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steph-writes-sometimes · 6 days

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CW: Graphic violence, assault, death.

Over a month since I’ve posted. The name of my blog really is my truth. I’ve been writing a lot lately, but for competitions that don’t allow me to post the stories for X amount of time after submission. Here’s a short story I wrote for NYC Midnight’s short story competition. This piece received 8th place of ten, and got me into the next round.

Genre: Historical Fiction | Subject: an apprenticeship | Character: a door-to-door salesperson.

A Sale to Remember

In which twelve-year-old Jack Waybury learns from his father, David, what it truly means to be a door-to-door salesman.

Jack Waybury always thought his father looked great in a suit. The charm that surrounded David Waybury when he tucked in his shirt and donned a wide-lapelled jacket was something that Jack aspired to have in his own right someday. His mother must have been out of her mind to leave them, as women always seemed to flock to his father. David spent a lot of time with these women, often spending several nights away from their apartment, leaving twelve-year-old Jack alone.

Jack didn’t think it was all bad, though. Twelve years old, all but on his own, in Philadelphia in 1975. His father kept the kitchen stocked with plenty of soda, microwavable pizzas, and TV dinners, which Jack enjoyed while watching reruns of Happy Days. Before his mother left, Jack and his father would watch the show together, laughing at the shenanigans that Ritchie, Potsie, and Ralph would get into. David would tell him about the pranks and tricks that he and his friends would pull when he was a kid. Jack often thought of the friends he used to have when they lived in Lahaska, before he and his father moved into the apartment in Philly. Nowadays, with his father gone most of the time, Jack identified more with Fonzie, and thought to himself, how cool would it be to be a bad boy?

He awoke one morning to the apartment door handle slamming against the wall behind it. Having fallen asleep on the couch the night before, Jack was disoriented as his father burst into the apartment, disheveled as though he too had spent the night on someone’s couch. David roused his son quickly, tossing clothes from the floor onto the ratty couch as he shoved some of his own into his briefcase.

“Get up, son,” David said, “today is your big day! You’re coming to work with me!”

After the initial shock of being awoken so quickly, Jack took a moment to observe his father as he picked his previous day's clothes from the living room floor. His father’s suits were normally well kept, flat with ironed precision, immaculate, and free of stains. Jack noticed that his father didn’t actually look like he slept on someone’s couch, rather that he hadn’t slept at all. If he had, it may as well have been on the street..

“Dad, what happened to you?” Jack asked.

“If you would believe it, yesterday I was stepping off the bus on my way to my first customer of the day when I saw a woman that looked just like your mother,” David spit the words as if they were poison in his mouth, “I tripped off the bus step and fell right into the mud on the curb! Now get dressed, we have to go get you a suit. Can’t have my son looking unpresentable on his first day on the job!”

Jack pulled one sock on and reached under the couch searching for its mate. “Wow, dad,” he said, “what did your customers say when they saw you?”

“Uh, I didn’t make it to the customer’s house,” he stammered, “I took the rest of the day off.”

“Oh.”

David dashed through the apartment, stuffing various items into his briefcase. He pressed his weight on top of it to latch it closed. David removed his soiled clothing and retreated to the bedroom to change. The blazer that he had flung across a kitchen chair was flecked with stains, and though Jack couldn’t see well enough from across the dimly lit room to know for sure, he thought to himself that it didn’t quite look like mud on the fabric. As they hurriedly finished getting dressed, Jack told his father how excited he was to get his own suit.

“Are you gonna teach me how to be a salesman, dad?” he asked.

“Everything I know, son,” David replied, “Call it an apprenticeship.”

They rode the city bus downtown and Jack gazed out the window as they passed by apartments and bodegas, his head jostling against the glass with every bump in the road. He daydreamed about going back to Lahaska with his dad and going door to door to sell whatever goods they had to peddle that day. He would sell squirt guns and stink bombs, and when he rang his friends' doorbells they would answer and see him standing there in an immaculate suit. They would be so impressed with him that they would buy his entire stock! The windows rattled in their frames as loudly as Jack’s daydreams, and he didn’t notice that his father seemed to be speaking quietly to no one in particular. On a city bus in Philly, however, this wouldn’t be an extraordinary sight to anyone else if he had.

