As we travel through life we meet people who are definitely
differently from us. We quickly characterize them as odd balls. This was the
impression I got when I met Al the salesman. Al Barkley showed up at my business one day and announced he was going to work for me. I quickly told him that he wasn't for I didn't need any sales help, because I handled all of the leads that came to my office.
It was as if I had not said anything for he kept talking
about what kind of deal we should make.
He went on to ask me to tell him how much I wanted to roof each house
and he would add his commission on top of that.
I still wasn't interested and told him so.
The next day we were working on 15 year old tract homes
whose roofs were wearing out, and he shows up at the job, and said he was going
to canvass the entire neighborhood and leave his cards. Shortly after this he
comes back and wanted some contracts for he had sold some roofs and needed to
write them up and get them signed. He
had got my price plus his commission and wanted to know when we could install
their roofs.
There were thousands of these tract homes and I didn't have
the time or energy to canvass them and work too so I relented and he began to
sell roofs for me.
Al would go over the same territory again and again until
the people would get to know him just from all his visits. When they were ready
for a roof they would call him most of the time. He got to know those people so
well he would just walk into their house without knocking, sit down and talk to
them like they were friends. Using this
tactic he sold hundreds of roof jobs.
He "was" a little strange or so it seemed to me.
He would sell the jobs and as soon as we were finished he would collect a check
and saved the office the trouble of billing and waiting until they got around
to mailing us the check for payment.
He would drink a little in the evenings and as the years
wore on he began to drink more. At the same time he and his wife began to have
trouble which compounded his problem and he began to slip and you could smell
alcohol on his breath. The time came
when he didn't trust his wife with his money so he began to keep his money in
the trunk of his car.
After drinking one day he decided to ride his son’s
motorcycle, and he came in too fast, lost control and crashed it. He stove up
his back and spine and even after surgery he couldn't walk without a great deal
of pain.
His days as a salesman was over, and I only saw him
occasionally after that. He went back for more surgery on his back a couple
more times and for whatever reason he died from it.
While I still considered Al to be a little strange, but no
one could doubt that he was a salesman.
Return for my continued Fictional stories that will be posted later.
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