Greg Bennett Sales Blog

Chapter 4: The Old Man

Lee got to his feet and, with the help of the old man, began to shed his wet clothes:  the blanket, his coat, gloves, shoes, which he didn’t bother to untie, and his icy wet socks.

The man dropped the items in a heap as quickly as they could peel them off.

 

The man helped Lee toward the large fireplace and to a wooden chair that sat a few feet from the waiting fire.  Lee sat down as the man grabbed two blankets from a large box near the mantel.  He put one blanket around Lee’s shoulders and one on his lap. Before pulling it down to cover Lee’s feet he glanced at their condition.

 

“How long were you out there?” the man asked.

 

“I’m not sure…maybe…an hour actually outside my car…”  Lee said, now using one foot to massage the other.

 

“Well, I’m not an expert, but I don’t think you’ll be losing any toes.…” the man said.  “But don’t stop rubbing them…let this fire do it’s magic.”

 

“I’m Lee Easton,”  Lee said, turning to the old man and extending a hand out through the opening in the blanket.  “And I thank you again…that was terrifying.”

 

“Stock Abrahams” the old man said, taking Lee’s hand in both of his, rubbing them back and forth quickly.    “I can’t believe you found us in that storm…”

 

“I almost didn’t….Stock?  That’s an interesting na…?

 

“It’s short for Stockard…and don’t worry about thanking me again.   I’ll put water on for tea, unless you want coffee or chocolate.  Got to get something warm in you…”

 

“Tea sounds…good….great….”  Lee said, still talking in short breathy spurts.  “Is your phone working by the way?”  Lee asked.

 

“Last I checked…but when it comes down like this who the hell knows…” Stock trailed off as he moved into the large room looking for the cordless phone.   “Gotta find the damned thing first though…you just stay put.”

 

Lee watched the man as he pulled up and looked beneath the large decorative pillows that were strewn across a huge, soft leather sofa.   He figured he had to be in his late 60’s or 70’s, in good shape, but oddly well dressed for being alone in a storm.  The old man was wearing chocolate brown, thick corduroy pants, a bright white dress shirt under a big comfortable sweater, and fir lined slippers.

 

Is this guy loaded? Lee wondered, as he shook beneath the blanket.  He looked around the room.   Look…at this place…oh my God… amazing,  The house was everything Lee had seen inside the magazines he flips though but never buys in the airport newsstands– “Modern Log Home Living”,  “Log Home Life Style”, and “Mountain Fine Living”.   

 

Lee thought it must be the main room of a huge hunting lodge, complete with a spectacular floor-to-ceiling rock wall that extended above the fireplace, and featured a giant mounted elk’s head with a full rack. Large, caramel-colored log beams crisscrossed the cathedral ceiling and smaller similar-colored logs made up the walls. The room was beautifully decorated in a warm mixture of leather, brown and red fabrics,  and a giant antler chandelier cast dimmed lighting throughout the room.

 

 “Is this your place?”  Lee asked. 

 

“Yes…one of my…well one of my company’s places actually.” Stock said as he found the phone under some magazines.  “Found it!”    The water in the kitchen, at least Lee thought it was the kitchen but maybe it was a special hot water preparation room, began to whistle and hiss at it spilled on to the burner.  “Sounds like the water is ready…here you go, check for a dial tone, “  Stock said, tossing the phone to Lee.

 

Lee reached out and caught the phone.  “Wow…ONE of his places?”  Lee mumbled to himself as he searched for the green ON button on the phone.  Expecting to hear dead silence, Lee hit the button and was shocked to hear a strong dial tone.

 

“Yes!  It’s working…”  Lee called out, not knowing if Stock could even hear him.   

 

Lee thought he’d better at least call his wife to tell her what had happened and to say he was okay.   He glanced at his watch, it was close to 11:30 p.m. 

 

Stock came out of the kitchen wheeling a small coffee cart, where he’d place the hot water, mugs, several types of teas, white and light brown sugar cubes, and an assortment of sweeteners.  He also loaded the cart with cookies, brownies and some assorted fruits. 

 

“It’s working, huh?” Stock asked, pushing the cart close to Lee.  “Well feel free to call whoever you need to…though I wouldn’t count on getting help out here for a day or two…”  he disappeared into another room, giving Lee some privacy.

 

Lee went to thank him again, but stopped.  The phone was ringing. 

 

“Hello?” Meghan said in a tired voice.

 

“Honey…it’s me…”

 

“Are you okay?  How close are you?” she sounded like she was trying to sit up, probably turning on the light.

 

“Well…I’m alive…but I won’t be home tonight…I crashed the car.”  Lee thought, not sure where to even start with the story.

 

“What?  Oh God, are you okay?  Where are you?”  Meghan asked.

 

“Well it’s a long story…I’m in a big house…somewhere between Story City and Clear Lake…”   Lee said, glancing around to see if Stock was close by to give more specific details.

 

“In Iowa?  At who’s house?  Where’s the car?”  she asked without waiting for answers.

 

“They closed the highway and I…” Lee thought of the best way to position all this.  “…tried to get around the road block, got out on some country roads and long and short of it, I slid off a small bridge over a railroad track and went down into a ravine.”

 

“Well are you okay?”

 

“Yeah…the car is I’m sure wrecked…but I got out and luckily found this farmhouse or ranch lodge thing..,”  Lee said, not ready to talk with her about how close he may have come to dying in the cold. 

 

“Well...how can you get home?  Can you even get out?” she asked.  “And can you rent something…or cab it…but that’s so expensive…maybe I could get Rick from up the street to come get you,”  she said. 

 

For the first time Lee thought about the fact that he’d lost his car.  He was certain it would be totaled, and he still had12 months to pay on it.  And now his wife had to ask redneck Rick up the street for a ride in his jacked up 4-wheel drive.   The thought of all this quickly wiped out Lee’s “I’m just happy to be alive” moment and brought back the “My life is a freaking mess” vibe that had permeated his thoughts for the past 24 hours.

 

 “I’m not even sure where exactly I am or when we can get out of here,”  Lee said, looking at Stock who was busy making a hot tea concoction, steam was coming up around him, circling him in a fog.   “Let me see what we hear probably tomorrow sometime and I’ll call you…my cell is out so you’ll have to call this number…it’s…uh…”

 

Stock turned and slipped Lee a business card.  It read Abrahams Ranch and Retreat Center and the phone number.  Lee gave Meghan the phone number, and then softly said a few things and hung up.

 

“Everyone at home worried I suppose?”  Stock said, handing a mug to Lee.  “You can fix it up however you like…there’s some stronger stuff there too if you’re thinking along those lines.  Here don’t get up…just tell me what you want and I’ll fix it.”  Stock took his mug bag and moved to the cart.

 

“You read my mind with the spirits…I’d take a bit of that Irish Whiskey you have there…and some honey…”

 

“Ahhh Hot Toddie  eh?  Stock asked as he added the elements to the tea. “Think I’ll join you actually…how about some food?   You probably should eat something…”  Stock said, turning with the tray of cookies and brownies.

 

Lee grabbed two cookies.  He hadn’t even thought about food since the whole ordeal began about seven hours ago, but now he was hungry.  He shoved a cookie in his mouth and took the hot mug.

 

He sipped the tea slowly.  “Wow…this…is REALLY good…” Lee said as he took another sip.

 

Lee realized he hadn’t told the old man anything about how he got there, or about the crash, the walk, nothing.  And then he realized the old man hadn’t asked anything, he’d just dragged him in, warmed him up and here he was serving him hot toddies and cookies – with no questions.  He thought it was a bit strange, but at this point he was just happy to be alive and inside. 

 

“I suppose I should tell you how I got here…”  Lee said, taking another bite and turning to look at Stock.

 

“First, a question.  How close were you?”  Stock asked as he sat next to Lee in a large leather arm chair. 

 

“Well I think I slid off the road at some point down by the rail road tracks…” Lee turned and pointed in the direction he thought he’d come from.  “It was pretty stupid, I tried to get around the road block they had set up in Latimer and ended wandering around out in the…”

 

“No…no…how close to death were you?  How afraid were you?”, Stock asked in a quiet voice. 

 

Lee was surprised by the question.  What does that mean, how AFRAID was I? I was scared shitless… “I…I…don’t know…think I was pretty close to be honest with you…if I hadn’t seen the light over the back of your house, I don’t think I could have lasted much longer.  And yeah…it was pretty scary there for a bit.  Why do you ask?”

