Too Far from Spot

I can tell when the lady pulls up in front of the store that I’m going to get her gold. The old gray Corolla has a maroon door and the muffler grumbles loud enough for me to hear it through the glass. Best of all, there’s a car seat in the back. When she climbs out and unstraps the baby, the way her shoulders curl, and the way that she keeps her eyes on the ground even as she walks through the door and up to the counter, tell me that I’m going to steal it from her. Her clean but threadbare shirt, her pressed, old fashioned jeans, and the way her hands shake as she digs the plastic bag from her purse tell me that it’s going to be easy.

You buy gold, she says.

If she looked different, if she didn’t have the baby, if she was hustling, I’d make a smart-ass remark about the fact that she just walked into a store named We Buy Gold Now! Instead I just say, We do.

She’s got a tangle of chains, a watch, and a ring with what might be a really small diamond. The baby starts to cry as I pull each item from the bag and lay it on the velvet jewelers’ cloth, as if it knows what’s about to happen. Never bring a baby when you go sell your gold. It’s sure to move your price ten percent further from spot.

~

The baby reminds me of Aurelia at that age. It’s a girl and she’s probably about ten months old. She looks right at me, through me, really. When Aurelia was ten months, we had just moved into the trailer out by the airport, and I was still working as a roofer. Things were still good with Emily and me, still fresh. She had just landed her job as a receptionist at the law firm. It felt like we were just getting started, just taxiing on the runway. I had no way of knowing that we were already running low on fuel.

Aurelia was eighteen months old when the weather snapped cold and the foreman put the whole crew on unemployment just like every winter. Emily worked all day, so I had Aurelia all to myself. In the beginning, when I still thought that I only had three, maybe four months of winter, I savored every moment of my time with her, like I was gently sucking on that single peppermint that my grandma gave me just before we got in the car, trying to make it last the long ride home. We stacked blocks, and she chewed plastic rings, and I made airplane noises when I fed her. We watched Barney together even though I was the only one old enough to sing along. I was exhausted and felt all cooped up when Emily finally came home from work, but the thing is, I didn’t really know what to do with my hands every time Emily took my daughter from me.

~

I weigh each piece, then smear a little gel and test each with the gun. One of the chains isn’t gold at all. I put that aside. The rest are twelve carat, the watch is eighteen, and the ring is pure. As I measure, I fill out the worksheet in painstaking detail, although I know that I won’t need it for this one. It gives me time to observe the woman as I write, time to collect the information that will affect the price much more than the purity or the weight. She used to be pretty, although her face is beginning to sag under the weight of something, and she’s grown thick around the waist. I wonder how much of the jewelry was given to her as gifts in the gentle negotiation to win her love. She wears a thin gold wedding band that she chose not to put in the plastic bag. She checks her watch three times. She ignores her phone when it vibrates on the counter. She whispers in her baby’s ear.

How much is it worth? she asks when I look up from the clipboard.

It’s the wrong question of course. I’m able to give you four hundred for all of it, I say.

She struggles to keep her composure, but I can see her face collapse from within. Disappointment, not anger.

I know it’s worth more, she says. We paid so much more.

I know, I say. Jewelry stores tend to be a rip-off. I say this with impeccable sincerity. In training, they said my sincerity scores were off the charts.

~

I liked roofing better than this, but it was a shit job, too. The work was hard and hot and dirty. My knees and back screamed after a day on the roof, and a bone-deep exhaustion made it hard to stay awake past Aurelia’s bedtime. It paid the bills, though, and I was hammering in place the layer that would protect a home, that would keep the family inside safe and dry.

Winter didn’t end that year. Even as the weather warmed and the buds on the trees became leaves, the foreman didn’t return my calls, and I started to realize the financial crisis had something to do with me. And when I handed Aurelia to Emily each evening, Emily didn’t really look at me anymore, she couldn’t seem to see me. The pool opened and banks collapsed and gold prices shot up and by August I was in training at We Buy Gold Now! It became clear right away that I was especially good at this, but Emily was probably already sleeping with Dale before that first commission check arrived.

~

The woman studies the clipboard. There’s almost three ounces there, she says. Her eyes dart to the spot price on the digital readout on the wall behind me. Your sign says, $1459 an ounce.

Yes, I say, but that’s the spot price.

I don’t say that it’s the spot price from three weeks ago. Ronnie, the manager, is slow to update it when it trends up. I’ll tell her a bunch of true things that I know will only confuse her and edge her attention away from the spot price. Spot is paid to men wearing expensive suits in tall glass buildings in New York and Tokyo. It’s got nothing to do with her.

