Drop

by Mat Johnson

‘Chris, this is going to be it. This is going to be massive. Something like they haven’t seen before. I know there’s not much at the moment, but see this, look, and dream. We are at the beginning. Two black boys, in pretty black Brixton town, in a very white and very old city that won’t know what hit it. I’ve been working in advertising twenty years, Chris, nearly half my life, and I know the scene: some of these agencies are a hundred strong, and they are evil. We, on the other hand, are two, but we are good. No secretary, no graphic design staff, no production team, no clerks, no receptionist, but also no infighting between creative teams for a chance at the same bone. No locking your office door when you go to lunch because you’re scared someone might steal your ideas, no control-hungry project managers or account executives to impose their mediocre visions, or wondering if you’re going to get fired every six months if your client decides to switch agencies. The only people on the payroll are you and me. We are the account managers, we are the account creatives. You will compose the copy, I will produce the design. The layout, the Fiery, the blues, I’ll take care of everything. Two people but combined together, and I tell the absolute truth here, we have the connections, the money, the talent, and, most important, the desire that will make this happen. All we have to do is show these bastards that we can sell better than the impotent gits they’ve got on their dole now, from there we can hire the support to fill this office till we have to put desks on the bloody stairs. Now have a seat.’ I did. The chair was leather, soft like old lady skin, my back blended into it.

  ‘Close your eyes. I’m serious.’ I closed them. In my darkness, I was sure he was either going to punch or kiss me.

  ‘I’m going to put something in your hands. Don’t open your eyes until I say, right?’

  ‘Right.’ I heard him open up a drawer, pull out something crinkling, and then felt the thin plastic membrane in my fingers. Inside was some type of tightly wrapped cloth. I could feel the hard edge of the cardboard giving it its form.

  ‘OK. It’s some type of clothes, probably. What is it?’

  ‘It’s your first customer. Open your eyes and tell me what it is.’ The packaging was black and white, utilitarian. You could see the product through the clear parts and it had a cheaply illustrated sample of a guy wearing some.

  ‘Underwear.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘White. Cotton blend, probably. A three-pack.’

  ‘Cottonal Y-fronts. What do they make you think of? What type of person would wear them?’

  ‘A dad, probably.’

  ‘Your dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably. I didn’t know him.’

  ‘He took off?’

  ‘No, he died.’

  ‘What was it, a gang fight? A drug overdose?’

  ‘He choked on a plum.’

  ‘All right. Look, Chris, what you’ve got to do is see this product. See it like it was just invented, see it like its time has just come. Figure out who this product is perfect for, whose needs it best meets. Think of the client who has to sell these things, who wakes up every morning with images of Y-fronts intertwined with their personal ambitions and anxieties, how do they want to see this product? And then, when you know all of that, I want you to come up with an idea that will grab, make them understand the necessity, almost force them into the stores to buy some. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah. I can do that.’ They were a pretty plain sight, these drawers.

  ‘Now, when I was at the Patterson Group we might have put two, maybe even four blokes on something like this, given them maybe three to five days to brainstorm ideas. I want you to do this a bit quicker. You have the time it takes me to go meet the client for lunch in the West End, talk it up a bit, and come home. That gives you about two hours to get sorted. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, laughing along with his smile.

  ‘I’m not joking, Chris,’ David said with a face that went quickly straight again.

  I spent the next three hours trying to think of something, staring at the dull package, and then staring at the room around me thinking about dreams. I could see the place full, people in every available space. The floor matted with cords, phones ringing, people laughing, a small radio playing in a cubicle. Maybe a basketball hoop tied to that big rafter in the middle of the room. Then I checked out David’s trophies, picking each one up and inspecting them (the earliest date was damn close to my date of birth, the most recent just six-years-old). I took care to place them back into their previous precarious position without making too much noise. As quiet as this place was now, with just me in the corner of an empty, cavernous room, I knew someday I would hear the sounds of the office that would be alive around me.

