marcus

 “Aight Santiago! I see you! You got everything in here! Charger, candy. Poems, man. Nobody does that. Five stars!” 

Marcus is gonna give me a great tip he says. Do I have CashApp? Yes, I do. I’ll tip you on there so that they don’t tax it. Okay, sure. But I know that nobody who says they will give a great tip actually gives a tip at all, so I just say, “We’ll figure it out when I drop you off.”

 Marcus’s car has been impounded. He had three warnings for speeding. And then he got caught going 120 mph on I-91 on his way to Connecticut. That was his fault. He’s reflected on it. He doesn’t care about the car because he wants a new one anyway. But he did have a great sound system put in there. He’s making good money at Stanley Steemer, so he should be able to get a new one soon. He wants something fast.

I note the irony and wonder if it might be better for him to get a slower car. He laughs. He likes to go fast.

“I understand that. Maybe you could find a safer place to go fast, like somewhere without as much traffic as I-91, so there would be fewer cops.”

“That’s good! Yeah. You should be a salesman. You’re a natural.” Marcus says this to me. 

“I could never close,” I reply. “Because if someone said they weren’t sure or didn’t want something, I’d feel sorry for them and say, that’s cool. I understand.”

“Nah. It’s not like that. You don’t have to pressure anybody. I have this product that can remove the stain if your dog urinates on your carpet. It’ll lift the stain right out, and there’s a fragrance.”

“Okay.”

“But for a little bit extra, I can use another product that actually breaks down the enzymes in the urine so that it doesn’t cover the smell, it actually removes the smell, and with Covid going around and you got a one-year-old baby—”

“—Hold up, Marcus. Did you just try to tell me that your product will protect my one-year-old from COVID?”

“No sir, I did not. I just stated 1) what my product does, 2) that COVID is going around, and 3) that you have a one-year-old. Three separate facts. 1-2-3. You make the connections you want to make. I didn’t make them. Selling is about turning wants into needs.”

“For sure! Like with Apple. I only want a new phone, but they make me think I need one.”

“That’s it, and I got a data plan and charger you need, just $64.99.”

I laugh out loud. I like him. He laughs, too. We arrive and he asks for my CashApp QR code. He scans it and, sure enough, sends me $25.00. 

“Hold up, Marcus!” I say. “I think you made a mistake and left out a decimal point.”

“No. $25 right?”

“Yeah, but no way! That’s too much!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nobody tips that much. Most people don’t tip at all, and if they do, it’s a couple of dollars, maybe $5 at the most.”

“$5? What?! $5?! The fuck you gonna do with $5? You can’t do nothin’ with $5. You can’t even get nothin’ at the Dollar Store for $5.”

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