Flatland

The monotone was my greatest liability. I know this because they showed me the training tape and coached me on inflection. “Your voice is an instrument,” they said. “Don’t be afraid to play it.”

“An expressive voice is a sincere voice.”

Their own harmonious voices rang in my ears and told me that anything was possible, but the ringing faded fast when they opened the book. Its vinyl cover slapped the table, marking the end of pep talk and the beginning of judgment.

“All right,” they said, looking up from their notes. “Let’s try it again.”

They wanted me to succeed, wanted me to be part of the team, to go with them to the bars after work and loosen our ties over glasses of scotch. I had the wardrobe, two suits, four ties, and five white shirts because white looks best when you roll up your sleeves. I’d signed for the equipment, memorized the book, shined my shoes, I was ready to go. But there was the voice. It was a Midwestern voice, flat and featureless as an Iowa afternoon.

I grew up monotonous, the only child of parents who awoke with the sun and spoke in short, flat sentences. Harsh words were never uttered in our house, nor were happy words nor excited words. Just plain words, as if anything more would set up expectations that couldn’t be fulfilled. Maybe the wheat fields had some effect, psychologically, the way they went on undisturbed to the horizons. We were like those people in geometry who live on a two-dimensional plane, ignorant of the heights and depths the 3D world takes for granted. How could I explain this to my instructors? After twenty-four years, suddenly having to deal with x, y, and z?

I worked on the presentation all week, face to the bathroom door, and got it sounding pretty good I must say. I analyzed my lines like an actor. Where was the conflict? What were the high points? Whispering at first to lessen the shock of inflection, I worked towards volume and by the end of the week was bellowing like the world was my stage. As a final polish I turned to the mirror and improvised some exaggerated gestures, knowing they would mute down in performance.

In the training room I couldn’t even remember the gestures. In the training room my confidence melted under the green drizzle of fluorescent lights. I opened the book and began to speak, but the familiar lines had grown thick and heavy with confusing new implications. In the bathroom they sounded fine, it doesn’t matter what you say in the bathroom, but the training room exposed them for what they were: someone else’s words. The training room amplified every itch, every swallow. My inflections—when there were any—became steadily more arbitrary and bizarre, throwing odd syllables into high relief. After a while I realized the words themselves had parted from all sense and meaning. I was lost, unsure of what I was even saying, and I was thankful when the words finally ran out.

Again the room was brilliantly quiet: my uneven breath and the scraping of pencils across evaluation forms, that was it. I folded the book against my chest—like a schoolgirl, I realized—then let it drop to my side. My wrists hung from my shirtsleeves. Nothing was right. The evaluators’ clothes fit with authority and they were no older than me. I smiled foolishly at my performance and they smiled back, but disappointment pulled at their smiles. They looked at each other in silent conference.

“It will come,” they said, “with experience.”

* * *

I tried, for a while, I really tried, but you don’t know what it’s like sitting in a dingy living room on south Green with a woman who’s barely listening because your side of the conversation is written out and numbered in a three-ring binder and you’re from Iowa where people are supposed to be simple, plain-talking people who speak their own minds and not someone else’s. It’s not easy.

I was six months out of training and nothing had changed, nothing had come. Somewhere along the line I had convinced myself that the monotone was a virtue, that it represented qualities long gone from this business like honesty and integrity. All right then I would be a new breed of salesman, austere and disciplined, whose job was to present the product fairly and squarely, without the usual tricks of persuasion. I would sell an honest sweeper or none at all.

“What’s the single most important feature in a vacuum cleaner?”

The words were not spoken so much as extruded, flat as the road to Middleburg. I held the presentation book open on my knees, facing the customer, and pointed with my pen to a picture of a vacuum cleaner.

And waited.

She’s not going to answer me, I thought. Sometimes they didn’t with the monotone. No matter, in fact it was better that way. I didn’t want to debate the subject. The monotone said, Don’t answer this question, give me a thoughtful look and let me get on with it.

