Fiction complete, p.82
Fiction Complete, page 82
SHEILA’s voice over-rode on the intercom. “Mr. Curry, the Burpo—I mean, the Mayor is on the phone. Shall I tell him you are cutting baby’s feeding time in half?”
“Put him on,” Curry said, then he shouted, “Tell him what?”
“Tell him that you are out?” the girl said as if repeating.
“No, I’m in. Hello, Your Honor, Yes, Mayor. Yes, it’s our program, but aren’t responsible for harsh ingredients—that is, we have nothing to do with the phenomenon. That’s right; somebody’s horsing around with something very illegal. Yes, sir. We are investigating, and I promise we will banish baby’s tummy air—we will clean this thing up quickly as we can, Your Honor.”
He hung up and turned on Hansen, infuriated. “You see what it’s doing? Do you want credit for that?” He dug his fingers into his ears to cut out the insistent blithering.
“Hansen!” he said in a low, horrified rasp, “it doesn’t stop—even when . . .”
The assistant put his fingers to his ears, and the color drained from his pink cheeks. They both wiggled fingers deeper into their ears, but it made no difference. The commercial whispered on to its final simulated, self-satisfied baby-burp.
Hansen removed his fingers and looked at them as if he expected to find holes in them. The intercom hummed again. “Susie says the switchboard is jammed with calls. Are you still in, Mr. Curry?”
The president of Curry Hoffman Brown & Selby regarded the little ivory speaker for an instant. “No. I’m out, Sheila, until further notice.” He released the lever and said, “Albert, someone is doing this to us. And I have a hunch, Albert; I have a big, stinking, rotten hunch.”
FOURTEEN floors below, in the same building, Curry stormed through the glass doors labelled, Darby Frank and Shotton Advertising Agency. The place was in much the same state of turmoil as his own three floors of office suites; no one moved to stop him as he punched through Easton’s outer defenses and moved into the inner sanctum.
As he burst open the heavy panel, a fringe of people turned, saw him, recognized him with open mouths and melted away from Easton’s desk where they had been gathered. Easton stared up at him through a thundercloud and fired the first bolt.
“Are you out of your head, Curry? He slapped both hands on his desk and arose to his full, fat, five-foot-six.
“Don’t worry,” Curry snapped. I’m not going to hit you, you little viper; I’m going to stomp on your head.”
The threat bounced off Easton without penetrating. “Came down to gloat, did you? Ever hear of the FCC? I don’t know how you pulled it off, but you’ll fry for this one, you big, stupid oaf!”
Easton’s intercom clicked, and a woman’s voice said, “Here’s the report from the FCC. I taped it.” The snap of a switch was followed by a male voice.
“We were ready for the second message, but we couldn’t get a fix. Good, strong sky-wave, but so diffused it was worthless. The scope went crazy—that is, our testing equipment registered the wave-form, but we were unable to analyze it before it stopped.”
The message left Curry and Easton glaring at each other. Easton wiped some invisible sweat from his white eye-brows and Curry sucked a lungful of air to launch his tirade. The words never came, for at that instant the third commercial swept into their brains.
“Girls,” asked a soft, confidential, female voice, “have you tried the new Drool Shampoo? If you haven’t, let me.”
The air grunted out of Curry as if he had been kicked in the stomach. Easton’s jaw opened at a slant, and he sank to his chair, poleaxed. Drool Shampoo was one of Easton’s accounts, one over which the two agencies had long battled.
“. . . your hair glisten like a web of sheer naughtiness. He’ll delight in the halo of your . . .”
IT WAS A brief commercial, and at end another cut in. This time it was a man’s urgent voice, “. . . that statement. So try a pack today, won’t you. Faggits are the smoke for you.”
Easton’s eyes were glassy. “That’s ours, too. What are we going to do, Curry?”
The bigger man jammed his hands into his pockets and paced the length of thick carpet. “I pulled the Burpo copy from the air, but I don’t know what to advise, Sam.” His voice was apologetic. “If you have any ideas . . .”
Easton sighed, got up and came around his desk. “I guess we’re in this together, Don. Sorry I popped off.”
