The apex of a Salesman

CHAPTER ONE – THE GROCERY STORE

It was maybe… seven years ago since Allin and myself -laughing like maniacs- franticly stormed the alleys of a little grocery store along Saint Laurent Street in Montreal.

It was one of our many crazy summer nights in the heart of Montreal. We were on our way to a birthday party in “quartier Mont Royal”, the undisputed hipster’s enclave.

As usual, whenever we hanged out -as the relentless iconoclasts we were- we set our sights on the extraordinary. Whatever shape or form it might take, that was irrelevant; the absolute new was for us, what fresh blood is for thirsty vampires.

As we cruised nights in and nights out, celebrating the unexpected with the outmost conviction, the energy fields around us would always converge and bless us with these improbable events. Every single night had epiphanies, inflection points and above all, unforgettable memories.

That night we had just decided to develop together a particular type of composition, one on a completely different medium, a.k.a., a one-of-a-kind birthday present to one of our dear common friends.

A genuine token meant to capture the depth of our friendship. And just to make it more interesting, and keep it affordable, the challenge would be accomplished by limiting ourselves to the shelves of the first grocery store we’d find on our way!

That night, inside that grocery store, way in the back, we saw our medium.

Allin’s eyes crisped up, I nodded, smiled and Allin said:

That’s it Alberto, we’re bring a dessert!

We just need something else… one more little thing.

CHAPTER TWO - THE BOARDROOM

A late Monday evening in Lima, Peru, about a month ago.

My business partner -Jonas- and I were finally granted an audience with "The Doc"; the elderly man running the massive organization to which we had submitted a handful of projects in the last few months, to no freaking avail. That evening for good or for bad, we were going after certainty and direction.

For me, it was imperative our local Peruvian contracts would soon see the light of day, I had heavily invested time and resources on them. At that point I was on the ropes so to speak, about to pull the plug and write all these projects off, but not without a chance for one last glorious uppercut.

As we grew anxious and powerless against the hoops of such a bureaucratic maze, I was adamant we had a meeting with the head of the organization. Jonas had reluctantly agreed after I harassed him for a couple of weeks. After all, the Doc was his contact, with whom he had much more to lose than I did.

Introducing me to the Doc -or to anybody else for the matter- and I accept this not without a subtle smirk, it's always a fantastic russian roulette.

Jonas knew I was somehow a successful salesman, but he also knew, and this worried him deeply, that I rarely used traditional tactics.

While I strangely feel at home inside the haze of chaos, Jonas was the epitome of orthodoxy. Moreover, we were dealing in Peru, a country where business ways are still quite conservative.

It took him another couple of weeks to get that 20-minutes meeting with the Doc, our opportunity to present our projects directly to the boss. The meeting was set for that Monday at 5:30pm, at his offices, on the 10th floor of their massive administration building. From his windows, he could overlook what was essentially his very own kingdom, a modern feudal state on which he had absolute domain.

I remember Jonas advising me on how to proceed at the meeting; where to sit, when to talk, what to wear... a full litany on the protocols that come with meeting someone of that stature. In short, he politely told me to please, for 20 minutes, behave like an adult in at least a dozen of ways.

I wholeheartedly nodded and agreed at every iteration, I believed it myself and carried that promise as much as I could, right before it took a memorable sharp turn... otherwise why would I bother writing about it.

Now, listen to me, do you truly think a SWOT analysis closes any deals? Or a stellar LinkedIn profile? Not even my pristine table manners could do the trick. It often and luckily gets weird and creative, sometimes even dirty but in a few magical times, like this one, it just gets unforgettable.

Salesmen are at times the most vilified people in a company, we all know that. Our art is grossly underrated. As salesmen, we have to become different animals at the snap of a finger.  We're the responsible ones of loosing deals, but when we win them… oh well, it's all about our services or maybe the right timing.

Salesmen must wander like deer you know, like Bambi; candidly exploring the forest in a friendly and approachable manner. But then... when we finally sniff the scent of a deal, we grow wings and morph into eagles to fly high into the skies and begin circling around and around. From atop the eagle gathers perspective and studies its prey’s every move, until it’s time to take the fearless plunge. This beautiful rapid descent, deep through the scope of the sniper with the precision of a surgeon.