She slapped her thighs. “I give up, what? ” she said, thrusting her face forward.

OK, the false enthusiasm. I smiled to show I was in on the joke, and turned the page to a set of diagrams. “Most people think it’s suction, but it’s not. It’s air flow.” The words spilled out without a ripple. Below the clear surface she could easily read the message: You and I know this is a sales pitch, make up your own mind and leave me out of it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in the product. I did. The Cascade WaterVac was a fine product. The problem was sales, the inherent dishonesty of the entire field of sales. Not the blatant lies and out and out swindles you hear about, the bait and switch, the hidden costs, the extended warranty... No, it was the everyday charade. The sympathetic smile, the confidential whisper, the handshake, the small talk, the names inserted into every open slot in the conversation: Well, Dorothy, I’ve rechecked the figures, Dorothy, and the price, Dorothy, is... I couldn’t do it! The district manager was aware of the problem. I was an idealist, he understood that, he understood about morality and Midwestern values, but he insisted we find some sort of mutual accommodation. “Remember,” he said, chopping the air between us, “everything you know you learned somewhere else. Just like your Cascade presentation. Who cares where you learned it? It’s yours now, let it come from your heart!” He spread his hands, palms upward, a high priest of presentation sharing some of God’s wisdom. I suspected that these gestures, like everything else about the district manager, came from a book or seminar on sincerity. “I can do it,” I said, convinced by that time that an honest Midwestern monotone could sell sweepers just as well as his phony inflections.

I placed a small wad of cloth in the vacuum hose and clamped my hand over it for the suction versus air-flow demonstration. The hose hung off my hand like a giant leach. “Plenty of suction,” I said, then I turned off the machine to reveal the cloth right where I put it, in the mouth of the tube. “Air flow is what we want.” I hit the switch and the cloth disappeared.

“How much does that thing cost?” The woman’s head bobbed dully at the WaterVac sitting in the middle of her living room.

“That comes at the end of the demonstration.” Again I smiled, as if to say, We both know the routine!

“Uh-oh,” she said happily, then her happy breath caught and she coughed harshly. She seemed drunk. It was three in the afternoon and she was a bit tipsy. She had the old party girl look about her. Not that old, actually—late thirties, I’d say—but like she swam the gutter a few times too often. When she was my age she probably thought it would never end.

I waited patiently while she cleared the sputum from her throat, then continued with the harmonica demonstration, an elaborate musical entertainment to further illustrate the advantages of airflow over suction. She seemed to enjoy the sport, holding the harmonica first to the nozzle of her wheezing sweeper, then to the honking nozzle of the WaterVac. Back and forth, back and forth, wheeze, honk—she was getting distracted so I eased the harmonica from her hands, saying “You could do this same demonstration after cleaning an entire house with the WaterVac. There’s no bag to clog.” Straight words, straight from the book to her ears. After six months in the field my voice was a perfect drone, elegant in its lack of ornamentation. Especially gratifying were sentences like, “There’s no bag to clog,” from which I vocally removed not only triple exclamation points but full italics and a double line under “no bag.”

“Two thousand dollars!” she said, plunging into an absurd bidding war. She was not listening, she was off in her own scenario. That was the problem with the monotone, they didn’t really listen, and you couldn’t explain the philosophy to them, not to this type. This type didn’t understand the concept of a level playing field, free of pressure, where salesman and customer meet and rationally consider a sales transaction. No, this type just wanted a clean rug and the free vacation.

“Not two thousand.” I guided her back into the presentation with the dust lamp, a bright light with which I pointed out a constellation of dust particles floating throughout the room. I got a good count, a great count—the house was filthy as I had never seen in six months of selling WaterVacs. The air positively glittered. “This is what you breathe every day,” I announced.

“Well, some days I just don’t breathe,” she said. “Every other day is a no-breathing day.” She laughed a smoker’s laugh, riddled with phlegm: “A-huh-huh-huh.”