~

Too often customers come into the store with unrealistic expectations, focused on all the wrong things. After it’s been melted and purified, the gold in that cross your grandma gave you for your first communion is the same as the gold in your wedding ring is the same as the gold in that cheap necklace your dad bought at Service Merchandise when your mom caught him cheating with her cousin. Early on, I figured out that the job really boils down to helping clients realize that when they’re desperate for money, their special piece of jewelry is just another hunk of metal, a commodity. I have to melt their hopes, their dreams, their memories, before I get to melt their gold.

~

I start by explaining the difference between a Troy ounce and a regular ounce. The words are easy—we memorized the words during the first two hours of training. It’s the tone that’s important. And I tell her about the fees related to refining the impure gold and the fees to melt the gold to ingots. I’m careful to avoid condescension. And I tell her about the weight of the non-gold pieces in the watch and the ring that I subtracted from the total and the overhead of the store and the risk that the company takes when dealing with commodities in such a volatile market. Through it all, I wrap my words with empathy. I still have a plastic plaque from training back at the trailer that says: 24 KARET EMPATHY. The letters are embossed in gold.

I don’t tell her that the price I just gave her, even after all those fees, amounts to about 30% of today’s spot. I don’t tell her about the bullion dealer downtown, the same guy we sell to, that would probably give her 80% of spot if she was able to track him down. I don’t tell her that the pawn shop six blocks west would probably give her $1500 for the ring and watch alone. I don’t say any of these things because my commission is calculated on the difference between spot and what I pay.

~

They held the training in a conference room at a Holiday Inn near O’Hare—new employees from all the stores across four states. We stared, bored, at PowerPoint presentations, and broke into small groups for role-playing. The instructor was an older woman with tight jeans, a hungry smile, and a fake tan that made her look a little gold herself. I expected to learn about metal and math, but she mostly talked about motivations, body language, emotions. She taught us how to infuse hope and how to bleed away the memories. Almost all of it is focused on nudging our customers as far away from spot as possible.

~

The way she looks at the baby tells me that she needs more than four hundred. You can’t do any better? she asks. Again, the wrong question.

It’s a fair price, I say. The only direct lie that I’ve allowed myself.

She looks at me for a long time before she gathers up the gold from the black velvet and puts it into the plastic bag. She pushes through the door and straps the baby in the backseat before climbing into the front. A part of me hopes that she’ll put the car in reverse and drive away, but I know that she won’t—I can tell that she needs the money more than we need her gold. I pretend to study something on the computer, but I’m watching her dial her cell phone to call her husband or her dad or her sister to sort out whether it is enough, just as I knew she would. This is my true gift: I can weigh and measure desperation with as much precision as the gold.

~

While I wait for the woman to sort through things in the car, I call Emily. I work to manage my own desperation as the phone rings and rings and then goes to voicemail again. All the calls have gone to voicemail over the last week. I can see that she reads my texts, but they, too, go unanswered. After the tone, I work to keep my voice steady, friendly.

Hey, Em. It’s me. I’m calling about this weekend. I just want to make sure that there are no issues. Give me a call.

I hang up and try to force back the panic. I haven’t seen Aurelia in over a month. The first time that Emily cancelled, she told me that Aurelia was sick. The next weekend, Emily’s mom was in town and wanted to see her. The weekend after that, Emily’s nephew was christened. Some of that might have been true, but lies were packed around it. The real truth is sitting in my backpack, in the FedEx envelope from Emily’s law firm.

~

The woman gets out of the car and unbuckles the baby. I work to keep my expression neutral when she comes through the door, and I can see that she’s trying to do the same. Her lips form a thin, straight, determined line, but she still won’t look directly at me, like I’m a solar eclipse. I don’t want her to say it. I want her to tell me to shove my offer up my ass. I want to give her some sort of signal, but Ronnie’s got that camera in his office, and the truth is I really need that commission.

I’ll sell it all for five hundred, she says.

I frown, study the clipboard again. The training kicks in. I’d have to get my manager’s approval for something like that, I say.

She finally looks up at me, her eyes moist. She waits.

I’ll go see what I can do, I say.

I take the clipboard through the door into the back office. Ronnie is on the phone with his feet up on his desk. He’s probably still arranging the strippers for his step-brother’s bachelor party. I put the clipboard under my arm and go into the bathroom. After I take a leak, I’m careful not to look at the mirror while I wash my hands.