The bus rattled to a stop and David and Jack moved to disembark. “Watch your step, dad,” Jack warned, jokingly.

“What? Oh, right,” David recalled and made a dramatic showing of stepping carefully off of the bus for his son. “I won’t be tripping off the bus again, that’s for sure!”

At the Men’s Warehouse in downtown Philadelphia, Jack and his father waded through racks of suits as David searched for just the right one for his son. Jack pulled a purple tweed blazer from the children’s rack excitedly, but his father insisted that was too much flair for a new salesman. “You have to earn a jacket like that,” his father told him. David settled on matching solid navy blue suits for the both of them. He spoke to the salesman as they were fitted, and declined tailoring when the salesman pushed for it.

“We will take them as is,” he said, “and we will wear them out.”

Jack noticed that the suits that they had on were not as fantastic as what his father normally wore. As they rode the bus, he didn’t feel as good as he thought he would wearing the suit either. That clerk was probably right, Jack thought, if we got it hemmed it would feel better. He wondered if this would still be the exciting, glamorous day he’d hoped for.

Jack wished they were going to Lahaska, but his father said Leonia was where they were most likely to make a sale.

“What are we selling today, dad?” Jack asked, hoping it would be something interesting, like water balloons or fake rubber bugs.

“I’ve got my hands on a nice set of kitchen knives that any one of these little housewives is sure to enjoy,” his father replied, gripping the briefcase tightly.

“Oh.”

Jack thought he heard his father whispering, but the noises of the bus engine overwhelmed the sound, and he wasn’t sure. Then, as they paced the neighborhood sidewalks, David taught his son the art of the sale.

“Just follow my lead, let me do the talking,” he said, “You’re still cute, so we’ll use that to our advantage. Housewives love the natural charisma of a kid in a suit. If I ask you a question, agree with me, and do everything I say.”

Jack nodded. He would do his best to be a good apprentice to his father, even if he didn’t feel like the million bucks he thought he would.

The afternoon sun shone brightly on the facade of the ranch style house they’d chosen. As David rang the doorbell, briefcase in hand, he reminded Jack one more time of his first lesson.

“Don’t be nervous. Just listen to me and follow my lead.”

A blonde woman answered the door. “Hello, gentlemen,” she said, smiling at Jack, “How can I help you?”

“Hello, ma’am, I’m so glad we were able to catch you before dinner!” David started, “My name’s David and this is my son, Jack. I just know that a woman in a home this beautiful only cooks the freshest fruits and vegetables for her family. We’ve got a marvelous set of knives we’d love to show you. May we come in?”

“Please do, I’ve been telling my husband that I need new kitchen knives. I’ll warn you, though, he’s a bit of a tough sell!” she laughed.

David and the woman, Cheryl, made comfortable small talk while they waited for her husband, Frank.

David sat on the edge of his seat, “You folks have a lovely home.”

The grandfather clock tick-tocked while David made himself comfortable. The click of the lock hitting the briefcase as it opened was jarring to Jack. His father hunted through the papers and clothing he had hastily packed inside, doing his best not to show the haphazard mess to their customers. From within he pulled something that appeared to be the size of his fist. He raised his arm quickly and threw it at Frank’s head. The sudden trauma to his temple knocked him unconscious, and Cheryl screamed. David unsheathed a pistol from the case and pointed it at her.

“Keep your fucking mouth shut,” he snapped, “Another sound from you and you’ll both be tasting bullets.”

David kept his eyes and the weapon pointed at Cheryl as he rummaged through the case with his free hand. He tossed a handful of zip ties to Jack, most of which fell to the floor.

“Put their wrists together and thread the end of the tie through the loop,” he directed, “pull it as tight as you can. Start with him.”

Jack was stunned. He couldn’t move.

“Now!”

The shout stirred Jack back to life. He had never seen this anger and malice in his fathers eyes. His legs felt gelatinous and his hands shook as he shifted the heavy man forward in the recliner to bind his wrists together behind his back.

“Good,” David praised, “now her next.”