 

“I want to know what happened…not so much to your car…but to you…just what happened to YOU, as a person.  I’ve had some close calls in my life and I know something like that can really impact a person,”  Stock said.

 

“Well…it was pretty weird suddenly finding myself in a life or death situation…it was pretty stupid actually…I really could have died out there…and for what  -- to get back to Minneapolis a day earlier?  And now I’ve wrecked the car and have to get it out of there as well…just really stupid”  Lee said,  preparing to add this latest episode to the litany of bad choices he’d made in his life.

 

“Well, we all do crazy things sometimes…” Stock said as he threw another log on the fire.

 

“Speaking of near death, what are YOU doing trapped out here all by yourself…I’m assuming you’re by yourself,” Lee said quickly looking around.

 

“Oh yes” Stock said slowly.  “It’s just me.  I was actually coming out two days early to get ready for our big annual meeting here at the Ranch…they dropped me off so I could get some things prepared and they were going to come back tomorrow to get it all started…but we’ve cancelled it now and they’re going to bring the big trucks tomorrow to get me…us…if you want to go along….probably tomorrow afternoon at some point.”

 

“Well that would be great if I could at least get some help in getting out of here and to a main road, then I could probably figure out how to get home from there,” Lee said, thinking of sitting next to Redneck Rick and three hours of Outlaw Country on his XM Radio.  “You know Conway Twitty was supposed to be on the plane that Buddy Holly went down in right over there in Clear Lake”  Rick would say pointing with a hairy hand clutching his Mountain Dew.  “No…that was Waylon Jennings” Lee would correct him. “To hell it was…I’ll bet you a sixer”  200 miles of hell.

 

“No problem there, happy to take you wherever.   So...I guess we’ve got some time together…”  Stock said. 

 

“Yep…what type of work do you do…it sounds like you’ve got quite the company?” Lee asked, already feeling inferior and jealous before even hearing the story.   These thoughts unleashed more thoughts and all the negative feelings and emotions he seemed to always have on standby, ready to wreak havoc at the slightest provocation. 

 

“We are international business conglomerate, we’re involved in manufacturing and import/export…and this is our retreat center and working ranch…we’ve got about 20,000 acres all around here…you must have wandered in on the south side where the rail road rolls through,”  Stock said.

 

“And you’re the…founder?  President?”  Lee asked.

 

“Yes…both…I’ve had the company for about 25 years,” 

 

Lee adjusted in the chair and leaned toward Stock.  “What is that like?  To you know, start something, have success, build it to the size you have…create jobs, and wealth…and to have all THIS,”  Lee said. “I mean, what does that feel like?”  Cuz it has to feel different than I’ve ever felt.

“It’s fine…I’ve enjoyed it…loved it actually…but it’s not the source of my happiness,”  Stock said.

 

“No?   What is?  Your family?  Do you have kids?”  Lee asked.

 

“I was married years ago, and we had a child, but he died when he was very young, and I’ve been alone for about 15 years…,”  Stock said, breaking eye contact for the first time.

 

“So…if not family…then what makes you happy, what’s your…pleasure?  Gotta be hunting?  Or speed boat racing?  Or…”  Lee asked, chuckling slightly.

 

“The source of my happiness, is also the source of my success…and perhaps we’ll go into that later…but first, let me hear about your story Lee…tell me about your life…”, Stock said.

 

“Well…there’s not that much to tell…I wouldn’t even say it’s a story of success…certainly not as successful or as interesting as international finance I’m sure.”  Lee said, again accessing a flood of negative self-images he’d stored for such an occasion.

 

 

“I’ll be the judge of that…you start”, Stock said.

 

“Well…I sell radio advertising…up at WCCC in Minneapolis,”  Lee said, tipping the cup up to finish off the last bit.  “Been doing it for about 23 years now.   And I’m married…to my wife Meghan…and we have two kids…Kaily and Ty…3 and 1…”  

 

“That is wonderful.  Do you love selling advertising?”  Stock asked.

 

Lee couldn’t hold back a short laugh.  “I don’t know if I’d say I love it…”

 

“Well do you like what you do?”

 

Lee’s answer to this question had changed over the years.  When he was young and new to radio, he was excited about his career choice.  He can remember saying, “Are you kidding me?  Greatest job in the world, I get to work in the entertainment business!” and he meant it.  After 10 years in industry the rookie enthusiasm drained away, and he answered with things like, “Well, it’s something new everyday, and I make pretty good money,”  and he meant that too.  The money was fine, better than many other people he knew in other industries.  Then once he crossed the 20-years-in point, he found himself having to explain why he stayed in the business, or why he hasn’t gone down the management, and top management track.  At this stage the answer to this question came out like…:

 

“Do I like it?  I don’t know, I’ve been there for so long, I figured I might as well stay and make a career of it…beats working” Lee said, and now more than ever didn’t really mean it.   Yes he was making a career of it, but no he wasn’t sure it beat just working for a living.

 

“Yes, I supposed it does…I want to ask you a few more critical questions about this, but we should get you situated a bit first…why don’t we take a quick look around at some of the accommodations and I’ll go see if I can find you something more comfortable to walk around in…”  Stock said. 

 

They walked through the large room and up the circular stairway that curved toward the 2^nd floor.  Stock showed Lee to the first bedroom down the hall. 

 

“I’m down there at the end…let me see what I’ve got that might fit you…”  Stock said.  He returned with a sweatshirt, sweat pants, a par of socks and casual slippers.   He mentioned that he would try to find some toiletries but that Lee might have to borrow some of his.

 

After changing his clothes, Lee made his way back downstairs where Stock was back sitting in front of the fireplace.  “This is an incredible place Stock…and I sincerely appreciate you letting me stay here and the hospitality,”  Lee said, raising his glass as he approached his chair.

 

“I just talked to one of my assistants and he said they’re planning on making it out here by 3 or 4 tomorrow afternoon depending on how the highway situation goes,”  Stock said.

 

“Alright, I’ll call my wife then and let her know…”  Lee said as he took the phone and dialed his home number.  “Yeah it’s me…I think we’re getting a ride out of here tomorrow about 4,”  Lee shielded the phone a bit and dropped his volume a bit.  “ no he’s…the guy I’m staying with is going to take care of all of it…and I guess you can ask Rick if he’d mind driving down to…”

 

Stock tapped Lee on the shoulder and gave him a note.  It read, “I’ve arranged with my people to drive you home…no argument…it’s done”

 

Lee shook his head as if to say you don’t have to do that…but the thought the redneck pulling up and kicking his door open with his alligator boot…made his nod and say thank you.

 

“Well…Mr. Abrahams here has offered to give me a ride all the way back home.  No…I know…it’s crazy…yeah, he gave me one of the rooms here in their lodge…it’s beyond belief…Yeah, I know we’ll talk about the car and everything else once I get back up there…Ill probably call you tomorrow once I know more, okay?  Kiss the kids and tell them I’ll be home tomorrow night…bye honey, love you.”  Lee set down the phone.

 

He turned to Stock.  “You DON’T have to do that…that is really, really great.”

 

“Not a problem, one of my guys lives about 30 miles south of Minneapolis and I’ve asked him to do it, he’s more than happy to take care of it.”  Stock said. 

 

There was a silence as both men settled back and stared at the fire. 

 

Stock turned and looked at Lee, “…can I ask you a personal question…and it’s just a gut feel…based on everything you’re telling me here…and you can answer it if you want or just go off to bed…but are you really struggling right now?   I know the economy has been tough and everything is kind of down now…but I mean are you personally having a tough time?” 

 

Lee felt the exhaustion of his ordeal start to set in, and combined with the stress of the past 24 hours and the soothing effects of the Irish Whiskey, his guard, normally on duty, dropped.   He realized at that moment that no one had ever asked him that question, he had no one he could really talk to about any of this.  And he had to go to the ends of the earth to find him.

 

“I…well…yeah…is it that obvious?”  Lee asked as he ran his hand through is short hair.    “You know as much as I should be excited about just being alive, about not freezing to death out there…I’m always thinking about the mess I have to go back to.  And man is it a mess.  I feel embarrassed even talking about it…especially to someone who has probably succeeded all his life.”

