Hard Shell Soft Sell

7/30/2019 Hard Shell Soft Sell

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Hard Sell, Soft Shell

Michael A. Chaney

It was morning and I had to get to work. My mom was drifting through fantasy

like a cinder in a snow globe. As I rummaged empty pockets by the back door, she

reminisced from the couch. It was the same old bullshithow my manager at the pet

store, Jenks, was smart just like my Daddy back when they were all in high school

together, only smarter, which means that Jenks didnt drop out like most of the ethereal

Daddy-Men she brought around. Their invisible presence clouded my life when better

weather was expected. It annoyed me more than the coppery ruins of the kitchen sink,

cakes of it detaching with each ponderous faucet drop. Why didnt the phantom daddies

do something about that? Whats the use of having them around rhetorically holding me

up if they cant even fix a faucet? All they ever did was fill up Moms talking. Reveries

brought to you by disability checks, generic anti-depressants, and precious regret.

When I came to the end of the diatribe in my head, I was still late, having spent

the last five minutes confirming the color and texture of the lint ticking up the pocket tips

of every coat and jacket in the mudroom. Mom was still inventing a backstory for

JenksGods goddamned gift to animals.

Jenks is a jackass, I said. All he does is talk a bunch of shit nobody cares

about. I said this part adagio. People come to buy feeder fish or to look at the displays.

Nobodys going to be convinced by some balding forty-year-old motor-mouth into

buying a two-thousand dollar python just cause he tells you how many teeth the average

adult has or how much the mother weighs when shes pregnant.

I stared at the hinge painted into the sponge wood of the doorframe. Like me, it

stayed in place more out of habit than hardware. I tapped my black sneaker, wishing they

were loafers so the soles would be satisfyingly percussive.

Mom didnt get the hint. I tapped and sighed and tapped some more. She kept

watching TV. I could hear violins and a throaty recitation of symptoms, sweating and

unusual dreams. What was she thinking? I only had this job for a week. How was I

supposed to take the bus over there, magic beans? Beer bottle caps? I wasnt exactly


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proud of being nineteen with a pet store job as the brightest (and only) star in my

professional night sky, but I wasnt going to grovel either. Plus, its not like I was the

only under-achiever in this neck of Middle Americas urban woods. Was Jenks coming

by to pick me up in his animal expert van, a roof-mounted gerbil bobble-heading its way

up the driveway? Hell no. That dweeb takes the bus, just like me.

Another voice from the TV, this one a woman, described the softness of skin

lucky enough to have whatever stupid moisturizer for sale rubbed into it. Mom was

settling in to ride the couch all day. It occurred to me that so was I in a different way.

Anyone whos ever done retail knows what its like to hand over your soul with a grin on

your face so fake you drool like an idiot while handing it over. The drool and the smile

are of ritual importance. They infuse the whole transaction with a touch of ceremony, one

of capitalisms many sacraments.

What the hell, Mom? A new car didnt come gratis with my Pets People shirt.

You know who you remind me of, she said, with all your smarty pants

complaining?

Let me guess. My Daddy?

No. Jenks. He was a real talker when we was kids. Just like you.

Can this real talker have bus fare, Mom? Im gonna be late.

By the time I got to work, business on the upstairs floor of Pets People wasthicker than usual, so I wasnt surprised to see lots of people gawking the fish tanks in the

basement. I was stuck down there for the day doing inventory and learning the ropes of

selling non-bird, non-mammal pets from Jenks. He was behind the counter, talking his

head off about the new turtles posing under the heat lamps in the terrarium like miniature

dinosaur super models. Thats it darling, thats it. Make love to the heat lamp. Good, now

hold that pose. Lovely, darling, lovely. Just like that. Dont move. And the silly, scaly,

salmonella-carrying little things would hold those poses for hours, which was fitting,

since thats how long Jenks could talk about them.

This pod is six months old, of course, the average tortoise of this variety lives

to about seventy or eighty, excuse me a moment, wont you? He thought he had to cut

things off with the yuppie couple politely, as if they were hanging on every word. You

could tell from their body language that they had accidentally fallen into his


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conversational prison, closing them in with musty facts and unwanted figures, weights

and ratios, dates and measures.

