The Dream Merchant (12 page)

He looked up from his paper. What? Come on, I'm hungry. Let's eat those eggs.

They are not right, she said obliquely. I wanted them to be perfect for you. A few minutes before, everything in her life had seemed to hinge on her ability to cook him a great breakfast. Now she just wanted to throw it all away. She slipped them into the trash and smiled sickly. She wanted him to know.

Jim had never seen her this way, but he seemed to get it. It's okay, baby. He took her in his arms.

But I wanted to do it for you, she said, resisting his embrace. I planned this meal and I've made a mess. I'm not sure I can do this, she said, meaning their perfect country life.

Sure you can, he said, holding her with his strong left arm like a dance partner. We'll cook it together. He began cracking open eggs with his right hand. Jim was a whiz in the kitchen, flipped them over in the air. He had learned all about cooking from his mother. Ava was baffled by his facility and it made her even more downcast, except he coaxed her to add a little pepper and butter the toast while he held her close. She'd counted on this meal being her coming out. It's okay, he assured her. They'd go fishing after breakfast and he'd teach her to track the cows. I'll teach you how to find them wherever they go. Soon the eggs and bacon were done and Jim and Ava were sitting at the heavy oak table with late morning sun streaming through the gingham curtains. He swept her up in his energy for the meal and the farm life, and his good humor and optimism were all over their breakfast. They would live in this beautiful place with farm animals and make a fat baby. They would take care of the farm, fish and hunt, and make more babies. It was a terrific spread. Jim said, Look what we've done, and he had drawn her back.

But also Jim was attracted to the quirky, brooding, and dissolute side of his wife. When she eventually described to him her obsessions and early sexual explorations, he relished them like her faint smile filled with whimsy. Ava showed Jim possibilities he could never have imagined. She was a powerful influence on young Jim, nearly Marvin's equal.

 

12.

Jim found the plush mattress marked down to $150 at Sid's Best Buy in North Miami. After six rapturous nights one side caved in as if the springs were made of asparagus. Now Jim had to reach uphill to find Mara, although that wasn't the worst thing in the world. But he should have known better. For all of his wheeling and dealing, Jim remained a sucker for a deal.

He procrastinated a week before returning the mattress, although there wasn't any reason to expect a problem. To the contrary, on his first visit to the store he and Sid had really clicked, and Jim had looked forward to seeing him again, maybe showing off his beautiful girl. He had it in mind to tell Sid about the Wow Cards and to make him a distributor when the cards were ready. But on this August afternoon, with the ruined mattress sagging on the roof of Jim's car, Sid wouldn't give him the time of day. Jim was embarrassed, getting brushed off by this sweating, fat shyster. He was going to have to drive the mattress back home. Then what? Sid was staring at Mara's thighs while talking about the fine features of a cheap dresser to an elderly black woman.

One thing led to another and Jim leaned over the counter and when Sid raised his voice Jim pushed his finger into Sid's flabby chest. Then Sid came around and there was a scuffle and Jim lost his balance and fell hard onto his back and hip. Jim was surprised this fat shit could push him over; he must have lost something. This came into his mind because Jim could really handle himself. He bruised both his elbows and came up hobbling. He and Mara left with her helping him along, while Sid dialed the cops and shouted, You come in here and threaten me! You fuck, I know your address, I know where you live. Did you see what he did? Sid turned to the black lady, who nodded solemnly. Jim felt disgusted with himself.

I was in Florida that week and stopped by their place in the evening. Jim was hurting. His left elbow had filled with liquid that wobbled when he moved his arm. He asked me to touch it two or three times. The elbow felt strange, like a water balloon connected to his bone. He couldn't believe it was there. Also, there was a hard knob on his hip. I was more concerned about his hip. But he could walk. At my age, it's bad when you break a bone, he said when she was out of earshot, as if she shouldn't know he was an old man. Come on. But he was more concerned about his elbow than the hip. He said he wouldn't be able to lean on his elbows. What will I do? he asked helplessly. For a moment, I didn't catch his meaning. They were planning to drive to Orlando to visit friends the following morning, had the babysitting worked out. It would be a whole weekend together without interruptions from the kids, and she was looking forward to it. He was concerned about leaning on his elbows with this flopping water bag.

