I admit, and have jovially admitted in the recent past in both oral and written chats, that I did, I do attest, at times, indulge in somewhat wild arm-waving, hoarse shouts, Swedish oaths, and ear-splitting, uh, screams, while on duty, along with a vigorous stamping of the floor with my feet and a pounding of the counter with my fist. Nothing of a serious nature, yet I saw the desired cocktail shaker floating away from me on a cloud of detested baloney sandwiches. It was a sour pill to watch the silvery dream break up into many pieces. The store manager, a swarty Italian guinea fellow, suggested to me in a harsh tone that I was alarming the customers and frightening them off, the cheap deadbeats! And also that the riffraff clerks were quitting regularly, since I disturbed their sandwich breaks. But what, I asked myself, does this greasy ball know of my desires for ultimate success? You can be sure that he was drinking the cocktails! “Sir,” I smilingly averred to him one evening, “you are drinking the cocktails, is this not the fact? What about my chance at the life of milk and honey?” He stepped back from me in what he made believe, I am quite certain, was puzzled alarm, and I was swiftly told to gather my cardigans and leave the premises. I was not working out as weekend evening acting assistant manager, so this gangster stated.
Soon hard upon this, my wife packed her bags and left me, tired, or so she claimed, of listening to my dreams. “Make a living!” the harlot attested. But never saying “die!” I soon claimed another forte as a translator for an import-export firm, until the windows of my mind began their slow fogging over with pesky lustful thoughts, brought on by gazing on a woman in my department who took to wearing the donning of skirts that were disturbingly tight as well as much too short for a lady. My fellow workers all smoked as well, a habit more dangerous to the innocent bystander than a month in heavy combat, so researchers have proved. And to their hearts’ content. I am happy to report that with the savings I have saved by not smoking, I have regaled myself with educational treats like various scientific magazines and flashlight batteries. And not just a few! I did not actually know Portuguese, my area of translational responsibility at the firm, and yet I pressed on. My sturdy versions of letters and contracts composed in this barbarous tongue were not exactly as precise as they might have been, and what with my attentive glare upon the body of the immodest lady and the translations, which the departmental chief termed “quite unbelievable,” if I recall aright, I was sent unnobly packing as a result of being canned. I had, I may add, drunk nothing but beer with my paltry lunches, while all about me cocktails were quaffed by people no better than I.
The wretched and highly uncultured thug who ran the shipping room at my next job, wherein I performed as the purchasing agent, bookkeeper, correspondent, more and less, really, as the chief cook and bottle washer, whatever that may mean, for a paperback-book distributor, was grossly arrogant. He remarked that I was “fucking crazy,” as I recapture his vile lingo, when I insisted, as the acting temporary assistant mailroom overseer, that a promotional mailing be stamped, on its envelopes, FIRST CLASS, twice on the front of the envelopes, twice on the back, and once on the labels. Once again, he muttered an imprecation directly at my benignly smiling person. Thus, I became somewhat excitedly disturbed, naturally, leaped toward the wooden supports tying two bookcases together, and swung there, rather suavely, so as to cool my head off and regain the calmness that was mine. The boss arrived soon after upon the spot. “I merely want to DRINK THE COCKTAILS!” I vigorously claimed. Quickly, in the face of the boss’s blustery quiz, I implied that the shipping-room lout, who had never even owned the sort of white shirt I daily sported, was not carrying out my officious orders. Thus doing his best to obstruct my rising to the top of the company ladder. Just then, a woman who had ignored my presence in the company for some time, popped a LifeSaver into her weakish mouth, and the rabble of the shipping enclave unwrapped large baloney sandwiches in front of me, the silent message screaming its disdain! I saw, once again, my American cocktail-like dreams going up in smokes yet again. I must have fainted amid a tidal wave of chuckles, and soon found myself on the “bricks.”
For the past few months, I’ve been calling various colleagues of yore at three o’clock in the morning with stern words of anonymous hatred. Crazy Swedish person? I’ll be showing them crazy Swedish person! I’ve also stocked my larder and pantry, whatever the cupboards are called here in the land of dreams come true, with ready-to-imbibe Bloody Marys and Manhattans, and other alcoholic treats. They are not at their best at a room’s temperature, thus I wait for the electric company to accede to my wishes to turn the power back on. However, I am careful of my appearance, white shirt, bow tie, cardigan, all business. I have discovered this is called electric blue in color, what a book I once browsed through called “the color of madness.” The author is well-known to be a homosexual pervert, yet I must try to love him for all his improper moralistic leanings. I may give him a brief telephone call one early morning and we will just see how he likes them apples, as you say here. My goal of sophisticated cocktail-drinking with the smartest of the smart set is not, I assure you, but the goal of a feebleminded dumbbell! My Timex now informs me that my boiled potatoes bubbling tastily on my Sterno stove are ready. Along with a cup of savory instant coffee and a few choice pages from a good book, I’ll leisurely dine away, although I would prefer to exchange bon mots with discreet, beautiful women in the paled moonlight, as you may have guessed. It is good to be an alien in America despite the crudities encountered.
The Wheels Turn
The salesmen, dear new colleagues and friends, who are out in the field, have no time to be answering requests by clients or would-be clients for samples, information, direction, or guidance; nor do they have time to engage in amorous or sexual correspondence with these people. Unless, of course, they feel that such interchange will lead to a considerable account. Photographs of a compelling or arousing nature may accompany diverse missives, along with, at times, gifts of cash, and such items may be able to change the most focused minds. You, as correspondents, here in the Correspondence Department, are in no position, nor will you ever be in such a position, to judge whether or not the salesmen in the field will have the time or inclination to reply to such letters “personally,” if I may use such a word, freighted, oh freighted as it is with velleity and suggestion. It matters little, that is, what your opinions of such letters may be, since all letters that land — and I use the word advisedly — that land on your respective desks, cluttered though they may well become with odds and ends of folderol and impedimenta, will, of needs, be those that have already passed through the vetting process on the twenty-third floor, that is, in the Alpha Department of the School Division, Southwestern Branch, a department supervised by our Mr. Bjornstrom, a man known to our other supervisors — and they are many — as “the man with the rubber stamp,” or, as he often delights in roughly and somewhat jovially, even hysterically, describing himself, “the Stockholm Corporal.” Stockholm is, of course, in Sweden, Mr. Bjornstrom’s homeland. These instructions, then, are tendered you in the event that an unvetted letter from a client or would-be client lands on one of your desks, which will, of course, never happen. If it should, well, no need to go into the nooks and crannies of that impossible eventuality. At present.