even realising it, he hypnotically stared into her eyes. She led them through a large wood panelled hallway with flights of stairs on either side, and then into a huge living room. It was expensively decorated with more panelled walls, deep carpet, two huge sofas and three huge chairs, and was dominated by a wall full of huge flat screen televisions hanging majestically, each playing a different television station as though it were a living work of art. A glass sliding door was opened to the large, lawned back yard. The shrill sound of children playing and splashing in a swimming pool carried through the air.
Humvat contemplated these surroundings and reflected that a wife like this and a house like this must be what people meant when they talked about the American Dream.
Grant continued his routine. “Nice house Ma'am. If you don’t mind me asking, what does your husband do for a living?”
“He’s…“ she started, but then stared blankly, as if at a distant memory, and corrected herself “He was a mortgage salesman”.
After a second or two she recovered her focus, took a deep breath and composed herself. “So Whatsh thish all about?” she slurred.
Grant and Humvat glanced at each other as they both realised at the same instant that although it was still only mid morning, she was intoxicated.
“Ma'am“, purred Grant as he took his sample bottle out of his trouser pocket. “I have in my hand the crème de la crème of cleaning products, and I'm here to give you the opportunity to purchase some”.
Her expression changed to a shade of boredom and she looked disappointed.
Sensing this, Grant added. “I can see you've got a beautiful house here, but are there any stains anywhere you've found impossible to shift?”
She smiled a hazy, teasing, seductive smile, indicating she realised a game was beginning. “I'm shure there are shome shomewhere. Maybe up in the bedroom”.
“Well…” he flustered, caught between the calling of his wallet, which demanded he perform a sales demonstration, and that of his libido which demanded a journey upstairs.
After a moment's hesitation he continued. “Would you mind if I gave you a small demonstration?”
She giggled, hardly believing his finessed return of her lobbed enticement. “A demonstraishon?”
Grant had spotted the hint of a small stain on the carpet when they entered the room. He walked over to the doorway, bent down and sprayed the Deterjeron onto the stain. Then he wiped it with a cloth which had a lump of scourer concealed within it. The exercise had made a difference to the strength of the stain, albeit a minimal difference.
“See the difference!” he proudly dec
lared, pointing at it.
She staggered over to the demonstration site, bent over to inspect it and in doing so lost her balance. Grant instinctively broke her fall by grabbing her waist. He accidentally caught hold of her flimsy dressing gown belt in the process, and as the belt loosened one of her breasts popped out. The pair of them stared at the breast, then at each other, and froze like statues for a few brief, yet infinite moments before he released her. She quickly covered herself up, adjusted her belt up and sobered up fast.
“Ok, great job.” she said curtly. “How much ish it?”
Grant sensed she now wanted to get rid of him quickly, and this might mean a sales opportunity.
“Eighty dollars for five gallons.” he quickly replied with a forearm smash.
“What?” she shrieked. “I don't need that much!” Somewhere, a linesman was calling a foul shot.
“I can do you twenty dollars for a gallon then.” he backed down.
“Ok. That shoundsh better.” she slurred. Umpire overrules linesman, point given.
“I just need you to confirm the order on this form, ma'am. Don't worry about filling it all in. I only really need the purchase quantity and price, and your signature”.
She scribbled on the paper.
“Thanks ma'am.” he continued, as she ushered both him and Humvat towards the front door and closed it behind them with a thud. Grant shouted through the door. “We'll deliver it later today”. Game over.
They ambled back down the driveway. “Now that was my kind of a sale, man!” smirked Grant. “Did you see those tits?”
They knocked on a door several houses along and immediately beat a hasty retreat when they were answered by a barking, snarling dog. After they'd stopped running Grant dusted himself down and straightened his clothes.
“There's no fuckin’ call for that kind of behavior.” he moaned.
The next two sales pitches resulted in the door being slammed in Grant's face.
“I don't get it.” he muttered. “I'm normally much better than this”.
