The Sweet Forever

Karras and Clay went out to the sales floor, where Clarence Tate, Clay’s controller, was talking to the new store manager, a guy who went by the name of Cootch. Cootch smoked Newports and wore long-sleeved Oxford shirts year round to hide his skinny arms. He claimed the girls liked him better like that, covered up, until they got surprised by the rest of him later on. Cootch had a big smile reflecting his positive disposition and a solid work ethic to go with it; Clay had recently promoted him from his six-month stint as a clerk at the Dupont Circle store.

Tate stood behind the new register and explained the order-entry system, once again, to Cootch. Clay watched Tate’s face, the sidelong looks he gave Cootch as he tried to keep a lid on his impatience. All right, Cootch was a little slow on the uptake. But he loved music, had a deep knowledge of it, and was pleasant with the customers. Tate had to understand; not everyone caught on as fast as he did with this computer shit. But everyone did have their strengths, which was why Clay had Karras out in the stores, hiring and firing and dealing with personnel, and why he had Tate, who was a man who could deal better with numbers than with people, behind a desk.

You had to give Clarence Tate credit, though. While working full time for Real Right he had done six years of night school and gotten his accounting degree. All that and he had raised young Denice, too, all by himself. Clay had been lucky to find Tate, and keep him, after that bad shit they had all got wrapped up in back in ’76.

“Yo, boss,” said Cootch. “Wha’sup?”

“Cootch,” said Clay. “How you doin’ with that, man?”

“He’s gettin’ it,” said Tate, who picked up a tabloid-sized newspaper off the counter as he moved out from behind the register stand. Tate was as tall as Clay, but his schedule through the years had kept him away from any kind of exercise. Unlike Clay, he had let himself spread out.

“Clarence,” said Karras.

“Dimitri.”

“Any beeswax?” said Karras. Not that he cared much about the numbers, but the coke pulsing through his blood was pushing him to conversation.

“Huh?” Tate seemed distracted. He kept glancing over to the window fronting the store, where his daughter, Denice, stood looking out across the street, her book bag over her shoulder.

“The business,” said Karras. “We doin’ any?”

“Never enough,” said Tate, his standard answer. He turned to Clay, held up the newspaper. “Course, we might be doin’ better if we were in City Paper this week—”

“Had a full-page grand opening ad in there last week,” said Clay. “Can only afford two of those a month.”

“What you gotta do, then,” said Tate, “is run a half-page every week. Got to be in that joint every single week, Marcus.”

Karras looked at the two of them. They had this same argument every Friday, usually right about this time.

“I like those big ads, Clarence. Keeps the competition on their toes. Makes us look like somethin’.”

“It’s like they always told us in my marketing classes,” said Tate, “when they were teachin’ us print advertising: Frequency beats size, Marcus, every time.”

“That’s what she said,” said Karras, and no one responded. Well, Cootch did give him a charitable, lopsided grin.

Clay rubbed his face. “Cootch, turn that music down a touch, will you, man?” The music always got to Clay first, even more so in the last few years, as he neared the end of his thirties.

“This one’s gonna be big, Marcus,” said Karras, nodding at the wall-mounted speakers where the eight-piece funk was coming through.

“Bigger than the moonwalk,” added Cootch.

“Yeah, I know.” Clay hadn’t paid much attention to this group since Cameosis in ’80, but even he still knew a hit when he heard one. “Word Up” was going to be the bomb in D.C.

“Better be big,” mumbled Tate. “We brought in enough units, man. And too many on the wax side, if y’all don’t mind my sayin’.”