The Knife Salesman *final*

This is the final version of "The Knife Salesman." I've rewritten it many times. Now I'm done with it. 

You can listen to my telling of this story on Spotify. My show is called Who Needs More Content? 

From the iPod we hear Bono’s voice singing, “The more I see, the less I know.” I’m filling out my application for Pierce Marketing. It strikes me that the Red Hot Chili Peppers expressed that same sentiment in their song “Snow.” For a minute my thoughts are amiss, trying to figure out which song was released first, who stole from whom. Then I wonder if the band that said it first ripped off someone else for that pearl of wisdom. Then I catch my mind wandering and I refocus on this awful paperwork I hate so much. 

About 20 of us are crammed into this small, white room at Pierce headquarters in a suburb north of Chicago. I want to live in Chicago again. The first time, I ran out of money and the will to live. Big city fear is a powerful thing, but so is regret. I had spent the last few months stewing on that in Fond du Lac. 

In my ideal life, I’m a writer in the Windy City. Selling knives has nothing in common with that—but hey, sometimes we must compromise. I don’t want to visit a stranger in their homes and be a hype man for knives, but the ad online said this place pays 18 bucks an hour. This is good money, in theory, in a big city in 2009. So, I’m willing to listen to what the recruiter has to say about EdgeCo brand knives and the (wink wink) opportunities Pierce has to offer. 

When I first got to the office, I was a couple minutes late. I’d like to blame the Chicago Transit Authority, but the truth is that I suck at being on time with el trains and buses in the mix. Since I was late, I was more anxious than usual. 

At the entrance, the woman behind the counter was gorgeous. I hate to gush, but she was a babe. She handed me some papers and led me to the presentation room. 

“Right this way,” the receptionist said. “Oh, and please don’t talk to the other applicants.” The others were busy scribbling away. No one looked up at me. 

I thought that was odd. Was that just a courtesy thing? Or was that a rule because people chatting freely can figure out a scam faster? Maybe I was onto something, but I went through with it anyway. I followed their rules. 

Now as I glance around, I realize that at 25, I’m one of the oldest people in the room. I wonder how many applicants can name five U-2 songs. What a hipster thing to think, I think shamefully. I tune back into page one. Filling it out is awful, and there are more pages to come.

When I get called into the manager’s office, I’m on page two of four. I tell the manager I still have a ways to go. He says not to worry. He means to sound reassuring, but I think about cows not needing name tags at the slaughterhouse for some reason. It’s a disturbing thought. The man before me has a strong build and carefully gelled blond hair. He’s handsome, in a vain and uncomfortable way. 

He starts to read page one, or pretends to, anyway. I could have filled in my name as Clang Fartotron and he still would have nodded thoughtfully. 

I turn on my sweaty-pits charm. I tell him about my Communications degree and my work at the college newspaper and TV station. Picture a nervous, thin man tryna impress an uncaring hunk. I mean, it’s gross. 

While I speak, I sense that he is hearing not words but sounds. Nerdy sounds. The playlist is his doing, I bet, so it’s like my speech is getting drowned out by “Mysterious Ways” in his mind. He’s just fantasizing about grinding against the secretary babe, front row at a U2 show at this point. 

I babble for two minutes about things I thought were achievements that seem hollow now. 

“Uh, what else…” I say. “Oh, I won a short story contest at Oshkosh. The stories were called…”

He snaps out of his daydream. 

“Uh-huh, great, I like those things. Tell you what, can you get the next applicant? We just gotta keep the line moving here.”

I’m excused. I return to the cramped, white room to graze in speechless despair with the others. Sometimes I think I can hear the sound of group sadness. It’s a dull, faint drone of thin air struggling for life. This is one of those times. 

Minutes pass with kids going in and out. The manager emerges and gets our attention. He starts his speech. He gives us the OK to talk, in response to his questions. The questions don’t require much thought. He might as well be asking us if we can come up with two words that rhyme with “knife.” 

First, the manager asks us if anyone has a penny. Caught off guard, the group is slow to produce one. 

“No one has a penny?” he laughs. “I guess you really are poor college students.”

Hey. We’re not all poor college students. Some of us are poor college graduates. 

