Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation (7 page)

My phone rang early the next day. It was Bob, informing me that it was officially time to get my hands dirty and “start selling this crap.” He’d cleared his schedule for the day and was going to train me personally. Still feeling bad about the Buddy thing, he advised me to be wary of agents asking for favors. “Those other guys tend to overcomplicate their jobs sometimes. Stick with me and I’ll keep you out of Alcatraz.”

I met Bob at Colonial Park Plaza, where his plan was to teach me, as he termed it, “the miraculous little foxhunt known as ‘cold calling.’” He stood there like an Indian wise man, making assessments in his head while silently looking up and down the mall. Finally, he declared: “Yeah, this’ll be a fucking log ride.” Then he reminded me of two things before we started out: 1) every business owner in the complex could greatly benefit from what we had to offer, and 2) for tactical purposes, he might occasionally introduce me as his nephew who recently lost both parents in a head-on collision.

We’d barely begun our mission before finding ourselves seated in the office of the mall manager, where Bob was made to read the uncluttered details of a strict no-solicitation policy. He finished it with a sigh, took off his reading glasses,
and sailed the document back across the manager’s desk. While he had very little in the way of rebuttal, he did let the man know that he was dear friends with former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor Ernie Kline.

There wasn’t much in the way of cold calling after that. Bob took a game swipe at a Hispanic guy in a shoe repair place down the street, but this was ultimately aborted due to “cultural obstacles.” It was decided that we needed to regroup, and somehow that brought us to a nearby bowling alley, where Bob downed a beer and I played Q*bert. Leaning against the machine, he kept imploring me to “shoot the little prick,” which was not the object of the game. Finally, I explained that Q*bert was a lover not a fighter. That one hit Bob so hard he spit out a mouthful of Stroh’s and laughed until he started to choke. “Jesus, Adam, where do you get this shit?” A few beers later, he called it a day and said we’d pick it back up tomorrow.

At home that night, my father asked me how things were going with Dirschberger. I told him it was difficult to tell. Reassuring me, he said, “In this business, you have to start in the gutter and get the shit kicked out of you a little bit. Dirschberger’s your man for that. One day, you’ll move on and work for a class act like Marty Stump.”

Bob was out with the flu for a few days, but he arrived back at the office reenergized and waving a scrap of newspaper. It
was an ad for a new tavern in Harrisburg called Totty’s Atmosphere. Restaurant owners, he asserted, make excellent prospects because they skim cash from the bar and need a place to park it. The bullpen didn’t stir. Under his breath, I heard Buddy Fowler refer to Bob as “a fiercely dedicated fool.” “C’mon, you hotshots,” Bob implored, “who wants in on this?” They all played dead. So I raised my hand. Bullshitters.

Roughly two-thirds of the way to Totty’s, Bob began to realize the address was “on the hill,” referring to Allison Hill, a black neighborhood in Harrisburg that was generally considered unsafe. As the landscape changed around us, Bob muttered with concern, “Where the fuck are we?” His anxiety increased after observing some men on a porch playing dominoes. “Jesus,” he gasped, “by sundown they’ll be lucky to find our toenails.”

We finally pulled up to Totty’s, and Bob let out a sigh. Through a crack in his window he offered an overly friendly “Hiya, fellas!” to some puzzled teenagers sitting on the curb. Then he turned to me and said in a low voice, “Adam, I can’t leave my car on this street unattended. Go in and talk to the owner. You can do it. Just follow the sales book. I’ll circle the block until you come out. If there’s no sign of you in thirty minutes, I’ll call the cavalry.” I stepped out of the car and Bob floored it.

I was already sweating as I crossed the street. It had less to do with nerves than the suit I was wearing—a black pinstripe my mom bought me from a markdown place called Cindy’s for Men II. It was a decent suit, but not without its quirks; the shiny fabric refused to breathe and always felt moist to the touch, like the skin of sea cow. Additionally, the left lapel tended to pop up without warning, and something sharp, which I was never able to locate or identify, kept jabbing my shoulder blade. Still, it bore the name Pierre Cardin, so who was I to judge?

