Killer's Eyes

CHPT 1

Chance’s beloved hometown Green Bay Packers are beating the lowly Arizona Cardinals 31-14 with less than a minute left in the game. He watches as Arizona’s quarterback throws a long desperation pass into the end zone, the ball is tipped and as it’s about to fall incomplete, one of the Cardinal receivers dives and catches it just before it hits the ground. Chance watches in disbelief as the referees arms go up signaling touchdown. The announcer says, Touchdown Arizona. It’s irrelevant though, Packers still lead 31-20 with the extra point pending. Game is over, the Packers win.

Irrelevant my ass, Chance screams at the announcer, I have $200 bet on the Packers to cover the point spread. They were favored to win by 13. That irrelevant touchdown cost me $200!

Chance doesn’t remember when or how he started gambling. He guesses it was a natural progression. He remembers as a young boy, his dad giving him a penny if he could dribble the basketball around the block. The penny increased to nickels, dimes, and quarters as he played rummy royal and poker with his friends. As he got older, he played his first blackjack hand at the local casino and placed his first football parley bet with a local ‘bookie.’

Who is Chance? Chance Brady is a 33 year old ‘sport guy.’ By ‘sport guy,’ that means he loves playing almost any sport. Playing is the key word. He’s not much into watching sports on TV, unless of course it’s a Packer game or he has a wager on it.

He’s a little on the short side, with a medium build. His hair is light and cut short. He wears a mustache that is neatly trimmed. His eyes are a bluish-greenish mix that never seem to focus on one thing for very long. He wouldn’t consider himself hyper though, just very quick in his movements, speech, and decision making.

Trying to get that $200 loss out of his mind, Chance jumped into his new Dodge Durango with his golf clubs rattling in the back. That’s one of the fringe benefits about being in the car business, you always get to drive nice new vehicles at no cost. Chance started selling cars right out of high school. He knew someone who sold cars, he saw that he made good money and got to drive a new car all the time. So he decided to interview for a salesman’s position. He borrowed a briefcase and went to his first interview at the local Ford dealership. The interview went well with the sales manager, but he didn’t get hired on the spot. He came back for a second interview with another sales manager. Again it went real well, but with no previous selling experience, they were a little leery on hiring him. So they invited him back for a third interview, this time with the owner, Mr. Bosch.

During the first two interviews, Chance was very calm and in control. With Mr. Bosch it was different though. He intimidated Chance right away by his appearance and demeanor. A big, burly man in his mid fifty’s or so, he had a huge neck and a face that was red with stress, anger or both. Well, needless to say the interview wasn’t going well, Chance knew he had to say something to impress the heck out of him soon or he’d be booted real quick.

So when Mr. Bosch blared out his next question, Why do you think you can sell cars for me?

Chance knew it was now or never. He transformed his face and body from a beaten young pup to a confident young gunslinger, sat up straight and responded with this totally made up bull-crap story

I’m glad you asked me that question Mr. Bosch, Chance said with a grin on his face, As I mentioned earlier, even though I don’t have any car selling experience, I did work at a wholesale appliance store for a short time. While I was there an old couple came in and started to look at one of our portable refrigerators, so I went over to them and started to build some rapport and show them the features of the refrigerator. I proceeded to sell it to them."

As Chance got done with the story, he looked at Mr. Bosch’s blank expression on his face, and imagined what he was thinking.

So what punk, you sold a refrigerator, who cares?

It was an agonizing five to ten seconds, as Chance stared at Mr. Bosch’s blank look, five to ten seconds, frozen in Chance’s mind forever, that seemed like minutes, hours, days. As he stared at him, he thought to himself, Good job Chance, you tell a total bull-crap story that has no punch line.

Chance sat looking at Mr. Bosch with a defeated look to him for those agonizing moments, before it was almost like the Lord came down and tapped Chance on the shoulder.

Chance’s face broke into a big grin, he leaned forward in his chair, and said, The funny thing about this story Mr. Bosch, I sold this old couple a refrigerator, they’re retired, they live up north, they don’t even have any electricity.

After a moment to collect himself, Mr. Bosch grinned, reached out his hand, and said to Chance, Anyone that can sell a refrigerator to someone without electricity, can sell cars for me. Welcome aboard.

And sell he did. For six years in a row, Chance was salesperson of the year. During which time he was making good money, driving nice cars, getting his share of the ladies, and gambling away a lot of what he was making. Chance was like a lot of young males in that era. Full of vim and vigor, running around the area without a care in the world. No matter how late he stayed out at night though, he was never late to work or not ready to roll once morning broke.

Being the top dog in car sales at Bosch Ford had its advantages. Salespeople earned twenty five percent commission on the profit of each car sold, with the other seventy five per going to the dealership. So obviously, a good salesperson is a very valued commodity at any dealership. Chance was no different. He earned a few perks along the way that other salespeople didn’t get. Being able to leave an hour early on a slow night after working ten hours, not having to have a sales manager hammer away at a customer of his if he couldn’t close him, getting a little nicer car to drive. Nothing that a lot of people would think substantial, but to Chance they were all nice little nuggets.

