"Livingston. Gordon Livingston."
Two hours later, Earl Simmons and myself had come to an agreement. He had some big plans, but needed somebody like me to make them work. He was a thrifty man, so money was no object. I was willing and able to help him, with one stipulation: I could hire my own assistant. "Sally-one-eye" was going to be a happy woman.
I took Shelton and Joyce to the Red Lobster that night. The misery that Laura had caused was disappearing fast. I think Sally was happier than I was, after I called her.
When we got back to the house, Laura was waiting for me. She spent twenty minutes trying to convince me to come back to our place. It appeared that Tony was not very excited about supporting his wife, family, and Laura. I politely listened to her complete argument, smiled and walked into the house. I did not say a word.
The next few weeks were busy. The main building was all concrete block. The second floor was a three-bedroom apartment that had been used as storage for the last twenty years. Earl was more than happy to let me use it to live in: rent-free. "Sally-one-eye" helped me find a stove, refrigerator, and washing machine. Sally and I cleaned and painted the inside of the office and the apartment. I hired a couple of high school kids to paint all the out buildings. Earl never squawked about the cost.
It was a lot of fun, but eventually we had to start doing productive work.
Laura called Joyce and told her she got the divorce papers and signed them. It was pretty cut and dry since we didn't own the house and had no kids. I had already given her half of the assets. Not much for twelve years of marriage, but all she deserved.
"Sally-one-eye" was a skinny little thing with bad teeth and a fake eye. Her hair was dirty blonde and it appeared that she had never been in a beauty salon in her life. She definitely lacked make-up skills. She always appeared to be clean, but needed some serious maintenance. All this was compensated for by a telephone voice that dripped honey, and a work ethic that put me to shame. Her computer skills were extraordinary as well as her accounting ability. To me, she was a dream come true.
One nice thing about working for a guy who thinks he's smarter than everyone else is that he usually isn't. Monsano Mowers had no confidentiality clauses or proprietary agreements. Tony didn't need any of that crap because he was the man. Unfortunately for Tony, that also meant that Sally and I had an open playing field. Sally sent letters to all the wholesalers that we had dealings with and all the retailers that we worked with. All she did was explain that the two of us were no longer with Monsano Mowers and were not available to provide service to them any longer. She was very careful not to solicit any type of business.
In the mean time, I was calling all of Earl's contacts to see if any of them were still viable. Most of the accounts had died a slow death over the years, and some of them actually went out of business. As far as Earl was concerned, the farm equipment operation was dead. He had no desire to resurrect it.
I fell across a Korean manufacturer who was trying to get U.S. distributors for gang mowers. They weren't very sophisticated, but sturdy and cheap. It was an ideal item for small municipalities and school districts to consider. After thirty minutes on the phone, I had fifty units coming from California, on a consignment basis. We had the room to stock them and it cost us no money up front. They sent a box of sales brochures, by Overnight Express, and "Sally-one-eye" was right on it.
We had six orders before the first load arrived.
The next week, Sally started calling each of the letter recipients. I don't know who was happier to hear from her, the wholesalers or the retailers. All she was doing was laying groundwork, and she was good at it. We were looking to enter the residential lawn care market, but had no problem with branching out a little.
Several roto-tiller companies had tried to get Tony to carry their lines, but he wanted no part of it. I had three of them lined up by the end of the first week. Two of them were willing to work on consignment.
The showroom on the first floor was ready for some products. I didn't think it would be gardening equipment, but Earl was thrilled. "Sally-one-eye" surprised me by signing up two chain saw manufacturers. An old friend of Earls came around with a truckload of new chipper-shredders. He was fine with the consignment arrangement also. In no time at all, Earl had a stock of new merchandise to offer.
Monday morning, Earl introduced me to our new salesman. He was a retired guy and was willing to work solely on commission. He said if he didn't sell anything, he didn't want to get paid. He sold three gang mowers and a chipper on his first day. Things were getting better.
"Sally-one-eye" was so busy, that she asked if she could come in to work on Saturday. It was okay with me, since I would be here anyhow. There was no school or day care over the weekend, so she had to bring the boys to work with her. I always liked kids. They spent most of the day in the apartment watching TV, but I think the part they liked best was going out back with Earl to spot groundhogs. Sally said they talked about it all the way home.
