Solemn (23 page)

“… No discipline and restriction, far too all-purpose not to be dangerous. A time suck and counterproductive peril. Do you really want all that at your child's fingertips? God only knows what the World Wide Web will bring. A virus. No, a computer can't make you sick. Well, of course, if one person is sick and another doesn't wash their hands after they use the same keyboard … I understand certified nurse's assistants know all about spreading germs … But if a virus comes from one computer to another, or one Web site from another, it can crash everything. Then where are you when your child needs to finish a report for school or you need to know something for work?…

 … “But no, DigiCate is strictly a walking digital encyclopedia. About a third of the cost of entire set of hardback books the competitors and traditional publishers want to sell you:
Britannica, Funk and Wagnall's
, a bunch of off-brands you don't even have to know about. Look, this is the future. Nobody's gonna be buying those anymore. We contain the whirlwind of the Internet and the familiarity of the tried-and-true encyclopedia into one place: at your fingertips, on our handy portable device. DigiCate Incorporated works our butts off to compile, update, and expand every single day from our offices in Silicon Valley. No, ma'am, Death Valley is the desert.

“This is not about death … This is about life! Living how you want to live! Making a difference in the world! Living on your own terms! Joining our sales force! You don't have to know about selling nothing, ma'am. We train. Walter back there—stand on up, Walter (looking good, man)—is the field coordinator and trainer for this entire region. 'Cause we want everybody included in this. Everybody taps the bigger cities. They forget about the margins. Well, who better needs a digital device of this nature than people who may not have access to the World Wide Web the way the rest of the world does by now? You're gonna be on the cutting edge. You'll be on the front lines. Well, sorry, pardon me. I mean no offense. Trust me, I have utmost respect for our servicemen. No harm intended. My cousin served in Kuwait … tore my aunt apart. So, yeah, my bad. But you'll be like pioneers. Well, er, we aren't talking about killing the Indians. Okay. You'll be at the head of the class, at the top, how 'bout that? Right, “Walter—head of the class!”

“This too confusing,” someone grumbled.

“They talk longer than the preacher…” Redvine heard. “And them doughnuts ain't do nothing for me. I'm starvin'.”

“I don't know 'bout all this,” another person said. “Can't I just fill out my application and go? I think
Fresh Prince
bout to come on in lwhile.”

“We get sick pay?” another asked.

“Is they gonna get to the point? All this talking just sickenin' me…”

… So, now, ‘Maggie's' passing out some pens and papers for y'all. And our folders. Those are yours to keep, special gifts inside. Pens, notepads, refrigerator magnets. Definitely pass out our pamphlets to your friends. But we just want you to follow long best you can because our payment structure is unparalleled. Trust me, unparalleled. Well, how much you get paid depends on how far you want to go …

 … Now, with our initial kit you get started with ten DigiCates, one just for you to get familiar with the product. It's totally free, complimentary. Now, the basic DigiCate retails for a thousand bucks, but … wait! We do have an installment plan. We've thought about all this a lot, trust me. We have. We want this to be affordable to all families and income brackets, so we've taken all economic budgets into account. Some of our installment plans start just as low as two hundred dollars, if they want to wait on the DigiCate until they can get down at least fifty percent of that. Yes ma'am, just like layaway. And, the DigiCate includes the warranty and five years of discounted update DVDs. So that means every few months we release an update DVD with brand new information and entries, because we're keep our customers on the cutting edge. But all this is explained in the materials. You got enough, ‘Maggie'? Okay, great!

… So, the goal for you would be to offer the DigiCate to customers for a lump sum you get fifty percent commission on. You get twelve hundred dollars from a customer, you keep six hundred dollars. Because we can offer you each DigiCate for six hundred dollars. So, we give it to our partners—that's you!—for half off retail price. So, you sell two DigiCates in one week, that's twelve hundred dollars in your pocket for the week. Yeah, sounds good, right? Now we're talking, huh? Yup …

“… You get yourself a good block of schools or maybe even some of these parent clubs, who gonna buy bulk orders. You could be done for the month. Or you get a patch of a village talking about it, buying them up. Sounds good right? And we're gonna start you off past Copper Tier to Bronze—so you can get your free DigiCate, exclusive to the Bronze level. And when you start to rise up to different levels—I come all the way up to the Diamond Tier, past Silver and Gold—then DigiCate will give you a discounted trip to our company retreat. It's in Orlando, Florida, this year. Next year, guess where's it's gonna be … Cancun! You know … in Mexico?

