Ashton Danbury

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Chapter 1

The Supervisors Meeting

“Hey, get out of the dumpster. Your girlfriend left about an hour ago.” I yelled at Open Road digging in the trash dumpster in the alley on his usual rounds. We called him Open Road because he rode around on an old Huffy bicycle named Open Road. He would lean his bike up against the wall, or leave it lying on its side in the alley, while he hopped into the dumpster talking to himself. He was probably schizophrenic and delusional, but the guy was a legend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. No one knew if he was homeless or just a degenerate that could be seen at all hours of the day and night, in all weather conditions, riding around in his latest fashion from the Goodwill, church giveaways, or the dumpster. Plastic bags swinging from his handlebars filled with his latest finds, he just kept moving. It didn’t matter if there was a snowstorm, downpour of rain, or baking hot summer day. Open Road never missed. We always liked to try and engage the guy as he would scream out the nastiest sex comments, cursing, and unintelligible gospel from the dumpsters while making his rounds.

“Hit her in the shitter and you can’t forget her!” Open Road shouted out from the dumpster in our direction. The small crowd of WorldCom employees standing in the alley on their smoke break burst out laughing.

“He is fuckin’ crazy.” A telemarketer exclaimed.

“Wow, college is really paying off for you, junior.” I replied to the youngster who was witnessing Open Road in action for the first time. The young guy puffed on a cigarette, amazed watching Open Road operate. I figured the college kid would be working at McDonald’s in a month, like most of the rest of the reps on the phones. Open Road, however, was also a legend to the Cedar Rapids hospitals, shelters, and police department. He was an old homeless vet in his sixties whom the police had well documented over the years. Everyone wanted to help Open Road, but he refused them all. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be. The truth, in the end, is that Open Road’s legacy is now forever etched on the minds of the citizens in the city we call home.  

Open Road crawled out of the dumpster with cans and something with dangling wires and promptly stowed them in his plastic bags. “Water is rising. Run for the hills!” OpenRoad yelled out as he mounted the Huffy and pedaled down the alley.

“Supervisor meeting. Let’s go.” Hood Rat yelled from around the corner. Hood Rat was a twenty-something high school scholarship basketball standout that washed out at the University of Iowa. A knee injury his freshman year meant he was never going to see the court in a game that mattered. He was going to be a pine-riding bench warmer who never needed to shower after the games. He was a white guy with a great set of handles but only six feet tall. Instead of transferring to a smaller school, he dropped out and took a job at WorldCom. It was probably the best thing that happened to him because Hood Rat was the best supervisor now of one of the best telemarketing teams in America, for the 3rd quarter 2004 cycle. The quarterly bonus for top supervisor was going to be close, but he had more guys running more hours than me, which meant he was going to be thought to beat. Hood Rat was rolling in a new leased Lexus trending $70,000 in 2004 at 23 years of age. “Where the fuck are Kelly, Rodney, and Nail Head?”

“Hard to say. Probably getting stoned or snorting meth in the stairwell.” I replied.

“Those fucking guys said they were coming in early and fucked me, again.”

“Jesus, they are already like 220% to plan, right? They’ll never be here. They each got a $100 upload on their debit cards for last night’s contest. I suspect they are either headed to bed right about now or stopped off at the dealer’s first and will show up late to preshift as usual.” I replied. Kelly, Nail Head, and Rodney would do any drugs put in front of them. They were decently dressed and well-groomed white guys in their late twenties. They would easily fool the average person walking down the street or on the phone who didn’t know better. Nail Head was as sharp as a beach ball and sucked on the phones. His team was terrible, and he couldn’t teach them to hustle. How he got promoted to supervisor remained a mystery. However, Kelly and Rodney were natural-born hustlers, and so was I. So were all the good employees. The rest lasted a few days, weeks, or months and moved on rather than they liked it or not. Telemarketing is a skill, and most people never understand that part about the industry. WorldCom was about performance, and if you sucked, you would be terminated. I didn’t have a telemarketing gun like Kelly or Rodney on my team. I had a handful of reps who were good, but not great. My only hope was that 

Kelly and Rodney would get arrested or overdose.

“I am going to write their asses up. It never fucking ends with those guys. They think they are just going to blow me off and use a sick day so they get an adjustment to their stats?” Hood Rat looked up and down the alley. There was no sign of them. He came storming back towards me. “They think they are going to hit 300% of plan and fuck me? No, fuck them. I have had it with this shit. Showing up fucking drunk and selling weed in the goddamn bathroom. That shit is going to end.”

Hood would write them up and store the documents with the huge stack of written warnings each of them had collected. Unless they fucked up on the phone, and they never fucked up on the phone, they would be protected, excuses made with a lot of patience and tolerance. They were that good on the phones. The crowd of smokers headed back into the building with the reps going back to their teams and the supervisors headed into the conference room in the back of the large open floor divided by cubicle panels. You could see across the entire floor, except inside the conference room.

“Alright everyone. Can you guys shut up for a couple of minutes? We have a lot of stuff to cover before shift starts.” Mike Needer, the WorldCom night shift senior manager, began the night shift supervisors meeting. “Where in the hell is Nail Head?”

“Probably out snorting coke in the parking lot with Rodney and Kelly.” I replied. The team started laughing because they knew it was probably true.

“Hood Rat, go get those assholes and tell them they are late. Nail Head is late for the meeting, again?” Needham shook his head. Kelly and Rodney were no secret.

“I just saw Nail Head at the ATM machine out front. He is roaming around the sales floor.” Hawk replied. Hawk was our one black supervisor. He was a contender with his own team of thugs, burnouts, and dropouts. His team was similar but different than mine; lots of good reps but no guns. It almost always got down to Hawk, Hood Rat, and myself for top supervisor. All of us supervisors knew we were where the rubber met the road. Managers were an intentional step away from the reps. But the supervisors knew who was cool, who was an idiot, who had game, who needed fired, and where to find any drugs in the building.  

“Goddamn it. The meeting is every day at 2:30 p.m., not 2:35, 2:45, but 2:30. The next supervisor that is late to this meeting is going to run the weekend shift for the next month, I promise.” Needer was pissed. He was a good senior manager and knew that his supervisors were the grip on the cash flow. The supervisors hired, trained, and monitored their teams’ performances. If the supervisor was weak, the team would be worse. Telemarketing was a unique skill that didn’t require any college but the gift of gab and some hustle. There were a handful of people in the entire building who had a college degree. I was one of those college graduates with a worthless liberal arts degree that knew the only thing that mattered was hitting your sales goal. Every supervisor was looking for the next gun to randomly walk in the door for an interview. They had to be hungry, a hustler, and good verbal skills. These requirements meant the entire sales floor were drunks, dropouts, pot heads, ex-cons, and degenerates mixed in with a handful of college kids and restaurant workers. WorldCom was traded on the NASDAQ and had been on a Wall St. darling for years, but times were changing.

Billions of dollars were created in call centers just like ours across America in the competition for long-distance phone service in 2004. The popularity of mobile phones, mobile internet, and the concept of unlimited minutes anywhere in America meant WorldCom could be a contender in the big picture to merge all the services into one. The problem was WorldCom was a scam, and it was unfolding in the news: accounting fraud, SEC investigations, FCC inquiries, etc. The fraud was from the top all the way down to the syllables rolling off the lips of our reps on the phone. The customers were getting inflated bills, their service switched without their permission, multiple solicitation phone calls, and, at the very top, the CEO was stealing huge amounts of money. The company was once valued around $70 a share, and now it was struggling to survive.

“You guys see the news today?”I asked out loud.

“Would you stop bringing up the negative shit every time we have a damn meeting?” Joey was pissed. He was the day manager. A fat hillbilly from down south who got promoted with his smarter but less morally bankrupt wife, the night manager Stacy. Stacy was the brains of the relationship, and Joey was the hustle. It was going to be a rough meeting, again. 

“Spare me, Joey, the stock is now about $4 a share, everyone’s options are worthless, and we got reps on the phone just getting piss pounded by idiots blowing them up about the exact same shit they see on TV. C’mon, Mike. Tell us the truth. What the hell is going down in the conference calls we never get invited to?” I wasn’t going to back down. I knew Mike liked me a lot. There was nothing Joey was going to do about it. We worked together years before on the sales floor when I was in college. I was the best guy in the building on the phone until I walked away from it when I graduated college. I should have never left because the insurance and financial career I chose ended up in my own humiliating bankruptcy and led me back to WorldCom. Mike was now the top guy on the sales floor as senior manager. I spent six months on the phone when I came back, won the top sales rep in the building two quarters in a row, and immediately got promoted to a supervisor running my own team. 

“Listen, I have lost more money in this fucking company’s stock than any of you guys. I think our CEO is a scumbag, our regional manager is an arrogant dick who couldn’t sell a shirt in the fucking mall, and our lovely center director is absolutely clueless about the nuts and bolts of this business. The point being is the lights are still on, and the checks are still cashing, so we can either sit around and cry about how the ship is sinking or we can try and take as much money off the table before the Titanic sinks. Are you guys cool with that?” Mike looked around the conference room table, and there was no disagreement. 

“Fuck these corporate clowns. I’m here to get paid. What is tonight’s contest?” The Hood Rat chimed in as he snuck back into the meeting. The look on his face meant none of the previously mentioned were found. Mike shook his head and continued.

“Good question, Hood Rat.” Needer looked down at his clipboard, then looked up and smiled. “The contest tonight is double lines for every international sale. I don’t give a shit what plan they want. Get your reps to add the international on there for the extra $3.95 a month and tell them it qualifies them for the 10 free Blockbuster video promo. If they don’t like it, they can call customer service and cancel it and keep the damn video rentals.” The room erupted. It was an easy hustle that the reps would like too. Most of the customers were so pissed at Sprint or AT&T they would listen to a promo of ten free video rentals if you could keep them on the phone. The video rentals were the only legitimate part of the transaction. “All right, I want good pre-shifts with your teams and get these guys jacked up about the double lines. Any supervisor that hits plan tonight, I am going to throw out an extra $100 on your debit card. Is that good enough for you?” Needer threw the clipboard on the conference room table. 

“Shit, yeah.” I said.

I had a good team and knew the goal was easily attainable. Deep down, I knew we were doomed. The news headlines were full of reporting on the imminent collapse of WorldCom. Everyone was worried about their worthless stock options, their tanking 401k retirement plans, and unemployment while parading around the building with the fake positive attitude that infects corporate America.

“Let’s get out there and make it happen.” Mike opened the door, and the supervisors began filing out. “Hey, hold back a minute. I need to talk with you for a second.” Mike said. I was expecting him to say something to me about filling in everyone about the latest WorldCom bad news that inflated the negativity on the sales floor.

“What’s up?” I asked as Mike closed the door behind the last supervisor to exit.

“We got some bad news.”

“Now what?”

“You gotta terminate The Rancher?” Mike said. I was immediately pissed off. The Rancher was a nickname I gave a disabled guy on my team because the guy was relentless on the phone. Long after the person said they were not interested, The Rancher just kept pounding on them like a crazed cowboy beating on a dead horse. Most would eventually hang up, but oddly enough, some caved in and bought the service.

“Mike, no way. The guy takes his job more seriously than any rep on the floor. He has done exactly what we have trained him to do. I listen to him about half a dozen times a night.” I tried to defend The Rancher. He was a key player on my team and never missed work.

“I can’t help you. He got monitored nationally, and they heard him pitch the combined billing statement that we can’t use anymore. It is a tier one escalation, and he’s got to go.” Mike wasn’t pleased with the news either. The company had a bullshit quality control team in some unknown location that randomly monitored outbound calls and would inject itself as the referee in our business acumen.

“Mike, that is bullshit. We trained these guys to say that, and almost everyone on the floor is using that line.”

“I know. I don’t like it either, but my hands are tied here.”

“I won’t do it. Mike, he will probably start freakin’ crying in the bay, man. He thinks he is in the NFL here, and we have pumped him so full of hot air. Look at him when we call him out for being in the Top 10; he takes it like he is getting inducted to the Hall of Fame.” I defended The Rancher.

“It ain’t only The Rancher. There are four other reps who are getting walked to the door today. Don’t take it personally. Nail Head hired a fucking guy on the sex offender registry who I will personally be walking to the door. It has to be before shift starts too.” Mike shook his head. It was bullshit and he knew it. It was a well-orchestrated play where management looked like they were on top of quality control while turning a blind eye to the real bullshit spewing out of the mouths of our reps on the phones. If they got caught, the reps would be terminated and the supervisors and managers would keep their jobs. The name of the game was to hustle your ass off without getting caught until you could get promoted off the phones and play the game.

“Shit, man.” I shook my head in disgust.

“That’s not all. Faye and Linda want to talk to you about the team names.” Faye was our Center Director. She was a 50-something, fat bimbo that walked around in expensive clothes that looked like tailor-made shower curtains. She made more money than anyone in the building but had a personality that was beyond arrogant. Linda was the head of Human Resources and tried to keep the corporate feel in the building that was a complete failure. She was a nice lady and reasonable.

“Who said something?” I wanted to know and I would term them immediately myself.

“I think it was the Skeezer Pleezer.” Mike said and burst out laughing. I started laughing too. The Skeezer was a 19-year-old girl on my team who had slept with half the guys on the floor. She was good on the phone, but the name stuck. I gave everyone a name on my team like racehorses at the track. The names were always crude and usually with sexual overtones. Our team name was Dirty Sanchez. A Dirty Sanchez was the act of sticking your finger up your ass and wiping it across someone’s upper lip. The rest of the individual names on my team were equally stupid and disgusting. The Skeezer Pleezer? This idiot randomly came to my desk as a referral interview. He was just another abnormal Kirkwood College dumbass that I hired. Right after his interview, the Skeezer came up to me and told me I couldn’t hire him. Sure enough, he was a gimp that she had sex with and now was embarrassed by the fact he was going to be on our team. I promptly changed the seating chart so he sat right beside her and put his name up on the dry erase board as the Skeezer Pleezer, and he eventually went nuts. He went to Mike and Stacy to complain and try and throw me under the bus. When Mike said he would take care of it and did nothing, because he knew that shit was hilarious, Skeezer Pleezer went to Linda in Human Resources. “They got the shirt too.”

“Oh shit, I am done.” I said. We had team shirts printed up with everyone’s real name and their team name printed beside it. The Skeezer Pleezer was printed on twenty shirts, and that was just too much for a fragile young guy’s ego.

“Just play stupid. Deny you did it, and I will back you saying all the team’s had shirts. Blame it on The Rancher and tell them he is already terminated, and the shirts are forbidden to be worn.”

“Fuck, this place is a joke.” I didn’t want to lose my job.

“I know, but they are coming after you.” Mike was serious. “Tell you what, I will term The Rancher for you, and you can go up and talk to Faye and Linda. They want to see you before shift starts. I will get The Rancher out the door and erase his phone number from the employee records so they will have no way of getting a comment from him. Just tell a few of your reps to say that The Rancher brought the shirts in to cover your tracks because they will probably try and haul in a few of your reps after talking to you.”

I nodded my head and headed out the door towards my bay of cubicles. About half my team was already milling around the bay waiting for pre-shift to start. The Rancher was already on the phones calling before shift started, trying to get a couple of early sales. I hung up the call he was on. “Rancher, Mike wants to talk to you in the conference room.”

The

The Rancher looked scared. The conference room was always the last room visited before you got your employee badge pulled and walked out the door.

“What did I do?” The Rancher asked.

“I don’t know, man. Whatever Mike says, deny you said it, and let’s see what he says.” I replied, knowing The Rancher had about ten minutes left as an employee.

The Rancher got up and slowly gimped his way towards the conference room. As soon as he was out of earshot, I gathered what reps were there, minus the Skeezer Pleezer who had yet to arrive, and told them what was going down. All of the reps were pissed at the Skeezer Pleezer and agreed to blame it on The Rancher as I told them he was doomed. I was always honest with my reps and told them to ram it as hard as they could and take what money was left on the table before we all got termed. I got great buy-in from this relationship, and I knew Faye and Linda would find no corroborating evidence amongst my crew. I turned and headed for the elevators up to Linda’s office on the fourth floor.

“Hey, Linda. Mike said you wanted to see me?” I said as I walked into her office.

“Yeah, just a minute. Faye wants to be in this meeting as well.” replied Linda as she called on the phone. I sat there in silence as Linda typed out some corporate drivel on her computer. Moments later, Faye walked in wearing what looked like a tie-dyed silk carpet with sleeves and closed the door behind her. Faye said nothing and just gave me her glaring, condescending look of disapproval. 

“It seems we have an issue with some of your reps claiming they have been given names on your team that are highly inappropriate. What do you know about this?” asked Linda politely.

“Yeah, they all make up crazy names for themselves.” My first lie.

“We were told you make the names up.” Faye stared right at me.

“I guess I am unclear what names you are referencing.” I lied again.

Linda picked up one of our team shirts that the Skeezer Pleezer had left in her office as evidence. “Are you aware of this shirt?”

“I have never seen it. What is it?” I lied again.

“It has your name on it.” Faye stated the obvious; my nickname was Dr.Love.

“Faye, I have no idea where this came from.” I could tell Faye knew I was lying to her. I didn’t give a shit. The whole company was a lie, and she had taken down more cash than anyone. I could have given a rip what Faye thought about anything, to be honest. I just wanted to keep my job.

“What exactly is a Cleveland Steamer?” Linda asked.

I felt like bursting out laughing but kept a solid poker face. “I have no idea. These kids find names off the internet and make up stupid stuff. I don’t look them up; I just let them pick their own stupid names.” Another lie. A Cleveland Steamer was a sex act where someone straddles their partner lying down and then shits on the other person’s chest and then rocks back and forth on it. 

“Oh, really?” Faye could only imagine what it meant. That or she had looked all the names up already, and this is exactly why I had been called in.

“What is a Southern Hotstick?” Linda continued. I just rolled my eyes like I was clueless. Wrong. A Southern Hotstick was when a hillbilly spits tobacco on his cock before engaging in anal sex.

“I think that is like a Slim Jim or something, isn’t it?” I replied, trying to see how many of the names they would actually say in this stupid ass meeting.

“I doubt it.” Faye looked, took the shirt from Linda, and scrolled down the list of names. “You have a representative with an Irish last name called The Celtic Blower? Here’s a Muslim last name tagged as Ali-Bob Up and Down? Jail Bait? Here is one called Bung Lick?” She paused to figure out another name. “You have to be kidding me. Stoyan Misilovich is named Slob UpandDownonmyPolskavich? He is an international exchange student that I personally signed off on for his work permit. This is absolutely unacceptable.” Faye stood up.

“Everyone calls the guy Polskavich.” This was a huge lie. He was an idiot from Croatia or Serbia that could barely even speak English. I am not sure who hired the guy, but he got put on my team. So, I named him after Slobodan Milošević, the war crimes leader of Serbia, with a twist. “Faye, every team on the floor has a name. Dirty Sanchez was the guy in a Clint Eastwood movie who shot up all the bad guys. The name is harmless. Mike not only knows our team name, he calls it out every time we have the weekly Top 10. Everyone manager and supervisor addresses our team as Dirty Sanchez. All my reps get called out for the Top 10 by Stacy and Joey by their team name. The entire floor loves it.” I said in my own defense. It was the last thing Faye wanted to hear. She knew the company’s was in trouble, and she was just like everyone else in that she knew her days were numbered and she too needed to make as much money as possible before the shit hit the fan. What I just told her meant if she fired me, she would have to fire Mike, Stacy, and Joey, and that would make the entire sales floor, her cash cow, collapse. Our center was one of the highest profit-generating centers in America for long-distance phone service, and when the cuts came, the lowest performers would be the first to shut down. She balked. “I will talk to Mike about this. You can return to your team.” 

