The Bullfighter Checks Her Make-Up by Susan Orlean

Author:Susan Orlean
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409006534
Publisher: Random House

FANS

ONE OF THESE DAYS, Leo Herschman is going to clean up his shop, the Modern Supply Company, which is on the third floor of a narrow building near City Hall. In the meantime, Modern Supply, where Mr. Herschman has been selling nothing but ceiling fans for more than thirty years, has the look of a Swiss village all but obliterated by an Alpine rockslide. “We’re jammed to hell in here,” Mr. Herschman was complaining the other day as he extracted an order form from a pile of boxes, flyers, fan catalogs, newspapers, and stationery on his desk. “I keep planning to get this place organized. When my late wife and I opened Modern Supply, in 1932, we had a beautiful store on Fulton Street. We sold all manner of appliances—refrigerators, ovens, everything. But the Fulton Street building was torn down for the World Trade Center, and we moved to this lousy place. We brought what I would call the minimum from Fulton Street— fans and motors. Now all I sell is ceiling fans. It’s still too crowded in here. A designer was here once buying a fan, and he said to me, ‘Sir, would you care to retain me to redesign your store?’ I said, ‘What are you planning to do, set fire to it?’”

Mr. Herschman likes to say that he became an adult at the age of eight, which means that he has been an adult for eighty-one years. He is short and wiry, with strong cheekbones, a certain amount of smooth gray hair, and a voice that is very easily heard. He wears black-rimmed eyeglasses on his forehead or at the conventional angle, depending. His eyebrows are in a constant state of arch. He is fitter and livelier than many people his age, but he likes to punctuate his workday with moments of private reflection. This means that people who come to Modern Supply hoping to have a consultation about fans with Mr. Herschman, who is described in his advertisements as “Leo Herschman, Famous Expert,” are sometimes disappointed. Interest in fan consultations usually increases with the onset of hot weather, but so does the number of Mr. Herschman’s private moments. “That’s fine with me,” Mr. Herschman said, shrugging. “I can’t stand the general public. I make no effort to be courteous to them. I also don’t stand for any undue familiarity. We get a lot of me-generation people in here, and I try to get rid of them as fast as possible. My assistants can take care of most issues that people come to have us resolve. There’s not that much to know about fans, but I suppose I am the famous expert. I know that makes me sound like a big ham. When a guy comes in and says, ‘Hey, are you the famous expert?’ I say, ‘Well, big boy, I’m lying. I don’t know a fan from a bucket of mud.’”

Before becoming big in ceiling fans, Mr. Herschman excelled in a few other careers. “When I do something, I do it all the way,” he told us.

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