*   *   *

Redvine thought,
This ain't a job like I was thinking. six figures means one hundred thousand dollars. Least. But six hundred dollars a week fine for me. That's real good. Florida's nice … I can do this.

When ‘Connor' and ‘Jason' took questions, Redvine turned to see few left to ask any. Most had taken the folders and left. The table of refreshments was over with. The man with doughnuts in his lap remained, asleep. So did the look-alike couple with look-alike kids, crying now. The woman with the scrubs and bonnet talked to ‘Maggie,' about her grandson: day-care costs. She was thinking about taking in foster kids, Redvine heard her say. While ‘Connor' dismantled the projector and screen, Redvine shuffled the papers in his lap into the DigiCate folder they gave him and he approached Jason.

“What'd you think, sir?” ‘Jason' asked him. Redvine noticed his many freckles.

“Sound all right, just fine,” Redvine said. ‘Connor' waved “Howdy” to him.

“You meet Walter?” ‘Jason' asked, motioning behind to the back of the room. The look-alike couple cornered ‘Walter'. They wanted directions to the nearest bus stop.

“Yes, sir. He helped me in,” Redvine told ‘Jason'.

“Well, this was our last presentation here for now. We getting on to Mobile. But Walter'd come to your house. You live round here?”

“Yes. Well, no.”

“Kosciusko?”

“Little bit further out. Take me 'bout twenty minutes to drive in if I'm lucky.”

“Not too far. Trust me, you get deep in this business, digging up your territory, you gonna be driving for days. I mean, we've sold tens of thousands of these things.”

“Oh really?”

“Really,” ‘Connor' echoed, as he set the instruments into a nifty leather box. Every part fit in just right. “Big ole clunky home computers a thing of the past, man. Laptops still got a chance, though. In the future, people gonna wanna be on the go. But I gotta tell you, the World Wide Web hit its prime few years ago.”

“I thought everybody had the World Wide Web now. I keep hearin' 'bout it…”

“Oh, they do all right,” ‘Jason' said. “But so do the advertisers and marketers and corporations turning it worse than television. I mean, come on, least on your favorite shows, you know when to take a break for commercials, right?”

“True.” Redvine chuckled. “Except for the Super Bowl. I like those a lot.”

“Exactly,” ‘Connor' continued. “You have a choice. That's all gone online.”

“World Wide Web is one long big commercial, trust me.” Jason laughed.

“So,” Connor went on (Redvine wondered if they were brothers sawed apart at a past point), “DigiCate is gonna give people an electronic device with encyclopediac information pretty stock and set, like a book you pull off the shelf. But it's free and clear of drama. A booklike search engine. It's portable, electronic, easy to read, fun, and sound-enhanced. It makes you feel like you're online when you're not. And you can even set it up to separate information and save entries into special folders you control.”

“We got the edges of America up and running on board with this,” ‘Jason' said. “New York is on it hard. California too. Chicago's coming along. Seattle's our biggest territory. Heather there's my wife. She shot through Seattle like a racehorse.”

“It's kind of the innards of America we lacking now,” ‘Connor' said. “Trust me, Mister Earl, a year with this and, seriously, you could be just like Walter. He's on salary.”

On salary.
On
salary. This meant guaranteed, sick or on vacation or no matter what. It was all so promising.

‘Jason' and ‘Connor' took Redvine back to ‘Walter.' They shook hands again, to make plans. ‘Heather' and ‘Maggie' smiled back at him, Cheshire cat grins, while they swept up crumbs left near missing doughnuts and spilt coffee dots. ‘Walter' confirmed Redvine's number. He paused. But luckily all the men had business cards with near-matching information. Redvine was going to stop at Alice Taylor's house straightaway to use the phone, let her know to expect an important call for him. He wasn't worried about the money to get started. He would find it, from somewhere.

