Texas by the Tail

weensy bit?'

Mitch groaned and reached for her, surrendering.

Red said the same two words that he had said.

Then she hoisted herself into the upper berth and pulled the covers over her.

Eventually, Mitch fell asleep in the lower berth, dreaming not of Red, strangely, but of his father. Dreaming that the old man was sore at the statement that he was a hard guy to get along with. He wasn't at all unreasonable, his father said. Not a goddamned bit.

And he certainly wasn't. All things considered…

2

There was almost no time of complete relaxation in the life of Mr. Corley, Sr. If he was not driving a crew of high-powered telephone salesmen-and doing twice the work of any two of them-then he was 'working advance,' attempting to line up a publisher for the special- edition routine. And here was a job to make the saintliest of men curse with frustration.

They were invariably hard-heads, those publishers: chronic cynics with a talent for poking holes in the smoothest promotional pitch. Mitch knew, because he and his mother- peppery, nervous, fast-talking-usually accompanied his father on the initial visit to the publisher. Mr. Corley wanted them along (or so he explained to the publisher) to show him the kind of folks who were coming into his community. No fly-by-nights, sir. Just a plain old-fashioned American family. This last was Mitch's signal to grab the guy's hand, winsomely inquiring whether he had any little boys. Then stepping aside quickly, he allowed his mother to move in. And she practically straddled the guy, pushing herself right up against him as she gushed out a torrent of flattery. And then, before the chump could run and hide (yes, some of them actually tried to do that), Mr. Corley drove in for the sell.

He was a hard man to say no to, although it was said to him three times out of five. The points he made were not only virtually irrefutable, but put forth with mannerisms which were almost mesmeric.

He would not let a prospect look away from him. If one tried to, alarmed by the purring, pounding, perfectly enunciating voice, Corley would shift in his chair, assuming whatever position was necessary-bending practically to the floor if he had to-until he again had the man's eye. Then, his own gaze unblinking, he would begin an imperceptible wagging of his head, moving it with the rhythm of his words; back and forth, talking steadily all the time, wag-word, wag-word, to and fro, to and fro. And Mitch, until he learned to look away-to cut off the sight and sound of his father-would feel his eyes glazing and a strange numbness creeping over him.

For that matter, he did not need to look or listen to follow the pitch. It was pretty well standardized, the gradually put-together product of years of attack and counter-attack on the same general issues.

'Why, certainly, sir,' Mr. Corley would say. 'Certainly, you could put Out a special edition yourself. You could make yourself a suit of clothes, too, I suppose, or build your own house. But you don't do those things; you don't do them, because you're not an expert at them. And you know and I know and we all know that when you want something done right, you go to an expert…'

Or knocking down another sore point:

'I'm glad you mentioned that, sir. Glad. Very glad. It's quite true that some advertising departments can't sell an inch of space behind a special edition. They've had it for a year afterward. Their explanation is that there's just so much ad money in a town, and if you take it out on a special, you can't get it day-to-day. Oh, yes, I've seen advertising departments like that-alibi departments, I call them. And I've seen publishers who let them get away with it. Soft-headed types, you know: men who ought to be running a soup kitchen instead of a newspaper. But if you were that type, as of course you're not, and if you did have that kind of advertising department, you'd still be ahead with a special. You've got it made in a wad, instead of having it spread over a year and…'

And still another:

'Why, that's wonderful, sir. Just about makes you unique. All the business you can handle, all you need. So much that you're not even interested in a time-tried and proved proposition which has earned the whole- hearted endorsement of almost two hundred daily newspapers. My congratulations, sir. I can only hope that some of my less fortunate publisher friends don't move in on your bonanza. Now, I was talking to a man just last week who was looking for another location…'

And so on and so on.

Some towns did not have to be promoted after the first time. They were sold solid and would go for a special every year or, more often, every two years. But this seemed only to increase the pace. There was lost time to make up for, hard times to be anticipated. And there were arrangements to make, the chiefest of which was the rounding up of personnel, the professional high-pressure salesmen who made up the special-edition breed.

When working, some of them made several thousand a month. When not working, which was about two-thirds of the time, they made for the nearest big city, there to live it up with booze and broads until they were broke and Corley or someone like him made contact. Often, Corley would send them money, never to see either it or them again. Often, they would arrive more fit for a hospital than work. Eventually, however, a crew would be put together, and things would start to jump.

On an average, there were from six to a dozen salesmen, depending on the size of the town. Headquarters was any empty storeroom which could be rented cheaply: the furniture-boxes, packing crates and telephones. You had only to stick your head in the door to know why it was called a boiler room. You had only to listen to the constant clamor of the phones, the muted incessant roar of fast-talking voices, to understand the cursing, the chain-smoking, the opened bottles of whiskey convenient to every man's hand. Yet they seemed to enjoy what they were doing. They were all savagely good-natured.

In mid-conversation, a man would swiftly thrust his phone at Mitch. Want to piss in this guy's ear, kid? Or covering the mouthpiece of his phone a moment, Well, crap on you, Cicero! Sometimes there would be a screw-up, and top-of-the-bead apologies were necessary. Oh, no, madam, that isn't at all what I said! You see, we have a very elderly gentleman here in the office who is taking a trip around the world-we fellows are sending him, as a matter of fact-and he was wondering which was the cheapest way to go. So I said, Oh, ship-s-h-i- p…'

There was laughter, excitement. The sense of great things afoot, of vast sums pouring in. Of magic doors to be swung open by the quick and the glib. But being so close to his parents' affairs, Mitch knew that what he saw here was only the shadow and not the substance; the perilous periphery of the big time. Minds and bodies were being bet in a fixed race. You might beat it, sure, and you might also become rich by saving a dollar a day for a million days.

Mr. Corley strode in and out of the boiler room a dozen times a day, but mostly worked outside. His wife, Helen- Dutch (for Duchess) as she was usually called-worked the inside; keeping track of sales, occasionally taking over a phone, frequently circulating the room to see that nothing or no one got too far out of hand.

Although she was a small woman, her clothes never seemed quite large enough for her. Her round little rear-end was always molded against her skirt, her full little bosom strained constantly against her blouse. She moved around the room pepperily, her voice snappish, her quick movements making her jounce all over. Now and then, she leaned down, her hand resting impersonally (impersonally? ) on a guy's shoulder as she lit her cigarette from his or listened in on a call. Occasionally, needing to get off her feet for a moment (or so she said), she sat down next to a guy, butting him over on his packing-box chair with a waspish little fling of her hips.