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Fiction: THE GINO FILE
by Jeff Johnson
March 2005
Advice: Don't let your wife get in the car with Gino. Don't let Gino take your wife shopping for a gift. You're flying to Milwaukee. One thousand miles away. Midwest Express flight 382. Most assuredly, Gino will attempt to contact your wife. It's a hurdle. Be strong. Be smart. Be safe.
[By the way, in flight, should you request 7-Up and they ask if is Slice okay, don't freak out. It's economic reasons. They save money and thus so do we. Remember that. We have guys who go apeshit. Dramatize it. We're trying to clear them out. Get rid of them. Complainers, we feel, bring us down. In a heap.]
But listen. The Gino thing. Your wife (obviously) is not on board this flight. You're solo. Wives don't travel at all anymore. Paul Jr. has stressed this loud and clear since he was promoted. The sole exception being the employee-paid spousal flight, due to a coordinated pending vacation that may be booked coinciding with the conclusion of the employee sales call/conference.
All of the above nuts and bolts are covered in your packet. I hope you got your packet. Their assembly (even though some of the guys goof on the fact that we had them collated by mid-functioning adult retards at an off-site facility) cost us a lot of dough. They're handsome packets, you'll see. But anywho, FYI, this is not covered in your packet: Gino drives a large beige Chrysler named after some European spa. The doors clap shut like linemen breaking huddle. It smells faintly of cigars. It smells a lot of golf shoes. Additional scents: Minor hint of leather? Minor hint of musk? Major hint of Gino with excess talc.
Gino often states to co-workers' wives that he has free time to help with errands. Somehow, he finds a good opportunity to do this. To make this known. Additionally, I know for a fact that he likes to get all earnest and say that the name “Gino” equals or is synonymous, rather, with the word “helper” in another language. He's correct. “Helper take off her dress” is what I believe it stands for.
You can stop laughing now.
Continuing on, regarding Gino's availability? For the aforementioned errands? Gino is a keen s.o.b. He'll find a quick minute to offer his services at a happy hour, or a baby shower, any work function where the broads might be in attendance. That he can and will help out. With something. Anything. Anytime. The thing about Gino, as I have said—strictly off the record—is Gino could have Queen Elizabeth starring in a bukkake video if you gave him twenty minutes alone with her. Gino is a cobra who survives on women's undies. Additionally, he only pretends to drink O'Doul's. We made him take a sobriety vow six years ago during a rough patch. That is now a charade. A formality. We don't bring it up.
Contrary to what I've been blathering on about, Gino is not always smooth. He will fuck up. I personally witnessed Gino in Atlantic City once with his khakis around his ankles, pleading with a woman of the evening to please finish up. His stomach was empty. Would she please hurry? Like Gino was doing her the favor. Jesus. Time was of the essence. Gino desired physical climax!
Gino'd shelled out 375 bucks, but the whore was ready to give it back to him plus a couple hundred just to nix the deal and grab a cab. She was repulsed. But our Gino shook off her signals like she was a rookie catcher and he was the Cy Young winner. He kept winking at her and dropping his digital camera on the carpet. Finally it didn't work anymore. None of it. The hooker slithered off. Found her skirt balled up under the ice machine down the hall. Security with no gun arrived. Knocked. Knocked a few times. Gino wept in a closet. Worked his liquid mucus back into his sinuses. Blubbered. I lied for him.
The guard retreated. Let bygones be bygones. He was no great sleuth. I felt relief for a moment. Then Gino got huffy. Felt wronged. Ripped-off. Ordered fajitas. Ordered one of everything. Room service. Extra cheese. A habanero-based salsa. Tried to eat it all in bed. Wolf it down. On his back. Not wise. He misplaced his heart meds. Left his briefcase in the casino. Insisted he was having a coronary on the return flight. His neck was all purple and sore. They kept on having to bring him those little hot wet towels. Damp ones. For his forehead. He rasped. His eyes kept swelling up.
