The Golden Egg
Newt was making yummy noises across the table, but Jimmy wouldn’t look up. He didn’t have to. He knew what he would see: Newton Brisbane, eating. Eyes aglow, jaws grinding, an expression of contentment on his face like Bowser at the feed bowl. And it didn’t much matter what he was eating; filet mignon or Cracker Jack, if it could be chewed and swallowed, it was a hit.
NATILIE RYAN: Licensed Real Estate Broker, NatilieRyanHomes.com; TOP FLIGHT CONSTRUCTION: Roofing, Siding, Sheetrock, Windows; JEROME JEWELERS: Highest Prices Paid for Gold and Silver…
Though he wasn’t the least bit hungry, Jimmy took a bite of his cheeseburger. He’d be needing the energy, he knew, back at Holcomb’s, the department store where the two of them worked. Unloading trailers, sweeping stockrooms, hauling skids of fertilizer around on pallet jacks—grunt work. And him with a higher education, no less. Or almost. Alright: one semester of community college. He should have stayed in there and toughed it out, earned a degree in something. Anything. You had to have a diploma these days for a decent job…
“You gonna eat those?”
“Huh?”
“Those fries. You gonna eat ‘em?”
“No. Here, make room.” He lifted his plate and shoved them off onto Newton’s; the kid was already drooling. But he wasn’t a kid, was he. At nineteen, he was a full-grown man. He himself was twenty-five, halfway to fifty, one foot in the grave already. With no degree, no girlfriend, no prospects…
What did people do when they were adrift in life, and needed to refocus? He snapped his fingers. They joined the Army, that’s what! He imagined himself in a jaunty uniform with those things on his shoulders, what were they called again? Epithets, yeah, the girls went nuts for those! Learn a skill, see the world, meet people—sure, why not? He could do that!
But even as he pictured it, his scheme began to fizzle. No way could he do that. Hut-one, hut-two, some doofus shouting orders—he’d be AWOL in a week. His gaze returned to the placemat.
METRO FITNESS: Free Weights, Cardio, Personalized Training; HERITAGE FUNERAL HOME: Serving the Community for Three Generations; STAR STRUCK DANCE STUDIO: Where Your Feet Follow Your Heart up to the Clouds…
Brisbane was scratching himself like a dog with the mange; Jimmy couldn’t resist. “So, Newt,” he asked him. “What are your plans for the future?”
“I was thinkin’ of gettin’ me a slice of that cherry pie they got over there. With a big ol’ scoop of whipped cream on top.”
“No, I mean big picture. The rest of your life. You going to stay at Holcomb’s, or what?”
His lunchmate frowned. “Gee, I don’t know. I guess. The money ain’t so hot, but I get by.”
“You’re living at home with your parents.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And it bothers me.”
“How come? They probably like having you around. You know, for company.”
Jimmy was scanning the diner. There were about a dozen patterns going on here, all clashing: pink-and-green floor tiles, copper-colored counter, checkerboard ceiling—as if they’d picked them out of a catalog blindfolded. Dominating the rear wall was a six-foot panorama of the owners on a sandy beach. But they were as far away from each other as they could possibly get, she in a huff with her arms crossed and he in a moody slouch—why would you even want a picture like that?
“Only losers live at home with their parents. I want to make something of myself.”
Brisbane bristled. “I ain’t no loser. I like Holcomb’s. They treat me right and the work’s okay, and they got foot-long chilli dogs at the Snack Bar, and those big soft pretzels with the salt on ‘em—” He lit up at the thought of it. “I love those things, man.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. Pretzels…
SCALFANI ENERGY: Diesel, Kerosene, In-ground Tank Replacement; ASAP MORTGAGE: Condos, Co-ops, Finance Guaranteed; BIG MONEY IN SALES: Motivated Individuals, $60-$80K, No Experience Necessary…
He read that last one again. A thought formed, simmered, boiled over onto the stove.
