“Did you complain?”
“Yes! The Mentos people laughed. They thought I was making it all up!” Dottie replied.
“So you quit?” Dane asked.
“No, I told them I had to take off some time to ride my horse. I was a champion equestrienne, see? That’s important to me. So after six months they said they couldn’t hire an associate creative director who rides horses—for insurance reasons. Can you believe it?”
“It’s hard.”
“They showed me the documents. So I asked if they could get a rider to cover a rider. They said it was a Mentos policy not to change insurance policies for four years. Since they had just put this one in place I would have to wait three more years. That’s too long not to ride a horse, don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Dane said, although he had never been on a horse. “So how did you get this job?”
“Georgian Shield called my headhunter and I interviewed with Nigel. But they gave the job to someone else—to you. So a few months later Nigel called. He said he needed a job done super-fast. It would take up all my time, even weekends. I told him, ‘Sure thing! That’s my specialty.’ And here I am.”
Dottie was the “other guy” Griffin always mentioned against whom Dane always had “the inside track.” This was the first time Dane met someone he had competed with for a job. Nigel was notifying him that this hiring mistake could be rectified and that #1 could be replaced by #2.
19. THE RELUCTANT PATRIOT
Dottie Wacker’s appearance darkened Dane’s mind. He viewed it as a direct threat. What did he do to deserve it? No more or less than the best creative effort of which he was capable.
Under the incidental attack, Dane perceived a pattern of evil. He was now reasonably sure the Canadian agency did not hire him because he was a world-class talent. He was an intelligence asset to undermine American pharmaceutical advertising.
When Dane refused to be a subservient, self-hating hack, they brought in another mole, Dottie, many times more submissive than Dane, to exert pressure on his job.
With his position under siege, Dane raised his fight to a higher level of abstraction and assumed a new role. He became a cultural patriot and viewed his mission as that of ambassador and defender of his country’s advertising.
He was on his own. Few people knew America’s advertising was under assault. It was lonely and thankless to be the solitary sentinel against an imperialist invasion. Dane seriously considered renouncing patriotism. He had fought for his ideas against hostile supervisors. Did he ever win or even draw? He could not recall even one idea for which he had won the good fight.
However, a patriot does not battle for gratitude, for gain or even for victory—but only for the cause he believes to be right.
One afternoon, as Dane overcame his natural inclination to take a nap, he heard a gentle knock on the door.
“May I come in?”
There was Ben Franklin poking his jowly face in the doorway. With a twinkle in his bifocal eyes, Franklin inquired, “Is this where I find Dane Bacchus?”
“It’s finally true,” Dane thought. “I’m officially insane.”
He slapped his face, so life-like did Ben appear to him. He wished to expel this apparition but Dane’s hero was not going anywhere.
“I-I,” Dane stammered.
“I’d say the ‘Aye’s’ have it then!” Franklin quipped. “May I speak with you? I won’t take much of your time. For time is the stuff life is made of, isn’t it just as true now as ever? You look busy…or, should I say, weary—of course, the latter presupposes the former. In any case, let me tell you how proud we are of your vigilant efforts. You are a patriot, dear fellow, and your country will always be indebted to your service and sacrifice.”
“Ben, when will the sacrifice end? I want to fight for what’s right, but I have a family to support and bills to pay.”
“I, too, wagered all, my lad. Now ask yourself if the reward was worth the wager.”
“Yes!”
“Then I’ll be off. It’s been good chatting with you, friend. Remember: Right is on your side; just make sure your left flank is defended.”
Ben chuckled and Dane laughed.
“You’ve been dead for over two hundred years, Ben, but you’ve still got it,” Dane praised his hero but Ben’s avuncular presence had passed.
Now Dane knew what he must do. He loved his country’s advertising and knew he had to fight for it—or lose it forever.
“Are you okay?” Ron asked. “You were talking to the door.”
“Oh, yeah! I was reading copy out loud to see how it sounds,” Dane answered.
“We have a web chat in the Adelman room,” Ron said, waiting impatiently for Dane to gather his accouterments.