Neither met the other’s eye as they shook hands and promised to keep in touch. Curry returned to his own suite as his pretty secretary returned her phone to its cradle.
“No soap, Mr. Curry?”
“No soap, Sheila. Anything happen?”
“Switchboard is still jammed, but all questions. No answers.” She handed him a plain, manila envelope, some seven inches square. “This came for you by messenger, marked personal; and look at the silly inscription at the bottom.”
He read the label: From: The Assn. Of M.S.
To: Mr. D. H. Curry
His address followed, then, in pencil, at the bottom was scribbled: All Around A Pig’s Tail . . .
Inside was a small plastic phonograph record labelled simply, Play at slow speed (33-1/3). He handed it back to her. “See if it’s anything. Probably some talent agent’s cute trick to get an audition for his client.”
He retired to his private office and no sooner had seated himself than . . . “Does your favorite beer ever taste flat? Then you haven’t tasted sparkling Dewe, the Super-Brew. Discriminating hosts . . .”
Curry called Hansen in. “Find out anything from the tasty cool—from the F.C.C. yet?”
His assistant shook his worried head. “Can’t get through to them. We’re still trying Washington, but I guess they’re swamped with calls, too. How do you suppose a dozen cans right now—how do you suppose the man in the street is taking it?”
Another worry wrinkle creased Curry’s high forehead. “Yeah. Wait until the evening papers explain to him about the invasion of his privacy and audience captivity and all that. Won’t the beer that never goes flat—won’t the press harpies have fun with this? I can see the headlines.”
Sheila burst in without knocking. As she elbowed the door her pale face and the little portable phonograph she carried brought Curry lumbering from his chair to help her. He plugged in the cord as she touched the switch. “Listen,” she said simply.
THE NEEDLE “ticked” into the groove, and a man’s well-trained voice said brightly, “If you are the addressee, you are one of some 2500 recipients of this little record, and to you we send—Greetings!
“By now, you will agree, the Association of Mad Scientists has thoroughly piqued your curiosity with a demonstration of the ultimate in advertising vehicles.
“Mr. Manufacturer, do you find your sales dropping off? And Mr. Advertising Agency, are your contracts slipping? It may be your medium. Why be satisfied with half-baked mediums, with medium mediums, and especially with overdone mediums?
“Try Pig’s Tail, the medium that’s never mediocre!
“Prominent authorities everywhere are saying that Pig’s Tail is new. unique. Now why stick to old, tired and true mediums? Take the stockyards. To boars who savor hogwash best, it’s Pig’s Tail, two-to-one. Yes, folks, Pig’s Tail is unconditionally guaranteed to be untried, untrue, unproved and untested. Eminent experts everywhere are saying, ‘We never heard of Pig’s Tail!’ No other medium can make that statement!
“We, the Associated Mad Scientists, are so sure you are going to love this new medium, that we are making this special introductory offer. Now listen carefully, because this offer may never be repeated in your community. And it’s good this week only. Here it is:
“If, at the end of this week, you don’t agree that Pig’s Tail is the most charming, the most beguiling medium, if you do not admit that the commercials on Pig’s Tail are the most stirring, the most sensitive and in the best taste . . . then, and listen carefully, folks, then the Association of Mad Scientists will accept you as a full, paid-up member and welcome you to the sty! There, now, isn’t that fair?”
The oh-so-typically syrupy voice dropped to a low, confidential, personal tone. “You see, folks, we’re not medicine men, we’re not tobacco men —we’re Mad men! And Guess What Drove Us Mad?” A brief, maniacal laugh chopped off dramatically, as the needle ran out of grooves and the arm slammed into the spindle,
Curry came out of his crouch with a startled grunt. It was only Monday, and the record had said, or implied, this would go for at least a week. “Sheila,” he said suddenly, “get me Hennessy at the net-work. On the private line.”
It took her forty minutes, during which time Curry and Hansen endured two more series of the best radio copy the 20th Century had produced. That was what they had boasted, anyway, when their own copy-writers had written much of it.