Mara was out of character, edgy. She was afraid Sid had called the cops. What if they looked into her immigration status? She could be sent back.

Do you think the cops will come? Jim asked me, glancing her way. In a moment, their future had come unglued.

I think it'll be okay, I said to calm him. I don't think the police will care about this—they're trying to solve murders. A few minutes later he asked again and I said I'd call a lawyer friend and ask his opinion. It bothered me Jim was so off balance. The situation was trivial. I kept expecting he would snap out of this lovesick old guy and become the Jim I know.

Maybe we should take him to the emergency room, Mara said. She wanted me to look at Jim's bruises. She took him by the hand and led him limping into their tiny bedroom. I followed, a really weird moment. He took off his shirt and then lost his balance trying to pull down his pants. She worked them off for him while he leaned on her shoulder. Then she peeled off his underpants. Jim stood beside the sagging bed, completely naked. His chest and arms were still powerful, but he needed to lose about twenty-five pounds. His belly hung toward his drooping balls. His discolored ankles were swollen from gout or some circulation problem. Without clothes my friend looked like an old man. But Mara admired him as if he were a stallion. She touched his sagging flesh and seemed to feel the thrill of his virility. Her face took on a glow. He began to swell from her longing.

Maybe she was using him, like Phyllis once said to me, to get her papers, but also she craved him; anyone could see it. She felt his bruised hip with her hand and the pain left his face. Sure, they could go to Orlando tomorrow, he insisted. Look how I'm walking, he said, half-hard while he gimped around the small cramped room. He just needs massage, she said to both of us, and Jim nodded. Tonight I will give him a long massage. Won't I, baby? She cast him one of her looks—lips pursed and moist while she leaned toward him. She yearned to touch him. His being injured and hurting seemed to heighten their anticipation. It was clear where they were headed as soon as I left them alone. Mara looked at me squarely, until I blushed.

*   *   *

Mara could turn on a dime, one moment sexually provocative or even inviting and the next wary as one of Jim's gunmen in the Amazon. Her alarm bells went off whenever he and I walked into another room or outside on the lawn to chat. After five minutes she came to join us with her face flushed. Then she stuck with us like glue. One afternoon we'd been talking and I offered to drive him to the deli to get a six-pack. Mara said no. That was it. No, her face set in fierce determination. She was probably thinking I would drive him back to Phyllis, where he belonged. Jim accepted Mara's iron rule, which I found disturbing.

I wondered what she truly saw when she looked at him—a stallion or a dying old horse? Mara had closely held secrets; that much was clear to me, although Jim seemed oblivious. Maybe she was his equal as a scam artist? I began to settle on this idea.

*   *   *

Before Jim left for Israel, he was the best recruiter in Southeast Florida. Everyone in the business knew it. Three hundred times a year, more or less, he wore his custom-tailored suits, stood at the head of a chilly conference room with antiseptic linoleum floors, a green board with his scribbled circles and squares, Danish and bagels wheeled in on trays. Jim's recruits were seated on folding chairs, looking uneasy or beaten, despair and the smell of floor cleaner welling up in the fluorescent light of morning. Just glancing around the room he could usually identify the best prospects. Jim was tuned into neediness. Soon his mellifluous voice began invoking a business that would give them a sense of empowerment and independence. It is called a mailbox business, which means that while you go to dinner with your friends or go to a show, or watch the game, men and women across the country are earning money that will go into your mailbox; even while you dream at night, checks are on the way. Later, after making phone calls and taking a quick nap, Jim and Phyllis hosted recruiting parties on their balcony overlooking his fine yacht, enthusiastic mixers of old and new friends with music and Phyllis's hors d'oeuvres and Jim holding court with his favorite stories.

