Pecking Order, page 7
“Just keep your focus, Ivan. You’ve been doing well.” He gave Ivan a smile and a thumbs-up before the elevator arrived.
“That’s all in my plans,” Ivan told him with a smile of his own. As soon as he walked onto the arriving elevator and the doors closed behind him, he began to wonder what his boss really meant.
Was that a real pat on the back or a warning? he pondered. Does he know that I’m about to start up something else? Or is he thinking that I’m lovestruck for a girl like the rest of them?
Ivan wondered about that for the rest of the elevator ride.
If the word travels that damn fast at the office about my personal life, then I can never tell these folks what I’m really into. What would they think about me throwing parties?
When he walked out of the elevator with employees from the various floors and industries, Ivan was still thinking about his dilemma.
I need to figure out a way to work this all out, he told himself on the way to his car. But hell, if this party shit don’t even work, I could put myself in a bunch of extra confusion for nothing.
As soon as he made it to the highway on Interstate 5, heading south for Old Town, he landed right in the middle of rush-hour traffic. He called Carol’s Soul Food Restaurant to speak to Ida.
“Hey, Ida, this is Ivan.”
“Oh, hey, Ivan. This phone has been ringing off the hook like crazy today, so we just might have a good crowd tonight. And the DJ is here setting up his equipment already.”
Ida Stewart—her father’s last name—was two years older than Ivan at thirty, but she didn’t look it. She looked no older than twenty-five, with smooth light brown skin, a slim frame, long dark hair, and the dark eyes of her mother. She had never been married or borne any children.
Ivan heard her out and said, “That’s good. I’m on my way, but I’m making it through slow traffic right now.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I can imagine, at this time of day. But that’s the beauty of this location. All you have to do is make it halfway downtown, or halfway away from town.”
Ivan said, “That’s a good way of looking at it. But, umm, at six o’clock, if I’m not there yet, you won’t have a problem collecting the five dollars at the door, will you?”
Ivan still had to build a full staff.
Ida told him, “Excuse me? Oh, honey, I have no problem at all asking folks for money. We think way too much about freebies as it is. Five dollars is just like you said on this flyer, a ‘donation.’ And it’s not hardly a big one. So don’t worry about the door money at all. I got you.”
Ivan laughed. “Okay. It’s good to hear that.”
“All right, well, let me get back to answering this phone, because people are ringing me on the other line already,” she told him.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a minute.”
Ivan hung up his cell phone and smiled from ear to ear. “Now, that’s the kind of woman I need on my team, right there,” he told himself.
When he got off the highway at Old Town and made his way to the restaurant, he found that a parking spot had been reserved for him right out front.
“You’re Ivan David, right?” one of the restaurant workers asked him through his open window as he pulled his car into the spot.
“Yeah.”
“Well, come on in, brother, we getting the place good and ready for you.”
Ivan liked that feeling of importance already. He climbed out of his car and walked into the restaurant all smiles. As soon as he walked in, The Notorious B.I.G. was blasting through large speakers, “I love it when you call me big pop-pa…”
“It’s a five-dollar donation tonight, sir,” Ida teased him through the music. She was sitting behind a small table right inside the doorway, wearing a colorful flower-child dress, straight out the seventies.
Ivan laughed and dug into his pocket to pay her. “Boy, you took that term ‘old school’ to heart, didn’t you?” he asked her, noticing her dress code.
“Yeah, I figured I’d dig into my closet and see what I could come up with,” she responded. Then she waved his money off. “Go ’head, I was only teasing you.”
Ivan refused to take his money back. “Nah, nah, I like that policy. Nobody gets in free, not even me. So when the hookup patrol shows up, we’ll tell them that we paid to get in, too. So you put your five dollars in,” he told her.
Ida said, “Yeah, like they’re gonna believe us, right? But okay.” She dug into her small purse to add a five-dollar bill to his before tossing them both into the cash box with the rest of the money. About seven people had shown up and ordered food, ten minutes before six.
Ivan looked around the place and noticed the chairs and tables pushed closer toward the walls for an open dance floor. There was darker lighting than usual, with the DJ equipment and speakers set up toward the back corners.
Ivan nodded his head and liked what he saw. This might work out all right in here tonight, he figured. Capacity was enough for two hundred. Ivan just hoped to see over a hundred to cover his flyer costs, after sharing half of the total with the restaurant.
