It's Called Disturbing Read online

  “I appreciate it,” Tom stammered.

  “You may use your office and the facilities here and we would like to see you at the Monday morning meetings as usual. We’ll keep this hush-hush. No one need know.”

  “No skin off your nose...”

  “But please,” the manager said, “no more rocks through windows.”

  “It was a gnome,” the recruitment manager offered.

  $$$

  Tom had to walk past Wally’s office on the way to his own and the big man called out to him. “Tom Ryder?” he said, rising with some difficulty from behind his desk and taking a few steps towards the door. Tom stopped and looked in. He and Wally had not had too much to say to each other. After all, Tom was new and Wally was a seasoned vet. What could the man want? “Do you have a few $econd$?” he asked. Tom assented and entered the room; Wally closed the door behind him and with one big, meaty hand, beckoned Tom to sit down. “I heard about your little gnome mi$hap,” Wally said once he was assured Tom was reasonably comfortable. The chairs seemed to be made for Wally and men like him, Tom felt his toes barely reaching the floor and he had to sit forward. His nervousness had been spent at the meeting with the managers and he no longer even cared about his socks, forgetting even that he had left the fabric softener snot rag on the floor in the other office. “Do you need to talk about it, $on?”

  “How did you hear about that?” Tom asked.

  “I’ve been around a long time, Tommy. Nothing really get$ pa$t me in the office. If that water cooler out there could talk.” Wally said and leaned back. His gut stuck out and his tie looked as though it were laying flat on a display table. He hooked two large, tree trunk arms behind his head and exhaled. Tom could smell onions and beer on his breath.

  “I didn’t really want anyone to know,” Tom said, humbly.

  “Then you $houlnd’t have done it,” Wally said, then burst out laughing. The room shook and the pictures rattled in their frames. “Ju$t $hitting you, Tommy.”

  Tom tried to smile.

  “I wanted to tell you that, in thi$ indu$try, you will run into all $orts. You are not a$ unique a$ you think. I have had my $hare of bad appointment$.”

  “You?” Tom asked.

  “Hell ye$,” Wally said, and smiled. White blinding light filled Tom’s vision. “I remember my third year I got into a fi$t fight with a potential, $ame as you.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Tom said, wondering what sort of man would challenge Walter (Call Me Wally) Russ to a fight.

  “He wa$ a $ucce$$full bu$ine$$ man, thought he knew it all,” Wally said, “Big a$ a hou$e. I $et him $traight. But I nearly lo$t my job over it.”

  “Wow.”

  “You bet,” Wally said, “I want to tell you, though, you can’t win them all. Thinking that you can will only fru$trate you right out of a career.”

  “I was almost fired,” Tom said.

  Wally roared laughter again; this time Tom did feel the floor shake a little. “Do you $ee how many empty office$ thi$ company ha$ right now?” Tom shrugged. “Too many. We haven’t had a new recruit in a year or two. All the agent$ here are old hand$. A lot of old bull$ staggering around, clo$e to retirement. They need new blood and they will try and recruit ju$t about anything.”

  Somehow this did not make Tom feel any better, if that indeed was Wally’s intention. He glanced around Wally’s office. Paperweights held everything to the mahogany desk. Wally’s screen saver showed a ball bouncing languidly around the black screen, bouncing off the virtual edges of the monitor. Fat families in heavy frames adorned the walls. When Wally leaned forward, his shirt strained against his chest and arms, making Tom think the buttons would pop off and fly right at him. Unconsciously, Tom averted his gaze in case one of the buttons would catch him the eye.

  Wally narrowed his eyes. “How are thing$ going around here, Tom?” he asked. “You can be candid with me. I have heard it all and I have $een it all. Hell,” he chuckled, “I have probably done it all.” When Tom didn’t answer right away, Wally said, “De$pite my gruff appearance, I want to help. I $ee a lot of my$elf in you. I wa$ hungry once, too.” This Tom found especially hard to believe.