Chapter 2: The Brick House

I took a slug off my beer and stared out the window at the snow piling up outside The Brick House while I waited for my chicken wings. I met an old WorldCom rep of mine, Josh Ratke, nicknamed Rat, for lunch to discuss giving him guitar lessons for some extra money. I had played for years and had been in a band or two back in the day. As life would have it, that failed too. I noticed out the window Open Road was pushing his bike along in a strong head wind wearing pink corduroy pants, an army jacket and what looked like moon boots. He was barking into the wind about something but trudged on and disappeared into the alley across the street.The Brick House was an old brick general store at the turn of the century that had been turned into a bar decades ago. They did a lot of business with the WorldCom crowd as it was located just down the street. That was six months ago before the collapse.

In September of 2004 we were paid a visit at the call center from some corporate bozo from out of town who told us the call center would be closing and that WorldCom would likely be headed towards bankruptcy. A couple days later the CEO was indicted on fraud charges and was destined for prison in what the headlines said would be the largest bankruptcy in American history. On the sales floor the gloves came off for the final couple weeks. No calls were monitored even though we walked around with our supervisor headsets on pretending to be randomly monitoring calls. The reps came up with the most ridiculous promotions; free year of service, 50% off your electric bill as long as you switched to WorldCom and worse. When customers would complain and say they saw WorldCom on television headed for bankruptcy the reps would swear at them and disconnect the call. I didn’t care. I was right, it was destined to crash.

Unemployment was pretty brutal on my ego. Not only did I have to file bankruptcy myself after I failed out of the insurance and financial industry that led me back to WorldCom in the first place, now I was unemployed again. I would never get in the insurance and financial game again and the entire city valued WorldCom employees about as much as Open Road’s job skills. On top of this my wife, Marci, told me she wanted a divorce. We had just helped one of her colleagues, Shane, move into a house on the southeast side. It was a bunch of Aegon work buddies that all pitched in to help. Once the moving in was done a keg of beer was tapped. The hours passed and the corporate pleasantries wore off as people got drunk. I returned from the kitchen with a fresh beer to see Shane sitting with his hand on Marci’s thigh. This was out of bounds. I wanted to grab him by the throat but simply said, “Shane, can you take your hand off of my wife’s thigh?”

It landed like a lead zeppelin. The place went silent and Shane quickly removed his hand. “Oh, I am sorry about that. I didn’t mean anything.”

“I am sure you didn’t. Marci the party is over. Time to go.” I turned and walked towards the driveway. I jumped in the car and waited about five minutes and she didn’t come out. I was furious. I went back to the house to look for her and she was in the kitchen talking with some other idiot who had her cornered between his arms in the kitchen. I couldn’t believe it. “Yo, genius, that is my wife. You might want to check the ring finger before you work on your game. If you can’t figure it out we can step outside and I can give you a few pointers.”

“No, man, I was just talking about work.” The dirtbag spitting out his game to Marci was now scared about the chances of getting his ass beat.

“Yeah, I was talking about beating your ass in front of your work chums. My offer still stands.”

“Hey, I am not looking for trouble.” he replied as he took a step back.

“Get the fuck out of here you buzzard while you still can.” I was livid.

“You are such an asshole.” Marci gave me the finger. I noticed from her hand she was not wearing her wedding ring.

“Nice wedding ring.” I paused to see what she would say. She said nothing. “The car is leaving in one minute.” I turned and walked out the kitchen door.  

Our nine years of marriage, new home and two little children was now in jeopardy. Losing a bunch of money a few years back in the insurance and financial career was my fault and she deserved better than that. I was one victim of many in the wake of the dot com bust. The internet stocks I bet on tanked, the credit card bills went through the roof and my dream of being a successful professional went up in smoke. Still, I deserved better than a wife flirting with guys at work to get her emotional feed. That car ride home was the beginning of the end. It was a terrible break up that was exacerbated by her stupid father who always whined and bitched about everything. He was a card carrying member of the republican party and whatever Rush Limbaugh said on the radio he would spit out to anyone who would sit there long enough to listen, which was few. 

One afternoon I came home to listen to her on the telephone tell her sister what a loser I was and what a huge mistake it was to marry me. It was hard enough to live with her in the same house knowing she was divorcing me and looking for a new place, it was another to have it rubbed in my face. I took the phone from her and told her sister that she would call her back from her new residence. I didn’t care if she went to a hotel, her mom and dad’s or wherever. I just wasn’t going to sit there and listen to her bullshit anymore. I began collecting her stuff and putting it in the car. I told her I would pay for the hotel or apartment until she got on her feet but I wan’t going anywhere as I also owned the house. She could have half the equity in the house but I was not going to tolerate her throwing me under the bus in my own house to our friends, family or anyone. The truth was I loved her and she was over reacting. It made no difference. 

As I walked up the stairs with a laundry basket of her clothes, as she had moved into the basement, her father walked into the house without knocking. He had an old blackjack in his hand. These were the old leather thug beat down devices that had a piece of lead in the end the cops used to wear in the days before the asp or baton. “Where is my daughter?” He yelled.

“Get out of my house. She will be leaving soon.” I replied. I connected the dots immediately. Her sister called her father and told him that I was probably being violent with Marci. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I was pissed the idiot was in a manic state of anxiety and actually walked in my house thinking he would save his daughter from a menace. He attempted to walk past me and search the house and that was his final mistake. I pushed him out the garage door and he landed on top of his wife and fell into the recycle bin lying on the garage floor. “He’s crazy! Call 9/11!” he shouted. 

A few minutes later our cul de sac had three police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck all with their lights on parked in front of our house. All of the neighbors came out to look at what was going on and I was cuffed and put in the back of the car. After a few minutes of searching the home and looking at Marci the cop got back in the car. I simply told them it was a divorce in progress, there was not a hair out of place on her head and if they looked in the kitchen cabinet they would find a cornucopia of anti depressants and anxiety medicine Marci was taking at the time. The cops told me they had to take me in and I would be released in the morning without charge. It was the law and there was nothing they could do about it. So, I spent my first night in jail and was released the following morning. Marci moved out with the kids to her sister’s house until I could refinance the house and give her half the equity out of the home. The marriage had been rocky after the delivery of our second child because she slipped into postpartum depression and everything was my fault. WorldCom going downtown the drain was the final straw. She felt she deserved better than the once promising former navy diver, college graduate, financial professional that morphed into a pot smoking, unemployed dead beat in her eyes.

“You know who owns this place now?” Rat asked as he took a swig off his beer.

“No Clue. Not me.”

“Flounder does. His Dad used to own this place and passed away a few months ago and gave it to him.“ Flounder was probably nineteen years old and one of Hawk’s former reps on the phone. He was a fat, sloppy kid but was a hustler on the phone and one of the better performers in the old call center.

“You gotta be kidding me?”

“Nope, he also is going to be the lead singer in the new house band. He wants me to play guitar in the band. Didn’t you see the advertisement hung up by the door on the way in?” Rat pointed to a printed poster by the entry way.

“He can sing?”

“Probably not. He named the band The Dirtboxers.”

I spit my beer back into the glass with laughter. It was bad enough the place place was always nicknamed The Shit House instead of The Brick House but now the house band would be called the Dirtboxers.”

“How is the playing coming along?” I asked.

“Not as good as I would like. That is for sure.” He was honest. He wanted to improve and practiced often.

“We will work on that. As long as you practice every day and take it serious you will improve with a little guidance.” I also was honest. One of the biggest mistakes I made was not taking lessons even as I got better. I was better than most guys playing but nowhere near good enough to make a living at it.

“Any idea what you are going to do now that WorldCom is done?” Rat asked.

“I don’t know, man. I am not getting bites on the resume. I have applied to tons of places and there is nothing except shit jobs that pay $10 an hour that even bother calling back. The factories don’t want to hire a guy with a college degree and the jobs that require a college degree look at my last eight years of employment like a shit stain.” I replied and took another swig off my beer. “Since Marci moved out the mortgage is all on me now so I need to start making something happen sooner than later.” The entire thought of losing the house, the wife and the job was only a couple steps away from where Open Road was in life.

“Here is your wings, fellas.” It was Flounder bringing out a basket of wings. I could tell Flounder was proud of his new inheritance. 

“Wow, are we getting two baskets of wings? These look like fried chicken feet not legit wings. Who made the freakin’ wings?” I asked looking down at a lame attempt at chicken wings. I messed around with the idea of opening up a chicken wing business momentarily but the only thing that came out of it was a great recipe. The banks are all about business finance, as long as they can hold something for collateral. I didn’t have much to offer.

“Rancher made the wings. He is working for me now. Whatever, I sell about 100 baskets of wings a week. No one seems to complain.” Flounder was now being cocky. It caught me off guard but I wasn’t surprised that The Rancher ended up without a better job offer.

I changed the subject. “So, Rat tells me you are going to be fronting a house band here at The Shit House.”

“That’s right. Rat is gonna be our lead guitar player.” Flounder nudged Rat. One would think the proprietor of the establishment would be offended by someone calling his place The Shit House, not Flounder.

“Flounder, I never agreed to that. Even if I did, I sure in the hell am not going to be in a band called the freakin’ Dirtboxers.” replied Rat as he popped a wing in his mouth.

“I can see it now up in lights; Tonight Only at The Shit House...The Dirtboxers Featuring Flounder.” I shook my head and tried a chicken wing. The wings tasted about as flat as they looked.

“You still get the WorldCom crowd in here?” Rat asked.

The confidence evaporated from Flounder’s face. “You guys are here aren’t you?”

“Anyone else?”

“Well, that is the idea with the band. I am going to extend happy hour from 3pm-7pm and provide local bands a venue to play.” Flounder tried to muster an impromptu business plan but the truth was he would more than likely run the business into the ground without the WorldCom crowd here to piss their money away on drinks and fried bar food.

“Good luck, Flounder. I honestly hope you can turn this place around. I always liked it.” I said as I reached for my wallet.

“You wanna go to the YMCA and shoot some hoops?” asked Rat.

“Why not. I need to get into the gym more often. I have had my gym bag in the car for about week now without ever actually making it to the gym.”

We paid the tab and drove separately to the YMCA down the street. We changed out and headed towards the courts. I immediately saw a guy I used to play basketball with a few years back when I was playing all the time, Matt Smythe. He was a country club geek posing as a realtor. He was a rich kid with zero basketball skills. It never bothered him. In close games he would always try and take the game winner that would clank off the backboard giving the other team the chance to come back.

“Hey, long time no see.” Smythe said as he noticed us walking on to the court with ball in hand. He heaved up a shot that missed the rim by about a foot.

“I see your game hasn’t improved much.” I replied. He started laughing.

“Yeah, you were pretty good back in the day. What are you doing these days?” “Looking for guys at the YMCA to hustle in one on one.” I replied with a smile. “How about you? Still rolling around in the BMW with the $300 sunglasses?”

He started laughing louder because he knew it was accurate. “Well, good taste is expensive. Actually, I am in charge of the real estate division at True Northern.” He tried to sound legit as he threw up another rock that hit the front of the rim and bounced down on the floor.

“God, he fucking blows.” Rat said quiet enough Smythe couldn’t hear him.

“Yeah, he is on your team. We will play you two against me to even it out.” I tried to sound cool but threw up a flat shot that hit the rim and ricocheted right back at me. Rat laughed.

Smythe came dribbling back. “Didn’t you used to work at WorldCom?”

“Yeah, both of us did. Everyone one got laid off when the news hit the headlines.”

“Too bad. I wanted to try and pick up some of their telemarketers to do some calling for me to set up appointments but never did.”

“What kind of appointments?” I asked.

“Real estate appointments. I just need to get into their homes and get them to list the property with us.” Smythe dribbled in and made a lay up from about two feet under the hoop. It was fitting. It was about the maximum distance of his range.

“That is funny. I used to work at Davis, Jones and Limb back in the day. Warren showed me everything I know. Too bad it crashed in the lawsuit. He sold out to a shitbag. I actually testified in the trial. Charlie Hanes was the partner suing them. He was also a shitbag but lost the lawsuit. It was a good thing there for awhile but he got in over his head and a bunch of people walked. A few years laters he got into bed with some of those big hitters at True Northern.” I said out loud as I made a jump shot.

“Wow, I can’t believe you actually know those names.” Smythe said as he lined up another brick off the backboard. He was one of the local name droppers in town hoping success osmosis would occur. I was sure his real estate business was about as successful as his basketball game. Rat said nothing but was eagerly listening as he shot at the same hoop.

“I know more than you think. I just like to play dumb to suck in the idiots and then I give em’ the hammer.” I threw up another shot that hit nothing but net.

“You never change.” Smythe laughed recounting the multiple times I completely shut his ass down on the court or yelled at him for being an idiot when he was on my team playing pick up games.

I had no problem with Warren. True Northern was now the largest insurance carrier in the city. It might be worth a try to get back in front of him and see what was available for job offers. “What are you doing for marketing with your real estate business?”

“I have a dynamic marketing team that I hand picked.” Smythe said proudly.

“If they were so dynamic why are you looking for telemarketers?” I asked being a smart ass. It was a sucker punch. Smythe knew I got him where it hurt. He more than likely hired a bunch of local geeks like him who roamed around town acting like they were successful while their credit cards were maxed out.

“You don’t miss a beat do you?” Smythe laughed. Rat smiled because he knew where I was headed.

“How about I set a team of telemarketers up for you? I was an outbound sales supervisor at WorldCom and have several connections to good telemarketers.” I looked right at him and stopped shooting.

“Are you serious? How much?” 

“How about $50 an appointment. Paid weekly.” I replied. I figured the reps could get one an hour and I would pay them $20 for each one.

“$50? No problem. I can run that all day long. You make it work for me and you might just have found yourself a new job.” Smythe said as he threw up a shot that hit the backboard and went in.

“All I need are about 3-4 phones and maybe four hours a day. It would be evening calling. 4pm-8pm would be the best time to call.”

“That would perfect. I usually leave around 5pm so you guys could use my team’s office. There are phones in there. You can call off of our house data base. I have tons of leads that could be called.” Smythe saw someone else doing the heavy lifting. He would show up in his BMW and talk to the homeowner about his dynamic sales team and the name brand of True Northern. What I couldn’t understand is how Warren ever picked up Smythe in the first place. It was probably a country club golf game or something but I would find that out with a call to Warren the following day.

“When do you want to start?” I asked.

“When can you start?” 

“Give me a couple days to round up some hustlers. Let’s say next Monday.” I answered confidently.

“No problem.” Smythe had dollar sign in his eyes.

I tried to play it off as no big deal but it could actually be a door opener into something bigger. Smythe was a gimp that was undoubtedly the product of affluent parents probably dumber than himself. I could never have him as my boss but knowing Warren was an ace in the hole. And above his pay grade. “Now that is out of the way. How about I play you two fags against me for $50?” I said to both Rat and Smythe.

“Fuck you, man. I ain’t playin’ for money.” Rat said wisely. He was a decent athlete but Smythe was guaranteed to make any team lose. 

“You’re just a stone cold hustler.” Smythe said jokingly to me. He threw up another brick that clanked off the front of the rim and bounced all the way to the other side of the gym. Smythe elected not to run it down. “I would but I need to get back to the office.” He grabbed his towel off the bench and headed to the locker room.

“How about this. I will spot you five in a game to ten for $20.” I asked Rat as I sunk a long three pointer. I was warming up and really missed playing. But those days were done. The best I cold do now was find pick up games from time to time and talk about the days when our 3 on 3 team won the city tournament a few years back.

“Forget it.” Rat said as he lined up a free throw. “You think he is legit?”

“Nope. But we are going to use him to get in the building. There is a bunch of business we could do on the phones for those guys. I will talk to Warren. He was my old mentor. He is an intelligent guy and I will pitch him on us calling on the other agents’ books. We stroke a few over the fence for Smythe and he will do our advertising for us in their meetings.”
 

Chapter 5

California Dreamin’

I called the attorney who was in charge of the divorce the following day. Marci was being amicable about it. She didn’t want much other than to have the kids half the time, her money out of the equity in the house, and that was about it. She didn’t even request child support as she knew I was unemployed and there wouldn’t be much she would get anyways. She had gotten a promotion at work, had her 401k, and recently bought a small condo. I put all my chips on our operation. If it failed, I would lose the house and would have nothing for a down payment on another place. The attorney gave me a reference to another attorney named Ann who could help me with setting up Ashton Danbury.

Ann was about my age and attractive. She was married and working a nice, cozy job in a good law firm. I thought to myself, “ I should have stayed in college and gone on to law school myself. Instead, I took my political science degree and went off to make my fortune as an insurance and financial professional.” I just shook my head as she began to speak. 

“This is an interesting idea you have; lead generation.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Are you going to be working with local businesses?”

“Absolutely not. All of these clients will be from out of state and usually the heavily populated states. We need to find a bunch of agents and reps with fat wallets, and Iowa doesn’t have enough.” I replied.

“That is interesting. I looked over your sample contract you provided, and there are a couple of things I would add. Since you are going to be working with interstate business, I would recommend adding a disclaimer that in the event of any litigation stemming from an interaction with your business, all litigation is to take place here in Iowa. You could get sued by someone from out of state and be forced to appear in their jurisdiction. If they sign a contract agreeing to the terms, then they would need to appear in Iowa if they wanted to sue you. This would also mean they would need to hire a lawyer in Iowa unless their attorney is also a member of the Iowa Bar Association.” She pointed out a brilliant twist that I had overlooked. “Frankly, with the prices you will be charging, I doubt anyone would pursue this.” It was music to my ears.

There was a good chance that some of the agents would bitch if they didn’t get enough appointments from a campaign and would try and take us to small claims court to get their money back. Even if they got screwed, it would cost them more money to hire an attorney in Iowa and fight it. There would be no guarantees in the agreement for performance. It was marketing after all. The television and radio didn’t offer guarantees in their advertisements, and neither would we. Plus, most of the insurance and financial guys that had enough money to pay for marketing had pretty big egos. I found it hard to believe they would bother. They would act like Smythe and move on to the next dynamic marketing ploy. I finished up the paperwork with Ann and handed her a check for $1,500 to set up an S-Corp. Ashton Danbury was an official business.

Palmecci was correct in the VOIP system. I called a few companies and checked prices, features, and benefits. I settled on one for $2,000 that gave us unlimited phone service and five phones. The catch was you had to use a VOIP phone and not just any phone you found at the mall or business supply store. The monthly charge would be $150 a month for the service. I bought some chairs and some desks and had the guys assemble them in my basement. I called St. Nick and had him build us a simple website. It looked professional enough and simply said call for pricing. I wasn’t sure what to charge for the service or exactly how to market it other than just calling the agents directly. We set up all phone numbers to have 847 area codes. I had been there a few times and it was the affluent northwest suburbs. It would make sense to anyone we talked to.

That Friday night I went over to Hood Rat’s place for a poker game. It was like a WorldCom reunion. Andy, Needer, and Hawk were there with a couple of other guys I didn’t know. In the course of the conversation, it was apparent that Needer and Hood Rat had joined forces and had their own business starting up.

