SUSAN BOLKE’S PERFUME WAS AS SEXY AS HER VOICE. SHE HAD a clipboard and protruding nipples and a frizzy hair style like the girl in the vaginal spray ad on TV. Everybody who worked at DMI dressed as if they were applying for a job. The men had double-breasted suits, and the women all wore panty hose and lots of jewelry.
Susan and I sat down on matching white leather love seats in the Dream Mate International lobby, and she explained the commission plan and the $250 per week guarantee that the company provided for the first two weeks.
She smiled approvingly when I put out my cigarette, and told me about the 3-day training to fully learn the DMI presentation. Everything was based on my interview with Mr. Berkhardt. Berkhardt made the hiring decisions. She gave me compatibility statistics on the science of video dating and used the word demographics five or six times. I liked the $250 guarantee.
We chatted for a few more minutes, with Susan making occasional notes and checking off little boxes on her clipboard form. I noticed that my hands were shaking too much, and that I had yellow stains on my fingers from nicotine. She could see that I was self-conscious about the hands, but she kept smiling to put me at ease. Finally, I was given my own clipboard with a job application and a cheap pen. Then Susan left.
As I filled out the form, I watched a big TV mounted into the wall above the reception desk. It was playing dating interview videos of available single adults talking about their careers and their likes and dislikes. The volume was up too high. The people in the videos were normal and sincere sounding. DMI was in pursuit of the affluent, upper middle-income customer.
On most of the questions, I lied, or got impatient, or skipped the question all together. Filling it out was hard, because of my rattling fingers.
By the end of the form, my mind had convinced itself that I was a chump for driving all the way from Hollywood to compete in a wardrobe contest. I was out of my league and my form looked like it had been completed by a six-year-old. My father’s dog was imprisoned in the car in the parking lot with the windows up, and I was having a vision of him eating the seat covers in a display of meanness for being left alone too long.
I decided to leave and call some of the telemarketing ads in the L.A. Times. Before I could return the clipboard to Susan, Morgan Berkhardt had come out of his office and was on his way toward me.
He looked like the boss. His suit was double-breasted and he had a big football player neck, and white teeth and a redstone college graduation ring. He introduced himself and we shook hands. He took my completed job application and began going over my answers.
While he studied the questionnaire, I was distracted by a new client movie starting on the lobby TV. This one was different, not a dating video. It was of a marriage. I was close enough to the set to hear the announcer’s voice-over. “Every day, three-hundred and sixty five days a year, another Dream Mate International client is making a lifelong commitment of love. You could be too. Join DMI today.”
Morgan Berkhardt finished reading my application and saw me watching the video. “Impressive marketing concept, isn’t it, Mr. Dante?”
“Right! Imaginative too,” I heard my ass-kissing mouth reply.
“Please come with me.” I followed him across a floral carpet, to a fancy oak door with a brass handle that lead into his office. We went in and sat down. He, on the other side of a big oak desk, and I, in a small, thin-legged armchair.
On the shelves behind Berkhardt’s leather chair were books and packaged motivational tape programs. I’d read sales and self-help stuff at my first visit to St. Joseph of Cupertino’s recovery ward, because there’d been nothing else to do after ten o’clock when they shut off the TV. For weeks, I’d been unable to sleep, so I’d stay up reading all night. Tommy Hopkins. Og Mandino. Charles Roth.
I could see that Berkhardt was a big Brian Tracy fan. Several of Brian’s tape programs were in Berkhardt’s collection on the shelf. Tracy stresses boldness as a success key, so I decided to be assumptive in my interview with Morgan Berkhardt.
“Bruno,” he said looking up from my application, “Can I call you Bruno?”
“Sure. Can I call you Morgan?”
“If you’d like.”
“I see you’re a Brian Tracy fan, Morgan?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I thought The Psychology of Success was an important work. I like his systematic approach to personal growth.”
“I’m impressed, Bruno. Very few of the people that interview in this office know Brian Tracy’s material.”
“I’m not surprised, Morgan. It’s been my observation that the majority, the run of the mill, the average, the sheep on the street and the piss-poor are too lazy to get off their fat uncommitted asses and do what it takes to be successful. Personal growth requires a commitment, we both know that. One must grasp life by the vitals and yank. Personally, I’ve made inspired decisions based on the information in some of those books. I want to be a winner.”
