I walked into the showroom. A cobalt-blue coupe in the middle of the room caught my eye. Wow! It was great looking, sat kind of low, with wide tires, and a sleek jet-fighter look.

“Hello young man! Isn’t she a beauty?”

Oh no! I had made a fatal mistake. I had stopped moving. The salesman approached me, portly, early forties, not a hair out of place, but all of them cemented together with some shiny gel, solvent or spray. He called me a young man even though I’m sure that I’m older than he.

As he got closer, I could smell the aftershave. The smile was mechanical and frozen. I couldn’t help notice the perfect set of teeth, whitened. The suspenders almost matched the tie. The black shoes shined like glass except for the toes with the multiple scuff marks.

“Uh, well I was just coming in to . . .”

He leaned over and put his hand on my shoulder. “We have a special deal on this beauty today. Nothing down, zero interest, and sixty-month financing. They’ve only made a few thousand of these.”

I figured at least some of that information was true. “That’s great, but I’m here to . . .”

“Here, let me open the door for you. Get in and take a look around the cockpit.”

Cockpit. That meant it was very expensive. “Well, I don’t really need to do that because I . . .”

“Nonsense. You were made for this automobile and, let me tell you,“ he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “the chicks totally dig it . . . especially the older ones.”

I looked up at him as he winked to punctuate his point. I looked away, toward my intended destination and, in an instant, he was in the passenger seat. What the heck. I got in and sat down behind the wheel.

“I think this car smells like sex. That leather. That new-car smell.” He sucked in a gallon of air through his nose.

Sex smell? “Uh, yeah, okay. I think I need to . . .” I opened the car door.

He grabbed my arm. “Hey, hey, check out the paddle shifters on the steering wheel. You can drive this thing as an automatic or shift manually. I prefer to shift manually. You know why?

“Uh, because the chicks dig it?”

“Uh huh.” He smile-nodded at me. “So, you’re a player! Why you sly dog, you!”

“Listen, I can’t afford this car, so there’s no reason to talk about it. Besides, I came in here to . . .”

“Nonsense! I can go seventy-two months on the financing if needed.” He looked around, assuring the area was clear, then whispered, “I can talk to the sales manager and get you a great deal. He’s my brother-in-law. You have a job, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“Well, you wait here, and I’ll go get the keys so you can test drive this baby.”

As the salesman exited the car, “That won’t be . . .” but it was too late.

I looked around and saw him, across the showroom, talking to another salesman and pointing at me as he laughed. He opened a box on the wall and sorted through the keys with tags hanging there, and grabbed one of the sets.

I got out of the car and began heading for the men’s room. He cut me off.

“I’ll pull the car out front for you. We just have to move these other two vehicles out of the way first.”

“Listen, I’m not here to buy a car today, but thanks anyway for your time.”

“Wait. Wait. Wait. I can tell that you love this car. Besides, live a little. Be impulsive. You only live once.”

“Yeah, but if I bring this home, when my wife sees it, that once will be over quickly.”

“Well, I’m sure she’s a very sweet lady.” The sarcasm drooled out of his mouth.

I finally became angry. “I came in here to use the men’s room, not to buy a car. I brought my car in for an oil change. If you had thought enough to ask me a single question you would have known that and not wasted my time or yours.”

It was the strangest look I have ever seen. The salesman displayed a mixture of anger, hurt, frustration, and hopelessness all at the same time. I was looking at the salesman’s face and was about to walk away when his expression changed radically. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. He dropped the car keys and stepped toward me with open arms, grabbing me around the shoulders, and twisting both of us down to the floor.

The exploding sound of a gunshot filled the room.

The crazed human shot seven more shots randomly at anybody in his field of view. Then, on the floor with the salesman on top of me, I heard two shots from the other side of the room: deeper and louder, from what sounded like a larger caliber gun. I heard something hit the floor. The gunman had fallen backward and was motionless. The salesman rolled off of me and winced. There was a growing bloody stain on his upper-left arm, but he appeared okay otherwise.

The salesman’s name is Stan. I see him around town once in a while. I’ve thanked him multiple times for saving my life that day. I really like the blue car I bought there. I plan to keep it forever.