He gets a laugh from the group. Haha, Mr. Supermodel is making fun of our poverty! Good times. At this point, I have a hunch the kids who say yes to an offer are gonna get exploited, but I laugh too. To prove that I can handle a Corporate Bro busting my chops. Later that night, lying awake on my friend’s couch, I will cuss myself out for pretending to like that man’s lame-ass joke. 

Someone finally gives him a penny. He gets out an EdgeCo blade. Knife in hand, he starts peeling the edges of the penny. I can almost hear the sound of Abe Lincoln screaming. 

It’s clear he’s done this many times before. It is kind of impressive, if you want to feel dumb instead of sad for a second. We react like the audience in an infomercial. Some of us are like, rubbing our eyes in disbelief. Others are whispering, “Holy Mary, Mother of God…” We need to get paid somehow, so we act like we’re amazed.  

I am jotting down notes. I’m raising my hand to answer questions. I know I’d be a stooge to take this job, but my people-pleaser/ good student impulses are taking over. 

I kept the notebook. Here are some of the notes I took:

“EdgeCo knives stay sharp for 7-10 years. Cutting edges are between the points, not on the points. Knives can be sold individually or in a set. Extendable flaying knives are good for fishermen.” 

“If you love knives, right now you’re feeling horny.” 

“Representatives are given $540 worth of EdgeCo supplies, used as long as the rep wants the set. Deposit of $135.” 

So, to get hired, I’d have to pay the good folks at Knife Maniac Incorporated $135. In addition to paying for these penny-shredders, there’s a four-day training seminar that pays nothing. That means, if you’ve had four whole days of training and you’re still not a great salesperson, or the customers don’t feel much like buying luxury shit due to the recession, someone could work seven appointments and still fall short of breaking even with Pierce Marketing. 

   I’m scribbling notes on a piece of paper for some reason. I’m participating in this lost cause. At the same time, I’m cursing myself for being a sucker and taking a Greyhound ride to Chicago to check out this waste of time. Even if I got enough appointments per week, I’m no salesman. 

Here’s what a meeting between a customer and me might sound like. 

“Hello there, Mrs. Thompson. Um, I have here, in my possession… some amazing knives. From the fine folks at EdgeCo. You ever feel like, uh, peeling the edge off a penny? Well, if you did, one of these could do the trick. So, would you, uh, wanna buy a set?” 

“No,” Mrs. Thompson says. “We don’t need to be breaking the bank for special knives right now. The economy is in the shitter, you know.” 

“Right. I’ve heard the news reports about that. Fittingly enough, uh, the economy is kinda why I’m tryna sell knives to people like you in the first place. Because the economy is, you know…”

“In the shitter, right,” Mrs. T says. “Yes, I figured that was what brought you into my kitchen for this uncomfortable demonstration.” 

“Uh huh. Well, I guess it’s a no-sale then. Hmmm. We’ve still got 58 minutes to go before the end of this appointment. In the meantime, if I were to shred my belt into pieces with one of these EdgeCo knives, would you maybe reconsider?” 

“No.”

“OK. Jeez, I feel like trash for even asking you that. Plus I really need this belt. It’s the only one I have. My boss told me to be more persistent. Anyway, at least I’m still making 18 bucks this hour.”

“Sure. So, do you have any other appointments today?” 

“Nope. Zero. Zero more.” 

“Well… good luck with this.” 

“Yeah. Hey, I’m starting to feel, like, really weird. Can I get a glass of water?” 

“No, you need to leave.” 

“Right then. OK, I’ll see you later. Wait, no I won’t. I mean, goodbye. Goodbye forever, Mrs. Thompson.” 

End scene. 

Now, that’s the opposite of visualizing something in a positive way, which is not a recipe for success. However, I thrive on desire and belief. Do these knives spark any desire or belief in me? No, they don’t. They make me cynical. I make my little jokes. It’s another fucking dead end. 

But the crux of the whole process was that I still want to be accepted for the job. My self-esteem is so low that I want to be accepted by anyone—even these scammers. 

So, when Prince Scammer, the manager, tells me I got the job, I’m thrilled. We shake hands. I bask in the triumph, knowing it’s all fake. Outside I light up a cigarette and walk across the street to the bus stop. 

