Free Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander Page B

wooden chair beside the small wooden desk, took a deep breath, and phoned his office. He asked for his supervisor, and was quickly put on hold.
    Post-it notes, said the recorded hold message. Pet hair. Tea bags.
    Sales
, said Kugel’s very first manager,
is not about convincing others—it’s about convincing yourself.
As a salesman, that requisite moral pliancy turned out to be Kugel’s greatest challenge; he just couldn’t convince himself that a Honda was better than a Chevy, that Prozac was better than a placebo (or just a long quiet walk in the woods). And so when he and Bree first began thinking about bringing a child into this world, Kugel took a sales position with the local office of EnviroSolutions, the region’s leading residential composting company, hoping that by selling something positive, something he could actually believe in, he could make a difference both in his own fortunes and in the future of the world.
    Eggshells, continued the hold message. Cheese. Latex condoms.
    His plan had worked. Kugel could make the simple act of composting sound like the most courageous act of the most selfless superhero, and he signed on dozens of accounts. And remember, he would say at the end of his sales calls, your waste is a wonderful thing to mind. That soon became the company’s slogan, and it had been his idea, too, to replace the phone system’s generic hold music with a constant loop of the many compostable materials their concerned customers could turn into nutrient-dense soil.
    Recently, though, the green industry, as it had become known, had exploded; there were new technologies and new companies every day, and the competition for accounts had become fierce. EnviroSolutions expanded their offerings to include recycling pickups, and Kugel proved just as adept a salesman at that as he had been with compost. The company charged their customers by the gallon; the more people recycled, the more money EnviroSolutions earned.
    How much do you love the earth? Kugel would ask his clients, in a pitch that the other salesman soon began to emulate. Seventy-five gallons or ninety-five gallons?
    But I only need seventy-five gallons, they would say.
    If you really loved the earth, Kugel would reply, you’d use up more.
    It soon became a badge of environmental honor to bring as many bags of recycling to the stoop as possible, a trend Kugel almost single-handedly had begun.
    Toenail clippings, continued the voice on the phone. Burnt toast. Goat manure.
    If only he were as good with truth, he thought, as he was with bullshit.
    At last his supervisor answered his phone.
    Yes, said Kugel to his supervisor, yes, I know . . . Of course, yes . . . no, I don’t . . . well, it just sort of came over me late last night, sir . . . A cold, I think, just a little bug . . . Yes . . . I understand that, yes, I do . . . sore throat, coughing . . . Yes, I didn’t want to risk infecting the rest of the office . . . Yes, of course.
    The tapping began again.
    On the vent.
    Tap. Tap-tap.
    Softly at first, but growing louder as the conversation continued. Kugel stood and walked to the vent.
    I should think so, yes, yes, he said, stomping angrily on the metal register grate. Yes, yes, plenty of liquids,
cough, cough
, I know, yes . . . Really, I am very sorry about it, sir, I just, well, better safe than sorry . . . Yes, sir, I think so, just a day is all . . .
    Tap tap.
    Maybe two days, you know, if it’s a bad one, two or three days, tops, yes . . . Of course . . . I . . . yes . . . yes. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, I will. Thank you.
    Tap tap.
    Kugel ended the call, slammed down the phone, and got down on his hands and knees beside the vent.
    Shut up, you hear me? he whispered angrily into the vent. What did I just tell you? What did I just fucking tell you two fucking minutes ago? Don’t tap on the vents! Finish your book! Eat your fucking apple! Just shut up! Shut the fuck up!
    He stood,