It was dim and cool inside Totty’s Atmosphere. The jukebox glowed yellow through the cigarette smoke like a spacecraft as Stevie Wonder sang “My Cherie Amour.” A heavyset woman behind the bar greeted me with “How you doing today, hon?” and set down a wicker basket of Fritos. I’ve always had a fondness for ladies who call me “hon.” I took a seat at the bar and ordered a piece of lemon pie. The woman’s name was Larice, and in a short time I learned about her recent kidney operation and the birth of her latest grandchild, met the pastor of her church, and held a smudged picture of her mother in an open casket. There was no way I going to bring up fucking insurance.

Larice took a phone call and I walked over to watch some guys play pool. I had a lot of shit running through my head.
What was wrong with me? Bob was out there circling the block and I had a job to do. I was broke. Most of my friends had jobs or were going to college. My Dodge Colt was hacking up fluids, and there was zero chance I’d ever have sex with that chick who works at Italian Delight.

I walked back to the bar. Unable to look Larice in the eye, I asked her if the owner was in. Soon there was a loud thud as the kitchen doors swung open and a man with one leg rolled out in a wheelchair. I suddenly became aware of the Vietnam War artifacts hanging from the walls. I stood to greet him. He noticed the vinyl binder tucked under my arm and jokingly asked, “You ain’t here to sell me nothin’, are ya?” I promptly replied, “No.” It was just a hunch, but for some reason, I felt he didn’t need a refresher course on the uncertainties of life from Adam Resnick.

A moment later I was standing on the curb, flagging down Bob, who had just screeched around the corner. He barely stopped as I jumped in the car.

“It was a bust,” I told him. “The guy already has a policy with Mass Mutual.” Bob seemed happy just to get out of Dodge as he barreled down the street. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I love jazz and the rest of it, but ever since Malcolm X, all bets are off.” After a long drag on his Carlton, he added, “Mass Mutual’s a whorehouse.”

•   •   •

I spent the next few months in a haze of cold calls and weak leads, floundering to make a single sale. The traction that allegedly comes to new agents never arrived in my case, and the idea of making a quarter of a million dollars in three years now seemed overly optimistic. I did not possess my father’s charisma, his verbal dexterity, or his ability to scare the shit out of people. The idea of me selling insurance was like sending in a pig to perform an angioplasty. (Something I think I saw once on
Green Acres
.)

As my financial anxieties increased, I was forced to take a drastic and unusual step unbecoming of a state-licensed insurance agent: I applied for the six-to-midnight shift at the Uni-Mart on Front Street. Despite my worries, I was not deemed overqualified. I kept the job a secret from Bob, ashamed that I was now making a guaranteed income like those “other slobs.” Sure, it was only minimum wage, but I was able to supplement that by stealing. Money tossed on the counter for a quick pack of Winstons became my money. Things like Trac II razors and batteries for my Walkman were no longer a bothersome expense. And postage stamps? What kind of asshole pays for postage stamps?

But how much longer could I go on like this—struggling
to sell insurance by day and embezzling Eskimo Pies at night? I ball-parked it at a decade or two, yet, at the same time, I was beginning to have strange thoughts. Like a dog lurching along the grass, making guttural sounds from its esophagus, gooey, half-digested ideas began to emerge:
Get your ass in gear.
Get the fuck out of Harrisburg.
Get away from your family.
Don’t steal more than three lottery tickets per shift.

Yes, embryonic goals were slowly taking form, but I was still fuzzy on direction. There was only one thing I was sure of (other than the fact that I’d never bang that chick from Italian Delight): I had to quit the insurance business. But how could I leave Bob without having made a single sale? I didn’t want him to think it reflected on his training. From bars to bowling alleys to the racetrack, he put in a lot of time with me. He treated me like an adult.

It was after eleven on a slow Thursday night. I was a little tired, so I decided to close forty-five minutes early. I had already locked up and turned off the lights and was in the process of filling a bag with Polaroid film and Mr. Goodbars when I heard the rumble. It was low and powerful and the Tic Tacs on the counter began to chatter in their plastic boxes. I looked out, squinting, as two blazing orbs sailed into the parking lot, bleaching the world white. Then, all at once, there was silence and darkness. A jacked-up ’78 Bronco was
resting in the handicapped space. The door groaned opened and a large figure emerged. The interior light on the driver’s door swept across a pair of black Frye boots with pilgrim buckles.

