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[EDITOR'S NOTE: As with Spinke's other short stories published by the Volkspresse in 1920,* this work essentially put Spinke on the map as a fiction writer. While his eccentric personality and radical political sentiments gave him his somewhat unquantifiable reputation about Berlin, his emergence as a legitimate and relatively productive writer during this period demonstrated to critics that his self-proclaimed vocation as a "Klassiger Kriegkämpfer" did not disqualify him from literary endeavors. His second cousin and mildly frequent correspondent, Franz Kafka, wrote to him that the story, "alarmed me in the deepest sense of the crisis of the self in the religious and economic realms." Kafka also suggested he undertake a rewrite in which the "Judeo-Christian overtones echo more sharply in the incisive commentary you, my dear Amos, have made."
*Please see the previous editor's note for a more complete biographical and historical account.]


Just Desserts

Amos J. Spinke


     “I’m gonna kill him I’m just gonna kill him.”
     “She’s been here since seven.” The wife and the oldest son whispered to each other, watching their father.

     “Now, see, now that you know I’m going to buy, you want to get me in for as much as you possibly can,” the father explained again.
     “Right, that makes sense,” the Cutco girl responded eagerly. “I never thought about it that way before.” She was smiling widely. The knives were spread out all over the table.

     “Does your father even know this girl?”
     “I think she was in Samantha’s class at North.” Samantha was the daughter. “But they’re not friends or anything.”

     “See you have a fine product here, and you’ve just spent a good deal of time showing me that—which you did quite nicely, by the way, point by point—and now you want to make the sale.”
     “Right.”
     “But when people look at these prices they go, ‘Whoa!’ And you have to convince them that this is something worth spending on. Some people might think ‘Well, I already have knives, and my knives already do eighty percent of what these knives do, so I should only pay an extra 20%.’” He paused dramatically. “That’s not good.” He laughed. “You know what I’m saying?”
     “So how do I, you know, fix that? How do I make sure that doesn’t happen?”

     “Have you talked to him?”
     “Yes. When I got home—and she had already been here for two and a half hours—I said, ‘Tom, I need to speak with you in the bedroom in private for a minute’ and I told him to buy one knife, and then to get the girl out of our house.”
     “What did he say?”
     “He was like, ‘I know I know.’”
     “What’s his problem?”
     “Well, he thinks he’s teaching her. He just loves it when people fawn all over him for advice and guidance.”
     “He was helping her with her routine the whole time.”
     “It’s just so frustrating. He won’t even take the time to read with Joey”—Joey was the youngest son—“and he spends four hours with some strange girl.”

     “And listen. This one is musical too.” The Cutco girl whacked the knife down on an apple and it sounded a pitch. “Do you know what note that is? B sharp.”
     “Oh, that’s good,” said the father, compassionately and generously faking a laugh. “Did you come up with that one?”
     “Well, no. They tell us that one. But I came up with the one earlier, about the paring knife.”
     “Which one was that?”
     “How ‘this knife is for just desserts’?”
     “Oh yeah? That’s a good one too.” Another laugh of altruism and goodwill.
     “Yep. So could you tell me more about…?”

     “This is sickening.”
     “I know.”
     “I can’t stand this.”
     “I know.”
     “It just makes me so, so mad.”
     “I know.”
     “When he finishes with her, I’m gonna kill him.”
     “So am I.”
     “He doesn’t even realize that this is all part of her act.”
     “I think Dad gets along really well with stupid people.”
     “Now that’s not true.”
     “No, just because they listen to him like he’s this font of wisdom.”
     “I don’t think she thinks that. I think she’s just being nice. She probably wants to get home, she’s been here for almost four hours.”

     “Now the Homemaker set comes with all fifteen of these knives, plus the spatula set, and you even get a free particle cutting board, which is even better than this board that I have here.”
     “And how much is that?” She showed him a piece of paper. “Okay, now what you really want to do is make me feel like I’m getting the best deal. At first, I may think just buying this or that set may not seem like I’m getting the best price, but then, you want to get me looking at the bigger sets and realizing that, hey, if I buy all this, I’m actually getting a pretty good deal.”
     “Wow. That’s really smart. I never thought about it that way before.”