Russ, I need you at station one, he said.

Its Rusty, I said, though my reminders never took effect.

Well be busy today. All of this is a lead-in to Black Friday. Ive been saying this

would happen for years. Its a tipping point. An algorithm really. We could practically

work backwards on a calendar to derive the formula. His teeth showed when he

chuckled. His lower incisors were coffee beans. Anyways, people want to give pets as

presents, but they need us to work out the logistics for them. Its as if they dont know

they want a pet-present yet. Unconsciously, theyre here today for us to give them

permission to want a pet-present, you see? You remember what I taught you about the

aquariums for novice fish lovers?

Yeah sure, I said struggling to take it all seriously when he says things like fish

lovers. Mom said that I needed this job for more than the money. Without it Id stay in

my room reading those encyclopedias that smell like old garage and complaining about

that broken laptop I tinkered with endlessly but could not fix. Not much of a social life.

Its funny, meaning weird as hell, how much she worried about me not getting laid. Its

funnier and thankfully less weird that this scene of thoughtless instruction was all the

social life I typically got in a day at work. Masturbation and outdated entries on theSoviet Union would be more exciting but like the man says, we all gotta work.

And remember about the aquarium classes Thursday evenings? Jenks

pronounced Thursday, Thursdy.

I know. I said. Should I help customers or am I in class right now?

Look, Russ, its busy.

Its Rusty, I said.

Right. Rusty. Its busy. I dont want to have to tell Mr. John about your attitude

again.

I apologized but couldnt look Jenks in the face. If I were older, I would call the

owner John or Mr. Crucio not Mr. John. Mr. John sounds downright idiotic, shameless.

I ventured over to the fish as Jenks worked his way through the store, browsing

customers. I could tell he was trying to reclaim that escaped couple and remand them in


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his conversational custody, which was fine by me. I was here to get through the day, get

my money for the soundness of my wallet and the social life for the soundness of my soul

(and really for Moms peace of mind, I suppose, and shes been more worried about me

since her back went out than about her own situation and I wish she had had more kids so

I wouldnt be the only bulls eye on her spinning target wheel of guilt).

It occurred to me then that guilt worked a lot like sales. Im not comfortable with

a hard sell. If you ask me, thats how you blow the deal. Youve got to move slow. Watch

a while. See where the eyes go. How much are they willing to shell out? Look for signs.

Theres a science to it and Jenks had it all wrong. Id been studying people. He only ever

talked at them. The last thing I would do is blow the deal by letting my brain get in the

way of what other people wanted. Algorithms on a calendar? Why couldnt Jenks see

that? What snow globe scenes shook inside his head as he brandished verbal minutiae at

bored customers? Algorithms on a freaking calendar for Petes fucking sake.

The trick for me was to keep Jenks off my ass, bulldozing in to drone on about

Douglass fir shavings with eucalyptus in it, so much better than the same shit without it.

That always had the same result. By the time hed be about five sentences into his

monologue, customers would start looking at me imploringly, shifting from one foot to

the next, blaming me for the way Jenks abused every opportunity to say things like

sexual dimorphism in what only appeared to be a casual conversation about tortoises.And why not blame me? We both have the same blue polo shirt. Same tag where a name

goes that nobody cares to call us by. Were about the same height, too, so who cares

about technicalities like hes an old dumb ass and Im not or that hes got diarrhea of the

mouth and not me?He must be the boys father. Is this your boy? Hmm. Chip off the old

block, eh? Apples falling real close to brown-toothed, talkapocalypse trees, eh?

Whatever. People cant be bothered with nuance when theyre shopping. Thats why I

take it slow.

Three guys, my age but rich, were studying the beta fish. I shadowed them to

determine what they wanted. It soon became obvious that they were in college together. I

was about to intercept them at the Oscar tank, where they lingered, but that would have

been a mistakesomething Jenks would have done. It was the turtle pen by the counter


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that drew them, the creatures shell-glistening under the lamps as if freshly painted. I

watched and waited and then I made my move.

You guys wanna buy a turtle?