But that is an anomaly. Gino is on his game ninety-nine percent of the time. Brilliant. It is a science for him. Pulling broads is a science. For every prostitute that's repulsed by him, there are at least forty-five to fifty local women—civilians, lonely ones—who eventually break down and say, “Gino, pull off at the next La Quinta Inn, and let's fuck.” Wildly. Sans manners. He makes ordinary women—women who have been termed frigid, even—he makes them almost nymphos. They nympho-out like those Girls Gone Wild videos. Spring Break with a screw loose. And who has the toolbox? Gino.
Gino's first wife is in bed with asthma. Forever. Their kids are gone. College graduates. One's in science. Quiet. Full of scorn. Disillusion. Used, actually abused, marijuana in order to cope with his undelightful childhood. Little earthy prick. The daughter, though, she went to U Mass, runs daycare in Ohio. Really a happy girl. Ample bosom. Brainy. Now she makes a ton of bread. Honest bread. Shit, we really are in the wrong racket here, aren't we? She pretends Gino is… Gino who? Get it? Gino's second wife was his trophy. She left him for Miami, Florida. A Hockey fellow. Gino uses her departure to his benefit. The sadness angle.
Gino is gone on sales (and always in First Place at our company, so you'll be competing in two ways or more) a lot. He's like the Yankees of this place. Once you almost beat him, he gets the rules changed. He capitalizes; you go back to the drawing board. Sales calls might take Gino out of town for three weeks of the month, nowhere near your wife, thank God. But fate might put him in the vicinity of your wife the minute he gets back on familiar turf. There are a ton of those work birthdays, and birthday-related events, that I mentioned early on. We make a big deal of them here. We feel we owe it to you guys to sanction a public dinner. Your wife might even show up at one just for something to do when you're gone, ‘cause it's boring as hell here, in case you hadn't recognized. This is when Gino is superb.
Gino positions himself near the bar, waits. Gino knows a lot about Scotch because he worked at Mitchell's for twenty-one years. Scotch was a big deal. Jameson was a big account. Gino just pretends it's a hobby. Sloughs it off, like he just came into this wealth of info by walking around some bogs or reading GQ. You don't know peat ratios/gradiations ‘cause you read a fucking magazine with giant pictures of saddle shoes.
Anyway, when a wife saunters up to get a drink (solo), Gino sidles over to her, rattles off interesting Scotch facts (some of which relate to barrel age), then talks in his laughable Scottish brogue. Gets her to chuckle. Plus, he's probably been tanning. An old sage with a nice tan, who makes a gal laugh, who has a big Chrysler and produces successful numbers each month. Tally that up and carry the one. The one, in this case, being the trophy bride who went off with a fucking Florida (Russkie) pro-hockey player. Power and sympathy, Gino works them both.
Gino will tell your wife that story, about his loneliness, but not straight away. The chatter regarding Gino-as-cuckold is pretty fresh at work, so he figures your wife must know his deal. Be familiar with his pain. You maybe let it slip to her once. How could you not? The hockey-playing Russian is a star. So, anyway, Gino just gets her to laugh a few times. That's all. You go to Milwaukee. You go anywhere. This moment blossoms, this bar joking.
Then Gino does this: he calls your wife. Actually phones her.
By the way, Gino lives in that development. The nineteen-plexes. The ones named after that Robin Hood place. The something Woods, whatever. He walks right off his patio to Castle Crest. Gino's a senior member at Castle Crest and has shot par or better for thirty years. Only thirty years, ‘cause for his first twenty-five years on this planet, Gino was a poor son of a bitch. He'll tell you that for sure. Repeatedly. He's built himself. Solo. He's a fighter.
Gino plays poker in the Castle Crest clubhouse and enjoys a few Crème de Menthes. Gino adjusts his balls when he has a bad hand; his nose hairs bug him when he's holding something interesting. It's not really poker. I refer to it as three slow hours of sliding your small bills across a shitty felt green tabletop to Gino. He should just piss over some ice cubes and let us drink it. We'd get more entertainment.
I'm sorry for the digression.
