by Helen Dewitt
In a lot of ways, obviously, he would have been better off just keeping it to himself, but that’s not the way people work. It’s lonely at the top; a guy who has made a big decision like this wants other people to make that decision too. So Steve had told a buddy of his, an older man who shared Steve’s conservative instincts and was not really comfortable with the mores of the younger generation.
“We’re businessmen, Al,” Steve had said. “At the end of day, we’ve got to be realistic. We’ve got to deal with people the way they are, not the way we might like them to be. If we can’t do that, hell, we might as well retire right here and now.”
The way Joe knew Steve had said this was that Al passed it on to explain his own reason for calling. Al had gone on to explain that he wasn’t ready to push up daisies yet, and that he appreciated an honest approach. It was like a breath of fresh air. “Let’s call a spade a spade,” said Al.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Joe.
So Al had made an appointment for Joe to come and see him at a mutually convenient time.
Steve had also spread the good word to an up-and-coming younger businessman, who by the sound of it had said something that Steve had taken to imply that his management style was somewhat dated. Again, this is really not a good reason to go sharing information of a relatively delicate nature, but as it turned out no harm had been done. The kid called Joe and explained that he was opening a new office in Kansas City. Some of his key players from New York would be going over to get things started. The way he saw it was, their style might come as something of a shock to people from the Midwest; the last thing he wanted was for people to get their backs up just when they were supposed to be working together as a team. If he could get some lightning rods in place it might ease the tension, as well as making it easier on the out-of-towners.
“You bet,” said Joe.
“The way I see it is, now’s the time to get the installation in place, so it’s there when the office opens.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Joe.
“I think it plays better if we fly ’em in. It’s all fairly new, and I can see some problems if we try to recruit out in Kansas. Ever been to Kansas?”
“I was saving it,” said Joe.
“Great place. Great place. And some really great people. But they’re not what you would call sophisticated, you know, they see stuff on TV that they wouldn’t necessarily expect to come across in real life. You know? I mean, that’s why I think these lightning rods would be such a great idea in the first place. No point offending local sensibilities. But if you start recruiting locally it kind of defeats the object. Any problem getting staff to relocate?”
“No problem at all,” said Joe.
“Great. Great. So when can we get you out to the Big K? This weekend suit you?”
The Big K? thought Joe. Give me a break.
“Suits me just fine,” he said.
That’s sales for you. One minute you’re killing yourself just trying to get your foot in the door. The next minute someone is chasing you down the street because their mother’s uncle’s cleaning lady told them something about the product that made them feel life without the product would not be worth living.
PASTURES NEW
Joe flew out to the Big K that weekend to look at the new office and make arrangements for installation of the transporters and what have you. He should have been walking on air. Another sale, further easing of cash flow situation, what more could you ask? But the fact is that the whole time he was flying out to Kansas City the issue of the disabled toilet kept getting at him. He’d tried to get it out of his mind, but it just kept coming right on back. It was like the old roll-down blind debate, only magnified by a factor of a thousand.
He got in late Friday night. All he had was his carry-on luggage, so he went straight to the shuttle service that connected up to the Hilton. At this stage in the game he certainly couldn’t afford to stay at a Motel 6, with all that implied about cash flow being a cause for concern; no, the Hilton it had to be. At least his suit would look right at home.
Then a funny thing happened. He was standing in line for the shuttle, and the person ahead of him bent down to get something out of her suitcase, and he realized that the person standing in front of her was a dwarf. The guy couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. If that. He wasn’t really doing much of anything, just standing there being short. Then the shuttle bus drew up beside them.
The thing was, never having actually come across a dwarf in real life before, and only having seen Time Bandits a long time ago, Joe had never realized just how short a dwarf’s legs can be. The shuttle bus had a fairly low step, but it was way too high for that dwarf. Well, obviously the guy had had to deal with this type of situation before, he just took hold of the pole in the middle of the door and swung himself right on up, no problem. He had to hand the driver money to put in the fare dispenser, which was also way too high, and then he went back into the bus and he had to swing himself up again just to get onto one of the seats—what kind of a way is that to go through life?
Joe paid his fare and then he went back into the bus and sat down, a long way from the dwarf. One of the first lessons you learn in life is to avoid men of below-average height. There’s something about being short that makes a man feel he has something to prove, say he stopped growing at 5'6", a couple of extra inches would have made all the difference, instead of going with the flow he tends to be aggressive if not downright mean. Take away another couple of inches, and you’re into mean son of a bitch territory. Take it right on down to 3'11" and God only knows what you’re up against. Best to keep a safe distance.
Anyway, the bus pulled out, and Joe’s mind reverted to its bête noir: the disabled toilet. And the thing he suddenly realized was that the disabled toilet would be way too high for someone like this dwarf. No better than any of the other toilets, in fact, except that it had a rail he could use to climb up onto the seat. And if you stop and think about it for a minute, when was the last time you saw a toilet with a dwarf icon on the door? Well, what kind of world do we live in when we give people no option but to climb up onto the seat whenever they need to answer the call of nature?
