DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS

         The deep voice pours out of the earpiece like the ketchup that has settled in the bottom of the bottle. I think of the old Three Stooges routine: "Slowly I turned, step by step." Or was that Abbott and Costello? My mind drifts back to the subject at hand. Ted is on the line.

         Ted works for a consultancy conglomerate that might be interested in allying itself with my humble efforts in the same field. Ted confidently tells me his firm has found the secret to minting money and that I can be part of this exciting future.

         Ted's firm has made tax consulting a full service business, so that clients may fill all their investment, insurance and tax needs in the same place. I can become part of this! I explain to Ted that a congenital defect has left me with the inability to sell anything. My lack of ability comes from a belief ingrained in me as a youth that I should buy high and sell low.

         Oh, Ted explains that the best part of affiliating with his firm is I need not sell! All I have to do is turn the prospects over to Ted and his associates. I can't remember how I was to be paid for this, for at this point Ted had hit me with the clincher. He asked me "DON'T YOU WANT TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?"

         I suspect I must have replied in Jack Benny fashion; i.e., after a few seconds of thought I may have said 'Well', to which Ted began to imply that every businessman must grow his business or wither. Ted went on to imply that if I did not want to grow my business, I did not fit into this era. I gave a "thanks, but no thanks," and as we hung up I imagined him saying 'putz' to himself.

         I thought of going to a library and finding a book on growing businesses. I was familiar with growing tomatoes, but needed to learn more about this new form of growing. I read my Wall Street Journal more closely and found others talked of 'growing their business', turning the verb from the passive to the active tense. To me it didn't make sense. I felt pretty sure that Chance the gardener would take exception to this usage. He would tell me that if I took care of the soil and watered the plant, it would grow, but I could not grow it.

         I was a little peeved at myself that I had not thought of a clever retort to Ted, perhaps asking him if I was supposed to weed my file cabinets or water the copier. As time passed, I thought of many more clever ways to answer Ted's attempt to make me feel somehow un-American. I grew properly self-righteous. Mammon had tried to enter my practice and I had snuffed him out. I was Chandler's Marlowe again, but without Bernie Ohls at the DA's office to help me walk down the mean streets. I went to take a pull on the pint bottle in my desk, but realized I sat at a computer table and did not drink. My wooden blinds were a shade and a half curtain covering a window that looked out on a snow covered lawn.

         It was time to get back to work. Ted was right. I must grow my business. Then a light shone; I knew what to do. There is leftover lumber from the packing crate that surrounded the lawn mower. With it I can build a vegetable stand by the road and raise zucchini to sell next summer.