my passion
by Gary Duehr
I am not a bad man. I am not an evil man. Despite what you may have read about me in the papers, you must believe me. I have a particular passion, as many do, which I find myself following, despite all obstacles that have been thrown in my path. It is la mia passione, to use the Italian construction.
What is my passion, you ask? Customer service. What I offer is customer service to buyers who feel they have been grievously wronged. I think of myself as the last refuge for desperate customers on the internet who have no other outlet for their frustration and rage. I do my best to accept their outbursts on the phone. Sometimes I think of myself as a kind of priest with whom they are sharing their deepest secrets.
When I pick up the phone, they are so happy to get an actual human. I feel a little giddy too. Please, I tell them, tell me what the problem is. I’ll listen, I’ll take notes on your account. There’s no hurry. Wherever you are, El Paso or Des Moines, Raleigh or Tacoma, I’m here for you. Your complete satisfaction is very important to me.
And then comes the rush of complaints and tears, both men and women. Their story springs forth as if from an ancient fountain, la fountana, as many-tiered as the Trevi in Rome with Oeanus’ chariot pulled by sea horses, and that unrelenting too. I allow myself an occasional grunt of assent, uh-huh, uh-huh, and I scratch a pen on my legal pad as if I’m filling up page after page. After 10 or 20 minutes, the random marks on the yellow sheet look like a violent weather pattern.
I know what you’re wondering. Am I Italian? No. I live in Queens near LaGuardia with my mother, who is second-generation Sicilian. I find the Italian accent is soothing for my customers, it’s so soft and melodic, besides giving the impression they are dealing with a global company. You have to agree, it does lend a touch of verisimilitude to my Instagram store of designer shoes, La Calzatura.
For this crime of compassion I went to prison for 18 months. The attorney general called it fraud. Is it fraud to care too much about the forgotten margins of humanity? Don’t ordinary people deserve haute couture? Does it really matter that the shoes in question never arrived, or that they were counterfeits from China? They were identical to the real thing, logos and all: Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino Garavani. And only crafted from the finest materials—calfskin, lacquered sole, satin with jeweled accents, flat-stacked heel—or the next best thing. But instead of paying outrageous prices, $995 and up, my online customers paid a fraction of retail in the low hundreds.
When they called my customer service hotline because their order was delayed or a heel fell off, something anyone could fix with a little glue, I forced myself to sit and listen, mouth shut tight, while they vented their anger at me. I tried, I really tried. But a man can only take abuse for so long. I told them I would look into it, I assured them the back office would initiate a ticket, that they would receive a refund in 30-60 days.
But that would never satisfy them. Their vitriol grew more intense, and I could feel my forehead start to heat up, my stomach clench, like the Hulk before he explodes. (I know it’s wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself. The court psychiatrist said I have a disorder, that there’s a gap in my brain wiring.) Enough!, I’d suddenly cry out. Basta! Then I’d let loose a torrent of my own into the receiver. I admit, as testified by Victims 1 and 2, that I called them names, I insulted them and their families, I swore at them like a truck driver. I’m ashamed I even threatened some of them with bodily injury, that I told them I know where you live and you better keep one eye open. Did this cross a line? Let me just say that many lines were crossed by both parties. Am I responsible for shipping delays from overseas? For a shortage of almond wood or stainless-steel studs?
I must confess that after a time I found the drama of these calls exciting. I felt like I was drilling down to the bone and grit of human relations. No pretense, no quarter asked or given. Just two feverish souls tethered by a phone line. I thought that customers secretly enjoyed it a little too, regardless of what they told the police. That’s why I began to wait a few weeks to place an order, to let quality control slip. I became addicted to the theatricality of customer service, and, like any addict, I wanted more and more. Even when my mother pleaded with me. Even after serving time in prison. Actually, I managed to take online orders while I was on parole in a halfway house, but text chats with customers did not provide the same frisson, the sudden thrill of hearing a human voice, brimming with wrath and outrage, almost out of breath, pouring directly into my ear, as I wait silently for the right momento to strike back with all the force of the gods.
This was my opera, my whole life, my passione.
Gary Duehr has taught poetry and writing for institutions including BostonUniversity, Lesley University, and Tufts University. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001 he received an NEA Fellowship, and he has also received grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Journals in which his writing has appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review.
His books include In Passing (Grisaille Press, 2011), THE BIG BOOK OF WHY (Cobble Hill Books, 2008), Winter Light (Four Way Books, 1999) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press, 1999).