Death of a Salesman – Short Story

      It was a Saturday afternoon and I had just finished all my weekly errands and was speeding home. I gave myself two hours to get all my shopping done and as I glanced at my watch I realized that I had an extra twenty minutes to kill.

      My car was on it's last leg and it could barely change lanes without fishtailing, they said it had something to do with control arms and a host of other parts that went bad long ago. So I decided to make my weekly stop at the local dealership, in hopes that they would have some sort of trade-in that they were willing to sell dirt cheap instead of wholesaling.

      The plan was to get in and get out, if I saw something I would come back later, because I was a man on a mission. The only flaw in my well constructed plan was the car, it had never learned the subtle nuances of being discrete.

      This was the type of car that gets you pulled over every time you drive and my record was three times in one night. The previous owner installed giant ghetto rims and unknown color of tint, by the time I owned the car the tint had faded to a mix of burgundy, pink and purple depending on the time of day.

      As I slowly pulled into the dealership all the car salesmen turned toward me, others began racing out of the doors in my direction. They were well dressed in their khaki pants and button down shirts, but I knew the truth and just how ravenous they really were.

      If a zombie outbreak struck, I cannot see how this scene would have played out any differently, so instead of parking I gave them the slip by driving behind the building and leaving them in a cloud of smoke. I manged to make my way over to the used cars without too much attention, most of the salesmen were busy chasing carbon monoxide on the other side of the building.

      I got out and began rushing from car to car, these were the types of cars that all you needed to do was take a glance on the inside to see what may have happened in there. Some were freshly wrecked others were missing seats and one looked as if it was once a victim of arson in order to cover up some awful crime of passion.

      There wasn't a single car that was even worth considering, but then I saw a truck that had no major body damage and no sad story painted in blood on the seats. As I began to inspect the truck a car salesman caught up to me, I tried to turn my back on him but this smooth talker was part bloodhound.

      He managed to get my scent and he was following the only instinct that he had ever known. With a forceful enthusiasm he asked “Can I help you find anything,” My mind began to race, I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but my fear of confrontation got the best of me and I cowardly said, “No.”

      He then asked me if I knew how to drive a stick and a proud “Yes” slipped out of my lips. With a confident grin he began to tell me how great that truck was and that we should go on a test drive. I quickly said “I don't want to go on a test drive,” but he knew better.

      “C'mon lets go for test drive.” “I'm OK” I replied, but he continued to rephrase the question in ways that I never expected. I could feel myself breaking down as the defeated “I don't know” rolled off my tongue, so he began to turn up the pressure.

      I fought off his advances for as long as I could, but I was out of my league and all I could hear were my own insecurities “Quit being a pussy and be a man!” I began to panic and attempting to hold onto whatever low self worth that I had left, I caved into the pressure and I forgot all about my schedule and the ice cream that was rapidly melting in my back seat.

      The next thing I knew, I was pulling a massive, overpriced 4 door truck into traffic. I was having a little trouble with shifting gears and that embarrassing grinding noise reared it's ugly head. As I struggled to keep the truck in one lane, he began breaking my concentration with weird questions. “Can you feel that ride?” and then he would answer his own question with more questions “Smooth huh?”

      But then the moment of truth arrived and he began asking me to make a left so we could turn around. I was extremely paranoid that I would wreck the truck, this was a very busy road and I couldn't shake that anxious feeling. The further I drove without turning the more nervous he seemed to become, as if I might never stop and he would end up in some basement as part of a collection of used car salesmen that I managed procure.

      About a mile down the road I finally found a safe spot to turn and as we got back on the road I couldn't seem to gain speed, so I kept changing gears. The more I changed gears the more I heard that awful grinding and for the life of me, I could no longer figure out how to use the shifter.

      To calm the situation I said “I have not driven a stick shift in a while,” but I could hear the terror in his voice as he said “Just watch the road.” At that point I realized that I had been staring at the shifter for some time. My right hand shoved it forward and then back, over and over as it kept making that terrible sound, grinding parts of the truck away.

      I looked up to see the car salesman's face and he was no longer sitting, he was gripping the “oh shit handle” with both hands and his face looked as if he was witnessing his own death. He was completely checked out and none of this seemed right to me, so my mind began racing to find out why things were going so very wrong.

      Then it hit me like ton of bricks, my stomach dropped and I felt nauseous as the memory came flooding back. Two hours earlier my roommate and I were eating LSA in the form of handfuls of Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds and I decided to go run a few errands.

      I assured him that I would be back before they kicked in, but I wasn't back, instead I was fighting a shifter with some pushy asshole who thinks this is the best time to come to terms with his own mortality. Then in a frenzy he began pointing into the distance and he was trying to say something, but all he could muster was the soft repeating “H” sound.

      I looked out the window to see what he was pointing at and I realized that we were no longer on the road, we were bouncing over bumps in a field. I began to realize what he meant by that smooth ride question, so I said “Yeah you're right, it really is smooth,” but he was no longer listening.

      A shopping center was rapidly traveling toward us and I knew that my copilot's head was no longer in the game, so it was all up to me. I began searching all the windows to see where the road might have went and then I found it trying to escape, about fifteen feet to my left.

      I quickly said “I like to go off roading,” in an attempt to play it off as if I planned this, then I proceeded to get back on the road. I used my left turn signal and I drove slow and cautious hoping that maybe I could change his opinion of me, as if the field incident was just a fluke and it is not really who I am.

      I wanted to show him that I am like an onion and there is much more to me than just some guy that can't change gears and has a tendency to lose the road, I thought that maybe I could convey all this with my impeccable driving skills.

      I managed to get us back to the dealership without incident and as we got out I said “That's one hell of a truck!” But he was no longer interested in pushing me into 36 easy payments of more than I could afford, instead he began marching across the parking lot.

      I wondered if he was in a hurry to tell his buddies about how he just met the funniest off roader, but his body language suggested otherwise. I remembered that this was probably a traumatic experience for him and I began to feel bad, but then I felt righteous indignation “Maybe he will think twice before he pressures someone else into a test drive after they have already said, no.”

      I wasn't exactly sure what he knew, part of me thought that maybe he didn't notice that I drove us into a field. Then my paranoia stepped in and explained that he knew everything, he even knew about the Hawaiian Baby Woodrose and he was about to spill his guts to a coked up, gang of used car salesmen. My fight or flight response kicked in and I immediately ran over to my car and drove out of enemy territory, to escape whatever car lot justice they had in store for me.

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To Law Enforcement any and all, past, present and future crimes that may be mentioned in this article were a work of fiction, that were thought up by someone else, in another country, long before the laws were created and I am not sure how hackers inserted them into this article.

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This is one of my favorite short stories, so I reworked it with all the new skills that I have learned at Steemit and this is the result. Sharing this story was the initial reason why I joined Steemit, it was also my first post and without a following and the knowledge of how to promote it, sadly this story went unnoticed.

If this has been your experience with Steemit or if any of you need help or advice for your work, you can find a Mentor that is willing to help here.

Death of a Salesman still holds a special place in my heart for getting me here and I hope you enjoy this new version as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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