Joe was still thinking this indignantly when one of the other passengers, a big fat guy with a paunch, decided to pick on the dwarf. The fat guy had also had to sit at the front of the bus, on one of the long seats that back onto the side rather than facing the front, because it was the only seating that would accommodate him comfortably. Not that the guy was so big he couldn’t take the width of the other seats. He was big, but he wasn’t that big. No, the problem was the distance between the seats was such that a guy with that size of paunch wouldn’t have been able to squeeze it in between the seat he was sitting in and the back of the seat in front. So the guy was sitting up front, where he had a whole aisle to let the paunch breathe freely, and he was sitting facing the dwarf, who was reading a book.
Fat Guy: “Watcha reading, big guy?”
Joe was thinking I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. Big guy? What kind of insensitive pig comes right out and says something like that to someone you know has got to be sensitive about his height? It wasn’t even that the guy was out to torment, looking at him you could tell he thought he was just being friendly. Jesus.
Joe waited for the dwarf to pull a switchblade and sling it straight into the unsuspecting paunch. Or stamp his heels to reveal a line of razor blades in the soles of his shoes. Wanna try a little kick boxing, big guy? the dwarf would say, and before the guy knew what hit him the dwarf would be in the air, slashing out—
“The John Foster Dulles Book of Humor,” said the dwarf.
“Huh,” said the guy. “Any good?”
“I’m only up to page two.”
“Well, to tell you the truth, John Foster Dulles is not someone I would have tended to associate with humor. Or anything else, come to think of it.”
“That’s a mistake a lo
t of people make. There’s a lot more to JFD than meets the eye.”
JFD? thought Joe. JFD?
“Is that a fact. The name’s Paul, by the way.”
“Ian.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ian.”
Joe was wondering why it was that Kansas had never acquired a reputation for being strange. If somebody can go around calling John Foster Dulles JFD and nobody bats an eyelash you have to ask yourself what are the rest of them like? And no sooner had he asked himself why word hadn’t gotten out than the answer came to him, just like that. The reason nobody knew about it was that normal people never came to see what was going on. Not realizing what the state had to offer they went elsewhere for their kicks. People from out of state tended not only to be but to stay just that: out of state.
“People tend to not know a lot about him. The fact is that he was quite an interesting guy, it’s just that Ike hogged the limelight.”
“Ike?”
“Eisenhower?”
“Oh, right, right. Right.” There was a short pause. “You know,” said Paul, “history was never my strong point, but for some reason I always thought Eisenhower’s first name was Dwight. Am I getting him mixed up with someone else?”
“Ike was a nickname,” said Ian.
“Oh. I see.”
“As in ‘I like Ike.’ It was his slogan when he ran for president.”
“You don’t say. Now I never knew that.”
“Where you from, anyway?” asked Ian, which was exactly what Joe had been wondering.
“Well, I’ve been all over the place, but I was born in Keene, New Hampshire.”
Joe mulled this over. Maybe Kansas wasn’t so strange after all. Maybe Keene, New Hampshire was the outpost of the Twilight Zone.
Ian closed his book and stuck it in the pocket of his carry-on bag. “I’ve never been that far east, myself,” he said. “I hear the autumn leaves are quite a sight.”
“They certainly are,” said Paul. “They’re a sight to behold.”
“Well, it’s been nice talking to you,” said Ian. “This is where I get off.” He pushed a button in the pole by the seat. The bus pulled to a stop. “Hope you enjoy your stay in Kansas City.”
“Why, thank you,” said Paul. “And the same to you.”
Ian got off the bus. The bus moved on.
Joe thought suddenly: Instead of a fixed alternative toilet, what we need is something with an adjustable height, like a dentist’s chair! Something you could pump up and down! Or maybe just raise electronically! But if you can raise it up and down, what’s to stop you from taking it right down? So it’s completely out of sight! Under a panel in the floor! Should the cubicle be required for some other purpose, such as answering a call of a different nature!
And he thought: Maybe the adjustable height toilet already exists!
The bus was moving swiftly down a broad, straight, empty street with no traffic to get in its way. Every second was bearing him further away from someone who would almost certainly have the answer to this crucial question.
Joe sprang into action. “Driver!” he shouted. “Stop the bus! That was where I wanted to get off!”
“I thought you said you wanted the Hilton,” said the driver, with the helpfulness for which Jayhawkers are famous.
“I need the exercise!” said Joe desperately, while the bus bore him further and further along.
“I can let you off at the next stop,” said the driver.
“I think I’m going to throw up!” said Joe, clapping a hand over his mouth.
The bus pulled silently to the curb.
Joe could tell the driver knew he was lying and was just too polite to say so. He hurtled out the door before the driver could change his mind.
He turned and ran back in the direction of the last stop, cursing his carry-on luggage.
One good thing was that Ian would not have covered a lot of ground in the interim.