He approached the store. It was obvious we were closed, but he tried the doors anyway, shaking them so hard a couple of wiffle balls from a nearby display box rolled off and bounced down the aisle. I reached for my keys and haltingly made my way toward the entrance. Our eyes met.

“Hey, man, is that you, Resnick? Lemme grab a pack of Marlboros.”

Jeff Glogower had graduated several years ahead of me and was a friend of my older brother Jack. He was a big dude—a typical Perry County mountain man—who played on the football team until getting kicked off for squirting oven cleaner in the face of an opposing quarterback. Since then, he’d found success selling pot, steroids, and select reptiles that were not legal to own.

I comped him a carton of Marlboros and we sat down on the curb next to the ice machine. He smoked and I stared at the river. He asked me what I was up to these days. I explained I was all screwed up, trying to figure shit out. He suggested I sell drugs. I told him I wanted out of sales. The conversation drifted to the erosion of his three-month
marriage. The light had long gone out on that relationship, he told me. His liberal use of the term “raging cunt” seemed to confirm this.

“She went and got her ass pregnant,” he said. “Now she tells me I can’t come near my own goddamn kid.”

“That sucks,” I responded.

“It’s gonna suck a whole lot worse when I shoot her in the fucking eye.”

He was just blowing off steam. Perry County guys always talk about killing their wives and girlfriends, but seldom follow through.

“I know that bitch. She’ll get herself a lawyer. She’ll take my truck, my money, and shack up with some dude who’s gonna get his dick sucked on my dime.” It was obvious he still loved her.

Suddenly, a dim spark fired somewhere in the depths of my frontal lobe. A connection was made between Jeff’s plight and something I had recently kind of learned about. Bam! I asked Jeff if he knew anything about life insurance. He wondered if it was anything like car insurance. I told him yes, it was just like car insurance, only for people.

I was off and running, explaining concepts I barely understood and others I knew nothing about. But the spine of my proposal was solid: I could design a policy for Jeff that ensured the death benefit or any cash value would go
exclusively to his son. His ex-wife and whatever dude she might be blowing couldn’t touch it. Jeff fell in love with the idea, especially since he felt certain he’d be dead by thirty. He called it his “final ‘fuck you’ from the grave.”

Soon he was filling out sticky, dog-eared paperwork on the hood of his Bronco. I had to fish the forms out of my trunk, where a bloated can of Dad’s root beer had exploded. We shook hands on the deal and he thanked me for the smokes.

I had made my first sale. True, my client would eventually require a doctor’s exam, which might raise a flag or two, but I wasn’t going to fret about that now. I’d accomplished my goal: I could retire from the insurance business with one on the scoreboard.

The following morning, I strode into Dirschberger & Associates with Jeff Glogower’s application rolled up in my hand like a degree from Oxford. I wanted Bob to see that his wisdom and leadership had borne fruit before I quit.

I knocked on his door and let myself in. Bob sat alone, gazing quietly at the Pizza Hut across the street. The sun bounced harshly off the red roof, giving his office a Technicolor glow. Had he been wearing a cape, he might have resembled Rhett Butler.

“It’s a frightening world we live in, Adam,” he finally said. “Things like ‘allegiance’ and ‘loyalty’ . . . those are just words
these days. We’ve become small.” He swiveled his chair to face me. “They’re bringing in a new honcho.”

“They’re transferring you to another agency?” I replied, shocked.

“They’re transferring me to the cemetery. I’m gone.”

I told him it didn’t make sense, even though it made complete sense. Everything was changing. You could feel it. Places like this and guys like Bob were on borrowed time. Something different was coming—a world where it would be harder to get away with stuff and every battery would be accounted for.

“Nine years,” Bob sighed. “This place was a dump when I took it over from Kaplan. Lapsed policies? You could wallpaper your house. The goddamn files were in Chinese. Not one thumbtack. Look anywhere. Thumbtacks were like caviar.”

I assured him his mark on the agency would live on. Then I slid Jeff Glogower’s application across his desk. “You made a sale?” he said, brightening up. He walked over and crushed me in his arms. I told him it was his sale as much as mine. Then I tendered my resignation. He tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted I couldn’t possibly work there without him. Bob admitted I was probably making the right decision. Rumor had it they were replacing him with Len Speece from Doylestown, “a complete fruit.”