Hurrying along as if to cram more into the minute or so of commercials at each fifteen minute break, the whispering medium touched lightly and tellingly on several products, skipping from station to station, network to network for its pernicious gleanings.
Curry winced as the voice featured soap, tobacco, chewing gum and deodorants—oh, those deodorants!
“. . . so you see, men, all life is a game of selling . . . selling yourself. And you can’t sell when you smell. Spend a penny for your scent’s sake. Yes, spend two-bits on your armpits. It pays to spray with Ninks! N-i-n-k-s. Rhymes with Kinks, and there’ll be no kinks in your date with that lovely little . . .”
The call finally came through, and Curry coughed the cotton from his throat. “Hennessy? This is Curry, over at CHB & S. I want every spot of our copy pulled off the air until further notice. Got it?”
The receiver rattled in his ear and he snapped back, “Contracts be damned! Run the shows as scheduled and charge us, but don’t even breathe the name of any of our products. Have you got that straight?” He slammed down the phone and rapped into the intercom, “Sheila, take a memo. Copies to all ad agencies . . .”
BY TUESDAY morning, radio listeners were not too amazed to discover that all major networks were suddenly on sustaining. As Monday evening had worn on, the whispering voices had diminished in frequency and finally stopped. A great wave of relief swept the advertising world. Many had pictured all night sessions with sleepless populations descending upon radio stations and stores carrying the heckled products, and wreaking the vengeance that was in everyone’s heart.
Curry spent a restless night filled with obscene semantic nightmares, in which his nose was a long tentacle that twitched and probed as he conducted a market research on behalf of Ninx, Flanx and Smial deodorants and soaps.
He awakened reluctantly. It was blissfully quiet in his bachelor penthouse apartment. Then his eyes alighted on the clock on his night-stand. It said 6:57, and he held his breath. Any minute now he’d know.
He clutched the electric blanket and doubled up as music blasted the serenity of his brain, and a nauseating male quartet sang cheerfully:
“Good For Breakfast,
Lunch Or Dinners—
Eat The Breakfast—
Food Of Winners!
“Eat Alfies—the new, vitamin-packed, crisp, crunchy cereal made from the Tender little tops of the nitrogen-rich alfalfa plant. Boys and girls, winning atheletes say . . .”
“We’re off!” Curry moaned and buried his head uselessly in his pillow. That Alfie commercial had been killed last night, so it was not originating from the studio.
Curry should have known better. Anyone who could figure out a system like Pig’s Tail would be brainy enough to have his ammunition ready on tape when the advertisers pulled their radio commercials.
And taped they were. The select, Oscar-Winning peurilities that were the repetitious stock-in-trade of the big agencies, the big budget commercials screened from coast-to-coast networks, now gave new meaning to the old phrase, “Saturation advertising.”
His alarm chimed softly. His valet heard it and came in with a tray bearing his breakfast coffee and the two leading morning papers.
LAST NIGHT’S headlines had been gruesome, but strangely, this morning’s press was playing the story down. There was a distinctly different note. The newspaper admen had had time to think things over and realize that this Pig’s Tail thing was reflecting on the ludicrousness of the whole advertising field. They were guilty of some pretty far-fetched garbage, too.
Curry poured a cup of the black, scalding brew down his parched throat, dressed and left for the office. His chauffeur’s “Good morning, Mr. Curry,” was flatly uncordial. Traffic became progressively worse as they proceeded, until the impatient tycoon snarled at his driver, “Can’t you get the lead out? I’m already for a dish of—I’m already half an hour late!”
That again. God! This could wreck communications. How could a man think straight with that damned drumming in his bowl of Alfies with sugar and cream and just taste the crackly goodness?
Sheila wasn’t at her desk yet; half the force was late; Hansen showed up red-eyed and worthless. The phones were virtually useless, and no one knew anything.
In desperation, Curry told Hansen, “Check personnel and see if we don’t have somebody working for us who knows something about radio stuff. Maybe an amateur, you know, a ham. Can’t get anything sensible from the network, and the FCC has clammed up.”
Hansen had the files searched, but he reported that the “hobby list” yielded only one name, that of Josiah Rayburn, and he had called in sick yesterday morning.
