Florida Straits(52)

Joey crossed his knees and hugged the top one. He didn't know exactly how to answer. Getting fired, he imagined, had its protocols and customs just like other parts of having a job, and Joey had never been fired before.

"What I'm saying," Zack resumed, "is that this is a job you do with your whole person, every part of yourself. Sizing people up, that's brainwork, right? But standing out there on the hot sidewalk for eight hours a day, that's hard physical labor, no shit. As to how you actually approach people, that has a lot to do with the mood you're in, right? Whether you use humor, push the freebies, go for sympathy, whatever. And how the people respond to you, well, that's beyond mood, that's a mystery, like religious almost. Are you in the zone? In a state of grace? At one? Ya know, there's all different ways of describing that frame of mind where everything just falls right and people can't resist you. You know what I'm saying?"

Joey thought he did, but he found himself increasingly impatient with Zack's analyses of effectiveness in sales and life. When Joey still had his job, he'd thirsted after Zack's advice, thought about it long and hard. But now it no longer seemed worth the effort. "You're saying I've been all fucked up lately, and you're right."

Zack waved the comment away. It was far too negative for him. "No, Joey, no. That's not what I'm saying." He flipped open a manila folder and removed a piece of paper. On it was a week-by-week graph of Joey's performance on the job. The graph went up, up, up, hit a plateau, then came down, down, down, tracing out a pattern not unlike the pyramidal slope of Mount Trashmore.

"Joey, look at this. The first week you were here, you made a hundred twenty dollars. That's not much money for forty hours of busting your butt and having people turn you down all day, but hey, you hung in, you stayed with it. Second week, you doubled. Third week, you jumped to four eighty. Fourth week, four eighty again. Now that's pretty damn good, Joey. For a guy still learning the ropes, that's excellent. But what happens after that? Three twenty. Two eighty. Two hundred even. Joey, these aren't just numbers. These are like a map of what's going on with you. You wanna talk to me, Joey?"

Joey looked out the window, glanced at the Parrot Beach model under its perfect sky of Plexiglas. The graph depressed him. He was no stranger to lack of success, but this was different, this was active failure, failure clearly drawn and pushed in his face, and Joey didn't like it at all. Nor did he enjoy the bitterness that came with losing something he was just barely ready to admit he cared about losing. "Zack, if you're gonna fire me, can't we just please get it over with."

Zack Davidson sat back and ran a hand through his sandy hair; it fell back exactly where it had been. "Who said anything about firing you?"

Joey tried to say something but all that came out was a kind of blubbing sound, a sound from underwater.

The other man spread his arms out wide and hugged the edges of his desk. "Joey, this isn't about firing you. This is about getting you back on the street so you can make some fucking money. Listen to me, Joey. There's some things you oughta know, and apparently you don't. You're very well thought of here. People like you. They like how hard you try, that you don't make excuses. They like that you don't bitch and moan, that you're not a prima donna. They like it that the people you send, they're almost always in a good mood. They don't feel like they've been jerked around. They feel like they've been dealing with a human being. You've got this warmth, Joey, this... I don't know what to call it. Life, call it life. People deal with you, they feel like they're dealing with someone with some blood in his veins and some thoughts in his head, some curiosity. That works for you. So let it work."

To someone unaccustomed to receiving compliments, Zack's words were as intoxicating and unsettling as empty-stomach cocktails. Joey squirmed, as he generally did when wrestling with the question of thankfulness. He knew he should be grateful to Zack for saying what he'd said, but gratitude was a risky matter. As soon as you acknowledged that someone had done something for you, you opened up the chance that you'd look to them again and they could let you down. If they weren't family, if they weren't neighborhood, what assurance did you have? "Zack," he admitted, "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. But Joey, listen, I don't wanna pry, but it's real obvious that some strange shit is going on. Guys like outta the movies climb out of a Lincoln and rough you up on the sidewalk. Your brother comes to town and your commissions take a nosedive. Now this woman I know, she works at Flagler House, tells me there's some weird guy who hasn't been out of his room all week, there's two Lincolns camped in front of the hotel, and for some strange reason the cops won't go near them. Joey, is it me, or does all of this look a little strange?"