The Egg Code (38 page)

Sheesh at Rest

1999

Well, I sure don’t know what to do. I told the gal at the desk, Look, I gotta get up at the crack of dawn. I don’t need this noise.
We’re
sorry, sir
—if you were sorry, you’d do something about it, wouldn’t you? Instead of standing around,
Oh, look at what Billy did to Bobby.
Finally I said to heck with it. I go back to my room, these kids are still screwing next door. I might as well watch a girlie flick while I’m at it. We’ll just have ourselves a real good time, never mind that it’s three in the morning and I gotta be downtown in six hours. You wanna talk about
racket.
You know, when I was that age—and it wasn’t long ago— there was a little thing in the world, and you know what it was called?
Common decency,
hunh? Common decency, and we all had it and now it’s gone, and I think it’s a darn shame.

Course we had rock ’n’ roll back then too. Oh yeah! Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. I can remember them like lickety split. None of this “I killed her and I threw her in a garbage can.” The rap stuff that the kids at the store listen to. No, no—I tell you what, that’s a whole lotta junk. Not my style.
Not my bag
, as they say. When I was a kid, they knew how to write the rock ’n’ roll lyrics. Jackson Browne. He had a way with words that I could never figure out.

But these kids, the ones next door. If I was running this place, I’d be on the phone right now, saying, “You wanna go to a flophouse, that’s one thing, but this is a respectable establishment.” Kids these days have
way
too much longitude. Not enough parental guidance. See, that’s where Lydia’s wrong. You need a man in the house to level things off. You need a man and a woman, and if there’s a kid, then all the better. I know, with me—now, my mom was a great woman, and anyone would tell you that. But if it wasn’t for my dad, I would be a real loser. ’Cause it was my dad who said, Look, you better shut up, or I’m gonna smack you right in the face. And I learned from that. Those are the lessons that can help you get through life.

My approach with Simon is a little different. I never hit my son, because that’s not a very modern technique. I believe in the Mahatma Gandhi principle of being fair to people. That’s why I’m a good dad. I did a decent job and I worked hard—and I
always
put my family first. Not all guys can say that. You think I want to spend the rest of my life behind a cash register? No, I do not. But when you’ve got a family, and you’ve got a child who’s depending on you, then you do what it takes. Before I met Lydia, I was on the fast track, man! I had brochures coming in from companies all across the country. I could’ve gone to Japan, worked for the Ford Motor Company. I talked to one of their recruiters over the phone. None of the other guys in my class got their phone calls returned—
I
did! We talked for a good long time. They were
very
interested. But I said no because—I mean, I
would’ve
said no, because Lydia and I were gonna get married, and I wanted to put the relationship first, which is what I
did
, and that’s what I’ve always done—put Lydia first, put the family first, and now this is what happens.

Still, life goes on. Six a.m., rise ’n’ shine! Gotta go out and get a job. Of course, soon as I start the car, the gosh-darn engine craps out. Ain’t this a treat, like I need this, getting up at the crack of dawn, I just had the dang thing in for a tune-up. Now you’d think—and this would make sense, wouldn’t it?—but you’d think if there was something wrong with the car, and you’ve already got it in the shop, you’d think they might say something about it. Just for convenience’s sake. I mean, wouldn’t that be dandy? Instead of two days later, I’m sitting on my rear end, having to deal with this nonsense.

I go back inside to call the mechanic, they’ve got some girl answering the phone, she doesn’t know what the heck’s going on.
Did you try to
start the car, sir?
No, I put my hands on it and did a little dance—what
is
this junk? Finally I get a tow set up. Took ’em until nine o’clock, I’m sitting in bed, going over my résumé—right there on top: Steve Muld, M-U-L-D, fifty copies of this garbage. Some guy named Steve Muld’s gonna get the job, eighty-seven grand plus full benefits, meanwhile I’m making shakes for $5.50 an hour, sixty hours a week, picking up change in the parking lot for a box of Wheaties and a cold hot dog. You know, I’m a reasonable person. I’m standing in the copy center,
Can I have fifty copies of this
please? You’d think, okay, look, it’s Steve M-O-U-L-D on the charge card, right? And then over here it’s . . . you’d think someone would’ve noticed that. That’s part of the deal, in my mind. They got these kids working in these places, fourteen, fifteen years old,
Oh, look what Billy
said to Cathy
, meanwhile the manager’s got his head up his ass and I just wasted nine dollars on a bunch of crap. That’s all
that
is! That’s poor training.