But what I enjoy the most, and this is cannot be healthy... is that very last stretch, when the deal is already on the table and all bets are off. When we're called to shed our wings and grow fangs, when we become vicious wolves. A wolf that forgets and leaves everything behind to zero into his target, a wolf so heavily into the moment, that both past and feature cease to exist.

At the heights of humanity, I think we always become instinct itself. A genuine wordless force of a magnetic nature. And instinct, it behaves in organic ways, it follows a symphony, one that you can only read, melancholically, in retrospective.

By the time the meeting came, I had already become a wolf for a while, so take your guess. A result from the gravity of the contracts; the frustration with the bureaucracy, the relentless Peruvian summer heat, and the smell of a bunch of money sitting on a table.

After an hour of waiting at the lobby, we were finally escorted inside the Boardroom.  

The Boardroom had this gigantic mahogany table worthy of the UN headquarters. It could sit at least 40 suits and the ceiling was easily 20 feet high. The room was bathed with the most sober wooden panels. The Doc was sitting down at the far end, wearing a cool off-white guayabera and a dark blue beret. As we approached to shake hands, I could notice he had three neat piles of documents in front of him.

At that moment, he was signing some sort of diplomas from the center pile. When we shook hands, he barely looked me in the eyes. I kind of knew we were just one of the many other daily pleads he had to deal with, but it was just then when I knew we were on an uphill battle. The Doc had low energy, he was not really there.

When we sat down a few chairs away from the Doc, I was convinced we needed to pull a rabbit from somewhere. I looked at my partner and smiled.

Jonas begun to talk.

CHAPTER THREE – MONT ROYAL 

When Allin and I made it to the birthday party, we were psyched to see plenty of familiar faces. Our friends down there were all vegans, artists, dumpster-divers, hedonists… not hipsters per se, but more of nouveau-hippies, a bit of a nuance there, an awesome crowd nevertheless.

The Persians where there, the Mexicans too and the Albertans… man I loved those guys. Canadians from the Province of Alberta, probably the coolest Canadians from coast to coast!

And Persians are just fantastic people, for real, whenever I meet Persians, you know, people from Iran, I’m just fascinated by their poise, culture and attitude. And if you want to have a great party, well you gotta add some Mexicans to the mix, they are just out of this world.

When we arrived everyone cheered, hugged and laughed, and we could all tell it was going to be a night to remember. There was a beautiful vegan buffet spread over the dining table, all types of funky drinks, great folk music, incense in the air and even a party theme that we didn’t know about, not that I was going to dress myself as a pirate anyhow.

Allin couldn’t resist. He’s as much of a fan of Madonna as he embodies her starlight. Some people are just born to shine.  

Alberto and I… we brought a surprise! -Allin sensually screamed out loud, bringing the music down- it’s in the kitchen… but it’s in my pockets too people!!!

And then he turned the music all the way up and started to dance like a stripper, with his pants-pockets about to burst. These nouveau-hippies, well they love their dancing, so a bunch of them started shaking and grinding Allin’s pants.

Nobody touch it! But you -pointing at the birthday girl- you just might touch it! Hahaha! he would scream, dance and laugh like a prima donna. Not even five minutes in, and the party was on fire and as usual, Allin was the uncontested director.

I headed to the buffet and asked Runi… dude is all this dumpster-dived? Hell yeah -he laughed- we scored earlier today. I had some of it, who cares, it was all boiled anyway. But not without a shot of tequila right after, you know, just in case.

Later that night -at midnight actually- Allin sat down Annie, the birthday girl, in the middle of the living room to present her our birthday surprise present.

Allin brought the music down again, looked at everyone on the eyes and begun his speech. A speech no one in that room would ever forget, well, except for Allin himself… our divine intervention vessel, who wisely enough, never cared about the past.

CHAPTER FOUR – THE MOMENT

When Jonas begun to present our projects… man, truth is he was all over the place. Jumping from one project to another one, from one administrative office to the next, north was south, and south was bloody red.

The Doc was confused, but I could tell he couldn’t care less. He just carried on signing his diplomas, lifting his eyes from time to time looking at Jonas and nodding.  

I was quiet, on the sidelines, but inside I was growing impatient.