Maybe, said the tall one. How old are they?

Six weeks, I said, hearing Jenks in my head elaborating on the size of the head

relative to the diameter of the shell as a means of gauging the hatch date.

They sure do run fast, said a blond guy with an annoyingly perfect smile. I

thought turtles were supposed to be slow.

Yeah, I said. Jenks again: although technically a misconception, the proverbial

slowness of the turtle not only allows for a slower heart rate and a longer life, it also

allows them to reserve energy for bursts of quick movements as with all ectotherms.

Dude, said the third, what if you duct taped one to a bunch of helium balloons?

That would win the contest for sure.

The taller one elbowed him and let his eyes come to rest on me. They were

vampire brownso dark they drew what was human about the iris indistinguishably

toward what was not about the pupil. Jenks would have begun his speech on animal

cruelty at precisely that moment. He would have gotten all grandiose about pet store

workers being obligated reporters like social workers or EMTs in cases of domestic

abuse. But that kind of overreaction assumes the worst in people. I wasnt going to dothat. And just because Jenks was in my head, hunkered down and phantom-Daddy

furtivedidnt mean I had to give him control.

That would take a lot of helium balloons, I said and then chuckled.

The three puffed non-committal laughter. In the middle of the pen, the largest

turtle slowly turned to face us. It blinked resignedly and then looked away, curious in

slow motion about the sand beneath its right fore claw. That was when Mr. Bright Smile

turned to me and said, How many balloons do you think?

He was either joking, and I should have laughed right away, or he had a seriously

morbid disdain for turtles. And to a man with morbid disdain, everyone else is a turtle.

Either way, his pathologies had nothing to do with me. What bothered me as soon as he

said it was the automatic way I let another Jenksism slip: They averaged about seventy

grams at their last weigh in.


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Shit, then, he said, that wouldnt take many balloons at all. Not many at all.

The other one laughed. The tall one looked at me suspiciously. I feigned a sudden

interest in the shelf of dog toys behind me. With everything that had just been said, it was

difficult not to imagine the macabre possibilities of squeaky rubber chickens and T-bone

steaks while I was re-arranging them needlessly. How many of these could be wedged

into a poodles mouth? How about its ear? Things were taking on cartoonish dimensions

of mayhem in my mind.

The sound of their chittering laughter still at the turtle display behind me got

translated instantly in my brain into a tableaua group of them in letterman cardigans

atop a mountain of empty beer bottles with umlauts over the vowels (and not just on the

beer labels; maybe the cardigans, too); each one has a turtle in his hands rudely equipped

with a makeshift helmet and scarf, beer labels and origami no doubt the source of these

tiny props; the young men begin chanting something in Latin as their girlswearing

poodle skirts and tortoise shelled saddle shoeswheel out the helium canisters.

Say, Russ Jenks had that same robotic, chalky grin on his stubbly face that he

used when telling me to check the washrooms, which he pronounced as warsh rooms. His

eyes were like buttons sewn in the face, looking past you. I could have been anyone at

that moment doing anything, yet the impersonal way it made me feel came as a relief. I

was tired of vicariously launching duct-taped turtles into the stratosphere.Say, Russ?

Its Rusty.

Right, Rusty. Can I get your opinion on the new tarantula biome?

He walked me and his robotic grin over to the wall of arachnids, where at the very

bottom he had recently established a long terrarium of interconnected units that he alone

referred to as the biome. He insisted it was because it contained insects that the spiders

were not meant to consume. The rest of us had a hard time seeing metallic creatures, big

as orange shoes, as insects.

He whispered to me. Those boys. Are they going to purchase a turtle?

I did not want him to notice my disappointment. I did not have any opinions about

his stupid biome anyways.

I think they might. Why?


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Whatever you do, Russ, dont sell them any of those turtles.

Why not?

There was that grin again. Was his face peeling? Was the air so dry in here? Ive

dealt with the one young man before. He came in to buy a half dozen snakes a couple of

months back. I had my suspicions then, but Im settled on it now that it would be

unethical for us to sell love-worthy animals to a PA.

