[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Here's a guy, asks you am I right, and you can't get a word in, this guy's not
a genius, he's not a guru, he's not even a salesman, he's a compulsive talker
in a goddamn bar.
Look, you want a decent home for your wife and kids, that's why you're here in
this bar. That's why we're all here. We're knights on the journey to the
grail, every one of us, even the old fart over there with the stogie, that old
pushbelly's
Sir Goddamn Lancelot, am I right? Look at this place. Not a skirt in sight.
Even the gigged-out old rejects leave places like this alone. Where are the
hookers?
They are in the places of youth. Not even hookers want us, we are reject
johns.
Hookers won't bother with a bunch of weepy fifty-dollar tricks. Nowadays even
the ugly whores and the sex changes make big bread, you know how they do it?
How the hell do they do it, why can't we get them into the Salesman bars
anymore?
It's S&M ruined us. There was an old war-horse used to come in here to drink
and
turn a few. Now she's got a posh suite up in the Bonaventure and she's bought
herself some whips and a pair of leather gloves. There are guys'll pay a
Page 17
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
fortune even to them plug uglies to go after them with a whip. Am I right? I
miss that damn old rotten whore. They're all the goddamn Blessed Virgin Mary,
that's our problem. Blaspheme, blaspheme, etcetera. Excuse me, ma'am could you
bring me another couple of double bourbons?"
The waitress huffed off. Bob, who wanted desperately to get away from this
man, but who was also curious about him, had to get rid of a bothersome
question.
"Is this a pitch for some kind of self-improvement seminar?"
"You ask that?"
"I don't want any more pitches for Jesus. I get Jesus pitches every time I
get on a plane."
"That isn't a real question. Who am I, what do I want, those are real
questions.
You think you have a life but you don't. You do not have ownership, you have
debt."
"My car is paid for."
"Wha well, good goddamn, aren't we wonderful! Oh, may I touch the hem of the
garment well, let me look at you! Your car is paid for! Good goddamn. Well,
hell. Isn't that wonderful. I'm so proud of my friend! Here's a guy can fuck
the best part of your whole goddamn carefully rehearsed speech! We better be
careful, this guy here with the plastic nerdpack in his shirt pocket might be
president someday. He drives a car that is his own. Now, looky here, Mr.
Smartass. You think your car is paid for, but you're wrong. You don't have the
fucking holy grail just yet, Sir Gawain, my brother. Your kids' educations,
are they paid for? Is your house paid for? And what about your business, your
goddamn swimming pool, your time-share, your TV, your VCR, your home computer?
Your car is paid for what a lie. Unless everything is paid for, nothing is
paid for. Your debt is just arranged differently. Look, what I'm leading up to
is, you need something that is your own, and that nobody can take away from
you.
You need a stake in the earth. You need land. Land, man! I know a lot about
land.
Specifically, I know about the sweetest little piece of eastern Canada ever
was.
The very sweetest."
Bob thought, Oh, lord, a real-estate salesman.
The pitch drummed on. He was like a penitent before the altar of the hustle.
Kneeling at a bulging vest, not reading the contract, the haze of fine print,
take the pen, hit it right here, thank you, you have just bought another
American dream.
But it's not paid for either.
Slam, bam, thank you, ma'am. Phrase that became current in Dodge City during
the cattle drives, to describe encounters between prostitutes and teenage
cowboys who had not seen a woman in years. What is a man like who comes in
after two years on the range eating sowbelly and beans, working seven days a
week twenty hours a day? Put him in the middle of the biggest, richest city he
has ever seen, with three hundred dollars in his pocket, and also give him a
gun.
That's the American dream, although few of those young men lived to tell about
it:
No, they bought real estate with their three hundred dollars and then went out
to see their land. Slam, bam, thank you, ma'am. Goin' to Canada to see mah
swamp.
Bob signed the contract "Ronald Woodrow Wilson Reagan."
"My God, you have a long name like a Negro."
"I am a Negro."
"But you look ah, hell!"
"Sorry."
Page 18
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"I can't sell this stuff to you on time. You've got to pay cash."
"Don't have it."
The real-estate hustler got up and went to the far end of the bar. Bob, for
his part, left ten dollars on the table and slunk out.
He wished, how he wished, that there would come a knock at his door and that
tall, beautiful blonde from the Camaro would be standing there, but no knock
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]