There was nothing cute about this woman and I wanted her to shut up. It was past three and I had two more appointments that afternoon. I flipped to a picture of a pale and hideous insect on a landscape of lunar rubble. “This is what lives in that dust. Millions of tiny dust mites.”

Wham! Her mouth opened and out came a little noise like her bronchial tubes had just collapsed—a reaction I got almost every time, without inflections. I scraped the rug under our feet and illuminated a rising flurry of dust and animal hair. “Look at that.”

She wasn’t joking now. Now she was interested. The thought of infestation made her fidget anxiously, tucking her legs beneath her and flicking at the air around her face. I took the opportunity to rearrange my gear, letting her dwell for a moment on the dust mites. If anything was going to turn her, this would be it.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she said, up and moving desperately towards the kitchen. Beneath her loose blue shift her body looked like lumpy pizza dough. I pictured a fridge full of jug Chablis, tooth-scalloped cheese, cigarette butts, and something in the back that had gone really bad.

“A glass of water would be nice,” I said, watching her.

Through the doorway I saw her swallow a pill and brace herself against the sink to regain her wits. The dust mites had done it, the fear was starting to work. This was step one on the course set out in the training diagram: fear, arrow, desire, arrow, action, arrow, dollar signs. Manipulation? The monotone nullified all attempts at manipulation. The dust mites were real, the WaterVac was real—these were the facts. All I had to do was remain calm and focused.

She wandered back into the room without my water and dropped into the armchair. I switched on the WaterVac and drew the furniture brush across the carpet, then pulled off the attachment to reveal a scrap of cloth stretched over the hose to catch the dirt, about a tablespoon of grime and small ball of fur. “A single pass and this is what we get.”

“My kitties,” she said sluggishly, as if that excused the dirt. “I have three cats.”

“The WaterVac is great for animals,” I said. “I even have an attachment to vacuum my dog.”

“My kitties wouldn’t like that.”

She seemed lonely, this woman, just her and her cats. I felt sorry for her, in a way. The house was a mess: thrift-store orientals, dirt-fogged windows, dust on the mantle—I could hit that later with the brush accessory—piles of old books, an unwashed plate on the end table. And the woman herself, hair like bailed straw, a shaky hand smoothing her shift. Just talking to someone like me must have been a treat. And why not? I was a salesman but I was also human. I had a dog. That was a personal touch, mentioning the dog. She had cats—could you vacuum a cat? I visualized the WaterVac slurping at the loose fur, and I laughed.

Her face went slack on me. Now I had to say something. Normally I stuck to the book and avoided personal chitchat, especially with such a boozy character as this, but I laughed and now I had to say something so she wouldn’t think I was laughing at her. I waved the nozzle in a small circle and said—flatly—“You’ve heard of ‘More than one way to skin a cat’?”

Immediately I felt her shrink away, she seemed to shrivel. She was sensitive about her cats. I smiled automatically and glanced at the book, as if the book were the culprit. I was trying to be clever and “boyish” and it backfired. This was the kind of misjudgment that could blow a sale. And let’s face it, that’s why I was there—to make a sale. I had bills to pay like everyone else, I had rent, I wanted things. A jet ski, for one. That wasn’t a lot, but it cost money—and I needed a trailer for it too, I guess—so let’s not pretend I didn’t want to sell her this thing. Let’s not get off the track.

The book sat heavily on my lap, digging into my thighs. I had lost my place. I fanned the pages and stopped, arbitrarily, on the final airborne dust demonstration. I held up a small square of white cloth. “Imagine this is your lung.”

“I wish,” she said, annoyed, as if the comparison were ridiculous. She was no longer playing off the presentation, no longer accepting my neutrality, and she was right, really. I wanted that jet ski, I wanted her money. The neutrality, I now saw, was as much a pretense as the rest of it. Yeah, I had a philosophy, a sales philosophy. My monotone was a sales technique! Like the smile and the handshake, only maybe it didn’t work as well as the smile and the handshake. The book, yeah, but the monotone? How many sales could I attribute to the monotone? Really?