Dane noted that Ron was usually telling him what he had to and where he had to be. He was a hybrid of boss, secretary and messenger.
20. THE AGONIES OF DA FEET
As with any war, the Grovil spoils went to the winners, Nigel, Sally and their collaborator, Ron, while Dane, on the losing end, experienced subjugation in its most pernicious forms—for instance, he revised ad copy with the new Grovil product team.
While Ron was at the shoot for the Big Foot photograph, Dane and the Grovil product team—a former salesman, a chemical engineer, and a former pharmacist—played in a verbal sandbox, noodling words and phrases. For an hour they deliberated over what to call a podiatrist—should he be dubbed a podiatric doctor, a foot specialist or a podiatric specialist? Another lengthy debate raged over the relative merits of “mend” and “heal.” Dane tried to abridge the discussion by touting his credentials—an advanced degree in English, over a decade of teaching experience and a list of professional publications. This stopped the argument for seconds like a comma, a semi-colon, or a dash, before it resumed with renewed intensity. Dane fought word by word in two paragraphs of rubble—like a defender of Stalingrad. When he counted the words from his original copy there were only eight survivors.
Dane faced another indignity of the fallen. It was his job to handwrite clients’ copy changes on a layout, after which they were incorporated in a new layout and returned to the client for review. When a layout was finally approved, Dane transcribed every change from every round of layouts onto a final manuscript. In this way the copy on the final layout matched the final manuscript. Dane recorded every copy change twice, a redundancy which he worked late every night to complete. He pleaded with Toronto for a shortcut only to be told that redundancy was part of the Georgian Shields process, which was immutable and inviolable.
One night as Dane moved his eyes between layout and manuscript page on screen, he abruptly stopped, as if a spring snapped in his neck.
It was the first warning sign of a massive epiphany. His skin radiated with heat. A powerful energy surged through his body, making it impossible for him to be still. He paced to discharge these internal forces but they overwhelmed conventional responses.
Dane stared into the abyss of his life and yelled.
“Deluded again! This always happens! Behold the international creative superstar, in reality, a miserable clerk! It’s your time to make it, Boy! Hallelujah! Your breakthrough, screw ya! Here you are every night moving shit from one page to another! Pepperoni foot’s a muvvah fuggah!”
“Are you okay?” A squeaky voice inquired from the other side of the half-open door. It was Dottie Wacker.
“I’m fine,” Dane said. How much did she hear? He didn’t care.
“I didn’t mean to intrude but I heard screaming,” she said, her face round and bright as a balloon. “I thought you had a heart attack. Want some Pepsi?” Dottie thrust the big plastic bottle toward him.
“No. I’m fine. Thanks,” Dane said. Then, out of a perverse selfdestructive impulse, he chose to explain himself to her.
“I was just having my usual fun in the mud-pit-salt-mines-slave galleys of advertising. You know, reviewing minute changes on the last of twenty drafts of gibberish until I’m see
ing triple and my mind is aspic.”
“Wow, that’s exciting,” Dottie replied. “Okay, you have a good night.”
Dane laughed. Even his complaints made no sense to anyone. He experienced a new species of freedom. As he passed the Rockefeller Center skating rink he shouted at no one in particular on the empty street, “Who cares about the Great God, Ogden Adelman! Not my partner for life; he’s an enemy spy! Not Nigel and Sally. They eat pepperoni with their feet!”
21. DANE IN GETHSEMANE
The rage building in Dane was unbearable. His acknowledgement of how badly this job was going gave intelligence to his anger.
“I understand the problem but what do I do?” He pleaded with his mind for answers while squeezing his head.
He had to counterattack but his taskmasters in Canada were beyond his range. He needed a closer target—and found one—in Ron.
Dane’s partner was a superb target. Ron made out beautifully in the Grovil War. How did he manage it? Dane recalled the time he looked for his partner and heard him plead to Nigel about his true affection for Pepperoni foot.