So I say okay. I’m not gonna let this get me down. I go outside, the guy with the tow truck’s there, telling me they’re not gonna get to it right away because they’ve got all four lifts up, well isn’t that fan-friggin’-tabulous, what the heck good is that gonna do me? Now I gotta take the bus, that’s just great, ridin’ in style—fifty alcoholics and a puddle of vomit, some old lady talking my ear off and the whole place smells like sin, you can’t even breathe, now I gotta listen to some guy telling me about his daughter, he’s got a picture of this little kid, tells me when he finds her, he’s gonna punch her
so
hard, just you wait, mister, I’m gonna punch her so many times her teeth are gonna fall out, on and on until finally we get to my stop and I stagger outside, thank the Lord above, and my clothes are dirty and—oh! great!—there’s a footprint on my briefcase!

But the good thing about getting off here instead of downtown is:
Vega knows retail
. Because downtown, what do you want? You want the twenty-four-hour drugstores and the hi-tech stereo shops. The Rent-to-Owns. And I don’t mean to sound racist but it’s just a fact—that’s what people want down there. And I can show you the figures on that without a problem. The statistic printouts. This is all common knowledge.

But in Vega you’ve got a more diverse population. And that means more stores and more
different kindsa
stores. Downtown North Crane City, try selling sunglasses in one of the malls. They don’t want sunglasses there because it’s not a diverse enough population. In Vega you’ve got
three whole chains
of sunglass stores, plus the headquarters for Slick Shades U.S.A., right across the street from the Candle Factory. I go in, totally unannounced, Hi, I’m Steve Mould, I’d like to speak to your senior representative
. Oh, I’m sorry, he’s not in today.
Some woman with a hooker hairdo gives me an application. I’m like, Honey, this ain’t cuttin’ it! So she gets her supervisor. Finally: a man. We go up to his office, he starts asking me questions. What do I know about the company, the usual. I say, Well, I’ve heard about your company for a long time, and I’m very impressed with the way you do business, and I’d like to be a part of your management force. He says what do I know about sunglasses? I say that I know they’re . . . pretty good. I mean, I know they’re a big part of being outside and working under the sun, so in that sense I think it’s incredibly important to have fashion eyewear that accommodates our needs in an ever-changing society. He says, I see you’re not wearing sunglasses right now. And that’s when I notice, yes, everyone in this building is wearing sunglasses, even though we’re indoors and it’s the middle of February and it’s not even a bright day outside. I say yes, I’m not wearing sunglasses. That’s very true, sir, and I respect you for pointing that out. And the
reason
I’m not wearing sunglasses is . . . I don’t feel I
need
to wear them . . . in order to
prove
my qualifications for this job. I thought that was pretty smart.

After all that, I don’t even get a callback. No come-back-and-see-us-next-month. This is some twenty-five-year-old kid telling me to drop off an application at the main desk, they’ll keep me in mind. I know what that means—the big blow-off. Look, I say, I’ve got more than ten years’ experience working high-level retail management. That’s the real deal, pal! I sold over a million dollars in merchandise last fiscal year alone. My store led the region in opportunity-to-conversion ratios—you wanna talk about that? Three Hawley Cain Trophies for Sales and Leadership—
three
! ’92, ’93, and ’95, right on my desk, I earned those. He’s smiling at me!
Very impressive, Mister Muld—I know your CEO, we have
lunch once a month.
Twenty-five years old, he’s doing lunch with Cam Pee, the richest little son of a witch this side of Ho Chi Minh City, meanwhile I’m living in a rented kitchenette, weekly rates, no hot water after eleven p.m. This I don’t need.
Not my style!
Steve Mould is not a charity case. If you don’t need my services, fine. I’ll go across the street, talk to the boys over at Groovy UV’s. Can do, m’friend, can do. I’m halfway out the door, he’s got a stack of coupons: Oh, don’t go—look, thirty percent off, prescription flexy shades, what a deal. I don’t
like
sunglasses, I say. This is what I tell him. I don’t wear sunglasses. I don’t like people who wear sunglasses. Hanh? I think they’re all a bunch of pretentious, upper-class snobs! This is what I say, right there in the vestibule. That was a tense situation right there. I mean, I got out of there
quick!