PA was store code for Potential Abuser. The love-worthy animal phrase was

Jenks code for Im a big fairy. All of it was just so stupid. Who cares who buys any of

these stupid animals? Wasnt the whole point to sell inventory, make money, transact

desired goods and products for desired returns? All of the rules and feelings were like the

factotums scrawled out in childish letters on handwritten notes that Jenks would slip to

customers buying a new cage for a parrot or a new hamster wheel:

The Macaw tends to outlive their human caregivers by at least three

decades. As you and Jimmy enjoy this bigger home, dont forget to think

about the home he should have for his golden years.

And from what I already knew about turtles, no amount of bullshit human care

would reflect the reality of their real life situation in the wild. I could just imagine my

Jenks note if I were to sell these college guys the turtles:

Remember Biffleburt Richbitcher the Third, as you and your new shelledbrothers enjoy toga parties in the sand strewn basement of your fraternity

house, turtles are left to hatch on their own along the sandy beaches or

muddy embankments of rivers and creeks, left to die or live or suffer as

they may, sometimes with only a few appendages intact after the otters,

snakes, foxes, owls, and even other turtles are through with them.

How love-worthy does that make the animal? Never mind that its the truth. Jenks would

rather chop off a hand than admit to the crueler facts of the matter.

I was thinking all of this while he stood there waiting for me to give answer. I

shrugged and said, If theyre PAs, I wont sell to them.

He sucked up his lower lip, as if about to rip it from his own face with his teeth,

chew it up, and swallow it down in front of me, along with my quiet derision, but he

clicked his tongue and walked briskly away.


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Maybe that was the moment. I dont know. Maybe things like that never come

down to moments. If they did, that would be it. Jenks could have threatened me again

with Mr. John. He could have insisted, pushing his talking onto me the way he did with

everyone all the time. But he just walked away, leaving it all to me.

The frat boys were still snickering at the turtle pen. I couldnt tell if it was

because of the overheard anthropological joke of service labor or the stupid turtles again.

I made a decision in an instant. I cleared my throat and said, You guys cant buy

any of the turtles today.

Why not? asked the tall one. There was menace in his dark eyes, a glare that

forgot momentarily about pet shops, frat houses, social contracts, and the long-term

consequences of an assault and battery. I thought about Frankie Swanger who grew up

down the street from me, a kid with preternaturally greasy hair, like he brushed it with

canola oil everyday. At that very moment Frankie was sweating out a stack of calendars

in a cell downstate for that exact charge. I could think of no one I grew up with who was

going to collegenever mind community collegebut THE college, their college, the

old one up on the hill. Whatever the reason, when I had to say something to dissuade

them from buying the turtles, it came out all wrong.

My manager doesnt want me to sell them to you guys.

Two spoke at once. Perfect Teeth suggested that Jenks have intercourse withhimself. The tall one asked politely if he could speak with Jenkss superior. I was

shocked by how equally automatic and expletive this latter request was.

I said, Mr. Crucio is behind the cashier station upstairs. Hes the owner.

And whats the name of your manager?

I could see Jenks waxing prolix by the spiders again, playing quiz show host for a

little girl who couldnt bend any further away from his pantomimed demonstration of the

jack-in-the-box spring of a tarantulas retractable claws without letting go of her fathers

hand.

Come on man, well make sure you dont get into any trouble, said the tall one.

I did not recognize the voice that slipped Jenkss name from between my lips. It

was deep chested, unsubtle. I half expected Jenks to turn in recognition, but he was on to

making demented beaver faces for the terrified little girl and her slightly amused father.


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No, I said. Its not that he wont sell them to you. Its that you also have to buy

the gear that goes along with them. The UV light, the terrarium, the proper

Yeah, but we got all that stuff already, whined the third one.

Thats what I mean, I said. If you dont get all that stuff here, my manager

wont let me sell them to you. Store policy.

An antique cosmic scale cartooned itself in my head. On one side was a broken

version of Jenks, unshaven and obese on a city bus without the fare, heading towards the

downtown bridge and calculating how many seconds into the free-fall he would remain

conscious. On the other side, those college girls with the poodle skirts and the helium

canisters were topless now and singing the refrain to the satanic Latin chanting like a pop

song, each of them fitting the worlds smallest anesthesia masks over the goggled faces

of their balloon-attached pilots of doom.