  “Well,” Tom began, and then felt it pouring out of him. Perhaps it was the conflict with Joe Williams, perhaps it was the near firing. Maybe it was the unpaid bills and the begging and humiliation of asking for the power and heat to be restored. Maybe it was his fear of being a failure, but he told Wally every fear, every insecurity he had about the job.

  When Tom was through, Wally let out a sigh and Tom looked away from the onion and beer wind. “Do you buy the $tuff in the book they gave u$? And the lecture?”

  “The lecture? Disturbing?” Tom asked.

  “That’$ right.”

  Tom thought for a moment. “The concept I understand. It didn’t work when I tried it on Joe, I failed. I don’t think I got through to him.”

  Another deep chuckle. “It’$ a good theory, and it doe$ work,” Wally said. “The thing i$, you have to believe it your$elf. You have to $ell your$elf fir$t before you can convince anyone el$e. Do you have children?”

  “No.”

  “Married?”

  “I live with my girlfriend,” Tom said.

  “Fine, fine,” Wally continued. “I remember the very fir$t time I delivered a death benefit cheque to a family. After that, I knew what I wa$ doing wa$ important. More important than any other job I could think of. $ecuring their future. After that, I knew there wa$ no way a pro$pect would get away from me. I knew what I had wa$ $omething they de$perately needed. That’$ why I am a$ $ucce$full a$ I am. No one get$ away from me.”

  “I don’t think I can do this,” Tom confessed.

  “You can, $on,” Wally said. “You can. All you need i$ a few $ales under your belt. Are you working on anything now?”

  “Not really.” Tom didn’t want to mention Uncle who, he knew, was Wally’s client.

  “$ell your$elf a policy. $ell one to your girlfriend. Once the money $tarts rolling in, you get motivated. After that, the motivation will come from knowing you are helping people.”

  “I could sell a policy to Eddy, couldn’t I?” Tom said.

  “$o thi$ a$$hole write$ a book, give$ thi$ principle a fancy name and think$ he’$ being original,” Wally said. “But we here at Con$umer Life have been doing that for year$. He call$ it di$turbing the client, that’$ fine; it’$ a good a name a$ any. All it mean$ i$ getting your potential client believing that he need$ what you’ve got to give him. And the only way to do that i$ to believe it your$elf.”

  Wally half rose in his seat, Tom thought. Perhaps he was trying to stand in the universal body language that said the meeting was over. Tom stood to save Wally the trouble; already a fine layer of sweat was gleaming on the man’s forehead from the effort. Wally held his chest for a moment and then relaxed. “Damn.” He said.

  “Thank you for the talk, Mr. Russ,” Tom said and extended his hand.

  “Call me Wally,” Wally said and gripped Tom’s hand. Tom felt like he had stuffed his hand inside rising dough. “Go get ‘em.”

  $$$

  Once in his office, Tom could not face the paperwork he had to fill out. They wanted a detailed account of what happened at Joe’s, and Tom found his heart racing and his rage mounting whenever he thought about it. It was all wrong. What was he thinking? Lucky he hadn’t been fired. The recruitment manager had really gone to bat for him. But why? The only thing Tom could think of was the lack of new recruits. The manager talked to thirty people a day, he told Tom, and no one new was coming aboard. “We’re taking any lame ass with a pulse,” he said and Tom’s face went red.

  What he needed at that moment was to talk to Rebecca. He dialled the underwriter’s number and extension, hoping he would not get a voicemail.

  After three rings someone answered. “This is Rebecca Chimer.” She said. Her voice was soft and he recognized it immediately. He felt the hair on his arms rise.

  “Hi, Rebecca, t
his is agent Tom Ryder,” he said slyly. He heard her tap at her keyboard.

  “Hello, Mr. Ryder,” she said.

  “Tom.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can call me Tom.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Her voice went up an octave. It signalled a seamless move from business conversation to casual conversation. “My husband’s name was Tom.”

  “I remember,” he told her.

  “So how have you been?”

  “Professionally or personally?” he said.

  She laughed. Three short spurts of pure music. A weightless bird fluttering above a rough sea. “How about both?”

  “Professionally not that well,” he said, “I lost a good sale last night.”