By seven o’clock, more than a hundred people were already there enjoying themselves, including white Americans, Latinos, and Filipinos, who loved old school music, soul food, and a good time after work as well.
Thomas, Henry, and quite a few of the San Diego Urban League members were excited by the turnout. Catherine showed up with an attention-getting yellow dress to engage the crowd on her own, and without Ivan needing to babysit her.
Thomas and Henry even asked him who she was. Ivan laughed and told them he had gone to college with her and no more than that. All the while, Jeff and Paul were there snapping pictures to document it all for the website.
At the height of the party, around eight, when the restaurant was nearly filled to capacity with supporters, great food, conversation, business-card-passing, and dancing, Thomas pulled Ivan aside. He said, “I told you you’re gonna do all right with this. Now what you need to do is stop the party, the music, and the dancing, and let everybody in the room know who you are before they start to leave.”
Thomas had a point. It was a grand opportunity for folks to celebrate the man who put the idea together. Nevertheless, Ivan remained hesitant. He tried to shake it off with a grin.
“I don’t mind if they don’t know. As long as they all signed the email list at the door and they know that I.D. Promotions was behind it, I can continue to be a mystery,” he commented.
Thomas stared at him and didn’t go for it. He said, “Ivan, if your ass don’t get up in front of all these people and let them know you and like you, then you’s a damn fool. I thought you told me you wanted to be the San Diego mixer man. Well, you better get ready to act like it.”
Ivan argued, “They’ll find out eventually. This is just the first one. Let’s just let them talk about how much of a good time they had.”
Thomas continued to stare at him. He couldn’t believe it. So he backed up and tried another route.
He said, “Well, that’s real humble of you and everything, young man, but you at least need to thank the people for coming out here tonight, Ivan. And what about thanking the host, Carol’s restaurant, and that fine daughter of hers? Hell, you can even thank me and the members of the Urban League for coming out here tonight, and for sending out email blasts about it.”
Shit! Ivan thought. Thomas had him. He couldn’t back away from thanking everyone. It was the right thing to do.
Just as he got ready to accept his fate, Ida stopped by to talk to him.
“Can I borrow Ivan for one minute?” she said to Thomas.
Thomas told her, “Yeah, after he introduces himself to the crowd and thanks everybody for coming out here tonight.”
Ida said, “Perfect. So you have the DJ stop the music, and I’ll go in with Ivan to bring my mother out, and we’ll do it all together.”
Thomas looked at Ivan and grinned, knowing that he had him now.
“That sounds like a plan to me,” he told Ida.
“Good. We’ll be right back out.”
As Ida pulled Ivan back into her mother’s office past the kitchen, he could see Catherine watching them from the dance floor in her yellow dress.
I can’t worry about her right now, he mused. I told her what time it was before she came out here tonight.
When Ida got Ivan inside the back office with her mother, she closed and locked the door behind them and pulled out a roll of money from her small purse.
She said, “My mother and I want you to keep all of the door money, Ivan. You’ve earned it. We’ve already made nearly three times what we expected on food and drinks tonight.”
Ivan looked at Carol, sitting behind her desk in the small office. She was nodding with a smile, happy but exhausted from supervising all of the extra cooking.
She said, “You really did it for us tonight. And we are just so grateful that we wanted to donate our share back to you.”
Ivan was speechless. He would do more than cover expenses now. And though it wasn’t a lot, it was a positive start for him.
Finally, he said, “Thank you. And we plan to post the pictures of this first event on the website and continue to promote the restaurant for you.”
Ida asked him, “Well, how much would that cost us, Ivan? Because I already told you, we expect too many freebies from our people as it is.”
Ivan hadn’t even thought about a rate for advertising on his website yet. He didn’t know where to start. But since he was thinking about breaking even, he came up with, “Two hundred dollars for a month,” the exact cost of his website management.
Ida asked him, “That’s all? Well, we can do that tonight.”
Ivan smiled. He said, “That’s actually a discount price because I don’t know what to charge yet. You would be my first advertiser.”
“And we were your first big party,” Carol told him. “So we both start off together.”
Ivan nodded. “That’s cool with me.”
Ida said, “Okay, Mom, I know you’re tired and all, but I need to borrow you for one more second so we can all thank everyone for coming out to support us tonight.”
Carol nodded and grunted, “All right.”
