The Dream Merchant (9 page)

Then a high-pitched wailing was pouring out of him. The voice scared him, but it was hard to stop.

Jim had first told me about this many years earlier. Now I wanted to ask how the suicide affected him after waiting years for his dad's return and the great life to begin? Did it change him? It must have.

Jim didn't want to say much more about the suicide in front of Mara, as if he feared she would make some historical surmise and walk. But Ava? Jim was eager to tell us about Ava and Marvin Gesler. On reflection, it was Marvin Gesler who provided answers to the questions I'd pondered.

 

PART II

 

9.

Ava's walk was languorous and promising and she had a little smile that cut through Jim's purpose, whatever he happened to be selling—that's how he liked to remember her.

He met Ava on a warm spring morning with birds singing and a clatter of children and fresh chances all around her sunny neighborhood. They were standing on her small front porch. Jim, thirty, was selling waterless cookware. He was the picture of success in a three-button khaki suit with wide lapels, holding a suede Stetson.

I want to talk to you about this product I represent, he said. It could change your life. She looked him over, confident and unhurried. She had a wondering smile, auburn hair with a slight curl, a hint of a Southern accent. She was wearing hoop earrings and a low-cut blouse showing off her full breasts. Jim shivered. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Are you from around here? he asked. Where'd you get that Southern accent? She widened her big brown eyes as he fed her his opening lines. I'll bet you have a boyfriend. A fiancé? I'll bet within a year or so you'll begin a family, a fine-looking family. How many children would you like? You'd want them to be healthy? Anyone would. She was amused listening to his pitch tumbling out from too many angles and way too fast.

This is a terrific neighborhood for children, Jim continued, looking around from the porch, which cued her to do the same; and she noticed behind him, parked beside the curb, a brand-new Cadillac convertible with the top down, a red leather interior and yards of glistening chrome. It looked fast and rich. That car said it for Jim, where he'd come from and the way he was headed.

She said she didn't need cookware and he challenged her. Everyone needs it. Don't you want the best for yourself and the ones you love? This will be the greatest gift you could ever give to your family. Let me describe to you the benefits of cooking without water. What's the harm on such a great day? He invoked the beautiful sunny morning with his hands. Sizing people up was Jim's life. Was this one smart or just a gorgeous dumb brunette? He was spurred by her looks, no question, but also there was some reserve of savvy or maybe regret. What was her story? He'd have to know to sell her. Jim could find out things. People opened up to him. Let me describe to you the power of nutrients. Do you know what nutrients are and what they can do for our bodies? He felt her pulling away. What do you really like, Ava? What excites you? Jim's waterless cookware wasn't it. Wait. She shook her head and walked inside, closed the screen door softly behind her. For a moment or two he could see her as a hazy image receding behind the screen. He tapped the door frame twice. Too bad.

Jim sometimes went for two or three days without a rejection. He held a record with the company—seventeen closes in a row, stone-cold sales without leads, just knocking on front doors with his pitch and then worming his way into a heart or a heartbreak. He had grown into a handsome six footer with an enthusiastic, caring manner, almost the same good boy who trudged up hills delivering newspapers in the snow. But by now, selling had become a singular passion in Jim's life and he couldn't turn it off, though the products kept changing. At the moment it was waterless cookware and he sold it to friends at parties or on hunting trips or fishing on a pitching boat for cod off the coast. Selling was his music. Going door-to-door was his forte—anyone could sell with leads. But knocking on doors, fielding the boredom or scorn of strangers, that was something. He knew when to cajole or act coy or push, how hard to push or when to use the Cadillac or a little silver spoon he sometimes gave away. Jim's props and scripts were often hokey. It didn't matter. People were moved to buy from him. Jim was tempting and delicious and a little dangerous. But most important—and this was Jim's rare gift as a salesman—he could be the rare friend who challenged and stirred you deeply; it was clear from that first conversation that he really cared about you. Customers wanted to buy from Jim because it forged a bond. He instilled this need. You wanted to know Jim beyond this day, this transaction, and shaking on the deal sealed this possibility.

When he visited her again four days later, Ava yawned at his selling and proposed a walk into the spring evening of deep shadows and lush smells to pique a young man's desire. They held hands and traded pieces of their lives. She told him about her husband, also a “Jim,” a second-string quarterback for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who rarely got into games. They were no longer together.

