THIS WEEK WE BEGAN testing MUI’s Experimental Plan for the Development of Direct Sales Technique. The site is a block of lower-middle-class five-story apartment houses that in ten years will be slummy furnished rooms. Now, however, they contain the ideal customers for educational products: uneducated parents eager for the advancement of their children, parents who don’t have the background to judge the quality of what you’re selling, parents who feel vague guilt about not having provided a richer cultural home environment, parents who because of their general ignorance revere books, and finally deprived parents who hunger for all goods. This isn’t my explanation, it’s an abstract of the theorizing of my immediate superior at MUI, the Director of the Plan, a little mutt named Wally. Wally is about five feet four with a gray flabby face and a withered arm. Of the commodities he’s sold I can remember jewelry, candy, socks, life insurance, pencils, vacuum cleaners, virgin forests, mutual securities, cemetery plots, round-the-world tours, cigars and mailing lists. Fox claims that Wally is one of the ablest salesmen he has ever met, a pure salesman, that is, a salesman who can sell anything. The quaintest attribute of this one-and-a-half-armed bandit, considering the line he’s in now, is that he don’t talk English good. Like, that may be your point of contention, I’ve got other convictions on the matter which it may be to our mutual benefit to inquire. I’ve listened to him for hours, and I imagine he really is good. In the first place, he’s so ugly he’s beautiful, like an English pug or a frog. I have a feeling he could go into the crummiest tenement in the city and the people would be joyous they weren’t him. When he speaks it’s like listening to a member of another species, consequently you treasure his words and gestures. He was showing me how, at the right point, you slip a pen to the customer so he can sign the contract half-consciously. He gave me the pen with his withered hand. That’s the ace he keeps up his sleeve. The only time he referred to himself in a genuinely personal way he said You know why I like this game? I like pulling the wool over these so-called wise guys’ eyes. A sweetheart, huh? Well, let us see how I gather information for the Development of Direct Sales Technique. At ten A.M. (which gives the superintendent an opportunity to get the garbage out, pick up the used rubber behind the stairwell, remove pee and bubble gum from the elevator floor, and have his breakfast) I descend into the bowels of my building. Before ringing I carefully note the superintendent’s name, since I will be addressing him as Mister So-and-So throughout the interview. I will explain that I am a member of the Junior Research Educators’ Association. Would he be kind enough to provide me with the names of families having children of grammar and high school age? I am making an important study of educational usage in the neighborhood, and his cooperation will be of greatest value. If he should require identification—one cannot be too careful nowadays—I have a letter on embossed stationery stating that I am myself and that the results of my inquiry will be used in a nation-wide study to the purpose of raising the intellectual standards of tomorrow’s citizens so that the country may be better equipped to meet the increasing threat of Russian technological advancement. The letter is signed by both the mayor and the governor. You figure out how Fox got the signatures, I can’t. Clipped to the letter is a round-edged card bearing my picture and name, with all of which I feel I could interview the President’s wife. But let us see what happens under actual battle conditions. The superintendent of the first building was named Rooney. I burned it into my brain and rang. A fat woman in housecoat answered. May I see your husband, madam, I am a member … My husband’s dead. I’m very sorry to hear that, ma’am, may I see the superintendent then? You’re looking at him. Mrs. Rooney? What you selling? I ignored this, announced my name and launched into a description of my mission. You selling books? No, I’m not selling books, Mrs. Rooney, and I began again to describe my mission. You want to know what kids in the building? Well, yes, Mrs. Rooney, but not to sell books, you see, I am engaged in collecting data for the Junior Research Educators’ Association, and I withdrew my letter, which she took but did not read. Rose Goldhammer 3D, Peter See 1B, Louise Schneider 4B, Bobby, Shirley Kaltz 3A, and so on. Ten in all. And would you know by chance which schools these youngsters attend, and perhaps the grades they are in. Well, I had to slow her up to get it all down. Then I thanked her profusely, adding that her help and the help of people like her would eventually do a great deal toward meeting the challenge of international communism. That’s a little of their own back, she said. What do you mean, Mrs. Rooney? I mean getting me up in the middle of the night to fix a toilet. Fifty-six dollars’ rent entitles them to me closing stuck windows, cleaning pilot lights, changing fuses, listening about a crack in the wall six months till the bastard owns this place pays five bucks to the plasterer. Do me a favor, will you, sonny? I certainly will, Mrs. Rooney, anything you say. Sell the kikes, they’re the worst, and she slammed the door. Nobody answered at 1B. O, by the way, I have a brief case that weighs a hundred and eighty-five pounds, so maybe Wally’s short arm isn’t a short arm at all, maybe his other arm is a long arm from carrying such brief cases. Therein is a big leather looseleaf folder containing about forty pages and six mammoth foldouts, Volume One of MUI, which is the only one yet printed, and a miniature tape recorder. At 3D I reached into the brief case and turned it on. Then I straightened my tie and rang. Who is it? And here I had my first proof of Wally’s genius. If they want to know who it is, he said, sing out your name. I did, the door flew open. Mrs. Goldhammer, I said to the skinny, sort of pretty woman. Yes? Does Rose Goldhammer live here? Yes, apprehensively. Is she the Rose Gold-hammer in the seventh grade at Herman Melville Junior High? Yes, now biting her lip. Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Goldhammer, I’m from the Junior Research Educators’ Association and I’d like to see you and Mr. Goldhammer and Rose together tonight. Will eight o’clock be all right? Yes, her face all questions. See you then, eight o’clock, and swiftly I scooped up my brief case, down the stairs. You can’t wait for an elevator, questions are lethal, you must get away from the scene of the crime immediately. With the same method I fixed up nine o’clock with Mrs. Schneider, mother of Louise. Done for the day. But not for the night. At eight I was back. The Goldhammer menage was spotless and in a way that made me think it wasn’t spotless often. Mrs. Goldhammer was attired in what might be called a cocktail dress. Mr. Goldhammer, heavy-jawed and newly shaven, had on tie, jacket and frown. Rose was in her holiday best, looking as if whatever she had been doing or not doing at school was about to catch up with her. Mr. Goldhammer had a German-Jewish or Middle-European accent. He bowed as he shook my hand, and indicated the most comfortable chair. No, Mr. Goldhammer, I’d like us all to sit on the couch if you don’t mind, perhaps you could be on my right. Rose, here on my left. And, Mrs. Goldhammer, would you be beside Rose. There now, and I took out the looseleaf folder, all of whose ideas had been lifted from the sales-promotion material of four other encyclopedias. Page One described in letters that could be read six feet away the general purpose of the Junior Research Educators’ Association. This I read aloud slowly, interrupting myself every now and then with a question, such as You agree that the most important natural resource of the free world is its children, do you not, Mr. Goldhammer? Yess, yess, and he slapped his thigh for emphasis. Page Two contained three words writ even larger KNOWLEDGE IS FREEDOM. Thereafter every other page or so was dedicated to such a sentiment, whose purpose is diabolically various. If the customer seems to enjoy being lectured, you elucidate. But if he’s nodding you along in a yeah-yeah fashion, you merely say something like No truer words were ever spoken, and turn the page. If you feel he needs to assert himself, you ask his opinion of the sentiment, and then after a little tacit resistance you say I think you’re right, you know, I think you’re right. Then there is an occasional page devoted to the biography of a self-educated man like Lincoln, with appropriate quotations about what books and learning meant to him. The first foldout was a great map of the United States showing the extent of the activities of the Association. O and there was a list of quiz-program-type questions, which you address to the child. A sure winner. If the kid does well, you praise the parents for the obvious care they are taking with their offspring. If the kid’s a dope, you gently indicate that unless something is done the child may not realize his full potential in adult life. Rose was either a dope or nervous, and Mr. Goldhammer began rubbing his hands together as if he planned to use them on her when I left. Luckily my next page said YOUTH IS CURIOSITY, and I explained that a twelve-year-old’s mind is an eager vacuum, a hungry animal, an unused muscle, which settled Mr. Goldhammer down some. Things were flipping along until I came to Foldout Three, a life-size four-color picture of all of MUI’s thirty-six projected volumes. I put the folder on the floor and spread the handsome illustration on the rug. As I leaned over to point at various features, Mr. Goldhammer’s foot came down on volumes twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four. I looked up. His teeth were bared. You’re a gottamned book salesman, and he pulled the knot of his tie away from his neck. Fake gottamned book salesman. He got to his feet, both of which were now on the foldout. You’re a gottamned junior-association book salesman selling books here and get out before I call the policeman. Rose had retreated to one corner, Mrs. Goldhammer to another. I got to my feet, also on the foldout. I resent what you’re implying very much, Mr. Goldhammer. I have never sold a book in my life. I take a solemn oath on that, and if that is how you repay the time, money and interest the Junior Research Educators’ Association is spending on your daughter’s development—I leave my own time and energy out—well, all I can say is I wish you well. Yes, I wish you and Rose well, and I hope that when the occasion arises, as it will, that America and the rest of the free world must match its cultural and scientific achievements against those of our mortal enemies, the task does not fall to you, Mr. Goldhammer. That’s all I can say. But it wasn’t enough, because although he had been silenced for a moment it was plain he was gathering his English for another assault. Ah, but here Wally’s genius proved itself again. I pulled from my brief case Volume One of MUI and turned to the last page of the front matter, where under Editorial Consultants stood my name heading the list. Out came my letter and identification card. Do these look like the credentials of what you so brashly and perhaps libelously called a goddamned book salesman? He took the book and papers. The letter didn’t mean a thing, or the card, it was my name in the book. How many people have their names in a book for millions to see, for history to remember? Genius, I tell you. This was the Experimental part of the Plan. When MUI is finally finished, every (you should pardon the expression) salesman will have a Volume One with his name listed as editorial consultant. The fact that there might be a thousand salesmen around the country pushing MUI is no difficulty. Space would be left open and specially printed like a calling card, and the set that was eventually sent to the customer would also have the salesman’s name. Well, I tell you, before the evening was over—it went on to midnight, so that I had to call up Mrs. Schneider and cancel out for nine—I had drunk Mr. Goldhammer’s whiskey, and advised Rose on high schools and college, watched Mrs. Goldhammer model her new coat for me, and accepted an invitation for dinner two weeks hence. I was also given the name of four of Mr. Goldhammer’s friends with school-age children, and he promised to call them beforehand to avoid similar misunderstandings. Of course, I don’t know how it would have gone if I really tried to sell him some books. As it was, I only had to bring back a recording of the interview. The tape had run out at ten o’clock, but the two hours I had, Wally, Fox and I listened to the next day in Fox’s office. They decided to remove the offending foldout, and they said that I too was a genius. Should I be proud or ashamed?