The buzzing sound of a green humming bird flitting between the few flowers still bestowing nectar was a reminder of the ancient courtship long conducted between nature and this land. The wildlife was struggling to live much as it always had done, despite the shift of equilibrium caused by the recent arrival of humans.
On the other side of another town, Debbie installed sales crew two, planting them at regular intervals. She assigned Parvark to the guardianship of Mikey. He explained some of the tricks of the trade.
“Okay.“ he advised, pulling a lump of scourer from his pocket and revealing it. “First chance you get, buy one of these. Come on, I’ll show you why. Let me do all the talking and you just listen”.
He led Parvark up a driveway and knocked on the door. There was a sound of shuffling feet and locks and chains and an old lady eventually opened it. She looked exhausted by the effort.
“Good morning ma’am.” sang Mikey. “I’m in the neighborhood and was just passing your house. I noticed your doorknob is stained and wondered if you’d allow me the honor of cleaning it for you?”
She looked at him strangely and without saying anything motioned for him to continue with a nod of her head. He sprayed the doorknob from his sample bottle and then rubbed it clean with a wiping cloth, within which he deftly hid the scourer.
“See?” he grinned at her. “It removed all of the dirt without staining the brass. Pretty impressive, huh?”
The old woman nodded her vacant nod. “Yup, I’m impressed.” she said slowly, and looked Mikey up and down before continuing. “You’d normally need a scourer to get it looking like that”.
“But with a scourer you’d get scratches.” explained Mikey.
She nodded her head again, vacantly.
“How much shall I put you down for then ma’am? Five gallons?”
“Okay.” she shrugged.
Mikey proffered a sheet of paper at her. “If you’d just write your signature at the bottom of this order form we’ll deliver later this afternoon. Good day ma’am”
Then Mikey sped them both away from the scene of the crime. Parvark felt disturbing feelings. Surely there were some troubling social principles at stake in what he had just witnessed.
“Did the old woman know how much she was buying?” he asked. “I do not think she will ever use it all”.
“I can’t say as I really much care.” retorted Mikey. “All I know is I just sold eighty dollars worth of cleaning fluid and it means I earned fifteen dollars commission, and the fifteen dollars is now mine”.
“Fifteen dollars? For two minutes of working?” whistled Parvark, feeling the talking money rapidly peeling his principles away from him. “Very interesting”.
They ambled along the road. “What you need,” continued Mikey “Is a perfect line. Something you can add to your demonstration or throw into the conversation that can help grab a sale for you. Take me for instance. My perfect line is the cleaning-like-a-scourer-without-leaving-scouring-marks one I just used. Some of the other kids say they’re working their way through college, you know stuff like that. You need something similar. You could use my one I guess”.
“Scouring like a scourer without making scratches?” mused Parvark, trying to mentally translate the words so they might make sense.
“You know man, your accent almost sounds English sometimes!” laughed Mikey. And then his eyes lit up.
“Goddamn! That’s it! People go crazy for all the jolly old England, tea with the queen and I say dear chap bullshit. It’ll be your perfect line!”
Parvark nervously stood alone on a doorstep and rang the doorbell. Mikey was standing at the end of the drive acting as both protector and lookout. A middle aged woman answered the door. Parvark cleared his throat.
“Good morning madam.” he began, showing her the sample bottle. “I was so impressed with this product I’ve come all the way from jolly old England to bring it to your attention”.
She glowed with a warm flush, gleamed with a gentle embarrassment and asked him to repeat the words.
Two minutes later Parvark handed over the order form to Mikey, who inspected it for correctness.
“Ten gallons?!” he exclaimed.
Parvark nodded his head and laughed. “Thirty dollars for me”.
“Fuck, man. I ain’t never heard of nobody selling ten gallons in one go before”.
Meanwhile, Grant and Humvat had knocked on a host of non responsive doors as morning passed and afternoon arrived. They eventually came across an older woman who was dusting her porch.
“Good afternoon ma'am,” began Grant.
