"Thomas Construction"

"Did I ever tell you about the time. . . . ."

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When it comes to the high-pressure, high-volume world of sales, a Christian-run company in the business of knocking on doors and selling windows & siding is a questionable proposition and probably finds itself in league with Satan. But Bobby doesn't see it that way; forsooth, no!-- the blinkered thinking that carries one over the goal line and separates rubes from their money like a quarterback throwing a touchdown pass and outfoxing sales resistance. The novice who starts off on the wobbling legs of self-consciousness is like a quarterback trying to make a play while seeing the world with a traffic cone held up to his face and gets flattened by the line-backers of doubt because he can't see the whole field laid out in front of him with that narrow speck of vision, needing "a broader awareness" yet an ability "to hone in".

Hayes always had the gift of gab, and was what the industry referred to as a "Rhino", alluding to the charging rhinoceros who isn't scared off when the disgusted try to ward him away with the negatory blast of a hunting rifle. Instead, they storm right in "and get their man".

The game plan is to quite literally walk through poor neighborhoods and ring the doorbell and lay on the charm like Bill Clinton spreading apple-butter over a biscuit as the startled fall for the spell. There is the sound of barking dogs, crying babies, and boiling pots as the intended listen with complete credulity-- the kind of person who would have voted for Representative William Lacey Clay and Mayor Freeman Bosley, hucksters of fraud and mismanagement all the same, the unsophisticated slice of the city electorate who might as well have a picture of a black Jesus on the wall as Billary tit-suckers on Abraham Lincoln's plantation. As the sales training instructs, you talk about family, fly-fishing, whatever-- later surreptitiously writing down their info on an index card so you can evidently remember them like a bosom buddy. If a child is in the room, you heap on the charisma by putting your hands behind your back and telling them to guess which one has the quarter. You make a big show of opening your palm and letting them win every time because both hands were loaded! But the client, unwise to the sly, never knew the difference.

But so long as you believed in the soundness of your product and your company mission, you could rationalize such shenanigans. . . . .

Bobby was into the Lord in the mid '80s when he worked for Thomas, and so long as you did your keep you were welcome at the owner's table whom held a brunch at a restaurant every Sunday like Jesus and the 12 disciples, a host of pancakes, sausage, coffee, and orange juice around a Naugahyde booth smelling of sweet oil and the zeal of bring-in-the-quota televangelism. Yes, "Thomas Construction" was a mansion with many rooms and one Christmas Hayes was inspired to don a red stocking cap and hand out $200 in five & ten dollar bills in the old neighborhood because he had such an abundant year. Manic with good cheer, he found himself wandering further and further up into North St. Louis as the sun crept below the horizon. Finally he came up to an old parking garage where he handed out some money from a sack to an old grizzled alcoholic.

The old black drunk squinted at him, gaped his gold n' missing teeth, and told Bobby to come back in 20 minutes because he had a big Christmas surprise for him. He waited, and then got suspicious. The man came out again and told Bobby to follow him inside.

His better judgment got a-hold of him, and the drunk exclaimed: "Shit, man! He ain't goin' for it!". And out of the parking garage slunk weak, 70 year old bums holding up clubs and tire irons like a bunch of toothless panthers. Some of them could barely walk, they were in such bad shape. Everyone had a moment to stare at each other and contemplate the jungle of human affairs.

Bobby got out of there in a hurry. . . . .