  Three and a half hours later I heard David thumping up the steps. It had just gotten dark outside, and I felt, in my period of note scratching and false paths, that I had come to something that was a good thing.

  ‘Well, first the news. The Cottonal bastards are interested; they’re at least going to let me come in there and pitch them next week, next Thursday. I worked on a campaign for the athletic gear segment of their product line, the junior sports kits they were pushing a few years back, made them some dosh. They knew to listen. The geezers understood what I can do for them,’ David nodded to himself, confidently. ‘So, what you got for me?’ In response, I cleared my throat.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if this is any good. I don’t know if this is just awful, so I guess I’ll just throw this out there and you’ll tell me if it’s stupid,’ I began. David actually started cringeing. ‘I’m just saying this because, y’know, I don’t want to disappoint you but here it is: I was thinking about what we were talking about, about this being a product that, with the popularity of boxers and designer briefs, has probably seen its best day. And then I was thinking maybe, if the product is in some way stylistically obsolete, could that mean that it could make some kind of revival? That might be a good way to make what may be conceived as a dated, dull product into one that might imply individuality and a minor rebellion. So this is sort of what I was thinking – and if it’s bad, y’know, just tell me, but I just thought I’d say it, okay? Okay. Wedgies. Maybe we could do a series of ads, I don’t know, print, video, whatever you think is better, where the focus would be seeing these really cool or weird people from all walks of life, like street performers, skaters, musicians, world leaders, and then when you look closer you can see the waist band of their underwear, the client’s red and black brand strip, peaking out. And the copy I tried to come up with for the slogan is, “Did you know?” Of course that could be totally changed. Really that’s the whole idea, and you can tell me if this is the wrong direction, but I kind of figured that might be good, might make it look like there was a whole “in” crowd who wears these, because no one really knows what anyone else is wearing down there, right?’ David sat staring blankly back at me.

  ‘Is that okay?’ I asked. David continued staring.

  ‘No. That’s shite,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It. Is. Shite. Shit. It’s no good. Actually, I’m sorry, it is good. Stop looking like I just kicked you in the bollocks. But good isn’t enough, y’know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. You’re right, that was awful. I’m so sorry. I’ll try harder, I can do better, I’ll stay up on this. I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘No, you don’t. I’m sorry, but I really don’t think you do. And we can’t have that, can we? Especially right here, in the beginning?’

  ‘David, I can do this, man. Shit, give me twenty minutes, I can do this thing.’

  ‘You got any ID on you?’

  ‘Yeah, I got my passport.’

  David grabbed his keys and headed for the stairs. I asked if I should follow and he yelled for me to bring the bags of Cottonals. Next thing we were in his car, driving. Neither one of us talking all those minutes we sat there as the road beneath us evolved from one lane to two lanes to three and we were on a highway, speed i
ncreasing steadily until David made a right turn at an exit marked Gatwick Airport.

  ‘This is an airport,’ I told David, but he just nodded. I’d failed; I was being returned to Philadelphia. David parked the car. It was quiet for a moment, the both of us sitting there, staring at a concrete wall sprayed with a green number 087. I wasn’t surprised. A fraud is never surprised when he is revealed, he is only relieved that the act is over. David pulled himself out of his seat and slammed the door behind him. I didn’t want to get out, but I unhooked my seat belt and followed him anyway because he wasn’t pausing to wait for me. I was too ashamed to apologize. At an elevator, we got on with others and their bags, their conversations about flights, food, and gates. David stood on the other side of the box, separated from me by a woman holding something large wrapped in white grocery bags. The doors opened and we all walked out, pouring like the twelve tribes into whatever direction pulled us. Finally David faced me, staring with his mouth open for a second. ‘Give me your passport.’ It was in my back pocket, already bent to the contour of my ass from the flight the days before. David took it from me without looking at my face and then walked away, leaving me standing by a cardboard donation placard for burn victims.