Ava said, Wow, for no apparent reason and Jim loved that and wanted her to say it again. Such a beautiful woman changes the essence of language and meaning. How could you ever judge if Ava was thoughtful or deep? Deep was the utter delight of her voice and the turn of her neck, the way she clicked along in French heels. Maybe you'll get back with him, Jim offered. “Maybe” hung in the evening light, became a lump in his throat. He yearned to touch her, to pull her close and smell her hair. When Jim looked at Ava all the sense went out of him and he had to turn away. They stopped at a store and bought a large bottle of red wine.

You're a married man, aren't you? Ava guessed correctly, with the suggestion that he was being a bad boy. Tell me about your wife.

Jim hemmed and hawed. He couldn't recall why he'd married her. It was embarrassing, like forgetting the name of someone standing in front of you. He pictured his wife in bed wearing rollers or standing in the kitchen in her drab bathrobe talking on the phone with a friend. Jim made a little distasteful expression as though he were ashamed of himself. Why had he married her? Because at twenty-three Jim had been rushing ahead, focused mainly on the road. That was all. Between his selling trips all over the western part of the country, they had made a daughter. For the first two years of the marriage, he returned home every two or three weeks. Now he hadn't been back for nearly six months, although he sent her a check each month. For long stretches Jim forgot that he had a family, and then one night in a cheap motel he would remember his abandoned little girl with a helpless shrug.

Jim talked about his life on the road with Marvin Gesler. He'd met Marvin a year earlier when both men were hustling picture-book Bibles. Ava smiled at their preposterous work. How could you ever make money selling Bibles?

Jim nodded. You wouldn't think so. But he had been making better than six hundred a week selling Bibles door-to-door, a fortune back then for a young man. Bigger deals, bigger opportunities, were just down the winding road: a new product line, a hotter blaze of hope.

Whenever he told us about the early years of selling I became giddy with adolescent emotion. I could summon the smell of my father while I sat on his bed and he smoked a cigarette and told me about his newest big deal. I could see the lot of them, Jim, my dad and his buddies, my uncles who were also salesmen, careening their big shiny sedans along the road to glory, all of them meeting up in Vegas to watch Sammy Davis Jr. bring down the house. Over Jim's desk, rescued from the last condo and now jammed in beside his bed in the bungalow, he still prized the photograph of Sammy Davis giving him a hug at the Sands. They were buddies. My dad had also had a close friendship with Sammy Davis Jr.

*   *   *

It was Marvin Gesler who came up with the idea of forging a partnership with Jim and training their own salesmen. They boarded them in motels, three to a sweaty room, coaching coarse men to read the body language of housewives and deliver their scripts, Marvin and Jim refining scripts by night and sending men out each morning with Wonder Bread Spam sandwiches and Bibles, and taking a share of their commissions.

As he told Ava about Marvin she tossed back her head and laughed. Marvin is a decent salesman, and smart, but he's physically gross, said Jim. That's what holds him back. Ava was alarmingly beautiful. Every man turned to look at her and they kept staring as she moved along, slow and hippy like the other Ava—she was that arresting.

Marvin is a Jewish guy about seventy pounds overweight, Jim told her, prematurely balding, and he wears a wig that doesn't fit right. He's often adjusting it, but sometimes he forgets and it falls onto his face. Marvin doesn't have manners or even a sense for what manners are. He finishes his meal in a gulp like a human suction and then he's ready to leave before you've started. She threw her head back and laughed, prodded Jim ahead. And he has this gross habit.

Tell me. Tell me.

He hacks up spit into his mouth, takes it on his fingers like this—Jim acted it out—looks at it, and then slides it back in his mouth.

Ewwee.

And sometimes Marvin, he doesn't realize; it's terrible even for Marvin.

Go ahead, she ordered sternly.

Sometimes he reaches into his pants like this and feels himself.

You're kidding.

And he smells his hand. He does it anywhere. In a restaurant, during a sales meeting. He likes the smell. Then he forgets where he's been, he'll throw his hand out, you know, he wants to shake hands, and you've been watching him hold himself. And you're standing there not wanting to touch his hand, which makes him confused. He doesn't understand because he wants to shake hands.

Ava was shaking her head, taking Marvin in.