That was him. It was him they were describing. Motivated? For eighty grand he’d climb Mt. Everest! Swim the Nile! Wrestle a turtle! Or an alligator, rather! And sales, boy, that was right up his alley! He was a good talker, people liked him, he looked sharp in a tie and jacket—wait a minute. Did he even have a tie and jacket? Because he’d need one for the interview… Sure he did. The blue blazer Mom had gotten him for Uncle Roy’s funeral. With Dad’s red-and-gold necktie. Bingo!
His mind ran wild with the possibilities: nice clothes, nice shoes, nice… So, what do you do for a living, Jimmy? I’m a salesman. I’m in sales. Say, that’s a swell car you’re driving. Want to go for a spin? Oh, can I, Jimmy? Can I really? Sure, babe, just let me put the top down…
“What’s so funny?”
“Huh?”
“You’re sittin’ there grinnin’ like you got a boner or something.”
Jimmy smirked. “Yeah, that’s right, Einstein. I got a boner. You know what’s wrong with you, Newt? You think small. Miniscule. Grains of sand, you know what I mean?”
Brisbane shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Now me, I think big. Real big. I’m going places—” He noticed the clock. “Speaking of which, come on. We’re going to be late.”
“What about my pie? I don’t care if they dock me ten minutes. I’m hungry.” “Well, I care. I’m calling in sick tomorrow, and I don’t want any trouble over it. Get it to go. Lunch is on me.”
“Gee, thanks!” said Brisbane. “You win the lottery or something?”
“Not exactly,” said Jimmy. “But you know what? I think I might. I think I just might.” Tearing off a corner of the placemat, he folded it in half, and slipped it into his shirt pocket.
* * *
He wasn’t too familiar with Flucksburg, having only been there once for a pair of boots that had given him blisters on both feet. But he’d gotten directions from the lady on the phone (if only he could remember them), and what was her name, again? Wanda? Sandra? He had to get better with things like that. A good memory was important for a salesman, one of the skills he’d need to make this gig work. And he was going to make it work, by gum, no more backing down or chickening—
Wait a minute. Where was he? Had he made a wrong turn? He couldn’t be late for the interview! Let’s see: he started out on Lexington and followed that down to Main, made a right at the light and a left at the church, and he was supposed to turn again on—what was it? Some kind of fish. Tuna…trout…tilapia… Walleye! There it was! He made a screeching right as a flashbar flared in the rearview mirror. Oh, no! Not now— But the cop went around him and zoomed off down the road.
He pulled into a slot and listened to his heart hammer. When he checked his reflection, he was beet-red and sweating. That wouldn’t do; they’d think he was sick or something. He found a tissue and wiped his face. Then he remembered the water on the back seat. He grabbed the bottle and took a swig—yeccch! How old was this stuff? Oh, great! Now he’d have food poisoning! But he couldn’t think like that, he had to be positive; this was crunch time. He rolled down the window for a deep breath. There, that was better. Now all he had to do was to find the Armstrong Building, Suite 2B. It had to be around here somewhere. He pictured a shining tower of glass and aluminum, but that didn’t seem right for this neighborhood. Across the street was a boarded-up tire shop, and next to him was another dump: flaking stucco, sagging gutters, a window fixed with duct tape—and then he found the sign: Arm-trog, it read. Holy mackerel! This was the place!
* * *
The hallway stank. Of mildew and old food. There was an elevator there and he pressed the button, but when nothing happened he took the stairs beside it two at a time. He paused at the entrance to Suite 2B, mesmerized by the placard: Di Vinci International. Wow. This was the big time, alright. Paris, London, Hong Kong, who knew where? Exotic food, exotic climes—exotic women…
With exotic diseases, he thought next. And jet lag, bedbugs, foreign policemen with scars on their cheeks—could he even handle a scene like that? He’d seen a show once where a tourist had ended up in a real, old-timey dungeon—
“Help you, sport?”