“So what are you guys selling?” I asked.

“Data, man.” Needer replied.

“Data? What do you mean data?” I was confused. 

“Names, addresses, and numbers. Everyone needs data for calling lists, mailing lists, email lists...” Needer replied as he raised me. I had a shit hand and folded.  

“Shit, I could use that. I am going to start up a business doing telemarketing for insurance and financial guys. How much does it cost?”

“Like anything, the more you buy, the cheaper it gets. It also depends on what you are looking for. Some is more expensive than others. Some of it is bullshit, and some is pretty good.” Needer replied intentionally being vague. I wasn’t trying to cut into his business, but he didn’t want anyone stealing his idea.

“Where do you buy it?” I asked.

“I can give you the name of my guy out in Los Angeles. He is pretty legit. Just tell him you know me, and he will shoot straight with you. He might not have what you are looking for, but he can point you in the right direction.” Mike offered up as he laid down a full house and raked in the pot. I wasn’t exactly sure what Needer and Hood Rat were up to, but I knew it was something I needed to learn more about. We played for a couple of hours, and all of the former supervisors had some type of gig they were working on, and all of them had something to do with telemarketing. Almost like the poker game itself; no one wanted to show their hand but wanted to win. It would be genius if we could recreate the WorldCom model with a different product and start our own game, but that would require more money than all of us had collectively.

I returned to my empty home and roamed around with a glass of wine. I found my pot in the basement and rolled a joint. I started smoking the joint and looking around at what the guys had put together. There were three desks, a dry erase board with our names on it, and the phones had flashing lights and headsets on stands. I hit the speaker button on one of the phones and heard a dial tone. It was music to my ears. I turned on my guitar amp in the corner. It had been a while since I had played. The Mesa Boogie amp was beautiful, and my double-cut Les Paul was gorgeous sitting on the stand, albeit collecting dust. I finished up the joint and started strumming away. The power fo the Boogie is astonishing, and with no one in the house, I turned it up and drifted into my rockstar dream. I always wanted to be a guitar hero but just didn’t have the innate talent to pull it off. It surely wasn’t for lack of effort. I played all the time when I was a teenager and in the Navy. I was in a couple of bands that went nowhere fast and was only up on stage one time. When the drummer failed to show up, our singer played drums, and I ended up singing to all four people in the bar. It was an ominous sign. All that remained were some guitar skills, some nice equipment, and memories. On the other hand, telemarketing was a skill I had in spades. With the least amount of effort, I could talk to people on the phone and out-perform the average guy with little to no effort.

I sat the guitar down and looked over at my mini call center. It reminded me of the name Needer gave me in my pocket, Jessie Simmer, and a toll-free number. I would make it a point to call Monday morning. I started thinking about the calling and decided to type out a sample script. “Hi, this is Elvis with Ashton Danbury. I am calling because we sent out some information to you regarding a lead generation service. Did you get that?” It was simple but effective. People threw marketing junk in the garbage with all the other bullshit jammed in their mailbox or deleted what looked like spam in their inbox. “No worries. I can make it real quick for you. What we do is set up appointments for you. You simply tell us who your ideal client is, and we do the prospecting for you. We can call either on your book of business or a list of names that meet your specific criteria. Are you selling mostly insurance or financial services?” If they didn’t hang up, we would get to the bottom of what their strong suit was in short order. We would be going after the guys selling life insurance and financial services. The way the commissions are paid out in the industry, the life insurance agents would get a substantial up-front commission, roughly 50-100% of the annualized commission. Their renewal on the policy would be about two percent, so they would constantly be looking for the next transactions as I was. The geeks selling home and auto insurance were worthless because their commissions were roughly 10%-15%, and the renewals were the same. In short, all they had to do was answer the phone when someone called in for a quote, write the business, and send out the Christmas calendar, and they would make the same amount of money they did the previous year. 

The following day, St. Nick came up to the house and set up an email on the site. He was pretty solid on the website development. After a few clicks, I was lost when I was watching him. He was terrible on the phone at WorldCom but was a great guy. He was sharp and had several of his buddies and a few good-looking girls apply for jobs. None of them were really worth a shit either, except for Palmecci, but they mixed in nicely with the herd, but the real horses on the phones outran them every day. 

“This is a smart idea. Everyone needs more sales appointments.” St. Nick said as he typed away.

“That depends on if it works or not. If it doesn’t, I will be moving in with you because I am putting the last of my cash into this.”

“I don’t know about Sanchez and Palmecci though. They might be good on the phone, but that was talking to idiots about long-distance phone service with WorldCom. The people you are going to be going after are a lot smarter than the average geek we talked to back in the day.” St. Nick was right. I had thought about the learning curve extensively. Would I be able to get them up to speed before I went broke was my main concern.

“All I need them to do is fluff for me in the beginning. Rat is smart enough to catch the drift, and then Sanchez and Palmecci will refuse to let Rat win at anything. All they have to do is say they are new on the phone, and they might better be served by talking with their supervisor, me, who would be standing right behind them. I will be on the phones too.” It was the same play as WorldCom. If I was monitoring a call and sensed someone was going to buy and the rep just couldn’t fast forward to the close, I would take the headset from them and let them listen to my transitions and vernacular. Some got it, most didn’t. “Once you know it, you don’t forget it. Keep in mind too that the people we will be prospecting are agents, not telemarketers. They are not expecting the telemarketers to know everything about the business, just to sound like they have done this before.”

“That is a good point.” St. Nick said as he refreshed the screen on his laptop. “What do you think?” It was the front page of our new website. It showed a boardroom with a conference table surrounded by glass looking out over a city.

“Perfect. That makes us look like a law firm.”

“Ashton Danbury is a great name. Where did you come up with that one?” he

laughed when he asked. He knew it was bullshit.

“It was the most elitist, country club, polo playing name I could think of.” I replied.

“Sure sounds like it.”

“It won’t be. It will be a boiler room. No fucking Human Resources bullshit. Shirts off, sunglasses on, weed, beers...whatever. I want them hustling and showing up every day. If they are having a good time, they will stick around. Making money is the key.” I always appreciated a long leash and knew the guys would too. Hopefully, we wouldn’t get tangled up in our own leash.

“I can’t wait to see how it turns out.” I always liked that about St. Nick; he was always happy to see other people’s success.  

“Well, I will be heading out to Las Angeles here in a couple of weeks. I was playing poker the other night with some old WorldCom supervisors, and Needer and Hood Rat are getting into the data selling game. I think we could use it. I don’t want to just talk to someone on the phone; I want to get boots on the ground and see what their operation is like if I can.” I said thinking about WorldCom. If all you knew was what was showing up in the news, you would have a very limited level of information. If you walked around the sales floor for five minutes, you would have a lot better understanding of what was going down.

“That is a good idea. It could be a giant ramming machine or it could be legit.” St. Nick was right. 

“Needer and Hood Rat probably wouldn’t get burned on the phone, and I don’t think they would give me a bad beat, but I am a touch and feel kind of guy.”

“Should be cool.” Nick paused and closed his laptop. “Your website and email are up. I will work on some of the details tomorrow, but I got a date with a skeezer later tonight, and I want to get to the gym.” St. Nick was always particular about his look.

“Thanks, man. You should put some web development services and shit on there. It makes us look more diversified. If anyone asks about it, we can send them your way. Charge them whatever you want. Just let me know how much so we can shoot them an invoice.” I replied. I was not sure if any of our clients would need web services, but I surely did.

“Sounds good.” St. Nick grabbed his bag and headed out the door.

Sunday I spent with the kids watching football, cooking food, and playing in the snow. They were now three and four and the loves of my life. I felt bad that their mother and I had split up, and part of me wanted her back. Part of me just wanted another woman around. When the kids weren’t around, I was alone. It was good not to have the fighting and listening to Marci trying to throw me under the bus to her parents all the time. I dropped the kids off Sunday evening and sat in Marci’s driveway. She didn’t bother coming to the door. I drove back home thinking it might be time to get on one of those internet dating sites.

Monday came around, and I called out to Los Angeles. The name of the place was A&M Marketing. A generic name, I thought to myself. I spoke to the Jessie Simmer guy, and he sounded pretty legit on the phone, but so did Palmecci and Sanchez. I asked if it was cool if I came out and visited, and he said it was no problem. I told him I would be there next week. I hung up the phone and started looking for a flight and hotel room on the internet. I found a deal for about $1,000 for the flight, rental car, and a couple of nights in a nice hotel. 

When the guys showed up later, we started our initial calling. They sat around drinking beer and smoking weed while they listened to me make about a dozen calls. They were talking about the debut of the Dirtboxers the other night at The Shit House, I could hear in between calls. Apparently, Flounder paid another band to play, and he just sat in as the lead singer on a couple of songs. He got shit-faced drunk and invited them back to his and Sanchez’s apartment to smoke some weed after the bars closed. Flounder got pissed when they told him there was no way he was joining their band. He passed out on the floor, and the guys in the band shaved his eyebrows, wrote on his face with a black marker, and then pissed on him. Sanchez took pictures with his phone and showed us. Flounder personified the drunken like no other in the photos. Sanchez said it was to be used later for blackmail or a negotiating tool since Flounder certainly has equally damaging documentation on Sanchez. 

I was lucky to get a couple of guys to talk to me and get to the website while the guys listened. I simply typed in “ life insurance agent New York City” into Google, and up popped a zillion different names. The guys caught on quickly, and within a couple of hours, everyone was ready to get on the phones.

“One more thing, no one uses their real names. You need to come up with a fake name. I don’t want idiots following you around on the internet if they end up buying and their campaign is shitty.” I said. “My name will be Chad Kroeger.”

“That’s the fucking lead singer of Nickelback.” Sanchez started laughing.

“That’s right. It is also a generic name. There has to be about 1000 guys named Chad Kroeger, and Kroeger can be spelled a few different ways.

“I am going to be Steve Piersanti.” replied Sanchez immediately.

“What the fuck is that? It sounds like an Italian gay porn star.” Palmecci stated the obvious.

“He’s not gay.” Sanchez confirmed his name was going to be some shitbag with a huge cock in porn. “What is your name going to be? How about Johnny Takesituptheass?” Sanchez was ready to pounce.

“Fuck that. I am going to be Jacob Exey.” Palmecci said proudly.

“That sounds like your boyfriend in the Marine Corps who used to pack it in your shitter in the foxhole in Iraq.” Sanchez immediately dissed the name.

“Fuck you, Sanchez. He was my instructor in sniper school in the Corps.”

“You weren’t a fucking sniper in the Corps. The only sniper school you went to was shooting spitwads in your grandpa’s asshole.” Sanchez called out Palmecci’s bullshit.

“I will think of one later. I am going to find us some data on the internet to call. Searching around for these guys and going to their websites is going to be a giant waste of time after a while. We also don’t want to be calling the same guys. These guys will also need emails with their fake names and to set up their voicemails with the fake names.” Rat spoke up with a moment of clarity. Our first day made progress and that was all I really cared about. 

The calls went out over the next few days. It was a little rough in the beginning as the guys knew next to nothing about insurance and financial services. They got a few people on the phone but no one that said much more than they would look at the website. I was going to have to pay all of them some cash just for showing up and making some calls with no sales. If we didn’t make any sales I would go broke pretty quick. The operation needed some fine tuning and hopefully the trip to Los Angeles was going to give me what I needed.

On Thursday of the following week, I touched down in Los Angeles. It was an anxious few hours on the plane. I trusted the guys in the house without me. I doubted anyone would make a sale as we didn’t even have a price on the website or any idea what to charge. I knew all of them would need some money when I got back, or they would go get another job no matter how much they liked me and the idea. Cash was tight, and if they walked out, I was headed for bankruptcy again. I got a rental car and drove to my hotel room in Westlake Village. It was good to be back in California. I spent almost five years in California in the Navy. All the neighborhoods kind of looked the same: strip malls, palm trees, convenience stores, and traffic everywhere. Nothing reminded me more that I was not in Iowa than the palm trees and traffic. The warm weather was a nice break from the Iowa winter, and the expensive cars on the freeway were rarely, if ever, seen on Iowa roads. The traffic was terrible and a reminder of one of the nice things about Iowa: zero traffic jams. In Iowa, you could stop in small towns at a stop sign, and some guy in a beat-up pickup truck wearing a seed corn ball cap would wave at you without having any idea who you were. In California, everyone damn near lived in their vehicles, pissing hours away every day stuck in traffic.

It was late in the afternoon by the time I checked into the hotel. The beautiful Mexican girl that was behind the counter running my credit card reminded me I would be staying alone on this business trip. I thought about asking her what time she got off, but she was too attractive not to have someone else; she called her man. So, I just hung out in my hotel room for a couple of hours watching headline news. I ate some pizza at a local place close to the hotel and had a couple of drinks in the west coast-looking hotel bar. The place was dead, and the drinks were expensive. I retreated to my hotel room, smoked some weed I brought with me, drank some wine I bought at a local liquor store across from the pizza place, and watched television until I fell asleep. 

The following morning, I woke up around 5:30 a.m. I went for a swim in the empty hotel pool and sat in their whirlpool. I ate the free breakfast and watched the morning news in my room. I located the A&M Marketing office address on the internet and plotted my course. I headed out early to get in some general reconnaissance on the place before I walked in. I left the room a little after 7am only to find myself in another traffic jam. It literally took twenty-five minutes to go three miles down the interstate. There was no way I could ever live like this. For these people, there was no alternative except to leave. 

I pulled into the address I wrote down from my internet search. It looked like any other two-level generic office building with maybe one hundred parking spaces. It was half full already, and then I realized they were three hours behind East Coast time. If they were serving tickets out of the East Coast, some of these guys might have started at 6 a.m. I drove the length of the parking lot and soon realized there were some expensive cars in the parking lot. The percentage of Mercedes, Lexus, Jaguar, Porsche, and BMWs compared to pickup truck ration was about 15 to 0. Whoever was behind the suites in this building was making money. I backed into a vacant spot and thought about calling Rat to make sure the other guys showed up to work. It was Friday, and even if I was there, the chance of all three showing up on time was slim.

Before I dialed the number, a shiny black Mercedes-Benz rolled up and parked right beside me. I put the phone up to my head like I was in conversation as a cover if I caught a glance. I’m not sure what kind of Benz that was, but it was not your typical S-class. The guy that jumped out was about fifty years old and dressed in what looked like an Armani suit. He had a gay-looking gold chain around his neck on the outside of his shirt, no tie, and a fat watch dangling from his wrist as he spoke into a headset. He paid no attention to me, kept talking, and started walking into the A&M Marketing front door. I wasn’t sure if this was The Man, some mafia Don, or a customer. Whoever he was, he was advertising his cash flow.

I jumped out of my shitty Nissan rental car and walked around and looked at the tail of the Benz. S65 AMG the back read. I had never ever seen a Mercedes sedan like the one in front of me. It looked sleek, fast, sexy, and expensive as hell. The Nissan looked like something the janitor hitched a ride in. I shook my head and proceeded to the A&M Marketing doors. Upon entering, their suite was on the right-hand side. I opened the door and walked into a smiling and smoking-hot twenty-something girl with blue eyes that pierced my mind. I was stunned for a second but recovered, trying not to adjust my zipper five seconds into the freakin’ office. 

“Yeah, I am here to see Jessie Simmer. Is he available?” I asked. I told him I would be by in the morning but didn’t have an actual exact time for the appointment.

“Jessie came in a little while ago. I will ring him. You can have a seat here in the lobby. It should just be a minute.” I think she said. I was staring at her and wanted to leap over the counter and throw my tongue down her man-pleaser, but reality told me to about-face and head for the leather chairs in the lobby. I sat down and noticed out of the corner of my eye Super Don from the parking lot. He was in a glass-enclosed office with three flat-screen televisions above his desk. He was working the remote control to turn them on when two other beautiful twenty-somethings came into his office. One was a tall blonde in a white skirt with beautifully tanned skin, and the other was a sexy brunette with huge boobs poking out of a sharp-looking blouse. One had his Danish and coffee, and the other newspapers. They chatted for about a minute and then exited. Whoa, this guy wasn’t fucking around.

“Hi, I am Jessie.” My fantasy was interrupted by a short twenty-something in a shirt and tie with acne. I was expecting a meeting with a VP of sales in his forties or fifties.

“Glad you could take the time to meet with me.” I replied as I shook his hand.

“We can go back to the break room, I guess. I need another cup of coffee. Would you like one?” he offered politely.

“Sounds good.” I replied and followed him through an office of maybe twenty cubicles with people typing away on laptops or talking on the phone. When we entered the break room, I stopped and could not believe what I saw. On the wall was painted a giant pot leaf the size of my wingspan with a caption underneath that read “Don’t Spend All Your Commission on Weed.” I was astounded. 

I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask, “Jessie, what in the fuck is going on in here?”

He looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” I paused. I didn’t know any other way to say it but just spit it out. “You got Tony goddamn Soprano jumping out of a smokin’ hot Benz in the parking lot who is greeted by a supermodel at the front desk first thing in the morning. He strides over to literally a glass office where two other freakin’ burnin’ babes are waiting on him. Now you walk me into an office with a pot leaf on the break room wall about the size of the hood on my rental car. This is fuckin’ crazy.”

Jessie started laughing. “That is right, you are from Iowa. I forgot. Needer and Hood Rat had the same reaction when they first came out.”

“Those guys were out here?” I asked. Neither Mike nor Hood Rat offered that up in our conversation.

“Yeah, they came out a few months ago.”

“I can’t believe they went back to Iowa. What is up with the goddamn girls in here? How in the fuck does anything ever get done around here?” I didn’t care if I sounded like an idiot, I had to know. I pictured myself wearing a bib at my desk so the drool didn’t soak my shirt.

“Let’s just say Howard has a pretty good eye for talent.” Jessie smirked and got the coffee. “The funny thing is they are all single. They are always talking about not having anything to do on the weekends because they don’t have boyfriends.” Jessie replied like he was their freakin’ brother or priest. For a second I thought about just slapping Jessie to the floor of the break room, kicking in Howard’s door and dropping his ass and taking the ladies for a spin in his goddamn car. I started to seriously wonder if the whole data sales story was just a front for a porn production studio.

“You gotta be kidding me.” I replied and Jessie started laughing. 

“So, what do you want to know?” Jessie asked.

I collected my thoughts and tried to focus on my mission. “So, just exactly what does the data look like?” Jessie raised his eyebrows and smiled. He knew I was clueless but asking the right questions.

“Follow me.” he replied as he handed me my coffee. He took a few steps through the cubicles to his that was not bigger than 10 x 6 and there was another Latino looking guy on the phone with a laptop. “That is Johnny, he is my assistant.”

Johnny nodded his head at me and continued his conversation with the other party on the phone. Across their entire cubicle were checks pinned to the walls’ $25,000, $18,000, $67,000, $4,800, $31,000 and everything in between. The vast majority were from insurance companies, mortgage companies and car dealerships.

“Whoa, what are these checks? Scalps?” I asked.

“Yeah, pretty much. There are a lot of smaller ones but I like to keep some of the bigger ones pinned up for motivation.” He replied as he stared into his email. I just stood there stunned. “Here is a spreadsheet of an order that we are sending out if you want to take a look at it. This is for a mortgage order. It is only 20,000 names out of the Columbus, Ohio area but it will give you a good idea of what it looks like.”