“I'm not interested in buying any cleaning fluid.” she interrupted him. “Just the same as I told the boy last week and the other one the week before”.
Grant was visibly shaken by this response, but ever the old hand he quickly recovered. “But ma'am I'm working my way through college and I've got to sell another gallon today to make my target. Could you help me out here?”
She looked pensively, caught between the wicked desire to see off this travelling gypsy and her tugging conscience towards a struggling stranger in need.
“Okay.” she eventually relented, “But I'll only take half a gallon”.
He gave her the form to fill in and quickly returned to the sidewalk. “Shit!” he hissed as they trudged along, stalking their next sale. “That's all I need! It explains everything - this place is a saturated territory. There are probably people sitting inside all these houses. They just won't answer the door because they've had so many sons of bitches prowling on their doorstep”.
“Just like you, you son of a bitch.” thought Humvat, though he kept this to himself for fear of upsetting Grant and in turn upsetting Sibowitz.
They turned into a side street and stumbled upon a door to door salesman's paradise situation. There were two women standing outside their respective houses conducting a neighbourly conversati
on. Grant ambled up and approached them.
“Well good afternoon ladies.” he smiled.
“Good afternoon son.” replied one. “What can we do for you?”
Simply by responding with a question she was wresting control of the conversation, and thus the confrontation. She was good. In fact she was very good. Robbed of his sales gambit and losing interest in the chase, Grant went straight for his perfect line. “Well ma'am, I'm working my way through college and I need to sell another gallon of this stuff to make my daily target. I was wondering if you could help me out here?”
The women looked at each other sniffily. They were obviously not entirely convinced by the perfect line, yet neither were they entirely unconvinced. They looked at each other.
“Well, if she's willing to take half of it, I'll take a quart off you.” said the second one. “If you’ll do it for two dollars.” added the first.
“What?” exclaimed Grant. “A pint each for a dollar each? You're fucking joking man!” As well as losing interest, he was now losing his temper as well.
The woman shrugged. “Ok asshole. Be like that. I was only trying to do you a favor”.
Humvat decided it was time to intervene and prevent an ugly confrontation. He snatched the form book from Grant and handed it to the other woman. “Please sign quantity, price and names here. We deliver later”.
The woman shook her head. “No. I don't think I want any anymore”.
She handed him back the book and looked into his eyes. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“Stupid fat bitches!” screamed Grant as Humvat bustled him away.
Negativity descended all over Grant and he decided he'd had enough for one day. They walked up and down the newly built roads until they came across a supermarket. Humvat remembered he was under orders not to upset Grant, and he was in danger of catching the blame for his current moodiness. So he went inside and came back out with the supplicant of a six pack of beer which he could ill afford, when he would rather have food anyway. They then went around to the back lot of the supermarket, where they sat down in the sun and drank the beer.
“How long are you selling Deterjeron?” asked Humvat.
“Too fucking long man.” came the reply. “About six months actually”.
“Only six month and you are longest employee?”
“Yeah. This place has a pretty quick turnaround”.
“But not you?”
“Nope. See, I'm from Queens in New York and I thought I got into a fight with a jealous Spic over a girl I was screwing, only it turned out she was his sister – how was I to know – and he had loadsa bloods. It all got pretty ugly, man. I had to get right out of that fucking town or I'd have ended up deader than dead. I saw a newspaper classified for a job involving travel to San Francisco and it looked like a real lucky break”.
He chuckled to himself facetiously. “Some fucking break”.
He sipped some beer. “You know most of the crews are virtual junkies and the rest are completely fucked up in the head? I still haven't figured out if that bodyguard Joe is protecting the crews from the public or if it's the other way round”.
He pulled a pouch of marijuana out of his pocket and then some cigarette papers out of a pocket in the pouch. He started rolling a joint.
“What about Janine?” asked Humvat hopefully.
“You got the hots for Janine, huh?” teased Grant as he continued his task. “Well, you gotta make better sales than Jimmy Rees if you wanna piece of her ass. She only goes for the best salesman, man. The top dog”.
