THE GOLD FISH: Jesse James (2.6)

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Joan was confused. And honestly, a little disturbed. She had intended to retrieve a box of Gorton’s Fish Sticks for the girls’ dinner, but when she opened the freezer, the sight within stopped her cold. Each box, carton, and foil-wrapped bundle were stacked and aligned like freshly laid bricks. Which was great and all, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember doing it. But she must have. It was inconceivable that anyone else in the house would do it, and let’s face it, it was the kind of thing she did all the time. It was her go-to strategy when things felt overwhelming. When life gave her lemons, she didn’t just hang in there, baby. (God, how Joan hated that stupid cat poster, which was impossible to escape these days. At the dentist’s office. The dry cleaners. For godssake, she’d even seen it in a Citgo bathroom! Not only were cats not nearly as adorable as they thought they were, the poster’s message was that sort of clichéd, self-soothing platitude that made her want to vomit. Honestly, if she was going to indulge in the latest mental health craze, Primal Screaming would have been more her speed. But who had that kind of time?) No, in times of stress, Joan was productive. She straightened. She bleached. She scoured. And she scrubbed. There wasn’t a stain or a spot of dirt she couldn’t vanquish. And the best part about it? Once it was done, even she felt clean.

Oh Joan didn’t need Freud to tell her that her little white tornado missions were a way of exerting control over something, because God knows she had little control over anything else. Her husband, her children, her own goddamned life. So an orderly freezer wasn’t the least bit surprising. But forgetting how it got that way? That was new. Good grief, she thought, I really am losing it.

And if that wasn’t enough to give her pause, the sight out the kitchen door surely did. Don’s car was pulling into the alley driveway.

Joan’s eyes flew to the clock. 5pm. He had been at work for less than two hours.

Please don’t be fired again, she prayed. Don had been at this new dealership for less than a year, and even though he still came home drunk as a skunk most nights, was absolutely no help around the house, and pocketed most of his paycheck, at least life was semi-predictable. It was the surprises that Joan couldn’t abide.

And here he was coming home early. No, no, no. Joan didn’t like his unexpected appearance one little bit.

She shut the freezer door -- its mysterious orderliness now the least of her troubles -- and watched slack jawed as Don exited the car.

But hold on. He sure didn’t look like a man who’d just been fired. In fact, he looked positively ebullient, swinging a couple of brown paper bags like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.

Don was feeling pretty good. Yessir, pretty good indeed. And pleased with himself. He had left work early for the simple reason that he was trying, really trying, to be a better husband and father. Or so he told himself. He told himself it was the look Barbie had shot him during the lawn cutting fiasco last weekend, a look that had clearly telegraphed her shame and disappointment with him. Which had shaken him. Made him want to be a better man.

Look, he had made peace with the idea that Joan didn’t love or respect him anymore, but he’d always depended on the unconditional love of his children. He had never realized a day might come when they too judged him for not mowing the lawn, fixing the screen door, or doing any of the normal things a real man was supposed to do. They were girls, after all. Hadn’t they always been content with the mountain of hugs, kisses, and tickles he bestowed upon them? He thought they had. At least until recently. But now that Karen and Barbie were becoming teenagers -- an age he’d been warned about -- were they going to turn on him too?!

But if Don were truly honest with himself, he would have to admit that the idea to come home for dinner -- to bring home dinner, an event rare as rubies in the Ward home -- had also been driven by abject boredom. The fact was most savvy car buyers came in at the end of the month when they correctly assumed most salesmen and managers would be behind on their monthly sales quotas, and therefore, more likely to negotiate that sticker price down. As a result, almost no one -- except lookie-loos -- shopped early in the month. And no one shopped on a Tuesday, especially in August, a notoriously slow month given the timing of most summer vacations and the fact that most new model year cars started arriving in the fall. There actually might not be a slower day at a car dealership in the entire year than Tuesday, August first. So Don was bored out of his gourd and was looking for a reason -- any reason -- to skedaddle. 

Look, once Don hauled himself out of bed and actually got himself to the car dealership, he didn’t mind working. If anything, he enjoyed the challenge. He considered it a game and Don loved games, especially those which combined luck and strategy. Like his favorite game of all, poker. Don’s sharp mathematical mind was particularly adept at keeping track of the cards that had been played and calculating the odds of his drawing, for example, that full house or inside straight. But just as importantly, Don was a keen reader of people.

When Don sold a car, he didn’t waste his time on discussions of torque, horsepower, or RPMs. First of all, he was completely bored by those sort of details and couldn’t be bothered to memorize them. But secondly, even the car geeks hated a salesman spewing technical specifications at them. They wanted to be the one to impress with their arcane knowledge, lest anyone confuse them with an ignorant, gullible chump. No shiny suited paper pusher was going to tell them what they already knew. Don could spot what he called a boy racer from twenty paces and knew better to engage them in a mechanical shooting match.