Ivan and Ida walked out with her back to the main floor. Thomas had already asked the DJ to stop the music and get the microphone ready. Once he spotted Carol walking out with her daughter and Ivan, he got the microphone and brought it over to them.
He then addressed the anxious crowd. “If I can, I’d like to have everyone’s attention…I want to introduce the owner of the restaurant, her daughter, and the young man who helped us all to organize and promote this wonderful event this evening.”
“YEAH!” a bunch of the supporters yelled out with hand clapping.
“Great food!” someone else yelled.
“Thank you!” Ida yelled back for her mother. They had plenty of relatives who worked in the kitchen and at the cash register, but Ida had been the most vocal spokesperson for the business.
“So, without further ado, I give you Carol Henderson and her daughter Ida,” Thomas told the crowd.
Some of the supporters roared again before Ida took the microphone to introduce her mother.
She said, “It’s been thirty years of my life, eating my mother’s delicious food, and finally, after I begged her to open a restaurant for nearly ten years, she went ahead and did it, with the help of friends from the Urban League and the local banks, earlier this year.”
“YEAH!” the crowd roared again.
Ida continued, “And I must admit that it has not been easy, but it has been well worth it. But I’m gonna stop right there and let my mother say the rest, because I can get to talking, which my family already knows.”
“Unh-hunh,” one of the family members belted from the kitchen.
“I heard that,” Ida teased. “Anyway…” She turned to her mother and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, Momma. And I am so proud of you. I’m proud of all of us.”
The crowd watched, inspired by it. Even Ivan felt choked up.
Carol held the microphone and looked at all of the people who came out in support of her restaurant, and she paused to compose her words.
She said, “I wanna thank…first of all…God, for giving me the talents to cook. Then I want to thank my family…for always telling me how good it was.”
The crowd laughed and continued to listen. Jeff and Paul were all over it, taking pictures of everything.
Carol said, “I want to thank my friend Thomas and the Urban League for being so supportive…”
Thomas held up a raised power fist with his head down for the members of the Urban League to yell out their continued support.
“YEAH!”
Carol said, “And I want to thank all of you for coming out and enjoying my food this evening,” for more yells. Then she looked at Ivan. “But without this young man and his ideas to promote community businesses through his website and network parties, some of you would never know that my restaurant was even here.”
When Jeff and Paul heard that, they wished they had enough light to record it all on video camera instead of just taking pictures. But they were excited just the same.
Carol continued, “So, I want all of us to thank Mr. Ivan David and his I.D. Promotions company for bringing us all together tonight.”
“YEEEAAAAHHHH!” the crowd roared nice and long for him. Ivan got the biggest applause yet. Catherine was beaming at him right in front of the crowd in her standout yellow dress. And by the time Carol passed the microphone to him, Ivan was a nervous wreck.
He’d had no idea how it felt to be at the center of attention in front of a supportive crowd like that. Only a few of his friends and relatives were there to cheer him on at his high school and college graduations. And he had never done any public speaking. It was one thing to dream about having a name that inspired a supportive crowd, but it was something else to actually acquire it.
Ivan held the microphone in front of his first crowd of people and felt nauseous. Everything stood still and seemed deadly silent for a minute. He felt them all around him, awaiting his voice. Then he looked forward at Catherine. She was nodding her head to him to go ahead and speak. You’ve done it!
Shit! Here we go, Ivan told himself with a deep breath.
He opened his dry mouth and said, “I, ah, just had an idea…to do something extra. And sometimes you don’t really know how it’s all gonna come together, but you just try to go out and do it. So…that’s what I’m doing. And I want to thank everybody in here for coming out and showing that we’re alive.”
Once he got his nervousness out of the way and the people started cheering and clapping again, Ivan made sure to revert back to his calm business mode.
He said, “So, if you all don’t mind, I want to make sure that everyone signs the email list at the door, so that we can contact everyone and do this again.”
Jeff and Paul were cheesing like circus clowns. That was just what they wanted to hear from him.
“But I don’t want to take up too much more of your party time,” Ivan told the crowd. “So please, go back to eating, greeting, drinking, dancing, and just…having a good time.”
Part II
The Pros & Cons of Partners
Four
The Intimidator
AFTER IVAN FINISHED his short speech at his kickoff event, Thomas took the microphone back from him and addressed the crowd again for himself.