I looked at his screen and it was exactly what Needer and Hood Rat had said. My initial feeling was it appeared to be a glorified phone book listing. It had their names, address, phone numbers, emails, home value, income level, credit score, and estimated net worth. It was basically delivering the highly selected information of who in the neighborhood would make a good prospect for a mortgage in Columbus, Ohio. What wasn’t in the file is where it came from.

“Where do you get this stuff?” I asked.

“We aggregate from a variety of places. Trans Union, Experian, and Equifax get us the credit scores. County assessors’ sites give the home information. Opt-in websites give us estimates of their income and net worth. The DMV gives us car lease information. There are a bunch of different places we get it from.” Jessie answered matter-of-factly. I realized there wasn’t enough time in the day to get this information on your own, and it surely didn’t come for free. As soon as I was about to ask how they get their customers, the blonde in the white skirt came to Jessie’s cubicle.

“Here are some more for this morning, Jessie.” She said as she laid down a small stack of papers on his desk. I don’t even think she noticed me standing there. Her perfume went straight up my nose and squeezed my brain. I about pulled a muscle in my neck watching her walk away. It was ridiculous.

“Hey, do you care if I look at those?” I regained my composure and focused on trying to figure out how these guys were getting this kind of business.

“Those?” Jessie stared at the stack of papers she just laid on his desk. “Those are just the people who want quotes on data. Go ahead.”

I picked up the stack of papers, and it was exactly what he said: people and companies looking for data. There were people looking for data in their county for mailing campaigns, people looking for mortgage refinance data, there were car dealers looking for people who leased cars in their entire state, etc.There were probably twenty different quotes he was to run. I was still confused.

“Jessie, how do you get in touch with these people? How do they know you guys have the goods?” It was a simple enough question.

“Almost all of them find us on the internet. Our marketing team runs ads on Google and some other websites.”

“But you are not calling anyone?”

“No, we are already pretty busy.” Jessie replied. I about passed out. Now I saw exactly what Needer and Hood Rat saw. If these fucking guys had a hundred reps on the phones calling every mortgage broker, insurance agent, car dealer, and small business in America, there were billions to be made.

“Holy shit. It is all coming at you. Un-fucking believable.” I said out loud. My mind was racing. This could become a fortune.

I sat in Jessie’s cubicle and listened to him and Johnny talk to a few customers. It was all soft sales, and all of them were people who had been waiting on a quote. After a couple of hours, I took them out to lunch. I smoked some pot with them in the parking lot and told them I would be in touch soon. I drove down to the beach laughing and trying to put it all together. I got a six-pack of beer and found a picnic table next to the beach looking out over the ocean. The navy seemed like a hundred years ago. I reached for my cell phone and called Rat.

“Hey, how is California?” Rat answered. He could tell it was my number from caller ID.

“Fucking amazing. The tour I just got blew my mind. These guys are absolutely smashing it selling data.”

“So what does that mean for us?”

“It means we are getting into the data sales game immediately. What we are going to do is offer telemarketing services with the data. They get a few thousand names, and we bill them for the hours we call on it.” I replied, thinking of bundled sales.

“That will save us a lot of time searching for names to call.”

“Did everyone show up today?” I asked, expecting at least one not to have shown up.

“Yeah, Sanchez made a sale too.” replied Rat.

“To who?” I was excited.

“Some insurance guy in New Jersey. He told him he would call all week for $500, and the guy said he would do it. The problem is he asked if he could use a credit card, and we told him he could, but we don’t have a point of sale vendor yet.”

“Fucking Sanchez. That is beautiful. Search on the net somewhere and get us the best deal you can on a credit card point of sale vendor, and I will pay you back when I get back tomorrow. Have them FedEx that baby overnight. Call the guy and tell him our system is down right now and we will discount him 10% but will have to call him back on Monday morning.” I replied. I was happy Sanchez made a sale but forgot most people would want to use a credit card to pay for it.

“There are tons of those places. Most of them are online, so we might not need a swiping device at all. Let me look into it, but I will get it set up.” Rat replied. He was such a bright young guy. He was going to be my assistant, I determined on the spot. I would have to give him a little extra cash, but it would be well worth it.

“Fantastic. Let those guys go and tell them to be there at 9 a.m. on Monday. I will put some thoughts together here and roll out some stuff on Monday to you guys. Take care.”

“Will do. Have a good time out there. It started snowing again here.” Rat said as he hung up. I put the phone in my pocket and took a swig off the beer. I looked out over the ocean and just smiled. We had come a long way in just a matter of hours.

Chapter 7

Bing, Bang, Boom 

It didn’t take long after the conference call with Jessie and Johnny for us to make our first sale. Rat bagged a life insurance agent on a Basic Package for $750. The guy just wanted in-office appointments to do financial profiles with customers. It was literally what I used to do at Davis, Jones, and Limb. The guys were gathered around on the fluffed call and got to hear the entire call flow. That was all it took. The flame was lit. We had four sales in our first full week on the phone. One Deluxe Package, one Standard Package, and three Basic Packages. We cleared over $6,000. The names from Jessie cost us $600. The money was split in three ways: a third for the commission, a third for the bills, and a third for me. I made $2,000. The reps split $2,000 in commission, and all of them were earning more than I would have had to pay out at their $8 minimum hourly wage. We were off to a good start. 

The kids would see the guys calling in the basement when I would have them sometimes. They learned all their names, and the guys always took time to interact with them. It was during one of these days with the kids that I learned Marci was going out with a guy named Shane from work. Was this the same guy from work we helped move into a house on the southeast side last year? That innocent little tidbit sent my mind racing. Was Shane involved all along? Wow, I never saw that coming. That hurt. I wanted to probe the kids about what they knew about Shane, but doing so would only be repeated to Marci when I was not around. I thought it best to say nothing at the time and changed the subject. I just couldn’t shake it.

When she walked out, it was half my fault. I was the one who failed out of the insurance and financial industry and caused us to file for bankruptcy. I was the one who went back to WorldCom instead of another industry, only to lose my job again. Now I was just a pothead, guitar player wannabe that was a glorified unemployed telemarketer in her eyes. There was no mention of Shane or any other guy when she walked out. It should not have mattered, but it did. This guy was probably going to be around my kids. If he was the kind of guy who would carry on an affair with a married woman, he was of dubious character anyways. I was stunned. However, I myself would be nominated by no one for ethical business model of the year. It was just a different kind of burn. 

It was over, and I had to get used to that fact. I took to the internet and looked up some internet dating sites. I scrolled around on the free guest pass and noticed several women I would sleep with at a minimum. It had been a while since I had sex, and waking up with a woman is a wonderful feeling I missed. I sorted out my preferences and slimmed it down to college-educated, 25-35 years of age, and single. What I got back was pretty good, I thought. All their profiles were pretty similar; “I am new to this internet dating and just thought I would give it a try. I am not into games. No players need to bother. I like....” Some were good-looking, and some not. Instead of reading all their profiles, I made a simple spam email that read, “I like your profile. Cute pictures. Tell me more about yourself.” I would shoot that baby to every woman on there I would have sex with. Any that would bite back obviously would have advanced to step two.

“You out there looking for a little bung beatin’ on the internet.” I forgot to close the browser when Palmecci came up behind me at my desk in the basement.

“No. Just looking.” I replied. I didn’t want to talk about romance with Palmecci.

“There are some kinky babes on there.”

“What? Are you on one of these sites?” The thought of going out with a woman any of my crew had touched sent shivers down my spine. They were all about 15 years younger, but the internet dating was a new animal.

“I am on all of them that are free.” Palmecci replied.

“Shit, now I am going to have to ask all of these women if they know you.”

“They all know my love is nationwide.” Palmecci boasted.

“Your love is Open Road’s cock.” Sanchez wasted no opportunity as he came up from behind, only hearing part of the conversation.

“Guess who is trying to get laid on the internet?” Palmecci thumbed in my direction.

“That’s great. Tell him that one about you in Indiana. The one with the Amish guys.” Sanchez prompted Palmecci, who now looked embarrassed.

“What is this?” I have heard many drunken fat skeezer stories from Palmecci and read his name in the paper a couple of times but never anything with Amish guys.

“Tell him, like you told me, you shibag.” Sanchez insisted.

“Well,” Palmecci began. “I was working laying cable on a contract gig with these other guys in Indiana after I got fired for telling a customer to fuck off at WorldCom. They said the hottest thing in town was going to the bars looking for Amish dudes. I guess they are looking for guys to bring back home and fuck their wives while they watch. They are trying to improve the bloodline.” Palmecci almost sounded believable, if you were in fourth grade. Sanchez burst out laughing again.

“The best part is he believed it. He got drunk and went out into a bar and started up a conversation about it with a guy that wasn’t even Amish and about got his ass kicked.” Sanchez finished the story for an ashamed Palmecci who didn’t bother denying it.

“Fuck you, Sanchez. That fucking mustache has cum stains from Open Road on it, you shitbag.” Palmecci wanted the subject dropped.

“Try your old girlfriend, Sandra.” Sanchez replied.

“Oh yeah, how does my cock taste?”

“I don’t know. She said you could never get it up and were a drunken shitbag.”

“She was a skank. I cut her loose.” Palmecci was lying.

“That is not what I heard. I heard you got drunk and puked on her mom and dad’s couch. She said you shit in the toilet and didn’t even flush it. She told me she loaned you like $500 you said was for books for college. You took it to the casino and lost it all.” Sanchez recited what was probably the truth. 

“That’s bullshit.”

“I tend to believe her. Don’t worry, I’m taking care of her now. There was a picture of you that was in a frame. I stuck my finger up my ass and wiped it across your upper lip. That way if she ever thinks back and brings the picture anywhere near her face the idea will smell like shit.” Sanchez replied and started laughing at his own insult.

I laughed too. Sanchez probably did it. “Ladies. Enough. Where is Rat?”

“He’s working on my quote for another Standard Package in the other room.” Palmecci replied eager to change the subject.

“Dynamite. That is your second one.”

“Rat threw down a Deluxe Package last week that just called back too.” added Sanchez.

I got up and went into the bedroom that had been converted into our boiler room. “How are we doing?” I asked Rat who was typing away on his laptop.

“We might have a problem with the credit cards.” he looked serious.

“What kind of problem?”

“The problem is this stupid customer protection. We just got a chargeback of $3,000 on a Deluxe Package because it was not what the customer thought they were getting.”

I never thought of that. “They can just reverse the charge like that?”

“Yeah, that isn’t the only one. There is another one that is sitting in the customer service inbox.”

“We have to cancel the credit card option.” I made a split decision.

“Everyone wants to use their credit card though.” Rat was right.

“Not everyone. That is why Jessie had those checks on the wall. Once you send a check, it is as good as sending cash. These guys are all going to want a refund. The first thing we have to do is cut off the refunds. We can offer them additional data if they want to try again, but we bill them for the time, not the results. Checks only.” I replied. There would be no refunds.

“I will cancel these sales then because they all are credit cards. Do you want me to call them back and try and get a check?” he asked.

“That will sound shady. Credit those all back that we have gotten so far. I will call St. Nick and get that shopping cart idea off the website. Everything here forward is checks made out to Ashton Danbury. When the people call back, tell them the company made a switch last month, and the wrong invoices were sent out. Anyone requiring a new invoice gets a free week if they send in the check instead.” I said.

“That might work.” Rat’s response was not confident. 

“We don’t have a choice.”  

We only got half of the original credit card orders and were glad we figured out exactly why people were insisting on using their credit cards. The credit card’s fraud protection service issues a charge back as a disputed charge. This is after the original rep who rammed him got a 35% -50% commission. I got 35% all charged back after the chest beating of taking down a couple of nice sales too. It was probably one of the best calls I ever made; no credit cards, all checks or money orders for campaigns. I was convinced that was the sale right there; if we didn’t get their check right there, we didn’t have a chance. The geeks wanting to use a credit card already knew they would use the fraud protection play if it didn’t work out. Nope, getting their money without a refund and having them sign a contract that requires them to appear in Iowa if they want to fight about it in court was the game.  

It was a ramming machine from day one. It would be my revenge on the industry that failed me. An industry that recruited me into the promise of a good income, stable career, and professional prestige was a hoax. Where was my subsidy and salary when I needed it? It disappeared so Davis, Jones, and Limb could shake paying for health insurance, salaries, and expenses. Warren knew most couldn’t afford to when it changed over. I left and went underwater within a couple of years. Like me, I knew there were thousands of “professionals” in their French-cut shirts with Mont Blanc pens looking successful in meetings but sweating when it comes to next week’s appointment schedule. Where was the salary to get a professional through the weeks when there was zero income? As far as I was concerned, I was offering a reality check service for the agents and reps; they might be in the wrong line of business or needed to tighten up their game. The Basic, Standard, and Deluxe Packages were just the amount of consulting they would require. Robin Hood and his Merrymen with phones at their service. In return for their checks, all of us would learn valuable career advice.

“We have a new contest. Anyone who gets a Deluxe package in the next thirty days gets tickets and a room in Davenport to see Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, and beverages.”

“Nickelback blows. 3 Doors Down aren’t bad, Chad.” Rat liked folky bluegrass-type music and mocked my phone name.

“Fuck you, Rat. Nickelback and 3 Doors Down are pimp. I am in.” Sanchez said.

“Me too. I got a burning guy right now that I am going to super-size.” Palmecci was up for anything that was free.

“Name of the game is to get the check. If you get static about why we don’t take a credit card, it is because we pay our employees who run the campaigns in advance for the calling. If they want to use a check, they can use a credit card check, certified check, or money order. They will weasel and whine, but they can finance their dream without any credit card customer service agent granting them refunds, and that is really what they want. Wrong. Let’s make it happen.” I tried to sound motivating.

With that small pre-shift encouragement, the room started boiling. Hearing the guys all trying to get past secretaries, leaving messages, and pitching Ashton Danbury sounded like music. Rat had created a simple email spam piece that introduced us and the packages available for purchase. More importantly, he found a database of life and health agents that had all their contact information and emails. There were thousands of agents in the directory across America. The agents thought it would be a good idea to get some internet exposure by being a paying member of some national association that offers a little street cred to potential clients snooping around on the internet. To us, it was a gold mine. I shared the website with all the guys, and we divided up the states. Everyone got a call and an email. The guys were running around 70 calls a day, I could tell from the VOIP system we installed.

Another brilliant suggestion was the reference lines concocted by Sanchez and Palmecci. Both had said they had been asked for references of other agents who have used Ashton Danbury before. We could get two additional phones that we could make up any phone number to. I would role-play with any other agent about my feelings about Ashton Danbury’s service. The other phone would go to a generic voicemail set up with the fake agent’s name. The role I would play would be at their level but a step beyond. I was so successful I outsourced my marketing to professionals. I was busy closing huge deals. The reference numbers and cities could be changed out monthly. Someone else telling the prospects the path was clear was all that was needed for many. It was a unanimous decision and the two extra phones were set up and installed. It worked like a charm.

Within the first week, Palmecci qualified for the room and concert with a Deluxe Package I supersized to three for two with our bogus spring promotion. It was group health care. The guy wanted us to call companies and find out who their carrier was, how many employees they had, how much their premium was, and when their renewal date was. We learned this from our conference call with a lady that sent the check. She sounded like the wife of the guy that owned the agency. She set out her expectations, covered the script, and their contact numbers for people wanting someone to talk to immediately. We passed around a bong and drank beer while she was talking to a cloud of smoke in a conference call.

Sanchez bagged a life insurance agent on the three-for-two promotion for a Standard Package at $3,400. The Connecticut check was from a high-end life guy looking to roll CDs to single-premium life insurance or annuities. Same drill with the bogus conference call, acting like we were all getting a 15-minute lecture from the client and then back to finding other geeks to ram on the internet. I even got two sales on my own that month; a Basic and Standard Packages three-for-two ram. $4,500 that I didn’t have to split with anyone. It was in my own best interest to make phone calls. By the end of the month, we made $13,459.00. We paid for about $1,300 in data. All checks cleared. I ended up getting a suite and would take the large bed. Sanchez and Palmecci could fight over the other bedroom or the couch. Rat opted not to go.  

“Check out what I just scored?” Sanchez showed me three hits of acid.

“Where did you get that?” It had been a while, but I loved LSD.

“Flounder’s buddy.”

“I haven’t seen acid in a while.” I replied as I tried to think of the last time I tripped on acid.

“This is going to be a great show.” Palmecci said as he looked into Sanchez’s hand.

“Fuck yeah, we can go back to the room after the show. We can hang out by the pool and go swimming.” I suggested. I didn’t want to get too far off the grid tripping acid with Palmecci and Sanchez.

“There could be some chicks there.” Palmecci stated the obvious.

“I am in.” I replied with a smile.

We dropped the acid and drove all the way to Davenport and smoked some weed Sanchez scored off Flounder’s guy as well. By the time we got to Davenport, the acid was setting in, and we couldn’t find The Mark in Moline on the other side of the river in Illinois. A gas station attendant told us it was literally across the street, and by the time we parked the car in the lot, the acid peak was starting to come on. We got past the yellow jacketed security guards and then, as soon as we passed through the doors, we could hear a band on stage. 

We made it to our seats up on the balcony. Palmecci and Sanchez were geeking out, I could tell by the look on their faces as they sat two rows down from me. 3 Doors Down were a band of guys in their twenties out of Mississippi that played radio-friendly rock music. I felt sorry for the opening acts of any show because they intentionally don’t get the full stage, full audio, or lights as the headliner. The band still sounded professional and tight. During the show, I could see Palmecci stare off into the crowd with a blank but stoned expression. He didn’t notice me sitting two rows behind him. I sent him a text that I was in his underwear, and he looked down at his crotch after he read the text. He looked up confused. I yelled at him from behind to get his attention. We burst out laughing. Palmecci connected the dots of the set-up with the text from behind and burst out laughing. Nickelback came on, and the lights and volume went up. The sound of the Mesa Engineering amps and Paul Reed Smith guitars was beautiful. They had it turned up loud too. The drop D tuning gave the music more of a shoving bass sound across the crowd. Chad Kroeger screamed it out on the microphone, and I was screaming it out on the phone. Sure, he was making millions of dollars, but my ticket was only $60. Ashton Danbury’s cheapest package was $750.

As the show ended, the lights came on to let the crowd know it was over. The problem was Palmecci disappeared. “Where in the fuck is Palmecci?”

“I don’t know. He was just here. He said he had to take a piss.” Sanchez said as we looked around the arena.

First, there were about 13,000 people at the show. Half of those people cleared out in ten minutes. In ten more minutes, there were about 200 people left in the auditorium. There was no Palmecci.

“Shit, he’s not here. You check the bathrooms, and I will check around the building. We will meet out front.” I told Sanchez, and we made our way down the stairs.“He better not have gotten busted. He’s fucked up.”

“He’s twenty-one.”

“Doesn’t matter. He is smoked. He was talking to himself in the show.” I replied.

“Let’s find him.” Sanchez said as he walked in the opposite direction.

I walked no more than two or three steps out the front door and stopped. There were two security guards in yellow jackets carrying Palmecci flat, face to the ground, with his pants at his ankles in the cold. “Yo, hey, I am going to claim that one. He’s with me. I am sober. I got him.” I said as I approached the security guys. They looked at me and couldn’t tell I was tripping too.