The man at his shoulder was in his forties, balding, in a red-and-green sport jacket with collar points over the lapels. He wore loafers with tassels, but no socks. “I have an appointment with Mr. Di Vinci, sir. I’m applying for a job.”
“An appointment? Oh, sure, I get it. Come on in.” He opened the door for Jimmy.
In the far corner of the reception room was a secretary with her head down on the desk. Beside her was an inner door topped in frosted glass, and against the walls were couches and coffee tables with vases of flowers on them. The man extended a hand. “Sterling Forrest,” he said, revealing a gap-toothed grin.
“Jimmy Stuart, sir.”
“Ah, like the actor.”
“I spell it the other way.”
“Sure you do, I get it. Well, have a seat, here, kid, and I’ll see if the boss is decent.” He started across but veered off to rap knuckles on the desk. “Up and at ‘em, lover. It’s showtime.”
The woman awoke with a start. She wore pink, cat-eye glasses with matching lipstick, and her hair was done up in a bun, with a plastic arrow stuck through it. “Thanks, Forry,” she said, beginning to type. “I have to finish this.” He entered the office and closed the door behind him.
Jimmy took one of the couches. It was stained and threadbare, he noticed. In fact, the whole establishment looked kind of shabby: peeling paint, flowers wilting, the hanging prints crooked and smudged. All of which made perfect sense; in a busy sales operation, there wouldn’t be a lot of time for housekeeping, and the pace would be enough to burn anyone out—just look at their secretary. He was looking at her, in fact, when she jerked her head around and gasped.
“How long have you been here?”
“Oh—just a couple of minutes, ma’am. I arrived with Mister—” But a hail of laughter cut him short, and they both swung to the office. The woman stood up, smoothed a snug red skirt, and went over to tap on the door. When there was no response, she tapped a little harder. When there was still no response, she hauled off and pounded on it with a fist: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Silence fell. She opened the door and spoke harshly to someone, then pivoted back to Jimmy. “You may go in now,” she cooed.
Three scowling faces awaited him like a court martial; he froze in the doorway, unsure what to do. After a second they all started laughing. In the center, at a big, imposing desk, was a man in a sky-blue jacket and bolo tie. He had blazing dark eyes, a pencil mustache, and an arching black pompadour like Elvis. Slouched to his right was Sterling Forrest, and on the other side, overflowing a director’s chair in a cream-colored suit, was a massive individual with a comb-over, bulging eyeballs and lips like blood-sausages. The one at the desk reached out to him. “Leo Di Vinci,” he said. “First among equals. I believe you know Sterling, here, our vice president, and this is the corporate fixer, Mr. Naugahyde.”
“Call me Stavros.”
“And what shall we call you, young squire?”
“It’s James Stuart, sir—”
“Like the actor.”
“I spell it the other way.”
“Of course you do. Sit down, sit down,” he urged, waving to an empty seat. Jimmy looked around him. There were photographs of business people in cubicles, at meetings, chatting at the water cooler—but they all looked false, somehow, like pages torn from a magazine—
“So, you want to be a salesman, is that right?” Di Vinci fingered a tie clasp shaped like a mermaid.
“Oh, yes, sir, very much,” said Jimmy, trying to smile. His gaze kept darting to Naugahyde, who regarded him strangely as he licked his lips.
“Fine, fine,” said Di Vinci. He picked up a bell with a handle, rang it resoundingly, and set it down again. Jimmy expected something to happen now, but nothing did.
“You got a résumé on you?” This from Forrest, over his shoulder.
Jimmy’s heart sank. “Well, I— No, sir. I forgot it. But I can get it to you this afternoon—”
Di Vinci arose for a seventh-inning stretch. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, son. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and what I’ve seen so far augurs well for your success. You’re a cab driver, is that correct?”
“No, sir. I work at Holcomb’s. In the receiving department.”
