Customer Service
by Samuel H. Pillsbury
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
He gave Connie his present, a bracelet that he’d gotten from a guy he knew downtown. She melted, smiling, and threw a hug around him. Money was tight, and she didn’t think he was going to get her anything. They went to early mass like she wanted and found a diner near the bus station that was open for lunch. Meatloaf for Christmas. With ketchup. They laughed at that. Went home, played records and danced. Went to bed early. He remembered how quiet the apartment was that night, as if all the cars, trucks and buses, even the trains, took the night off.
Mostly in those days he just worked. Seven days a week he worked. Selling linoleum across three states, the sample cases so heavy that by the end of the day, they could nearly pull his arm out of its socket. He had a bulbous old Plymouth, black as the night, that was always breaking down, stranding him in the middle of nowhere. But then sometimes, the people who picked you up could give you a lead for a sale.
He did anything to save money. Slept in the back of the car when the weather wasn’t too bad. Washed up at a gas station in the morning, did everything at the sink. It was called a birdbath, what guys in jail did. Lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
He stopped in at government offices to see who was pulling building permits and then go out to the construction sites. Or he’d set up in a hardware store or lumberyard, furniture store, anything, and sell out of his cases. Linoleum was big those days, bright, modern, lots of choice in patterns. Easy to install and a cinch to clean.
On breaks or at the end of the day, he’d set up with a load of change at a phone booths and make follow-up calls and calls to where he was headed to set up meetings. Also calls back to the office to send in orders and pick up messages.
That’s how he found out about his first. He drove through the night, found Connie in the maternity ward and tiny Sally in the nursery and took them home. He felt complete then. Sally who died of cancer at 53. She’d had a pretty good life, but that hit hard. Why her and not him? Final proof, if you needed it, that life’s not fair.
“Mr. Harrison?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” He needed to take stock. Did he still have a chance here? Most people give up too early, but some go on too long, meaning they can’t live to fight another day. An orderly retreat in the face of an advancing enemy: the hardest maneuver known to a large fighting force. He read that somewhere.
He thought of his first partner, Jerry, with his slicked-back hair and sharp clothes who was great when things were going good: an excellent salesman, a master at turning a small order into a big one. Fun to be around.
They’d started their own sales firm with money from Jerry’s parents. They were a good team, built a good company, but Jerry drank and gambled, problems that just got worse. Some days he never made it to the office, never left the bar he stopped in for just one to get the day started.
Rough types showed up at work looking for Jerry, demanding their money. Once, the police had to be called. So he had to be cut loose. Nonperformance, the lawyer called it. It was right there in the partnership agreement: Paragraph 8(c). Jerry didn’t get it. Or refused to get it. Yelling and crying, he made a scene at the office.
Later, Jerry took to calling him late at night to moan about losing his house, how his wife and kids suffered. They had to shop at Sears! He begged for another chance. “I’m changed, I really am. I’ve been going to meetings.” What a loser.
Harrison always said there are two kinds of hard decisions. One kind is hard to decide because you don’t have enough information. The second kind is more common: the right choice is clear but hard to do. It will hurt you or people you care about. But it’s still the right thing. He had never shied from doing the hard thing. Or speaking the truth. It saved pain in the long run. Not that he ever got credit for that.
“Look, there’s something here doesn’t make sense. Virtually all of your costs here are sunk. All the expense of analyzing and manufacturing my proteins, that’s paid for. Replication of the formula is simple. The benefit to me is great, the cost to you is almost nothing. From a business perspective, I don’t get it.”
“The company has committed to focus only on enterprises that project a minimum 25 to 30 percent return, year over year. With hopes for double or triple that, which you can get with new tech.
“This thing you’re on, the key assumption was that for a large percentage of people, the product could be scaled, that the differences between individual genomes would be small enough that it would cost little to differentiate proteins for most people. You come up with a basic template then make some easy tweaks.