  ‘All right, we’re set. Now follow me, quickly. We haven’t much time,’ David said when he reappeared, and then scuttled off in front of me. We were walking towards a security gate, metal detector and cops in goofy looking sweater uniforms, and then walking faster towards the gates beyond.

  ‘Yo, sir, where we going?’ The answer was the back of his head, those beaded black naps bobbing as he hustled that body forward. Out among others, David was so much wider than normal folk. So broad that, walking as fast as he was, they must have felt a breeze when he passed.

  ‘Yo, sir, for real, where we going?’ As if to answer me, David turned in at a gate that seemed to be at the end of its boarding: a flight attendant just standing by a door waiting for her chance to close it. David stopped in front of her, turning to me while she took his ticket to hand me mine and say, ‘I’ll meet you by the baggage return when we get there, right?’ Then he was gone down the white tunnel towards the plane, lost in the turn of the hall. It wasn’t until the smiling lady took my ticket that I noticed the Amsterdam sign at the center of her podium. At the plane door I thought I saw the back of a black man’s head to the left, in first class, but I was ushered to the right towards coach before I could be sure if it was him.

  When we landed I tried to get out of my seat quickly, make it to the front of the plane, but there were too many others in my way. He wasn’t there when I left the gate, and I started hustling past the herd towards the baggage claim, certain he would leave me or take a flight somewhere else or do something similarly fucking crazy. At the baggage area, he wasn’t there, no surprise. I kept searching, rechecking that I was in the right place, searching through the growing crowd around me, looking on to the conveyor belt as if he might appear from the magic hole, rolled into fetal position amid the luggage, between an oversized suitcase and a folded stroller. After a few minutes the crowd began to thin, and it was very clear that there was no David anywhere, and that was simple to discern because a random turn of the room showed there were no negroes anywhere at all.

  ‘Chris!’ David’s baritone echoed, poking his head through the glass exit doors as if I was late, smiling politely and waving quickly for me to follow. Outside it was even colder than London, wind blowing at my non-coated self. David’s steps before me were long, stomping, reaching too far for those little legs. People he passed turned after his wake to see if he was joking. Behind him I could already smell the liquor; in the back of the chauffeured car it was like my nose was in the bottle’s mouth.

  ‘Bit of a road trip, this.’ David put his head against the window and started humming to the song the driver was playing on the radio. Outside was another place I didn’t know. Bright advertisements for products I’d never heard of in a language I couldn’t speak. New and shiny things in a place that was as old as Philly pretended to be. Look at this. So much beauty and I was in it, zipping around in an unmarked cab that was a fancier car than I’d ever been in. Going into a city that looked so good I wanted to walk the ride. Beside me David had gone quiet, no sound except for heavy breathing and occasional near snores. He didn’t move again until we were way into the city, over canals and amid narrow cobblestone streets bumpier than Germantown Avenue. When the car died he came alive.

  ‘This is it,’ David said, smacking his lips and giving some notes to the driver. He opened his car door, so I did the same with mine. David glanced around and then started walking towards a shop without even looking back to see if I was following.

  Inside the door was the stank of pot smell. The place was set up like an old tobacco shop, with the product in large containers behind humidor doors. David put both fists down on the glass counter and said to the man behind it, ‘Give me a sample of the freshest stuff you’ve got.’

  ‘Any particular taste or high you’re going for?’ The clerk was David’s age, English also. His hair had been sawed down to an uneven brown turf. Maybe he’d done it himself, without a mirror.

  ‘Only that it is the absolute best, truly best, and freshest bit of spliff in here.’ The clerk gave a squinty smile of stained teeth, then reached under the counter, lifted a lid, and stood up with a small silver dish filled with the stuff. ‘Hawaiian,’ he offered. David looked at it close, bending down to smell it, and then without standing back up said to me, ‘Chris, do us a favor. Tell me what marijuana is like, physically.’

  ‘I don’t know much about it. I don’t really smoke this shit. And I don’t plan on changing that.’

