Three chapters from what I can't bear losing

Recently I saw a video of the Maysle Brothers' Salesman, a study of Catholic Bible salesmen and their wiles and ways in the mid-'60s. It was a documentary of the salesmen prodding good believers into buying Catholic Bibles and encyclopedias out of guilt or sheer helplessness. They usually entered the little kitchens and living rooms on false pretenses, making claims they were connected to the local church or that the family's name had been recommended by the priest or by another customer. The salesmen gained the confidence of the potential buyers by being folksy and exchanging family tidbits, yet remaining aloof, dignified, and authoritarian as if they were a type of priest themselves. Indeed they were well-tonsured, wore black suits, and conducted themselves as if they were attending to a mystery instead of taking money out of a poor man's pocket. The Bibles they sold were large and leather bound and came in gold or red. They were filled with pictures, last suppers, mother and child, and the like, and they sold-in the mid-'60s-for $49.95. I think that would be between two and three hundred dollars in today's money. They used a multifaceted assault, drawing from piety, blarney, notions of childhood education, superstition, ethnicity, mother's guilt, religious pride, shame, and class ambition, using every trick from flattery and fear on one end to threats, cliches, and direct abuse on the other. They all drove big American cars, Buicks and Mercurys, none of the Japanese or German imports that were beginning to take over the market, and they were totally conventional in everything they said or did, not only to the "marks" but to each other in their cheap motel rooms after.

They were predators, and even saw themselves as such. They were as angry, frustrated, and disappointed when a customer got away as a leopard would be after chasing her prey and even leaping at it and missing by a few inches. Such a leopard-or wolf-licks her poor paws, looks away, and pretends she is interested in, say, a stray leaf or blade of grass as she quietly closes her case and snaps it shut before making a quick exit. In the meantime the deer or lost baby buffalo averts her own eyes in guilt and hopeless-if stubborn-inadequacy. "Everything in this life is a sacrifice," one of the salesmen said, referring to the hard-earned money the customer would have to spend. "The Bible is the best seller in the world," another said, and "This will be an inspiration in the home," and "The longer you have it, the more you will enjoy it." Just after one of them said, "You have a lovely home here," he concluded his sale with, "the important thing is to have it (the Bible) blessed because if it's not blessed you won't get the benefit of it."

Yet I don't know what was more painful, the encounter between the salesman and the customer, sometimes two salesmen, one working off the other, or the salesmen by themselves in the horrible motel room, playing cards on the fold-out table. I'm sure that the Maysle brothers, whatever their initial impulse was, eventually felt almost as much pity as disgust for these men. They seemed sad and worn out. Sitting in their motel room with their coats and ties off-they may have had two rooms-they reminded me of the Hollywood version of gangsters in their shirt sleeves waiting around for the heist, waiting for the telephone call with instructions, bored out of their minds, playing poker, of course. Only the salesmen didn't have holsters, and didn't wear hats inside. Their code was simple, "You've got a job to do and you do it." "Ninety-nine percent perspiration, one percent inspiration." "Push, push, push, push." "Go out there and hit 'em."