But Marvin knows a lot, said Jim. He knows finance, politics, sports, you name it. He's a whiz with numbers. He can do any calculation in his head. He knows more about things than most people. And not just to know facts like a teacher. He has ideas you can't imagine, unusual ideas that make money, a lot of money. Marvin's a genius. Jim was getting excited talking about Marvin. Even in the moment, walking with this stunning woman, Jim felt the need for Marvin like an essential nutrient of his life.

He couldn't give all of Marvin to Ava—he couldn't and still be the guy for her tonight. At least that's what he thought. Marvin was an easy mark for Jim's ridicule, but when they were together talking in a restaurant or late at night in their motel the two men seemed to merge into a singular being. They radiated a kind of wall or sanctity and the other salesmen knew to steer clear, as if they'd be singed. In their sessions, Marvin did most of the talking. It was disturbing to look at them because Marvin's arms would swing around or he'd spew cheap Danish onto his shiny pants—he had no sense of style—and Jim, a really great-looking young man, fun loving, athletic body, a classy dresser, he sat there nodding with their heads only a foot or two apart, as if he were being defiled or his physical beauty were being absorbed.

Ideas just tumbled out of Marvin Gesler. He was a machine. He would become emotional and sweaty describing scams to Jim. Marvin had many more ideas than he could ever implement and this tortured him. He tapped his foot impatiently. Sometimes he made pleading expressions or he'd look petulant, like a spoiled child. His neediness was appalling.

Jim came to understand that Marvin couldn't pause long enough to get anything accomplished. He was prey to his own impatience and churning mind. Marvin revolted people, simple as that. Despite his scripts, it was a miracle he ever sold anything. But Jim also recognized that the two men were necessary for each other. Marvin gave Jim the opportunity to sell on a scale he could barely have imagined. Okay. Marvin would be the beast in the basement, planning, devising. It was Jim who catalyzed this torrent of ideas, but also he could slow Marvin down a little, guide him around, place him in front of a problem. Jim could make it happen in the world with his charm and way with people. Jim could sell anything. Marvin needed Jim. Marvin would listen to Jim. They'd make a lot of money. That was the important thing. They sat up all night and talked. Marvin told Jim what they would do with their millions. How millions would make more millions. Marvin talked about offshore bank accounts. What the hell was that? Where we'll bury the money. Soon enough they'd never have to work a day. Cookware had a bigger upside than Bibles, so that's the direction they went. Marvin wanted to get off cookware the second day, but Jim quieted him, got Marvin to focus on the scripts that were simple but brilliant. All the men were making sales. Soon enough there would be time for the next idea.

Marvin knows he's smarter than other people, Jim said to Ava, struggling to push his partner aside and retrieve the moment with this gorgeous lady. Marvin expects doors to open for him, but it doesn't work that way. People have to like you and trust you. They have to believe that you are acting in their interest, and that you are a good person. Marvin tramples on people's feelings. He doesn't care. It's his nature. He's disgusting and people want to step on him like a bug. Anything to make him go away, disappear.

She was interested in all this. The key to Ava was telling everything or nearly everything. No pretty stories. No sugarcoating. Put it out there. Let her pick through the garbage. That's her story. Ava was lurking behind that discreet southern belle accent and her high-class clothing and manicured nails. She liked high times and speed, ugliness, big gambles, putting it on the line and winning big or losing everything. That is how Jim read her. But Ava liked it darker than Jim could understand.

There was a small formal park in the center of town, a lovely white church across the street and a statue of some military figure in the middle of the park that was bordered by a sleepy sidewalk on all sides. Jim and Ava sat on a bench beneath the statue. It was dusk and the smell of cut grass was intoxicating. They were drinking wine. Ava drank with a real hunger. He liked that. They giggled about the Bibles and Marvin and soon enough Jim was feeling good. What a woman, so beautiful and willing to come here and drink with him like this. He wanted to squeeze her and she didn't mind. They began to kiss. Jim was dizzy with Ava and the redolent spring night. She smelled so good. She tasted of pastry and wine. He began to laugh when she kissed his ear and then Ava began to touch him. She was hungry and funny. She unzipped his fly and made him hard. He laughed and pushed her hand away. She teased him. I'm sorry, I thought you wanted me to.