“Hey, Oh my god, where have you been?” Palmecci’s face was white as a ghost. He looked like he was just plucked from the sea.

“Where have I been? I was inside at the show. Where have you been?”

“I got lost. These guys saved me.” Palmecci said as the security guards dropped him.

“We found him trying to shit on a snow bank and then he fell down the hill with his pants down and just laid there. We can’t be having this.” the burly black security guard said.

“Fellas, don’t worry. I will take him home.” I paused to see if they would at least stop trying to haul him in. “Palmecci pull your fucking pants up for shit sake.” I was lucky they were just security for the parking lot and not a badge.

“You know this guy?” the other security guard asked.

“Yeah, he works for me. I can take him from here. Thanks for the good work.”

“He’s all yours. Make sure you get home safe.” the black security guard said and they walked away.

“No problem.” I replied and looked down at a spooked Palmecci.

I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Palmecci looked like he was in shock. “Pull your freakin’ pants up.” I yelled down at a distracted former Marine now lying on the cold pavement with his pants down. Most people had left the area but I didn’t want other security guards or worse, the cops, to walk up on us again.

“It’s so cold.” whined Palmecci. 

“Yeah, it would be warmer with your pants up. C’mon, man.” I helped him up to his feet as he struggled to pull his pants up. I was still tripping, and it seemed surreal. “Why did you take your pants down?”

“I had to take a shit. The bathrooms were full, so I came out here and got lost. It started getting cold, and I had to go bad. I squatted over and shit on a snowbank, and those guys shined a flashlight on me. I got up to walk away and slipped, falling down the hill. They jumped on me and hauled me in like that.” Palmecci confessed as he pulled his pants up.

“They said you were passed out in a snowbank.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Hey, you found him.” Sanchez walked out of the arena doors and saw us.

“The security guys found him. They were hauling him in face down with his pants at his ankles. They said he passed out in a snowbank.” I told Sanchez what I was told.

“Were you out here getting your asshole pounded by a trucker in the parking lot, Palmecci?” Sanchez asked. I started laughing again.

“I was taking a shit.” Palmecci knew everyone would be told this story a hundred times.

“Why not go in the arena bathroom, dumbass?” Sanchez asked the obvious.

“The people in there were freakin’ me out. I had to get out of there.” Palmecci replied as we started walking towards the car.

“You shit your pants, didn’t you?” Sanchez kept prodding him.

“No, I didn’t shit my pants, you fucker.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black and white cruiser. “Be cool; there is a cop. Keep heading for the car.”

We got in the car without incident, and immediately it smelled like shit. The cop drove slowly past, making sure we planned on evacuating the parking lot. I wanted to roll the window down, but being cold out, it would attract the attention of the police at the checkpoint on the way out. I surely could not stop and get out of the car. We skipped the hotel, and I slowly motored my way out of the parking lot and onto the highway back over the river into Iowa.

“Palmecci, you stink so fucking bad you are ruining my trip. You either shit yourself or fell over in it after.” I said, and we began laughing hysterically as the smell filled the car.“You better not get that on my car back there, Palmecci, or you will be cleaning it off with your lips.”

“I think it is on my hand.” Palmecci said from the backseat.

We burst out laughing. “Palmecci, wiped his ass with his hand after he shit.” Sanchez suggested.

“Fuck you, Sanchez. I had to use snow. I was fucking tripping the whole time too.” Palmecci knew there was no justifying that stunt, but he had to try.

“Ol’ Snow Hole, Palmecci. He got caught leaving the concert to have some security guard throw it in his shitter out in the parking lot and then arrest him. I can’t wait to tell everyone.” Sanchez said, and we laughed so hard I was crying.

“That’s not what happened, Sanchez.” Palmecci tried to defend what was left of his shitty reputation. 

“Yeah, what did happen then?” asked Sanchez.

Out of the backseat, Palmecci leaned and turned on the light on his video camera on his phone. With his other finger, he reached forward and stroked it quickly across Sanchez’s upper lip. “It was on my finger. Now all you have to do is sniff and see if it is dog shit or my shit across your lip, you fuckin’ shitbag.” Palmecci burst out laughing, and I almost swerved off the road I was laughing so hard. I turned on the overhead light, and as soon as I saw the Dirty Sanchez wiped across the upper lip of Sanchez himself, he vomited on himself. Down the front of his shirt and into his lap. He tried to bring his hand to his mouth, but it too was now covered in vomit.

“Get it out the window.” I tried to yell, but I was laughing so hard I could barely drive. As fortune would have it, we were right at a turn-off highway rest stop. I pulled in slowly and a couple of cars away from a dark limousine. Sanchez opened up the door and took off his shirt and wiped his face.

“You are fuckin’ dead, Palmecci.” Sanchez threatened as he stomped off towards the restroom bare-chested, carrying his vomit-soaked shirt he planned on washing in the sink. 

“Get the fuck out of my car and go get that shit cleaned off. Go get some paper towels from the restroom and some soap, man.” I said to Palmecci as he got out from the back seat. I couldn’t see a poop smudge or any vomit, but the entire car stunk like vomit and shit. Maybe it was on his finger, not on his shoe. It was childish but a brilliant stroke by Palmecci. Headed back to the basement boiler room with a testimonial of being carried like a plank by security with your pants down and shit on you could never be recovered from. No matter what the conversation or argument of the future would be about, it would end with an insult from all of us.

“You better get in there and make friends with your landlord, smart ass. You are not sleeping on my couch like you do theirs.” I yelled at Palmecci as he walked away. 

I noticed two guys in suits and jackets standing out front of the restroom area by the entrance to the building. They obviously were with the party in the limo. They didn’t react to Sanchez and Palmecci approaching and entering. I rolled down the windows and got out of my car for a couple of minutes. It was freezing. I jumped back in and did a closer inspection with the interior lights on and waited for the guys to come out of the restroom. They seemed to be taking a while. I hoped they didn’t start fighting in the restroom. The guys in suits didn’t seem to be too concerned. No one got out of the limo; the two guys just stood around out front. From behind them came another white guy in his 60s wearing a suit and coat. The other two guys escorted the guy to the limo, opened his door, and then got in front. The limo promptly started, reversed, and got back on the interstate. I got a good look at him. It wasn’t anyone famous I knew.

Sanchez emerged from the restroom still without his shirt on and laughing. “Palmecci just got hit on in a stall by a truck stop fag.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sanchez was laughing hard and out of breath. “That guy in the suit was a fag. He hit on Palmecci in the shitter just now.”

“What?” I was confused. From the exit doors emerged a bewildered-looking Palmecci. “What happened?”

“I went in to get some toilet paper to wipe my ass. As soon as I pulled my pants down, I saw this leather dress shoe slide under the partition. I didn’t say anything until he slid his hand under the partition. I yelled at him, and he took off. Sanchez just let him go.” explained Palmecci.

“That is bullshit. You are the guy pulling his pants down around the other security guys. That was probably your foot sliding under the stall playing footsie with a trucker to bash your dirtbox like the security guards did.” Sanchez was laughing hysterically.

“That is not what the tape tells us now, does it, Sanchez? I already uploaded it, so even if you steal my phone, you will pay. I can’t wait until Sandra sees your fat melon with a real Dirty Sanchez. I am sure she will be running her mouth about that at the bowling alley. You are going to be a viral video, Sanchez. Millions of hits from YouTube. You just could have made me a fortune.” Palmecci poked Sanchez in the chest.

“I’ll beat your ass if you post that video. I am telling you now.” Sanchez had fear in his eyes. The thought of being the star of a viral YouTube video with shit on your lip was terrifying.

“Sanchez, you even think so much as to mouth off to me, let alone tell anyone ever about tonight, I will posterize your ass. I will make a fucking website that just runs that video. I will try and start a fan club. I will post it on the bowling league’s website. You will have to go back to sucking cock in the sauna at your gay gym.” Palmecci yelled confidently at Sanchez.

“You post that video anywhere, and you get your ass beat. You heard me.”

“Is that a threat, Sanchez?”

“Would you ladies shut the hell up already? It’s over.” I interjected.

“Yeah, Palmecci, where are you sleeping tonight? My couch, again. Do you know how many wet farts I have launched on that baby, let alone the amount of skanks Flounder fucked on that couch? Can you smell that when your nose is jammed between the cushions?” Sanchez yelled back as she slammed the car door.

“That is temporary. I am moving out as soon as I get my next sale. I am going to get my own place.” Palmecci replied, ignoring the fact his pillow had been punished for years by Sanchez and Flounder.

“Try getting a sale first.” I added.

“I got a couple of guys in the pipeline that are just burning too.”

“Yeah, I got a guy on a seminar package. This guy is buying steak dinners to a restaurant to hear him speak at a banquet hall at some hotel in Charlotte. Might be a three-for-two. He is talking to his buddy.” Sanchez said as the conversation switched over to Ashton Danbury.

The remainder of the drive, we came down off our acid and had some good, meaningful conversation about the business itself. The guys all liked it. They felt empowered to speak in a compelling manner to guys with more education and money and win. Getting their check was winning. In our third month, we were up to what we were making at WorldCom. It was a good team builder, and I was optimistic.

Chapter 9

Full Steam Ahead

“I like your profile too. Your pictures are cute. What do you do for a living?” It was a response from a younger blonde with big boobs from the internet dating site that replied to my spam. I was excited. I typed out a return message that said I was in marketing, had a couple of kids, and liked music, art, travel, and wine. She hit back within a matter of minutes and wanted to know if I was interested in lunch or a drink. Her name was Alicia. She was twenty-six and 11 years younger than I was. The guys came back from lunch talking loudly and smelling like weed, so I closed the browser.

“You want to talk to those guys we were telling you about?” Rat asked as he walked into my office. I could see two guys in the small hallway behind Rat peeking in.

“Sure, bring them in. Where did you find them?”

“Sanchez and I were playing pool with them at The Shit House. They just got cut from Dig It. They have unemployment for a few months, so they have some extra time on their hands.”

“Sounds good.” I replied as the two individuals walked into my office. They looked like telemarketers in their jeans, T-shirts, and stoned-looking eyes. “So you fellas want to get on the phones, huh?” I asked as I looked to see how eager they were. One was probably fifty years old and named Herb. The other guy was younger and named Koblyska. Both looked like burnouts.

“Yeah, fucking Dig It fired us for no reason. I am looking for something new. These guys said you are paying pretty good.” The young guy named Koblyska with a Bob Marley shirt replied.

“What is Dig It?” I had never heard of it.

“They drill holes. They are an Australian company new in town. They got a new building from the state of Iowa. They don’t want to pay the $16 an hour for labor there, so we brought them over here to pay Iowans about half that. It is a non-union shop. They can fire people for anything.” explained Herb.

“Iowa is a right-to-work state. It sounds good, but it really means it is a right to fire anyone for any reason, state.” I reminded them.

“Fuck those guys.” Koblyska said as he looked out my window down to the street.

“Well, what we do is talk to rich guys on the phone and talk to them about their success. There are some simple marketing plans they can choose from that range from $750 to around $5,000 depending on what they want. Do you think you can do that?”

“I am all about the money.” Herb seemed more eager than his younger counterpart.

“You guys ever been on the phones? I mean legit telemarketing experience.” I asked, not really wanting to hire guys that would just sit around and get stoned and drink beer but produce no results.

“Yeah, I worked at WorldCom a few years back in customer service.” Koblyska answered.

“How did that work out for you?” I was curious. Customer service was a shit job. Idiots would call in after a sales rep rammed them and cry about their billing being all fucked up. 

“I told an Indian guy he was a bullshitter and they fired me.” Koblyska reminded me why I hated customer service. I remembered talking to a customer service supervisor in a meeting about the Patel calls. These idiots were so miserly and stupid. They would call back to India for fifty seconds and then hang up and repeat about ten times in a row. Then they would call customer service and ask for a credit because they had a bad connection. Tons of them would do it and the rep had to sit there and listen to it while looking at the previous notes from earlier calls all identifying the guy as a shitbag.

“That is actually a good answer. We called it the Patel data. You should have gotten into sales instead of customer service.” I said to Koblyska, who looked like the typical person we had on the sales floor.

“How about you, Herb?”

“Yeah, I used to sell for Cardella last year.” He replied, trying to sound confident.

“Cardella? You mean you hustled broke idiots into worthless $10 a month prescription card benefits on their shitty $500 credit card limits at 29% interest?” I asked. The entire operation was a scam picking on the poor credit scores. The benefit was accepted by almost no one, and by the time the card holders figured it out, they got soaked for a couple hundred bucks. It was a decent-sized call center with about 100 reps on the phones on the southwest side of the city. 

They seemed good enough. Since they already had unemployment coming in, I would pay them in cash if they got any sales. They also would not starve to death while that sat around trying to learn our hustle. “I will let you listen in for a while, and if it is something you want to do, I can get a couple more cubicles and phones set up for you guys. Rat, let them monitor you and Sanchez for a few calls. Show them the drill.” I told Rat, and he led the newcomers into the boiler room. 

My thoughts returned to Alicia. I opened up my profile and replied to her, saying we could have lunch at The Shit House. It was not the ideal location for a first date, but if it went well, I could take her somewhere nicer. It had been months since I had sex, and there were no women in my world. The internet was a great way to see several women were available in the area. Most of them were not something I would pursue, but there were some very nice ones. I was hoping Alicia would be as sexy as she looked in her pictures. I sent the invitation to The Shit House for drinks, and she accepted quickly. I was excited again.

I was interrupted by loud laughter in the boiler room and left my desk to see what was going on. The childish pranks had taken on a new level of retarded when Sanchez decided to hang Sandra’s anal beads on the wall next to his Wall of Rammers. He had been printing off stories of financial and insurance agents who got caught screwing over their customers and making a montage of degenerates that were our prospects. The anal beads were hung from the top. It was ridiculous. 

“Tell him to take that shit down.” Palmecci was pissed.

“Fuck you, man. You put whatever you want on your desk but keep your hands off mine.” Sanchez defended his position.

“You stuck those up your ass and hung them on the wall. That is disgusting.” Palmecci had a point. Sanchez would laugh his ass off trying to tell guys they still smelled like some residual of a hot lady he had a sexual encounter with only to burst out laughing when he told people it was his asshole they were smelling.

“Wrong, again. I stuck them up your old girlfriend Sandra’s ass and she loved it. Why don’t you come take a sniff and tell me I am lying instead?” Sanchez and Palmecci were at it again.

“Fuck you, Sanchez. You stuck those up your own ass and think everyone is going to fall for it.” The place was in tears with laughter. The fact Sanchez was now with Sandra ate away at Palmecci. He didn’t care she was gone. The fact she fell into the arms of Sanchez was humiliating. This could never be admitted to anyone. However, Sanchez wasn’t going to back down.

“Palmecci, you have the scratch and sniff centerfold above your desk with what appears to be the entire crotch scratched out. I don’t think Sanchez’s anal beads should be offensive to a decorated Marine Corps vet.” I said as I pointed to the centerfold in Palmecci’s cubicle with a hole in the crotch.

“The Corps has honor. Sanchez has none.” Palmecci said proudly.

“You didn’t seem very honorable at the concert the other night, Marine.” I implied I could throw down the entire story with immunity, and both of them would be laughed out of the boiler room. Both Sanchez and Palmecci’s faces went from laughter to serious.

“What happened at the concert?” Rat asked Palmecci.

“Nothing. We got pretty drunk.” Palmecci responded and obviously was lying, hoping it would die.

“What did you do that was so other than honorable?” asked Rat.

“None of your business.” Palmecci was getting pissed.

“You get arrested?” Rat was persistent. He knew it had to be juicy if Palmecci told him it was none of his business.

“He almost did.” Sanchez offered.

“I would watch your mouth, Sanchez.” warned Palmecci.

“Watch my mouth? Fuck you. Go find a new couch to sleep on, poopy pants.” Sanchez skirted around disclosure.

“Poopy Pants? Did you shit your pants at the concert?” Rat asked, and I started laughing thinking about the activities the night of the concert. Herb and Koblyska were laughing along with the rest of us. Their first day in the office, and it was anal beads and pooping your pants. It was unbelievable.

“I didn’t shit my pants. I didn’t get arrested either.” Technically, he didn’t get arrested. If he shit his pants or not was never determined.

“So, what’s up with the poopy pants?” continued Rat.

“Fuck you, Palmecci.” Sanchez couldn’t resist. “That dumb mother fucker tripped out on acid and ran outside the arena to shit because he got scared in the bathroom. Then he shit on a snow bank and fell in it when the security got him. They carried him back with his pants at his ankles. The Marine Corps would be proud of Sargent Ishitmypants.” Sanchez boasted loudly, and the boiler room erupted. Palmecci was infuriated.

“That’s it, Sanchez. You’re done, asshole. The video is going up right now. Soon the entire world will see me swipe the shitty finger I used to wipe my asshole without any toilet paper right across your fucking cock duster, you shitbag. I will never delete it!” Palmecci yelled as he started thumbing through his phone. I could barely breathe; I was laughing so hard. Just as I thought the guys might start swinging at each other, the phone rang. It was a reference line. I gave the signal, and the boiler room went silent. I took a deep breath.

“This is Ted.” I answered.

“Ted, hi, my name is George Hatwell. I am an agent down in Atlanta, and I was given your name by a guy named Steve Piersanti. He said you worked with a company called Ashton Danbury to do some appointment setting for you. I was just checking in to see how it worked out for you.”

“No worries. I did the same thing before I used them. I am not really sure what they are doing, and, to be honest, I don’t care. They set up legitimate appointments for me, and that is all I really care about it.”

“I am in the annuity business. What line of work are you in?” he asked.

“I am in the annuity business myself. I prefer the indexed annuity with the long-term care rider. It allows the beneficiary to take 2% of the death benefit on a monthly basis in the event they need to go into a long-term care facility. If they don’t, then the death benefit passes on to the beneficiary. Sure, the mortality and morbidity charges are going to be a little higher, but it seems to be hot with my clients.” I threw enough industry lingo at him to let him know I was not some guy standing at a payphone.

“I’ve seen those. I am just selling a straight fixed annuity with no bells and whistles. I do a workshop with seniors over a dinner at a nice local place that has kind of run flat. I was thinking to try those guys out. I have been burned before and just want to make sure they are legit.” the guy replied. He was doomed. It amazed me how many times people would say that when they called the reference lines. One would think after one internet company packed it in your shitter with bogus leads you would have learned your lesson. 

“Yeah, that is how I started. Now I just have them come to my office. I hated getting a bunch of plate lickers in there who had no intention of buying anything. They just wanted a free steak dinner. Having those guys just set them up seems to work better. I will be going to the Million Dollar Roundtable again this year.” I replied. It was an industry awards ceremony for the bigger hitters. The biggest at the event sat at the top of the table. The biggest in the industry skipped it.

“Sounds like it is working good for you. Well, thanks for your information. I think I am going to give those guys a try.”

“Best of luck to you.” I replied and hung up the phone. “That one was fo you, Piersanti.” I said to Sanchez. “He’s burning too. He will verify.”

Sanchez was excited. “Was that the hillbilly gimp with the seminars?”

“Yeah, he was calling out of Atlanta.”

“Fuck yeah! That is a three for two on a Deluxe Package. That is going to be about $6,000.” Sanchez was beating his chest. “It is all due to my lucky anal beads.”