He took another sip of beer. “You know, one week a couple of months ago I actually beat Jimmy and it was the weekend, and me and her were both totally wasted. She turns around to me and looks me in the eye, and says 'I wanna fuck the top dog' so who am I to turn her down? So we're going at it and I can feel we're both gonna come at the same time, and it's great when that happens, and I tell her and suddenly she yells at me she wants me to come on her face, so I sorta just about managed to get it out and do it in time. Afterwards I asked her why she did it, and was she into some kind of kinky stuff maybe. She turns around and says she has a boyfriend and she don't wanna be unfaithful. Can you believe that? She thinks so long as you don't come inside her then she's not cheating? I tell you man, she's one fucked up bitch”.
Humvat remained silent, but deep within him the hastily constructed towers of his dreams were crashing and toppling like fragile wooden buildings in an earthquake. Grant lit the joint, took a long puff and offered it to Humvat who declined obliviously. “No. I not smoke”.
Grant shrugged his shoulders, opened up another can of beer and continued. “Listen man, I’m sorry for being pissed off with you earlier, but Sibowitz always unloads the new recruits onto me. And if you hadn’t been around I’d have had some foxy blond pussy from earlier today as well. She was up and ready for it. I could tell. Anyhow, when we get to California I’m outta here”.
He paused briefly for thought. “That’s if I’m still alive”.
Then the intensifying effects of the Marijuana started to hit him. He inspected Humvat closely and a realisation of recognition swept into and then out of his eyes.
“Hey man! Now I know where I've seen you before. You’re a dead ringer for the Australian guy Larry on that TV show”.
“I know.” sighed Humvat. ”He is curse of my life. Everywhere I go people are point at me and poking me, all because of Larry bastard. He will be ruin of me”.
“No, no, no,” insisted Grant. “He’s gonna become your meal ticket, man. This business is tough, it’s dog eat dog, and if you got any advantage you gotta use it man. You gotta pretend to be Larry. I’m telling you, that is such a cool idea. Larry going around people’s houses, knocking on their door and selling them Deterjeron! It’s bitching! You’ll make a fortune, man”.
Humvat contemplated. “But I never seen the Larry. I do not know how he talks and what things he says. If I am play the part of Larry I need know these things”.
“Ok, man. All you need to know is he’s Australian. Can you do an Australian accent?”
Humvat shrugged. “I don’t know what Australian sounds like”.
Grant contorted his face and drawled “Well, it sounds a bit like this mate. They always call everyone mate. They say things like ‘Sure as a dead dingo’, ‘Amber nectar’ and ‘Don’t toss a tiger’. And they end most sentences like they’re asking a question?”
Humvat remained unconvinced. “I need know much more. I try it yesterday with some mad woman and she throw us out of her car”.
“Listen man, remember all the bullshit they give you in those sales meetings about MindTone thinking?”
Humvat nodded his agreement. “Yeah, is bullshit”.
“Well, the way I see it, some of it is actually true. There’s nothing special about Deterjeron. Tony goes on about it being this fucking fantastic secret product, but that’s where all the bullshit is man. It’s just soap and water for chrissake. This MindTone stuff seems to me like a good way to build up confidence, and that’s what really counts in this game. Having the balls to get out there and then follow the script to stop you from thinking too much about it all. You just need to find a bit of confidence and write your own script. But with necessity being the mother of invention, you’re gonna have to make it up as you go along”.
“Well, I know how he speak and some of words, I suppose.” pondered Humvat. Then he looked strangely at Grant. “Blood is coming out of your ear”.
Grant pulled some tissue paper out of his pocket and used it to dab himself. “Like I said, man,” he sighed. “If I’m still alive”.
A few yards away was a tall Magnolia tree, overlooking a dirty stream. The leaves rustled in one of the higher branches and a pelican swooped down into the water. He then reappeared with a small silver snake wriggling in his beak. The bird quickly and firmly beat the snake's head against the ground until it was smashed open, and with a final spasm it died. The pelica
n greedily gobbled its prey then flew back up to its perch, looking down upon the world below, serving a reminder that nature is treacherous and always watching and waiting to strike in whatever way it has to.