The bus drops me off at the train station. I’m headed back to my friend’s couch, where I slept last night. On the el ride there, I don’t think much about the job I got that I was never going to work. I bust out a piece of scratch paper and start writing. 

The title is “Vampire Fight.” It is about the time I saw two vampires fighting in a basic cable movie. And I wondered whether the goal of each vampire was to bite the other one’s neck, or to drive a stake through their heart. Because vampires kill via neck bite, but vampires die by stake. What a conundrum! But the real kicker of the story was, the movie was so bad, I didn’t even wait 30 seconds to find out the answer. I changed the channel to something better, and now I’ll never know. 

I’m in Chicago, living my dream writing mostly bullshit. A small fraction of it is actually good. Ultimately, I think I took this vacation to live this dream, if only for 20 minutes. 

On my friends’ couch that night, I’m still buzzing because I got to write on the El train in Chicago. I have a moment where I even reconsider taking the stupid knife job. I’m eager to hang out, drink beer, and play Madden Football with Clay and MJ. We start a fantasy draft for some reason, where we pick players one-by-one to make our teams. I tell them I got the job, but it just might be a scam. 

Clay runs his hand through his cool emo-swipe-right hair. He peers at me with his eagle-like eyes. 

“And why would you think it’s a scam, Nick?” 

“It’s probably the magic beans,” MJ chimes in. His long legs are stretched out, beer in hand. His black hoodie is up, which seems to maximize his sarcasm. “Beware the magic beans, Nicholas.”

“OK, so here’s why I’m not so sure about it,” I say. “I gotta pay them money to sell their knives door-to-door. At first, anyway…”  

 “Oh, Jesus,” Clay says in disappointment. 

“That’s what I’m thinking, right. Except, it pays pretty well, in theory. And I do wanna move here. So, maybe there’s like a Hail Mary throw of a chance it could work out–” 

“No,” Clay says. “There’s not, Nick. Look, I know a little bit about these scams. And let me just say this…” 

At this point, Clay gives a critique so incisive and well-spoken I was thinking he was reading off a teleprompter behind me. I turn around at one point to check, but all I see is a Tom Waits poster. 

Shit, I think halfway through his speech. I wish he would just mercy-rule me here. I didn’t realize Clay was this much smarter than me until after college. I have no clue what this dude does at the museum, but I totally get why he has a job at the museum. 

Let’s resume with the end of Clay’s condemnation of Pierce Marketing that was so good it should have caused the end of money-schemes everywhere. 

“The plight of your debt is real as the desperation young workers feel in capitalist America, but you must take a stand that your education stands for something. It stands for saying no to this garbage, this grifter exploitation. Stay in Fond du Lac and work at Ma & Pa’s if you need to, but my friend, if you work one second for these obvious bloodsuckers, I will lose all respect for you.” 

“And we don’t want any of your magic beans,” MJ added. 

“Huh,” I said, controller in hand. “Well then, it seems like bad news, good news. The bad news is that spending money to come here tryna find a job has been a total failure. The good news is, I’m happy to have Donald Driver on my team.” 

I press yes to confirm and hand the controller to Clay. 

“Silver lining, I guess,” I say. 

I sip my beer. Clay looks me in the eyes. 

“I’m sorry, man.” 

###

I wake up on the couch. I have no time to say goodbye. I gotta rush to the brown line with a hangover. Because I suck at being on time with el trains in the mix, and I put down a six-pack the night before. 

Christmas is in a few days. The Greyhound Station is packed with impatient travelers. I walk in alongside Annie. She’s a cute and bookish blond. We just met 10 minutes ago on the el. Somehow we found out we were just headed for the same place, we kinda liked the way each other looked, and we got to talking. Annie is a secretary for a professor at DePaul. She’s going home to Iowa for Christmas. 

Annie and I had a lot in common. We both kinda ramble, if we’re nervous but comfortable, so we found out our moms have the same first names. Both our dads are retired cops. We’re the youngest in our families, with two brothers and a sister apiece. We’re both baseball fans who love the Cubs. 

I call attention to all this coincidental stuff, and Annie just shrugs and says, “That’s the way life is.” She is used to the stars aligning in a familiar, comforting way. I admire that feeling, but struggle to relate. 