  ‘Right, but that said, describe the product for me, the uninitiated.’

  ‘It looks sort of like tobacco, except green.’

  ‘Right. What about its consistency.’

  ‘Dried. A bit brittle, I think.’

  ‘Very good, Chris, very good.’ The clerk had found some way to make his silly smile even bigger, watching me.

  ‘Now, Chris, look at this.’ David took a pinch at the substance under his nose and lifted it to the air, and then to my nose. It didn’t smell like anything you’d smoke if you were afraid to die. Its color was dark green and brown, moist and soft like moss.

  ‘Watch.’ David held it about a foot over the countertop, and those big ham hock muscles flexed. There was trembling in his hands, like he was trying to pinch coal into diamond. Then, like a forced birth, it dripped. One perfect drop, heavy, dark and thick, fell down to the glass. I bent down to look at it, this oily emerald swirling on the counter.

  ‘Do you see that, Chris?’ David asked in awe.

  ‘I see.’ Look at that thing. A kaleidoscope of reflections swimming on its surface.

  ‘That’s the stuff, that. That’s what you should be doing. Everything you create, everything you bring to the world, that’s how good it needs to be. A drop. I know you’re capable, because you’ve done it before. And I can tell you got more than one drop in you.’ David turned his pinching fingers up to me, revealing the pulp that was stuck there. ‘That, that’s you, that is. Fresh, gifted, brought all the way from America. You have it in you, Chris. You just need to accept that.’ I nodded, but didn’t. But he did. Thankfully, enough for both of us.

  Later that night, after we were in the hotel room, David made me call Margaret and tell her where we were. He sat in the next room with the door open, smoking from the ounce he’d bought at the shop, sitting on the edge of the bed watching French TV. I couldn’t figure out if he understood it or if he was too stoned to care. Margaret picked up after the first bring-bring.

  ‘Hi, it’s Chris. We’re okay.’

  ‘About bloody time. Good to hear that, seeing how it’s almost two in the morning. Where are you?’

  ‘Amsterdam.’ Margaret was silent for a moment. Then she was sucking hard on a cigarette, I could tell. Somewhere a little orange fire was beaming.

  ‘Lo
vely.’

  ‘David told me to tell you we’ll be back tomorrow night, after I finished the project we’re working on.’

  ‘Great. Could you put him on?’

  ‘He went to the store.’

  ‘Did he tell you to say that, too?’ David, forgetting he wasn’t supposed to be nearby, let out a shriek of laughter at something he was watching.

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Is he getting stoned?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Let me guess: he’s sitting right there smoking, staring at the wall or something.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Oh God. Do try to keep him out of trouble, all right, Chris? From now on, when I’m not around, he’ll be your responsibility. Promise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m being serious. Please, I mean this. I worry that he’s getting worse. Promise me that when I’m not around you’ll watch out for him.’

  ‘I promise,’ I told her.

  ‘At least keep him away from the whores.’

  When I hung up David heard the click, turned from his entertainment, and asked me if she sounded mad.

  ‘A bit. Not too bad, but a bit. She heard you laughing; she knew you were here.’

  ‘She’ll be all right. You know, it could have been the two of us here, working, but she couldn’t trust it, could she? She had to go back to her law work. Said our marriage would be better if we worked apart.’

  ‘She just sounded a little worried, that’s all.’

  ‘Right then, to work with you. I got the management to bring up a typewriter, we’ll put it on the desk in the back, so before it gets here why don’t you go to the bog and put a pair of the Cottonals on your bum. Get a feel for them this time, a real feel, so you can come up with some ideas accordingly.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said, reaching for the bag.

  ‘Give me your clothes. I’ll send them down to the cleaners so you’ll have some fresh kit to wear out of here.’

  ‘Cool. But what will I wear till then?’

  ‘The Cottonals,’ David said. I didn’t ask another question because he was staring into my face, ready to answer it.