“There you have it, folks. Ivan David from I.D. Promotions. And you all remember that name, because we’re going to be doing plenty more events with him.”
Thomas looked back over to the DJ, a young Puerto Rican man in his midtwenties. He called himself the Red Face Lion. He had agreed to spin at Ivan’s first event for free. The trade-off was promotion from the website, and a promise from Ivan that he would use him for future events as they both built their business brands.
“All right, put that music back on,” Thomas barked at him.
The DJ was already set to play the old school classic “Joy and Pain” from Maze. When he spun the popular record, the crowd broke into a frenzy and went back to the dance floor.
Ivan took a deep breath and was glad his speech was over. He hugged Ida and her mother before they returned to their back office. He then apologized to Thomas.
“Hey, I’m sorry I forgot to thank you and the Urban League, but I was a little nervous, and I felt like we had already stopped the party long enough.”
Thomas told him, “You don’t have to apologize to me. I understand. Carol had already thanked us anyway.” He said, “But I will tell you this, though, you better get good and used to speaking out in public. Because if you’re serious about the promotion game, you can’t afford to be shy. You know what I mean?”
Ivan smiled it off. He was already thinking of ways to minimize his need to be at the center of attention. He would rather the events go over well instead.
Jeff and Paul rushed over to him next. They had taken plenty of photographs of the event, and they couldn’t wait to start uploading the best pictures for the website.
“Hey, you did it, man. And this is just the first one. How do you feel?” Paul asked him.
Ivan nodded. “I feel good,” he told them, especially considering he would make a small profit. That was better than he expected.
“Well, we got plenty of pictures, man. So we’re gonna head back and download them on a disc so you can tell us what images you definitely want for the site,” Jeff told him.
As his young webmasters walked out, more of the crowd approached Ivan with their business cards, event ideas, and basic small talk. Catherine watched from a distance, aroused by everything. Ivan was the big man on campus for the night. But Thomas stepped in to intervene.
He calmly pulled Ivan aside from all of the hoopla surrounding him in the room to speak to him in private.
He said, “Now, here’s the hard part, Ivan. I know everybody in here is gonna have a business idea for you. But most of them are gonna be blowing a cloud of smoke up your ass. So you can’t deal with everybody. You hear me?”
“That’s all in my plans,” Ivan told him with a smile of his own. As soon as he walked onto the arriving elevator and the doors closed behind him, he began to wonder what his boss really meant.
Was that a real pat on the back or a warning? he pondered. Does he know that I’m about to start up something else? Or is he thinking that I’m lovestruck for a girl like the rest of them?
Ivan wondered about that for the rest of the elevator ride.
If the word travels that damn fast at the office about my personal life, then I can never tell these folks what I’m really into. What would they think about me throwing parties?
When he walked out of the elevator with employees from the various floors and industries, Ivan was still thinking about his dilemma.
I need to figure out a way to work this all out, he told himself on the way to his car. But hell, if this party shit don’t even work, I could put myself in a bunch of extra confusion for nothing.
As soon as he made it to the highway on Interstate 5, heading south for Old Town, he landed right in the middle of rush-hour traffic. He called Carol’s Soul Food Restaurant to speak to Ida.
“Hey, Ida, this is Ivan.”
“Oh, hey, Ivan. This phone has been ringing off the hook like crazy today, so we just might have a good crowd tonight. And the DJ is here setting up his equipment already.”
Ida Stewart—her father’s last name—was two years older than Ivan at thirty, but she didn’t look it. She looked no older than twenty-five, with smooth light brown skin, a slim frame, long dark hair, and the dark eyes of her mother. She had never been married or borne any children.
Ivan heard her out and said, “That’s good. I’m on my way, but I’m making it through slow traffic right now.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I can imagine, at this time of day. But that’s the beauty of this location. All you have to do is make it halfway downtown, or halfway away from town.”
Ivan said, “That’s a good way of looking at it. But, umm, at six o’clock, if I’m not there yet, you won’t have a problem collecting the five dollars at the door, will you?”
Ivan still had to build a full staff.
Ida told him, “Excuse me? Oh, honey, I have no problem at all asking folks for money. We think way too much about freebies as it is. Five dollars is just like you said on this flyer, a ‘donation.’ And it’s not hardly a big one. So don’t worry about the door money at all. I got you.”