Annie’s parents live close to the site where Field of Dreams was filmed. She tells me there’s a baseball museum in town. I’m supposed to be finding the bus to Milwaukee, but I gotta chat with Annie in the line for the De Moines bus. I get her phone number. The bus arrives. A gust of cold air rushes through the terminal. Through a shield of glass doors, I watch her lug her bags onto the bus. I walk away. 

I didn’t get to help Annie with her luggage. We never spoke again. When I look back, Annie was a better Hail Mary throw than Pierce Marketing. But I never called her. If I really wanted someone like Annie to love me, I’ll never get what the hell I was thinking.  

With Annie gone, I gotta figure out how to get home. The line to the information desk is about as long as the line for a roller coaster at Six Flags. I try to listen to the PA system to determine my next move. 

The voice that comes through the commotion is muffled and heavy with static. We are not listening to an announcement of helpful info on schedules and delays. We are listening to a standup comic do a hacky bit about the speaker box at a Taco Bell drive-thru. I hear an omniscient voice that’s supposed to be calming, but it’s unintelligible. Persistent, too. It’s like listening to God explain Himself and everything, but he’s blackout drunk on the blood of his only begotten Son. 

Shortly before my bus arrives, I start asking random people in line which bus they’re waiting for. The first three just challenge me to an uncomfortable staring contest, but human #4 throws me a frickin’ bone. 

She points an unsteady finger to gate 13. I mutter thanks and dash over there. My spot in line happens to be just outside the arcade room. Arcade zombies moan, cars explode, and machine guns fire. The indecipherable voice of the Greyhound God joins in. I tune out the sounds of chaos to stay sane. I sit down by some storage lockers and breathe a sigh of relief. 

###

I’ve taken a window seat on the bus. A jovial young lady takes a seat beside me. She’s got unkempt, stringy hair, and she speaks in broken English. She asks if she can sit beside me, and I say yes, of course. 

She shoves her luggage into the overhead compartment. Then she tells me her name is Nee-Ying. 

“Well, hi Nee-Ying,” I say. “Are you from around here?” 

She giggles nervously as a response. I get no nod or headshake. I can tell she still wants to talk though. 

“Are you from… somewhere in Asia?”

That was not the smartest question I’ve asked, but it happened. Thankfully, Nee-Ying took it in stride, because I don’t think she understood what I was saying. 

Nee-Ying aimed her phone at the window to take pictures of downtown Chicago. Later in the drive, she captures pics of the majestic skyline as we escape from it. I lean back obligingly so I don’t get in the way. 

As she cycles through her phone, I catch a glimpse of the screen. I see confusing symbols that mean nothing to me. It’s like looking at the back side of a fortune cookie strip. 

With her ticket stub in hand, Nee-Ying nudges me. She points to her stub and then to me several times. Finally, I point to myself, and then to her stub with an unknowing shrug. She nods ecstatically. I get it. 

I reach into my pocket and show her my ticket. Her brow strains intently. She inspects it. She deduces that on my trip, I’ll be making four stops. She smiles triumphantly. 

“Twenty-two dollars, each stop!” she exclaims. She leans over and points to the total price of my voyage: 88 dollars. It takes me a second to realize she’s done some math to make conversation with me. 

“Yes!” I said, almost matching her excitement. “Eighty-eight divided by four is twenty-two!” 

Nee-Ying doesn’t know much English at this point, but her math vocab really picks up the slack. 

“Yes! Twenty-two times four is eighty-eight!” 

We go back and forth celebrating the math a few times. Five minutes later, we’re running out of things to discuss. 

“So, where are you from?” I say. 

She laughs at the question. I’m a pretty funny guy. In fairness, it was pretty funny. The two of us trying to have a conversation.

Months later, while listening to a John Lennon song, I hear a lyric from the song “Borrowed Time.” It goes “The more that I see, the less that I know for sure.” Then I see Nee-Ying beside me on the bus in my mind’s eye. 

Riding the Greyhound is humbling. But the bus has to offer a destination, at least. A place where the outcasts meet up, far from homes that stifle us. I’m riding away from my destination, having gained little more than confusion. As Nee-Ying naps beside me, I tell myself that my destination hasn’t changed; I’m just getting there in reverse.