~

A few months after my first day at We Buy Gold Now!, I started night classes at the community college to get my EMT certification. I want to become a paramedic someday. I can only afford one class each semester, so it’ll take a while. We study PowerPoint presentations and we pair off to test each other’s vital signs. My instructor is a former medic who served in Afghanistan. He wears khakis, he never smiles, and his face reminds me of shingles. I’m learning about clearing airways and CPR and trauma management. Almost all of it is focused on nudging our patients as far away from death as possible.

~

The woman’s perched on the edge of the chair when I return. She searches my face for answers. The trainers told us to look a little bit pissed off when returning to the client with a ‘manager over-ride’. Instead of telling her right away, I scowl at the computer, entering the transaction. Finally, when I feel like I’ve made her wait long enough, I look up. He approved five hundred, I say.

Her mouth squirms, and she nuzzles the baby, whispers something in her ear. I look back down at the computer and force myself to calculate my commission.

~

After the woman leaves, Ronnie comes out of the back room and leans against the counter looking out at the street. He’s got shockingly red hair and dimpled acne scars high on his cheek. Today he’s wearing a black button-down shirt and black pants, like he thinks he’s a magician or Johnny Cash. Ronnie often says that I have the right stuff and that I’m a lot like him, which makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

No Doug? he asks.

Doug is Ronnie’s neighbor. He’s a quiet, angry, alcoholic who shows up three or four days a week and stands on the sidewalk dressed in a green foam dollar sign costume, waving a placard that screams WE BUY GOLD NOW! We usually do two or three more deals a day when Doug makes it to work. Ronnie pays him out of his own pocket.

No, I say. You paid him yesterday.

Right, he says. Fuckin’ drunk.

He leans against the counter for a long time while I finish entering the transaction. Ronnie’s job seems to amount to talking on the phone, yelling at me when I let a price drift too close to spot, and leaning against the counter.

I need you to close tomorrow night.

Can’t, I say. I got class.

You still taking those fucking classes? he says to the window.

Yeah, I say. Tomorrow night as a matter of fact.

He turns, crosses his arms and leans his ass against the counter. How much longer you got? he asks.

Year and a half, I say. I keep my eyes on the computer screen. Maybe two.

You’re a fucking idiot, he says. Waste of fucking time. Probably have your own store by then.

I don’t tell Ronnie about how my gut tightens the further I’m able to push some poor bastard away from spot. I don’t tell him that I’m racing against the clock to get certified before Aurelia’s old enough to ask me what I do at work. Instead, as I pack the woman’s jewelry into the pouch that will go into the safe, I say, Yeah, I’m a fucking idiot.

~

Ronnie finally goes back to his office. I check the clock and know that I shouldn’t call her again so quickly, that she’ll smell my weakness, but I feel the weight of the phone in my back pocket and I know that I will. For a month I haven’t seen Aurelia’s silly smile or braided her hair or felt her weight in my arms or smelled her. She smells like apricots most days. I miss the way she wedges herself into the recliner with me when we watch TV and the way she smears her macaroni and cheese all over the table while she eats it. I dig out the phone and call, even though I know I shouldn’t. Emily answers on the third ring.

I’m at work, she says.

I know, I say. Is five o’clock OK to pick her up on Friday?

Silence.

Does five work? I say again.

No, Emily says.

But I—

Larry says you haven’t signed the papers.

The papers. I want to argue about what’s right and what’s fair, but I need to see Aurelia, and the need is physical. My hand shakes, and my mouth goes dry. I called Larry twice, I say. He won’t return my calls.

Just sign the papers, she says. Or have your lawyer call Larry. He only talks to other lawyers.

Right. Pay the lawyer I can’t afford to argue with Larry about the alimony that I can’t afford. Emily can afford as much Larry time as she needs—Larry doesn’t charge her because she’s the receptionist at the firm. An employee benefit—like dental and vision.

I have a right to see my daughter, I say. She’s got nothing to do with all that.

I gotta go, Emily says.

Em—

Hector, Emily says loudly, interrupting me. She pauses, makes sure she has my attention. When she talks again, her voice is soft, almost gentle. Aurelia called Dale Daddy yesterday. She lets that sink in. I thought you should know.

~

I’m staring at the phone, both my hands shaking, when a guy walks in with a couple of plastic grocery bags. I look up and sees the tattoo of a tear dripping down his cheek and the way his eyes dart around the shop, but not at prices of gold and silver, not at me. In training, they talk about face tattoos in the first hour. We Buy Gold Now! registers every purchase with the state and we have to surrender anything that turns up stolen. We sometimes receive restitution, but it seldom amounts to much, and the loss comes right out of the commission check. Seventy percent of the metal sold by people with face tattoos turns out to be stolen. Offers start at five percent of spot. Ten percent if they look like they have their shit together. That teardrop is gonna cost him.