  “You can’t get them all, Tom,” she said quietly, reassuringly. Tom closed his eyes and nodded as though she were sitting at his desk and could see him. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Ummm...”

  “Sometimes people have no money. Or they need to re-evaluate on their own. Maybe the sale isn’t lost after all, you’d be surprised,” she went on.

  “I don’t think I’ll be back to this particular... to this guy’s place,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “We had a misunderstanding, and things got a little physical.”

  “You’re kidding? What happened?”

  “Well, he shoved me,” Tom said, humiliated again with the re-telling.

  “Oh my God!” she screeched, “What did you do?”

  “It’s kind of complicated,” Tom said. “I threw a gnome through his living room window.”

  There was a long pause. “A what?” she said, her voice now sounded far away, her tone different, “A gnome?”

  “Yes, one of those ceramic gnomes.” With his free hand he shaped the gnome in the air in a pantomime he had done so often he could see the gnome just by moving his hands in a certain way.

  “Like a lawn ornament thing?” Her voice had definitely changed, Tom thought. There was hesitation now and Tom could sense her frowning. “That’s random.”

  “Like I said, it was a misunderstanding.”

  “The company didn’t...” Hesitation again. Wariness. “I mean, you’re still at the office? They didn’t fire you?”

  “No, not fired,” he said. “Suspended, I suppose. No new contacts but I can still work on existing leads.” Of which there were none, he failed to add.

  “That is...” Pause. “I don’t know what to say. You actually damaged property?”

  “Yes.” He tried to laugh at the absurdity of it all. All that came out was a rasp and a wheeze.

  “Wow,” she said. After a few seconds, Tom heard her clear her throat. The business tone was back. “Well, I am pretty busy here, I guess I should get back to work. What did you need this afternoon, Mr. Ryder?”

  “Nothing really,” he said, “Just sort of called to see how you were doing.”

  “Oh.” Her voice was flat. She must be having a terrible day, Tom thought. It was perhaps a good thing he called. Maybe it would brighten up her day.

  “We had such a good conversation the last time,” he said, “I just wanted to drop a line and say hello.”

  “Okay...” she said slowly, “umm...well, listen, thanks for the call, Mr. Ryder.”

  “Tom.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Listen, thanks for the call. I’ll talk to you later. If you have any business that I can help you with, don’t hesitate to call me.”

  “Well, I appreciate it,” Tom said.

  “Anytime,” she said, and Tom heard the hesitation again, “You really threw a gnome through that guy’s window?”

  “I did.”

  “Wow,” she whispered. “That’s passion!” She giggled and Tom’s heart flipped over.

  After he hung up the phone, the conversation played over in his mind. The week had gone bad, but one phone call to Rebecca had made everything seem all right. Just letting it out to her about the gnome made him feel better. And what had she said before she hung up? Don’t hesitate to call me anytime. It seemed she was the only one he could talk to who would really understand. A lighthouse in a sea of doubt. A buffet for the starving, or a sensible diet for the overweight. And now he was going to meet her. He had to meet her. Her voice was the exact image of how he thought of her. Her skin would be naturally tanned. Her highlighted hair would be pulled back, but not too tightly, enough to let you know that she could let it down, and when she did, she would be the most beautiful woman alive. And glasses, which she would need, but not wear all the time. It was like she was already familiar to him, yet, where had he seen her before?

  The trouble with Joe and his job and Eddy seemed to dissipate. The sounds outside his office grew dimmer until all he could hear was the beat of his heart and a strange buzz, which he associated with the overhead lights and the billboard on the sneaky back door route.

  Chapter 9

  Tom heard it said, or read it, or saw it on television, that a person had no personality when they were alone. Meaning that it took other people to define someone. A person’s character is only represented by the reactions to, or interactions with, another. In the same way, a question is posited about a tree falling in a forest. If no one were around to hear it fall, would there be a noise? A sound, after all, would have to be defined by someone hearing it. This always intrigued Tom, especially when others told him, when he was younger, that his personality was weak. That he had all the charm of a wet sponge, as one loquacious relative informed him. So, for Tom, not only did he have no personality when he was alone, it was apparent that he barely had one when he was with others. If Tom were a tree that fell in a forest he would not be heard even if the whole congregation of his mother’s church were standing around and someone warned them with a well-voiced “Timber!”

