Smoke

by Joe Ide

  “Oh, my God. This is too much,” he said. Brad couldn’t tell if that was a compliment or condemnation. The people beside Sandler leaned in to look. They seemed puzzled a moment, then they smiled and burst out laughing; the others started leaving their seats to cluster around the poster.

  “That’s too cool,” Lupica said.

  “They wanted edge, this is edge,” Navarro said with an admiring nod. Brad wondered what the hell was going on.

  “Well, let’s see it,” he said irritably. The poster board was passed to him. He held it up so that Walsh could see it too. The scene was a big city. Tall buildings in the background. A young black man was standing at the curb. He was well groomed, nicely dressed and wearing Skechers walking shoes. His hand was raised, signaling for a cab, the beginnings of disappointment on his face. A cab was going past him, the service light was on. The driver, of indiscriminate race, was pointedly ignoring him. The caption:

  SKECHERS

  When you really need to walk

  Brad couldn’t believe it. Stimson did this? It was exactly what Skechers wanted. “All hail Stimson!” someone shouted. And the room responded, “All hail Stimson!” They were happy for him, rooting for him; why was unfathomable. Even Walsh was smiling. Look at that doofus, Brad thought, all red-faced and sheepish. He looks like a goddamn hero.

  Walsh turned to Brad. “This is exactly what Skechers wanted. Don’t you agree?”

  “Uh, yes, yes, I do,” Brad said. “It’s very good work.” Brad lowered his voice and with feigned modesty said, “It was my idea, but Stimson really took the ball and ran with it.”

  “That’s what I like to see. Teamwork.”

  “I don’t mean to be a spoilsport,” Brad continued. “Stimson did great work, but frankly, it’s a one-off for him, Ted. He’s never done anything like that in his life.”

  “No, he hasn’t,” Walsh said, frowning.

  “I still say we don’t renew his contract. There’s no reason to think he can do this again.” Walsh thought a moment.

  “Give him another assignment and then we’ll see.”

  The room was clearing. Stimson saw Brad and hesitated, like he didn’t know whether to go or stay. Brad kept his face blank and the doofus left.

  Everyone was gone. Brad was infuriated. How was it possible for Stimson to come up with something like that? The ad reflected a black experience. What did Stimson know about it? It was confounding. It was like an over-the-hill benchwarmer with bad knees coming off the bench and scoring forty-five points in a playoff game. Even if that were possible, it was zero on the likelihood scale. Brad shook his head. This is bullshit. Stimson was running a very clever scam. A week before contract time and he suddenly comes up with a brilliant ad? This would not stand, Brad decided. Stimson was going down.

  Brad stood in the doorway of Stimson’s office. The idiot was in his chair, facing that ridiculous wall of dirt and talking to someone on the phone.

  “Brad went for it, honey,” Stimson said excitedly. “Yeah, just like I said he would. Everybody loved it. I mean they really loved it! Winnebago, here we come!” He swiveled his chair around and saw Brad. “I’ve gotta get off now, sweetheart. Okay. See you at home. Love you.” He ended the call.

  “Making plans, are we?” Brad said.

  “Just, um, sort of.” Stimson waggled a pencil nervously between two fingers.

  “Well, congratulations. It was quite a surprise.”

  Brad meandered around the office, looking at the drawings, taking his time, humming tunelessly, picking up one, studying it briefly and picking up another, holding it up to the light and then moving to the next. Occasionally, he’d glance at Stimson appraisingly, skeptically, and go back to the drawings. Stimson looked stricken, as if at any moment Brad would find the bloody glove.

  “Are these the preliminary drawings?” Brad said. “They don’t look anything like the ad.”

  “Oh, those,” Stimson said, like he just remembered them. “Yeah, I, uh, I left them at home.” The pencil was waggling faster.

  “I’d like to see them. And I’m curious. Where did you get the idea? It seems a little out of your wheelhouse.”

  “The idea?” Stimson repeated. Brad looked at him sharply.

  “Yes, Stimson, the idea.”

  Stimson looked caught. Busted. “I, um, I have a friend. He’s black—African American. He told me the cab thing happened to him.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “His name? Um. Lebron.”

