Her response, when I broached my resolution, was characteristic. You’re undermining everything I’ve done!
I don’t care, I answered, I’ve got to do it.
Then I’ll take a job too, said she. And that very day she hired herself out as a waitress at The Iron Cauldron.
You’re going to regret this, she informed me. By this she meant that it was fatal ever to leave one another’s side.
I had to promise her that while looking for work I would have my meals at The Iron Cauldron twice a day. I went once, for lunch, but the sight of her waiting on tables discouraged me so that I couldn’t go back again.
To get regular employment in an office was out of the question. In the first place there was nothing I could really do well, and in the second place I knew I would never be able to stand the routine. I had to find something which would give me the semblance of freedom and independence. There was only one job I could think of which filled the bill—and that was the book racket. Though it wouldn’t offer me a regular salary my time would be my own, and that meant a great deal to me. To get up every morning on the dot and punch a clock was out of the question.
I couldn’t go back to work for the Encyclopaedia Britannica again—my record was too shady. I’d have to find another encyclopaedia to handle. It didn’t take long to discover the loose leaf encyclopaedia. The sales manager, to whom I had applied for a job, didn’t have much difficulty convincing me that it was the best encyclopaedia on the market. He seemed to think I had excellent possibilities. As a favor he gave me some of his own personal leads to start with. They were pushovers, he assured me. I left the office with a brief case filled with specimen pages, various types of binding, and the usual paraphernalia which the book salesman always carries about with him. I was to go home and study all this crap and then start out. I was never to take No for an answer.
Soit.
I made two sales the first day, netting me quite a handsome commission since I had managed to sell my customers the most expensively bound sets. One of my victims was a Jewish physician, a charming, considerate individual who not only insisted on my staying to dinner with the family but who gave me the names of several good friends of his whom he was certain I could sell. The next day I sold three sets, thanks to this kind Jew. The sales manager was secretly elated but pretended that I had the usual beginner’s luck. He warned me not to let this quick success go to my head.
Don’t be satisfied because you sell two or three a day. Try to sell five or six. We have men who sell as many as twelve sets a day.
You’re full of shit, I thought to myself. A man who can sell twelve sets of encyclopaedias a day wouldn’t be selling encyclopaedias, he’d be selling the Brooklyn Bridge.
Nevertheless I went about my work conscientiously … I followed up every lead religiously, even though it meant journeying to such outlandish towns as Passaic, Hoboken, Canarsie and Maspeth. I had sold three of those personal leads the sales manager had given me. He thought I should have sold the entire seven, the idiot. Each time we met he became more friendly, more conciliatory. The publishers were going to have a big show at the Garden soon, he informed me one day. If I kept on my toes he might arrange to have me work with him in the booth which the firm was renting. He implied that there, at the Garden, the sales fell into your lap like ripe plums. It would be a clean-up. He added that he had been studying me; he liked the way I spoke. Stick with me, he added, and we may give you a big piece of territory to handle—out West, perhaps. You’ll have a car and a crew of men under you. How does that appeal to you?
Marvelous! I said, though the mere thought of it terrified me. I didn’t want to be that successful. I was quite content to sell one a day—if I could.
Anyone who tries to sell books soon learns that there is one type of individual who takes the wind out of your sails. This is the fellow who seems so pliant and yielding that you almost feel sorry for him when first you sink your hooks into him. You feel certain that he’ll not only buy a set for himself but that he’ll bring you signed orders from his friends in a day or two. He agrees with everything you say, and goes you one better. He marvels that every intelligent person in the land is not already in possession of the books. He has innumerable questions to ask, and the answers always incite him to greater enthusiasm. When it comes to the last touch—the bindings—he fingers them lovingly, dwelling with exasperating elaboration on the relative advantages of each. He even shows you the niche in the wall where he believes the set will show up to best advantage. A dozen times you make ready to hand him the pen in order to sign on the dotted line.
Sometimes you rouse these birds to such a pitch that nothing will do but call up a neighbor and have him look at the books too. If the friend comes, as he usually does, you rehearse the program all over again. The day wears on and you find yourself still talking, still expounding, still marveling over the wonders contained in this beautiful and practicable set of books. Finally you make a desperate effort to pull in the line. And then you get something like this: Oh, but I can’t buy the books now—I’m out of work at the moment. I sure would love to own a set, though … Even at this point you feel so certain the guy is sincere that you offer to stake him to the first installment. You can pay me later, when you get a job. Just sign here! But even here the type I speak of will manage to squirm out. Any bare-faced excuse serves him. Only at this point do you realize that he never had the least intention of buying the books, it was just a way of passing the time. He may even tell you blandly, as you take leave, that he never enjoyed anything so much as hearing the way you talked…
The French have an expression which sums it up neatly: il n’est pas serieux.
It’s a great business, the book racket. You learn something about human nature if nothing else. It’s almost worth the time wasted, the sore feet, the heartaches. One of the striking features about the game, though, is this—once you’re in it you can think of nothing else. You talk encyclopaedias—if that happens to be the line—from morn to midnight; you talk it every chance you get, and when there is no one else to talk to you talk to yourself. Many’s the time I sold myself a set in an off moment. It sounds preposterous, if you’re not in the grind, but actually you get to believe that every one on God’s earth must possess the precious boon you have been given to dispense. Everyone, you tell yourself, has need of more knowledge. You look at people with just one thought in your mind—is he a prospect or not? You don’t give a damn whether the person will ever make use of the damned set: you think only of how you can convince him that what you have to offer is a, sine qua. non. As for other commodities—shoes, socks, shirts, etc.—what fun would there be in selling a man something he has to have? No sir, you want your victim to have a sporting chance. You’d almost prefer him to turn his back on you—then you could really put on your song and dance with gusto. A good salesman doesn’t enjoy taking money from a push-over. He wants to earn his money. He wants to delude himself that, if he were really put to it, he could sell books to an illiterate—or to a blind man!
It’s a game, moreover, which throws interesting characters across your path, some of them having tastes similar to your own, some being more alien than the heathen Chinese, some admitting that they had never owned a book, and so on. Sometimes I came home so elated, so hilarious, that I couldn’t sleep a wink. Often we lay awake the whole night talking about these truly droll characters whom I had encountered.
The ordinary salesman, I observed, had sense enough to clear out quick when he saw that there was little prospect of making a sale. Not me. I had a hundred different reasons for clinging to my man. Any crackpot could hold me till the wee hours of the morning, recounting the history of his life, spinning out his crazy dreams, explaining his mad projects and inventions. Many of these witless ones reminded me strongly of my Cosmococcic messenger boys; some, I discovered, had actually been in the service. We understood one another perfectly. Often, in parting from them, they would make me little gifts, absurd trifles which I usually threw away before reaching home.
Naturally I was bringing in less and less orders.
