Les Bernstein was not an unlucky man. The fact of the matter was that nothing bad
ever happened to him. But for some
reason, the people around Les always seemed to be visited by disaster. Everyone in the company knew this. One famous Les story had involved Bosco. Bosco had borrowed Les’ car and not only did
it break down on the FDR Drive, but when a passing police cruiser stopped to
help, the cops found a half an ounce of marijuana in the glove compartment when
he opened it to show them the registration.
Bosco was booked on possession of Les’ weed and spent the night in jail
until Leah was able to bail him out the following morning.
It was therefore with a certain amount of dread that I turned
around upon hearing Les call out my name in the hallway on my floor one
morning. I looked up as he trotted
towards me. He was smiling broadly.
“Mike! Jeez, I’m glad
to see you.”
“’Morning, Les. What
can I do for you?”
Les paused a second before he launched into his pitch. This was when I should have made like the
Roadrunner from the old Warner Brothers cartoons and disappeared at supersonic
speed, leaving Les in a cloud of dust.
Not that that would have helped me any.
As sure as I was standing there, waiting for Les’ next words, an anvil
would have landed on my head before I’d gotten two steps away from him. You can learn a lot about life from Saturday
morning cartoons.
“I need a favor, Mike.”
Scariest words on the planet and yet I didn’t make a break
for it. I suppose that I was a very cool
character back then. That, or one of the
biggest fools alive. Bosco had proved it
was impudent to accept help from Les, so why would it be much different to
offer it to him? Still, I nodded and Les
began to speak very quickly.
“You know Lou Krasner, don’t you? He owns Universal Hair over on West 57th
Street. Anyway, he needs a carload of
stuff at his place, like yesterday! This
is a big deal for me, Mike. Huge! He’s one of our best accounts. He says jump, I gotta ask him how high. You know what I mean?”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked warily.
“Look, I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. But do you think you could deliver his order
to him today? It would really get me out
of a bind. I’d do it myself, but I’ve
got meetings all afternoon.”
“Les, why don’t you just reschedule one of the meetings?”
“I can’t! Shit, I’ve
got so many meetings today and tomorrow, I don’t have time to talk to my
clients. You gotta do this for me. Please.”
There’s something sort of comical about a salesman who’s too
busy to make sales calls, but that said a lot about Les. He was in the office every morning before
eight and made a point of staying past seven, if only just so he could say that
he worked longer hours than anyone else.
What was remarkable though was that he still seemed to get caught in
situations like this all the time. Les
had once roped Allan into packing a van with product and samples early one
morning so that Les could drive it all to a trade show he was attending in
Pittsburgh. It would have been a great
idea had Les asked Allan to do this before the show had already started. Les arrived in Pittsburgh with his van filled
with promotional items just as the first day of the conference ended. He’d called the office in a panic at around
5:30 that afternoon, looking for someone who could fly out there to unload the
van, set up for the second day and then man the booth while he attended to a
few meetings with clients.
“What’ve you got?” I asked.
“Great!” Les cried, even though I hadn’t agreed to actually
do anything. As far as he was concerned,
just by asking, I’d implied that I was on board. “There’s a box with 30 units, a box of
brochures, and two cases of liquids. You
can get a hand truck up on the sixth floor.
They should have the order picked by now.”
“Les,” I began, but I was too late. He was already backing away from my, grinning
broadly.
“Thanks, Mike! You’re
saving my life.”
He turned around and hurried off, leaving me wondering just
how in the hell it had all happened. I
checked my watch. It was a little before
eleven. Actually, it wasn’t that bad a
deal, I realized as I headed to the elevator.
I’d be able to skip out of the office for a little while and the traffic
wasn’t likely to be so bad at that point in the day. If I played it right, I wouldn’t have come
back to the office until tomorrow. I
pressed the elevator button and listened as the alarms from a couple floors
above woke up George and the elevator began its descent.
George picked me up on the second floor and fell asleep
between the third and fourth as we headed for the sixth. I snagged a hand truck and went to find what
the warehouse pickers had left for me.
The box of hairpieces was present, but I would have to go to the seventh
floor to get the rest. I took the box
and the hand truck and rang for the elevator.
George and I chatted as we made the short trip up to the floor above. I gave him a wave as I exited the elevator,
but he was already slumped over, his breathing deep and slow.
It took me almost a half hour to track down the other boxes
as Les had neglected to actually notify anyone on the seventh floor that he
needed anything. So, I waited as he
wrote up a pick order to be emailed from his office to the upper
warehouse. Finally though, I had
everything and I headed down to the ground floor to select a vehicle.
The next installment will be posted on December 2.
If you'd like to read the entire book today, GO
HERE.
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