Cheryl tried to plead with Jack, “please, baby,” she whispered, “don’t do this. Run and get help.”

David stepped across the room and stuck the gun to her cheek. “Shut up! Another word and this goes through your skull.”

She relinquished herself for Jack to bind her. The ties closed much tighter around the thinness of her wrists.

David reached once more into the case, procuring a large kitchen knife. He handed it to Jack. “Hold this carefully,” he said. He turned to Cheryl and reassured her, “Our knives are very sharp, but Jack has been taught very well how to safely hold the tool.”

Jack held the weapon in trembling hands. “Steady yourself,” his father snarled, “keep a firm grip. If your hand is too loose, you’ll drop it.”

Jack gripped the knife as instructed. Surely his father wouldn’t hurt his own son, should Jack disobey him in these terrifying moments. Then again, Jack never thought his father was capable of what they were doing, so who really knew what could happen?

David ordered his son to keep watch on the couple, gagging them with dirty socks from the case before stepping out of the room to see what valuables he could find. Jack watched Cheryl’s eyes as they pleaded with him to stop this and save them. He didn’t know how much time he had, if his father came back and he was helping them escape, he would hurt them all.

The room was quiet, only the stifled sounds of tears filled the air until Jack heard an engine cut off, then a car door slam. Cheryl’s eyes widened. Someone else was here. Jack panicked and hid next to the door behind a thick-leaved potted plant.

A young woman entered the home and closed the door behind her before seeing the horror that was in her living room. Her jaw dropped as well as her purse as she saw her parents bound and gagged. Cheryl screamed through the gag in her mouth when she saw David return with the pistol in one hand and a fistful of jewelry in the other.

Jack leaped from behind the plant and stood facing the young woman with the knife in his grip. David pointed the pistol at her and whispered something unintelligible to himself. He stepped towards her slowly. Placing the valuables in his blazer pocket, he reached toward her. She stood motionless, paralyzed in fear. Jack could hear his heartbeat pounding louder than the ticking of the clock. David grabbed the woman and wrapped his arm around her neck, changing his orientation to point the pistol at Cheryl once again.

“Do it, Jack,” he pleaded, “use the knife. Right there, in her stomach.”

The woman screamed. “She’s squirming, but I’ll hold her tight for you. She’s not going anywhere.”

Jack hesitated.

“Do it!”

The insanity boiled from his father’s eyes as he turned the gun to point at his son. “Do it, Jack. We need to go. If you don’t do it, very bad things will happen. To you, and to all of these people. Now, tighten your grip and stab her!”

Jack wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle of the knife and screamed as he plunged it into her stomach. Blood poured from her torso as she cried out, twisting her entire body beneath David’s grip. Jack removed the knife and blood spurted against his blue blazer. He screamed just as she had.

David threw her to the floor and stole the knife from his son. He tossed it back into the briefcase and snapped it shut before pulling Jack by the sleeve out of the front door. Jack didn’t know how his legs could move after what he’d done, but once he started running alongside his father, they didn’t know how to stop.

They ran several blocks away before David stopped and removed the bloody jacket from his son. He tossed it over a fence and they continued to flee to the bus stop. It seemed as though the bus had been there waiting just for them. They rode in silence back to the city. Jack heard no small whispers from his father, who appeared to be calm and at peace. Jack was unsure what was next for them.

9 years Later

Jack, now twenty one years old, the same age of the young woman that he and his father had murdered in cold blood, stood at the bus stop half a mile down the road from the reformatory. He had in his possession only a plastic garbage bag containing all of the clothing he owned and a cream-colored folder. With the bag at his feet, he opened the folder and gazed over the newspaper clippings and photos for what seemed like the millionth time. He had always thought his father looked great in a suit, but orange suited him better than blue ever had.

This fictional story is based on the actual murder of 21-year-old Maria Fasching in Leonia, New Jersey on January 8th, 1975 by Joseph Kallinger and his son, twelve-year-old Michael Kallinger. The pair gained entry to several homes across Philadelphia, Maryland, and New Jersey by posing as door-to-door salesmen, where they assaulted several families. May she rest in peace.

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