Just North of Whoville (3 page)

So after four years, why does this old man still not have any shoes?

Wait a minute….

I started thinking about Shoeless Joe. Raking in about four hundred bucks a day. After taxes, I barely made three hundred a week.

And he didn’t even pay taxes.

I bet this man has a whole closetful of shoes. Shoes for every occasion. Probably better rain boots than me.

And then it dawned on me----this guy is running some sort of flim-flam.

And I once gave this man a dollar!

Where were his shoes? Where were his shoes?!?! I was furious. I developed a little fantasy. I would take the day off work. I would stop by Payless Shoes first thing in the morning. Then, I would get on the train, waiting to see Shoeless Joe shuffle down the aisle in his bare feet. And then, in full view of the entire sympathetic subway car, I would open the crisp Payless box with a flourish (oh yes!---I would ask for the box) and I would announce.

“
My dear barefoot man----you will never go shoeless again!”

Oooo---I’d bet he’d be pissed.

But I won’t do that. Because I’m a nice person. So I sit there quietly as he shuffles down the aisle in his bare feet pleading, “God bless you everyone. Please help me. Please help.”

Oh!---my blood boils.

Nevertheless, I still believe in charity. In doing good and giving back----even if you don’t have a lot to give. I think it’s important.

Every month I send money to some little boy in India I’ve never even met. I work hard for that twenty-one dollars a month. Yeah, I get a picture and a letter in the mail twice a year when he goes to the village to pick up his paycheck. But what has he ever done for me? He’s eight years-old now. I’ve been sending him money since he was two. I calculate that little Dileep has fleeced me for over a thousand bucks at this point. And what do I get? A letter in Hindi that I can’t even read. Is this kid even real? I can’t afford to go to India to check all this out. But I’m starting to wonder. Because in his photos, he looks like a different kid every six months. I know kids grow and their faces change. But I’m starting to get suspicious.

After four years in New York City, I was beginning to question a starving child in India.

Because everyone here has an angle. Everyone’s out to get you.

So pardon me if I agreed to move into an illegal sublease. And pardon me if I work at a job I find morally reprehensible. I’m doing the best I can under the circumstances.

But I am not Shoeless Joe. I’m not that sort of person.

I may not make the world a better place, but I try not to make it worse. Sometimes, that’s the best any of us can do.

My more jaded side was convinced that anyone hedging their career bets with an agency called “ABC You Shine” deserved what they got. And that includes Yours Truly. But mostly I felt bad for the poor suckers. I’m The Reluctant Shill. And if the mark can catch my subtle signals, I’m letting them know that the pea is not under any of the shells. So just walk away. If you stay and play…well, I tried.

Though my pay checks never bounced, I always had the feeling that the agency was a mere hundred dollars away from bankruptcy on any given day. Every Friday I left work with my check and went directly to the automatic bank teller. It felt less like a deposit and more like I was playing the slots.

Jamie, my boss, was fifty-seven, but her youthful clothes and attitude helped her look all of fifty-six. I never quite understood how she got into the modeling business. She’d done some accounting and a stint as a door-to-door cosmetics salesperson. She also mentioned that she’d won a lawsuit against a fast food company years ago. But I wasn’t in a position to ask questions during the interview.

“
We’ll start you as a temp,” Jamie offered the day she hired me. “And if all goes well, we’ll make you an Administrative Assistant.”

To be honest, I wasn’t really even a temp. I doubt Jamie could have afforded an actual temp from a temp agency where an employer paid a base salary plus a weekly finder’s fee.

I was the Poor Man’s Temp. Hired off a free ad online for a “temp-to-perm position with a New York modeling agency”. Not that I was interested in modeling or fashion, but it was a job sort-of in the industry. It was a start.

Celia was so excited about the news you’d think I’d won a Tony Award. My parents, on the other hand, quietly mumbled that it didn’t seem like much money for a New York City job and asked about insurance, benefits, 401ks, etc.----none of which were offered.

“
Well, we’re happy if you are, dear,” was my mother’s final response.

In my heart, I knew my parents were right. But it could be a steppingstone to something. I was determined from my first day on the job to make myself an indispensible employee. I’m a hard worker that way. But after five months of diligent labor, I was never given a raise or even the promised title of “Administrative Assistant.”

“
This is Dorrie. She’s the temp,” was my regular introduction. But by then I’d picked up on their nefarious business practices and had no desire to move up the corporate ladder. I figured that if the shit ever hit the fan, law enforcement would take one look at me and say, “She’s okay. She’s just the temp.”

So when a model came in to complain about feeling cheated or swindled, I was able to shoot them an understanding look and say, “I’m sorry. I’m just the temp.”

I said that a lot.

But it was getting harder to justify. I tried to think of it as office experience that would look good on a resume; and tried to get as many resumes out for better jobs as I could before we turned up on the nightly news as “Swindle of the Week”.

I’d be screwed then. Who’s going to hire The Reluctant Shill?

Luckily, models aren’t all as dumb as everyone thinks. Most of them came in for an interview, quickly picked up on the scam and walked out without getting their pockets picked.

“
The good ones are out of here in a few weeks,” Deb, Jamie’s business partner explained. “They’re pretty enough to get real representation and don’t need us. But there aren’t too many of those,” she added smugly as she tugged at her girdle. Deb claimed to have had a career as a Plus Size model. But I’d never seen any photos of her modeling days. So maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. I never asked to see her portfolio.

