Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

— Bob Dylan

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A year on East Center St. was obviously enough for me. After leaving 6D East and losing my job at Tinkler’s and the mess Melvin left of our cool apartment (with his failed experimental floor decoration) I was not only ready to move to a new apartment, I was ready to get the hell outta of Roachville!

But leaving town was not what I was looking to do when I started scanning the help wanted section of the Rochester Post-Bulletin. I wasn’t even looking to move to a new apartment. I was just looking for work, any kind of work so when I saw an advertisement that promised “Management Training!” and “Travel Opportunity!” my mind went into its now all too familiar mode to move. The itch to ditch this disco… find a new view.

Anywhere but here!

I had already acquired a love for exploring distant places two years before, with my European travels as part of America’s Youth in Concert while still in high school. So when I discovered that the position being advertised would require me to begin traveling right away, I jumped on it. Besides, along with telling me to find one thing I do well and make that into my career, Mom had often said to me “Brian, you are a people person, you should try going into sales”.

I’m hoping that you, my dear reader, might just be laughing right now.

It was 1978 in the middle of midwestern americana, “the good ol’ US of A”, which was a place that now exists only in period movies and neo-Norman Rockwell paintings. Mom stayed home and baked bread and apple pie, people left their doors unlocked and their children ran around without adult supervision. The outside world was fed to us through the filter of AM radio and three TV stations (if you even had a TV) and thus my Mom was not alone in thinking that being a successful salesman meant being a “people person”. After all, that’s the way it was on Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best. However, every “successful” salesman I ever came across later in life was more likely to be a liar and budding sociopath. At the time I was young and as naïve as my Mom, so I had to learn this lesson the hard way.

I did already have a bad taste in my mouth about door-to-door sales, however. My failed attempts at selling stuff for our Boy Scout troupe and one sad day trying to sell an Electrolux vacuum cleaner were still fresh in my mind. So if I had thought that I’d again be expected to knock on front doors trying to sell stuff to folks when I arrived at my “interview”, I would have turned around right away. That’s not how it was presented of course. I don’t know what I was expecting but I had no way to prepare for what I was about to get myself into so… I wasn’t.

And how could I be?

The Union Circulation Company of Atlanta, Georgia was essentially a roving band of grifters. Predatory scam artists. Con men (and some women but not many) that had taken their craft into the heights of fine art. Well… I guess that’s giving them way too much credit. If you’ve seen movies like The Sting these scumbags were the dregs of the confidence trade by comparison. They engaged in a continuous, traveling short con. This could never be considered big time and thus nothing the Vegas crowd might admire, but since they sought their marks mostly among rural and small town people of simple means and education, my future canvassing mentors were unchallenged sharks in a tank of unwitting fish. So they did quite well.

And at the very top (or at least the only top I would ever see) of this particular food chain was the big boss man, Mr. George Heaton. Now at nearly 6 foot 4 inches and at least 230lbs of well-worked farm boy, I was no little weakling. But I saw myself as a fat kid back then so when I stood before the likes of George Heaton, I was impressed to say the least. Intimidated would be a more accurate word. George was a big and burly man. In my memory he was about two or three inches taller than me, a good thirty pounds heavier and well muscled. He must have been between thirty-five and forty years old I guess, but I could be wrong about that. What was most memorable about George Heaton was his demeanor. George was the big lovable guy when he needed to be and a big scary bastard when that was what the situation called for. But whatever was going on, George was always the big man in the room. His importance was clear to everyone when he entered and all eyes and ears were riveted on his every move. I was completely taken in. I only now see how those moves were quite cleverly calculated.

Indeed, George was a master manipulator.

It took little manipulating on George’s part to get me signed up though. As stated above, I was raring to go. So after orientation I was quickly assigned to one of the big man’s subordinate slime-ball scam-artists-in-training. I can’t remember his name but it was clear that this guy (I’ll just call him “Guy”) was an essential part of George’s little empire. Guy was a true believer, a captain… and well compensated for it too. I don’t know how many drivers were under his command but there were times when we’d hit a town of say, 2,000, and canvas the whole thing in one day before moving on. George didn’t even have to be there. We’d meet him only in towns of much bigger populations.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. Let me explain. Somehow, despite all my dislike (disgust… hatred?) for door-to-door sales, here I was doing just that. Door-to-door sales. Now how did that happen? I can rationalize it all I want. I wanted to get out of town, George was a master manipulator, and the orientation made the scam I was about to participate in seem almost legit… no. That wasn’t it. I think it was the girls. There were girls. At the orientation there were lots of girls. I didn’t get to really have anything to do with any of them, but the possibility that I’d have a pretty good chance was clearly implied.

Everyone on Guy’s road crew constantly talked about all the girls they had had. Both those working for George and girls (and women) we sold “books” to. Especially Guy. “Books” by the way, was the term for magazine subscriptions. That was what we were all selling door-to-door. The message was loud and clear. Do what you were told, sell lots of books, get to drive a fine car and get lots of girls. And why shouldn’t I believe it? Guy drove a Cadillac and had had loads of girls (at least he said he did). But once we were on the road there were few girls to be seen. The orientation had been at a resort somewhere in either Minnesota or Wisconsin. It’s odd to me now to think that I just accepted leaving Rochester so quickly, getting into a car not knowing where I was going until I was so far from home. By then it felt like it was too late to do anything but keep going.

So keep going, I did!

To be continued…