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Falconer 76<br />
and they lay on the mattress and drank hot coffee and were fairly<br />
comfortable and happy.<br />
But Jody spoke skeptically to Farragut about the university. “It’s<br />
the same old shit,” said Jody. “Success School. Charm School. Elite<br />
School. How to Make a Million School. I been to them all and<br />
they’re all the same. You see, Chicken, banking arithmetic and all<br />
that shit is done by computers today and what you have to<br />
concentrate on is to inspire the confidence of the potential<br />
investor. That’s the big mystery of modern banking. For instance,<br />
you come on with the smile. Every class I took begins with lessons<br />
in this smile. You stand outside the door thinking about all the<br />
great things that happened to you that day, that year, for your<br />
whole life. It has to be real. You can’t fake this selling smile. I<br />
mean you remember a great girl who made you happy or winning<br />
a long shot if you ever had one or a new suit or a race you won or<br />
a great day when you really had everything going for you. Well,<br />
then you open the door and go in and smack him with this smile.<br />
Only they don’t know nothing, Chicken. I mean about smiling.<br />
They don’t know nothing at all about smiling.<br />
“It’s all right to smile, I mean you have to smile to sell anything,<br />
but if you don’t smile in the right way you get terrible lines on<br />
your face like you have. I love you, Chicken, but you don’t know<br />
how to smile. If you knew how to smile you wouldn’t have those<br />
wrinkles all around your eyes and those big, disgusting cuts like<br />
scars on your face. Look at me, for example. You think I’m twentyfour,<br />
don’t you? Well, I’m actually thirty-two, but most people<br />
when they’re asked to guess my age put me down for eighteen or<br />
nineteen at the most. That’s because I know how to smile, how to<br />
use my face. This actor taught me. He was in on a morals charge<br />
but he was very beautiful. He taught me that when you use your<br />
face you spare your face. When you throw your face recklessly into<br />
every situation you come up against, you come out looking like<br />
you do, you come out looking like shit. I love you, Chicken, I<br />
really do, otherwise I wouldn’t tell you that you got a ruined face.
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