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Colton Caldwell was riding a wave of success that was more addictive than any drug.  The high he got from closing more deals was almost as good as the one he got from being seen in the new bustle back Cadillac Seville around Fort Stockton.  Colton had moved down to the cubicle next to the middle aged divorcee.  They had a friendly competition going to see who could outperform the other, both of them being the best in the company.

He had perfected his ‘telemarketing voice’ that dripped with empathy and could turn it on and off like an appliance.  New hires were caught off guard by it when they first heard it.  They noted that he sounded like someone who could have been a doctor talking with a concerned patient when making a sale.  But the moment he received any rejection he’d slam his headset down on top of the desk and shout, “I hope you die a fiery death inside the hellhole you live in!”  He seemed to be almost possessed by closing the sale.

He understood why quotas were implemented, and why not meeting them could spell disaster.  He came to see quotas as nothing more than informal sales contests where first prize was a new Cadillac and third prize was being fired.  He needed a steady supply of people saying ‘yes’ in order to feed the beast that drove him.  And yet, by sheer virtue of how the model was constructed, it was impossible for any human being, regardless of their technique or the cadence in their well rehearsed telephone voice, could never convert more than 8-10% of their calls into sales.

The 90% of people who hung up or worse, listened to his full pitch and said ‘no,’ became the enemy.   They became his nemesis, wasters of his time.  He grew to hate them.  At its core, this job was to find people to rip off by convincing them to change their long distance service.  But the people who hung up or said no were, in fact, ripping him off instead.  They were wasting his time and squandering his talents.  They were exploiting his efforts and he had nothing but contempt for them.

Embracing that mindset is what made the next step in his development easy.

There were rules as to what he could say to prospects who didn’t hang up on him.  Of course the one who was there to enforce those rules was the supervisor who was getting a cut of every sale made by every salesman making calls at the center.  He was quick to point out, after listening in on calls Colton made, “Hey.  You can’t promise the customer we’ll send them a check to cover the cancellation fee on their current service.  We don’t do that.”  So Colton changed the wording to mention that the customer would receive a check to ‘offset’ the early termination fee.  Of course he didn’t mention that the check would be for $2.00 against their termination fee of $75.  The manager listening in on the calls thought Colton was a genius, though he knew it was clearly illegal.

It didn’t take Colton long to determine that honesty, character, and conscience were like paid time off, medical coverage, and retirement programs:  things that had to do with people in other industries.  Within eight months his entire mindset had become purely transactional.  He considered himself a victim of the company he worked for, forcing him to act in ways he would have never considered before.  But his answer to that was to make everyone else a victim, as well.  If not a victim, at least someone he could exact a toll from to pay for the turn his life had taken.

The price he’d paid for the 1982 Cadillac Seville Elegante Diesel was $30,453.  An exorbitant sum in 1982, about $100,000 in 2024 dollars.  But it had actually cost him so much more than that.  It had cost him his dignity and was taking away his soul.  And when Colton took just a moment to sit back in his swivel chair, stare at the Top Producer plaque that he’d been given for the last two quarters, he decided he was okay with that.  It was a trade-off he deemed acceptable.

Colton moved into the two bedroom, two bath unit on the corner at the Alamo Arms, despite the fact that he was never home and didn’t need the room.  When he was there, it helped him justify what his life had become.  It made him think the extra time he spent going into the call center when it wasn’t even his shift was worth it.  It somehow took away the guilt from pretending he didn’t see Shannon Hudspeth at the Lucky Lady, even though they’d clearly made eye contact.  She was a reminder of time he’d spent living in a 1956 Buick Century Estate at Lake Leon.  Back when he was a loser.

But then something changed.  Colton Caldwell was soon to discover what every successful salesman, politician, and athlete figures out at some point in their career.  Everything is luck.  Enamored of their own success, these individuals are seduced into thinking their success is based on their own efforts.  Their gifts.  Their hard work, big ideas, or countless hours training.  But, sooner or later, they all discover the sad truth.  It was luck.  Efforts, gifts, and training certainly pushed that luck further than it would have gone otherwise.  But in the end, it was luck.

He went through a stretch where he didn’t convert a single call into a sale.  Everyone seemed to be hanging up on him before he could fully launch into his time-tested delivery and convince people he was really looking out for their own best interests in getting them to change long distance providers.  One woman he was talking to actually told him, “Why does your voice sound that way?  It sounds stupid.”  And when the caller was gone, so was his confidence.