Okay, fine, said the tall one, pretending to smile. How much for everything?

All the turtles and the gear? How much?

I dont know. Probably close to five hundred dollars.

Well take it, he said.

See there. That wasnt so hard, was it? laughed the third one.

Jenks was crouching down by the cricket cage, explaining something to the little

girl, maybe about the crickets song played by the hind legs like a violin and its bow. Shelooked charmed by him and I knew that he could cage them in that rote performance for a

quarter of an hour.

You have a choice of pod sizes. The regulations require a gallon for every inch

of turtle

Well the pod for you Chauncy would be about a half a gallon then, eh? The

third one elbowed the blond with the teeth.

The tall one ignored them. Why dont you make the decisions for us. We really

do have a home for them already.

He pulled a credit card from his shirt pocket. No wallet. Thousands congealed

into plastic roaming free in a pocket like a stick of gum. I left my post to grab the boxes

they would need from the shelves. Although I could no longer see Jenks I could hear him.


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And so thats why they used to say that the locust swarms were controlled by

lunar forces of gravity. Thats the moon pulling on stuff here on planet earth on account

of it being so big and so close. Isnt that something? If something is really huge it pulls

on you like when you jump up and then you come down, thats the bigness of the earth

pulling you back to it.

But how does it pull me? asked the little girl.

The father interposed. So, what about the feeder bugs for our iguana?

Yes, sir. Right away sir.

I knew from experience that the first signs of exasperation are soon ignored by

Jenks, who then goes into a pathological mode of over-talking as if in apology for the

first wave of information. I had more than enough time to grab the large terrarium deluxe,

accouterments included, and I ripped open the top of it so that the individually boxed

turtles could go right inside. By the time I lugged the box back to the counter, Jenks was

repositioned by the cricket cage this time going into an extended dialogue about Disneys

gentleman cricket and how anatomically correct he is drawn, which had the girl

mesmerized and won him a few more minutes of grace from the father.

It was over six hundred dollars when the final barcode was lasered. The tall one

spun the card on the counter like a blackjack dealer, doing the math aloud. Thats less

than fifty bucks a brother.Cool. Thisll be cheaper than that time with the chickens.

The third one nudged the blond. Those were roosters, dipshit.

Whatever, man.

Whatever my ass, you lost close to five hundred bucks that time.

Whatever, said the blond again. This time will be different. I wont bet until

Im sure of a kill.

I also need a name and an address for our aftercare service, I said.

You do, or your manager does?

My manager does.

Fine. In that case, the names Buck. With a K. Dodgers. Thats D O D G E R S.

Very good. And the address is Twenty four and one half Century Boulevard.


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I wrote it all down and was surprised that I didnt break the pen in my hand. At

least, I had the forethought not to start typing what he said directly into the directory on

the computer. I would not have been able to take his smug reporting and the others like

demonic children snickering into cupped hands where cloven hooves should be.

They divided up the boxes among them to carry. The tall one took the receipt with

an unfriendly snatching gesture and they left. Jenks moved in with the father and

daughter trailing reluctantly behind him.

Whered the turtles go?

Good news, I said. Those young men bought the whole lot of them for their

fraternity house. They joined the after care program and everything. Even bought all the

supplies.

My words lit a wick attached to Jenkss face, which was more of a rough sketch

of his face made from sand and gun powder. He spoke desperately, quick and quiet, as if

he knew there were only a few seconds of civil conversation left before the explosion.

But Russ, I thought I told you about them

I know. I looked into it. They were animal-worthy. Trust me.

When the ignition happened, I realized that it was an implosive reaction, drawing

the world into it not with a bang and lights but with a snapping shut, a closing down. He

did not speak anymore to the father who could not be more pleased with thatarrangement. And afterwards, we saw more of Jenkss bald spot than his face for the rest

of the day. After my break, an hour or more later, Jenks was still funereal in his silence, a

deflated, dejected worm of a man who slogged his body around the aisles, saying as little

as possible to customers as a way of making me feel guilty about what I had done. His

entire demeanor had become a crooked finger wagging at me with an unexpectedly

reptilian twitch, the way the claws of a penguin strike you when you look at long enough

as more dinosaur than duck.

