Before long, D and I had something like a modus operandi in place.
When we came to a town, before stepping inside any hardware store, we verified that our shoes were shiny—in the case of the contrary, D had a brush in the glove box—and lit a cigarette. A lucky cigarette.
The latter was a right I gained in the third or fourth month, once D had confirmed the value of my presence beside him whenever he approached a counter.
“Your mother can’t know about this.”
“Of course not,” I said, letting out a tiny puff of smoke.
We headed for the hardware stores, and the scene was the same in all the towns, with three possible variants: things were good, things were so-so, or things were bad. It all depended on how Kramp products had performed since our last visit.
1.Products delivered and sold without a hitch: things were good (in such cases, usually D collected the amount owing and sold something else, and I was given a cheap gift).
2.Products delivered but not sold: things were so-so. When this happened, D uttered some adage about time: it’s all a matter of time, put on a brave face in bad times, give it time. And we hurried out.
3.Products delivered but with variations: things were bad. This meant that there were discrepancies between what the person in charge had ordered and what had arrived, usually introduced intentionally by D. And there were times when the company offered special incentives to sell one product or another: May, month of nuts; June, month of hammers; July, month of Phillips-head screwdrivers. In these cases, the affected party’s reaction depended on the number of times it had happened and the nature of the product, for receiving an oversupply of two thousand umbrellas at the beginning of winter wasn’t the same as receiving the same consignment at the beginning of summer.
This final scenario was where, most of the time, my work began. Because it was one thing to tell a man clutching a sample case that he was shameless, and quite another to tell him so when his other hand was clutching mine.
And I didn’t speak, only fixed my gaze on the person in charge.
In another life, I had learned different kinds of gazes: an indifferent gaze, a sweet gaze with a touch of melancholy, a bored-and-desperate gaze. The final resort was my on-the-brink-of-tears gaze. And that was the most intense of all. If the person in charge focused on my pupils, instead of encountering me, he or she encountered every possible form of fragility: world hunger; ice sculptures that, after so much effort, were reduced to water; the Soviet space-dog Laika turning around and around and around in the long night of infinity. All things had come to inhabit those small dark circles. Because that was the nature of life: to be small and dark. You know it, D knows it, in my seven short years I know it, and you, what do you do? You insult it because of an oversupply of nails and nuts. End it already, end this nonsense, end all this.
I thought this but didn’t say it, for I was aware that a single word could break the tension and dramatic effect that I’d learned to wield in a few short months.
We came and went along the highways. And when we’d done so for around one year—roughly the halfway point of my career—I asked D for a commission commensurate with my talent. It was only fair, considering that I worked hard every day, whether by practicing in front of the mirror or by experimenting with my school friends using the same silent method—retracting my friendship, and then extending it again in exchange for a sandwich or magazine.
Before going on I should clarify that my motivation wasn’t only material. It was also an early bid to discover the weaknesses of the human heart, a search for justice.
Thinking about what I’d learned in my math class, I continued:
“I want my share, one-tenth.”
“Forget it.”
I wasn’t exactly sure how to keep dividing, so I responded:
“In that case I want seven pesos for every hundred that you take in.”
“Forget it.”
“Five pesos for every hundred or I won’t come with you ever again.”
I remember that we were in a coffeehouse, and D lifted his gaze from the yellow cards on which he was making a note of the orders and looked at me, sizing up how genuine my words were and making a quick mental review of the status attributed to childhood around the world. Accepting my deal would make him the employer of a child, and child labor had been forbidden for a while now. But there was also Einstein, who had said that thing about everything being relative. We hadn’t understood him, but some element of his declaration had stayed with us.
I couldn’t go home with money in my pocket because it would come to my mother’s attention, and, if she took up the thread and started pulling, she would find out about my truancy and D’s irresponsibility.
I couldn’t go home with money, but:
“We’ll do a quid pro quo.”
“And what’s that.”
“I won’t give you money, but each time we make a sale of more than one hundred thousand pesos, I’ll buy you something.”
“I accept.”
During the trip that followed my negotiation, we closed a sale for a special offer on drill bits. Beautiful drill bits, many, very many drill bits, drill bits to fill an entire town, the entire world—and even, it seemed to me, an entire galaxy.
The first thing I wanted was a sample case the same as D’s, but yellow. I’d seen it in a toy shop.
When we went to look for it, the yellow sample case was no longer there, but as a consolation D bought me a nurse’s carrying case. A plastic one, with a white cross in the middle, which I started to use each time I went to work with D, making the part I was playing more realistic.
Soon, to the carry case was added an array of dolls, each dressed in their country’s traditional clothing; a green coat with a brooch; a yellow Mickey Mouse thermos; a reversible cap; a puffer vest; and a dozen other things that I jotted down on the notepad I always carried with me, under the title reimbursements.
Approaching eight years of age, I had discovered that, while D was nothing special as a father, he made an excellent employer.