That’s where I lose my cool. I’m a very tolerant man. I say live and let live. Peace ’n’ love ’n’ the whole nine yards. But you take it to a point, I’m bound to blow my top. And when that happens—watch out! ’Cause I just turn into a whole ’nother person. And that’s all there is to
that
.

Of course, soon as I get out the door, my briefcase breaks. Ain’t that a treat? Handle comes right off. That there is
just
what the doctor ordered. And then, the combination—I can’t get the darn thing open! I’m yanking on it, got it braced up against a fire hydrant. Finally I said to heck with it. Cheap Japanese piece of . . . they make it so, if you forget the combination, there’s
no chance
of getting it open. I think that’s ridiculous.

So I chucked it! Goodbye to you. Steve Mould is a man. I can speak for myself. That’s what these young kids don’t know. Twenty-two, twenty-three years old, think they’re gonna take over the world—well you’re not! All you’ve got is yourself. And the best schools in the world aren’t gonna help you. If you can’t look at a man—if you can’t look at him
right in the eye
and say: I’m good. I can get the job done. Then you don’t even deserve to be alive.

So I start walking. I figure while I’m in Vega I might as well check out the old store. Place looked about the same. They’ve got some woman working there now. I hope she does a good job with it. She’s got a decent team, and that’s all that matters. Even the troublemakers had their moments. As long as everyone focuses on the task at hand. And for the most part, we did that, when we were really working together. ’96, ’97. That was probably our high point. The early part of ’98.

I’m standing in the parking lot, thinking maybe I’ll go in, take a look at the joint. I had to hold myself back. There’s a mystique associated with certain people when they go away, particularly when that person is well respected and well liked, and I don’t want to distract anyone from what they’ve got to do. This new gal’s got enough on her hands. If I went inside, it might cause certain employees to question—well, maybe things
weren’t
so bad when Mr. Mould was here, that sort of thing, and I don’t want to get into that. Nope, time to give somebody else a chance.

It’s pretty, though, where you can see the whole store from far away.

They need to fix their aisle banners.

I’m all set to leave when I see one of my old cashiers coming off shift. I always liked Scarlet, despite the obvious sexual chemistry between us, which as a married man really got on my nerves. Anyway, that’s in the past. Time to lay off the women for a while. I wave and say hi, no big deal, just on my way to the mall, doing a little shopping for my wife. She looked disappointed, so when she offered to give me a ride, I said sure, what the heck. We’re pulling out of the lot—it turns out, she just gave her two weeks’ notice. I’m about ready to go through the roof. That’s time wasted! You get on over to store sixty-one, I tell her. I’m being the father figure now. Women like that sometimes. You talk to Jim—he’ll put you in with Rick Mars at the zone HQ. Nope, not interested. Already she’s got this new job—dancing, right? A bunch of girls onstage. Well, good for you. Still, that’s no reason to stop working. I mean
really
working. You try putting in fifty hours per week as a first key assistant. That’s
serious business
. You gotta do the drawers twice, three times on the weekends, you gotta deal with part-time cashiers who don’t know what the heck they’re doing, and you gotta make sure the back door is closed at all times—it’s a big job! Then she tells me how much these gals make. Six nights a week, but only four hours per night. It’s unbelievable—sixty-two thousand dollars a year. That’s more than we pay our regional reps, and those fellas are trained professionals! Most people can’t handle that kind of responsibility. You have to have an associate’s degree from a
certified community college;
you have to attend the six-day Power of Potential conference in Calumet City, Illinois; on top of that, you’ve got to pass an eye examination, which a lot of the guys can’t do!

So what I tell Scarlet is, just be careful, that’s all. If you take care of yourself, everyone else will leave you alone. That’s how I became store manager. I said to heck with this, I’m just gonna do my job. And this was in the days when guys were stealing merchandise left and right. Oh yeah! Living Arrangements in the late eighties, early nineties was not a very nice place to work. Used to be, three-quarters of the store managers were heavy-duty drug users. And I’m talking serious stuff—not just a little reefer, but cocaine too. They’ve cut that number way down.