A few weeks later, Sally's boys were out of school for the summer. She brought them to work with her every day. Earl kept them busy most of the time out back. The business was located on the front part of Earl's old family farm, an orchard actually. The hillside was peppered with old apple trees, most of them dead or dying.
I put a set of bunk beds in one of the extra rooms for the boys. Just in case, I got a twin for the other room. It was not hard to convince Sally and the boys to start staying overnight. Since the nearby elementary school was highly rated, I had no trouble at all getting Sally to move into the apartment before the new school year. Come to think of it, I think it was her idea. How did she do that? For making the offer, I was rewarded with a small kiss. Things were looking up.
Somehow or other, Tony found out where I was working. Carmine's girl friend had been using the company computer to download porn and got a couple of nice viruses. Tony asked if I could come by and get the system up and running again. I think he could hear me laughing as I hung up the phone. He was lucky that I didn't sue him for alienation of affection or improper dismissal.
Earl had been carrying company medical coverage for years, even when he really had no employees. When Sally found out that she now had dental coverage, she was ecstatic. One afternoon a week, she started spending time at the dentist office. Nothing was apparent at first, but as the weeks passed, she started to look better and better. The big change came when Earl got her an appointment with an ocularist. Her problem all along had been an ill-fitted prosthesis. Once she was fitted with the right size, it was almost impossible to notice. "Sally-one-eye" had now become just simply "Sally." For her birthday, Earl and I gave her an all day beauty treatment at an Elizabeth Arden salon. I had to drive her to Philly to have it done. The boys and I got to spend the afternoon at the zoo, while their mother was completely pampered. It was a good time.
Laura called and asked for help. Her car was being repossessed and her cell phone service was cancelled for non-payment. She moved into a furnished studio apartment and she was already behind on the rent. I left her all the furniture from the house. I have no idea what she did with it. Tony refused her phone calls and she wasn't allowed in the company building. I tried my best to be polite and understanding, but explained that there was no way that I could help her. She didn't like the answer, but had no alternatives. There was one more week to go until the divorce would be final. I was counting the days.
We were hoping that the business would start moving because of the retailers, but it turned out to be the other way around. Tornado Mowers was the first manufacturer to contact us. There were nine retailers in the area dealing through Monsano Mowers. They were unhappy and wanted a change. Six of them knew of our new operation and recommended that Tornado contact us. By the end of the day we were the official wholesale distributors of Tornado mowers for the tri-county area. We got our first real break.
The next day, my divorce was final.
Things started to fall together after that. One by one, the wholesalers and retailers that used to go to Monsano Mowers were coming over to us. Sally got to hire a girl to help in the office.
A few weeks later, I happened to hear a noise out by the equipment lot. Two men, got out of a pickup, and were removing something from the truck bed. After a few moments, two Molotov cocktails were flying across the lot. The pair of arsonists waited until the fireballs erupted, and then raced back to the truck. They were too late. Before they reached the truck, there were two shotgun blasts and the front tires of their truck went flat as pancakes. I turned on the outside floodlights, and Earl was standing there laughing. Two shadows were running down the road, fast as hell.
The police had no trouble locating the owner of the truck. He couldn't wait to spill the beans on the Monsano brothers, who paid him to do the job. That was pretty much the end of Monsano Mowers. What little customer base they had left switched over to us within the week. Tony ended up doing some jail time, but I don't know how much. Carmine disappeared.
The damage to the lot was superficial and was also covered by insurance.
Earl strutted around like a peacock, elated to see his old business flourishing again. Every now and then he would come up with a suggestion, but he was always careful not to interfere. We now had a lot superintendent, who also doubled as a Spanish interpreter when necessary. One of our mechanics was a local trade school graduate and the other was an old fart. They complimented each other perfectly. Sally became a payroll and tax expert in no time.
Shelton and Joyce came out to see us about once a month. It was never anything fancy, but it was nice to get together with someone. Earl lost his wife over ten years ago. They never had any children. He was always welcomed when we had company.
Laura seemed to have disappeared.
After Sally moved in, we became closer. At first, we would just sit and watch TV after the boys went to bed. On occasion, we both would fall asleep on the sofa and wake up, cuddled together. We started giving each other kisses, as if saying 'thank you' for some little favor. Before I knew it, I was giving her a peck on the cheek, when she and the boys left to go shopping or something like that.