While Jamie was Ms. Business and played up the brassy agent angle, Deb knew how to manipulate on a purely personal level. She could mother you into handing over your dough.

She’d obviously been a nice person at one point. And that scared me. Because I’m a nice person; and if I wasn’t careful, I might wind up there, too.

“
We’ve got a few people who’ve been with us for a year or two,” Deb indoctrinated me my first day on the job. “They’re sweet, god love ‘em. They spend a lot of money, so we try to send them out when we can. But they’re not very good. If they were,” Deb lowered her voice, “they wouldn’t be here.”

A huge hunk of my job involved calling models for fake auditions. That morning, I’d been instructed to call models without teleprompter or ear prompter experience for a spokesmodel job. Then they wouldn’t get the job because they didn’t have teleprompter or earprompter experience.

A week after the fake audition, they would get an email informing them that while they came very close to securing the job, it was their lack of teleprompter and earprompter experience that held them back. However, for the low cost of two hundred dollars, they could gain the skills they need to get the job. One night only. Hurry! Class will fill up soon.

We’d recently signed a lot of new suckers. It was time to call the new marks in for an “audition”. I felt sick to my stomach that morning as I started writing out the list of names. My latest victims. I repeated a mantra over and over in my head as I poured over their prompter-lacking resumes, “I have to quit this job. As god is my witness, I will get out of this shithole.”

My desk, in the receptionist area, was testament to another of my duties---that of receptionist. Most aspiring models knew the industry rule---“No Drop-Ins”. It was rare that anyone besides building management or the bottled water guy dropped by unannounced. However, if you spent enough money on classes, photos, training and career consultation with ABC You Shine, the courtesy of being allowed to drop-in was extended. One of the chosen few was Timmy Daly.

“
Hi! Just wondering if Deb was in today?” Timmy’s voice practically sang as he popped his head in the door.

Little Timmy Daly was probably the most unlikely candidate for a fashion model ever. The only model-like quality he had was the big head. But while most wanna-be models came in appearing either shy or cultivated blasé, Timmy came to modeling with a level of enthusiasm only matched by the amount of his acne, which he worked very hard at concealing.

He freely admitted to being a dreamer, but showed his realistic side by acknowledging in his interview with Deb that at five-foot six-inches tall, he most likely wouldn’t get called in for a lot of runway work. Most likely. But that was okay because his heart was really in print work. This skinny, pasty-pale, blond, spiky-haired little boy of nineteen had left West Virginia and moved to New York City to pursue his dream. And neither his acne, his height, nor the fact that he looked like a cross between E.T. and an albino pixie would stop him.

But his charm made up for his lack of photogenic qualities. For Halloween, he’d dropped off a plastic pumpkin full of candy and a card wishing us all a “Boo-tiful Halloween!” And any audition he was sent on, fake or otherwise, was quickly responded to by a Thank You Card for “the opportunity to ABC ME Shine!!!”

He’d also spent more than seven thousand dollars on photos, comp cards, classes and private career counseling sessions. In almost eight months, he hadn’t gotten a single job, but didn’t seem deterred in the slightest.

“
It’s an emergency,” he explained that morning. “I just came from the salon. So…” he scrunched up his face and ran his fingers thru his neatly trimmed hair, “what do you think?”

“
Your hair? It looks fine,” I replied honestly.

“
Oh my god, it’s SO much shorter than in my photos. Do you think I need new photos?”

I didn’t. But I was sure Deb would.

“
It’s just a trim,” I replied. “I don’t see the difference.”

“
Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” he mumbled to himself. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to a stylist with a coupon. I just lost my job. I can’t afford new photos right now. And you’ve got to look like your photos, right?”

“
Really,” I was almost losing it. “You can’t tell. It looks exactly the same. It’s a trim. You don’t need new photos for a trim.”

Just then Jamie appeared beside my desk.

“
Dorrie, can I see you in my office.”

“
You know, you’re probably right,” Timmy continued talking to himself as Jamie practically dragged me by the hair. “Maybe I should take myself off the market till after the holidays…”

Jamie shut the door to her office and tore into my like a hyena ripping into a carcass.

“
Never tell a model they don’t need new photos. That’s what we fucking do here, Dorrie!”

“
I’m sorry. But it’s just a trim. And he just lost his job…”

“
Dorrie, that young man out there is chasing his dream. He wants to be a model. And if he wants it badly enough, he’ll get the money.”

She began to pace a bit, like a shady lawyer trying to sway the jury.

“
Do you have a dream, Dorrie?”

“
Yeah. To be a director. Remember?”

“
Oh right. Your resume,” she remembered as she rolled her eyes a bit and sighed. “But you’d do anything to make that dream come true, wouldn’t you?”

“
Well, not…anything,” I tried to explain. “But I work really hard…”

She wasn’t listening. She already had me figured out. “You’re not married. No kids. You live in a crappy apartment. You’ve given up all potential happiness in life and are living like a bum just so you can do…whatever it is that you do. And you’re how old now?”

“
Thirty-four.”

She whistled at my extreme age. Then she leaned in close and confidential-like, “The older you get, the less willing people are to give you an opportunity. Trust me, I know. I think you have a future here, Dorrie. You’re organized, you show up on time, and you have a nice phone voice. Some of the girls we had in here sounded so ghetto. But you sound professional. That instills confidence in the buyer. That’s what we need at ABC. So I want you to go back out there and tell what’s-his-name to talk to Deb. She’ll take it from there.”