But even with his tireless energy, Jim's magnetic therapy products had stopped selling and he and Phyllis were falling into debt. They could no longer keep up with hefty mortgage payments on their condo and yacht. It is a common story in pyramid selling. Markets become saturated overnight. Salesmen can't find new leads and money gets scarce. The intricate network founders and slips beneath the immutable sea of party nights and lush promises. Overnight hundreds or in some cases thousands of salesmen are scurrying like rodents trying to climb aboard fledgling networks promoting new products with their feasts and bonding sessions, their spirited promises of opportunity, residual income, the sweet life.

Most of the money Jim brought in from signing up recruits went to the guys above him in the corporation called up lines. In network marketing, executives profit directly from the start-up fees and sales of everyone in the organization below them; it is a grand joyride for these men when things are going well. With business down, Jim's bosses were afraid he would leave them for another marketing network with a new product line and more attractive recruiting incentives; it would spell the end of their rosy days. Jim's top guys—he referred to them as his best friends—offered him cash incentives to keep him traveling to meetings, selling their magnetic braces, mattresses, and blankets, hosting parties on his breezy terrace. It was the only way to siphon large sums up the massive network.

Jim's up lines were conference-calling him two or three times a day, probing for good news from the trenches, but meanwhile they made conversation about their gym visits, families, and illness, titillated one another, and Jim, with insider talk of payoffs, fancy new cars, and pathetic flings with aging lady “down liners” who were trying to claw their way up to the golden circle. Everyone was selling success while keeping a nervous eye on a plummeting market.

*   *   *

Jim no longer mentions these treasured friends, which is reasonable for a man making a fresh start, but it rubs me the wrong way. I cannot help myself. I roll out their names, Jack, Roy, Chet, Leon, as if they were the greatest fellows on earth. Occasionally, reluctantly, as if they were robbing from a sacred inner core, they had stolen time from golf games to come fishing with us for grouper or king mackerel. While Jim and I put out the lines or reeled in a fish, they sat inside talking about money or playing boisterous gin rummy, clobbering the table and scribbling tallies on a pad. That was fishing. They were profane men who aspired to little else besides ostentatious spending. Their lack of taste was stunning. But Jim urged me to take a longer look until I recognized them as the same royalty my dad had courted: cheating, whoring, usurious, and glittering brightly like strip joints they frequented or cheap motels on the edge of town. (In tacky clubs my father drank Jack Daniel's and laughed along with his rep friends until his teeth were rattling around in his mouth. The aging salesmen still envisioned young women and seven-figure deals that made them giddy and solemn in turns. Each of them made a show of grabbing for the check, but my skinny dad almost always got it, which made me proud.) Now I am stirred by their memory. Their garishness feels like my own hand. I want, no, I need for my friend to cherish them again, especially now as he moves into a life he and the girl would scrape clean of all wounds and history. I prod Jim to straddle sensibilities and time as she frowns in our direction. I am speaking to him urgently, pulling him back into the mud, and he is nodding, yes, as if I were Marvin Gesler.

Now Jim is grinning at the memory of some shady business maneuver or maybe the panorama of a thousand whorey deals, and Mara has become tight as a drum. She feels out of control when she's not directing every single moment. She feels accused. And she is correct. I am playing this song, at least in part, for her. I drive in the needle whenever I see an opportunity. Of course, Mara can do certain things very well.

 

13.

When she was living in the country with Jim, Ava's questions and self-doubts seemed fixable as the old barn. Jim knew how to do it all. She was so proud whenever he made a big deal about her “being right on target” buying the property—he adored her and that seemed enough for Ava. But there was more. He coached and complimented her every little endeavor. Soon she was even getting food onto the table. After fishing in their own stream Ava insisted on cleaning the trout herself, using her fingers to pull out the guts, the way he'd showed her, although she always made a distasteful expression that he found charming. He needed to hug and kiss her.

Jim was her meaning, her identity. He would teach her to take care of the farm, to fish, to cook, and they'd make babies. After all, he was thirty-five, she was twenty-six; it was time. He swore that their lives would be great. He swore it many times. He washed away her doubts with kisses. She believed him, again and again. If only he could have stayed with her on the farm, their story might have turned mundane but also lovely and long-playing. She often thought that.