“Even better.” He circled behind Naugahyde to the window. When he depressed a slat in the blinds, motes of dust filled the air. “Just look at them out there, intrepid knights of free enterprise. Barber, haberdasher, delicatessen man—even young Johnny Jones, hawking the daily rag. Each of them an essential cog in the great, meshing gears of prosperity. Very inspirational.” Instead of returning to the desk, he strode to the center of the room, and took hold of his lapels.
“Trade, barter, commerce, call it what you will. From Johnny Jones to General Motors, it is an essential concept, a defining ethos. Both the potting soil of the seedling, and the latticework of the vine. The fountainhead of production. The keystone to advancement. The provenance of art and culture, science and industry. And it’s men like yourselves, entrepreneurs, movers and shakers with vigor and foresight, that have made it all possible.
“In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that this beloved nation itself, this land of milk and honey, of Old Glory, America the beautiful, purple mountains’ waves of grain, is built upon those very same, time-tested principles. Why, just think of it, man! The implications! Washington! Lincoln! Plymouth Rock! Baseball! Bikinis! The Liberty Bell—”
He stabbed a finger at Jimmy. “But you’ll say that I’ve gone too far. That I exaggerate, pontificate, that I’ve lost my marbles. Admit it, embrace it, I won’t be offended. But the nut of my argument rings as true today as it has throughout the ages. Mutual needs. Reciprocal desires. That’s the ticket. I have something you want, you have something I want; we haggle and flatter and threaten and cajole, and before you know it—bingo! The golden egg!”
“Reverend!” shouted Forrest.
“Why, the very notion of what we do here gives me the willies! The willies, I tell you! I lie awake nights! How is it conceivable, I wonder, that we have come so far? Reached such heights? Amassed such laurels? And you, my eager beaver—unless I’m wildly off the mark—would like to become a part of it! An abettor! A minion! A plodding ass in the mule train of Di Vinci! Am I mistaken?”
“No, sir! Count me in!”
“Then IN you shall be COUNTED! And now, my young buck, for the test of fire. For we shall presently embark upon an actual sales call, right here in town, and you yourself shall be riding shotgun. Pendergast is the fellow’s name, an oboe player, you’ll like the chap. Oh, how I envy you, James. I remember my first sales call like it was only yesterday. Wait a minute—no I don’t; can’t even say what year it was. I was closer to your age, of course, had my own teeth then, and—”
“Excuse me, Leo,” said Forrest, glancing at his watch, “but there’s a certain amount of hurry-up involved here.”
“Quite so. Salesmen, on your feet!” They were all up in a flash except for Naugahyde, who wobbled ominously in the director’s chair. After a series of cracking noises, it dropped him to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The others rushed to help him as Jimmy backed away. By the window now, he peeked through a gap in the blinds; there was nothing to see out there but a solid brick wall—
“Hey, kid,” called Forrest. “Lend a hand, would you? We got hernias!”
* * *
When the four men filed from the office, the secretary was awaiting them, bag in hand. “Jimmy,” asked the boss, “have you met my sister, Rhonda? Cute as a button and quick as a rattlesnake.”
“Yes sir, we uh—” But she was approaching him with an elbow bent, like a date for the prom. Flabbergasted, he took it.
“Where do you find these specimens, Leo?”
“Roll of the dice, my dear. Loaded, of course.”
The next thing Jimmy knew they were cramming into a white-and-rust Cadillac, Di Vinci at the wheel, he and the girl beside him, and the springs groaning audibly as Stavros climbed aboard. They departed the curb in a flatulent blast of backfires and blue exhaust.
“Well, son, how does it feel to be on your first expedition?”
Jimmy was trying to see through a scrim of dirt and bugs; it seemed like they were traveling much too fast. “Pretty exciting, sir!” he yelled, above the roar of a perforated muffler. “But I’m still a bit confused. I mean—what do we sell exactly?”
Di Vinci exploded in laughter. “What do we sell? What don’t we sell! Hard goods, soft goods, commodities, antiquities—”
“Sold an airplane once,” hollered Forrest, “in Guadalajara. Little prop job with all the trimmings.”