     “How long is he gonna do this?”
     “Forever. She’ll pretend to be interested in his advice for as long as he wants to give it. This is probably gonna be one of her biggest sales ever.”
     “Oh God, he’s not gonna spend a bunch of money, is he?”
     “I think he’s gonna get the ‘Homemaker Plus’ set.”
     “Oh God. I don’t even want to know how much that is.”
     “Well, if any of the knives get dull, they send someone out to your house to sharpen them.”
     “I don’t even cook. You’re the only one in the family who cooks and you’re away at college ninety percent of the time.”
     “He’s not buying them because we need knives. He’s buying them to be nice.”
     “Well we can’t afford to spend a hundred and some dollars on being nice to some girl who we don’t even know.”
     “And it’s not like she’s struggling or anything. She’s amazing at this. Earlier, she was telling him about how she won her first trophy—she’d never gotten a trophy before in her life—for selling the most knives. She wanted to go get it from her car to show it to him.”
     “Samantha says she’s just so dumb.”
     “That’s probably why she does so well. She’s so bad and sticks so much to the Cutco script that all the families start to feel really awkward. She goes through the whole spiel so formally and then they feel obligated to buy something.”
     “And you know what I really hate about this company is that they tell the kids to go to their parents’ friends houses. That’s just disgusting to me. If my kid even went into Ann Rosenberg or Carlyle Fitzgibbons’ house I would feel so ashamed.”

     Later the father followed the Cutco girl to her car so he could give her more generous advice and to make her feel good by looking at her trophy. He had gone with Homemaker Plus.
     “Well I’m sure she earned the sale.”
     “That’s probably the only reason why he bought it.”
     “We certainly don’t need new knives. Oh, it just makes me so mad.”
     “How much did he spend?”
     “I don’t even want to look. That’s the invoice right there.”
     “It took her like thirty minutes to fill it out. Is she, like, retarded or something?”
     “She’s just a little ditzy. I’m so glad your father has so much time to spend on her. His life is just so easy, you know, and we’re just looking for ways to get rid of our money.” The wife had gone to the invoice and was now reading it, holding the paper as far from her face as possible to be able to bring the small markings into focus. “Oh my God I just can’t believe it oh my God he spent six hundred and eighty-nine dollars on this girl that we don’t even know.”
     “Oh my God.”
     The wife was crying now. “Do you realize that I spend so much time, running around town, looking for the best deal on things? I put in so much effort to make our house run so we don’t spend too much money because—God knows—we don’t have any.”
     “He makes me feel bad when I ask him for help on my board bill. And that’s, like, my only expense.”
     “Yesterday I spent two hours saving twenty-five dollars on our phone bill. Two hours on the phone. And it’s so frustrating dealing with those people. And then he goes and does this? It just makes me feel like my time is worthless to him. I’ll tell you what, there’s no way in hell I’m ever gonna do that again. I’ll just let the phone company rip us off. If he can just toss money around like this, I’ll stop looking for the cheapest airfares for days at a time on the internet. I’ll just book whatever flights are most convenient for you guys to get to and from college. So what if it costs $200! When he comes back in this house I’m gonna kill him. How could he spend all that money without even asking me first?”
     “I don’t know.”
     “He just wants to look like a big shot.”
     “No. I think he really just wanted to help her.”
     “But he doesn’t even know her!”
     “In his mind, it doesn’t matter who it is. He can miss Joey’s dive meet today because he doesn’t have time because he’s behind at work, but then he can just go and throw away seven hundred bucks and five hours to make one of his ‘fellow brothers and sisters in the universe’ feel good about a sale.”
     “Oh, it just makes me sick. I’m gonna kill him. That’s it. I just gonna kill him.”
     “It just sucks.”
     “He’s been out there for forty-five minutes. Do you think I can go outside and tell him to come in? It’s almost midnight.”