  “If you were a tree, you’d be a sapling,” Eddy told him during one of their philosophical talks. He laughed despite the pang in his chest.

  “If you were a tree you’d be a willow,” He countered, but she got up from the couch and stormed off. Her feet barely echoing on the bathroom tiles as she slammed the door.

  $$$

  It took some convincing to get Eddy to accompany him to the bake sale at his mother’s church. She barely spoke the whole way and only livened when they pulled into the church parking lot. The lot was full, but not only of church patrons; a small brewery shared the parking lot. Three or four older hippies built the brewery and made beer for the literary crowd in the city. The name of the beer was Art Official and the popular brand was their lite beer. Eddy knew one of the men that originally started the company and she mentioned this with a smile.

  “Really?” Tom said, eager to have her talking again.

  “Nice guy,” she said. “He was a good guy.”

  Usually, the church had the parking lot to themselves, but today, in conjunction with the bake sale, the brewery was celebrating its 10th anniversary, so half the church lot was filled with Art Official Lite employees.

  “Should we visit?” Tom asked.

  “No,” Eddy said, cheered already, “I don’t know him that well. Let’s see how your mother is.”

  Shocking, Tom thought, but encouraging. Perhaps the day would not be the downer he first thought it would. Eddy actually mentioned his mother’s name without shuddering or throwing up. Throwing up, however, was not a fair indication of repulsion for his mother, Eddy threw up at the slightest provocation.

  They parked the car and looked for Tom’s mother. The crowd featured mostly white and blue hair with multicoloured blouses and purple pants slacks or checkered shorts that reminded Tom of the material he used to dry his dishes. Each woman commanded a post at a table with an obvious subordinate helper, also with blue or white hair and correctly uniformed. Plates of cake and cookies and other unidentifiable goodness crowded the tables and the modest throng moved from table to table, flattering the owners, sampling the wares and pulling exact change from their purses or wallets or waitin
g for exact change from the bake sellers. Eddy kept her eyes to the ground and let Tom hold her hand and lead her through the tables to the front of the church. Tom could see the minister by the glass doors, his white hair flopping in the breeze, making no attempt to smooth it down and smiling and chatting up an octogenarian. Tom waited behind the elderly woman.

  “And I want to thank you so much again,” the woman was saying. “I am so sorry I have to be off so early. Bingo at the home, you know.”

  “I am just grateful you made it, Mrs. Schmidtenheimer. Your cakes were lovely and raised a good bit of money for Somalia. I want to thank you, my dear woman.”

  “Thank me?” Mrs. Schmidtenheimer said, “For my cakes? Oh, thank the Lord instead.”

  “Well,” the minister smiled, “they weren’t that good.”

  Mrs. Schmidtenheimer seemed not to notice this slight, if it was a slight, and she left the minister smiling and clutching at her shawl. “Bingo,” she muttered, and her hands shook a little and her eyes gleamed. How could she play Bingo with those shaking hands?

  “You’d be surprised what these women will do for Bingo.” The minister said to Tom and Eddy as if reading his mind. “You are Tim Ryder, am I right?”

  “Tom,” Tom said and extended his hand.

  The minister shook Tom’s hand warmly. “That’s right, Rev. Tom Jones,” he said.

  “No,” Tom tried to correct.

  “Yes, Tom Jones.” The minister tapped his own chest and smiled.

  “Of course,” Tom said, “but I’m Tom, too. As well. Tom Ryder.”

  “Oh, sure,” the minister laughed lightly. “Forgive me, Tom. And this is Edith?”

  “Eddy,” Eddy mumbled to her shoes.

  “Your mother is a very strong part of our congregation,” Reverend Tom Jones turned back to Tom. “We are so grateful she joined our church.”

  “She speaks highly of you, too. As well, she speaks highly of you.” And all the time, Tom failed to add.

  “I’m glad,” the Reverend Tom Jones said. “We are a family here and it’s important that all our members feel this way.”