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contestants appear, when it is taken over by the people from the Fourteenth
Floor. And by writing the monthly page of
Plastics Briefs whieh 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 Plastks 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, Du-poir. 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
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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.
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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
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