“Whatever. Check your inbox.” Palmecci said. Sanchez was jerked right back into reality. Did Palmecci actually do it?

“Oh my fucking, God.” Rat burst out laughing at the short clip. “I love the look in your face just as you noticed the smell of shit and then start puking.” I looked over Rat’s shoulder as he played the thirty-second video again. Palmecci sent it to everyone in the office and several emails I didn’t recognize. 

“Oh, you are dead, Palmecci.” Sanchez charged towards Palmecci with his fists clinched.

“Fuck you, shit lips. Can you still smell my asshole in your fag mustache?” Palmecci stood up, ready to swing. I stepped in between them.

“I don’t know. The more I think about it, I think you sucked that guy’s cock in the rest stop. You figured your asshole was already loose, so you wanted some interstate shitbag to pack it in your shitter for a quickie. Tell them the whole story.” Sanchez demanded as the boiler room burst out in laughter again.

“Fuck you, Sanchez. That was your grandpa smoking cock through the glory hole.” Palmecci fired back.

“What in the hell are you idiots talking about?” Rat asked, almost exhausted with laughter.

“Some guy that was in a limo made a pass at Palmecci and Sanchez in the rest stop and then took off in a limo with two bodyguards. It was pretty weird. I didn’t see what happened inside, but something happened.” I testified to what I witnessed from my car.

“You gotta be kidding me. You guys had one hell of a night.” Herb joined in.

“It was out of control.” I paused. It was a learning moment. “Guys, I don’t want any fights in here and guys too pissed off to show up to work. I don’t care what you say or do on the phones. Just don’t be starting shit that brings the company name into anything. The name of the game is to keep it going, not get pissed off and end up taking a job digging holes because your feelings got hurt.” I said as I looked over the team.

“This is fucking killer. I am in. When can I start?” Herb said as he looked over the crowd of twenty-somethings who managed to find what appeared to be a gold vein.

“I am in too. I got unemployment running for the next six months, so if you paid mine in cash, I will be here every day.” Koblyska chimed in.

“Everyone gets a company check. What you do with it is up to you. I can pay you in cash until unemployment runs out, but after that, it is paychecks.” I replied. The last thing I needed was the employment authorities looking into my business. The guys themselves were not a threat because they were broke and knew zero about the law or cared. However, a nosy unemployment investigation would require me to deem them employees, and I would have to pay taxes, withhold garnishments, pay quarterly taxes, and pay for a payroll service.

“That is cool. Works fine with me.” Herb spoke up.

“Rat, get these guys fixed up with a couple of emails. Call the warehouse place and get us a couple more cubicles. Then get us a couple more desktops and phones. They should be here in a couple of days. These guys can start on Monday. I will get down and talk to the bank about leasing out the offices next to us. We need a little more room.” I told Rat as I retreated into my office. The boiler room was a madhouse, but the hillbilly sounded solid. That check alone would pay for the office, the internet, the commission, and the data and still leave me with a couple of grand. I was sitting on $24,000 in the checking account, and there were several checks that were inbound. We made it out of the basement and were stretching our legs.

I focused on the date with Alicia. It was the one thing missing in my life. My son also mentioned the name Shane when I was talking to him. He came over to watch movies one night when the kids were there and spent the night. I was still pissed. Instead of looking at moving on, I was hung up on the fact that she walked out on me for another guy. Never was it mentioned that another guy was on her radar. To fuck me over, our kids and families for some geek in the cubicle next to her after telling everyone what an asshole I was was too much to stomach. Nope, I couldn’t take it. She didn’t have to have this guy over at her place around the kids. There was nothing I could do about it, but she was doing it knowing the kids would tell me, and it was just her way of saying fuck off. It was time to make an introduction.

I jumped in my car and drove to Aegon, where she worked. It is a large insurance company that employs a few thousand minions in Cedar Rapids. Mullbeck was a former big hitter for them before he struck out on his own. I didn’t know where her desk was, but I wasn’t looking for her. I was looking for Shane. I wanted to let him know that not only did I know he was lurking around but that I suspected he was fooling around with my wife before the divorce. No punches would be thrown, but he was going to be called out on the carpet in front of the other employees, and then I would leave.

I parked my car in the parking lot and walked up to the main entrance. I approached the security guard. “I am looking for a guy named Shane Boyd in your customer service department.”

“I will see if I can locate him.” the security guard said as he dialed a phone number. He hung up, “It appears he is not in the office today but away on a training session.”

“How about Matt Von Vechten?” I asked. He was a gay guy that was there helping the day we moved in with Shane. He was one of Marci’s work buddies. The security guard picked up the phone again, and in a couple of minutes, a lumpy white guy in a pink shirt and white pants emerged from behind one of the doors in the corridor.

“Matt, good to see you.” I greeted him. “I just wanted to let you know that I am aware of Shane and Marci. I am also aware that it probably started long before what is going on now.”

“I don’t know. I try and stay out of people’s personal lives.” He replied, feeling uncomfortable. 

“Unfortunately, your friend, Shane, doesn’t. In fact, you tell that son of a bitch if he ever sees me out in town, it is in his best interest just to start running. You got it?” I said sternly.

“Sure, I guess. I mean...” I cut him off, did an about-face, and walked out the front doors. He promptly went to the security desk and told them I was a former Navy special forces guy who was pissed and in the parking lot looking for Shane. The security guard sounded the alert with an email. Marci was called in to Human Resources for questioning. Now everyone in the entire building would know that Marci cheated on her husband with a fellow employee after telling anyone that would listen to her about what an asshole I was. I drove back to the boiler room, proud of myself. I didn’t break the law. It might not have been professional, but I got my point across. 

That afternoon, after I left the office, Marci saw me driving down Rockford Road on my way home. She turned her car around and started following me. I pulled over and got out. She was smokin’ pissed. “You fucking asshole. You come to my place of employment and make threats? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

I didn’t give a shit. “I just thought I would let everyone else know the truth about you and Shane.”

“Shane and I are none of your business. You think your kids would like to see you get arrested for harassment, assshole?”

“Nobody was harassed. The only one who is going to get harassed is Shane if I ever see him.”

“What are you going to do? He would kick your ass.”

“I doubt it. After he has fucked you a few more times, he will move on to the next bimbo at work.” I replied.

“You’ve lost your mind. I am going to get a restraining order on your ass. See if you like that.” She yelled at me and gave me the finger. She turned around, got back in her car, and sped off. I just stood there shaking my head.

“He probably has a huge cock and threw it in her smokehole.” Someone yelled from across the road. I looked over to see who made the comment, and it was Open Road, Benny. He was hauling a wheelbarrow full of junk from one pile to the next in his front yard. I looked around. There was no one else. I wanted to say something but elected just to get back in my car and drive home. Alicia changed our date to dinner, and I needed to get home to shower and change.  

I didn’t give a shit anymore about Marci. I was making money and had a date with a good-looking younger woman. Back we were firing on all cylinders. I picked up Herb and Koblyska for a few weeks and a couple of other former WorldCom guns on the phone: Old School, a forty-something ex-con that was thunder on the phone at WorldCom, and Charlie BrownFinger, another stunner that was on my team back in the day. In a matter of months, we were up to seven guys and bringing in $20,000 a month.

Herb and Koblyska, however, were the first two employees I lost. One Saturday morning, I got a call from Sanchez who said he went down to the office and Herb was passed out in the boiler room. I had the kids with me, and I took them along. When I got down to the bank building, the kids would run up the old staircase as I would chase them. They loved running around the old building and the hallways. I got to the fourth floor and went into the bathroom. It immediately stunk like someone broke a bottle of whiskey on the floor. I looked around, but there was no glass on the floor, but it was wet. I went to the boiler room and found Sanchez surfing on the internet with Herb behind him, passed out in his chair with his headset on. The entire boiler room stunk of cheap cologne and booze.

“Herb, what in the fuck are you doing?” I yelled loud enough to partially wake him.

“I’m making calls.” He mumbled.

“What happened in the bathroom?”

“He fucking passed out on the shitter and dropped his bottle. He didn’t have keys to the office, so he sat in there drinking whiskey. He must have dropped the bottle and fell in it because he is soaking wet and reeks like booze. Lucky I went in there to take a piss before I came into the office, or he would still be slumped over the shitter.” Sanchez turned to describe what he found upon arrival.

“Did anyone from the bank see him?” I asked. The bank employees were not real fond of us playing handball in the hallway. It wasn’t really handball; it was like baseball with a giant paper wad taped into a ball and one guy swinging his hand like a bat as the other guy threw fast pitches at him. They could have torn up the contract and evicted us over the Herb stunt, though.

“I don’t think so.”

I turned my attention towards Herb. “You are done, Herb. I can’t have guys acting up where the bank folks can see. If I get thrown out of here because of a stunt like this, it would be a huge pain in my ass and a lot of money to set up shop somewhere else. Sorry, but you are done.” I told him as I took his headset off.

“I am not drunk.” Herb slurred back at me.

“Sanchez, get his ass into a cab and get him out of here.”

“No problem. That is why he has been wearing all that cologne; to try and keep the smell of the booze down.” Sanchez figured it out. Herb just doused himself in what smelled like Hai Karate or English Leather from the 70s. It was high-alcohol-content cologne that smelled more like a urinal disk than aftershave.

“Whatever. Just get him the fuck out of here.” I said as I heard my kids running down the hall towards the boiler room.

I got the kids rounded up and got back in the car. It was not fifteen minutes down the road when Sanchez called me. “That fucking guy. I put him in a cab right in front of the bank. He gets in the cab and goes about one block. The cab stopped and Herb jumped out and got in an old pickup truck and drove off.”

“You gotta be kidding me. Call the freakin’ cops. That guy is shit-faced and I’m rolling around with my kids. I can’t believe that guy could even walk, let alone drive.”

“He did. I saw him.” replied Sanchez. It was the last we ever heard from Herb. 

Koblyska, on the other hand, was just a burnout. One lunch turned out to be darts, drinking, and pool instead of calling. Rat returned from The Shit House and told me the guys were over there getting drunk with Flounder. I called the bar and told Flounder to tell all my guys to get back to the office or they would be terminated. Flounder passed the word, and Sanchez, Palmecci, and Koblyska walked into the office ten minutes later.

“Nice, you boys need some recreation, it sounds like. Today we start the Ashton Danbury fitness test for employment. To be able to keep your jobs, you need to hump the fucking stairs ten times. I have done it several times, and it is a good workout. It is pretty simple; all the way down and all the way up to the sixth floor. You have half an hour to finish. Begin.” I commanded, and the guys knew I was pissed and not kidding. They were to be calling and not getting drunk at 1 p.m. in the afternoon at The Shit House.

Sanchez and Palmecci didn’t even bother saying anything back and descended down the stairwell, and Koblyska followed them. Watching the guys hump up and down the stairs was comedy. At first, they were sprinting up and down for the first couple of stair sets. Then it was walking. Then it was bitching how unfair it was. Then it was collapsing once they finished. All of them finished, and Koblyska came in last. He started coughing, and up came a huge black chunk from his lungs that he held in his hand. It was gross.

“What the fuck is that?” Palmecci asked when Koblyska showed him what was in his hand.

“Jesus, Koblyska. Are you OK?” I was concerned he might be having a pulmonary issue.

“Yeah, it is probably just resin.” Koblyska said as he threw the blob on the floor.

“Koblyska, you can take the rest of the day off. You did your ten. I will see you tomorrow. You other two get back on the phones.” I said to the three of them. The last thing I needed was Koblyska’s ass to get wheeled out of the bank on a stretcher because I made him hump the stairs to keep his job. Fortunately, for me, we never saw Koblyska again either.

It made no difference. The other guys were all hitting the ball and hard. We had not made less than $20,000 in a month for three straight months. The restraining order from Marci was enforced, and I didn’t fight it. Her and her soul mate, Shane, broke up. I guessed because the kids never mentioned him again. Now she would spend the rest of her days knowing she walked out on a family for a shitbag at work who just wanted in her pants. 

Alicia also turned out to be a great find. Our dinner went well the first night, and we went out the next night, and she stayed over at my place. It was great sex after wine and some pasta. Her mother was a wealthy dentist in Iowa City, and her stepdad was a guy I had done some business with back in the insurance and financial days. He was a scumbag who burned me on a commission check and lied about it right as I was crashing out. Having my name bounce around their nice home made me laugh. 

Alicia was an elementary school teacher and had signed up to teach English as a second language in Guatemala before we met. She would only be around until August when she would depart. She came up often after school, and we had dinner and watched movies. I introduced her to the kids, and they loved her. She was wonderful with the kids. We went camping and hiking together. We even went scuba diving in Chicago one weekend. It was a private charter, and we were the only ones on the charter. On the ride home, I had sex with her on top of the charter boat on Lake Michigan while the captain steered us back to shore. I was on top of my game. We fell in love and told each other so.

However, the big news that summer came when Sanchez passed me a call from a guy who was talking a big game. It was Liberty Nation insurance. They were a big carrier out of Texas. The guy on the phone sounded like a southern kitchen table rammer. No matter how many times I heard the southern accent, it always made me think of idiots from the South I served with in the Navy. However, what he said was astounding. His company was offering marketing dollars equal to last year’s commission for every agent. That meant if you made $50,000, you would be given a budget of $50,000 to market with. It was unheard of. I pitched him hard on our service, and he ate it up. A few days later, Charlie Brown took an incoming call from a guy with the same company that got passed to me. It was a good thing the call was passed to me because it was the CEO and CFO of the company. The guy I had previously talked to them about us.

“So, you guys set up the appointments and don’t have any stake in the commissions of the products we sell. Is that correct?” another redneck-sounding southern voice said clearly into the headset.

“That is correct. We simply bill you for the data and the hours of calling.”

“That sounds simple enough. What guarantees do we have?”

“There are no guarantees in any legitimate marketing. There are none with our marketing service either. However, we set a goal of two per day usually. If the guys hit the two appointments per day, that means ten per week for your agents and approximately forty per month if they run all month long.” It was the same pitch I taught the guys who were all now standing around listening to me.

“Very interesting. Do we get a discount if we have multiple people try the service?” the other voice asked. 

“I think we could arrange something.” I replied. A multiple agent ram was always preferred.

“Let us talk a little more on this side, but we will get back to you. We might have some agents interested in this. Who do I ask for?”

“Ask for me, Chad. I will note on your account that way I can recall what we spoke about.” I sounded as if it was every other call I was on.

“That will be fine, Chad. We will be in touch.” The guys disconnected the call, and I set the headset down.

“This could be huge, fellas. I want everyone, right now, locked and loaded on Liberty Nation out of the south. That was the CEO and CFO of their company, and they are burning’. The guy I spoke to last week sent them an email, and they might want to try it with several agents. They are paying for it too, not the agents.”

I didn’t need to say it twice. We had never heard of any company paying for all of their agents’ marketing budgets. By the end of the week, the guys had sent out fourteen different invoices totaling $73,000. The following week, the money came in two checks. On top of another stunning month of $30,000, we grossed over $100,000 in a single month. I thought I was going to be a millionaire. My ego rocketed. After all of the bullshit, the failures, and the fumbles, I was now getting what I deserved. I took Alicia to Dallas and bought a new Volvo S-80 and drove it back to Iowa. It was a beautiful car and a statement that I had arrived. Charlie Brownfinger bought my old Volvo.

The following week, I made a crucial mistake. I figured I would convert the thirty-year mortgage on the house to a fifteen-year mortgage. The payment would go from just over $1,100 to $1,700. I wanted the home paid for and fixed up. I paid my brother $11,000 to build me a nice deck on the back of the home and finished off the basement. I got a drum kit and a PA system to jam in the house. We were spending $500 a month on pot. I could easily afford to pay for the house, and if I ever needed the money, I could get a home equity line of credit. I guess I thought that the kids might not understand what Dad did for a living, but they would know they had their own rooms, and their father loved them.

Sanchez got almost $18,000 from the sale. I made him pay off all of his fines with the state and bring his child support up to current. In the end, he got about half of it in a single check. The rest of the guys split about $20,000 of the money. The following days and weeks were a non-stop party at work and after. Flounder and The Shit House probably made $10,000 over the next few weeks off our guys taking girls in there and buying drinks for anyone who would listen to their story. It was great marketing for me as I picked three more reps from their escapades: Cody, Shoes, and a girl named Felicia. All of them were former WorldCom telemarketers. I was a little concerned with a girl in the office, but she fit in well among the guys. She handled all of the paperwork, contracts, inbound calls, and made some outbound calls the rest of the time. The guys aptly named her Fellatio. She had a boyfriend that never came around, and the guys left her alone. 

I started thinking about creating another company and website with a different name. It would be another ramming machine but with a different look and set up. I could get a UPS PO box in Iowa City and have it forwarded to Cedar Rapids to cover our tracks if the guys called it from the new company. If it worked like the current model, I would make a fortune. The wheels were turning pretty fast in my head.  

Chapter 12

Taking on Water

Looking back, it was the event that was the beginning of the end. Sanchez walked into my office, “Hey, I just talked to Tony Holeblower. He said Concord Mortgage is done already.” Holebower was an old WorldCom telemarketer that ended up hustling mortgage refinance for a company across the street called Concord Mortgage. He would get drunk and try and recruit the Ashton Danbury guys to forget lead generation and come over to Concord and make the big money like he said he was always making. During the days the guys would see them on the fourth floor of their office and moon them or give them the finger. I even bent Alicia over a chair and fucked in her my office while she looked out the window at those idiots with her big titties swinging back and forth. It went back and forth and was a harmless rivalry among former telemarketers.

“They just opened.” I recalled the time frame when the guys started flipping them the bird or flashing their ass cheeks out the window.

“He said they are done.” Sanchez replied.

“Don’t go bringing that idiot in here for a job interview. Have him go down to Dig It and apply.” I answered.

“I was going to tell you that too. Flounder said the cops were in The Shit Hole yesterday questioning him about Dave. A cop found him and cut him loose. Dave is wanting to press charges. Flounder is pissed.” Sanchez was serious.

“What did he tell them?”

“He said he wasn’t there but they talked to The Rancher too.”

“The Rancher won’t say anything. We are good there.” I knew The Rancher could play dumb like no one else. He was also a very loyal guy.

“He better not say anything.” Sanchez turned and walked out of the office followed by Rat on his way in.

“What is Sanchez worried about?” asked Rat.

“Oh, we had a little fun with a guy in the bar last night that got a little out of hand.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, this drunk Australian guy was running his mouth so we taped him to a chair after the bar closed and put Rancher’s dirty underwear on his head.” I told Rat. Rat was solid and would keep it among us guys.

“At The Shit Hole?” Rat was laughing.

“Yeah, it was after hours. Sanchez and Palmecci carried him across the street and left him on the sidewalk. The cops found him and were in to The Shot Hole asking questions this morning Sanchez said.” I shook my head. It was an overreaction and I should have just ignored the loser and got a cab home.

“Hope you guys don’t get in trouble for that.”

“Yeah, me either. We should be good. He didn’t get hurt and nothing was taken from the guy. He was some big shot daddy’s boy from Australia working at the new Dig It plant. The dude was probably your age and was rolling around in a beautiful white Ferrari too.”

“No shit. I have seen that car. That is the guy?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That is great. Hey, the reason I am here is I got another guy I want you to talk to. He is some big hitter in the annuity business and is on some radio show. He wants us to call on these people who opt in to his commercial. You want to talk to him for me?” Rat asked. He was good at taking all his own client calls but from time to time he would still fluff me calls that were a bit odd.

