ON THE JOB
He looked like a man whose leader has failed him time after time, as he asked the seller awkward questions—not hostile. He was looking for a better belt buckle.
The seller said, You ought to buy yourself something beautiful! Why not this?
He paid for the buckle, which he felt was brighter and stronger than he was. His sense of sight and smell were diminishing.
He could only crudely draw something on his life and just fill it in—say a horse.
“Can I see that?” he said, “What is that?”
It was a baby porringer.
At the close of the day, the seller counted her money, went to the bank—the next step. She hates to push items she doesn’t approve of, especially in this small town, five days a week, where everything she says contains the mystery of health and salvation that preserves her customers from hurt or peril.
That much was settled, as the customer entered his home, approached his wife, and considered his chances. Hadn’t his wife been daily smacked across the mouth with lipstick and cut above the eyes with mascara?
She had an enormous bosom that anyone could feel leaping forward to afford pleasure. She was gabbing and her husband—the customer—was like a whole horse who’d fallen out of its stall—a horse that could not ever get out of its neck-high stall on its own, but then his front legs—their whole length—went over the top edge of the gate, and the customer made a suitable adjustment to get his equilibrium well outside of the stall.
“It’s so cute,” he said to his wife, “when you saw me, how excited you got.”
His wife liked him so much and she had a sweet face and the customer thought he was being perfectly insincere.
He went on talking—it was a mixed type of thing—he was lonely and he was trying to get his sheer delight out of the way.