So Gino calls your wife and says, “Hey, Hello, Jim there?” Your wife, obviously, says no. You're in Milwaukee. Gino slaps his forehead. Gino wants your wife to hear the slap through the receiver. Gino laughs slowly. “Boy, am I a dummy.” Reverts to the funny Scottish accent. Tells a joke about a wayward Scottish bowel movement, a priest, and a wool stocking. That gets your wife chuckling. Segues smoothly: his daughter Linda is coming to town. He wants to gift her, but not a knick-knack.
By now there doesn't even need to be an explanation about why he was trying to call your husband at home in the first place. Your wife is warming up to this gentleman/good father routine. Purring. At this moment, Gino is likely to be sliding his dress socks back and forth on his marble floor. This is how Gino expresses glee, quietly. He charms. He charms well, Jim.
So Ol' Gino's looking for a gift, he continues. And here's where he lays it on. (a) His ex-wife is busy fucking a billionaire hockey player in the Tampa/St.Pete area, otherwise he would have asked her for ideas. (b) She doesn't return his calls, even though she has drained his bank account. This causes a lump in your wife's throat. I should toss this in: If your wife isn't at home when he calls, that is not Gino's only shot. He leaves terrific voicemail. Magnetic.
But let's keep going. Gino does two more things. He says, “I really want to get online and just order something from Bergdorff but my modem doesn't get a dial tone. Only he says “mah-dim.” Feigns an ignorance of technology. Your wife being twenty-five years younger than Gino, of course, is more tech savvy than the fuddy duddy. Gino mentions, “Hey, when I lived in NYC, I'd go to Bergdorf all the time.” Your wife thinks that is classy.
So, eventually, your wife drives to Gino's in the SUV you're still making payments on. Your wife thinks this is not a bad idea, lumbering through town to another man's home in a new gun-metal SUV that you don't even get to drive much. She's going to help. And she's charmed. He's a first place salesman with a New York past. A couple of ex-wives. One broken heart. Knows Scotch. He's generous. Gino's not fucking around now. He's a specialist this way.
While your wife's driving, Gino pulls the phone cord out of the jack and lets it drop to the floor behind the desk. That's the big problem. The malfunction. It's an easy fix for your wife. She and Gino will both be down on their hands and knees, flirting, troubleshooting … “Here, let me ... ” That sort of thing. Plugging the cord back in. Making eye contact. Maybe his age-spotted hand caresses her nice French manicure. Fumbles over it. Maybe she guides his hand towards the phone jack, helps him plug it in.
Gino gets the computer up and running. Thanks her profusely. Almost shoos her out the door, when he apologizes, says how about a glass of Shiraz? She comes back to sit down. Agrees. You're finishing off a Wendy's Big Classic and reviewing your closes in your hotel room. Were you too worried and stressed or did you at least close a few accounts? God, I hope so.
One Shiraz with Gino might as well be six. Pretty soon other things are getting plugged in. Other things are getting plugged in your wife, Jim. Your wife. Your wife. Are you going to drive yourself nuts out there worrying about it? Are you going to let Gino eat you alive both on the tally board and in your own personal life? Look at the tallies. Let him just kick your ass so you're a coward? Well, we hope not.
Jim, we hired you because you kick ass. Not that the rumor was you kick ass, that it is certifiable you kick ass. So forget Gino. Forget about what he does and will do. Eventually. Who knows? The Ginofication of your wife—probably won't happen for months. Years, maybe. It certainly won't happen on this Milwaukee trip. It's like troop activity around the Suez. You feel it. The tremors. And maybe nothing ends up happening. So breath easy. We don't want you to get too worked up.
Besides, maybe karma will show up. Manifest itself in some way that makes us remember the teachings of Jesus. Maybe Gino will get a big black tumor somewhere. Somewhere that they can't cut it out of or melt it with hot radiation. Somewhere where they just have to say, Gino, you've lived a good life. Gino, these pills make it easier. The pain, that is.
Maybe Gino will go gently into that good night without having fucked your wife. Maybe he'll go kicking and screaming like a little bitch caught under a speeding merry-go-round. Maybe our glasses will clink a little too hard when we remember him with a toast. I'm winking right now. Praying. Fuck it. Welcome aboard.
Jeff Johnson lives in New York. His website is www.fittedsweats.blogspot.com.
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