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             Eddie Himple 
            Road Warrior

                        by
                 Diana Grove
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         It’s not easy being king of the road.  Burned coffee, sagging mattresses, flat tires.  I’ll tell you what though, it’s better than slinging meatloaf at midnight.  That’s what Darnelle says anyway.  She ought to know, she’s been working at the Git n’ Split for 12 years now. 
        I see her every time I’m in town.  I always order the chicken-fried hash, extra gravy.  She doesn’t know it, but I watch her real close.  Darnelle’s got a mole on her ankle shaped like a banana. 
        Traveling the road can wear on a man, but a capacitor hose salesman can make some good change if he knows how to work it.  The trick is, you’ve got to know how to make the sale - make people trust you.  You’ve also got to know how to wear the same underwear five days in a row without wild dogs coming after you in the parking lot.
        I’ve been with Dun-Co Rubber Company for eight years now, traveling anywhere from Des Moines to Albuquerque.  I’m proud of my record, but life has been throwing me a curve ball lately.  I used to be able to pull in 50 sales a week, mostly because of the new 6-gauge polystyrene connector valves.  Everyone knows that 6-gauge polystyrene is better than 3, it says so right in the manual.  The manual also says I need to be polite, well spoken and clean.  This is all well and good except that I keep leaving my Brill Cream in Tuscaloosa. 
        Confidentially, it’s not a good feeling to lose your edge.  I used to be one of the top sellers in division A.  Now I’ve dropped down to division C, which is even worse than division D, mostly because division C involves clamps, and only losers sell clamps. 
        I told all of this to Darnelle one night over a cherry pie.  She said to stop worrying so much because selling clamps is no worse than selling valves for God’s sake.  She may have a point there.  She also said she has a silverfish problem in her bedroom closet.  I told her I’d come over and give her a hand with it, but she won’t budge. 
        The truth is, I’m crazy about her.  I lie in bed and think about every inch of her: her hair, her eyes, her mouth, the curve of her calves.  Darnelle has fantastic calves.  They’re like steel battleships ready to burst forth and win the war.  Some people might call her “well built” but she’s really much more than that. 
        It’s true.  There are about a million things I love about her.  For instance, she has a little strip of dewy fur above her lip like a baby mouse.  Sometimes I have this incredible urge to reach out and stroke it with my pinky finger.  I tried this once.  It made her jump so high I had to say I was brushing away a muffin crumb.  I catch myself talking to her when no one’s around too.  The guys at headquarters think I’m losing it.  But how can I loose something I never had?
        You really appreciate women when you travel hard core the way I do.  My mother was a good, honest woman, but I’ve never met anyone as kind as Darnelle.  She always gives me extra grits, even when I don’t ask.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we ran off and got married.  She could have anything she wanted at the wedding, that’s for sure.  Even one of those little lace umbrellas, and I’ve heard they can run up a bill pretty quick. 
        I try to keep my chin up, but things are getting real crazy out in the field.  I find myself thinking about her right in the middle of a pitch.  I’ll be telling Mr. So-And-So from the Keep It Cool A/C Company why he should invest in 300 titanium clamps with adjustable flanges and I’ll completely forget to tell him about the crimping nuts.  Well, obviously, not knowing about the crimping nuts will make Mr. So-And-So want to stick with his old titanium clamps and he’ll drift off and start thinking about roast beef or something.  This may explain why sales are down.  I don’t care though because Darnelle has a certain smell.
        She does.  It’s very difficult to describe, but she smells a little bit like pancakes rolled in lavender with just a hint of Spanish peanuts.  Or maybe it’s filberts, I’m not sure.  One thing is for sure though, that smell makes me crazy.  It sticks in my head and won’t leave.  I’ve tried re-creating it but I can never get the pancakes right.  Maybe it’s the syrup.  Darnelle’s Canadian and one thing’s for sure, those folks know syrup. 
        A guy like me doesn’t always have it so easy.  Here’s something I had to learn the hard way - just when you thought things were bad, hold on to your britches because they can always get worse.  Sure enough, once Darnelle was pouring me coffee and asked what I wanted out of life.  Like an idiot I said all I really wanted was to sell 5% more capacitor hoses than the competition so I could boost the annual nut and get the employee bonus, which is a free weekend at the Mirador Motel, dinner included.  I know, I’m still kicking myself.  She just gave me a funny look and went right on slicing a rhubarb pie. Why I didn’t say I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her for eternity is beyond me.
        It was after this that the real torture began. Basically, I was so eaten up with regret I didn’t sleep for a week.  I sweat through the sheets and tore a hole in the spread with my big toe.  Believe me, you can tear a pretty sizable hole in a motel bedspread if you lose your trimmers in Baton Rouge. 
        Oh well, no point in being grim.  Things are gonna look up, I can feel it.  Dun-Co has a new line of flanges this quarter…they’re bifurcated.  You can’t tell me a bifurcated flange won’t sell like hotcakes.  And the next time I’m in Des Moines, I’m going to order a whole meatloaf and tell Darnelle how I feel.  I’m going to look into those big black eyes and be honest for once.
        She’s Canadian, she’ll understand.  She has to. 

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