“Glad to hear it, Bruno.”
“Darn right. Absolutely.”
“By the way, you must have filled in some incorrect dates here in the employment history section. There are some inconsistencies in your information.”
“I apologize for that oversight, Morgan.”
“I’m a little confused. You were in telemarketing with the same company for twelve years, correct?”
“Correct, Morgan. Same job. They went tits-up so I relocated here to Los Angeles. New city, new opportunities. Fresh start. Taking the decisive approach.”
“A good work history is important. What did you sell at Omni Incorporated?”
“Computer products. Diskettes. Mag Tape. Data processing supplies.”
“Twelve years at one position is a major commitment.”
“Thanks, Morgan. I pride myself on my loyalty, dependability and job execution. I feel I’m a go-getter. Is that what you’re looking for at DIM?”
“DMI. You’re a writer, too?”
“Yes, Morgan.” My fucking hands were beginning to shake uncontrollably, so I anchored one under my thigh and clamped the other one under an arm pit.
“Interesting. What type of things do you write?”
“Poems, Morgan. But I gave it up when I decided to channel all my career energy into sales and marketing.”
“Books of poems?”
“No. Excessive, self indulgent odds and ends, mostly.”
“Were any of your poems published?”
“Yes. In magazines and periodicals. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything in print.”
“Not a lot of millionaire poets, are there?”
“That’s why I’m here, Morgan.”
“Although you have a good telephone sales record, you really have no work background for the type of position DMI is offering.”
“I see it differently, Morgan. I’m here to lock on to a career where I can distinguish myself and become financially independent. My background shows I’m highly motivated and I bust my ass. I take no prisoners when I’m working on the phone, and I can slam a mooch with the best of ‘em. Frankly speaking, I’m sure that I’m the type of person you’re looking for to join the DMI team.”
“According to the dates on your application you were a writer for fifteen years. A poet.”
“Okay. Correct.”
“That shows a total of twenty-seven years of employment. Do you see why I’m confused.”
“I made a mistake, for chrissake. I get impatient sometimes when I’m completing complicated forms. I don’t lie on job applications. Am I being execrated here? Are you implying that I falsify information?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“You seem nervous? Aggressiveness is a good quality, but I need to do my job, Bruno. I have several more questions.”
I was suddenly on my feet, unable to stop myself. “I want to get to the point here, Morgan, because I’m anxious not to lose time in my job search en route to my success. Bottom line, I could sell this deal with my eyes shut and whistle ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ out my asshole at the same time. I’m an A-1 candidate.”
“Please sit down!”
“Let’s cut to the chase. Yes or no? When can I start?”
“Will you sit down and follow direction!”
“What about today?”
He got to his feet. “Look, I’m losing my patience.”
I sat down. My shirt was wet with sweat and my stomach was in a knot. “I’m trying to make an impression here,” I said. “I want this job.”
Before I left Berkhardt’s office, he told me that he would make a decision about who he was hiring later that day, and that Susan Bolke would call me back at the number listed on my job application if I had been accepted.
It was past dark when I got back to my room at the Starburst Motel. I had over medicated my nerves with two pints of Jack on the way back, after stopping at a used bookstore on Venice Boulevard.
I could tell that Amy had been in the room. Rocco knew it too. He sniffed and snorted and wouldn’t sit down.
Opening the closet door, I looked on the floor for her plastic bag of clothes. It was gone.
In the bathroom, there was a note stuck to the mirror with a glob of lipstick. The words appeared to be lyrics from a song from somewhere.
Bruno…
You can drag your laundry down First Avenue
Then spend some time in your drugstore mind
It’s not what you think, it’s what you do
I’ve got a pair of socks I like better than you.
Thanks, but no thanks,
Amy
The light on my phone was blinking, so I went up to the office to find out who had called.
The night manager handed me the pink message slip. It was from Susan Bolke. I read the words and let my mind re-smell her perfume and see her fat nipples against her sheer blouse.
I was to report at Dream Mates International the next morning at 8:00 a.m. for a two-day training. I had the job. I went back to my room and watched TV.