 

Stock smiled but continued to stare at the fire.  “You don’t know enough about me to assume I’ve been successful all my life.  We see each other only on the surface, don’t we Lee?”   he asked but not really as a question.

 

 

After more prompting from Stock, and more Irish Whiskey, Lee began to talk.  He talked about his career choices, about his life, and about the last year when things took a turn for the worse.  He ended with a blow-by-blow regurgitation of the last sales call, the drive, the escape, the crash, and the walk.

 

Stock watched Lee as he told his story, knowing that he’d already made his decision.  This person that had fought for his life to get to his door; the one who was now baring his soul and sharing his deepest problems –was about to receive the greatest gift Stock had ever been given. 

 

Lee Easton, he thought.  Your life is about to change forever.

Chapter 3: The Last Chance

 

“Oh…my…God…”, Lee said.  He slowly moved his arms and legs and wiggled his toes; everything was working.  And nothing felt broken – but what about cuts?  Am I bleeding?, he wondered as he mentally took note of his skin;  no burning, no hot spots, no liquidy feel.  

 

He was in one piece. One upside down piece, but still he was whole, and he knew he could walk -- if of course he could just get out of the car. 

 

The Saturn came to rest at an angle as it fell across the railroad track. The dash lights were still on, and the heater, which had been cranking at full speed moments ago, was now blowing powdered snow throughout the car.   With a stretch and a long groan, Lee reached out and turned off the fan, and the headlights, and with one more reach – the key in the ignition; thinking for some reason that he’d need the battery for something as the night wore on.

 

After a moment of silence, the winter wind came roaring back and a cold blast of air shot through the broken windshield, causing Lee to turn his head and close his eyes.  The icy air burned his lips and nose.  The temperature he thought must have dropped dramatically in the past few hours. Did they say minus 5 tonight?  As his head cleared he wondered how long someone could last in these conditions.  30 minutes?  Maybe an hour?    

 

He had to get out of the car, and he needed to find shelter quickly.

 

As he wrestled with his seat belt he thought about how quickly things had changed....an hour to live!?...one moment he was comfortably crawling along in a heated, enclosed car, and the next he was fully exposed, and on the verge of death.  How crazy is this whole illusion of security?, Lee wondered.  When we climb on an airplane; or ride in a boat on the ocean; or drive our car on a frigid night somewhere in a corn field?  One crack in the outer shell; one weld that dissolves at 40,000 ft.; one hunting coyote that darts in front of you in the night and suddenly you’re hanging upside down – as vulnerable as a fawn in a lion’s den.

 

And it was the hanging upside down that was the most troubling at the moment. The belt lock was stuck because of the downward pressure of Lee’s body and he tried rocking back and forth, pulling on the different seat belt straps hoping to jar something loose.  But the lock wouldn’t budge.  He increased his effort…pulling and pushing -  but it only served to increase his heart rate, which only increased the amount of blood surging into his upside down upper body.  His head throbbed and for a moment Lee felt he would pass out.  We  can’t let that happen, pal or it’s all over…we’ll freeze to death…oh God no I don’t want my kids have that story to tell when they ask ‘what happened to your daddy!” 

 

His next, and perhaps final, idea was to put his hands over head and push up, hoping to remove some of his weight off the straps and hopefully the belt latch.   He carefully placed his hands over his head, which was now hovering a few inches from the Saturn’s roof, and pushed upward.  It was like trying to do a handstand in cement; the weight was incredible.  He couldn’t move himself at all.   After a few more tries, he had the idea of putting one hand on top of the other and focusing the thrust in one place.  Maybe this would work to move his body an inch or two.  It’s all I need, just an inch or two.  Of course he realized he would still have to get one hand free to undo the latch, but he’d worry about when the time came.

 

So with a big inhale, he put one hand on top of the other and thrust with all his might.  He moved, and then dropped back.  He did it again, and this time he brought his legs and feet into the act scrambling to latch onto the ledge under the steering wheel.  He banged his shins hard on something under the dash, but the pain didn’t matter.  He had to hold his body up long enough to free one hand and undo the latch.   

 

With one final shove and leg grab, he quickly reached around with one hand and hit the button -- Snap!  The fastener opened, and Lee fell to the car roof, his head twisting to the side and pinching against his shoulder.   

 

He scrambled to flatten out as best he could and crawled toward the open space where the windshield used to be.  Once out, he continued to crawl until he had cleared the engine compartment and then stood and slowly stretched upright.

 

“Ahhhhhh….”, he groaned, as he stretched his torso from side to side, stumbling a bit on the snow and the rocky terrain beneath.  

 

At least he was out of the car, but he knew he was far from out of trouble.  He would have to walk to get help, or at least shelter, and he wasn’t dressed for an arctic expedition. In addition to his business attire of slacks, shirt, tie, and a sport coat, he had a long winter coat and good gloves.  The problem however was what he had up top and down below  -- no hat and nothing on his feet but his two-year old Johnson & Murphy leather dress shoes.    The hat he didn’t worry about; he could find something to wrap around his head.  It was his feet that concerned him, particularly his toes. His brother Mike has lost two toes to frostbite years ago when he and a friend had gotten lost on a snowmobile trip in northern Minnesota.  And he was wearing snow boots. 

 

Lee had to get moving.  He looked at his car and thought of anything he might have in there that could help:  he did a quick mental inventory -- a tire-iron, a spare tire, some extra anti-freeze, an ice scraper…what ELSE?.  Kaley’s Cheerios!  And Ty’s Sponge Bob blanket…thank you Sponge Bob. With that he dropped to his knees and reached in through the broken window in back.  The cup of Cheerios and blanket luckily where together and right near the opening of the window.  He threw the cup in his coat pocket and tied the blanket around his head like a big scarf.  The smell of his child in the blanket made him feel both sad and determined.  He was not going to die out here, not without a fight.

 

And there was his cell phone, it was probably worthless, but maybe it miraculously had one more call in it, or had some strange tracking device in there that only the AT&T people knew about?  He hurried around to the other side of the car and found the cell phone in it’s leather case sitting underneath the fallen floormat.

 

Lee stood and did a 360 look around.  Other than his overturned car, and the underpass he just drove off of, there was no shelter in sight.   The underpass might work to break the wind, but it wouldn’t do anything to stop the cold and the snow, which was falling harder than ever.

 

“Should I build a snow cave?”  Lee asked himself.  It was good to hear his own voice. “Yeah pal, that’s great if you have a sub zero sleeping bag and dehydrated food…I could be buried in a foot of snow till spring time.”

 

He had to try finding something, anything he could climb into away from the cold and wind. 

 

He looked at the open fields all around and up at the road he’d been on before the fall.  He knew he couldn’t just wander into a field; snow blindness would have him turned around and dead in about 20 minutes.  What the hell am I going find out there anyway?  He looked back up at the road; it was elevated and exposed, and the wind was swooshing white clouds of snow off in angry blasts.  He was getting lost driving on those roads, walking around in circles would surely be deadly.

 

What can I do?  This is crazy that I’m going to die in this damn field, right on this blessed rail road track…

 

Suddenly an idea:  the rail road track!  I can walk between the rails of the track and not get lost…at least not wander around blindly, he thought.  And it has to go somewhere doesn’t it? Doesn’t every railroad track eventually go by a house, or a shack, or something? Yeah, but where?  There might not be a house or barn for three miles in this Godforsaken place…

 

“I’ve got to try”, he said has he synched up his coat and Sponge Bob blanket.  He glanced at his shoes as he stepped up between the rails of the track.  “Well…you’re going to have to carry us out of here…”

 

Now the question became – which way to go?  He peered into the driving snow to his left then right.  His eyes watered as he tried to make out something, anything that could give him a clue as to the best direction to turn.

 

This could mean life or death right here.  Yeah…sudden death…just like a coin toss in a football game…heads I stumble onto a warm and cozy farm house…tails I walk for forty minutes and a sheriff and a pastor are consoling Meghan and the kids once they find my body next Monday.

 

Lee was not an overly religious man, but he suddenly found the need to ask God for help.

 

“Dear Lord…God…I have no right to ask you for any favors…you know I haven’t done much at church outside of getting the kids baptized and Christmas and Easter….but I’m going to ask you anyway…which way should we go here?”  his breath coming in white blasts that were quickly blown away.  “I’m…uh…really not sure…what I should do…”

 

He closed his eyes and tried to blank everything out.  He could smell his child’s smell on the blanket as he breathed in and out, waiting for some sort of voice, some sign, some direction.

