Thursday, July 8, 2010

"Wheeling" Chapters 4 and 5

During the same weeks I was taking strange elevator rides, I was also starting to work on my phone pitch, because first you have to sell the appointment. I’d researched most of the businesses Harry wanted me to call on: car dealers, furniture stores, and a few jewelry stores. Of all the businesses I’d researched, the mobile home dealers’ looked most interesting, so did the fireworks dealers, but they were very seasonal.


My desk was in the middle of the room, surrounded by the four other reps. Since there were no cubicle walls separating us, just identical grey steel desks placed about 3 feet apart, there was no privacy to practice and be hung up on in peace. But after a couple of weeks of stumbling around and explaining that even though I was a female, I was representing the station, I got a nibble from Ron Small’s Mobile Homes. I hung up the phone and exploded in victory in the bull pen.

“Ron Small wants us to do a remote broadcast from his mobile home dealership! Can we do that? Where’s Harry?” I spun in a circle a few times and headed for Harry’s office.

“Boom!” I heard from behind me. “I’ve called on Ron Small. Oh yeah! It was two months ago, I knew he had too much inventory. Now he wants a remote. You go try to get it! Boom!”

Charlie looked up from his fingernail clipping, smiled serenely and laughed. You couldn’t impress a man who’d played at the Opry easily. “I sold him advertising and put him out of business, oh, ten years ago. But sometimes they won’t stay out.” I came to realize gallows humor was the salesmen’s way of dealing with whatever bad feelings they had for being a part of what may have been a last gasp by an Ohio Valley business.

“I tell you what you need to do.” Joe said, waving his cigarette. “You need to get an act to draw’em in. I got a girl who’ll sing to break your heart. Met her at the Exit 47 Truck Stop. Just sitting there singin’ like a little bird.” He waved his cigarette dangerously close to his hair. “A mobile home remote is the kind of exposure she could use now. She’ll sing for lunch and couple of albums. ”

Doug got up from his desk and pulled a file out of one of the cabinets. He tossed it on my desk, and it slid it across my Day at a Glance blotter to the floor. “He’s bad pay. Period. Read that. Jean, our bookkeeper-the woman who figures our commissions-is going to want cash in advance.”

Immediately, all 4 salesmen marched to the front of the room, put their palms together over their heads and scooted in a conga line to the Jaws theme “DA da -DA da -DA da-DA Da” After a chorus, Doug announced, “If you don’t get cash in advance, Jean will be after blood.” Big belly laughs at that.

At this point Harry stuck his head out of his office. “Doug’s right. Go ahead and do the remote. But get the money up front!!” He looked me in the eye. “I mean it. I don’t want Jean in here. And I don’t want the station manager in here snooping around either. Now you’ve been warned.”

It was about eleven am on a Friday morning in early May. We were two hours

into a three hour remote broadcast. The weather had cleared after some morning showers, leaving a series of muddy puddles in front of, and in between, the dozen or so mobile homes sitting on the edge of route forty, at Ron Small’s Mobile Homes. A movable sign with black plastic letters sat in a two inch deep puddle telling all to “Kiss Your Landlord Good-Bye!” One of the banners hung up for the occasion had fallen across the front of the sign, so it read “Kiss your Lord Good bye!” I’d made a mental note earlier to move it, but with all the excitement and confusion brought on by the appearance of the fake Box Car Willie earlier that morning, it had slipped my mind.

Box Car Willie was a popular country singer in the 70’s, who had inspired a few imitators. There was one fake Box Car; we were told too late, that was especially good, affecting the appropriate suspenders, pork pie hat, red bandana, and full red beard perfectly. He even kept a train whistle in the back pocket of his overalls that he blew when things got dull, or attention was lacking. He hung out at remotes such as ours, shopping center openings, parades, and anywhere else there might be a generally adoring crowd and free food. The real Box Car Willie had gotten wind of these “Fake Box Cars” and sent out a list of secret questions and answers for city officials and radio station managers to ask if Box Car Willie showed up at an event. Lou, our radio station morning man and the host of this remote had tested our Box Car about an hour ago, and he had failed miserably. His removal had been a little rough and Lou was just now getting back in good form.

“Good Morning Ohio Valley, its eleven fifteen and we’ll be broadcasting here till noon at Ron Small’s Mobile Homes, and I’ve got albums to give away. The first person to show up here at Ron Small’s Mobile Homes with a full set of their own teeth gets a Statler Brothers album.”

I looked over at Lou, to see if he was kidding. And if so, if he thought any of the listening audience would get the joke with good humor.

“Look Lou, here come a couple of listeners now. I can see the gun rack hanging in the cab of the truck.”

Now Lou looked at me to see if I was kidding. I continued, “You go ahead and talk to them, they don’t want to see me. “ Lou gave me no argument on that. “I’ve got to track down Ron Small.” Ron Small had a distinct look, so he should have been easy to spot anywhere in the mobile home lot. He always wore pastel Sansabelt pants, cowboy boots and a striped engineer’s cap.

But I hadn’t seen Ron all morning, and I was getting very nervous. I needed fifteen hundred dollars that morning. He’d even given the fake Box Car a wide berth; probably because he thought he might be connected to the radio station and looking for money too.

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