sell straw or whatever. Tell guys stories. Civilians eat that shit up. If you can’t think of a story, make one up. You’ll sell a lot of straw.”
“Straw?” Edward Everett said dumbly.
“Straw. Tractors. Pitchforks. It don’t matter a crap.”
“Are you saying—”
“Hey,” Hoppel shouted. “Leave my fucking plate alone.” He hung up and Edward Everett looked at the phone in his hand for a moment before he replaced it in the cradle. He’d expected Hoppel at least to say that the team had made a mistake; that Edward Everett would surely hook up with another organization. It was as if, now that he was dead to the team, he was dead to Hoppel as well.
Chapter Nine
He didn’t sell straw, or tractors or pitchforks, but he did sell flour. His father’s brother, Stan, repped for a mill in Steubenville and Edward Everett went to work for him shortly after the start of the new year. At first, his job consisted primarily of getting into his uncle’s Cadillac at five-fifteen every morning, Monday through Friday, and riding with him as he made his rounds of the restaurants, groceries and bakeries in the valley.
His uncle was a beefy man, less than five-foot-six, and so big-bellied that, after he yanked himself behind the steering wheel, he could barely reach the accelerator. When he drove, he was frantic, constantly moving, scratching his cheek, picking his nose with his right pinkie, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, smoking. In the car, at least, he rarely finished the sentences he began:
“John Roberts is the purchasing …” “Christ, I …” “Can you reach …?”
Despite that, Edward Everett was soon able to pick up on what he meant: John Roberts is the purchasing agent at the supermarket in Oriole. Christ, I hate this song (stabbing an angry finger at the selector button to change the station). Can you reach back and grab afresh pack of cigarettes from the carton on the backseat?
His uncle smoked constantly, often lighting one cigarette from another, flicking the spent butt out his window. More than once, it bounced back into the car, landing in his lap, and his uncle would bat frantically at it to knock it to the floor, taking his eyes off the road, the car weaving madly from the shoulder to across the center line. Edward Everett was certain he would be dead by March.
In the offices of supermarket purchasing agents or the owners of mom-and-pop bakeries, his uncle was a different man, however. He kept a metal file card box perched on the backseat and, before going in for a meeting, he flipped through the cards until he found the one that corresponded with the person they were meeting. On each, in surprisingly delicate handwriting, his uncle had made careful notes about the names of wives, the health of parents, the school activities of children, along with symbols that reminded him of changes he needed to make in his attire: tie, no tie; jacket, no jacket; pinkie ring, no pinkie ring. He’d glance at the card, spritz Binaca onto his tongue, yank himself out of the Cadillac and toddle inside for the appointment. There, in offices or industrial-sized kitchens, he was friendly and solicitous, flirty with the women, no matter how old, how attractive. To some of the men, he would relate a dirty joke but, outside in the car, he would say, “Christ, if Margaret,” shaking his head. Christ, if Margaret knew I told jokes like that, she’d have me going to confession seven days a week.
Edward Everett hovered in the background, watching his uncle work. If someone glanced in his direction, he would give a smile and say, “I’m just here to learn from the pro.” His uncle had told him to say that. “Jokes,” he said, shrugging. Jokes break the ice. Jokes make people like you. Jokes make the sale.
In his second week, at a family-run bakery in Otto, overlooking the Ohio River, his uncle drew him into the conversation for the first time. It was a sale that was not going well. The owner—a thin young man with a face pockmarked by acne scars, who wore his pants high on his waist, secured by bright yellow suspenders—countered every claim Edward Everett’s uncle made with one of his own: Our current supplier gives a larger discount. Our current supplier can respond to special orders within forty-eight hours. It was past one in the afternoon and Edward Everett was hungry, leaning against a stainless steel counter, where the