 

A thought emerged from somewhere deep inside, or maybe it was close by he couldn’t tell. 

 

Walk forward. 

 

Was it the voice of God,  or just his gut instinct?  He didn’t know, and the not knowing is what scared him.  If it was his gut instinct, it would probably get him killed; after all it was his gut instinct that caused him to drive out of town onto back country roads, skirting the law like a moonshiner running white lightning to the city folk.

 

IT said walk forward…so let’s go.

 

He started walking, keeping his head down to follow the path of the tracks.  The snow had accumulated about 4 to 6” and he couldn’t see his shoes as they searched beneath the white blanket for the wood beams.  One step after another, he walked close to one of the rails, kicking a foot sideways every few feet to touch the hard iron.

 

Lee walked this way for 20 minutes; searching every few steps for a sign of something to provide shelter.   He knew he had to get very lucky very quickly, or face the unbelievable reality that he may not make it out of here.  He lowered his head and kept moving.

 

After 10 more minutes of shuffling along Lee made a move that, in looking back on it later, probably saved his life:  He turned around and began walking backwards.   While it provided an immediate break from the howling wind, and his heels could start taking the first brunt of the cold steps along the track, these weren’t the things that saved him -- it was what he saw out of the corner of his eye when he wasn’t having to stare into the driving snow…he saw a light.  

 

The light was bright yellow and seemed to be about 200 yards away up on a small hill.   I walked right BY IT and would have kept on walking, he thought.  Thank you God for turning me around!

 

He stood on the tracks and stared at the light.  With light there was electricity, and with electricity perhaps a warm farmhouse?   Lee was hopeful, but he also knew that a light could be attached to anything in the open country.  It could even be attached to nothing more than a windmill and a cattle trough, which of course would still be located miles from anywhere.  But at this point, he had to chance it.  He had to believe and act on the fact that the light was indeed attached to some sort of shelter, if not a house,  then a barn, a stable, hell even a chicken coop:  Anything to get out of this storm!

 

With little hesitation Lee stepped out of the space between the iron rails and began trudging toward the light on the hill.

 

He stumbled down a small embankment next to the tracks, and then climbed the small  hill on the other side.  As he walked he had to pull his knees up high to get his feet out of the clutching snow pack, which was deeper in some places than others.  Up…down…up…down.  He lurched along, feeling strangely like someone overdramatically emphasizing sneaking up on an unsuspecting victim.  The image made him smile, and smiling somehow made him more determined.

 

At one point he snagged some hidden barbed wire fence and fell forward.  He couldn’t free his gloved hand out of his long winter coat fast enough to brake the fall and ended up falling chest first on an exposed rock.  He landed with a thud, balanced there for a moment, then slowly rolled onto his back.  

 

He rested quietly in the powdered bed, hands still jammed in his coat pocket.  He blinked away the moisture and stared up at the dark gray sky, the snow now crossing his vision from left to right, then right to left as the wind shifted in a menacing way.   Here he was lying in a field in driving a blizzard with his head wrapped in a Sponge Bob blanket staring up into nothing.  All he could think to do was to laugh.  He laughed at his ridiculous situation.  At his woefully unprepared self, at his mess of a life back on heated planet earth.  What would they all think if they could see him now?  Just mere hours after plodding amongst them, here was Lee with soaked, frozen feet near death in a field.  He wondered what VP Gerry and his assistant would say if they could see this…or Johnson and Mack Carmadee…or even better yet - Cindy Hoyt, who would no doubt “tisk tisk” away as more childish behavior from what is supposed to be a “senior” account executive.    

 

After he regained his footing, Lee climbed up one small hill then another, always keeping the light in his sight as his compass.  When he lost sight of the light, he panicked a bit, but just kept moving one foot after another, hoping it was the right direction.  As he came over the top of the largest of the rolling hills, and after about a minute of not seeing the light,  he came over the crest and saw one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen -- the light, and it was shining brightly on a roof below.  He was going to live.

 

All he could see through the snow was that the roof was on a small building, maybe a small house, or an out building, or work shed.  In the distance he could see more house, more buildings and what looked like small stables and a barn.

 

As he slipped and tripped his way to the door he thought about who might be in the house, or if there was even anyone home.  And if someone was there, would let him in?  Surely the most hardened of hard-asses would at least let him curl up in a closet to keep him from dying on their doorstep, right? Right?  Either way he knew he was getting into that house whether someone was there or not and whether or not they felt like giving him a cup of hot chocolate.

 

The door had no screen and no small window or peep hole.  Lee reached out and tried the knob, it was locked.  He cleared away a small drift in front of the door and pounded as hard as his gloved hand would allow.  The sound couldn’t even be described as a knock, let alone a pound.  With his waning strength and a half-frozen hand it was more like the sound of a ball of dough falling into powdered sugar.  Paaafff…paaaffff…paaaffff…

 

There was no answer, no sound coming from inside.

 

He tried again but with an open palm PAAAfff…pAAAffff…pAAAffff…and again, nothing.  Lee looked around for something to strike against the door, he saw shapes of things around the place but it was all covered in snow.  He dusted off an overturned wheel barrel, a chest of drawers, and old wash barrel.  Nothing he could move or pick up. So he went back to the door and found his own battering ram, his knee, which he thrust forward at the cold door--  Konk…konk…konk…

 

He pressed his ear to the door…there was sound!  It appeared to be a metal kitchen chair scooting quickly back on a linoleum floor, then footsteps approaching the door.

 

“Help…help me!,”  Lee called not waiting for the person to even reach the door.

 

“Who’s there?”   a man’s voice called back.  It sounded like an old man, hopefully a friendly old man Lee thought.

 

“I need help…I’ve crashed my car and I’m freezing…please, I need to get warm”, Lee said looking as if he were pleading with the door itself.

 

“Hold on...hold on, let me move some things back here…”  the man said.  Lee could hear sounds of things sliding and being moved rapidly out of the way. “I just have to… clear…a few…boxes out of the way….there, there…okay”

 

“Please hurry, my feet…my feet” Lee said as he danced gingerly back and forth on his two frozen blocks of ice.   

 

The door suddenly sprang open and Lee tripped inside and collapsed on the floor.  The man inside was indeed old and also appeared friendly.  He quickly stooped down and helped pull Lee’s frozen legs inside, swinging him around on the smooth floor like a swivel.  Once cleared, the old man pushed with both hands to close the door against the strong wind. Wooosh!

 

Lee was lying on his side.  He slowly reached up with one gloved hand and said, “Thank you…thank you…oh I’ve never been so happy to be inside any building in my life.” 

 

The old man who was little more than a silhouette from Lee’s vantage point reached out his hand and took hold of Lee.  “Okay…okay…you don’t have to say anything right now… let’s just get you up and next to the fireplace.”

 

“Thank you…thank you”,  Lee kept muttering as he slowly rolled over on hands and knees and looked into the house and at one of the largest fireplace mantles he’d ever seen.  Inside, a large fire was crackling as it danced in the air streams that escaped down the chute.

 

The old man kneeled down to help him up.  “Welcome stranger…you are safe here now.”

 

Quick Note on Writing This Chapter Play Story

For those of you following my little story here, I will be posting Chapter 3 tomorrow.  I wanted to quickly address a few questions about this process:

Q:  Why am I doing this?

A:  Three reasons really:  1)  Writers write.  I asked an author friend of mine years ago,  "If I want to be a writer, what should I do?"  He said, "Simple...writers write...and write...and write some more"  Same I suppose with dancers, singers, sellers... 2)  I'm hoping to share within this story some insight on how we might view the world in a way that creates more happiness and success...3)  I always wanted to write fiction...because it's all about telling a story.  Sales is about story telling, so it's a good habit to sharpen up on.

Q:  Am I aware that there are typos?

A:  Yes, tons of 'em. Along with jumbled thoughts, missing pieces of info, too much crap at certain points, etc...remember,  I'm writing this on the fly,  as we go along from day to day, and I DO plan on going back and doing mass amounts of re-write and editing.

Q:  Are you going to make this into a book?

