Chapter 5 Excerpt
A Night on the Town
Two years had gone by and I’m no longer working at Tortilla Stacks nor is Tonya. She was employed at Stacks as a part-time bartender to make extra money to make ends meet. I landed a job at Atlanta Journal Constitution as an independent contractor selling newspapers door to door. What a joy! Not really. I did not enjoy selling anything door to door but just trying it out at the time. It was at this job that I was able to make some decent money, meet some cool people, as well as make some real good friends.
In particular, was this cat named Domino. He was one of the supervisors for the sales team.
I actually met him through his brother who was a good friend of a friend. Anyway, he invited me to work on the sales team which was pretty convenient due to the fact that I was in between jobs. My day started out around 4 pm. with a meeting to establish our sales goals and then hit the streets. We had a tight crew of salesmen mostly young cats out to make a few bucks. Domino was a cool laid-back kind of guy who wasn’t too demanding but knew how to get the results he needed to make it worth his while.
While at my new job I saw a lot of guys come and go. In the sales game, you can either take rejection or not-plain and simple. It was common to see a high turnover rate because there were a lot of guys who did not last long. It is interesting what life can teach you. I must say that the job hardened me. Believe me, if you knock on many, many doors enough times while getting turned down and continue to press on, it will make you a solid salesman. My whole attitude was that the next door was the sale I needed to put me over the top. It took a lot of steadfastness and ambition to make money. Yes, you definitely could make some money selling the paper. There were some guys making decent paychecks, and I was holding my own. While selling the paper I had the pleasure of meeting Aaron who was also a sales rep for the Atlanta Journal. Aaron was a smooth talking Filipino kid and had a way with the women. There were a couple of times I walked with him on his route just to check out his spill. Sometimes, if your day just wasn’t up to par, we would pair off and try to get each other motivated to finish the day with some decent sales numbers.
It was common for the guys to get together and grab a bite to eat after work and hang out before calling it a night. Well, one night Aaron and I decided to go out on a double date. He would bring his girl and I would bring my girl Tonya. It sounded like a good idea. So, we made arrangements and met at a neutral location and began our night. We partied the night away. We hit a couple of clubs and danced the night away. Tonya is a real good dancer and liked to get her party on. We danced till about three or four in the morning. From the club, we made our way to R. J. Thomas for a late night snack, and everything was going splendid. The ladies were having a good time, we ordered our food, and recapped about the evening. I was drinking beer all night so by this time I had to piss like a race horse and excuse myself to use the restroom. At this particular restaurant, they had unisex restrooms. Of course I found this out after the fact. Anyway, I’m in the bathroom doing my thing when this young female walks in, looks me in the eye, and closes the door. I’m at a loss for words right about now and really ......
Live to learn to love
Learn to love to live
Love to live to learn
so that you may live the life that you yearn.