A while later they decided to go back to selling. They approached a woman sweeping her front porch.
“Now remember,” whispered Grant. “Start off with ‘G’day mate. Larry O’s the name. Pleased to meet you’ and take it from there. I’ll be waiting out here. Give me a yell if you need me”.
“Oh, I will.” grimaced Humvat
He approached the woman and said “G’day mate. Larry O’s the name. Pleased to meet you”.
She blinked at him, hardly able to believe her eyes. “Larry? Oh my god! Is it you? It is you! Well bless my soul, what on earth are you doing here?”
“I’m selling this, mate.” he continued, holding up the sample bottle of cleaning fluid.
“Oh.“ she replied, somewhat crestfallen. Then she perked up. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you do some of your funny phrases for me?”
Humvat was having to think quickly on his feet. “Which one you want, mate?”
“How about the one about the dead dingo? It’s so funny, it always cracks me up”.
“Ok. Don't toss a dead dingo, mate”.
She looked at him strangely. “What about the tiger one?”
Oh yes. He remembered Grant mentioning this one, and he was much happier to be in familiar territory. He could even improvise.
“Grr!” he growled holding up his hands and spreading his fingers, pretending to extend them like claws. “Don’t tug a tiger, mate!”
“That’s wonderful Larry.” she sighed. “Thank you very much”.
“Will you buy cleaning fluid now, mate?” he asked.
“Yes I will.” she sighed. “Let me just go inside and see how much money there is in my purse“.
She disappeared inside the house, closing the front door behind her. Several minutes passed, and she hadn’t reappeared. She must have lost her purse somewhere. Several more uneventful minutes passed by. Humvat waited patiently; maybe she’d forgotten about him. Suddenly there was the wailing and screeching sound of a police siren and two police officers were upon him. The woman opened the door.
“Is this the one you made the call to 911 for ma’am?” barked one of the officers.
“Yes officer. I want him arrested for impersonating a TV star”.
“I’m afraid there's no law for that ma’am, but I’ll give him a ticket for jaywalking”.
Humvat’s eyes fearfully searched for some support from the waiting Grant but he was nowhere to be seen.
The police officer pulled a notebook out of the car. “Forename?” he asked.
Humvat said a quick prayer to himself and gulped. “Tony”.
“Surname?”
“Valento”.
“Address?”
The police car drove off and Humvat skulked away. Grant appeared from nowhere, like an illusionist's trick.
“What happened, man?” he asked, disingenuously.
“Police give me this!” shrieked Humvat, brandishing the ticket. “And I must take documents to police station!”
“Wow, bummer man.” soothed Grant with a sharp intake of breath.
He inspected the ticket and shook his head. “And not a wise move using Tony’s name”.
“And where you were when I need you?!” scowled Humvat.
“Sorry man, but I’m wanted in New York State. I can’t get involved with the cops and any of that shit”.
They trudged along aimlessly. “You know” sighed Grant. “Things are normally better than this. Today has just been a really bad day. They’re not usually this bad”.
Grant’s bad day was becoming Humvat’s living nightmare. They found a spot which was isolated enough so nobody would report them to the police, yet obvious enough for Sibowitz to find them, and they sat down by the road.
“You just gotta learn to speak like Larry, man.” decided Grant. “And then you can start making your fortune”.
“The Larry will destroy me if he does not get me send to prison first!” fumed Humvat.
Sibowitz and the van approached down the road. They got to their feet but it drove straight past them. Humvat felt the hunger in his stomach.
Meanwhile, on the other side of a different town Debbie was picking up her sales crew. It was time to deliver the Deterjeron they'd sold and collect payments. She looked in disbelief at the order sheets Parvark submitted to her.
“Sweet Jesus, Parvark!” she muttered. “You’ve sold more stock than we’re carrying in the van!”