Near closing time I couldnt take his morose attitude anymore. I sympathized with

my mother for calling me Mopey Dopey that summer I didnt get into the enrichment

program. She said I should read the books on my own and not to feel sorry for myself and

maybe next year Id get in. I couldnt bring myself to admit that I had already read all the

books in an effort to improve my chances of getting in this time and that by next summer,


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Id be too changed by the resentment to even want to go, which turned out to be true,

unfortunately. But I knew what it must have been like for her to see me go through those

physical stages of extreme and utter disappointment looking at Jenks. I just couldnt take

it anymore.

I was dusting cans of dog food and he was at the counter organizing his after care

lists. Mr. Crucio had been down to give him a rousing speech about how strong their

sales were that day, which is what made me hide in the shelves. But I was done hiding

from him.

When he left, I said, So where did you learn so much about animals? My mom

says you went off to become a vet back in the day.

He stopped what he was doing but made no eye contact. Smiling to himself he

said, I came across a statistic the other day that said aside from male police officers of

major metropolitan departments, male medical professionals or those seeking degrees to

become a medical professional have the highest rate of suicide. And do you know which

fields in particular have the highest rates?

Why wouldnt you look at a person if youre asking them a question?

Dentists first and veterinarians second. What do you think of that?

I thought lots of things. Most still having to do with his unusual distance, the way

his voice and words were like a message coming to me over the PA system.Vet school, he said to himself. That is a good example of the way our

American verbal laziness results in funny confusions. Do you know how often it is that

receptionists at any VA hospital have to screen calls about dogs that have eaten a chicken

bone that splinters through the esophagus, making them cough up several pints of blood

or more with every attempt to swallow it down rupturing the tissue further?

Those guys checked out, I said, feeling accused.

Do you know the difference between the trauma of a vet and the trauma of a vet

school drop out? Nobody openly laughs at the first kind.

I could not think of anything to do to break the silence that followed so I kept

dusting the cans gloomily.

So they wanted them all except for this one, eh? Jenks spied a single turtle

whose nose peeked up through the hollow plastic branch wedged in the wood chips under


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the light. Why didnt they like you? Too smart for them probably. Hiding under the

chips. Youre a lucky duck, arent you? Russ, why dont you make sure this guy has the

right amount of foodtheres just him nowand prepare the cage for the night.

I was so relieved when he left. I rushed over to the enclosure to pick up the crafty

survivor, disobeying Jenkss rubber glove policy. A turtle is a treasure with legs. Muscle

memory at the tips of my fingers reminded me of an old cigar box I used for seashells and

movie ticket stubs. The belly of the turtle felt like the inside lining of that cigar box. On

the rim a cool smooth patch of hardened glue came up to a point so sharp I could use it to

swipe out the dirt from under my fingernails. It was the kind of point you could cut

yourself on if you shifted your weight too much, lured maybe by the smoothness, but

then pierced by the tip.

There was also a clipping in that box from a movie nobody saw with a lead actor

nobody liked, who always played the bumbling guy, usually in bit parts except for this

one bomb of a movie. That was the first celebrity my mother told me reminded her of my

dad. There would be many others after this one, but this was the first. I held onto the

image of this actor as an impulse, the way the infant fingers of all primates, all of them,

are prone to cling to the chest and belly fur of an assumed parentor even a stretch of

laundry twine as in the photographs of the experiment from the textbook I studied that

summer. What a strange surrogate a laundry line is. At least its a whole notch better thanthe parental infamy of the turtle. When the surf or season dictates, or when scared, alone,

drowning in self-pity, or just plain hungry, the turtle is known to wander back to the very

place where precious eggs were laid in the gentle warming of the sand, devouring its soft

succulent young, shell upon salted shell, until their soft little souls spool back up to turtle

heaven as if tethered there by helium balloons.

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Hard Shell Soft Sell