Don DeLillo - Americana

"Have you spent the major part of your adult life in the advertising business?"

"All but four years."

"Where were they spent?" I said.

"I served a hitch in the army during the war."

"Where?"

"The Pacific."

"Where in the Pacific?"

"The Philippines."

"Where in the Philippines?"

"Bataan: they made two movies about it."

"Do you ever feel uneasy about your place in the constantly unfolding incorporeal scheme of things?"

"Only when I try to pre-empt the truth."

"What does that mean?"

"One of the clients I service is the Nix Olympica Corporation. They make a whole line of products for the human body. Depilatories, salves, foot powder, styptic pencils, mouthwash, cotton swabs for the ears, deodorants for the armpit, deodorants for the male and female crotch, acne cream medication, sinus remedies, denture cleansers, laxatives, corn plasters. We were preparing a campaign for their Dentex Division; that's mouthwash primarily. Okay, so we zero in on one of the essential ingredients, quasi-cinnamaldehyde-plus. QCP. We take the hard-sell route. Dentex with QCP kills mouth poisons and odor-causing impurities thirty-two percent faster. Be specific. Be factual. Make a promise. Okay, so some little creep says to me in a meeting: thirty-two percent faster than what? Obvious, I tell him: thirty-two percent faster than if Dentex didn't have QCP. The fact that all mouthwashes have this cinnamaldehyde stuff is beside the point; we were the only ones talking about it. This is known as pre-empting the truth. The creative people do a storyboard. Open on Formula One racing car, number six, Watkins Glen. Action, noise, crowd, throttling, crack-ups, explosions. Number six comes in first. Beauty queen rushes up to car, leans over to kiss driver, then turns away with grimace. Bad breath. She doesn't want to kiss him. Cut to medical lab, guy with white smock. This is a dramatization-charts, diagrams, supers, QCP thirty-two percent faster. Back to-original guy, number six, different race. Checkered flag drops, he wins, wreath around the neck, beauty queen kisses him, dissolve to victory party as they dance, kiss, whisper, dance, kiss. We took the idea to Dentex. They loved it. We took it upstairs to Nix Olympica. They loved it. They were delighted. They gave us the okay to shoot. We get cars and drivers and extras. We go up to Watkins Glen. We use helicopters, we use tracking shots, we use slow-motion, we use stop-action, we zoom, we wide-angle, we set up two small crashes and one monster explosion with a car turning over that nearly kills half the crew. I called a special meeting of the agency's planning board and ran the final print for them. They loved it. When I told them it cost as much, pro-rated, as the movie Cleopatra, they were delighted. They would have something to tell their wives that evening. The next day we showed the commercial to Dentex. They loved it. They were delighted. We took it upstairs to Nix Olympica. They turned it down flat. The money didn't bother them; they were impressed with the money; they would have something to tell their wives. But they turned it down flat. They ordered us to re-shoot both sequences in the winner's circle."

"Why?"

"Because of the Oriental. Because of the old man standing at the edge of the group of extras who were crowding around the winner's circle both times, first when the beauty queen refused to kiss number six and then when she did kiss him. Both times he was there, this small shrunken old man, this Oriental. Who was he? Who hired him? How did he get into the crowd? Nobody knew. But he was there all right and Nix Olympica spotted him. All the other extras were young healthy gleaming men and women. It's a commercial for mouthwash; you want health, happiness, freshness, mouth-appeal. And this sick-looking old man is hovering there, this really depressing downbeat Oriental. Look, I love the business. I thrive on it. But I can't help wondering if I've wasted my life simply because of the old man who ruined the mouth-wash commercial. On a spring evening some years ago, during the time when my wife was very ill, when she was nearing the very end, I walked up a street in the upper Thirties and turned right onto Park Avenue and there was the Pan Am Building, a mile high and half-a-mile wide, every light blazing, an impossible slab of squared-off rock hulking above me and crowding everything else out of the way, even the sky. It looked like God. I had never seen the Pan Am Building from that particular spot and I wasn't prepared for the colossal surprise of it, the way it crowded out the sky, that overwhelming tier of lights. I swear to you it looked like God the Father. What was the point I was trying to make?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. I guess that's what comes of trying to preempt the truth."

"What is the role of commercial television in the twentieth century and beyond?"

"In my blackest moods I feel it spells chaos for all of us."

"How do you get over these moods?" I said.

"I take a mild and gentle Palmolive bath, brush my teeth with Crest, swallow two Sominex tablets, and try desperately to fall asleep on my Simmons Beautyrest mattress."

"Thank you."

I took a shower and then called the network and asked for myself, wondering what would happen if I answered.

"Mr. Bell's office," Binky said.

"This is Charles of the Ritz. Our lipstick of the month is salmon puree."

"David, where the hell are you?"

"Give me ten seconds. It'll come to me."

"Come on now, don't fool around, Mr. Denney is furious. There's a whole crew standing by at the reservation and they can't do a thing until you get there. Now where are you?"

"About fifteen hundred miles from where I'm supposed to be."

"I don't believe it. You're crazy. You'll get fired."

"Tell Weede to send Harris Hodge out there. He's young and willing. He can handle it. I've been hearing good things about him."

"It's your project, David. You've got to be there."

"I'm not going to Arizona, Binky. At least not right now. I'd rather be there than here. But I've got to do this thing I'm doing."

"What thing?"

"The only reason I called was to let you know I'm all right. I thought you might worry if you didn't hear anything."

"I am worried, David. What thing?"

"I'm crossing the swamp. Listen, how's Warburton?"

"He died," she said.

"I guess I've known it for the last couple of days. I hope he'll be buried in England. Did Freddy Fuck-Nuts write a memo?" "Who's that?"

"Weede," I said. "Did he write a memo about Ted Warburton?"

"You shouldn't call him crappy names. Up to now he's been very good about your not showing up in Arizona. He's been backing you all the way. He told Livingston there must have been some unavoidable delay. An accident or something. David, I'll have to tell him you called and that you're not planning to go out there."

"What did the memo say? Did it say that Ted was a trusted friend and longtime associate and that no man is an island?"

"Something like that, I guess."

"Warburton was Trotsky," I said.

"David, no."

"Don't tell anyone. Let them figure it out for themselves, the bastards. No more memos. That was the only thing that made that place worthwhile anyway."

"Do you need any money?"

"I have enough traveler's checks for ten days or so. I won't be here any longer than that."

"Will you be coming back to New York?"

"I don't know, Bink."

"What will you do for money?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought about it."

"What about your apartment?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Aren't you going to let me know where you are and what you're doing? I promise I won't tell anyone."

"It's okay, Binky. Everything's fine. I'll miss you. You and Trotsky's memos. The only things that made that place worthwhile."