glass.
I sampled my Scotch and set it down gently. “I’d rather not.”
“Why not?” Bugas. “We’re all friends here.”
“Speak for yourself, John.” Bricker. “Personally I hate Jack’s guts and the box they came in.”
“Go fuck yourself, Mead.” Davis’ tone was gentle.
“Nobody blames advertising when a product fails,” I said. “It’s too much of an abstraction. They’ll say it’s the grille or the hood ornament or the oddball name. The Henry J didn’t fall on its face because of what it was called. The promotion was dull; also it rusted when you gave it a wet look. If the campaign sinks the car I’ll take the heat, but I don’t want people saying it didn’t float because Constantine Minor named it after his aunt’s cat. A thing like that sticks to you.”
Bricker emptied his glass. “That’s just chickenshit. Where’d you find this guy, Izzy?”
I decided I didn’t care for the large florid production executive. You found his kind on every playground, goading the smaller boys into jumping off the top of the slide. They were never around when the ambulance came.
“There’s nothing chickenshit about it. We’re not paying him to take our risks.” Ford put down his drink untasted; a rare event, as I was to learn. “What do you want out of this campaign, Connie?”
It might have been the Scotch or the surroundings, laced as they were with testosterone. It might have been the gradual realization that I wasn’t going to be fed, that there was to be no food, that a lunch date with Hank the Deuce meant catching a sandwich on the way over to soak up the bill of fare unless you wanted to lose the rest of the day. Most likely it had to do with being as old as the century and too tired to answer every question as if it were part of a job interview. Whatever it was, I said what I’d been saying to the mirror over my bathroom sink since the day I met Israel Zed and accepted his offer.
“I want out.”
“Out?” His eyebrows lifted, raising the top half of his face away from the heavy bottom half. “You mean out of the account?”
“Out of advertising. I’m a journalist, Mr. Ford, or I was before I backed the right horse in the wrong race. I wrote about bootleggers until no one wanted to read about them any more and every time they saw my byline they thought they were going to get another dose. At the age of thirty-three I couldn’t get arrested in the newspaper business. The only writing jobs I’ve been able to get in twenty years are the ones you skip past to get to the stuff you bought the magazine to read. I’m sick of it and I need out, but I’m too old and mean to leave with my tail between my legs. If I can put the Edsel in a million driveways I’ll have knocked it down, kicked it in the ribs, and tramped it to death. If I can’t—hell.” I drank. My ice cubes had begun to melt, gone as soft as my hopes of making a good impression.
“Eleven.”
The other men seated in the booth looked at Ford, waiting for the other shoe. It had started to dawn on me that despite his apparent lack of presence the scion of Detroit’s First Family was developing an imperial style light-years removed from the shirtsleeved, chaw-in-the-cheek approach associated with his predecessor. He spoke slowly, rotating his glass between his big meaty palms.
“One thing I brought back from Europe along with my uniform and a couple of souvenirs was a massive erection. So did everyone else I fought with over there. We’re most of us fathers now, and by the end of this decade we’ll have swollen the population by about thirty-five million. The eggheads I’ve brought into the fold tell me we’ll need to sell eleven million E-cars if we’re to be noticed at all in the crowd. If Connie can do that, I’ll purchase the Free Press and present it to him personally.”
“A letter of introduction will do,” I said after a moment. “There’s too much desk work in owning and running a paper. You
I sampled my Scotch and set it down gently. “I’d rather not.”
“Why not?” Bugas. “We’re all friends here.”
“Speak for yourself, John.” Bricker. “Personally I hate Jack’s guts and the box they came in.”
“Go fuck yourself, Mead.” Davis’ tone was gentle.
“Nobody blames advertising when a product fails,” I said. “It’s too much of an abstraction. They’ll say it’s the grille or the hood ornament or the oddball name. The Henry J didn’t fall on its face because of what it was called. The promotion was dull; also it rusted when you gave it a wet look. If the campaign sinks the car I’ll take the heat, but I don’t want people saying it didn’t float because Constantine Minor named it after his aunt’s cat. A thing like that sticks to you.”
Bricker emptied his glass. “That’s just chickenshit. Where’d you find this guy, Izzy?”
I decided I didn’t care for the large florid production executive. You found his kind on every playground, goading the smaller boys into jumping off the top of the slide. They were never around when the ambulance came.
“There’s nothing chickenshit about it. We’re not paying him to take our risks.” Ford put down his drink untasted; a rare event, as I was to learn. “What do you want out of this campaign, Connie?”
It might have been the Scotch or the surroundings, laced as they were with testosterone. It might have been the gradual realization that I wasn’t going to be fed, that there was to be no food, that a lunch date with Hank the Deuce meant catching a sandwich on the way over to soak up the bill of fare unless you wanted to lose the rest of the day. Most likely it had to do with being as old as the century and too tired to answer every question as if it were part of a job interview. Whatever it was, I said what I’d been saying to the mirror over my bathroom sink since the day I met Israel Zed and accepted his offer.
“I want out.”
“Out?” His eyebrows lifted, raising the top half of his face away from the heavy bottom half. “You mean out of the account?”
“Out of advertising. I’m a journalist, Mr. Ford, or I was before I backed the right horse in the wrong race. I wrote about bootleggers until no one wanted to read about them any more and every time they saw my byline they thought they were going to get another dose. At the age of thirty-three I couldn’t get arrested in the newspaper business. The only writing jobs I’ve been able to get in twenty years are the ones you skip past to get to the stuff you bought the magazine to read. I’m sick of it and I need out, but I’m too old and mean to leave with my tail between my legs. If I can put the Edsel in a million driveways I’ll have knocked it down, kicked it in the ribs, and tramped it to death. If I can’t—hell.” I drank. My ice cubes had begun to melt, gone as soft as my hopes of making a good impression.
“Eleven.”
The other men seated in the booth looked at Ford, waiting for the other shoe. It had started to dawn on me that despite his apparent lack of presence the scion of Detroit’s First Family was developing an imperial style light-years removed from the shirtsleeved, chaw-in-the-cheek approach associated with his predecessor. He spoke slowly, rotating his glass between his big meaty palms.
“One thing I brought back from Europe along with my uniform and a couple of souvenirs was a massive erection. So did everyone else I fought with over there. We’re most of us fathers now, and by the end of this decade we’ll have swollen the population by about thirty-five million. The eggheads I’ve brought into the fold tell me we’ll need to sell eleven million E-cars if we’re to be noticed at all in the crowd. If Connie can do that, I’ll purchase the Free Press and present it to him personally.”
“A letter of introduction will do,” I said after a moment. “There’s too much desk work in owning and running a paper. You
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