“Sure, just shoot me the number.” I said as I opened up my laptop. 

“Will do.” replied Rat as he exited the office. 

I opened up my dating profile and saw Beth had replied again. She sounded like a goodie two shoes type of lady. She was my age and very attractive with long blonde hair. She accepted the date. I decided to send her my number and told her to call me. The restraining order was now expired and Marci and I had settled into a no talking about anything except the kids routine. She was out dating other idiots the guys would report back after seeing her out in the local bars, but never The Shit Hole. Alicia never hit back. She was probably pregnant with Julio’s kid by now I thought to myself. It was not that long ago but yet it seemed like it was.

Rat sent me the number of the guy he wanted me to call via email, Steve DeSchlong. What a name. I dialed the Chicago number and a secretary answered. I introduced myself and said I was looking for Steve. A few moments later he came on the phone.

“Chad, good to hear from you. I was talking to one of your guys about your outfit.” He sounded like every other geek in his introduction.

“Yeah, he passed the call to me as he said I might be a better resource for your questions.” i replied.

“I appreciate that. What I am doing is selling indexed annuities. You know what they are?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good. DeSchlong Associates is one of the biggest annuity producers in the country. We run an advertisement for our associates across the United States in large metropolitan areas. The commercial basically says we can offer 10% without any exposure to the stock market. Anyone who calls the toll free number we get their information and send out an informational packet to them with an explanation of the product. Then we call them back and try and set up the appointment.” Steve pitched me.

“Sounds good. How can we help?”

“Well, the funny thing is we aren’t getting any appointments. Our advisors don’t want to make the calls and our organization is not set up to do it.”

“So you thought just by sending them an info packet they would call and sign up?” I cut to the chase. All these guys were the same; they wanted someone else to do the calling because they hated rejection.

“Something like that. Do you think your team could do the follow up calling?”

“No problem. We bill by the week, the month or the quarter. There is also a two for three promotion on the website.” I went straight for the close.

“Yeah, I saw that. So if I get two quarters the third quarter is free?”

“That is correct.” He was biting on a huge package. 

“That sounds like a steal. So, we would be looking at around $12,000?” He tabulated some quick math in his head.

“That sounds about right. Will you be needing data with your calling?” I replied like he was just another ticket.

“No, we have all the names already.” He paused and was talking to someone else in his office. “Is there a chance we can get you to come out here so we can talk face to face and show you our business model?”

“I do it a few times a month. We charge you the price of the flight, room and meals. Most of the time it runs about $1,000 to $1,500. You are in Chicago so I suspect it will be closer to $1,000.” I applied the gimp tax.

“I thought you guys were in Chicago?” Deschlong sounded confused.

“No, our phone service is out of Chicago. We are in Iowa but all of our phones are a Chicago area code.

He paused for a minute. I thought we lost him. “You could also drive from Iowa to Chicago in about three or four hours.” Steve did the quick math.

“Company policy. If it is out of state we have to fly.” I shut him down.

He paused for a minute and discussed it with the other person in the room. “Ok. when can you come out?”

“Let me put you on hold and check with the transportation coordinator. Next week I think I am open or going to New York. Let me check.” I said as I put him on hold. “Rat, you got a fucking whale on the line here. He wants me to come out to Chicago to see his operation.”

“Fuck, that is great. I could use the cash.” Rat said as he walked into my office.

“The guy is big annuity hitter. I pitched him on the quarterly package two for three and they are hot on it.”

“Jesus, how much is that?”

“I will make it for just over $12,000 and an extra $1k for the travel.”

“That is great. Send him the damn invoice already.” Rat was excited.

“Let me get him back on the phone. I will head out like Wednesday of next week.” I told Rat and reconnected the call. “Yeah Steve, New York is the following week. I can do Wednesday of next week if that is cool with your team.” 

“Wednesday works for us.” It sounded like Steve had us on speaker phone.

“I will have customer service shoot you over a travel invoice. Send your funds back and when they get it the date will be put on my calendar.” I replied.

“You don’t take a credit card?”

“No, we pulled that last year. The credit cards charge an extra 3% so we just pass the savings on to you.” I lied.

“That is fine. Send it over.”

“Wonderful. I will see you next week.” I said and disconnected the call.

A week later I was in DeSchlong Associates’ suite in Schaumburg. It looked like every other law office or insurance agency with professional decorating. DeSchlong walked out from behind a wall and looked almost identical to what I pictured him as; an overweight white guy in his fifties, nice suit and watch with shiny shoes.

“I am glad you could make it. How was the flight?” he greeted me. I got the immediate feeling the guy was a charlatan. I didn’t know how but his handshake made me feel like he was a slime ball.

“Wonderful. Short flight.” I lied. I pocketed the money and drove.

“Come on back to our conference room and let me show you what we have.” Steve said as he turned and headed off down a hallway. “This Bill Braginger my partner and Lisa here is our assistant.”

Lisa was an Italian looking brunette and smoking hot. No ring on her finger and she was probably a concubine for one of these two guys I figured.

Their playbook was pretty simple and much like Steve explained on the phone. What I couldn’t understand is how you get twenty to twenty five inbound hits every single day from the radio commercials and not get any appointments. A 10% return on an investment that is guaranteed and not exposed to market risk was unheard of. Annuities have a feature called surrender charges. They work like vesting inside of a 401k but in reverse. If you put in $10,000 and change your mind you will probably only get half of it back in the first few years. After about a decade all the surrender charges are off. It is a way the insurance companies keep people from jumping ship to another retirement investment.

“What are the surrender charges in the annuity?” I asked. It let them know I knew what I was talking about.

“They are about fifteen years.” Braginger replied.

“Whoa, that is a little high.”

“Yes, but so is their rate of return.” Braginger seemed confident. 

“Indeed it is. So, what you want us to do is call the people who requested a packet and send it out?”

“No.” Steve shook his head. “We want you to get all the information you can about what they are trying to do. We will then call them and set the appointment for our agent in the area the commercial is being played.”

“Where do you get the agents from?”

“We have a quarterly conference in Las Vegas. We invite people out free of charge to hear the workshop. If they want to buy in it is $7,500 and they get all the leads that come in their area code from the commercial.” Steve answered the question I was wondering about right there. What Steve and his partner were doing was getting some agents to buy in to their scheme and cherry picking the leads. Some guy would call in after hearing the commercial. I would call them, explain a little bit about indexed annuities and pick their brain about what they were trying to do. I would then forward that information to Lisa who would then set the appointment with Steve or Braginger if it was a potential large sale. They would jump on a plane and go see all the biggest clients. Their agents would get all the calls of the guys that were tire kickers or not worth the trouble. They would never know they got cherry picked and walk away thinking the advertisement only attracted small flies or little interest without ever knowing Steve swooped in and sold the big ones. A great scam.

“Sounds impressive. When would you like to start?” I played along.

“This is getting into the slow time of year. Why don’t we shoot for first quarter of next year.” 

“We can do that. You could also start in a few weeks and use the fourth quarter as your free month. It is two for three and the promotion is going to get pulled I think at the end of this month.” I lied again. The promotion had been on the website since we began. However, if I let him do what he wanted to do we wouldn’t see a check for months.

“That is a great promo.” Braginger came alive.

“Yeah, a little too good. A lot of people jumped on it and took up a bunch of the available calling hours. We are not a big shop and only have enough hours in the day to call.”  

“How about we give you half the money now and half at he beginning of the new year.” Steve countered me. I hated to do it because if anything went wrong we would never see the other half.

“That is fine.I think the new promotion for 2008 is going to be a watch or mobile phone.” I made it up as I went along.

“No, the three for two is what we want.” Steve reached for the check book. “You said $12,000. Here is a check for $6,000. Have your people shoot me the invoice today. If it is not here today I will cancel the check.” Steve sounded like a dumbass. No one writes a check without the invoice first. The comment about canceling it if he didn’t get an invoice today told me he was temperamental.

“That is fine. I can call customer service and get that over to you shortly.” I took his check and stood up. “Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure. I need to make a phone call now and get you guys underway. I will have to check with our scheduling department but I suspect we can get you started next week or the week after.” We always delayed the start of the campaign to make sure the checks cleared before the zero results started showing up.

I winked at Lisa on the way out the door and called Rat before I even got out of the building. “Yo, big rip in Chi-Town. I need you to send DeSchlong an invoice for the three for two promo on a quarterly for $12,000. He just handed me a check for $6,000.”

“He only paid half?”

“Yeah, he’s a shitbag. Him and his partner have the cash they just wanted to wait until next year to start. I had to compromise to get the check.”

“Still, $6,000 is a nice rip.” Rat was happy.

“Indeed it is. How are things at the office?”

“I think you guys are cool on the stunt with the Australian guy. Flounder was talking about it over lunch and told me he told the cops the guy wasn’t even in the bar. They checked the credit card receipts and there was nothing.”

“Good. Hopefully, we never see that shitbag again.” I was relieved.

“I don’t know. Sanchez and Palmecci are sending the pictures to tons of people.”

“Tell those idiots to stop it. Just let it go.” The last thing I needed was for Dig It to see the photos and then lean on the cops and the governor for an investigation if Dave really was the owner’s son.

“Will do. Old School also threw down a Deluxe package this morning.”

“Fantastic. I will be back in a few hours. I am going to grab some lunch and a beer and head back. I will be back later tonight.” I said as I disconnected the all. The thought of Dave with undies on his head made me smirk.

I made my way over to Maggiano’s to have lunch. It was my favorite place to eat in Chicago. I first wen there as a guest at an insurance meeting years ago. I took Marci and the kids there once when we went to Chicago. I always stayed out in the northwest suburbs and road the train into the city. Maggiano’s was a classy place but a family style Italian restaurant. The huge plates of pasta were more than anyone could eat as they listened to Sinatra or Dean Martin playing on the sound system. 

After I ordered my phone rang from an Iowa City number. I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyways. “Hello”

“Hi, this is Beth. I thought I would give you a call over my lunch break. Is that OK?” she sounded a little timid on the phone.

“Beth, wow, great to hear your voice. You are a beautiful woman.” always best to compliment a woman on her looks I replied. Plus, there surely were other idiots emailing her from the dating site.

“You are too kind. Are you in Cedar Rapids?”

“No, I am in Chicago doing a little business.” 

“Are you selling stocks and insurance?” she asked. I told her a little bit about what I did for a living and I guess she thought I wa an agent or rep.

“No, those guys are our clients. We just set them up with appointments.” I didn’t say how many appointments.  

“Oh that sounds interesting. Do you like your job?”

“It has its moments. Today was a good day. I got a nice check. Now I am sitting here at Maggiano’s drinking a beer and waiting on my pasta talking to you.”

“Well I am in the hospital cafeteria eating a salad.” I could hear conversation in the background. She could have been at the mall for all I knew.

“That reminds me, I was going to ask you where you were interested in going out for a drink or coffee sometime.” I wanted to know up front. I didn’t want some girl who just strung along idiots on the internet to feel better about themselves. 

“Sure. Where would you like to go?”

“How about the Java Hut in Iowa City. I am in there from time to time and it is relaxing atmosphere right downtown.” I was excited and glad she said yes.

“I go in there all the time too. That is too funny. When would you like to meet?” 

“How about Saturday morning around 10am?”

“That should be good. I go to the gym early in the morning downtown so I can just swing by.” Beth sounded interested.

“Then it is a date. Oops. My pasta just showed up. I will see you Saturday morning.”

“Sounds good.” she said and hung up. The waitress sat down a huge plate of fettuccine Alfredo in front of me. I liked being the businessman. 

Chapter 13

Gut Check

The first signs of smoke started coming from the markets themselves in October of 2007. The everlasting bull market started to slide. A correction was overdue, and I didn’t have much money in the market, so I didn’t think it would matter much initially. However, slowly but surely, less money was coming in the door. That was the least of my worries.

The pictures that Palmecci and Sanchez sent to people found their way to the internet and eventually to someone at Dig It. They contacted the police after verifying the company credit card Dave used at The Shit House. Flounder already rang up their ticket, and it showed on their statement. It was proof Dave was in the bar. The police became involved when Dig It demanded that Dave was a kidnapping victim and assaulted. They were felony charges. The pictures were hilarious, and now people were blowing up Sanchez and Palmecci’s phone, wanting to know who the guy was. Luckily, they told people they just saw the guy on the street. The problem was Open Road. All the cops knew him and would pull him into the station in a heartbeat. He would be able to identify Sanchez and Palmecci.

Steve Deschlong’s campaign started and ran outstandingly. It was unrealistic compared to all the other campaigns. I called it first because I wanted to get a feel for what was going on. Every day, my inbox was jammed with calls to make to people who called in from the radio commercial. It was across the board from people with huge stacks to geeks just wanting information. I noted all of them and sent them to Lisa and never heard a word about them after that. DeSchlong never even bothered calling. I preferred it that way. I hated to talk to the agents anymore. Besides, he was probably making huge dollars if he closed half of the leads I sent to their office.

The date with Beth went outstanding. We had some coffee and talked for quite a while. She was from a strict religious family from northwestern Iowa. She still went to church every Sunday but had to get out of the little town of Sioux Center. They were Dutch Reformers and no one drank, smoked, mowed their lawn on Sunday, or used curse words. It became too much, and she left the state for physical therapy school. She got a job at the U of Iowa and seemed pretty happy. There were no ex-husbands and no kids. It seemed odd as she was beautiful and about six feet tall. Sure, the short guys might be intimidated, but she was built for speed. I told her my story, and she seemed amazed. She loved the fact that I was an old Navy diver and ran my own business. We talked a little longer and then went out for drinks. A few hours later, I was making out with her in my car and drove over to her place. I slept on the couch, but the following morning, she let me have sex with her. I couldn’t believe it; she was a virgin. I didn’t say anything and pretended not to notice, but she was awkward in bed and changed the sheets immediately after I got out of bed.

From there, it blossomed. We would spend time riding bikes, going to the bars, having sex, cooking food, and playing music. I impressed her with my guitar skills, and she floored me with her ability to play classical on the piano. She was also an amazing artist and painted me a picture of a pier in watercolor that I put up in the house. After a few weeks, she met the kids and was perfect around them. She got them painting and helping out cook dinner. She met my family, and they also enjoyed her. I could tell everyone thought I had found the right lady. We drove to Sioux Center to meet her parents, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. They prayed before every meal, and her dad was the typical tight-fisted Dutch guy. We went to a Pizza Ranch of all places to go out for dinner, and the guy had a handful of coupons he badgered the waitress about before he even wanted to sit down. He asked me if I thought he would have a tax problem with a million dollars for estate taxes. Evidently, Beth told him I was a broker or agent. I knew enough to tell him he had nothing to worry about, and he agreed. He was testing me to see if I knew my stuff while trying to impress me that he had a million dollars. A small-town buffoon, I summarized.

Back in Cedar Rapids, the problem with Dave was not going away. Open Road did not say he saw two guys carrying the chair across the street from The Shit House. They gave him money for a picture, and he took off. He said he recognized the guys from the alley smoking cigarettes and remembered the name Palmecci. Palmecci had no address, so the cops were looking for him. This information came to us via Flounder when the cops returned and started leaning on him. The Rancher was questioned again and said he knew Open Road but not the two guys in the picture with him. The cops didn’t believe either of them. On top of that, the pictures were circulating on the internet, and Dave had to end up back in Australia to avoid the nonstop insults over the incident. The bad part was Palmecci and Sanchez got drunk and bought Dave’s name as a domain name and posted the pictures. They sent the link to a bunch of people the same day the cops were questioning Flounder and The Rancher at The Shit House. Worse than that, someone sent the link to the local paper, and they printed the picture of Open Road standing next to Dave with his cock fuzzed out to make it acceptable for the public. The article said Open Road was still in detention, and the investigation was still active. I about shit my pants when I saw the article. I immediately called Sanchez.

“Hey, what’s up, man?”

“What is up? I got a call from Flounder. You idiots bought Dave’s name as a domain and posted those fucking pictures?”

“Flounder was pissed too. We took it down already.” Sanchez Jew, I was pissed.

“How fucking stupid. They are looking to press kidnapping charges now.” I informed him.

“What?”

“Yeah, it is on the second page of the fucking paper. Open Road remembered you guys from the alley. In no time, they will be knocking on your door. I promise.” I was so angry.

“I am getting out of here.”

“Not a bad idea. Bring Palmecci’s ass with you and meet me down at the office in 20 minutes.”

“We are on our way.” Sanchez replied and hung up.

When they showed up to the office, they looked like two scared teenagers. The chest-beating macho phone personalities were gone. In front of me were two immature young adults who I needed desperately to make sure their story was the same as mine; it wasn’t us. “Here is the fucking story; we went to The Shit House, got drunk, played darts, and left. We saw Dave across the street with Open Road. We thought it was funny, and Open Road started taking the tape off, so we left after taking a picture. The cops will not believe us, but they have to prove we did it. As far as the website. They can track that too to your credit card and know you paid for the site. Hard to say you didn’t know the guy when you bought his freakin’ name as a domain. We say Flounder told you the name after the cops came. You thought it was hilarious and just posted the pics for a comedy piece, hoping to attract a bunch of hits and start a drunk college pictures website. He was in public, so the photos can’t be copyrighted. Anyone can buy anyone’s name on the internet. But under no circumstances do we admit we did it. There was no blood, and there won’t be any DNA as Dave is now gone, and he surely did his laundry before he left.” I laid out what I thought was the simplest and easiest for the guys to stay on script with. 

“Sounds good to me.” Palmecci replied.

“Me too.” chimed in Sanchez.

“Good. Repeat it back to me.” I wanted to make sure they were not just nodding their heads and could recite the line. The cops were not going to be as friendly as I was, and I let them know it. The guys recited the story, and it sounded as good as I could hope for. 

They left, and I stared back down at the paper. “NASDAQ and Dow Jones Keep Sliding.” I shook my head and read the article. There was starting to be some investigations into the mortgage industry. Defaults were rising on subprime loans, and the banks had turned around and packaged the mortgages into real estate mutual funds and other vehicles. It seemed to be the underlying problem. It was the one thing I didn’t need to happen. If the market tanked, then agents, brokers, and reps would stop spending money on marketing.

I went home and had lunch with Beth. She could tell I was in a bad mood.

“What is the matter?” she was genuinely concerned.

“It is work. It is just a hassle. I run a fucking boiler room manned by twenty-year-olds who act like they are fifteen.” I didn’t want to elaborate.

“What did they do?”

“It is just one stunt after the next. Getting drunk and stoned daily, screwing skanks they meet from the bars, skipping conference calls with their clients, and pissing away every dollar they get their hands on to start with.”

“That sounds like a frat house.”

“Pretty much, but no college. Plus, we can’t get results for anyone. No one wants to talk to these idiots, just like no one wanted to talk to me when I had a license. We have to lie to them about performance expectations just to get their damn checks. If we told them the truth, they would never buy it and end up buying some other dynamic marketing scheme.” 

“So it is a scam?” Beth asked the crucial question. Was I running a scam? Ashton Danbury surely had some ethical issues. 

“Would you buy your service?”