Wow, thought Jimmy. Airplanes, Guadalajara—
But they were already pulling over. “Well, here we are, kids,” said Di Vinci. “The stomping ground of legends, great and small.” Jimmy couldn’t say what he’d expected, but it sure as heck wasn’t the Crazy Legs Lounge. They emptied out of the car—Naugahyde like a beaching whale—yet once his shoes hit the sidewalk, he seemed to transform completely: back went the shoulders, up went the chin, and he entered the club like a VIP.
It was gloomy inside, with a dim reddish glow from Chinese lanterns behind the bar. There was music playing (a tango?), and a hatchet-faced patron in a vest and bow tie hastening forth to greet them. “Leo!” he gushed. “Welcome back! Let me look at you. How long has it been?”
“Ah, about a week, I’d guess. But I have a surprise here, Hoot. In addition to the usual suspects, we’ve brought along our newest inductee, Mr. James Stuart.”
“Ah, like the actor!”
“Spells it the other way. Jimmy, allow me to introduce Colonel Hoot McCloskey, peerless proprietor, heralded huckster, and persona non grata in fourteen states.”
“I don’t like to brag,” said McCloskey, “but you’re forgetting Puerto Rico.”
“Pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Likewise, chief. Now, if you folks will follow me, I have a special table ready, right by the stage.”
Rhonda perked up. “Ooh! We’re going to have entertainment?”
“That all depends, sugar. Can you carry a tune?”
She stared at him a moment, then giggled and touched his arm. “Oh, Hoot.”
No sooner had they been seated than a pitcher of beer arrived, and the waiter began doling out shots of some greenish liquor. Jimmy said, “Gosh, Mr. Di Vinci, I don’t usually drink during the day—”
“This isn’t drinking, son, it’s a tongue loosener. Salesman’s grease. A Continental practice, like bangers and mash.” He raised his glass and held it aloft until his protégé had followed suit. “Anchors aweigh,” he sang, and the bottoms went up. A chorus of contented sighs ensued—except from Jimmy, who choked and lunged for his beer.
“You were a sailor?” said Forrest. “You’ve been awful tight-lipped about it.”
Rhonda laughed. “Leo was in the Army,” she explained. “Until he went AWOL, that is.”
“Had to,” said the boss. “A matter of personal dignity. Hut-one, hut-two, some doofus shouting orders—it was more than a man could bear. But they rounded me up quick enough. Six long months I spent in the brig. Ate rats while I was in there, like Papillon.”
Jimmy was agape. “You ate rats?”
“Well, not really. You’ve caught me out. There weren’t any rats, only mice. And lice. And chiggers.” When he reached into his jacket, the jolly front collapsed. “Egad! I’ve left my billfold on the chifforobe! James, my good man. Could you spot me a couple of Jacksons? A pair of twenties, that is? Just until your first advance, of course.”
Jimmy was grinning helplessly as he forked them over. “Gosh, Mr. Di Vinci! I get an advance?”
“Does he get an advance,” mugged the boss. “Why, once we’ve made this transaction, lad, you’ll be swimming in it. The world shall be your oyster. Your oyster, I tell you!” (Jimmy was beside himself; he loved oysters! Or were those clams?)
The waiter was back to fill their glasses. Now it was Naugahyde’s turn to toast. “To hanky panky, hocus pocus and the ol’ switcheroo!”
Jimmy didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but it sure sounded swell. In fact, from where he was sitting, things just couldn’t be better. Rhonda was playing footsie with him under the table, his three new partners were buds already, and his future looked bright as a Harvest Moon. Whatever that was. He loosened his tie and leaned back. An hour went by, and then another, with the music playing and the liquor flowing and the rest of his paycheck duly donated, and when it finally occurred to him that the man they’d come to meet had never actually materialized, it didn’t seem to matter one iota.
No, sir; he was sold.
This story first appeared in The Nude Bruce Review.
