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The hotel was large and clean, and Tom walked across the expanse of the lobby with his one bag in hand toward the front desk. He had to wait in line behind a large man who was waving a newspaper. “I don’t want this paper,” the man was saying, or shouting, depending on which side of the desk one happened to be on. “You lay this at my door every morning when I specifically requested a different paper.”
“But, sir,” the helpless desk clerk said, pleading with her small eyes; she must have been only twenty or so, Tom reasoned. Through a partition behind the desk Tom could see another clerk, obviously older and probably with more seniority, glancing around the corner at the altercation, refusing to get involved. “This is the paper that we give to all our guests.”
“I don’t care what the other guests receive.” The man was raising his voice by this time, “I want the paper I requested.”
“This would mean we would have to supply your paper separate from all the other...”
“Do you speak English? I ain’t talkin’ about what the other guests get, I am talking about what I want. I am a paying customer. I come here regularly, you little bitch!”
At this point Tom, despite his instincts, stepped toward the man and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, now,” he said.
“Get the fuck off me.” The man shrugged Tom’s hand the fuck off him. “I want my goddamn paper. Mine, the one I read.”
“The news is the same,” Tom reasoned, and out of the corner of his eye saw the gratitude in the young woman, she seemed to swell. Even the timid desk manager managed to peak around the corner further than he had before. “It’s all the same news. Does it really matter?”
The man looked as though he was ready to punch either Tom or the desk clerk as he backed off a few paces. “Tomorrow morning,” he said savagely, “I want the paper I requested on my front door. If not, I will rip this place apart and have your job, you little slut.”
“Whoa!” Tom said, but the man had already stormed off down the hall and into the elevators, complaining to everyone he met what shitty service he was receiving at this shitty hotel and how the place would be in shitty shambles by the time he was through with it, legally speaking of course, he said. “Shit!” he reiterated.
“I have a reservation,” Tom said to the clerk when the man’s ranting faded up the elevator shaft. “My name is Tom Ryder. I’m with...”
“I’ll handle this.” The desk manager finally stepped forward and pushed his way in front of the young woman. “Do you have identification?” he requested officiously.
Later, before Tom went to his room, he scoped out the halls where the seminars would be. There was a hockey reunion in a banquet hall next to where the Consumer Life seminar would be held. Tom studied the old photos of the players, each one smiling, exposing various missing teeth. On the opposite side of the Consumer Life meeting was a seminar called: “Honey and Vinegar: Getting what you really want through kindness.” Tom recognized the picture of the lecturer as the man bitching about his paper at the front desk.
The next morning, Tom foolishly thanked the electronic wakeup call that came through his telephone. He had tossed and turned all night in crisp sheets and now stumbled around half asleep looking for his clothes in a hotel that, to him, resembled his apartment a little. He banged into walls and once picked up the wall mounted hair dryer mistaking it for the telephone as it rang the reminder wakeup call. He tied his tie around his neck and spit on his shoes to give them some sort of resemblance of polish and made his way down the stiflingly hot hotel halls to the first seminar.
There were about thirty men and women in the banquet hall. Some he recognized from the office, others must have been from another agency. He did not nod in recognition at any of his fellow agents and they did not look at him. He sat alone near the back and poured himself cup after cup of free water provided in pitchers. He looked around the room for Rebecca, but she was not there. The lights dimmed, and music played from small speakers in the corners of the room. The music was fast and meant to be inspiring, but the speakers were small and Tom could hear coughs and seat shuffling over the sound.
In time Travis Bunk, author of “Choose Your Own Reality”, came out from behind a curtain. He was flanked by a young woman and an older gentleman who seemed to have no other purpose than to stand beside him and frown at the crowd.
“Welcome!” Travis Bunk shouted at them.
“Ahem,” someone said.
