Black Buck(24)

“That,” Clyde said, slamming his hands on the table, causing us all, even the Duchess, to flinch, “is what we do here. Now I want you all to stand up and say it out loud until you believe it. Because if you can’t say those words with confidence, enthusiasm, and vigor, you might as well walk the hell out right now. I’ll be back in one hour. I said stand up!”

We stood up. He walked toward the door, paused, and said over his shoulder, “Oh yeah, no one’s allowed to leave, or even sit, until I come back. If you do, you’re fired. And if you think I’m bluffing, take a seat or open the door and see what happens.”

The three of us jumped to our feet and began walking around the room like monks in prayer. Shit.



* * *





It was harder to say those words with real chutzpah than it was to memorize them, especially with a full bladder and a neo-Neanderthal next to me stumbling over the same word for ninety minutes at this point. Every time he got to it, Frodo pronounced “population” as pope-ulation. I just took a breath and tried to focus on the script.

“‘Realizing this, we created Sumwun to empower individuals—’”

Frodo stopped pacing and looked at me. “It’s encourage individuals, not empower individuals, Buck.”

“It’s empower, Frodo. The word is right there on the board where it’s been for the last ninety minutes. And don’t call me Buck, man. My name is Darren.”

“It’s encourage, Buck. And why shouldn’t I call you Buck? Everyone else does. Plus, you call me Frodo, and my name is, uh—” For the record, Frodo, formerly known as Arnold Bagini, almost forgot his own name.

“Arnold. My name is Arnold,” he said, sighing with relief.

“The difference is you like being called Frodo; you even admitted that it’s your new name. I don’t like being called Buck; I just let everyone else call me it because it’d take more energy to fight it.”

“So why are you fighting me?”

He had a point.

Frodo turned to the Duchess, who stood in the corner, staring out the window. “What about you, the Duchess, do you mind your new name?”

She didn’t turn around.

“Uh, the Duchess, I asked—”

“I heard you,” she said in a tone as dry as the Gobi Desert. “I don’t care what someone calls me. All I care about is seeing whatever people call me at the top of the board, which, one way or another, will happen.”

Damn, she’s cold as hell. The Duchess reeked of old money and blood-splattered gallows. I pictured her at an auction in the 1800s, pushing her cuckolded husband aside and prying open the mouths of the “beasts,” “savages,” and “barbarians” imported from Africa.

“Well, I just wanna make my dad proud,” Frodo said, staring at her back. “When I was growing up, he was a used-car salesman. Before he lost his job and got to drinking, I always liked hanging out on the lot with him, watching him talk to people, make them smile, and shake their hands after handing them the key to a new car. I want to do that.”

“Handing them keys to a used car, you moron,” the Duchess said, still staring out the window.

“What?”

“You said ‘handing them the key to a new car,’ but your father was a used-car salesman. So the keys he handed them were to used cars.”

“But the cars were new for them . . . even if they were used.”

“So”—she spun around, a small smile on her face—“if I wear a pair of sneakers for five years, sweat in them, get dirt on them, and tear them to shreds, will they be new or used when I hand them to you?”

“Well, I guess that—”

The door burst open and Clyde walked in with a group of salespeople. “Frodo, go,” he ordered, shutting the door.

“There are seven billion people on earth, meaning there are seven billion people,” he started, missing a few words but not sounding too bad.

“Seven billion people, who wake up, go to work . . .”

He was getting closer now, and I really hoped he wouldn’t mess up.

“Spend time with family, eat, love, and sleep awaiting a new day. But as the pope-ulation—”

“Hold the fuck up,” Clyde said, looking at the crew he brought in. “What the hell is a pope-ulation?”

“Uh,” Frodo said, redder than a Russian, “I meant population. I’m sorry. I’m, uh, I can go again.”

“No,” Clyde said. “You can’t. If you do that on the phone, people will think we hire retards. In fact, they’ll think I hire retards. And then they’ll hang up and laugh—at me, Rhett, and what this entire company stands for. You want that, Frodo?”

“Um.”

“Don’t fucking ‘um’ me, you worthless sack of pigskin. I asked if you want that to happen. If you want people to laugh at me and Rhett.”

“No,” he said, looking down at the table and picking healthy skin off his fingers, causing them to bleed.

“That’s what I thought, now sit. The Duchess, go.”

“There are more than seven billion people on earth, meaning that there are at least seven billion people . . .” She recited the whole thing and didn’t miss one word. Clyde’s gang looked at him expectantly.