A:  I hope to.  I'll probably end up self-publishing it at the end of the day. Not sure it will ever be a best seller, but it's a way for me to leave a legacy to my children on how I see the world and how hopefully they can find happiness and success as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to work on getting our boy Lee here out of a terrible spot...

GB

Three Pairs of Glasses - Chapter 2: The Big Crash

 

“This is Lee. Hello?” 

 

There was no answer. Lee glanced at his cell phone to see if there was any connection; it showed someone still on the line.   

 

“Hello?”

 

He looked at the number again, and this time noticed the little battery icon had turned red, meaning he must have forgotten to plug it in last night.  Damn I must have tripped over it and pulled it out of the wall, he thought.  Well at least I’ll have an excuse to keep these calls short.  Brutal but short.

 

He pulled on to the highway and slowed to a crawl just as he merged into the early rush our traffic.  We all want to get out of here to beat the storm.

 

“Yeah, great…good for you,” he muttered to himself as he started punching dials on the radio, looking for traffic and weather information.

 

“W H O news time is 4:45 p.m.  traffic and weather brought to you by Fowler & Peth, the areas largest building and roofing supply company…  Well, we were wondering if we’re going to get some snow before Thanksgiving, and Mother Nature is giving us her answer loud and clear.  The National Weather Service is now calling for up to 16” of snow,  temperatures in the teens and even below zero overnight, and high winds off and on, giving us  ground blizzard conditions through tonight into the weekend. There is a travel advisory for all of Northern Iowa through 4 a.m. Saturday morning…. My suggestion is to hurry home as fast as you can.”

 

“Yeah…you too…EVERYone just run right home…well some of us have to battle this crap for about 250 miles…”  he glanced at his watch.   “It’s gonna be midnight before I make it in.”  Lee said as he watched the windshield wipers work to keep up with the increasing blizzard.  “Or…I’m gonna be sleeping on a cot in a school gym.”

 

His cell vibrated to life on the seat next to him;  it was the corporate office again. 

 

“This is Lee…is Mr. Carmadee looking for me?”  Lee thought he’d just assume the worst.  Mack Carmadee was the Executive Director of Sales for his radio station group, Lorimar Broadcasting.  He was known in the industry as a head-cracking son-of-a-bitch, one that liked to keep his finger on every deal going down, like Lee’s little cluster-hump at Midwest Medical.

 

“No…well I don’t know…but this is Cindy Hoyt head of Account Services…”

 

“Oh hi Cindy…I thought Mack Carmadee was trying to reach me…I don’t think we’ve met have we?”  Lee asked, not sure what else to say.

 

“No”, she said quickly.  Cindy Hoyt wasn’t the type for casual chit chat. Suppose she was in a hurry to get home too, he thought.

 

“Okay…so…what do you need?” he asked.

 

 “Well, I just wanted to call about two of your accounts…both mortgage companies -- AmeriPlan and NewBreed?”  Cindy said.  He imagined her sitting in her office, everything painfully in place.  A hand-made, by very angry hands,   wool sweater, pulled all the way to her chin, and small, square glasses that could be glanced under or peered over depending on the desired effect.

 

“Yes, what about them?  I don’t think either one of those have collection issues, do they?.” Lee asked.

 

“No…they don’t have collection issues…they have bankruptcy and federal indictment issues,”  she said with that certain smugness that seems to emanate from all accounting types when dealing with gun slinging, irresponsible salespeople.

 

“What?!”  Lee gasped as he stopped a little too abruptly in the creeping Des Moines traffic. “You’ve GOT to be kidding me!”
 

 “No…I just received notice that AmeriPlan has just filed Chapter 11 AND  they’ve been ordered to halt all payments…meaning a large payment we were due that you’ve already been paid on...meaning of course…”

 

“A charge back…”, Lee said, acknowledging the reality he’d never had to face in 20 years of selling advertising.  Charge-backs happen when an account executive is paid commissions based on a client committing to run an ad schedule, then they end up skipping town, or filing bankruptcy.

 

“Yes…a rather heavy one I’m afraid…they’d drifted into 120 day aging…so it looks like you’ll take a $4,000 hit…”,  Cindy said, acting like this wasn’t a major deal in her world.

 

“Oh no…no…no…that’s not going to happen” Lee said urgently.  “I’m NOT going to eat this….you people let this go to 120 days, and we’ve had issue after issue of invoices going to the wrong office…”, Lee was grasping for anything at this point.

 

“Mr. Easton…”, Cindy said curtly.  “I can assure you our office did not mail invoices to the wrong address, and we’ve been sending you aging reports on these guys steadily over the past 3 months.  Part of the job of the account execu…”

 

“Yeah…yeah...you don’t have to remind me of what we’re supposed to be doing…”, Lee said, sensing he was losing this fight, and perhaps his grasp on sanity.   “Well..I…we…I can’t afford to…look, I’ll take it up with Johnson and Carmadee…”

 

“They already know, they told me to take it out of your next two checks…” she said.   “So I just wanted you to know before you got your commission report Monday…”

 

Lee was already calculating what $4,000 in charge-backs over two checks meant to his budget.  What would be left wouldn’t be enough to cover even half their expenses. 

 

Outside, the traffic started to disappear as he reached the outer regions of Des Moines and started on the long crawl up I-35 toward Minneapolis.  Even though he was moving faster, the snow was falling harder and his wipers were losing the battle of ice build-up, introducing a new vibrating shhrumpppp…shhrumpppp… shhrumpppp  sound every time they skidded across the frozen windshield. 

 

“Well…I’m still going to talk to them about this...it’s not fair.   Now what did you say about NewBreed?”  Lee asked, thinking about how stupid these names were.  NewBreed…AmeriPlan….ColinBlow…CindyHoyt

 

“I guess the CEO, Doug Dreith, the guy that does all the ads?” 

 

“Yes... Doug Dreith, that’s who I call on…” Lee said.

 

“Well…apparently he was indicted on federal charges of money laundering and falsifying records…Mr. Johnson told me to tell you when I called that we’re pulling them off the air immediately, and cancelling everything they’ve got pending…no word on any charge-backs from that one yet…at least you didn’t let that one get too far behind,”  Cindy said with a slight chuckle – adding one more tasty plunge then twist with the knife.

 

My God she acts like this is funny…this is entertaining to her, he thought.  Let’s nail the sales guys because they make all the money around here and get to use all our trade accounts for restaurants and drinks.   Yeah and get charge-backs on money they’ve been paid.  And let’s all laugh when they skip another mortgage payment, or have to get yet another credit card. Oh yes, iIt’s all an f’ing hootenanny for accounting.

 

“Well that’s all I’ve got….if you haven questions, give me a call or shoot me an email, okay?”  Cindy said, hanging up without bothering to check if it WAS “okay”.

 

Lee wanted to hurt somebody, namely himself.  He thought about just crashing his car, but he was only going around 15 miles and hour, and there were no cliffs in Des Moines high enough to drive over and create a huge enough fireball to leave nothing but dental records.

 

He shook his head and stared blankly at the driving snow.  This is unreal.  It’s going to  be the end for me, he thought.  At least the end of me selling radio advertising at WCCC in Minneapolis…and maybe the end of my marriage. .   These two accounts weren’t the biggest on his list, but they totaled about 20% of his remaining pipeline.  And he still had to deal with the loss of the Midwest Medical deal. 

 

It was getting very dark, both inside and outside the car.  He glanced at his cell phone.  He could probably squeeze one more call out of it before the battery was drained.  Should he call Johnson or Carmadee and talk about the charge-back; or about losing the Midwest deal; or about his coming termination?  Should he call his client Gerry Porter and make sure he and his little assistant both got home okay?  Or should he call his wife and fire a pre-emptive shot across the bow before the big battle sure to come this weekend?

 

Not many good options for a last call for the Lee’ster.

 

He pulled up his home phone number as he eased around the back end of a pick-up truck that had slid nose first into the median some time ago.  Poor sap probably couldn’t see 5 feet in front of him, he thought.  Meanwhile his vision was dwindling quickly. He rolled down the window and tried to catch the windshield wiper on the upper swing of its arc to hopefully snap off some ice.  shhrumpppp…shhrumpppp…SMACK… he pulled the wiper up and let it snap against the glass…shhrumpppp shhrumpppp SMACK . Some of the ice broke free and the wiper was able to get back to the job of clearing at least a tiny space to see.