Ivan laughed. “Okay. It’s good to hear that.”
“All right, well, let me get back to answering this phone, because people are ringing me on the other line already,” she told him.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a minute.”
Ivan hung up his cell phone and smiled from ear to ear. “Now, that’s the kind of woman I need on my team, right there,” he told himself.
When he got off the highway at Old Town and made his way to the restaurant, he found that a parking spot had been reserved for him right out front.
“You’re Ivan David, right?” one of the restaurant workers asked him through his open window as he pulled his car into the spot.
“Yeah.”
“Well, come on in, brother, we getting the place good and ready for you.”
Ivan liked that feeling of importance already. He climbed out of his car and walked into the restaurant all smiles. As soon as he walked in, The Notorious B.I.G. was blasting through large speakers, “I love it when you call me big pop-pa…”
“It’s a five-dollar donation tonight, sir,” Ida teased him through the music. She was sitting behind a small table right inside the doorway, wearing a colorful flower-child dress, straight out the seventies.
Ivan laughed and dug into his pocket to pay her. “Boy, you took that term ‘old school’ to heart, didn’t you?” he asked her, noticing her dress code.
“Yeah, I figured I’d dig into my closet and see what I could come up with,” she responded. Then she waved his money off. “Go ’head, I was only teasing you.”
Ivan refused to take his money back. “Nah, nah, I like that policy. Nobody gets in free, not even me. So when the hookup patrol shows up, we’ll tell them that we paid to get in, too. So you put your five dollars in,” he told her.
Ida said, “Yeah, like they’re gonna believe us, right? But okay.” She dug into her small purse to add a five-dollar bill to his before tossing them both into the cash box with the rest of the money. About seven people had shown up and ordered food, ten minutes before six.
Ivan looked around the place and noticed the chairs and tables pushed closer toward the walls for an open dance floor. There was darker lighting than usual, with the DJ equipment and speakers set up toward the back corners.
Ivan nodded his head and liked what he saw. This might work out all right in here tonight, he figured. Capacity was enough for two hundred. Ivan just hoped to see over a hundred to cover his flyer costs, after sharing half of the total with the restaurant.
By seven o’clock, more than a hundred people were already there enjoying themselves, including white Americans, Latinos, and Filipinos, who loved old school music, soul food, and a good time after work as well.
Thomas, Henry, and quite a few of the San Diego Urban League members were excited by the turnout. Catherine showed up with an attention-getting yellow dress to engage the crowd on her own, and without Ivan needing to babysit her.
Thomas and Henry even asked him who she was. Ivan laughed and told them he had gone to college with her and no more than that. All the while, Jeff and Paul were there snapping pictures to document it all for the website.
At the height of the party, around eight, when the restaurant was nearly filled to capacity with supporters, great food, conversation, business-card-passing, and dancing, Thomas pulled Ivan aside. He said, “I told you you’re gonna do all right with this. Now what you need to do is stop the party, the music, and the dancing, and let everybody in the room know who you are before they start to leave.”
Thomas had a point. It was a grand opportunity for folks to celebrate the man who put the idea together. Nevertheless, Ivan remained hesitant. He tried to shake it off with a grin.
“I don’t mind if they don’t know. As long as they all signed the email list at the door and they know that I.D. Promotions was behind it, I can continue to be a mystery,” he commented.
Thomas stared at him and didn’t go for it. He said, “Ivan, if your ass don’t get up in front of all these people and let them know you and like you, then you’s a damn fool. I thought you told me you wanted to be the San Diego mixer man. Well, you better get ready to act like it.”
Ivan argued, “They’ll find out eventually. This is just the first one. Let’s just let them talk about how much of a good time they had.”
Thomas continued to stare at him. He couldn’t believe it. So he backed up and tried another route.
He said, “Well, that’s real humble of you and everything, young man, but you at least need to thank the people for coming out here tonight, Ivan. And what about thanking the host, Carol’s restaurant, and that fine daughter of hers? Hell, you can even thank me and the members of the Urban League for coming out here tonight, and for sending out email blasts about it.”
Shit! Ivan thought. Thomas had him. He couldn’t back away from thanking everyone. It was the right thing to do.
Just as he got ready to accept his fate, Ida stopped by to talk to him.
“Can I borrow Ivan for one minute?” she said to Thomas.
