Ed Lacy - Enter Without Desire

“Grab a bite while going to the houses, Miss Kimball.”

“Cut the beaver act. From now on take an hour for lunch—even if you eat on the job. And for Christsake, stop rushing around with that pathetic eager smile on your kisser. Quiet down.”

The two other artists, and a copywriter, had desks in one large workroom, which was headed by Kimball's glass-partitioned office, where she kept an eye on us.

The copywriter was a tweedy old man, a beaten hack writer who I heard had done a fair novel in his youth, and whose only ambition now was to sip beer and figure the races.

Neither of the two artists bothered much with me. One was a snobbish middle-aged nance who flew into a loud tantrum if anything on his drawing board was touched. The other was a sloppy young woman who wore wrinkled stockings and always looked like she needed a bath—although she didn't smell. She was one of these overserious types, who get into a blue mood when they're old enough to stop playing jacks—and never snap out of it. But she really had talent, a wonderful sense of colors.

Then there was a receptionist-typist, a flashy redhead, who seemed to spend all her time in figuring out new ways of making her small breasts look bigger. She frankly told me she “never went out with any guy making under fifty per.” She was said to be a friend of Barrett's wife, but I wouldn't have been surprised if Barrett got into her bloomers. In fact maybe he got into the nance. Barrett went after sex with the same boorish tact he went after business— smashing right through the center of the line.

In the beginning, I'd sit around all afternoon, waiting at my drawing board. No one said anything to me, minded my amusing myself with cartoons, or whatever came to mind. Now and then Kimball would realize I was alive and send me on some goddamn errand. I tried reading a book or the paper all afternoon, but she didn't seem to notice.

One day when I came breezing into the office at about two, she said, “Jameson, before you get settled for the day, go down to the drugstore and find out what those bastards did with the tongue sandwich I ordered a half hour ago. On whole wheat toast, no butter or anything. And a container of iced tea—no sugar.”

Kimball was always watching her figure. I was, too— whether I wanted to or not. At the drugstore I got a gooey ham salad sandwich and a big chocolate sundae swimming in whipped cream and nuts. When Kimball opened the bag, she called me in, asked, “What's the bright joke, shorty?”

“Couldn't remember what you asked for, Miss Kimball. I'm not used to running errands.”

“I see. You don't like my...?”

“Didn't say I didn't like it, merely that I'm not used to doing errands. Anyway, this is my treat. I'm loaded today.”

“Did that would-be copywriter, that pseudo-Hemingway, give you a horse?”

“No, Miss Kimball. No, I hocked my paints and brushes —never be missed around here.”

For a moment she stared at me with those steady, hard, clear eyes, then the expertly painted red lips broke into a smile and she giggled. “Cute, Jameson. Not overbright, but still kind of cute, brash kid stuff. Guess it won't kill me to eat this junk—send you out again and who knows what you'll come back with. In about an hour—after I've digested this crap, I want to see you. And get your brushes out of hock.”

I went out and had a bite myself and, when I returned, Kimball told me, “I'm lining up a campaign for a girdle company. Give me a couple of roughs along these lines— we want to get across the idea that with these girdles women don't look like stuffed sausages. Some copy like... Look your boudoir best, no matter what you're doing... That's tripe, but you get the idea. I want sketches of women at work—sweeping the house, taking the kids to school, cooking... all that housewife bull. Sketch them in plain dresses, but with a transparent deal around their hips-showing how trim and sexy the girdle is making them look. Maybe throw in some long, sheer, black stockings—they say that's sexy. Black stockings get you, Jameson?”

“They do.”

“Always wondered why. Well, you get what I'm after?”

“Yes.” I almost said, “Yes Ma'am.”

“Okay, give me a half dozen roughs, and take your time. Maybe I can make something out of it.”

I dashed back to my board and sketched like mad the rest of the afternoon. I had half a dozen complete drawings, not roughs, by five, but Kimball said she was too busy to see them.

I felt good that night, sure of my drawings. Next morning I covered most of the houses by phone and was in the office at eleven. I marched into Kimball's office, put the sketches on her desk—and waited. She glanced at them quickly, sneered, “Jameson, how the hell old are you?”

“Almost twenty-one.”

“Well, you should know the facts of life. Girdles are worn by women, not these slim kids you've drawn. Women, with thick hips and fat bellies and hanging tits—that's why they buy girdles. We tell them our product will improve their looks, and it will, but it won't make them look like any eighteen-year-old model. You can only kid the customer when she doesn't know she's being kidded. Hell, if the women we're trying to sell looked like the slim babes in your drawings, they wouldn't need a girdle, or even read our ads. Try again—and give me women.”

I went back to my desk, sore as a boil. But when I calmed down and examined my work, I saw Kimball was right. I'd drawn slim gals who certainly didn't need girdles. I tossed the sketches into the waste basket and started over. By the end of the afternoon I had it—women who looked like they should be using girdles.

I showed them to Kimball just as she was going home. She took off her hat, lit a cigarette, and backed away like a ham patron of the arts to study the sketches. Then she shook her head, said, “No good.”

“What's wrong now?” I asked, trying to keep anger out of my voice.

Kimball turned and practically laughed in my face. “Jameson, I love the way you keep yourself under control. What's your first name, again?”

“Marshal.”

“That fits. From a wide-spot-in-the-tobacco-road South?”

“Almost.”

She shook her head, and slowly ran her eyes over me. “Cocky kid, going to make good in the big city or bust those big shoulders in the...”

“Look, Miss Kimball, it's after five. I'm on my own time, so how about getting down to cases? What's wrong with these sketches?”

“Nothing,” she said, putting them in a folder and into a file cabinet. “The sketching is rather simple, but good.”

“But...?”

“The entire idea stinks. I wanted you to visualize my idea; you did, and now I see the idea was wrong. That's all. Not your fault. And since I've kept you overtime, I'll buy you a drink.”

“Sorry, have to take a rain-check on that,” I said, trying to sound casual as I lied. “But I have a supper date.”

“Have fun,” she said.

I had an idea Kimball was interested in me, but she never asked me out for a drink again. Nor paid any special attention to me. But she did keep me busy putting her ideas on paper, most of which she discarded. The few times she liked my work, she gave it to the queer to do. When I asked her why, she said, “Slow, Jameson, slow. You're getting valuable experience here, but the fruit is a more finished artist than you are. He's been at this rat race longer.”

For some six or seven months things went on like this. Along about February Kimball bawled the hell out of the red-headed receptionist for failing to type a couple of letters Kimball wanted in a hurry. The redhead burst into tears, said she had more work than she could handle, showed pages of dictation Barrett had given her the same day. Kimball marched into Barrett's office—there was a short argument during which I heard the boss yell several times, “But the damn overhead...”; then Kimball came out and called up one of the government employment agencies.