The Franchiser by Stanley Elkin

Author:Stanley Elkin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781453204368
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2010-10-26T10:00:00+00:00

“…a disgrace,” the guy from Fort Worth said. “Fun is fun and boys will be boys and it’s all very well to live it up at a convention, but to come in drunk and disrupt a meeting like that, the full plenary session with a new line on the line, that is quite another story altogether and really it would be best for everyone concerned, best for Mr. Flesh, best for the people in the Bowling Green area, best, frankly, for Radio Shack, if Flesh would just quietly relinquish his franchise, sell it back to the mother corporation, which would of course buy back his stock as well, all at a reasonable price. We assure you, sir, that you will not lose by the transaction. If anything, it’s Radio Shack which will suffer the most immediate financial setback. So, while we cannot force you, while we cannot—”

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much? What’s your best offer?”

“Well, we’d have to send someone down there to take an inventory. We’d have to have an audit. We’d want to—”

“Sold.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say. I hadn’t thought you’d be so—”

“On one condition.”

“Condition? Now look here, mister, you don’t have to sell to us, but we don’t have to sell to you either. We can cut off your purchasing privileges, you’d have to find some other supplier. So don’t you start waving any ‘on one condition’s’ around.”

“That if he wants it you’ve got to resell the franchise to Ned Tubman of Erlanger, Kentucky.”

“There’s a franchise in Erlanger. Isn’t Tubman…”

“Tubman, yes. He owns the Radio Shack in Erlanger.”

“Why would you care…Listen, if you’re thinking of making some sort of dummy corporation, selling to us and using Tubman as a front…”

“Tubman, yes. Tubman must have first refusal. I’m not in it. Tubman has always wanted to see Bowling Green, Kentucky.”

“He wants to see Bowling Green, Kentucky?”

“Like other people want to see Paris or the Great Wall of China.”

“He’s never seen it?”

“No, but he’s heard so much about it. He’s studied up. He’s got picture postcards, but it’s not the same. He goes back to his Radio Shack after hours. You know those special aerials you rig up to make the stuff sound good?”

“Yes?”

“He pulls in the Bowling Green stations. He listens to the home games on the best equipment. He catches the local news.”

“I see.”

“You see shit, but if you want my franchise, you’ve got to offer it to Tubman. I’m not in it. I’ll get out, I’ll step aside. Gracefully. But Tubman gets first crack.”

“Why is this so important to you? Are you kin?”

“We met at the convention and exchanged a few words.”

“Then what the hell difference does it make to you who we sell to?”

“Tubman.”

“Why Tubman?”

“His name.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Mr. Flesh? I don’t smell booze, but—”

“TUBMAN! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“It’s a sheriff’s name!”

“A sheriff’s name,” the man from Fort Worth said.

“Can’t you see it? I mean, I can close my eyes and see it on a hoarding, NED TUBMAN FOR SHERIFF.

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