She headed off to make the first drop-off of the five gallons Mikey had offloaded earlier. He knocked on the door and after what seemed like an eternity of shuffling, yanking chains and unbolting locks, the old woman breathlessly opened the door once again.
“Can I help you?” she asked him.
“Just dropping off your order ma’am.” smiled Mikey.
“What order?”
“The Deterjeron you ordered earlier.” he continued to smile benignly.
“There’s some sort of mistake. I didn’t order nothing. I’ve never seen you before”.
Mikey started seething. “You ordered five gallons of cleaning fluid this morning”.
He waved the order form in her face. “Look. This is your signature here”.
She peered at the order form. “That ain’t my signature.” she pronounced. “What would I want with five gallons of cleaning fluid? Even if the Good Lord looks down on me kindly, I ain’t gonna live long enough to use up that much cleaning fluid”.
Mikey started to get angry. “Now listen here…”
He was interrupted by Debbie beeping the car horn. “Leave it Mikey!” she shouted. “We can use the five gallons to make up some of the shortfall on Parvark’s sales”.
Mikey flicked the birdie at the old woman as he turned to go back to the van, and snarled “Fuck you, you stupid old bitch! You just cost me fifteen dollars!”
“No, fuck you son.” she curtly countered. “You think you’re a regular hustler, scamming old women out of their money. But you’re not. You’re not even minor league. You think I’m a dozy old fucker and you’re the young buck, the star of the show. Well let me tell you something, there’s only one difference between you and me. I’ve been to all the places you’ve been to in life, but you haven’t visited half the places where I’ve been. That’s all”.
In a rage, Mikey made for her, but was stopped by the van horn blaring again.
Humvat and Grant were at last in van number one and had dropped off their gallon and a half of sales. Sibowitz picked up the rest of the crew and dropped off their equally meagre orders. Despite their howling complaints, he decided they were going to try another part of town and he dropped them off once again, one by one.
Grant had informed him about Humvat receiving a ticket, so he decided not to chance putting him back out on the street, much to Humvat’s weary delight. But the results of the second sales drive were just as disappointing, and after dropping off the half gallon Grant had managed to sell by literally begging some poor woman, Sibowitz reluctantly decided to head back to the motel. It was eight pm.
Having completely sold their stock, sales crew number two were already on their way home. Debbie stopped outside a liquor store.
“Go on, Parvark.” she encouraged him. “You’re the star player. Go get yourself some beer”.
She handed him a ten dollar note.
Hesitantly he took the money and emerged from the liquor store with a six pack. He resumed his seat in the van and beamed at the rest of the crew. He opened a can and the froth spilled out in a hissing sound. He put the can to his mouth and tasted the cool beer. Finally he was beginning to feel a good warm feeling about Deterjeron. He was also starting to feel he’d been a bit of an over-reacting fool to have suspected anything might be amiss in the first place, picking up strands of coincidence t
o create a chain of certainty.
The rest of the crew looked longingly at the beers in an unpunctuated silence.
“Is anybody buy beer?” he asked nobody in particular.
“You have to have at least one hundred dollars in your daily sales kitty before you get any money for alcohol,” sighed Mikey. “And you’re the only one of us who made enough money today to qualify”.
Parvark understood what was being implied, but remained tight lipped for as long as he could. Eventually he reluctantly asked “Is anybody want beer?” The other five cans instantly disappeared amidst a flurry of popping and hissing. He was beginning to wish he’d hidden some.
“Be pleased tell me,” he continued. “What is kitty?”
“Well,” slurped Mikey. “Any commission you make is held in safe keeping for you by Tony. He keeps a balance of account for you. Whenever you want any money, you get it from him”.
Parvark’s danger detector started to ring warning bells again in his mind. “I get all kitty from him tomorrow?”
“I guess so.” shrugged Mikey. “Though I never heard of anyone asking for their entire kitty in one go”.
“Hey Parvark.” beamed Debbie. “Don’t worry man. You’ve made three hundred and forty eight dollars on your first day. You’re gonna make a fortune. You really kicked ass out there”.
