Peter Abrahams - The Fan

“European movies aren’t exactly my forte, Jewel. I can’t even think of any off hand, except maybe The Crying Game. ”

“That’s close enough.”

April 9, second Wednesday of the month. 7:59. Ding. Fifth floor: linoleum still sticky, Prime National Mortgage still vacant. Gil: all showered and shaved, decked out in a clean shirt and a sober suit fresh out of dry-cleaner’s plastic carrying his order book and sample case and a jumbo takeout black coffee; and on time. He also had a new tie-red and black, nothing like his old lucky one-and a plan for breaking the Everest news gently, even with an optimistic spin. He now knew, at last, that yellow was a lousy color for a tie. Red and black, so much better: stand-up, optimistic, take no prisoners. The face of the rep is an optimistic face-he’d read that in a memo from Cincinnati-and wasn’t the tie the face of the suit? He liked that idea, would have to try it out on someone-Lenore? Ellen? Gil couldn’t think of the right person. He put on a sunny smile to go with his crisp clean freshness. The thrower felt light and warm against his leg.

“Morning, Bridgid. How’s Figgy doing with the fishing-rod thing?”

Bridgid didn’t look up from her keyboard. “It’s over.”

“Probably just as well. Once a city boy, always a city boy, right?”

Now she glanced at him, then quickly turned away. “Right.”

But if the fishing-rod thing was over, where were the fifty bucks going to come from? Gil, staying optimistic, pushed the thought from his mind and opened the conference-room door. Garrity and the eleven other Northeast reps were already sitting around the table. Twelve, actually: the eight veterans, plus the three brought in by O’Meara last month, plus one more: Figgy. He was passing Lifesavers to Verrucci, the new rep from Texas. Garrity saw Gil, held up his index finger, hurried to the door.

“Got a second?”

“If you do,” said Gil. “It’s eight o’clock.”

Garrity backed him into the hall, closing the door with Gil halfway through a recount. They went down the hall, into Garrity’s office. “Sit down, Gil,” Garrity said, indicating the couch that he had brought in after his divorce a few years ago. Much too soft and homey for an office couch: Gil had never seen anyone using it.

He sat, sinking down too deep for comfort. Garrity perched on a corner of his desk. His pant leg slid up, revealing his shiny, pink, hairless shin: an old man’s leg. Gil’s father wouldn’t have been much older than Garrity, if he’d lived.

“Figgy’s back?” Gil said.

“Nothing I could do about it,” Garrity said. “Cincinnati.”

Garrity’s attitude surprised him. “Figgy’s not so bad.”

“Nice of you to say so,” Garrity said, “under the circumstances.”

Circumstances? Did Garrity somehow know about the fifty? It wasn’t that big a deal. “What do you mean?”

Garrity took a deep breath, blew it out through pursed lips. “Gil,” he said.

“What?”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

“Spell what out?”

“O’Meara’s been on the phone with the Everest people.” Garrity waited for Gil to say something. Gil, trying to remember the spin plan, trying to stay optimistic, was quiet. Garrity continued, “The long and the short of it, and I wish to God it wasn’t me having to say this, is that you’re-”

Gil found his voice. “I can explain all about the Everest thing.” But not sitting down on this stupid couch with my knees in the air. Gil rose. He had the order book, sample case, and jumbo black coffee in his hands. Too much: the coffee spilled, mostly on his pants, some on the couch. Scalding pain, but he ignored it. He also ignored the fact that for the second day in a row, he’d ruined his clean crisp freshness, wet himself. This realization was harder to ignore than the pain; it made him want to rip his clothes off, to go into a frenzy. Instead he found himself talking a mile a minute. “I can explain the Everest reconfiguration. First of all, I don’t know what you heard from O’Meara, or what Everest told him, except it couldn’t have been Chuckie, he’s in Chicago, but I can promise you it’s not nearly as bad as it-”

Garrity was shaking his head. “Save it, Gil. The word’s come down from Cincinnati.”

“What word?”

“Aw, Gil, don’t make me. The word that you’re… you know.”

“That I’m what?” He took a step closer to Garrity, loomed over him.

Garrity’s face hardened. “I’ll need your order book, Gil. And your sample case. Outstanding commission checks will be forwarded.”

“That I’m what? That I’m what? That I’m what?”

Garrity didn’t answer, although Gil’s face was now inches from his own.

Gil still had the order book and sample case in his hands. He pictured himself raising them high and bringing them down on Garrity’s head, even felt the beginning of the rush of hot pleasure that would accompany the act. But he didn’t do it. He just let go, dropping them on the floor.

Garrity didn’t move, didn’t raise his voice. “You’ve got to get your life under control, boyo. As an old friend of your father I’m saying that.”

Gil glanced down at that pink leg. He could probably snap it in two with his bare hands. Would Garrity raise his voice then? Again he felt an incipient wave of hot pleasure, glimpsed a jumbled future of confused possibilities, disturbing and exciting; and again stifled the act. “As an old friend you keep your mouth shut about my father,” he said. “He started this business.”

Garrity shook his head. “Your father made beautiful knives. Cincinnati made it a business.”

“By ripping him off.”

“He was happy with the deal at the time.”

“He was dying at the time, you stupid shit.”

“He wasn’t a businessman, Gil. Bottom line.”

It hit Gil then for some reason, the Figgy part. “You gave Figgy my area?”

“Not me personally. O’Meara.”

Gil spun away, bursting out of Garrity’s office, down the hall, to Bridgid’s desk. She was bent over the keyboard, glasses slipped down to the end of her nose.

“How many dicks did you have to suck to get Figgy back on the payroll?” he said.

Her head jerked up, eyes widening.

“Garrity, O’Meara, who else?”

Bridgid’s face went red, just like a swelling dick, in fact: guilty as charged, he thought. Then she burst into tears. But he got no pleasure out of that; too easy, like pressing a button. Gil needed action.

He started for the conference room. A man in a windbreaker rose from one of the waiting-room chairs and stepped into his path, not quite blocking it.

“Mr. Renard?” he said with a smile.

“Yeah?”

“Have a nice day.” He handed Gil a long white envelope and left the office.

Stuffing it in his pocket, Gil strode to the conference room, banged the door open. In a moment he took in the essentials of a boisterous scene: the reps’ mouths open wide in laughter, all eyes on Figgy; Figgy balancing a wavering tower of cherry Lifesavers on his nose.

Then came silence, except for the Lifesavers skittering across the floor, and all eyes were on him. Gil had no plan; he wanted action, that was all. He walked around the table to Figgy. Figgy got out of his chair, backing up a little. Gil smiled-smiling was a simple baring of teeth, right? — and held out his hand. Reluctantly, as though fearing a bone crusher, or some other trick, Figgy extended his; but he couldn’t refuse-he was a rep. They shook, Gil hardly squeezing at all, just smiling this new smile he couldn’t remember smiling before, but that seemed so right.

“Congratulations, Figgy,” he said. “And continued success in your new endeavors.”

He released Figgy’s damp hand.