  “Lebron,” Brad said flatly. He snorted and made his favorite expression. A sardonic, suspicious, deeply disappointed glower. The pencil was a blur, like an airplane propeller at takeoff. “Stop that,” Brad said. The pencil flew out of Stimson’s hand, hit the wall of dirt and clattered to the floor. The sound seemed to echo. “If you’re through doing circus tricks I have another assignment for you,” Brad said.

  “So soon?”

  “You didn’t think we’d renew your contract on the basis of a single idea, did you?” Brad replied. It was a trap. No way “Lebron” could create two hits in a row. Stimson would have to complete the assignment himself. He’d be exposed as the useless slacker he was.

  “What’s the assignment?” he asked.

  “Bayer aspirin.” Brad was contemptuous. “Have you seen their ads? Two carefree senior citizens, gazing into each other’s eyes and dancing in their living room, as if to say, see? Take Bayer aspirin and you can have fun like us! Frankly, the association makes me wince. It’s distasteful, like Ovaltine. You drink it because you’re old.”

  “I take aspirin,” Stimson said.

  “Is that what you think is needed here? Associating aspirin with you?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Bayer wants a sixty-second commercial,” Brad continued. “Something to do with reducing strokes but not so literal like their usual crap. And another thing. They want to link the product with environmental concerns.”

  “Environmental concerns? With aspirin?” Stimson said.

  “Don’t you keep up with trends?” Brad said. “Why am I even asking? A lot of major companies are using the environment as context. According to the data, it’s effective with millennials. Like that Exxon commercial, all those aerial shots of green meadows, forests and majestic mountains. It looks like Julie Andrews will show up singing ‘The Sound of Music.’ Somehow, they forgot to mention the Exxon Valdez.”

  “When do you need this?” Stimson asked.

  “The Bayer people want to see something on Monday.” That wasn’t really true. Bayer didn’t expect anything for weeks.

  “Monday? That’s not possible.”

  Brad ignored him. “Bayer has a slot ahead of the Masters golf tournament. It was a sudden thing, something to do with the network screwing up. The data is in the brief. Remember, Stimson, golfers are an older demographic, high net worth, second homes, top management. In other words, they work a lot and may or may not be in good health. They don’t want to watch a commercial that says, hi, you’re gonna be dead soon. Why don’t you dance with your aging wife in the living room?” Stimson looked like he’d been diagnosed with liver cancer.

  “No excuses,” Brad said. He left Stimson’s office and went down the long hallway. It was creepy down here, the fluorescents lighting a carpeted green road to anonymity. He stopped at the men’s room. It was as depressing as the hallway. Small and cramped. Two sinks, one stall, two urinals, and checkered backsplash tile in beige and brown. He stepped up to a urinal and unzipped. Someone else entered the room and took the urinal beside him. Christ, he hated this. You were in such close proximity. Your shoulders were nearly touching. Cardinal rule for urinals. Never look anywhere but down. At the edge of Brad’s vision, he could see the man was black. That made him more uncomfortable, but he didn’t know why. Brad and his neighbor finished their business at the same time. Simultaneously, they moved to the sinks. Was this some sort of herd behavior? If there were ten black men in here would they all mo
ve in synchronicity? He had a sober moment. Why the antipathy? You don’t even know the guy.

  Now they were standing side by side with a goddamn mirror in front of them. What were you supposed to do, ignore each other? They looked at their reflections, made eye contact, and for some inexplicable reason Brad smiled, however wanly. Disturbingly, the man smiled back, like really smiled, as if they were fishing buddies or fraternity brothers.

  “Whassup, man. How you doin’?” the man said.

  “Fine, thank you,” Brad replied. Automatically, he added, “And yourself?”

  “I’m doin’ aight,” the man replied, as if it were a surprise to them both.

  The vernacular, Brad thought. He’s from the so-called street. His ensemble was off-the-rack, but he was presentable. At least he wasn’t sporting one of those ridiculous haircuts. The whassup and aight were a little much. What was he trying to do? Send a message? Assert his blackness? Did they know each other? Had they met?

