Sales Tales - Frank begins to boil

The more seasoned theatregoers recognized the significance of the change in tempo and shuffled very slightly downward in their seats to make themselves a bit less visible. The tension in the room palpably ratcheted up a notch. Everyone knew the sands of time had just run out for someone.

‘Why does a customer come into a showroom?’ Frank asked as if having a conversation with a simple minded person.

This seemed such an easy question and not directed at anyone in particular, that I almost volunteered an answer. I didn’t know at the time, but there was no right answer to this question. Rather than continue looking at all of us, as he had been doing, he was now staring at Billy. He was a really thin guy with dark brown shadows under his eyes, pale unhealthy looking skin and wispy hair that just touched his collar at the back of his grey suit. It was clearly a cheap suit that was shiny with age and also too large for him so it hung loosely around his body, which only served to make him look like a character out of Oliver Twist. He looked really unwell and seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open, one eyelid drooped further than the other giving him a lopsided look. I had watched as his lids continued dropping momentarily before snapping them open again. As if they were on some sort of timer. It took him a while before Billy to raise his consciousness level sufficiently to realize that the room had gone quiet. Awareness gradually dawned and he opened his eyes fully and focused on the room and I watched them darted from side to side as he tried to assess what was going on. I also watched as his eyes met Frank’s eyes, and saw a momentary look of fear which was almost immediately replaced by resignation.

Frank was changing colour before my eyes. The redness in his face, which had subsided for a while had actually crept up into his forehead now. But he mostly maintained his outward composure, the only tell being that his arms were quivering slightly as he leant on the table. This control was actually far more scary that if he had just lost it altogether.