 

As the phone range he thought, This is crazy, I shouldn’t even be trying to drive in this crap maybe I should……

 

“Hi honey,” Meghan answered, interrupting his thought.  “How is the weather?  Is it snowing hard there?  I saw on the weather channel that it’s going to follow you all the way back up here.”

 

“Yeah…it’s uh…pretty bad,”  Lee said.  “But…I think I can make it, I’m crawling along at about 20 miles an hour up I-35…should be there around next Tuesday” he said without smiling.

 

“Are you sure?  Maybe you should just stay someplace…” 

 

“No…I thought of it…but I’ve GOT to get back up there…”  Lee said, unable to hide his despair at having to put out 90 fires upon arrival.

 

“So….come on…tell me.   How did it go with the medical center people?”

 

Lee almost laughed, she sounded so fresh, so naïve, so….yesterday…so before my last 3 crises.

 

”Well…how DID it go?  That’s a question we won’t be able to really cover in the 3 minutes of battery time I have left on this f’ing cell phone,”  Lee said, the anger building up like ice and scraping across his mind shhrumpppp… shhrumpppp…SMACK!

 

“Oh honey…did you forget to charge your phone again?” she asked.

 

“I don’t know…I probably kicked it when I…never mind,”  Lee just wanted to get this all out.  “Look I don’t have much time…so the bottom line is they aren’t going to be doing anything…nothing…not even the trimmed down version I planned on.” 

 

Silence…silence…silence.

 

“Oh…” Meghan said quietly.

 

“Yeah…oh”

 

“Well,  do you think you tried…” she started to ask him a question.

 

“Yes…no…look...that’s really all I can say about it…it’s just really, really, really bad right now…”  Lee felt that if this wasn’t rock bottom in his career it had to be approaching at 15 miles an hour at the next exit.

 

“What do you mean ‘really, really bad?”  she asked, sensing something else brewing.

 

“Well...there’s a bit more…I just heard from accounting that one of my top mortgage advertisers, AmeriPlan went belly-up…and other one, this NewBreed dirtbag got indicted and is going to jail…and so our number crunchers pulled everything off the air.”  Lee said, hoping the jail mention would ease the shock of $4k coming back out.

 

“That’s terrible…so how does that effect you…us? “

 

“Yeah…well, I guess the one guy in jail isn’t going to be buying anything in the future, so that hurts…annnddd  the one that went belly-up isn’t going to pay that  last huge payment to us…the one they were supposed to pay two months ago…the one I got paid on…the one I’m gonna get a charge-back on.”

 

“A charge back?   Does that mean you have to make up those ad dollars in your annual sales quota, right?”

 

“Well not only that, but it means they’re going to be deducting $4,000 in commissions over the next month from our checks.”  Lee said wondering to himself if he sounded mad enough, or sad enough, or disgusted enough with himself to make his wife still respect him.  Then realized that at this point he felt so down on himself it didn’t really matter.

 

“Lee…”  she said, choking with a quick sniff: Lee knew she was about to cry.   ”…we just can’t…”

 

“Yes…honey…I know…”  Lee started, but the line went dead.

 

He tried to hit redial, and a message came up saying, “Battery too low for roaming.  Please recharge and try again”.

 

“Damn it!”  Lee said pounding the steering wheel and tossing the cell phone roughly against the passenger side door and on to the seat.

 

----------------------------

 

It was 7:15 p.m. and he had only crawled about 45 miles outside of Des Moines.  The wind had picked up and was causing horrible ground blizzards that seem to dart from all directions.  Lee kept trying to pick up new information on the storm and road conditions, but the report remained the same:  16 – 20” of snow expected overnight, with wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour, temperatures could hit minus 5 overnight.

 

He saw and upcoming exit for a small town, Story City, Iowa, and thought about checking into a hotel, but knew he would only toss and turn, and get up at 4 a.m. when things would only be worse.  He peered out into the blizzard, looking at again at the exit sign.  Story City – what kind of name is that?  I’ve got a story I could tell you. he thought.  One that will cause you to choke on your Lutefisk or whatever the hell you Norwegians eat.  And folks you’ll love the lead moron in my story…he’s so pitiful, such a loser, you’ll want to club him with a shovel and bury him outside of town.  Under all this snow. 

 

He sighed heavily, pulled out another stick of gum and decided to press on. 

 

A little after 9 o’clock he heard the road report he was afraid of hearing – the highway patrol was shutting down the interstate just north of Latimer, a small town of about 1,500 just off the highway.  Meaning everyone would have get off the highway and head back to Latimer to find shelter.  He started to calculate backwards thinking of towns or hotels he passed along the way, something he could possibly get to if Latimer filled up.   He hadn’t seen anything else for the past 30 minutes or so, and he was sure they’d be shutting down the highway heading back that way as well.

 

He was going to be stuck in Latimer with about 200 other people, all of whom were lined up the highway exit ramp waiting to crawl toward the small town.

 

Lee knew that Latimer was tiny; he’d had to stop and gas up there a few times and remembered only one main street and maybe one hotel or motel.  This wasn’t going to be pretty.  This was going to be army cot time in the Latimer High gym, or the Sons of Norway Lodge, or the basement of the VFW.  Or maybe even in the homes of the good people of Latimer who would undoubtedly come out with Norwegian treats, coffee, and blankets.  And with offers to sleep on a service porch, or on the Davenport in the basement.   

 

Lee was getting close to losing his sanity completely.  Right there in that long line of idling cars waiting outside Latimer, Iowa, waiting for someone in control to tell everyone where they were going to “hole up for the night”  – Lee Easton was going to erupt, or implode, or perhaps just collapse.

 

And he just wasn’t going to let that happen.  He wasn’t going to go down without a fight.  He had to just keep moving.

 

He quickly backed up 6 inches, nearly touching the bumper of the delivery van behind him, and then cranked the wheel hard, slowly pulling out of the line of cars and easing back the other way.  He didn’t even want to look at the faces or see the expressions of shocked line dwellers wondering what he was doing.  Where is HE going?  There is no holding your spot mister.  You’re going the wrong way!

 

Lee felt desperate and just didn’t care.  But what was his plan?  He couldn’t get back on the highway; the state patrol was out in force and they’d dropped the barricades across all four lanes.  Then he thought – frontage road.  There was always a frontage road that seemed to snake along next to every major highway in the country.  That little road that stops and starts between every exit ramp, and rolls by small houses, and farms, and little ponds that seem to reside outside every small town.

 

If he could just frontage road it for a bit then maybe catch another road heading toward Clear Lake, which was a larger town about 25 miles up the road, he could at least have a place to stay, a real bed.  Certainly Clear Lake, a major tourist town, would have more hotels and restaurants than tiny Latimer.

 

The problem though would be getting to the frontage road.  The police were everywhere.  The only shot he had would have would be to crawl through town and find one of the dirt roads that head out to the outlying farms.  Perhaps out there he could catch another road 4 or 5 miles away that would lead him back to the frontage road and away from the action in town.

 

He knew this was risky, even dangerous.  He reviewed his survival supplies should he get lost.  For warmth he had his coat and gloves; and in the back seat his daughter’s Sponge Bob blanket.  For food he had a sippy cup full what looked like Cheerios and a half a pack of gum.  In addition to the tons of frozen water swirling around him outside, he had about 3 gulps of Vitamin water left in a bottle in the cup holder next to his right leg.  The perfect combination of things to last him about 30 minutes.

 

As Lee slowly crawled to the outskirts of town he looked at the small little houses that made up Latimer, Iowa.  He wondered what people do in these small towns?  Where do they work?  Are they happy?  Are they cozy and satisfied all curled up their little box houses with steam rising from the vent in the roof?  Or were they as messed up as he was?  Did they struggle to make ends meet?  Do they have charge-backs and clients being thrown in jail?  Were they lost too? 

 

After searching around a few dead end streets, he found a road that looked like it headed out away from town.   With the snow blowing hard his headlights only showed a few feet in front of his car, but enough to see that the road was wide and had a few recent tire tracks.  It would have to do. 

 

Lee pulled onto the road and slowly crept forward into the advancing darkness and wind.  He noticed that when you get away from the bright, tall lights along a highway, away from the lights from other cars, and away from lights from gas stations, restaurants and other businesses…things get really dark, and really close.

