Then he folded it up and threw it in a waste receptacle.
We’re still working on it, but I don’t know, Chief, I don’t know.
Garigolli
I find it a little difficult to explain to people what I do for a living. It has something to do with making the country plastics-conscious. I make the country plastics-conscious by writing newspaper stories about plastics which only seem to get printed in neighborhood shopping guides in Sioux Falls, Idaho. And by scripting talk features about plastics which get run from 11:55 P.M. to 12:00 midnight on radio stations the rest of whose programs time is devoted to public-service items like late jockey changes at Wheeling Downs. And by scripting television features which do not seem ever to be run on any station.
And by handling the annual Miss Plastics contest, at least up to the point where actual contestants appear, when it is taken over by the people from the Fourteenth Floor. And by writing the monthly page of Plastics Briefs which goes out, already matted, to 2,000 papers in North America. Plastics Briefs is our best bet because each Brief is illustrated by a line drawing of a girl doing something with, to or about plastics, and heir costume is always brief. As I said, all this is not easy to explain, so when people ask me what I do I usually say, “Whatever Mr. Horgan tells me to.”
This morning Mr. Horgan called me away from a conference with Jack Denny, our Briefs artist, and said: “Dupoir, that Century of Plastics Anniversary Dinner idea of yours is out. The Fourteenth Floor says it lacks thematic juice. Think of something else for a winter promotion, and think big!” He banged a plastic block on his desk with a little plastic hammer.
I said, “Mr. Horgan, how about this? Are we getting the break in the high-school chemistry text books we should? Are we getting the message of polythene to every boy, girl, brother-in-law-“
He shook his head. “That’s small,” he said, and went on to explain: “By which I mean it isn’t big. Also there is the flak we are getting from the nature nuts, which the Fourteenth Floor does not think you are dealing with in a creative way.”
“I’ve ordered five thousand pop-up recycling bins for the test, Mr. Horgan. They’re not only plastic, they’re recycled plastic. We use them in my own home, and I am confident-“
“Confidence,” he said, “is when you’ve got your eyes so firmly fixed on the goal that you trip on a dog-doodie and fall in the crap.”
I regrouped. “I think we can convert the present opposition from the ecology movement to-“
“The ecology movement,” he said, “is people who love buzzards better than babies and catfish better than cars.”
I fell back on my last line of defense. “Yes, Mr. Horgan,” I said.
“Personally,” Mr. Horgan said, “I like seeing plastic bottles bobbing in the surf. It makes me feel, I don’t know, like part of something that is going to last forever. I want you to communicate that feeling, Dupoir. Now go get your Briefs out.”
I thought of asking for a salary advance of $14,-752.03, but hesitated.
“Is there something else?”
“No, Mr. Horgan. Thank you.” I left quietly.
Jack Denny was still waiting in my office, doodling still-life studies of cornucopias with fruits and nuts spilling out of them. “Look,” he said, “how about this for a change? Something symbolic of the season, like ‘the rich harvest of Plastics to make life more gracious,’ like?”
I said kindly, “You don’t understand copy, Jack. Do you remember what we did for last September?”
He scowled. “A girl in halter and shorts, very brief and tight, putting up plastic storm windows.”
“That’s right. Well, I’ve got an idea for something kind of novel this year. A little two-act drama. Act One: She’s wearing halter and shorts and she’s taking down the plastic screens. Act Two: She’s wearing a dress and putting up the plastic storm windows. And this is important. In Act Two there’s wind, and autumn leaves blowing, and the dress is kind of wind-blown tight against her. Do you know what I mean, Jack?”
He said evenly, “I was the youngest child and only boy in a family of eight. If I didn’t know what you meant by now I would deserve to be put away. Sometimes I think I will be put away. Do you know what seven older sisters can do to the psychology of a sensitive young boy?” He began to shake.
“Draw, Jack,” I told him hastily. To give him a chance to recover himself I picked up his cornucopias. “Very nice,” I said, turning them over. “Beautiful modeling. I guess you spilled some paint on this one?”
He snatched it out of my hand. “Where? That? That’s gilt. I don’t even have any gilt.”
“No offense, Jack. I just thought it looked land of nice.” It didn’t, particularly, it was just a shiny yellow smear in a corner of the drawing.
“Nice! Sure, if you’d let me use metallic inks. If you’d go to high-gloss paper. If you’d spend a few bucks-“
“Maybe, Jack,” I said, “it’d be better, at that, if you took these back to your office. You can concentrate better there, maybe.”
He went out, shaking.
I stayed in and thought about my house and brother-in-law and the Gudsell Medical Credit Bureau and after a while I began to shake too. Shaking, I phoned a Mr. Klaw, whom I had come to think of as my “account executive” at Gudsell.
Mr. Klaw was glad to hear from me. “You got our lawyer’s note? Good, good. And exactly what arrangements are you suggesting, Mr. Dupoir?”
“I don’t know,” I said openly. “It catches me at a bad time. If we could have an extension-“
“Extensions we haven’t got,” he said regretfully. “We had one month of extensions, and we gave you the month, and now we’re fresh out. I’m really sorry, Dupoir.”
“With some time I could get a second mortgage, Mr. Haw.”
“You could at that, but not for $14,752.03.”
“Do you want to put me and my family on the street?”
“Goodness, no, Mr. Dupoir! What we want is the sanitarium’s money, including our commission. And maybe we want a little bit to make people think before they sign things, and maybe that people who should go to the county hospital go to the county hospital instead of a frankly de luxe rest home.”
“I’ll call you later,” I said.
“Please do,” said Mr. Klaw sincerely.
Tendons slack as the limp lianas, I leafed listlessly through the dhawani-bark jujus on my desk, studying Jack Denny’s draftsmanship with cornucopias. The yellow stain, I noted, seemed to be spreading, even as a brother-in-law’s blood might spread on the sands of the doom-pit when the cobras hissed the hour of judgment.
Mr. Horgan rapped perfunctorily on the doorframe and came in. “I had the impression, Dupoir, that you had something further to ask me at our conference this morning. I’ve learned to back those judgments, Dupoir.”
“Well, sir-“ I began.
“Had that feeling about poor old Globus,” he went on. “You remember Miss Globus? Crying in the file room one day. Seems she’d signed up for some kind of charm school. Couldn’t pay, didn’t like it, tried to back out. They wanted their money. Attached her wages. Well, Naturally, we couldn’t have that sort of financial irresponsibility. I understand she’s a PFC in the WAC now. What was it you wanted, Dupoir?”
“Me, Mr. Horgan? Wanted? No. Nothing at all.”
“Glad we cleared that up,” he grunted. “Can’t do your best work for the firm if your mind’s taken up with personal problems. Remember, Dupoir. We want the country plastics conscious, and forget about those ecology freaks.”
“Yes, Mr. Horgan.”