  They started to wash their hands and, of course, there was only one soap dispenser. They had to take turns. Brad quickly went first to avoid the awkwardness. He pumped several times, but there was no soap. God, he couldn’t just leave. Like twins in a sitcom, the two men rinsed their hands at the twin sinks, their movements nearly identical. It seemed to take a long time. What were they doing, Brad wondered, proving to each other they were sanitary?

  “I like the people here,” the man went on. “I’m learnin’ my way around, but I’ve got a long way to go. You know how it is.” You know how it is? What does that mean? Brad thought. Were they supposed to have some commonality of experience? Like what? They both got scholarships to Cal Arts and vacationed in Montreal? Brad gritted his teeth and almost cursed. There were no goddamn paper towels, only a goddamn industrial hand dryer, the kind that makes your tie flap around and sounds like an F-15 at takeoff. He gestured magnanimously.

  “After you.”

  The man nodded his thanks and went first. That was something at least. The noise precluded introductions. What did the man say again? You know how it is? Ah yes. You’re both black and therefore you were supposed to acknowledge a bond existed, a birds of a feather sort of thing. Yes, we’re both black, Brad thought, but that doesn’t mean we’re the same.

  He took the elevator to his office. He’d met the man before but couldn’t recall the circumstances. It seemed very recent. He prided himself on his memory. It gave him a kind of power, knowing names, remembering details about where and how he’d met someone. It made him seem omniscient. Ah yes, Roger, we met at the social media conference in Philadelphia. How is your son? Going to Columbia, isn’t he? Say hello to Linda for me, will you? It was annoying that he couldn’t remember. It’s nothing, Brad thought. Forget about it, you’re being ridiculous.

  Dodson left the men’s room wondering what Brad was so uptight about. It wasn’t pissing side by side, his vibe was about more than that. The man actually flinched when you said aight. It wasn’t deliberate or maybe it was. A way to say, you’re at the top, and I’m at the bottom, but we share the same struggle, don’t we?

  Stimson gave him the Bayer aspirin brief, explaining the assignment and the environmental angle. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Juanell, but will you take a crack at it? I’ll work on it at home too.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’ll try anyway.”

  The brief contained the commercial’s objectives, target audience, strategies, time frame and costs. Not really helpful. Aspirin was about headaches and heart attacks and that’s it. An environmental angle? It was like linking the environment to toothpaste or deodorant.

  Dodson went home, talked as briefly as he could with Cherise and played with Micah for ten distracted minutes. He went out on the balcony and leaned against the railing. He looked out over the neighborhood. Bayer aspirin prevents strokes, he thought. Who did he know that had a stroke? Mr. Yamashita, the roofer, and Penny Ventner, a waitress at the Coffee Cup. Both were confined to their houses. Must be terrible locked up like that. He thought about Bolo Wakefield tending his pigeons with his blind eye, turning his head sideways so he could see what he was doing. Strokes limit you. Strokes are a cage. An idea was coming together. Dodson could see it unfolding in his head. He smiled and nodded his approval. This might work. He told Cherise about it, and then he called Grace.

  “Kinko’s,” she answered. “How can I help you?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Peter Oh Who?

  Janeel was at Nona’s house. Deronda was home. She’d stopped speaking altogether. She thought she might have forgotten how. Bobby James had created so much fear and anxiety she couldn’t do anything but sit on the sofa with her arms around her knees. Grace was in her room, listening to some of that fucked-up white people’s music. Somebody named Radiohead. That boy needed to get his head out of the radio and listen to some hip-hop.

  Her phone buzzed. Unknown Caller. She answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Tiana? It’s Sandra,” Sandra said. “You remember me?” Deronda nearly gasped. She had to stay calm, control her voice.

  “Hey, Sandra,” she said, all warm and casual. “How you doing?”

  “I’m doin’ how I do. I just wanna thank you for what you did for me. Wasn’t for you steppin’ up I might be dead right now.”

  “Wasn’t no thang. I was happy to do it,” Deronda said. She hurried to Grace’s room and knocked on the door. Grace stuck her head out. Deronda put her finger over her lips and put the call on speaker.

  “I gotta a little present for you,” Sandra said.