     It was midnight. The Cutco girl had left, and the father, his wife, and his oldest son were having a discussion about the evening’s developments. The wife and son tried to express their concerns and make their points, but the father simply felt like he was getting cut up: “Why are you abusing me? I’m just trying to help out a fellow human being and all I get is abuse.” “You think you’re helping her, but she’s just acting like she wants your advice so that she can make the sale.” “Look, I’m an honest and truthful person, so when I approach a fellow human being, I assume they’re going to be honest and truthful too, and if this means I’m gonna get hoodwinked every once in a while, so be it.” “Dad, do you really think she wanted to spend five hours in our house listening to you lecture her on the finer points of salesmanship?” “Yes, I honestly do.” “God, you’re so naïve!” “Abuse! All I get is abuse!”

     Three weeks later, the knives arrived.
     “Hey honey, come check these things out!” Chop! The scent of onion wafted down the hall. Chop! “They say the cleaver can cut through bones and tendons just using it’s own weight!” Chop!
     “Dad, could you be quiet, I’m trying to read!”
     “Brian, you should come look at these too. They’re pretty great knives. Honey!”
     “Mom doesn’t want the knives, Dad!” Chop! Chop! Chop!
     “Look, I even got our name engraved in the them!”
     “I’m gonna kill him,” the wife said to the son, setting down a laundry basket in the hall. “I’m just going to kill that man.” Chop! Chop! She marched briskly into the kitchen. Brian listened from his and Joey’s bedroom.
     “Honey, look at how sharp these are.” Chop! “Isn’t that amazing?”
     “Yes, Tom, it is.” Chop! Chop!
     “Brian! Get in here! Take a look at these knives! Don’t you do a lot of cooking now that you’re a college boy?”
     “Honey, Brian’s reading.”
“He should look at these knives.” Tomatoes. Celery. Carrots. Chop! Chop! Chop!
     “What are you cutting up all these vegetables for?”
     “To try out our new knives.” Chop!
     “What are we going to do with all these vegetables?”
     “We can eat them.” Chop!
     “Tom, no we can’t. There’s too many.”
     “We can bring them to the church potluck tonight.” Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop! “What, honey?”
     “Can I try?”
     “Of course.” Chop! “Oh, but not that one. That knife’s only for desserts. It’s a dessert knife.”
     “I wanna try this one.”
     “No, honey—no. It’ll go dull—give it here—”
     “But—” Chop!
     “Ow! Honey, that was my hand! I told you that’s not the right knife!”
     “Oh, sorry. We just have all these chopped vegetables. I don’t know what else we’re gonna bring for the potluck.”
     The generous laugh. “Here, give me—” Chop! “Deborah! That’s not funny! That could really have hurt me!”
     “But we need meat for the potluck.” Chop! Chop! Chop! “You already cut up so many vegetables.” Chop! “We can’t just bring vegetables to the church potluck.” Chop! “And they can’t go to waste.” Chop! “God knows we don’t have the kind of money to waste on vegetables we aren’t even going to eat.” Chop! Chop! “Didn’t you see how much tomatoes were at Hy-Vee? Three fifty a pound!” Chop! “You say this one cuts through bones?” Chop! “Oh, wow. These are good knives.” Chop! Chop! Chop! “You know what? I think this was a good investment after all.” Chop! “I’m sorry I got mad at you, honey.” Chop! “You were right all along.” Chop! “And I’m glad you went all out and got this set” Chop! Chop! “What’s it called again?” Chop! “Oh, that’s right: the Homemaker Plus” Chop! “I just love our new Cutco knives.” Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop!

     The family didn’t stay long at the potluck. The wife and her two youngest just waited in the car while the oldest son brought several large trays of food in from the hatchback of the minivan to the buffet line.
     “Well, Brian. That sure smells good. I hear you’re quite the chef these days. College boy.”
     “I spent all afternoon in the kitchen.”
     “You sure made a lot of food.”
     “It’s what I love to do. And there’s a lot of people that come to this thing. Gotta spread the wealth.”
     “Mighty kind of you.”
     “I actually have to get going. My mom and Joey and Samantha are in the car.”
     “That’s too bad. You should come in and enjoy the food.”
     “We can’t.”
     “Is your dad coming?”
     “I don’t think so.”
     “Well I guess I’ll see him at the parishioners meeting tomorrow morning. It’s really too bad he can’t be here tonight.”
     “He’ll be here in spirit.”
     “I suppose so. Well you take it easy. Man that food smells good.”
     “Enjoy.”
     “God bless.”