Admittedly, it was only a misdemeanor back-stabbing, an acceptable level of boot-licking and ass-covering that was natural in the advertising culture. However, this was no isolated incident or first-time offense for Ron, but symptomatic of a pattern of treachery—and a substrate of evil.
Ron and Dane had always been going in opposite directions at Georgian Shields, so their clash was inexorable. While Dane sank from senior medical writer to backroom drudge, Ron catapulted from tyro and agency pet to unofficial liaison between Dane and Toronto, transmitting Nigel’s and Sally’s wishes to Dane. Now he stopped by Dane’s office each day to tell him the agenda—like he was boss. Youth was served and Dane was the butler.
Ron’s only flaw as a scapegoat was that he was rarely around. He was shooting the pepperoni foot ad. While Dane made minute changes all day long or listened to clients jabber over the meaning of a and the, his hatred for Ron grew in absentia. Much of this rancor was envy-based. Dane resented Ron for receiving the best assignments and perks and for selling him out to obtain them. Yet, what aggravated Dane most was that Ron’s ass-kissing strategy was trouncing Dane’s proud professionalism.
His crisis had almost reached crescendo.
Where was Ben Franklin now when he needed him? Where had Adelman’s aphorisms led him but to a big, ulcerated foot?
“You idiot!” he muttered.
“What is it, Daddy?” Iris asked. They were eating dinner at the table and Dane was involved in one of his internal dialogues.
“Nothing,” Dane said.
“You have to change. Learn how to kiss ass!” Dane’s inner voice chided him.
Ass-kissing was his last frontier. He had done “loud,” he had done “modest” and “confident” and “humble.” He had used threats and guile and negotiation—everything but unadulterated ingratiation.
Dane tried systematic desensitization, a technique for modifying behavior. He printed a photograph of unappealing buttocks on his home printer, which he taped to his bathroom mirror, in order to practice kissing it. If he could kiss an ass in two dimensions, he hoped to be able to do it metaphorically in real life. However, each time he approached the photograph with a pucker on his lips, he had cold sweats, nausea and acid reflux in his mouth. Once he trembled with a small seizure. Would he ever conquer this psychological frontier?
When Dane realized that he was incapable of even beginner’s asskissing and would never develop this craft, he conceded that Ron had a rare and prodigious gift—and hated him more.
22. THE FIRST PLAGUE: RATS
In the Adelman washroom, Dane muttered his latest vow.
“Ron, you turned against me and sold me out. You conspired with Toronto and shafted my concept. Worse, you prostituted your talent and dishonored American advertising when you helped Pepperoni foot get produced. But the worst thing you’ve done, Ron, is to injure my soul with your ass-kissing genius. You’ve gone too far, Ron, and now you will pay!”
Dane lit a match and put it out on his palm, then spat on the burn to seal his oath. He would now execute his plan.
At a specialty hardware store, Dane purchased hi-tech wire cutters designed for untraceable sabotage. The blades were formed to resemble the gnawing of rats.
One late evening as Dane pored over more inane copy to be corrected in triplicate, he sneaked into Ron’s office with rat-blade cutters, snipped the computer power cord and left.
As Dane walked across town to his train station, a fire engine passed with sirens ringing. Dane used the commotion to discharge adrenaline by shouting, “Hey, Ron! Let’s see if a machine really has a soul!”
Ron was not expected in the office until the following week. He was out on Pepperoni foot business and taking a long weekend at an herbal spa with his fiancé and their miniature dog.
When Ron returned the following Tuesday, Dane had a warm smile for him in the kitchenette.
“Hey, dude! You’ve been missed.”
“Yeah, right,” Ron grinned and hurried to his office. For ten minutes nothing happened. Suddenly, Ron appeared in Dane’s office, his face ashen and desolate. “My computer is down. The wires are cut.”
Dane’s mouth and eyes gaped wide with simulated pain and he teared up. He feared that Ron would suspect him and converted this fear to fake empathy.
“Are you sure?”
“There’s no power.”
“Let me look.” Dane studied the ragged snip of the power cord with consternation. “What kind of animal would do this?”