Redvine strutted out of the Days Inn lobby and took note it had been okay, after all, to pay for Landon's honeymoon there. The front desk manager even smiled at him on the way out, so a first impression was reversed. He couldn't wait to get home to tell Bev. Or, maybe he would keep it close to his vest for a while, wait until he sold a thing or two for her to jump up and down for. They didn't even say anything about the background check that kept him from other work—that little obstruction-of-justice thing back in the day, really just mouthing off to white cops. He wondered if his sisters would lend him some dough, snap out of superstition he was so bad for not visiting his parents more while they went down. He couldn't say he blamed them. He had been a standard baby of the family, incapable of babying anyone else. But he cried the most. Didn't that count? How long could they hold it all over his head? It was bygone, just like his part of the little life insurance he was actually happy they used up for the funerals and the debt. He would have made a business with it, had they not been so ornery and handed him some. One monkey, even two, don't stop no show. He'd get money somewhere else. He had more on his mind than mending fences with a family he might have to put a fence up to once he made six figures. Beggars they'd become. He didn't have time or mind to think of the naysayers and critics.

And also because, well, anyway … the Malibu was out of gas.

*   *   *

On the favored lift to a bowl of gas at the nearest gas station and back to the Malibu, Alice Taylor let Redvine in on boys she knew in Jackson. They were into “that stuff,” but hey, they
had
kept her trailer out of foreclosure and got one of her son's trucks out of repossession and calmed Rent-A-Center bounty hunters for her. They wouldn't pass up a little interest for a short-term loan. Redvine could go ahead and give her number out, for good cause. She'd take his calls, plus make a few others of her own for him.

With instant coffee and sweet potato pie waiting, ‘Walter' drove a leased burgundy Lexus out to Singer's to break everything down better than Solemn could manage, once she and Bev pushed through all the papers. The women cleared away the random seasonings, bills, junk mail, Solemn's homework, and all the unfinished paperwork for the Tudor home bid. It was actually a very good and workable table.

‘Walter's' pen was gold, real. Redvine could tell. He ran his fingers along the
DigiCate Classic Volume
for six hundred dollars to him and twelve hundred dollars to his clients, an authenticity certificate, and a frame. But, ‘Walter' said, the catalog was vast. For the reluctant customers, there was the bonus of a
DigiCate Standard Desk Dictionary
and
Geography Catalog
. Only a few hundred. Said they sold those most often.

Bev glowed up to serve the men more throughout it all, but she was concerned. “You think we can afford all this?” she asked, furrowed and peckish, a last smile to ‘Walter' before he pulled out their plot.

“It's for the future,” Solemn heard Redvine say.

The future sounded greedy.

Alice Taylor had driven Redvine up to meet boys in Jackson already. He could do the interest, the deadline, and the terms. Explained it off to Bev as a bank loan. ‘Walter' would bring by DigiCates, personally, for Redvine to start. He was ready. The future had to come along now. It was the past that was too unaffordable.

 

TWENTY

The Weathers' wood-paned, wall-length mural to Pearletta—their “challenging” one—performed its function and made its case: she hasn't always been this way. The wall testified she selected light-pink Mother's Day cards with flower vases on the front. She went to prom, boy 'cross the avenue. Content in braces. Wondrous onstage. Gentle with a violin. At home in velvet. Enamoring even in chunky heels. She was pretty but not photogenic, a miscommunication that may have twisted if not sealed her fate. Her face on news bits or five thousand flyers printed on bank paper, driven throughout 39090 and surrounding bayous, provoked people to glance once. Just once, because she was dark.

Viola Weathers used to pride herself on toughing with no AC and now she kept it cold. Too cold. But no one had heart to say. She preferred to serve only green dinner mints with mint green tea, as much for everyone's nerves as to match the color of her housepaint newly refreshed. “He did it just for me,” she smiled, after church, on Saturday she believed was best. She said she read somewhere that green communicated “life.” Without base and lashes and rouge, she looked sane. Upon a second Easter past the last one anybody could say they saw Pearletta, Viola ascended herself from rumor slayer and battle-axe to the one who would have rolled the stone to find Jesus' tomb empty. Apropos. Seamless comparison. A good dream at night.