He sat back and allowed himself a speck of optimism. Yes, it was true after all. He was going to make a treasure chest of dollars.
They got back to the motel to find the third sales crew had already returned, while the first were still out on the road. There was a buzz in the lobby as news of his success filtered through. Janine came up to him.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” she asked. “I do believe it’s so important to be mixing with the right people. People like you”.
Parvark was flattered by the attention. “For sure,” he nodded, “Let us celebrate with meal”.
She took him by the hand and asked. “Do you have any plans for the weekend, top dog?”
It was almost eleven thirty when sales crew one eventually returned to the motel car park. Humvat looked out of the window and noticed the middle aged, middle class beggar woman was still out the front, on the sidewalk. She was like a ghost haunting him, because if this could happen to her it could certainly happen to him. She was his ghost of Christmas future.
“Anyone with sales of less than one hundred dollars head straight for the WAL meeting.” barked Sibowitz. “And that means each and every one of you miserable losers. Non attendance will result in a thirty dollar fine”.
Humvat slunk out of the van, his body, mind and spirit crushed. He headed for the conference room and peered through a pane of glass in the door. Holy Baqra! They were all practising their sales techniques on one another again. He could hear Valento’s bellowing voice.
“A basic principle of making sales is to demonstrate matching benefits. Ergo you can always demonstrate that even the cleanest prospects inhabit unsafe, dirt ridden houses. Deterjeron will demonstrably clean these habitats, it will make them safer to inhabit. This is a matching benefit. And talking of matching benefits, my book entitled ‘How To Transform Your Life Through MindTone’ is now available for sale online. Make sure you order a copy”.
These people were lunatics. They worshipped at the altar of money with the same dedication as orthodox Siminites worshipping at the prayer temple. He scanned the room but was unable to locate Parvark. He then made the instant decision that if Parvark could miss the infernal meeting so could he, and hang the consequences of a fine. He'd experienced enough hassle during the course of this single day to last him for a lifetime. Even his hunger had faded into the depths of his tiredness.
He wandered through the maze of corridors in the motel and, having got lost twice, he at last found room 224. He crept into the darkness, turned the radio off and slumped into the bed Mikey wasn’t going to be sleeping in.
Meanwhile, in South Jefesta Doctor Wirliv surveyed the latest translated parchment from the Book of Finding Contentment, written by the prophet Baqra as dictated to him by the Inventor.
“Last night I dreamt I was walking through the academy. All the rooms and corridors were empty except for one small lecture theatre, where an old man sat huddled over a huge pile of documents. He was wailing loudly and beating upon them wildly with his hands.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
He stopped, looked up at me and replied ‘I am supposed to be a philosopher but I cannot answer the simplest of questions’.
‘What are these questions?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I can help’.
He looked at me with contempt. ‘What is the largest number there can be?’ he asked, and before I could reply he added ‘For you can always add one to the largest number you can think of and create a larger one.’
‘How big is the largest known structure, the universe?’ he continued. ‘And what lies beyond it, if this is not also the universe?’
‘The smallest known particle is the atom’ he continued, getting into his stride. ‘But what is an atom made of? How can that be?’
‘What happened before the beginning of time and what will happen after time has ended?’
He shook his head forlornly. ‘Trying to answer these questions is driving me into madness and an early grave!’
I shook my head in sympathy. ‘I don’t know the answers either’ I admitted”.
“The meaning of this dream is quite clear to me. When the Inventor created man he gave him the adjustment of intelligence, so man alone amongst all creatures can ask questions like these. However, He did not give man the adjustment required to be able to answer them. Only the Inventor himself knows the answers to these, and He will reveal them to you when you arrive in the kingdom of Light with a pure soul full of grace, ready to be seated by His side for eternity. It is a pointless task to ask questions which you cannot answer, and one of the keys to finding contentment is not to worry about those things you have no control over”.
Chapter Twelve
Fitting Faces