“I am glad you are all here today,” he continued undaunted, “I am glad you all have made the conscious effort to CHOOSE YOUR OWN REALITY!” His flanking staff clapped enthusiastically, not quite inspiring applause from everyone gathered around the tables. Tom clapped as well, but stopped due to being the only one.
For three hours Travis Bunk ranted and roamed the banquet hall, in turns holding his book in the air and slamming it down on various tables in front of hapless agents. Tom could see some roll their eyes, and others allow light into their eyes as readily as if they were learning the secrets of the world. Tom tried to let light into his eyes but realized he was not entirely listening to the speech. He had already heard it in the office and it began to sound stale to him now. After all, what had the disturbing concept done for his client, Joe?
“I tell you the truth,” Travis Bunk shouted at the ceiling so loud even his flunkies flinched, “Your potential client is not your friend, he or she is your enemy! He or she is a child who needs to be disciplined and you are the parents who know what is best. DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENT! They do not have a clue what they are talking about.”
“Excuse me?” There was a voice in the back, three seats away from Tom.
“Yes, a question?” Travis Bunk smiled and offered a hand to expose the interloper.
“What about building rapport with your prospect?” The man with the question looked uncomfortable but the request was reasonable enough that the room looked as one from him to Travis Bunk.
“Rapport,” Travis Bunk said flatly and let his hands fall to his side. His partners were looking at him questioningly, and he turned to them and smiled ironically. They took the cue and grinned at the ceiling as though they were dealing with a room full of imbeciles. “He wants to build rapport,” Travis Bunk said as an aside to his aides.
“Yes, rapport,” The man said evenly. He did not shift uncomfortably as Tom was doing now, nor did he take his eyes off Travis Bunk; his timidity apparently gone after being singled out.
“What’s your name?” Travis Bunk said and approached the man, his assistants following a step or two behind.
“Frank,” Frank said.
“Well, Frank, now I know your name,” Travis Bunk smiled, “Is that enough rapport?”
“It’s a start.”
“Where do you work?” Travis Bunk inched closer. Frank named his company and gave its address as well. “Good, good. A nice firm,” Travis Bunk said.
“It is, thank you.”
“How are we doing for rapport now?” Travis Bunk asked.
“Getting better,” Frank said.
“Well, Frank,” Travis Bunk looked to each of his cohorts, “your tie is a piece of shit.”
“Excuse me?” Frank’s eyes widened at the sudden attack on his wardrobe, but Tom noticed the man did not finger his tie as Tom was doing at that instant, trying to draw attention away from the garment.
“You see, Frank,” Travis Bunk waved Frank off and took his place in the center of the room, “You can build rapport all you want, but in the end you are going to piss your prospect off. You spend all that time building a friendship and a relationship with a prospect only to shatter it when you tell them something they may feel uncomfortable listening to. Am I right?” Travis Bunk gestured to the room, but his wave ended with Tom. How the hell could he have known about the gnome, Tom wondered.
“I don’t think you’re right at all.” Frank ventured, and the room sat silent.
“Oh?”
“No,” Frank continued. “Your idea of disturbing is sound enough, but I think you are missing the point here.”
“I’m missing the point.” Travis Bunk laughed out loud at the prospect. His aides laughed as well, but Tom noticed that not many others in the room were laughing. They were looking from Frank to Travis Bunk, as if expecting a showdown. “If you would have bothered to read my book, the reason we are all gathered here...”
“I have read your book,” Frank answered. “I’ve read it twice and I think it’s a piece of shit.”
There was a hush in the room now. Tom could see Travis Bunk flush and his aides moved in their shoes as though they wanted to flee. “I’m sorry?” Travis Bunk said.
“You should be,” Frank said. “What you are missing is the client’s need to trust their agent. Your book suggests such a hostile view of the prospect, such an antagonistic stance that I can’t believe it works at all.”
“Really, Frank?” Travis Bunk was smiling but Tom could tell he was nervous, not used to being challenged in this way.
“Yes, really,” Frank continued. “And, I checked up on you, you haven’t done much else besides writing this book.”
