Kenny

Kenny is a guy unlike any guy I’ve ever met. How can I describe Kenny…he has a messy-hair look all the time, and I guess that pretty much summarizes his whole life…messy hair. Let me explain a little better.

I first met Kenny the night after I got to Kansas City. I had flown in from San Antonio that morning and went straight out to knock and get some sales. At the end of the day, Steve picked me up and I met up with Chet and talked about how the last few weeks down in Texas had been for me. We headed back to the office and inside I saw…Kenny.

Kenny looked confused…he was just standing in the middle of the room, staring at the dry-erase board where we recorded the sales, holdng a Big Gulp.

“Hey, you need something?” I asked the clearly confused young man.

“I got a sale today but the board says I didn’t…” Kenny motioned to the board and sure enough, it didn’t say he had any sales. It also didn’t have anyone else’ sales recorded either, and it being my first day in a new office, I was a little confused myself. Kenny laughed to himself as he shook his head and walked away. That was Kenny.

Over the next three months, Kenny would never cease to amaze me. One morning, as we all gathered in for the ritual morning cheer, Kenny seemed confused about something.

“Has anyone here ever heard of that Jeep thing?” Kenny shouted to us as we were milling about.

“Like…the car?” Someone replied.

“No not like that,” Kenny responded, as he set down his Big Gulp, got down on all fours and began crawling about, saying “Beep, beep, I’m a Jeep…beep, beep, I’m a Jeep!”

Everyone stared at Kenny in shock, not knowing if we were supposed to laugh, cry, or even join him…but that was Kenny. After he ‘explained’ what the Jeep thing was, he got up, grabbed his Big Gulp, and walked out without saying another word…that was Kenny.

Outside Kenny’s odd outbursts and interesting personality, he was a pretty good salesman and pretty luck as well. Kenny usually came back with a sale at the end of the day, and even if he didn’t, someone he had talked with extensively would call him a few days later.

“We wish we had listened to you, Kenny, our house got robbed last night and we want an alarm now,” they would state. Kenny would get their information and get over to their house immediately to seal the deal. This happened at least four times to Kenny, and we all just thought he was lucky. Turned out, he wasn’t.

Kenny walked into the office barefoot one day with a Big Gulp in his hand after going to sign a deal earlier that morning. No one thought it was beyond Kenny to forget his shoes, but we decided to ask him what happened anyway. Kenny took a breath and began to explain.

“We’re so glad you could come back and get us this alarm system…we wish we had listened to you before we were robbed.” Kenny sipped on his Big Gulp and listened to his client as they were ready to sign the papers, and consoled them on the emotional event. Just as the woman was about to sign the papers, she looked down and asked “What kind of shoes are those?”

“Oh these, these are Nike Shox…I got them about a week ago.” The woman set the pen down and pulled out a business card the detective had given her hours prior. Ten minutes later, Kenny was being asked to relinquish his shoes by that same detective.

“Listen here, sonny,” the detective grumbled, “Nike Shox are the same kind of shoe that was used to kick this door in the other night when fine these people were robbed.” Kenny had no idea what the officer was getting at, but as Kenny explained that his shoes were taken, we helped clarify that he was now a suspect in the robbery. Lucky for him, Kansas City police are more concerned with the half a dozen murders a day than with salesmen like Kenny. Lucky for him this wasn’t Raytown.

We all thought the incident was odd and very coincidental, but we all laughed it off as another interesting moment in door-to-door sales history. That is, until the drive out to our area, when someone suggested that maybe Kenny did rob that lady’s house, along with all the other houses that had been robbed where he got a sale afterwards. Kenny’s roommates had explained how weird Kenny was, every morning he would stand out on the balcony, talking and laughing while having a cigarette, but no one would be out there with him. Then, he would often be unable to recall conversations he had with other people in the office, or even customers. We pieced it together and realized that maybe Kenny had robbed all those houses and he just didn’t remember.

“Maybe Kenny is like Tyler Durden, like from Fight Club,” someone suggested. We all got a laugh at that, but then the laugh turned into a quiet realization that maybe they were right. Maybe Kenny had an alter-ego or a split personality, or maybe he was just crazy. The pieces came together in my mind…the talking to himself, the odd one-sided conversations, and the look in his eyes like he wasn’t really there…that was Kenny.