Sure enough, five minutes of sprinting brought him gasping up behind an unmistakable figure.
“Wait!” gasped Joe. “Wait!”
And he stopped at last, panting, by his side.
“Can I help you?” asked Ian.
“I hope so,” panted Joe. He stood panting. He really needed to be getting more exercise. Maybe he should lay in a supply of Special K. Walk to the store instead of taking the car. Or maybe more serious measures were called for. Join a gym. Work out for an hour every day . . .
“Uh,” said Joe. No way this was not going to be embarrassing. “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he said. “I, uh, I’m helping a friend who’s opening an office here. I, uh, I thought as long as we’re starting from scratch we should have a toilet with adjustable height in the alternative cubicle, and I, uh, I just wondered if you happened to know of such a thing.”
“No,” said Ian. “I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything like that.”
“Oh,” said Joe. “Oh, well, I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
“That’s all right,” said Ian. “Was there anything else?” He was obviously itching to go home and get back to The John Foster Dulles Book of Humor. Well, it takes all kinds to make a world.
“No,” said Joe. “Thanks for your help. That is, do you happen to know how I would get to the Hilton from here?”
“The Hilton?” said Ian. “That’s way across town. Were you planning to walk?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” said Joe. Interestingly, now that he was actually talking to the guy he was beginning to see that underneath all the shortness was a real human being. A human being who called John Foster Dulles JFD, but a human being for all that.
“I think your best bet is to go right back the way you came,” said Ian. “Fourth set of traffic lights, take a right, keep going, I think it’s a couple of blocks, could be three, you come to a strip mall with a KFC. You should be able to get a taxi there. Otherwise there’s the bus, but at this time of night they only come once an hour.”
“OK,” said Joe. “I think I got that. Fourth set of lights, right, two or three blocks. Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”
He turned back the way he came. Fourth set of lights, right, two blocks. No problem.
His mind returned to its current preoccupation.
Walking back toward the Kansas City Kentucky Fried Chicken, carrying his carry-on luggage, Joe realized that he had had a very narrow escape.
For some reason, the whole time he’d been thinking about lightning rods he’d been thinking of people using the facility as people pretty much like himself. He hadn’t anticipated users in wheelchairs. He hadn’t anticipated users of significantly lower height. Well, in this day and age you can’t afford not to anticipate that kind of eventuality. There is absolutely no reason why someone in one of those categories should not be the kind of high-performance results-orientated individual whose services a company would want to retain. Which means any facilities made available to other employees have to be potentially available to individuals in the relevant categories.
Besides, there was more to it than just some kind of abstract fairness. If you think about it, it stands to reason a disabled person is going to spend a lot of time being frustrated. A guy who spends his life climbing up onto bus seats is going to be frustrated a lot of the time. And it stands to reason that sexual frustration is going to be part of the package. Which means that these are individuals who could well benefit from access to lightning rods, if their employer has not been too blinkered by his preconceptions to provide it.
The other thing he realized was that this adjustable toilet idea had real potential, even apart from solving his own particular disabled toilet problem. Why wasn’t something like that widely available? This could be his own small contribution to easing the lives of people whose needs were too readily overlooked. He could insist on an adjustable toilet being part of every lightning rod installation; sooner or later, you just knew something like that would catch on. Think how much mothers with little kids w
ould appreciate it. In fact, if the whole lightning rod thing didn’t take off, he could just concentrate on developing and marketing his adjustable toilet.
And the third thing he realized was that he now knew why it was that he had never made a career out of sales. All right, he’d had his successes, but something just hadn’t clicked, and now he knew why. Basically, he wasn’t a salesman. He was an ideas man. And those are two very different animals. He just happened to have a talent for thinking up things no one had thought of before, and then persuading people that something they hadn’t happened to have thought of was indispensable. Sales is obviously a part of that. A big part. But it’s only part of a larger whole. And the thing that made that whole possible was that knack for coming up with ideas.
Having come up with the idea of the adjustable toilet, Joe was able to sell it to Jerry without too much trouble. Jerry said he thought Kansas City was just the place to introduce this novelty to the world. He started singing the Kansas City song from Oklahoma! and Joe joined right in, because you should never pass up an opportunity to bond with the client.
The fact that Jerry would sing the song about Kansas City, Kansas just showed how uneducated he was, because any idiot knows the Kansas City referred to in Oklahoma! is Kansas City, Missouri—the phrase “Kansas City, Mo.” is actually in one of the other songs. While the two cities are admittedly contiguous, though on opposite sides of the river, this just makes it all the more annoying for residents of Kansas City, Ka. when people make this kind of mistake. But any salesman knows you can’t afford to get pedantic with the client. The old saying, “The customer is always right,” harks back to this common knowledge. If you’re the kind of person who has to correct someone every time they make a factual mistake, you might just want to stop a moment and compare the average take-home pay of a teacher and that of a halfway competent salesman. Truth be told, you can make a hell of a lot more money by being wrong at the right time than by being right at the wrong time.