Not to mention maybe even a little boost to his ego. Chance would be the first to admit that indeed he was a little headstrong in those days. After all, his nickname given to him by his fellow salespeople, Captain Controversy was probably justified. For the most part Chance was a model employee for Bob and Rick Bosch. Always on time for work, treated his customers with respect, got along with his fellow employees, and of course made them a lot of money. The captain controversy tag though would rear its head every once in awhile.

Like the time the Bosch’s got back from New Orleans and one of their fancy national dealer meetings. They decided on coming up with a sales training booklet for all the salespeople. Chance and the rest of the guys thought it was it was pretty lame but probably could patronize the Bosch’s and muddle through the antiquated booklet. Upon presenting the salespeople with it though during a morning meeting, Bob Bosch informed everyone that they needed to sign an agreement that a hundred dollars would be taken from their paycheck as security, and upon leaving the dealership, if the booklet was returned, their hundred dollars would be returned. Obviously, that didn’t sit too well with the guys. After all, a hundred dollars was a lot of many to them all.

Bob Bosch slid the agreement to each salesman to sign, including Chance. After hesitating and looking at Chance, the other salespeople reluctantly signed their names and handed them back to Bosch. Bosch looked at each one, noticed that Chance hadn’t signed his and handed it back to him to sign.

Mr. Bosch, I don’t feel comfortable signing this right now, can we discuss it after the meeting? was Chance’s polite response as he slid the agreement back to Bosch.

Bosch immediately slid the agreement back to Chance and with his voice rising said, I want you to sign it right now!"

Chance’s friend Terrell who was sitting between Bosch and Chance, slowly started to back his chair up. Terrell just met Chance a few years ago when they started working together, but in that short time he knew Chance well enough to know that nothing good was about to happen.

Again Chance calmly slid the agreement back to Bosch and again in a respectful, low voice said, Mr. Bosch, I don’t feel comfortable signing this agreement now, can we discuss it after the meeting?

This time Bosch didn’t calmly slide it back to Chance, instead he jumped up and screamed, I am the owner of this company, and I insist you sign this now!

Chance bolted up immediately and as Mr. Bosch and Chance grabbed each other by their ties, the chairs were flying, the booklets were scattered. Rick Bosch jumped up to separate the two men and yelled, Meeting is over, meeting is over.

There were other incidents over the years that if Chance wasn’t a top performer would’ve landed him in hot water.

One such incident occurred while he was gassing up one of his vehicles for a delivery, After filling the tank, Chance didn’t realize that the gas hose was wrapped around the bumper of the truck. Chance got into the manual transmission truck and started to give it gas. Not going anywhere, and assuming he didn’t have it in gear properly, Chance put his vehicle back into first gear and hit the accelerator harder. This time he did start moving, but he heard a loud bang behind him and saw one of the mechanics running toward him screaming and waving his hands. Turns out, with the gas pump hose wrapped around the bumper, Chance pulled the whole gas pump off of its foundation and was dragging it along with him. Gas was bubbling up from where the pump had been.

Needless to say, Mr. Bosch wasn’t too happy about that expense. Not to mention about the embarrassment about having the fire department summoned to help fix the gas leak.

For all his high maintenance though, Chance still was a talented and successful salesperson who eventually was promoted to sales manager and eventually a few years later landed the job at Sammy Motors as General Sales Manager.

Life was good, as he hit his first couple iron shots into the open driving range. Hitting a bucket of golf balls was always good therapy for Chance whenever he wanted to clear his mind. After rattling off ten to twelve booming drives, he all but forgot about that $200 loss.

It was at that time when he first saw him. Chance usually didn’t notice other golfers when he was on the range, but this guy he did. It wasn’t just his enormous size, after all, a lot of golfers are overweight. This guy though was big all over, his face, neck, legs. Also his choice of clothes was curious. Not all, but most golfers dress in shorts, some type of polo shirt, and maybe a lid of some sort. This guy wore black long pants, a green turquoise colored shirt, and on his feet, he wore a pair of sandals instead of the usual golf shoes or tennis shoes. Also his swing! Chance had seen some bad swings before, after all, that’s why you go to the range, to practice. This guy’s swing though was absolutely the worst Chance had ever seen. He watched him for several seconds, and then went back to his own bucket of balls. The next morning the alarm woke Chance from a dream he was having about being deserted on an island.

Since his break up seven years ago from Jane, he has been with women, but none serious. So he guesses a psychiatrist would deem his dream as him trying to reach out for a fulfilling, platonic, relationship. Which Chance would say was a bunch of bull, since his work, friends, sports, and gambling kept him busy and more often than not, happy also.

As he jumped into his Durango and sped off to work, Chance’s dream kept cropping back into his mind. Am I really happy? Chance asked himself. Does that dream have any significance?

Trying to push those thoughts out of his mind, and wanting to reconfirm to himself that he was indeed happy with his life, he glanced