“If we don’t get a line on this thing we’ll be ruined before the week is out,” Curry stormed. He snatched up his paper again. He had only skimmed the details at home; now he sank into the detail of the dozen stories pertaining to the new phenomenon.
There was an item on the schools, the universities. It was feared it would be necessary to discontinue classes.
Curry didn’t wonder. Imagine trying to give a lecture on Shakespeare or integral calculus with a Peppy-Sleppsi jingle fouling the detail.
Page two was devoted to speculations on Pig’s Tail. All theories ascribing the intrusion to natural causes—such as reflections from the moon, atmospheric conditions, etc.—were flatly discredited. The broadcasts pointed to intelligent editing, however depraved the motives might be.
These were offered as established data:
1. Signal incidence was confined to the U.S.A. continental land area, with only slight fringe effects along the Mexican and Canadian borders. Between, coverage was solid.
2. No ground waves were found. The diffused sky-waves slanted down at such acute angles to make hastily contrived direction-finders useless.
3. The radiation, itself, was an entirely new, complex wave-form, being hailed by electronic experts as the most important effect in the field of signal transmission since de Forest. Analysis was proceeding rapidly, and duplication and ultimate detection of the source or sources should be possible within a month . . .
A MONTH! Curry moaned and put aside the early edition as Sheila arrived with a later headline: President Offers Amnesty To Pig’s-Tailers. The story expanded the thought in words of few syllables. Congress had met in secret joint emergency session. The political significance of a national captive audience was obvious. The president’s message stated that if the inventors would conserve the secret of the process and turn it over to the authorities, no one would be prosecuted.
“No one will be prosecuted?” Hansen said incredulously over Curry’s shoulder.
Curry turned slowly in his well-oiled swivel-chair. “Albert, it looks like we are licked. Yes, I know; that fantastic phonograph record made these people sound like a bunch of drunken copy-writers. But suppose they are maniacs? What they’ve got on the ball Russia would give a billion dollars for.”
He bowed his leonine head and pressed his huge palms to his temples. “Meanwhile, don’t you see what they’re driving at?”
“National suicide, if you ask me! It’s a terrible thing! Mind-slavery, that’s what it is,” Hansen said.
Curry spoke into the intercom. “Sheila, do you have the envelope that screwy record came in?”
She brought it, and Curry studied the slogan below the address. “All around a pig’s tail . . .” he read aloud.
Sheila, who had turned away, whirled back suddenly.
“. . . is pork!” she said loudly, as if she had just solved the whole mystery.”
Curry grunted, “Hah?”
“All around a pig’s tail is pork,” she repeated. “It’s an old silly saying.”
“What in hell does that tell us?” her boss demanded.
They considered it for a long moment, and Sheila’s inspired look faded. To Curry’s mind, pork, brought only the words, “bread and butter,” and that made him think of Ransome-Burlingame. A decision suddenly jelled in his be-laboured brain.
“Sheila, get on the phone—use messengers if you have to—and arrange a meeting in our conference room for earliest date. Get as many of our major accounts as you can to have their ad execs here. I don’t care where they are. Tell them we’ll pay their plane fare, but this is life and death concerning their contracts with us!
He arose to his feet and began a slow pacing that turned into a marathon before the week was out.
IT WAS SATURDAY morning at last. The week had passed somehow, without a revolution or catastrophic disruption beyond the momentary faltering of business and industry on Black Tuesday. People showed up for work on time again, learned to talk in short, nervous spurts, and to proofread everything they wrote while under the momentary bombardments of verbiage.
The President’s message had been ignored, and the poisonous drivel had continued unabated. From seven A.M. to five P.M. the messages penetrated deeply into the brain, down where thoughts are born, and by Saturday it was no longer noteworthy to hear a bus-driver casually announce the name of a stop as, “First and Panty-girdle!”
Saturday, promptly at ten A.M. Curry strode purposefully into the conference room and faced eleven men down the long, polished table. An expectant cloud of cigar smoke hung over the men who represented four hundred million dollars in consumer production, and about ten and a half million in advertising revenue for CHB & S.