What do you have?

The man doesn’t say anything, just pulls the pieces from the bag. His hands, too, are shaking. He’s got two silver platters, a silver pitcher, and two gold candlesticks. I pretend to study each piece, but really, I’m checking the guy out. The neck of his yellow t-shirt is faded and frayed, his cargo pants snag on his hips, and he smells of river mud. No visible track marks, but when he opens his mouth to lick his dry, chapped lips, the teeth tell the story.

I weigh and test the metal. The worksheet tells me that the lot of it is worth almost three thousand at spot. If the cops don’t make a match in the next thirty days, it’ll be a nice commission.

Hundred and fifty, I say.

C’mon, man. You know it’s worth more than that.

You paid a lot more for it?

He doesn’t say anything to that, but the need burns in his eyes with a ferocious intensity. That need. I never tried meth, but right now all I can smell is apricots, and against every instinct, against all the training, I feel sorry for the guy.

Wedding gift? I ask, and the man snickers.

I know I shouldn’t say it. I know he’ll take what I offered. I say it quietly because I’m embarrassed that I’m saying it, and I don’t want Ronnie to hear. I’ll give you two-fifty, but that’s the best I can do.

~

She was always hard and cold. I can see that now, although, in the beginning I thought of it as strength. The night we met, she got in a brawl at my friend Eddie’s pig roast. She pummeled the other girl with a flurry of punches, and the girl bled all over Eddie’s patio furniture. I helped pull her off and calm her down. We were out by the garage later, having a smoke.

You really went after her, I said.

She lied to me.

She said it so matter-of-fact. Lies are bad. Lies result in blood and bruises. I think that might have been when I started to fall for her. What happened at my apartment later that night didn’t hurt.

The next morning, while we sat on my couch watching a fishing show, nursing a hangover, and eating powdered donuts, I asked her, Who was that anyway?

Who?

That girl. The one you beat the shit out of.

She licked the powder off her fingers and watched one of the fishermen club a Muskie in the bottom of the boat.

That was my sister.

I think that’s when I began to fear her just a little bit.

~

When Emily moved in with Dale, after a few weeks, after I got through the embarrassment and the anger, the part of me that loved her went numb. I guess numb is about as far away from pain as you can get, and I learned a long time ago that pain is the only reliable way to measure love.

I do the numbers again in my head, the numbers I’ve been doing all month. Five hundred for child support, another fifteen hundred for alimony, the trailer, my car. Even if I cancel cable, sell the TV, eat ramen noodles for lunch and dinner, there isn’t enough for the EMT classes anymore. For the last month I’ve been trying to find an angle, a bit of leverage, all the while measuring the value of those classes, the value of pride, but I’ve been struggling to get a fix on it.

I feel fully alive when I’m with Aurelia, and only then. My arms have purpose. She can make me smile all day just by leaning against my leg. When she leaves after a visit, I’m tired, and I lose my appetite, and I scratch at the psoriasis on my elbows until they bleed. I lean against the counter and try to summon the scent of an apricot, but all I can smell is mud. If I thought meth might numb the need I feel after every visit, I’d try it, I really would, but I worry that it would just make me mean and cost me at the dentist.

~

The door opens and an old, bent woman shuffles in. She smells of vinegar and dust. The old ladies are the worst. The negotiation is always easy, but they talk. While I weigh their metal, they tell me about a pregnant granddaughter or a son in jail. I can tell by her twitchy mouth and the unsteady shuffle of her feet across the carpet that this one has a story that I don’t want to hear. And she’ll say it in that matter-of-fact old lady voice, sanded smooth by years of disappointments, and I’ll want to give away my commission and tell Ronnie that I quit.

She reaches into the pocket of her sweater. Her palsied hand shivers as she places a gold pocket watch and a man’s thick gold wedding band on the velvet. She pulls her own wedding ring off her papery finger, and she places it next to the rest.

She looks up at me, her eyes steady. You buy gold, she says. It isn’t a question.

I look down at the metal, because that’s all it is, a commodity, but I don’t really see it. Instead I think about the papers in my backpack and I know that I’ll sign them as soon as she leaves. I can’t focus on the gold, because I can’t stop thinking of the truly precious. I won’t look at the old lady again. I pull out the scale and the gun, and my hands move on their own. I won’t listen to her story. I won’t let her tell it if she tries. I’m going to steal the gold from this woman, too.

Yeah, I finally say. I buy gold. That’s what I do.