Thomas told her, “Yeah, after he introduces himself to the crowd and thanks everybody for coming out here tonight.”
Ida said, “Perfect. So you have the DJ stop the music, and I’ll go in with Ivan to bring my mother out, and we’ll do it all together.”
Thomas looked at Ivan and grinned, knowing that he had him now.
“That sounds like a plan to me,” he told Ida.
“Good. We’ll be right back out.”
As Ida pulled Ivan back into her mother’s office past the kitchen, he could see Catherine watching them from the dance floor in her yellow dress.
I can’t worry about her right now, he mused. I told her what time it was before she came out here tonight.
When Ida got Ivan inside the back office with her mother, she closed and locked the door behind them and pulled out a roll of money from her small purse.
She said, “My mother and I want you to keep all of the door money, Ivan. You’ve earned it. We’ve already made nearly three times what we expected on food and drinks tonight.”
Ivan looked at Carol, sitting behind her desk in the small office. She was nodding with a smile, happy but exhausted from supervising all of the extra cooking.
She said, “You really did it for us tonight. And we are just so grateful that we wanted to donate our share back to you.”
Ivan was speechless. He would do more than cover expenses now. And though it wasn’t a lot, it was a positive start for him.
Finally, he said, “Thank you. And we plan to post the pictures of this first event on the website and continue to promote the restaurant for you.”
Ida asked him, “Well, how much would that cost us, Ivan? Because I already told you, we expect too many freebies from our people as it is.”
Ivan hadn’t even thought about a rate for advertising on his website yet. He didn’t know where to start. But since he was thinking about breaking even, he came up with, “Two hundred dollars for a month,” the exact cost of his website management.
Ida asked him, “That’s all? Well, we can do that tonight.”
Ivan smiled. He said, “That’s actually a discount price because I don’t know what to charge yet. You would be my first advertiser.”
“And we were your first big party,” Carol told him. “So we both start off together.”
Ivan nodded. “That’s cool with me.”
Ida said, “Okay, Mom, I know you’re tired and all, but I need to borrow you for one more second so we can all thank everyone for coming out to support us tonight.”
Carol nodded and grunted, “All right.”
Ivan and Ida walked out with her back to the main floor. Thomas had already asked the DJ to stop the music and get the microphone ready. Once he spotted Carol walking out with her daughter and Ivan, he got the microphone and brought it over to them.
He then addressed the anxious crowd. “If I can, I’d like to have everyone’s attention…I want to introduce the owner of the restaurant, her daughter, and the young man who helped us all to organize and promote this wonderful event this evening.”
“YEAH!” a bunch of the supporters yelled out with hand clapping.
“Great food!” someone else yelled.
“Thank you!” Ida yelled back for her mother. They had plenty of relatives who worked in the kitchen and at the cash register, but Ida had been the most vocal spokesperson for the business.
“So, without further ado, I give you Carol Henderson and her daughter Ida,” Thomas told the crowd.
Some of the supporters roared again before Ida took the microphone to introduce her mother.
She said, “It’s been thirty years of my life, eating my mother’s delicious food, and finally, after I begged her to open a restaurant for nearly ten years, she went ahead and did it, with the help of friends from the Urban League and the local banks, earlier this year.”
“YEAH!” the crowd roared again.
Ida continued, “And I must admit that it has not been easy, but it has been well worth it. But I’m gonna stop right there and let my mother say the rest, because I can get to talking, which my family already knows.”
“Unh-hunh,” one of the family members belted from the kitchen.
“I heard that,” Ida teased. “Anyway…” She turned to her mother and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, Momma. And I am so proud of you. I’m proud of all of us.”
The crowd watched, inspired by it. Even Ivan felt choked up.
Carol held the microphone and looked at all of the people who came out in support of her restaurant, and she paused to compose her words.
She said, “I wanna thank…first of all…God, for giving me the talents to cook. Then I want to thank my family…for always telling me how good it was.”
The crowd laughed and continued to listen. Jeff and Paul were all over it, taking pictures of everything.
Carol said, “I want to thank my friend Thomas and the Urban League for being so supportive…”
Thomas held up a raised power fist with his head down for the members of the Urban League to yell out their continued support.
“YEAH!”
Carol said, “And I want to thank all of you for coming out and enjoying my food this evening,” for more yells. Then she looked at Ivan. “But without this young man and his ideas to promote community businesses through his website and network parties, some of you would never know that my restaurant was even here.”
