The Dirt Merchants by Henning Morales

Author:Henning Morales [Morales, Henning]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bed of Angels, Inc.
Published: 2015-03-30T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

WINTERTIME LOVE

Tuesday, February 16th, 1984

The plump weatherman Al Roker had said that blizzard conditions would get worse before the end of the day and to stay off the roads.

Spencer had been out for an hour going up and down the 1 and 9 highway in Jersey City with a second-day trainee, Danny Carluccio, who didn’t seem to mind the minus ten wind-chill. Jersey City was the closest territory acceptable to Spencer. Also, with no bridges, tunnels or city rush hour traffic to deal with, he figured conditions lent themselves to a fifteen-piece day without much muss or fuss.

The snow started out slowly but by noon it was coming down hard. The harsh winter had taken a toll on Spencer’s psyche and sales levels, especially over the past thirty days or so. Daily quotas were pathetically low as a result of all the subzero days and the foot of snow that was already on the ground, seemingly for weeks.

Although he’d gotten an early start, by noon he had only one sale off. The accumulation of thirty days of subquota production was making him nervous. Two months earlier he couldn’t conceive of being nervous about anything. But deep inside he knew he wasn’t seeing enough people. They simply weren’t out. All of the factories he knew of in the area were closed due to the weather conditions. Gas stations were deserted. He was relegated to diners and the businesses that were open along the 1 and 9.

“We have to go further down the 1 and 9. We already hit the diners and businesses up here and there are no shopping centers or gas stations to hit. Normally we get a steady flow of fresh people to pitch as they’re coming in and out of those places. I think if we continue down the 1 and 9 there will be more businesses. We’ll bang a U-turn at the circle just before Route 46 and pitch back down towards the Lincoln Tunnel but instead of turning around there and working our way back we’ll continue on and finish up down there. I think there are some truck stops and businesses down there.”

“Sounds good to me,” the rookie said, rubbing his hands together in front of the heating vent.

Damn trainee is no help. Why am I even talking to him?

Shut up, you’re not even really mad at him, it’s not his fault.

Focus, man!

The wipers were going full tilt but couldn’t prevent the flurries from blocking his vision through the windshield. Both were wearing insulated boots, thermal underwear, two layers of sweaters, goose down jackets, gloves and hat, but the combination of wind and cold made getting out of the van unbearable. To make matters worse, when they found someone as crazy as they, who was out and about, they would have to take off their gloves to manipulate the product and demonstrate it. The plastic on the wrench sets was frozen solid and the metal on the socket sets was ice cold. Snow poured in every time the van’s doors swung open.

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