Thoughts spun through my head, blurring together as I labored on, using the cloth to show her how much dust was actually thrown back into the air by her old vacuum. The result was disappointing, a faint circular smudge visible only when I held the swatch at certain angles. I always knew this was a weak point in the presentation—unlike the dust light, unlike the suction demonstration or the harmonica.

“Can you see that?” I said, holding out the cloth.

See that? Amid the confusion something had just occurred. There was a blip, a spike, on “see.” Can you see that? And “that” was left hanging in the air, perfectly, signifying a question awaiting a reply. And the question was real, not from the book. It was real! Can you see that?

I must have had a crazy, vulnerable look on my face because the woman smirked and sank back into her armchair, leaving me perched on a footstool with a scrap of dirty cloth in my fingers and a real, vulnerable question on my lips. Sweat dripped from my armpit and tickled down my ribs, my white shirt hung limp in the heat. How tender I was at that moment, how new! The right word would have flattened me, but she hesitated.

“I’m tired now,” she said. Simply. As if that were her prerogative.

My stomach tightened, something popped at the base of my skull. I actually heard it pop, like bubble gum. I stood up. The presentation book slid from my lap and hit the floor, splayed open like a dead magpie. Far above it I towered, something huge and foreign in this room, and I realized there was now nothing between me and the small woman curled up in her chair. No diagrams, no pictures, no claims or numbers, no monotone. I was naked before her, a man, a sales man.

I pretended I didn’t hear her and set to work vacuuming the living-room rug. The boldness of this act surprised us both, I think, but when she lifted her feet I knew I had her. Within minutes the rug was done and I had an entire canister of filth to show her.

She looked it over curiously. She didn’t seem to mind that I had bullied her a little. “I don’t clean much anymore,” she said.

“That’s because you don’t own a Cascade WaterVac!” I heard myself practically singing this line, and I wasn’t disgusted. It felt natural.

“No, that’s because I’m dying.” She said this plainly, with no drama—even, I think, with a slight smile. After a moment she looked away.

What? Whoa! How did she expect me to reply to this kind of statement? This challenge? They said nothing about death in the training course with their precious book. Instinctively I reached for the final attachment. No thought, just action. Chaos passed over me like a shadow and was gone. I was back in the bathroom, face to the door. “How many vacuums, Julie,” I said, letting the words resonate, “come with their own shampooer?”

She stared at me.

“We’ve seen the vacuumable dirt, Julie, now let’s see the non-vacuumable dirt.” I always had trouble with the word “vacuumable,” but now I was riding my voice like a circus horse—and at the same time snapping the shampooer together and still maintaining eye contact, watching for a response.

With an air of exhaustion she raised her eyebrows, permitting me to go on.

I began scrubbing away at a small square of the rug, clearing a window through the trampled-in grime and overlapping layers of stains. I was rolling now, steamrolling. Just get out of my way and let me work!

I had picked a spot in the main traffic path—not smart—and soon realized I was not making it. The rug was defeating me, it was too dirty, too far gone. Parts of my square looked worse than the rest of the rug, particularly the edges, where dirt was caking up. Well, no problem, the 3D world is full of loops and curves, it’s all a matter of perspective. I quickly poured a glass of muddy water from the canister and held it up, as if to check the color against the light. “This,” I proclaimed, “is the non-vacuumable dirt in your rug.” Not strictly true, since I had forgotten about the previous dirt in the canister, but with this woman I knew I could bluff it out.

She seemed a part of the armchair now, pinched up from the fabric like a stocking doll. Her eyes pivoted as if on weights—from the water to the rug, then back up, half-lidded, to me. The left side of her face contorted, pulling sharply at her lip. “Great,” she wheezed. “You ruined the fucking carpet.”