Instead, Don charmed his customers with banter, all the while sizing up the depths of their pockets and their purchasing bug-a-boos. He studied their quirks. Their tells, if you like. Any opening topic would do to get things flowing. Jim Palmer’s performance in last night’s O’s game or a recent episode of All in the Family if the customer was white, or Sanford & Son if he was black. He might also inquire about recent movies, whether they had seen The Godfather or Deliverance, two of the most hotly discussed movies of that summer. 

Once those lay-up topics were exhausted, Don excavated for the personal. If the man wore a Timex, for example, he might flash his own and extol the dependability of a Timex watch. Or if the man wore a Masonic ring, he might talk about the importance of good moral character even in a crazy business like car sales, which was full to overflowing with con men, himself excepted, of course. And if the customer was single, wore a lot of cologne, and had foregone Brylcreem in favor of Gillette’s new Dry Look spray, Don might venture into Playboy centerfold territory. These things told Don whether the customer was interested in flash vs dependability or price vs value, and could adapt his sales strategy accordingly.

Don was also astute in dealing with the wife. Of course, most wives had been forewarned by their husbands to keep their goddamned traps shut, especially during those sensitive financial negotiations when any little ripple in the water could capsize the whole operation. But Don had been married long enough to know better to ignore a man’s better half, because no matter how much bluster Mr. Big Shot displayed, Missy Miss was likely the one controlling the purse strings behind the scenes. So he chose to engage the wives on minor decisions, say, the color of the car or choice of floor mats. It wasn’t just generosity, it was lubrication. Strident, high-pressure sales tactics weren’t his style anyway. He prided himself on his poker face, perfecting a laisse faire attitude about the sale. Take it or leave it, his affable face seemed to say. I’m only interested in making sure you’re both happy.

And while Don did these things because building relationships was essential to his success -- allowed him to win the pot, so to speak -- the god’s honest truth is that he also asked those questions because he was genuinely interested. Uncle Henry used to say he could talk the hind legs of a donkey. Like it was a bad thing. But it wasn’t a bad thing. To Don, it was evidence of caring. He even kept a tiny notebook in which he recorded details about each of his customers. Occupation. Phone number and street address. Wife’s name. Number of children and ages. Political leanings. Favorite sports team. All of it went down in the notebook in his neat, architectural handwriting. The book had come with him from his last job, and in the year he’d been at Al Packer Motors, he’d reached out to a few of those previous customers, and as a result, had already made three sales. After all, they didn’t know why he had left the last dealership. Nor would they care. As long as he gave them a good deal anyway.

Way before relationship management was a thing, Don was doing it. And it worked. He was a good salesman. It’s why he had rightly earned that coveted 3pm - 9pm shift at Al Packer. That the late shift also allowed Don to sleep late was icing on the cake. Yes, he had heard the old saying that the early bird gets the worm -- another chestnut from Uncle Henry -- but who in their right mind wanted worms? Throw in the opportunities for after-work boozing, and that evening shift was what you called a win-win. There wasn’t a better moment in the day when Big Al, the owner of the dealership, shut off the showroom lights signaling the day was over, and the night was about to begin. It called to mind the green flag waving at the Daytona 500. Start your engines, fellas. Last one at Bo Brooks is buying.

Don was an only child, and thanks to asthma, had never played sports as a kid and thanks to flat feet and color blindness, military service hadn’t been in the cards either. They say you can’t miss what you never had, but don’t tell that to Don. He had always ached for the sense of belonging, the camaraderie, even the ball-busting that collective suffering alongside a brother, a teammate, or a fellow soldier seemed to provide. And at Al Packer Motors, Don seemed to find it. Along with the pranks, inside jokes, and colorful nicknames that made work fun. Marv Maffezzoli was Columbo because of his lazy eye. Ron Brown, a former NFL lineman, was Big Tiny. And he himself had been dubbed Jesse James, or The Cowboy, on account of his habit of squinting one eye, pulling imaginary finger pistols from his pockets, and firing them with a satisfying cluck of his tongue when he made a sale.

It might be a sad sack thing to feel, but when Big Al hit those lights and one of his pals threw an arm around his shoulder and said, “Come on Jesse, those gimlets aren’t going to drink themselves,” it was beautiful.

Yes, he drank and partied because it gave him some relief from his goddamned back, but even if he had the bulletproof physique of Superman, that easy time with his buddies, when the first sip of liquid gold etched a warm trail down to his very core, was magic. It might have been the only thing in his life that truly gave him joy. That was something Joan, who was perennially incensed that he not only worked the late shift, but rarely came home early -- or sober -- would ever understand. Even if he had the capacity to explain his reasons and feelings, which he didn’t and never would, she wouldn’t get it.

That wasn’t the only thing she wasn’t getting. At this moment, she sure wasn’t getting why he was walking up the sidewalk when he should be at work. The look on her face was a mixture of suspicion and outright alarm.

Don shot her a smile -- the smile she used to love -- and shook the brown paper bags at her like he was one of the Magi delivering gold. “I brought dinner.”

You could have knocked Joan over with a feather.

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