The Traveling Salesman

Black art is throwing a party, see? His real name is Arthur Schloggenheimer, but we call him Black Art on account of him being a wizard. Sort of a gag, see, because he is really very serious and raises the dead and all that kind of stuff.

But every once in a while Black Art knocks off from that old black magic and throws a big party. He is a good joe, even though screwy, and he has a lot of liquor so we always come to his brawls.

Well, this time we are sitting around in the big French parlor he calls the Louis 0 Room. Black Art won't allow any mirrors or glassware in his pad, because if he sees his reflection then old John Q. Satan will foreclose his mortgage on him. There is Subconscious Sigmund, the headshrinker, and Floyd Scrilch and a lot of other big wheels, and we are all drinking Pernod out of paper cups and talking about Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de Sade and Howard Hughes and the other characters Black Art knows in the good old days.

I notice Black Art is nervous tonight, and when he gets nervous something always happens. I can always tell. To begin with, his beard usually stands up--like there was a wind blowing on it from across the stars, he says.

Well, tonight his beard is standing up so straight it damn near hits him in the nose. He gets up and walks over to the window, and I can see he is shaking all over. So I sneak across the room and see he is looking out at the moon.

Something flies across the moon. I can make out seven little specks.

"The seven geese!"

I hear him whisper it, and then there is an awful squawk as the birds fly past and the moon goes behind a big, black horned cloud.

"He is coming!" Black Art whispers. "I see the omens!"

Sure enough, a minute later there is a paradiddle on the front door. Everybody looks while Black Art goes and opens it.

Salesman (continued from preceding page)

A strange cat comes in.

Now there is nothing really wrong with this guy and the way he dresses. He is tall and thin, and he has big sad eyes--but lots of finks look that way. He wears a set of black threads, plenty dusty, like a burlap bag with lapels. He carries a big bulging suitcase which is also dusty. There is something about the way he wheels in that makes you feel he is real dragged.

Everybody digs it. Here is somebody who travels a long, long way for a long, long time. A little cold wind runs around the room as Black Art closes the door. He looks at the dust on the guy's shoes and at the dust in his eyes.

"I expected you," he says. "I saw the signs."

The stranger sighs like somebody letting air out of his tires.

"Then you know who I am?"

Black Art goes into his educated bit. "When the dogs howl and the seven geese keen mournfully from afar, I know. A man would be stupid indeed not to recognize you for what you are."

"Yes." The cat looks at all of us. "I am the Traveling Salesman."

He sets the suitcase down with a thump and dust flies all over the room. Floyd Scrilch comes up to him.

"What you mean, the Traveling Salesman?" he asks. "There's lots of those characters around."

The stranger smiles his tired smile. "Yes. But there's only one Traveling Salesman known all over the world--the Traveling Salesman of the dirty jokes. And that's who I am."

He sits down on the sofa very carefully, like part of him is made of expensive glass which he is afraid of breaking. Black Art hands him a drink and we all stand around.

"Thanks," he says. "It's cool to take five like this. Haven't been in the city for years, you know. Just one damned rural route after another. I go from farm to farm, year in and year out. What an awful life I lead!"

"Yeah?" I say. "What about all those farmers' daughters?"

"Nyaaaa!" yells the Traveling Salesman, real loud. He jumps up like he is being gnawed by mice. "That's all they ask me. What about all those farmers' daughters? I'll tell you what!

"I'm sick of farmers' daughters! I'm sick of farmers. I'm sick of their wives, their rickety farmhouses, their squeaky beds, their outdoor plumbing!"

I shrug. "Then why travel?" I ask him.

"Why?" snarls the Salesman. "Because I'm cursed, that's why. Like the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew."

"Cursed?"

"By men. Men like you. Men who tell stories about the Traveling Salesman. You created me--you and your mass thought through the ages. After millions of men, their minds inflamed through telling bawdy tales, had thought about me in groups for hundreds of years--I just materialized. All those mass thoughts created a physical being. Me--the Traveling Salesman! And so I am cursed to wander.

"To wander, every night visiting a new farmhouse. Never a change of routine. A greasy supper. A fight over where to sleep. Then to bed. And there's always some damn daughter ...

"Those daughters! Dumb ones, fat ones, ugly ones--but they all have insomnia. Or cold feet. Or they snore."

The Traveling Salesman begins to groan. We get closer.

"It's my fate to live through the details of every one of those thousands of stories men have invented around my legend. I must engage in a hundred foolish acts, a million excesses. In barns, in haylofts, in horse-stalls, even in cow-pastures. I have been accused, abused, subjected to every indignity by the demands of those lousy jokes. Nyaaaa!"

Everybody looks sympathetic and drinks while he shudders.

"We understand, dad," says Black Art, patting his shoulder. "Why not stay here and rest up for a few days? I'll lend you a pad."

The Salesman gets to his feet. "Thanks," he mumbles, trying to smile. "Mighty nice of you to ask me, but I really can't do it." He sighs. "Some party in Omaha just figured out a new story for me. Something involving a double bed, three daughters and a horse, yet. I have an appointment tomorrow to try it out. So I must grab a train."

He reaches down for his suitcase. Black Art lifts it for him.

"Hey!" he comments. "This is a real heavy drag! What's in this grip?"

The Traveling Salesman blushes. Then he looks sick.

"Bricks," he whispers.

"Bricks?"

The Salesman opens the door and turns around.

"Yes," he snarls. "Bricks! That's the real tragedy of it all. Here I am, one of the best salesmen on the road, and it means nothing. Nothing at all. I might as well carry bricks as anything else.

"Because," he says, and then he begins to scream, "because in all the gawdawful stories about the Traveling Salesman, nobody ever mentions that I sell anything!"

Weeping foolishly, the Traveling Salesman closes the door behind him and falls down the stairs.