“This came out of your carpet,” I said, jiggling the glass.

“Look at the rug,” she said. “The fucking rug is ruined!”

I set the glass aside and stared at the rug, rushing through my options. The book was a little too optimistic in the chapter on shampooing, the book assumed success. Whatever I did now I was on my own.

“It’s not ruined,” I said.

“Look at it! ”

“What do you expect? It’s filthy! ”

She slipped into a harsh whisper. “That rug is almost brand new, and your company is going to buy me another one.”

Mention of the company sent an electric chill down my legs. I was still on probation and we could not bring the company into this. Besides, she wasn’t going to buy the vacuum anyway.

“No,” I said firmly, categorically.

She hesitated. I hesitated. And then slowly a lightness spread through me as I realized what I had done. I had chucked the monotone, I had chucked the book, and I was flying. Not just inflecting: flying. I was defying the customer, the presentation was over, but I was in control. This was what they meant when they talked about sincerity. This was real.

“Forget it,” she said, strangling on self-pity and futility. “What the hell do I need a clean rug for anyway?”

“Why don’t I just spread a little dirt around and blend it in and maybe the rug will look ‘brand new’ again.” I was flying high, feeling good, dancing across the rug, playing my words like a symphony. I did those stupid finger quotes when I said “brand new,” but it was unnecessary, it was all there, all in the voice.

“Get out of my house!” She flailed at me drunkenly, her hand turned in like a paw. I was already packing up and moving on.

“Sorry I couldn’t sell you a vacuum today, Julie,” I said without a trace of defeat, without anger, too, or vindictiveness. “You could certainly use one.” I was sincere, the words came out in a melody called sincere.

She snapped at me like a lap dog. “Don’t you dare use my name!” she shrieked. “You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me!”

I let that one pass—I still wasn’t a hundred percent on the name thing anyway—and dropped a vacation brochure on the coffee table. It wasn’t the greatest deal as free vacations go: three nights in Vegas, room, three meals. All you paid was airfare. What the hell, maybe it would get her out of the house. “Don’t procrastinate if you want the vacation,” I said. “There is a deadline.”

She didn’t hear me, of course, didn’t want to hear me. She was doubled over in her chair when I left. “Have a nice life,” I said, pulling the door closed behind me.

OK, that was nasty, that was going a little far. Did this woman say she was dying? Maybe that’s not what she said, but still, “have a nice life” had a nasty ring to it. It wasn’t professional. As I loaded up the truck I had a twinge of guilt about that remark, but only a twinge, because otherwise I was flying. I don’t know whether it was because of this woman or in spite of her, but after six months of selling WaterVacs I finally got it. It was like Zen—or anything, really—where you go along thinking you know what you’re doing and then suddenly you get it!

All along I thought sincerity was somehow synonymous with truth or honesty, and maybe it is, in a way, but in a deeper and more important way sincerity is all about living in the moment, being alive to the possibilities. True to your instincts. Because of this woman—or in spite of her—I now understood that sincerity was spontaneous life, a willingness to let go and ride the moment. If you can accomplish that you don’t need a presentation book. Your life is the presentation.

All this was going through my head as I loaded up the truck and pulled away. It was nearly four and my heart was thumping. I was brimming with life energy, I was powerful. This was the thrill of sales. I wanted to stop the truck and run across the park. I didn’t, but these things can happen when you’re sincere.

I still think about the woman—Julie. I guess she really was sick. I drove down Green Street last week and saw weeds growing up knee-high in her front yard. Made me think, you know? Who’s she got? OK, I’m a salesman, but I must use my sincerity for good. I’ll go back someday when she’s in a better mood. I’ll apologize and we’ll talk, really talk. Sincere, all the way. I’ll ask her about her problems, we’ll talk about her problems, and maybe I’ll clean that rug, the entire thing. I’ll take it out, if necessary, and have it cleaned so good it will look brand new.