  “Aw, y’all didn’t have to do that.”

  “Can we meet someplace tomorrow?”

  “How about the Coffee Cup?” Deronda said.

  “Okay, thas’ cool,” Sandra said. “How ’bout around one-thirty—no wait, that’s out. I gotta meet Bobby.”

  “Who’s Bobby?” Deronda said, glancing at Grace.

  “My baby daddy. He’s why I don’t need to trick no more. I’m meeting him in the park at two. How ’bout we meet at three?”

  “Sho’ nuff,” Deronda said. “See you then.” The call ended. She grabbed Grace by the elbows, elated. “We’ll get some pictures! Show them to the judge! Bobby James and his baby mama, a junkie-hooker-ex-porn-star!”

  “Exactly what we needed!” Grace said, laughing. She thought a moment and frowned. “But how do we get pictures without Bobby seeing us? The faces will have to be clear. We’ll have to see their expressions. Otherwise, the judge won’t know how they feel about each other.”

  “How come you always see the problems?” Deronda said.

  “It’s a gift.”

  Deronda called her boyfriend, Robert, and told him what she needed. Robert was out of town on a project, but he said he’d have something sent over. Two hours later, a messenger delivered a drone. It was small; you could hold it in one hand and it weighed three pounds.

  “Speed, twenty meters per second,” Robert said. “A twelve-million-pixel camera. You can shoot in bursts or take HD color video. You can zoom in close enough to see if Bobby shaved.”

  “I don’t know how to use no drone,” Deronda said, but Robert had already ended the call.

  It was seven in the morning. Sandra and Bobby were showing up at the park at two. Deronda and Grace had seven hours to get the drone up and running. How hard could it be? Grace thought. We’re smart and we can read directions. She’d seen little kids fly drones. Turned out, being smart and reading instructions weren’t enough. If the online user’s manual was on paper, it’d be thick as a T-bone steak. The controls were indecipherable. Elevator trim. Power trim. Throttle control rod. Flaperon/screw switch. They spent an hour just trying to identify them and memorize what they did.

  “Jesus,” Grace said. If you wanted to take pictures or video, you had to download an app on your phone. The app had more selections than the menu at the Mandarin Palace.

  Maiden flight. The drone didn’t so much take off as it did rise straight up and rocket away horizontall
y like the Road Runner. Deronda was barely touching the controls and the damn thing swooped, rolled, banked and zigzagged all over the goddamn park. The squirrels took cover. The winos threw rocks at it. Grace wasn’t helping, yelling, “More pitch! More yaw!” Though she barely knew what the words meant.

  Deronda paid a kid five dollars to retrieve the drone from the trees. After six or eight perilous climbs, the kid’s face was scratched, his pants torn, his hair tangled with leaves and twigs. He demanded and got ten dollars a trip. Once he had to get the drone down from the roof of the restroom. He fell and skinned his knees. That cost Deronda another twenty. The kid was making enough coin to buy a fleet of drones.

  Deronda took pictures. She got some great shots of grass, the insides of trash cans, azalea bushes from two inches away, pigeons looking up, and a fantastic shot of Mo sleeping on a bench with his zipper wide open.

  “We need some help,” Grace said.

  “Lord, do we ever,” Deronda replied. They were glum and defeated. They would never figure out this complicated piece of shit. They were packing the drone away when Grace grinned and said, “Wait a minute. I know somebody!”

  Grace hadn’t seen Gilberto Cervantes for two years. She’d met him when he was in middle school. Gilberto and his friend Phaedra Harris were representatives of the Carver Middle School Science Club and Isaiah’s ex-clients. He helped them with a problem, and in return, they acted as eyes and ears on one of his cases. They were the smartest kids Grace had ever met and the strangest. Their combination of maturity, pretentiousness and naïveté was as ridiculous as it was hilarious.

  At the time, Gilberto was president of the chess and computer science clubs, captain of the debate team and vice captain of the academic decathlon team, only because Phaedra got two more votes. Gilberto had also been the student rep on the community outreach program. He eschewed the latter, expressing a clear dislike for young children and the elderly. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They all drool.” He only volunteered because it would plump up his college applications.