His boss told him it was just a slump.  The divorcee didn’t seem to want to help; she was focused on making her own sales.  He assumed that she was keeping her distance to be sure whatever he was suffering with wasn’t contagious.  After a few weeks, his boss told him, “You just don’t want it bad enough.”  But he did.  He wanted it as bad as ever, in fact.  He needed it as bad as ever.  The payments on the Seville hadn’t gone away; the rent on the new larger apartment was twice what he’d been paying when he first got hot.

Nothing helped.

Then one day, Colton came into work and there was someone else sitting at the desk in his cubicle.  A new kid.  His personal things were at the back of the room, at a table where the boss kept training material and canned soft drinks that he passed out to top performers who might need a drink.  His headset, the lifeline to the people out there waiting to be fleeced, was devoid of one of the foam pieces that protected his ears from the bare metal.  These were often replaced because of how quickly they wore out.  

Colton went to his boss, who he knew kept a stash of replacements in his desk.  “Those are for the producers,” he was told.  He had no idea how long his cold streak would last, or whether he could or not.

He needn’t have worried.  A few days later when he pulled up to the desolate ill-kept building, it was nearly empty.  They had declared bankruptcy.  A few cubicles were still there, being manned by people who had nowhere else to go.  But all of the calls were routed to disconnected numbers, pay phones, or government offices.  Those were the only lists of phone numbers they were able to buy any more and within weeks, the call center was locked up.

It was a wake up call for Colton Caldwell.  An opportunity to hit the reset button.  Despite the purchase of the Cadillac Seville and the move to the big corner apartment at the Alamo Arms, he had thousands of dollars deposited at the Prairie View State Bank on the square.

He drove the Seville down to Manny’s Motor Mart.  “You know those diesels don’t have a very good reputation.  You’re going to take a pretty big hit on it, I’m afraid.”  Manny was just being honest.  Somehow Colton was still able to recognize honesty after having shunned it for so long.  They were able to work out a deal that covered what Colton owed on the car, only because of the huge down payment he’d had to put down to finance it to begin with.  The car he’d paid thirty grand for less than a year earlier was worth less than half of that amount.

After having closed out the account at Prairie View, all the money he had to his name was in the pocket of his Levi 501s.  He reached in, pulled out the wad, and peeled off six $100 bills for the 1967 Jeep Jeepster Commando Convertible 3-Speed Manny had on the back row of the lot.  “Just came in.  Haven’t even had time to clean it up yet,” he explained to Colton.

The 1967 Jeepster was powered by a 134 cubic inch inline-four linked with a three-speed manual transmission and a dual-range transfer case. Finished in red with a black convertible top over black vinyl upholstery, the truck had an aftermarket carburetor, PerTronix electronic ignition, white 15″ steel wheels, Jeep-branded hubcaps, locking front hubs, and a center console.  Of course, none of those details really mattered to Colton.  It was red.  It was available.  It could be had for just a fraction of the wad of bills he had in his pocket.

He drove over to the Alamo Arms one last time.  It didn’t take him 20 minutes to throw the things he was taking with him into the backseat of the Jeepster.  He left the keys to the apartment and the balance of what was due on his lease in cash on the ceramic tile kitchen counter.  Then he got behind the wheel of the Jeep and headed over to the Lucky Lady.

Figuring Shannon Hudspeth  would show up sooner or later, he waited at the bar.  Sure enough, just like clockwork, she walked in on the arm of some cowboy she’d probably met out at the Proving Grounds a day or two ago.  All Colton wanted to do was apologize.  Tell her he was sorry and that she deserved better.  She wasn’t three feet inside the door before their eyes locked.  When he thought about it later, he tried to remember just how long it was that they stood there, each peering into the other’s soul.  Then she guided the cowboy over to the booth by the jukebox, pretending not to have seen Colton Caldwell.

Throwing a ten dollar bill on the bar for his two beers, and another one down for Hank, he said goodbye.

“Where ya headed?” Hank asked.  It wasn’t the first time Hank had seen that look in a man’s eyes.

“No idea.” Colton said, his telemarketing voice forever banished to the darker recesses.

“Whatcha lookin for?” Hank asked as Colton made his way to the door.

“Redemption,”  he said. And he was gone.

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