“Turns out not to be true. Everybody is unique. Imagine that. And that doesn’t pencil out. They were counting on a big payoff. Didn’t happen. So, time to cut losses. Focus all efforts elsewhere. It’s all about opportunity costs.”
That’s when he got it. “You just took off your mask.”
“What? My mask?”
“Okay: back in the day, we used to handle a lot of cash at headquarters. This was in the days before credit cards. It was a cash-and-check business, which meant we were a target. Got held up a couple of times.
“One day I go to a Rotary Club meeting, and the speaker is an FBI agent with the bank robbery squad. Told war stories, gave advice. He said, ‘If your robbers come in with no mask, they’re amateurs; give them what they want. If they wear masks, that means professionals, probably. Same advice. But what if one of them takes off his mask? If he lets you see him, then how can they let you go? All bets are off.’
“Darnel, you just took off your mask. You told me the truth. Because you’re not worried about me telling anybody else. I’m going down. How long do I have?”
He heard the clicking of her keyboard.
“Approximately 93 minutes.”
“Right. And then you guys—”
“Within two hours our cleanup team will arrive to remove the machine and inform local authorities of your demise.”
“I never had a chance with you, did I?”
“No.”
He just had to go on to the next. Except there was no next, not today. “What do I do, Darnel?”
“You write your people. They won’t take your call, but you can write. Say what you need to say. You have a dog?”
“I do. Charlie.”
“Make sure he’s got a home. Give him a treat and a hug. Also, there’s this. I want you to listen closely.”
“Okay.”
“If you look at the back of your delivery device, you’ll see a small screw that can be removed. That opens a slot and inside there’s switch. You just move it to red. If you’re hooked up, that’s it. Should be painless. Least that’s what they say.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
He was going to yell when he realized it was a joke. He could be offended, but actually it was funny. He laughed a little, then more, ending with the braying sound that happened when he let go. “Like a kicked mule,” Connie used to say, Connie who grew up on a farm. Who grows up on a farm any more?
Darnel joined in a high peal. She had a beautiful voice when she laughed.
“You might be the last person I talk to,” he said.
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Harrison.”
“So you know, I’m not going to do that thing with the box.”
“I understand. That’s not who you are.”
“That’s right.”
“You have a good day, Mr. Harrison.”
“You can call me Harry.”
“You have a good day, Harry.”
“You too, Darnel.”
She clicked off and a voice came on to offer a gift certificate in return for completing a brief survey. He cut the connection then regretted it. He should have stayed on to give her a good rating. Five out of five. Who could have done better? But he was an impatient man. Always had been.
He lay himself down on the red leather couch under the window, the one he had bought for his first big office. Oh, how they loved their offices back then. With big windows, big desk, big chair behind the desk. Bigger the better.
In a minute, he’d get up to feed Charlie, who would be wondering where his breakfast was. Put on his leash and take him across the street, open the neighbors’ back gate and leave him in the yard the way they’d told him, if he ever needed. Their girl Tanya would be excited to see him after school. Charlie would like that too, barking and jumping up when he saw her coming out. A win-win.
Then he’d write his notes. Say what he’d always meant to.
Leave his will out on the kitchen table. On top of that his phone with the password on a Post-it note and the keys to the house and car.
Put on his tie and shoes.
Just a few more things to do.
He had grown up in the age of radio, seen television take over and then the Internet. Computers in their own rooms, then on desks, laps, phones. AI and the nano revolution still in its early stages. The futures depicted in the pulpy-paged Popular Mechanics he liked to read while waiting for trains or planes, or in the sci-fi paperbacks sold at news stands, futures that never happened: no personal rocket packs or easy trips to Mars. But what he had seen was incredible, every step of the way. Progress. Call him old-fashioned, he believed in it.
But he had always thought — and it had always been true — that anything new and good could be his. That people like him would get what they wanted or at least what they needed, as long as they could pay. Wasn’t that the point?
Copyright © 2025 by Samuel H. Pillsbury
