Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

“I do a mean imitation of James Brown doing an imitation of Clint Eastwood,” offered Benny. “Want to see it?”

“I can’t picture that,” said Lynn.

“Believe it or not, it’s true,” said Jim.

So Benny did his imitation of James Brown doing Clint Eastwood, which defied description to anyone who hadn’t seen it, but had us laughing within a few seconds, and that finally broke the ice.

We talked about Tom Mota and the incident, and Joe told of seeing him in jail. And we talked about Carl’s resignation, which came as a surprise to Lynn. “You’re leaving us, Carl?” “I am,” he said. “Well, I think that is terrific news,” Lynn said. We were shocked to hear how in favor she was of Carl’s departure until she elaborated. “Advertising isn’t your thing,” she explained. “It doesn’t make you happy.” Carl agreed and told her of his ambitions for Garbedian and Son. She said the same thing we said: “Good for you, Carl.” Though she was probably thinking, Who wants to be twirling a weedwhacker around a subdivision in the middle of a heatstroke summer? Give me my chair over that any day of the week. Oh, what I’d give to be back in my chair — she was probably thinking that, too.

After a while we could tell she was starting to flag, so we told her we’d better let her get some sleep. But first Jim Jackers had a presentation to make.

We thought it was a terrible idea from the very beginning. Lynn had asked us to do a pro bono project for a breast cancer awareness fund-raiser, claiming to know some committee chair who had pestered her. The next day, the project morphs from a fund-raiser into a public service announcement, with the baffling mandate to inspire laughter in the breast cancer patient. What happened to the fund-raiser? No one knows. Is there really a pestering committee chair? No word on that, either. Just Joe Pope instructing us on the changes. We say okay, whatever. We get down to work. We read books, we do research. We come up with squat. We file into Lynn’s office at the eleventh hour — she’s forgotten about it entirely. We unload the “Loved Ones” campaign on the “client.” The project ends. Tom comes in and shoots us with paintballs.

But then we found out Lynn did in fact have cancer. When that came to light, Jim Jackers suggested we revive the ads we failed at so miserably and present them to her in the hospital, in order to cheer her up.

“Because what if she did make up that assignment?” he asked. “Don’t you think she’d like to see those ads more than ever, now that she’s actually in the hospital?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Jim,” said Karen Woo. “Of course she didn’t make up that assignment.”

“Well, that’s a different tune you’re singing all of a sudden, Karen.”

“Oh, Jim, don’t be so dense.”

“How am I being dense?” he asked. “I’m just saying — what if?”

He claimed to have a concept. We thought he must have reconciled with his uncle. “No, I came up with this on my own,” he said. When we heard that, we let out a collective groan. Jim’s original concepts were usually worse than Chris Yop’s.

“But it’s really not a bad concept,” Benny said to us. “I think she’d get a big kick out of it.”

We asked him to explain the concept to us, but Jim had sworn him to secrecy until they talked to Joe. They went in, and Joe purportedly said, “I couldn’t have come up with this. Whose idea was this?”

“Jim’s,” said Benny.

After they got out of their meeting, we asked Benny if Jim had been reconciled with his uncle.

“You guys already asked me that,” Jim cut in. “I told you I came up with these ads on my own.” He showed us one. We thought it was derivative, full of borrowed interest, and rather unoriginal. “But that’s the whole point,” Jim argued. “That’s what makes them original.” We had to agree to disagree, and immediately began devising ways of escaping before Jim unveiled them.

But it was hard to distance ourselves from him inside Lynn’s hospital room when he announced that “we” had a presentation for her. Lynn herself looked at him from her ocean of bed with an expression somewhere between surprise and skepticism. We all held our breath for fear of what inappropriate preamble might escape Jim’s mouth. He reminded her of what the pro bono project had once asked of us — to present the breast cancer patient with something funny in her hour of need. For the first time in his life, he didn’t call it the “pro boner” project.

“And so without further ado,” he said, with embarrassing grandiosity, as he unzipped the black portfolio and pulled out the first ad. What choice did we have but to stick around?

From the foot of her bed, he held the ad high so everyone could see. Each concept had been glued to black mount board with two-inch borders, which made the thing really pop. “As you can see,” he said, “this visual shows the familiar sight of a laminated placard you might see hanging in a hospital or a gynecologist’s office, of the featureless female form giving herself a breast exam. One arm is raised in the air and bent at the elbow, while the hand of the other arm probes her left breast.” Somebody snickered. Jim paused, evidently irritated. “Juxtaposed with this image,” he continued, “is the famous ‘Miss Clairol’ headline. ‘Does she. . or doesn’t she?’ And our subhead reads, ‘A tumor so small only her oncologist knows for sure!’”

We watched Lynn’s face for some sort of reaction. “Let me have a closer look,” she said. Jim handed the ad to her. She took it and we felt no different than we did when sitting in her office waiting for her to assess and judge and deliver her verdict on real ads.

“This is funny,” she said.

“But you’re not laughing,” said Jim.

“I never laugh, Jim,” she replied. Which was true, she never laughed. She only said, “This is funny.” And then you knew she liked it.

“Here’s the next one,” he said, pulling the second ad from the portfolio and holding it before her. “You recognize this famous shot,” he began, “of a man dressed all in black, gripping the armrests of a black leather armchair while the speaker in front of him is blowing back his hair, his tie, his martini glass, and the lampshade next to him. It’s from the old Maxell tape ad. Except in ours, the stereo speaker has been replaced by the profile of a giant breast emerging from the margin on the left, which we scanned from an old Playboy of Benny’s. The headline reads, ‘No Other Disease Delivers Higher Recovery Rates.’ The word Maxell has been replaced with the word Mammary in the bottom right-hand corner, and the small print reads, ‘Get blown away by your fast recovery.’ This,” Jim concluded, “combines a little humor with a little hope.”

“Let me see it, Jim,” she said. We watched her reaction. “I like it,” she said, tapping it. Which was enthusiasm we hadn’t seen or heard since Joe and Genevieve unveiled Cold Sore Guy.

“This next one,” said Jim, “shows the extreme close-up of a man in a surgical mask and scrubs, holding up near his face a scalpel and a pair of operating scissors. It’s an unfamiliar image, but in the upper right-hand corner we’ve placed a subtle Nike Swoosh,” said Jim, pointing to it, “and running across the bottom of the page is the famous ‘Just Do It’ tagline. The subhead reads, ‘Go Ahead and Cut.’ And I’ll read you the body copy,” said Jim. “‘Triathletes. Channel swimmers. Hikers of Everest. Compared to the woman facing breast cancer surgery, those clowns don’t have a clue about perseverance and courage. Talk to someone who’s faced down this guy. She knows what hard work is all about. She knows the definition of winning. Survival, baby. Just Do It.’”