When Jeff and Paul heard that, they wished they had enough light to record it all on video camera instead of just taking pictures. But they were excited just the same.
Carol continued, “So, I want all of us to thank Mr. Ivan David and his I.D. Promotions company for bringing us all together tonight.”
“YEEEAAAAHHHH!” the crowd roared nice and long for him. Ivan got the biggest applause yet. Catherine was beaming at him right in front of the crowd in her standout yellow dress. And by the time Carol passed the microphone to him, Ivan was a nervous wreck.
He’d had no idea how it felt to be at the center of attention in front of a supportive crowd like that. Only a few of his friends and relatives were there to cheer him on at his high school and college graduations. And he had never done any public speaking. It was one thing to dream about having a name that inspired a supportive crowd, but it was something else to actually acquire it.
Ivan held the microphone in front of his first crowd of people and felt nauseous. Everything stood still and seemed deadly silent for a minute. He felt them all around him, awaiting his voice. Then he looked forward at Catherine. She was nodding her head to him to go ahead and speak. You’ve done it!
Shit! Here we go, Ivan told himself with a deep breath.
He opened his dry mouth and said, “I, ah, just had an idea…to do something extra. And sometimes you don’t really know how it’s all gonna come together, but you just try to go out and do it. So…that’s what I’m doing. And I want to thank everybody in here for coming out and showing that we’re alive.”
Once he got his nervousness out of the way and the people started cheering and clapping again, Ivan made sure to revert back to his calm business mode.
He said, “So, if you all don’t mind, I want to make sure that everyone signs the email list at the door, so that we can contact everyone and do this again.”
Jeff and Paul were cheesing like circus clowns. That was just what they wanted to hear from him.
“But I don’t want to take up too much more of your party time,” Ivan told the crowd. “So please, go back to eating, greeting, drinking, dancing, and just…having a good time.”
Part II
The Pros & Cons of Partners
Four
The Intimidator
AFTER IVAN FINISHED his short speech at his kickoff event, Thomas took the microphone back from him and addressed the crowd again for himself.
“There you have it, folks. Ivan David from I.D. Promotions. And you all remember that name, because we’re going to be doing plenty more events with him.”
Thomas looked back over to the DJ, a young Puerto Rican man in his midtwenties. He called himself the Red Face Lion. He had agreed to spin at Ivan’s first event for free. The trade-off was promotion from the website, and a promise from Ivan that he would use him for future events as they both built their business brands.
“All right, put that music back on,” Thomas barked at him.
The DJ was already set to play the old school classic “Joy and Pain” from Maze. When he spun the popular record, the crowd broke into a frenzy and went back to the dance floor.
Ivan took a deep breath and was glad his speech was over. He hugged Ida and her mother before they returned to their back office. He then apologized to Thomas.
“Hey, I’m sorry I forgot to thank you and the Urban League, but I was a little nervous, and I felt like we had already stopped the party long enough.”
Thomas told him, “You don’t have to apologize to me. I understand. Carol had already thanked us anyway.” He said, “But I will tell you this, though, you better get good and used to speaking out in public. Because if you’re serious about the promotion game, you can’t afford to be shy. You know what I mean?”
Ivan smiled it off. He was already thinking of ways to minimize his need to be at the center of attention. He would rather the events go over well instead.
Jeff and Paul rushed over to him next. They had taken plenty of photographs of the event, and they couldn’t wait to start uploading the best pictures for the website.
“Hey, you did it, man. And this is just the first one. How do you feel?” Paul asked him.
Ivan nodded. “I feel good,” he told them, especially considering he would make a small profit. That was better than he expected.
“Well, we got plenty of pictures, man. So we’re gonna head back and download them on a disc so you can tell us what images you definitely want for the site,” Jeff told him.
As his young webmasters walked out, more of the crowd approached Ivan with their business cards, event ideas, and basic small talk. Catherine watched from a distance, aroused by everything. Ivan was the big man on campus for the night. But Thomas stepped in to intervene.
He calmly pulled Ivan aside from all of the hoopla surrounding him in the room to speak to him in private.
He said, “Now, here’s the hard part, Ivan. I know everybody in here is gonna have a business idea for you. But most of them are gonna be blowing a cloud of smoke up your ass. So you can’t deal with everybody. You hear me?”