“Not ours, but I did buy some bogus lead generation service when I had a license. The idea is just a different twist on an old model. The problem with the industry is that half of Americans can’t afford anything and have zero money in the stock market. The people who usually do have money are older people, and they are not going to do business with a twenty-something guy. They are going to do business with someone their age. Guys get into the business without asking the one crucial question: “Where do the leads come from?” A lot of agencies will have you start out writing down a list of 100 people you know and then have you call all of them. You may sell a few, but most won’t buy for a variety of reasons. After that list runs out, you need to market yourself. Nothing wrong with that except you are on 100% commission, and your bills and living expenses don’t stop. By the time you do make a sale and it gets through underwriting, all of that money is already spent. It forces people into thinking of how to get more prospects in the door. Even the managers know that to build up your agency, you have to have people for the new agents to talk to. Doesn’t matter when the new agent fails out; the company takes all of what was sold by the terminated agents. That guy then gets to tell everyone their career as an insurance and investment professional is done.” I was pissed by the time I stopped explaining.

“Is that what happened to you?” Beth asked calmly.

“That is exactly what happened to me. I didn’t fail because I couldn’t pass the exams or didn’t try hard. I failed because I ran out of people to talk to. It would have been nice to give up some of the commission to get a salary, but no. It is one of the best-kept secrets in that industry; half the guys fail out in two years and 80% fail out in five. I made it four and lost about $70,000. I had to file bankruptcy and go back to working a job I had in college because all these fucking companies now do background checks on credit and, voila, the glass ceiling. It is bullshit. Had I known what I know now, I would have never gotten involved with the racket in the first place.” I could tell she felt bad for me, but it was my own damn fault. Marci wanted me to repeatedly change jobs, but I refused. I let my ego get the best of me and always believed the next client would lead to the next. It was one failure after the next, only briefly interrupted by successes.

“Any woman would be pissed if her husband lost $70,000.” Beth reminded me.

“They sure don’t have a problem when it is on the upside, do they?”

“Is it wrong to want a man who makes a good living?”

“Don’t give me that. You would have never dated me in the first place if I told you I was a dishwasher.”

“Probably not.” Beth replied.

“I understand how it works. I wasn’t cut out for the Navy, and when my time was up, I got out. In college, I took a job as a telemarketer at a fast-growing publicly traded company. I was excellent at it. I left that to get a real job after graduating. Coming back to WorldCom after filing bankruptcy was humbling to say the least. How was I to know it was a giant scam that would end in the largest bankruptcy in history at the time and leave me unemployed again? This time, however, I now had a mortgage, two little kids, a marriage falling apart, and no job prospects. It was the only thing I could think of, and it worked.”

“So you should be happy.” Beth made the obvious observation.

“I’m not.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe because of situations like this. It is almost impossible to tell people what it is I do. Maybe because every fucking bozo we talk to on the phones sounds exactly like I did a few years ago. I should have gone on to law school, but no, I was going to make my mark in business. The only mark I have left is a skid mark.”

“You can look for another job now though.” She tried to be consoling, and I loved that about her. I know she just wanted me to be happy, but the turbulence was starting to make me sick. The thought of the cops showing up in the boiler room asking questions about Dave would be a fiasco. I needed to tell Beth and had yet to. She would not be happy and very disappointed. I thought for a moment about spitting it out right there but elected to hold off. Maybe it would blow over.

“Yeah, maybe. We will see.” Was all I could reply with.

My phone rang, interrupting our conversation. It was Sanchez. “Hey, we got problems.”

“Now what?”

“The cops just cold-called us at home and questioned Flounder, myself, and Palmecci. They said it is a kidnapping investigation, and there is already one in custody who is talking. They know he was in the bar because his credit card had already been run. Flounder got caught lying that he didn’t know us. They were pissed about that. They think we did it.” Sanchez sounded scared.

“What did you tell them?” I asked as I walked out on the deck so Beth would not hear the conversation.

“I told them what you said. They took Palmecci outside and questioned him, and he said the same thing. They must have bought it because they left. They told us they were going to check video surveillance in the area. If we were caught lying, we would be charged with the felony kidnapping.”

“They don’t have a shot, or they would have grabbed you right there. The person in jail has to be Open Road, and talking to him for five minutes will lead them down a rabbit hole. He is completely an unworthy witness other than he was in the picture.” I tried to keep my cool.

“Yeah, but he is in the fucking picture and led them to us. They also know that Palmecci used his card to pay for the website.”

“Again, you took a picture and posted it on a website. It is in the public domain. If you told them Open Road was trying to untape him, then you have zero obligation to untape him as a pedestrian. The only concern I have is if there is a camera on the traffic lights of 3rd Ave. and 3rd St. I don’t think there is. Without video evidence, these guys have shit. Open Road will get let out, and I doubt they can even bust him for indecent exposure from a picture he didn’t take.”

“I hope you are right.” Sanchez replied.

“Yeah, me too. I got Beth here. I am going to let you go. Keep me posted if anything breaks.” I said as I hung up the phone and walked back into the house.

“Is everything OK?” asked Beth.

“Just more drunken antics from a band of gypsies.” I replied.

“While you were out there, I was reading this article on the internet about this guy that got kidnapped in Cedar Rapids. They found him taped to a chair with dirty underwear on his head. There is a picture of a homeless man with his pants down posing beside him. How bizarre.” Beth recited what she read.

“Could be a college prank too. The guy might be a frat house kid getting hazed.”

“True. Boys are so stupid like that.”

“You never know. Maybe he deserved it.”

“How do you know that? Who wants to be taped to a chair with dirty underwear on their head with a perverted old man standing by them with his pants down?”

“Could be a weird sex fetish the guy has.” I laughed. “Speaking of sex fetishes. What do you say we head back to the bedroom, and I give you the business?”

“Are you going to tape me to a chair and put your dirty underwear on my head?”

“Do I look like the kind of guy that would do something like that?”

“No. If you ever did something like that, I would leave you in a minute. That is so disgusting.” Beth replied. I just learned if the truth came out, she would be gone.

“I will keep that in mind for the future.” I replied as I grabbed her by the hand and walked back to the bedroom.

Seeing Open Road riding his bike down the alley on my way into work Monday morning gave me a huge sigh of relief. I pulled the Volvo around the corner and into the alley. I drove right up to him and got out of the car. He paid no attention as he climbed into the dumpster.

“Benny, I saw you in the paper with your pecker hanging out. You are a star now.” I said from a few feet away.

“I should be in Hollywood.” He yelled without looking up to see who was asking him questions.

“It said in the paper that cops arrested you. Did they give you a citation for showing your cock?” I asked. If they did, it would be a positive sign. Letting Open Road out again meant they found him worthless as a witness to anything. If they didn’t give him a ticket, it could mean he was a witness and not part of the investigation.

“Cops sucked my cock in the squad car. Don’t let ‘ em’ get you. Water is rising.” Benny replied with his head perched over the side of the dumpster. 

I was confused. Water is rising? “Benny, did you kidnap the guy in the chair?”

“I was posing next to a statue for the smokers. Palmecci’s boy took the pictures. I am going to be a star.”

“Did they kidnap the guy in the chair?” I had to ask because I know the cops did.

“They were taking pictures of me. I am going to be a star. Hollywood.”

“How did the guy in the chair get there, Benny?”

“He was a cop. He wasn’t the star. I am the star. Hollywood is my name. Fuck you.” Benny said as he climbed out of the dumpster and grabbed his bike.

“Don’t fall off the bike, Benny. You have a good day now.” I said as I rode off without a response. I threw my fist in the air. It now got down to the video cameras. Benny could have told them anything, but he must have come riding out of the alley right after they set the chair down on the sidewalk. I walked around the corner and looked up and down the buildings and on the traffic lights. There were no cameras. I headed up to the office to tell the guys what had happened.

As the guys filed in, I picked off Rat, Palmecci, and Sanchez and took them in my office and explained what Open Road had just told me.

“That is fucking great. That Ferrari was the only car parked on the street at 2:30 a.m.” Palmecci was relieved.

“They have nothing. Unless there is our DNA in it, they have zero.” Rat replied.

“I doubt they took DNA on him because he was drunk as shit and probably fell asleep in the station. They held him in the drunk tank overnight and let him go in the morning. Only when Dig It saw the photos did they call and bitch to the cops. Dave is gone and won’t be back. He will be back in Australia talking shit in the local bars there.” I said. “But, that was a close one.”

“Another boiler room legend.” Sanchez laughed.

“I got another legend from the boiler room for you. I read in the paper that Senator Craig from Idaho got squeezed last year in a gay sex sting in the Minneapolis airport bathroom. They said he did the slide your hand under the partition move and the shoe under the stall hint.” Rat laughed.

“Palmecci, you sucked a Senator’s cock. You are going to be famous.” Sanchez would never let it go.

“Wrong, shit lips. You would not have known anything because I was the one that told you about it. Like I said, that was your grandpa, so don’t go trying to blame it on another fag senator.” Palmecci spat out and got up and walked out of the office and into the boiler room.

“Alright, boys. Back to work.” I said as I pulled my laptop out.

“Hey, where is my check from San Diego?” asked Sanchez.

“Yeah, no shit. I got a couple of mortgage invoices I am waiting on, and the fucking guys won’t answer their phones now.” added Rat.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing, I am just saying.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Shit seems like it is getting slow.” Sanchez made more calls than anyone in the office. 

“What is getting slow?”

“He’s right. I can just feel it too. Especially with the mortgage calling. There are starting to be a lot of guys not there, not answering, or dead numbers.” Rat replied.

“The market has been on a tear for quite a while. It is cooling down a little bit. That is natural. Just keep pounding. We will be alright.” It was all I could say.

The guys went back into the boiler room and scoured the local paper for news about Open Road and the chair. There was nothing. I felt relieved. I opened my email inbox, and there had to be almost fifty leads for DeSchlong’s campaign. I just shook my head. This scammer had to be killing it. I was convinced if I could feed him enough good leads, he would do the service again, and I would hit him for $20,000 for the following year. I picked up my headset and started dialing.

Chapter 16

Going to Court

As the weeks went by, it all came to a head. The clean-up crews departed for the next disaster relief scenario, and Cedar Rapids looked like an apocalypse. The entire west side of the river was devastated. Hundreds of homes would be demolished or condemned. For me, it meant my court case would partially be heard via video conferencing. The money for LeHamer came from a surprise donor, Marci. I had paid money into a life insurance policy on her that was no longer needed. She was now engaged to the guy on the Harley-Davidson I was informed. It was my money, but she owned the policy and didn’t have to give it to me, but she did. 

The first actions in the case were depositions, and LeHamer showed why his fee and reputation were so high in the local legal circles. The district attorney sat in on the case, and DeSchlong appeared via video conferencing. LeHamer wasted no time pouncing on DeSchlong and the district attorney. 

“I would first like to call your attention to what exactly extortion is.” LeHamer began. “In the simplest terms, ones that a jury will clearly understand, is that extortion occurs when someone threatens someone to perform an action or else there will be consequences. Mr. DeSchlong, were you threatened by my client to perform an act or a website with your name as the domain would be created?”

Deschlong was baffled. He already knew where this was headed. “Well, he insisted on me paying for their scam before the site was launched and sent to me.”

“That was not what I asked. I asked if you were treated with such action if you did not pay the remaining balance on your contract. Let me remind you that depositions are under oath.” LeHamer was cool.

DeSchlong leaned over and talked with his attorney, Cohen. Cohen looked like a weasel Jewish guy with a bald head and tiny glasses. “No.” DeSchlong replied.

“Did you owe a remaining balance on the contract?” LeHamer continued.

“If you want to call it a contract, yes.” DeSchlong replied as he sat in his office, shaking his head.

“It indeed is a contract, and it has your signature on it confirming you are aware of the details.”

DeSchlong snapped. “Does that mean someone can buy my name on the internet and turn it into a gay porn site unless I pay them? This is ridiculous. Every client I have was sent an email from a fake account a few weeks ago that made up a bunch of lies about my business and directed them to that site. I have been made a fool by your client who owns the website, and he used it to try and extort me.” DeSchlong was unglued. 

“Contract law is a civil matter, not a criminal one. If you feel you have been damaged by my client, then you have every right to take it up in a civil court. This is not the proper venue.” LeHamer laid down the facts, and Deschlong was pissed.

The deposition lasted a few minutes longer, but it was clear no one threatened DeSchlong before the website was launched. The district attorney was not pleased. He knew LeHamer was talented. He had gone up against him several times in court, and proving a felony conviction would require a unanimous decision and stricter burden of proof. He would never win. Unfortunately, for me, he would not dismiss the case. The state courts were trying to get a grip on internet crime, and the mugshot sites were the ones getting the headlines. People were furious over the scams, and people’s reputations were damaged by the websites’ amazing results in searches. Jobs were not offered, relationships were thwarted, and there was no hope of getting the content removed without paying. That still offered no guarantees for the person in the mugshot that another copycat website would not do the same thing. This case was as close as Iowa had to setting a precedent in the state, no matter how flimsy it was. Iowa was full of conservatives, and the stunt of buying someone else’s name and turning it into a gay porn site might make all of them wish this stuff would come to an end, at my expense.

LeHamer left me in the small conference room while he went and negotiated with the prosecutor. Fortunately, for me, they both clerked for the same judge many years ago, and we were on good terms. LeHamer let him know that it was a shitty case, but there was no way it was extortion. The prosecutor also knew that going to trial would mean putting DeSchlong on the stand, and LeHamer would push his buttons and make him look like a big shot asshole from Chicago, and that would never go over well with a jury of locals. The plea bargain was to accept a misdemeanor harassment charge. I hated the idea of pleading guilty to anything, but the offer was no fines, no jail time, and unsupervised probation. In short, it was an exit ramp, and I had to take it. I simply could not afford LeHamer, or I would have said no. I agreed, and the rest was paperwork.

As I walked out of the courtroom, I had a brilliant idea come across my mind. I wondered if DeSchlong would want to buy the website of his name for the remaining balance. There was nothing he wanted more than to have that stop being clicked on, making him look like a fag to the many people who were clicking on it now and would in the future. The damage had been done to me, but for him, it would continue with each smartass comment on the golf course and insurance meetings for years to come. 

I went home and drafted an email outlining the details. I explained that we would transfer the domain to him, and I would never touch any of his clients in the future. I would delete all emails in reference to our relationship, and he could do whatever he wanted with the website. The price was $6,000. The following day, I received an email from his attorney that wanted me to sign an agreement that pretty much said what I had said but with the additional legalese that any future litigation between Ashton, Danbury, and DeSchlong would be taken care of in Illinois. His smart-ass attorney forgot to include the idea that I could easily start another company, and there was no way he could prove I would delete the emails and database. I didn’t care. I signed it, and two days later, I got a check for $6,000. I was now a convicted criminal, but DeSchlong finally paid his tab. Was it worth it? That depended on what I was going to do next. Obviously, any employer who looked me up would not find that as a positive on the resume. 

I called everyone and explained what happened. Everyone was relieved it was over and there would be no jail time or fines. Everyone thought taking the plea bargain was smart and the least expensive way to make it end. For me, it was not the end. I still had to pay for my mortgage, the car, insurance, and a babysitter. I didn’t qualify for unemployment because I owned the company. The damage to the basement had been repaired with insurance money and was back to normal. However, there was no preventing the next flood from doing the same thing. I needed the money out of the house, and I needed to get the mortgage switched back to the thirty-year loan, and the only way I was going to be able to do that was with a job that could pay for it.

As luck would have it, FEMA swept in to Cedar Rapids with millions of dollars in relief money for flood-affected business owners through a local program facilitated by the Chamber of Commerce. I called the bank and Chamber of Commerce and found out all I had to do was prove my business address and list the amount of damage, and I would be eligible for up to $50,000. I wasted no time lying about Ashton Danbury to the very end. I filled out the forms and said we had computer equipment, furniture, and client files stored in the basement of the bank, which had already been gutted. Our lost wages and refunds that would have to be granted completed the lie. It was fraud, but the chance of getting caught was close to zero. The city was lined with junk that was carried out by disaster relief workers. Every single business downtown was damaged and filed claims. Mine would simply be another claim in stacks of thousands. To my surprise, in one week, I got a check for $50,000.  

Chapter 17

In Retrospect

It seems like a long time ago, but it was a time in my life I will never forget. The laughs, the money, and the guys. The guys all moved on to grow up. Rat went to work for a computer company, got married, and had a kid. Sanchez met a woman and got married. He decided not to invite any of the boiler room crowd to the wedding because he didn’t want the bride to hear drunken stories of anal beads. Palmecci went to work for an employment company and continued on getting drunk and chasing fat women at the Thunder Lanes. He moved from Flounder and Sanchez’s couch to St. Nick’s in Iowa City. St. Nick kept his job and got promoted in the computer world and still stays in touch. Flounder took the FEMA money and never reopened The Shit House. He drifted on, and we lost contact. The Rancher took a job at Wal-Mart, got married, and had a daughter. I saw Alicia one time in Iowa City. She was pushing a baby stroller and walking along with a Latino guy. She gained some weight but otherwise was smiling. Beth was still at the University of Iowa, and I always wondered what happened to her. I suspect she was seeing someone new. I never saw her again. Marci got married, and the kids spent time between my place and hers. The kids to this day don’t remember their mother and me ever being married. Open Road died from something a couple of years back. I never saw him downtown after the flood and suspected he contracted something from the dumpsters and refused medical treatment all the way to the end. Warren made out like a king from the flood. True Northern had underwritten the city’s insurance, and hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into the city to rebuild it. However, the new premiums post-flood went up, and so did his paychecks. 

For me, I bounced around a little bit. I tried to start a new website that was going to be a ratings and review site for the insurance and financial crowd. I spent almost two years building up a database of names, numbers, emails, and addresses. In the end, I ran out of money to build it. Knowing the banks would never deal with me, I ended up selling the house for a terrible price and walked away with $17,000 to my name. I lived with St. Nick and Palmecci in Iowa City for a while. I took a job working at the VA in Iowa City cleaning medical tools after I got a drunk driving charge. A weekend in jail and a few thousand in fines was humiliating. It was my own fault. I lost my license for an entire year, and living in St. Nick’s basement, taking the bus, riding my bike, and having Marci drive the kids down to Iowa City every other weekend was humbling.

I decided I wanted more than anything was to be happy. I had spent all of my energy on trying to make money and be in charge of my own destiny. What I forgot along the way is that the best things in life are free; good friends, a good woman, family, and honest work all mean more than making it big. I quit the job at the VA once I got my license back and moved back to Cedar Rapids. However, when I was at the VA, I looked into a lot of the programs offered to vets. One of them was the vocational rehab services. The VA would pay for all of my school and give me a few hundred bucks a month as a stipend. I decided I wanted to be a chef. I loved to cook, and the kitchen was my type of crowd. I would be the oldest guy going back to a junior college, but I didn’t care. It would be good, honest work. 

As fortune turns, I met another woman on the internet dating site. It was the same old play as before; I spammed out to every hot woman on the site, “I like your profile. Cute pictures. Tell me more about you.” Her name was Kirsten, and she fell for it. She was a little older than me, but she had just divorced a rich guy in New Jersey. She got half of everything from the ex and had little idea about what to do with it. I helped her learn how to manage her own money and forget the financial planners and insurance agents. She is easygoing and just wants to enjoy life. Today, my days are filled with sitting in class with a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings trying to make a name for themselves in the food and hospitality industry. I am not sure what lies ahead, but I thought it would be good to tell this tale before it too floats down the river of time.

The End