“I don’t know. My G-7 never hurt anyone!” Ron cried.
Dane stayed with Ron to steady both of their nerves. He believed that if Ron were left alone he might suspect his partner.
The IT guy, Oscar, diagnosed the problem.
“Looks like you need an exterminator, Ron,” Oscar said. “You got a rat with a taste for power cords.”
“Rats?” Ron said. “How is it possible?”
“You keep food in your drawers?”
“Only dry tofu flakes and toasted lentils!”
Dane could have kissed Oscar for what he said next.
“Yep, they’re partial to those. I guess it depends on the rat. You got yourself a real Whole Foods loving rat.”
Ron was silently hysterical. His mouth quivered and his eyes were wet and glassy. He blinked into space as if transmitting an SOS to aliens, while he tried to make sense of this tragedy. Having so much on his mind nearly crashed his thought process.
“It’s weird,” Oscar explained to Dane. “People attract rats that like what they like. I guess it’s evolution. Rats are the ultimate social animal.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Dane replied.
Dane’s vandalism surpassed his intended effect. Ron sat in his dark office, slumped over the sleek swan-necked monitor. He believed his beloved Macintosh was not broken but injured. He also suspected his Apple could reveal his assailant’s identity, not with its powerful processor and operating system, but with its soul. Dane sympathized with Ron as his strange, passionate beliefs were dashed. He wondered if Ron suspected him. If so, he had no proof, and his mentor, the high end retail executive, would warn him against making unsubstantiated allegations. Ron could also be trusted never to divulge his theory that his computer was able to identify its assailant. He wished to avoid sounding like a freak to Nigel and Sally, his supervisors and supporters.
Ron left for the day. A memo from Canada warned everyone to remove food and beverages from their offices. This was good news for Dane. The home office apparently believed rats were the culprits and held Ron responsible for the severed power cord. Dottie left that evening with a shopping bag full of her goodies. She had stashed Pepperidge Farm cookies and tumblers of diet soda in every office she occupied. “How do they expect me to work without snacks?” she asked.
Dane was the caring colleague that day. He asked everyone if he could help with anything. He
told Rupert, the Georgian Shields New York chief, that he had exterminating experience. He offered to spray and set traps in Ron’s office. His kind offer was noted and declined. Dane’s positive attitude was a diversion. He knew he was a prime scapegoat for any debacle and ran on nervous energy to skirt suspicion.
23. THE SECOND PLAGUE: CONNECT THE DOTTIE
For a few weeks, Dane was contrite about his sabotage. In the moments after Ron’s discovery, Dane trembled with anxiety at the impact and criminality of his act and agonized for days at the possibility of being exposed. He admonished himself never to repeat such a deed for any reason.
But remorse faded fast. When Ron returned from his R&R, he was handed a fat, new pitch. As soon as Dane heard the news, he barged into Ron’s office in a controlled rage to learn more. There, he found Dottie Wacker curled up in a chair, looking fluffy and content in laundered sweats. She sat close to Ron, who barricaded himself behind his 28-inch monitor.
Dottie had been assigned to collaborate with Ron on the prestigious project.
When Ron glanced at Dane in the doorway, he blushed and stammered like he had been caught having sex with Dottie. He assured Dane that he had no say in her getting the assignment. Ron was so flustered that Dane made light of the situation and left.
Yet Dane’s equable response to Dottie’s usurpation was no match for his current drudgery. As he reviewed manuscript pages against pages of layout, his appetite for revenge sprang like an animal without memory of its last meal.
He revised his view of Ron’s nice-guy diffidence. He now characterized his sensitivity as a masquerade. What was so great about an art director who was quiet and behaved? Dane reverted to a 1960s attitude: people were part of the solution or part of the problem. Ron was part of the problem and Dane resolved to deal with him—again.
Dane noticed how excited Dottie was to work with Ron; she looked at least two years younger in his presence. Ron, for his part, avoided Dottie, even when she was a few feet away, by hiding behind his monitor. Dane quickly identified Dottie as his next weapon against Ron.
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