 

He drove for what seemed like 30 minutes, winding through the maze of roads that go between farms.  The roads weaved left and right, and sometimes just stopped at an opening to a fence, or driveway.  He had a general sense that he was moving North, but wasn’t really sure.  He was starting to think about snow blindness, and getting completely lost, but if worse came to worse he figured he could find a farmhouse and park close by, hoping someone would be home in the morning.  But that was the worse case scenario.

 

“I can barely see the road,”  he quietly said to himself, hoping the conversation would ease the tension.   “…but if I just keep moving I think I’ll be…”

 

Suddenly a coyote darted in front of his lights, carry a still-kicking rabbit or rat. Lee shot awake and swerved to avoid hitting the animal.  As he moved to the right side of the road, he tried steering back to the center, but his wheels had another idea, they kept moving forward toward the edge of the road.  He slammed on the brakes and tried to stop, but the Saturn was in a complete slide.  

 

As the car slid ahead, he expected to dip down into a small ravine and maybe brush up against a wood fence post and some barbed wire, but there was nothing but black space.  His car suddenly tilted way to the right and he knew then this was not going to be a slight dip into a ditch, but rather a steep fall into God knows what below.

 

“Oh shhhhiiitttt….”  Lee said through gritted teeth as he squeezed the wheel and instinctively hunched his shoulders.  His car suddenly lurched straight down and into open space.  He had gone over an bridge, or into a steep ravine.  Lee caught a quick glance of a train track some 20 feet below his windshield and closing fast. 

 

The car hit with a tremendous jolt, and both airbags blew into Lee’s face.  He felt himself bounce face-first on the driver’s side bag. His nose erupted in pain as he closed his eyes tightly.  The sounds of crunching steel and shattered glass were followed by an eerie silence, as the car teetered head first on the tracks and then slowly rolled over onto the hood, landing with a muffled thud and whoosh of powdered snow escaping in all directions.

 

Lee slowly opened his eyes to see that he was upside down, held in by his seat belt with his head pressed against the expired air bag and the steering wheel.  One headlight darted out wildly to the sky, spotlighting the charging snow coming straight at it.  

 

Lee was trapped.  Lee was in big trouble.

 

Three Pairs of Glasses -- Chapter 1: Trouble

(A few notes:  As I mentioned last week, I'm going to write a holiday story over the next few weeks, one I may decide to turn into a real book eventually (maybe you tell me what YOU think).  So these posts are going to be sort of loose drafts of a work in progress...before any editing, re-writing, etc...just thought it would be fun to head into the holidays telling a story.)

Chapter 1:  Trouble

Lee Easton was on the verge of a meltdown.  Not just a deep depression, but a real honest to God emotional crash.  He had felt it coming over the past few months, and the sales call he was about to conclude would be the final little nudge to send him over that cliff to the rocks below.  He was going to fall hard and fast, and he knew he probably wasn't going to walk away from this one.

"Well Gerry...I can't believe this...I think it's no secret that I've been counting on getting this deal done for about five months now...and that's why I drove all the way down here to Des Moines to your corporate offices...", Lee said as he lurched forward in his chair, dropping his elbows on the desk of Gerry Porter, VP of Marketing for The Midwest Medical Centers.

"Now hold on Lee...I told you before you left Minneapolis that there were some potential changes that might need to be made with this deal", Gerry said.

"Yes, you said changes, but now you're saying your review board has decided to cut the whole annual advertising program?  That's like at least $150,000 I had been counting on for our radio station next year..."  Lee said, realizing he sounded pathetic, like a jilted lover.

"Well...I'm not saying it's a final final...but it's what they were talking about this morning...so at this point I wouldn't be too overly optim..."  Gerry's voice trailed off into the background of Lee's wandering mind, as he began playing in his head the next conversations he'd have to have with his manager; then the regional manager; then the corporate people at top...and finally, with his wife Meghan.  They'd all want to know -- so what happened?

Yes I know I said it was at 90% closed last week, he imagined saying. Well, what happened was, the hospital just announced major budget cuts.  It's happening everywhere.   Yes, I know it represented about 50% of my pipeline for next quarter.  No, I don't have a plan to replace it fully.  Yes honey, this will mean going on probation, probably as early as next week...then 90 days later, I'm out looking for work.

"...so I'd say, circle back with me in about a month, and I'll let you know if maybe we want to go with a smaller program, maybe in late first quarter", Gerry finished as he folded up his notebook and glanced at his watch.

Lee felt the desperation pushing out through his skin, he could almost smell it on himself.  "Gerry...please just give me a minute to talk more about this...look, I don't mind telling you at this point that my butt is on the line with this deal...when we were first talking we were looking at the potential of maybe doing a $500,000 year program, remember?  And you said it was a perfect fit, you liked our ideas.  Hell, I've been yakking about this to everyone in our office.  Please, there's got to be something we can still do to salvage some of this" 

Gerry hated this part of the buying process.  He loved the attention, the free meals, luxury suites at the ball games, and all that...he just disliked the final moment when he had to drop disappointing news on some poor sales sap.  The truth was, he never really liked Lee's proposal, and never even showed it to anyone on the review board (hell there was never a review board to begin with). It had all been a pack of lies from the start.  He'd just wanted to give the poor guy something, especially after he got their whole marketing group into the VIP party after the Vikings game last year.  

Gerry's young assistant walked by and pointed at the window.  "Just FYI, it's snowing like crazy and we're trying to get everything done by 4:00 so we can all get out of here before it's a mess...so if you need something before this weekend could you let me know in the next little bit?"  She glanced at Lee, then back to Gerry.  "Sorry to bust in, just wanted to let you know..."

Lee realized the body language in the room must have looked like a pleading criminal begging the judge not to send him to jail. He leaned back in his chair and smiled uncomfortably at the assistant as she slipped out of sight.

"Lee, I'm sorry you drove all the way down here just to get this news...but don't give up...there still may be some hope for us doing something at some point in the near future.  Who knows it could end up being bigger than our original idea?"   Gerry said as he glanced out the window and started making obvious moves to signal the meeting was done.

"You better be getting out of here too Lee if you're going to head back to Minneapolis tonight."  Gerry said glancing at his watch and tossing Lee's latest attempt at a proposal into a stack of papers on the corner of his desk. A stack that just happened to be poised ominously over the Iowa State Cyclone trash can below.

"Yeah...I um...okay, well..." Lee said as he closed his notebook and put away his pen.  "How about if I came back early next week and maybe I could get a chance to meet with the review board myself?"

"Well...they normally don't do that...but stay in touch and we'll see what happens" Gerry stuck out his hand as he shrugged his coat up around his shoulders.

Lee slowly shook hands, but felt like he'd been kicked in the gut.  A 43-year-old man reduced to begging some late twenty something dweeb to just take a moment and listen before he takes his cute assistant's advice and scurries off to his cozy new downtown loft.

I am such a loser at this, Lee thought as he walked slowly toward the elevator.  I'm 15 years older than some kid who's dictating the outcome of my life.  Why am I not in management by now the kid is probably asking himself?  And the assistant is no doubt wondering, 'What are you doing still selling, old man?' And truth be told I don't have a good freaking answer to that myself.  What am I going to tell Johnson when I get back in the car?  I know he'll call me and want to know.  He's been on my ass for the past month.  Shit.  I am so screwed heading into next quarter.  I don't have anything even remotely close to making up for this loss.

"Uh Lee...if I don't see you before Christmas, have a great holiday,"  Gerry called from down the hall as he turned out the light in his office.

"Thanks...you...t"  The elevator door closed on the last word.  "...too...you bastard." Lee finished quietly as he stepped to the back of the empty elevator.  If he doesn't see me before Christmas? Hell he's not doing this deal anytime soon.  I am so screwed.  How am I going to explain this to everyone.  He imagined Meghan hearing the news and just rolling her eyes, then asking something like, "Well...did you try everything you could think of?" 

He backed into the door to the outside of the office building, hoping to brace against the howling wind and snow.  It took him two solid shoves to get it open, then he slipped and dropped his computer bag/briefcase upside down on the walk, spilling out business cards, loose change, and a lucky coin he'd carried for years.  He bothered only to pick up the lucky coin, and with a disgusted chuckle gave it a toss into the driving storm where it disappeared instantly and never made a sound when it landed.