It was not easy either to present five different projects with different challenges, budgets and provisions. But the thing is, we were not there to have him understand them. All we needed was his “visto bueno or VB”, Spanish for green light, thumbs up, proceed.

We just needed him to trust us, understand and appreciate where we came from, and what we were up to. That’s all. Sounds simple but I can tell you it never is. Yet Jonas insisted on diving into every detail, the names of the bureaucrats, their own agendas and even show him on his cellphone screen some conversations and screen captures. He would then drag me into the meanders and details of each project, enough to make me look for an eject button. Drama was in the air.

While Jonas talked and the Doc barely interjected, I understood the significance of the three piles of documents in front of him. The center one was the stuff he was reviewing at the current moment. He would hold it on his hands while talking to whoever brought the case. On the pile at his right, the bigger one, you’d find all the folders looking for a visto bueno, say, the daily cases. The pile at his left, with probably two or three folders, it was the pile of the approved projects.

Coincidentally the folders on that left pile were ultra slim, each 5 pages max. Straight to the heart. On the other hand, our five folders in total were as thick as a pack of 500 pages! Not looking good man. As far as I knew we were not selling russian literature.  

Something else, when the Doc lifted his hand, his assistant would get closer to receive undiscernible instructions. His ballerina-style fingers up in the air caught my eye and prompted me to try and read his body language.  

I would pitch into the conversation from time to time, but just so I didn’t look like a wooden stooge. Right then and there, I just wanted to see where his feet were pointing. That is a critical tale of where your mind is at. Feet can’t lie. His feet could either be pointing towards us right across him, telling that he was giving us his full attention or pointing away of us, towards the exit, meaning precisely what you think it means.

So I went ahead and dropped my phone, you know, couldn’t see much with that big table, just to get a peak at another dude’s feet. Well, under the table, kneeling on the carpet, laughing a bit to myself, while Jonas explained the unexplainable, I was looking for an oracle of truth. But as it happens, the Doc was not tall at all and so I found his feet just hanging, swinging like a kid’s ones. Funny stuff at least.

Back on the table, the back and forth was still going on. But then, suddenly, our luck changed. I’m not sure if we had only 499 pages, but there was an important one that was missing on Jonas’ folio, and when he noticed it he turned pale. So he violently -for real, I thought it was an earthquake or something- sprung up and almost run to the secretary’s office to have it printed out. While leaving the room he looked at the Doc, then at me and said as he disappeared': back in a minute gents, hold on… Crazy guy. Love him.

But between us, all I truly heard was my soccer coach hustling at me; come on Palomino, you’re up! one minute left on the clock, warming up is for boys… make it happen.

I knew I had only a handful of seconds before Jonas would be back with page 500.

It was wolf time. 

CHAPTER FIVE – THE CUT

Back in hippie land, seven years ago, under the midnight moon, Allin was slowly turning circles around Annie, who was still sitting down on a chair in the middle of the living room. He looked deeply into every single person in the room, as one would think only Napoleon did, right before he begun to speak.

Allin had lived in Asia for more than 10 years and profoundly understood the importance of the “MA”; the Japanese concept of the void. The interval between actions, or the space between objects, this nothingness so crucial for a moment to develop its own depth.

The silence he was building was purposeful. The silence would soon become his slingshot.

Allin’s aplomb was impeccable, his demeanor, made in Nirvana. His long and sweet smile magically contrasted his sharp sparky eyes. Those curious eyes hid one unpredictable synapse; a most powerful mind basking on the suspense of a complete silence.

If the ocean recedes, it is for a reason, and similarly, when I pull back an arrow, and the bow is about to break, there is a tension in the stillness.

The texture of raw possibility, true silence is far from empty.

There are moments like this one, not very frequent ones, a crux in time and space when we slide out of our reality and into a distinct pocket of life. Time slows down, our senses crisp up and our awareness reaches a perfect wavelength synchrony, a genuine communion with the universal ohm. When you walk into that moment, you know you’re walking into truth itself.

“Heat and cold!” he carefully spelled those words -out loud reverberating the four walls- and slowly stopped circling around. Meanwhile, I stood leaning against the kitchen door frame, next to the fridge where I would wait until Allin gave me the signal. Everyone was mesmerized.

“Heat and cold, black and white, light and dark!

East through west.

Heaven and hell.