At this point a different aide, before unnoticed, was at Frank’s side ushering the man out the door. Frank went quietly but smiled at Travis Bunk and tipped an imaginary hat. Bunk did not smile until Frank had safely left the banquet hall. “There goes a man who will never understand success,” he said, to which his aides applauded so loudly that most of the auditorium felt they had to follow suit. “And there is a reason why he is now out in the hall, soon to be checked out of his beautiful suite, and you all are still in here.” More applause. “Now, how many of you have really read my book?” He smiled sardonically while most of the hands in the room reached for the sky.
In the next few hours, Tom could hear nothing else but the words “my book”, and he counted 77 times. When the seminar broke for the afternoon luncheon, Tom left with one certainty: Travis Bunk was full of shit. There was a second certainty that Tom would not realize until later that evening; he would not be back for the rest of the seminar.
Tom spent that evening and the next in his room watching old westerns that his father loved until he could finally understand what his father meant by “They’re just good fun and never won any awards.”
$$$
Eddy called him at midnight. Twice. The first time, in a sleeping stupor, he believed he would not be fooled into talking to the automated wakeup call system again and simply lifted the receiver and let it fall in its cradle. When she phoned the second time he was a little more awake and realized in fact that it wasn’t morning, but still the same day. “Hello,” he said groggily into the phone.
“Why did you hang up on me?” Her voice was far away and quiet.
“I’m sorry,” He sat up in bed rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I thought it was the front desk.”
“Can you come home?” she said.
“Eddy, you’re not supposed to be calling me,” he said, but could not remember why. Something about complete isolation from distraction.
“I need you to be here now,” she said. He could tell she was crying. In his sleep state he became annoyed.
“I can’t come home now,” he said. “I’m in a seminar.” Which was a lie, of course.
“You don’t need the stupid goddamn seminar,” she shrieked into the phone, so he had to hold it away from his ear. “I need you here, I said.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, feigning concern.
“Nothing,” she said. “Everything.”
“Look, Eddy, I...”
“Now, I said.” Full on shout.
“Hang on a minute, just a minute now,” he tried to reason, “One day you’re telling me you don’t believe in me, or even love me, and now you need me there, like now?”
“I don’t believe in you, and I don’t love you,” she said.
“Oh, very nice.”
“But you must come home now.” Her voice calmed a little, but there was still an urgency in it, and a resignation he had never heard before.
“Eddy, I’ll be home on Monday morning,” he said.
“Would you stop being so fucking selfish for once in your life and think of me?” She was not shouting at all now, but whispering words that sounded as though they should be shouted.
“Me?” Tom’s face flushed. “Dammit, Eddy are you kidding me? Me, selfish? What about you? I am in a seminar here and you expect me to drop everything and just rush home because you demand it. What do you need, help lifting the couch out of the apartment? You’re leaving me anyway. I can’t believe this.” Now it was Tom who was shouting. He could hear her shrink and stopped himself from feeling like an asshole.
“If you don’t come home, I don’t know what will happen,” she said.
But Tom was too tired and too angry to hear the desperation in her voice. Her cryptic warning fell on deaf (and dumb, let’s face it) ears. “What? What are you so afraid will happen?” he said, “You’ll have a pizza or two?” He immediately felt ashamed at this, but his pride and anger and lack of sleep prevented him from taking it back, which he usually would have done. He had never said anything to Eddy about this sort of thing before and immediately after his shame he felt righteous and indignant.
“Fuck you,” was all she said in way of a rebuttal and hung up, precluding any argument they might have had, and just when Tom was ready to get going. It had been so long since he felt anything like white anger and he was ready to unleash more, matching hers, of course. When she hung up he felt ashamed again and vowed he would call her tomorrow. First, however, he called the front desk to cancel his wakeup call. The point was moot, anyhow; he had not attended the seminar that afternoon and he doubted he would be there in the morning.