As he carefully moved around his 2004 Saturn, dusting off the layer of snow that had accumulated on his windows, he began to play the coming conversation with Meghan over in his mind. It was going to go like most other conversations they've had as of late. Well it just didn't happen this time.  Yes, I know it was a big opportunity.  Yes, I'm sure Johnson is going to freak out.  No, I don't want you to go back to work.

They'd been married for seven years, and the last four had been the roughest.  Not only was Lee's job full of pressure and stress, but they'd had two children within about 25 months, Kaley age 3 and Tyler age 1.  Meghan had been an accomplished art designer before the babies came, and neither wanted her to work full-time if at all possible. At first it was okay, Lee's advertising client list had been growing steadily, but then the recession came and suddenly they were living paycheck to paycheck, and that was if they were lucky.  And now this fiasco. 

He finished the last window and glanced at the sky northward toward the direction back to Minneapolis.  The grey clouds had formed into one slate wall from which the swirling snow emerged.  Near the horizon the sky was almost pitch black, and he couldn't tell if it was the approach of more sinister storm activity or just the coming night.  Either way it was going to be a long and very scary ride home.

As he curled his 6' 3" frame into the drivers seat and pulled off his gloves, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pants pocket.  He froze and then closed his eyes.  Here it came he thought...the beginning of the long drive into the darkness of his life.

He glanced at the phone: It was from the corporate office. Which meant Johnson's boss.  Which meant... this snowstorm would be a cakewalk compared to the real storm that was about to start.

A Story About A Seller, a Snowstorm and 3 Mystical Pairs of Glasses

I'm in the mood to write a story...a Christmas story perhaps (or holiday story for my Jewish friends out there in blog-ville)...it's a story about a struggling salesperson...he's on the edge, struggling, worried, freaking out about the future, etc...when he finds himself on a lonely late-night drive going back to his home in Minneapolis after yet another unsuccessful sales call in Des Moines...on the way back, he's caught in a blinding snow storm and is forced off the main highway and onto a side road...his situation grows more dire when he slides off the road and into a field. 

His car is damaged...his cell phone is dead, he's not dressed for the weather...and the snow and cold are descending quickly...so he trudges toward the light of a small farm house...where he meets an old man who takes him in...the old man listens to his story and proceeds to show him a set of 3 eyeglasses...each with a mystical quality that enable the person that puts them on to see life in entirely new ways...the salesperson is forever changed by what he sees through these glasses and sets himself on a course of great success and personal fulfillment.

Perhaps in reading the story, you too will be changed by seeing what the salesperson sees? 

Stay tuned as I'll be writing it in serial fashion starting next week...get the popcorn and hot-buttered rum ready.

Instead of an Elevator Speech...How About an Elevator SHAFT Speech?

I know I've talked about the ol' "Elevator Speech" at various times over the past few years, but I wanted to revisit it with a bit of a twist.  I'm calling it the "Elevator Shaft Speech" (remember this was MY creation when everyone steals it)...which is just the elevator speech, but in about 1/10th the time...or "Crap...I've been pushed down a shaft and have like 5 seconds to live"--

So let's say we're at a business mixer somewhere and instead of using that nicely prepared, smooth sounding Elevator Speech...someone rolls up on you from behind, taps you on the shoulder, does the awkward glance at your name tag and says...

"So...tell me who you are and what you do"...   And here you've got a mouth full of cheese and a damp hand from holding a sweaty bottle of cold beer...and wham, you suddenly have to answer!

What do you say?  What quickly comes to mind?   This is where you need the Elevator Shaft Speech?   Something you can say off the cuff, quickly, in like 10 seconds that encapsulates all you do for your company and/or humanity?

My suggestion is that you make one right away, and to make it as compelling as possible to the listener.  And the listener may vary depending on the audience, venue, etc.

For instance, let's pretend you are a doctor (here I go with the Doctor thing again...sheesh, I'm like George Costanza always pretending to be an Architect...anyway)  and you are in a mixer full of other doctors...in that case, your Elevator Shaft Speech may be more technical and focused on the type of treatments you provide.  However, if you were in a room full of patients, the Elevator Shaft Speech would probably be about the sicknesses you attack and/or the symptoms you try to identify.

So think about yourself and what you do... chances are you're going to be in more mixers with patients than with other doctors...so your Elevator Shaft Speech should be about how you help people vs the stuff you sell.

Here are some examples to follow:

Radio Ad salesperson -- "I help companies create tons of new revenue"

Insurance salesperson -- "I help people cut costs by about 30%"  

Technology salesperson -- "I attack bugs and viruses all day"

...of course you can then follow with your company name, what you sell, etc...but the opening is designed to just get the other person to quickly "get" what you REALLY do for people.

Got it?  Now give it a try and see if you don't suddenly become the life of the party...well, at least not a wall-flower at every mixer.

GB

Would Floyd the Barber be Following Andy's Twitter? And Are We Losing the Ability to Focus?

One of my favorite ways to step out of the cacophony (word I've been dying to use lately) of 2009 mind noise (information, news, tension, technology...you know what I mean) is to sit down and flip on an old Andy Griffith Show (only the Black and White ones for me thanks).

And I noticed something interesting the other day on a gem I was watching with my daughter Maddy (to a 14 year old it's like us watching the first moving pictures)...anyway, in this one Andy, Goob, and Floyd were sitting around the barber shop just having a conversation for like 20 minutes on one topic...something like the huge oak tree in the town square.  And what was interesting to me was that they were actually looking at each other, talking and listening...and even commenting on what the other person said!! 

One topic?  20 minutes?  In the middle of the day?  Are you freaking kidding me??

Can you imagine that scene in today's world? 

• Andy would have just sent his 3rd tweet of the day before arriving at the shop...he can only stay 5 minutes because he has two conference calls he needs to hop in and out of...
• Floyd would have just signed up for Andy's tweets and probably busting his chops on him not mentioning he was heading to his shop that day ("oooh Andy...I like the tweets you're sending ...yes, yes...but you DIDN'T mention my shop, or my special on flat tops...just $1.00 through Thanksgiving!  But you still have a terrific head of hair...yes, yes")
• Goob would have his laptop going in the corner, bitching about Floyd's crappy wireless source because he's trying to download two new "How do dance to attract hot babes" videos
• And then Opie pops in and says he needs $1,500 to attend a special "tackling camp" in Mount Pilot if he wants to stay on the elite pee-wee football team

We could go on and on with that scenario (and perhaps we should??)...anyway, you get the point. We are so over-wired, over-programmed, over-everythinged to ever really stop and have just one conversation about one thing.

And I really do think it's destroying our ability to properly question and practice deep listening when talking with clients in sales calls.  I really do.

I mean think about yourself in a sales call...don't you have a tendency to do one of these:

• As the client is talking I'm feeling guilty about 5 things I said I would try to do before this meeting, but didn't...
• Or I'm thinking about how quickly I need to get out of here if I have a shot at getting the next 5 things done...
• And as the prospect or client is talking, I'm thinking "how long is this going to take?"  "When am I going to be able to start talking about my solutions...so we can get to a proposal...so I can get my manager off my back...so I can hopefully save my 4th quarter?"
• Or as the client talks we think about the state of the company...the state of the world...the upcoming weekend...the email I just got...the nasty one I have to send...the blog post I need to make...

This too could go on and on (and maybe it shouldn't!!).

The point is...we may be losing the ability to practice deep listening...and it may take some real work on our part to silence all of this for small moments of time in order to look someone in the eye, ask a question...and God forbid...listen to their answer!

Now when is Clara going to finish that next batch of pickles (because we all know Aunt Bee's suck!!)

GB

The November "Ugly Pond" is Out

Here is a link to the November newsletter, "Notes from the Ugly Pond"...please go to the web site to register your name to get this each month via email...there are also archived ones in column on left side.

Just click here to launch

Launch Presentation

GB

Why I Love Colorado -- 21" of Snow Today, Sunny and 65 in a Few Days!!

I love the snow more now than ever and never get tired of these big tree-breaking heavy snows. 

21"last night and this morning...the big resorts got over three feet!  But even better than the snow are the sunshine and mild temps that come right after...

Hope I've convinced you to come to Colorado this coming ski season...and when you do, please look me up, I'm always up for coffee...or dirty martinis!! 

Now back to my snow blower...here's to snow days and hot buttered rum...

GB