Our dear birthday girl… tonight we bring you it all.

We inspire to exhale, and we exhale to relent.

But what is our range, what is vastness

without a spell.

A spell twisting our fates.

A spell we can never foretell.

What is a spell if not a break,

a cut in time and space…

heat and cold, above so below!”.

Seven years later, I found myself alone in the Boardroom with the Doc; and much like Allin’s slingshot, our own silence begun to spin and gain weight.

Right before the hunt, when a wolf stands on the highest stone of the hill to contemplate the horizon, he does so for a reason. He knows that maybe this will be the last time he gets the chance to go all out.

So the wolf calmly observes, he takes it all in with a deep breath.

In a few seconds he will run down the hill with all he’s got. Winner takes all.

“What is the present Annie,

if not a bubble where our memories

meet our dreams.

What is today,

if not everything in between.

Today is everything we got.

Alberto! please bring the dish!

The warm chocolate of the lava cake…

are all your sweetest memories,

and the cold inviting vanilla ice cream…

it is the canvas for the many to come!”.

In the Boardroom, my past quickly became my present. Everything collapsed into in the most frugal exchange that will soon happen between the Doc and myself, barely a minute. The longest minute.

When the silence between us reached its climax, I just told the Doc in a slow nostalgic tone:

“You know Doc, I’ve been living in Canada for the last 20 plus years… just came back not even a year ago”.

He stopped signing his papers, took his time to think and came back with a polite answer, the safest you could think of, one of those clichés we often hear and rarely reflect upon. He just said:

“Yes, time does fly”.   

“Hold the plate in front of you Annie.

Both together are delicious, aren’t they?

Isn’t this the range of life?

Past and present,

Heat and cold!

What could it possibly be missing...

But there is something missing here Annie,

please close your eyes”.

Right before I replied to the Doc, I felt the mind-bending taste of the dessert Allin and I concocted so many years ago in Montreal, a memory I never forgot.

A memory that rushed back shivering my arms, as if it had just happened yesterday.

I felt it in my lips as I felt it in the whole boardroom.

A new pocket of life.

I somehow saw everything… clear? I myself had incarnated into the chocolate cake, while the Doc had become the potentiality of the vanilla ice-cream. Does it make any sense?

And running between us, that magical ingredient that twisted the laws of physics and destiny. A delicious  shear not meant to happen. A cut opening that very moment to every possible permutation. A true worm-hole between today and seven years ago.

But in the boardroom, the cut took another form, it manifested itself into a sequence of words, but the effect was the same.

The effect was raw and sheer absolute novelty.

I intuitively whispered the following to the Doc -after a few seconds- to immediately fall back into the beautiful tension of our silence:

“Yes Doc, you’re right, time does fly…

but moments, moments are eternal”.

That is all I said to him but it came from the heart, from an altered state. At that moment, we connected beyond some silly projects and realized we just had one of those, albeit short, eternal moments.

When Annie was finally holding the dish in front of her, Allin asked her to open her eyes, what she did, following her hypnotic trance.

Allin reached into his pocket and pulled out the third ingredient.

Aside from him, only I knew he was holding a passion fruit between his fingers.

One of the two we found at the grocery store earlier that evening. 

Allin held one above the dish with both hands like a preacher, and slowly opened it, before he squeezed the passion fruit’s juices fall all over the lava cake and the vanilla ice-cream.

The powerful acidity of the passion fruit on top of hot chocolate and cold vanilla.

A bridge of tension giving meaning to an ordinary binary system.

A tasteful crossing bringing together past and future.

That was our composition… that was our gift to a dear friend on her birthday party.

Minutes later -right after Annie- we all sampled the dessert.

To this day, I’ve never experienced something like that.

What happened in my already heightened palate could never be described, hence my perpetual frustration with words.

Like I said, it was a night to remember.

……………………………………. 

As far as the Boardroom and the Doc goes, once Jonas came back with the freshly printed page and brought us back to that Monday evening in Lima, well, the Doc begun to move all our projects to the left pile. One after the other one. Just like that.

We left not long after that. We shook hands and this time the Doc looked deeply into my eyes.

We both smiled.

In the elevator going down, Jonas was ecstatic.

“I can’t believe he approved them all Alberto.

I just can’t believe it”.