How to Sell by Clancy Martin

Author:Clancy Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374173357
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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Out on the highway, on the runs, was like working the back-of-the-house. The back-of-the-house had a camaraderie and ease that the sales floor lacked. In back you could feel that the customers were not people. Being out on the highway, doing the runs, you listened to whatever music you pleased, you could stop at Hardee’s and eat an order of chicken strips with that mustard sauce, you could find a park and stop there for a while—there was a cemetery near Granddad’s where I often stopped in the late afternoons—and read a chapter of a book or just lie on your back and watch the clouds. I wished Lisa could come hang out with me there. Even in the cold I would lie there, some afternoons, for half an hour, between the gravestones, and smoke a joint, and smell the winter air.

As Christmas approached and my phone sales improved they let me leave the store less and less. I was often at the top of the daily phone sales board, and a couple of times I made the top of the week. That meant a five-hundred-dollar cash bonus. So Sheila kept me on the phones all day long, but in the evenings I still did my Dallas runs.

This December night it was after eight and I called from Kizakov’s to tell Jim I was going to drive straight home after I made the last Dallas drop. But he wasn’t there. I asked for Lisa and she wasn’t there, either. So I changed my mind about going straight home and thought I would swing by the store and see if they were back yet. They probably just went out for a quick bite of dinner, I thought. Maybe all three of us could go get a beer before we went home. And then Jim and I could ride home together.

In the parking garage I saw the two of them. Lisa was sitting on the nose of Jim’s car with her hands between her legs and Jim stood a few feet away from her. It was dark and cold in the garage but light came through the open-aired space from the next building over. When you were getting into your car you could look into their office windows at night.

Jim and Lisa had not seen me. I had parked the car at the other end and was heading for the elevator when I saw it was them. I moved between two cars to watch them.

Lisa was crying.

I could hear Jim saying, “Oh, Lisa. What were you . . . ?”

I held my breath to listen more closely.

She said, “I don’t know what to do now. I’m afraid to go home.”

I listened closer still.

“I didn’t even remember my stupid shirt,” she said. “I’m such a moron. I didn’t even want to tell you.”

“I want to help you, Lisa,” he said. He ran his fingers down the side of her face. “I mean, I’m here for you. That’s not what I’m saying. But this time you need to clean up this mess of yours yourself.

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