Ad Nomad Read online

  Arlen engaged Vaklemptis in a lively dialogue. Dane observed that the two men closely resembled one another, from the curly, gray hair to the narrow, guarded eyes to the hunched shoulders and bowlegged gaits. Even more remarkable than their physical likeness were their rapid jaw movements as they jabbered incessantly. They could have been brothers or tribesmen. But what tribe would that be?

  The WIF troupe rode a construction elevator up to the bell tower loft on the 11th floor where Dane took photographs.

  The views of the harbor and downtown Manhattan inspired Dane. Downtown skyscrapers thrust skyward in a parabola of steel and concrete like a gleaming inversion of Niagara Falls. The power of construction made rock flow out of rock. Dane shot a roll of film and outlined ideas for a concept whose headlines flashed across his mind like captions for the skyline that filled his eyes.

  If real estate was the treasure of New York, the harbor was its source. The city was a world but the rivers, harbor and the ocean beyond were the world from which it emerged. DUMBO was a sleepy Brooklyn waterfront but first it was the nexus of sky and water. Dane’s campaign would show how a DUMBO resident experienced and transcended New York through the bell tower’s spectacular views. He spoke the headline that translated the rapture of the senses into the first commandment of real estate: Location, location, sensation! New York Living and Beyond.

  After Dane clicked his pictures on the terrace he ambled through the interior space. “The lofts are huge,” he thought. “But with no people, there is no world.” In New York, space sold better than sex, but what if he blended space and sex? Dane imagined a world for DUMBO: a furnished loft, its owners wearing robes on the balcony on a Sunday morning after a night of passionate love-making, surveying all that their eyes possessed—the splendor of Manhattan, river, harbor. They would remove their bathrobes in the heat and stretch their arms skyward so that the sunlight and salt air embraced their suntanned bodies. He listened to the man’s thoughts, “A jug of wine, a crusty baguette—and Dumbo.” Yes, there was a headline. And the woman: she spoke her piece in French, “Mon Cheri, la vie est belle à DUMBO.” Then she switched to Italian, “La vita! L’amore! La DUMBO!” Dane was overwhelmed by the rapture of his fantasy. The subject of his second campaign would be the sexy denizens of DUMBO. He would call it “La Dolce DUMBO!”

  31. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DUMBO

  On Monday Dane wanted Saroja, the art director, to do layouts for his concept but she had injured her hand opening a can of dog food and was out of action. Dane cut out pictures and glued them to paper under his headlines like he had done as a student. He was so confident of his concept that he did not care about his crude techniques.

  In the Wittmans’ absence, Arlen called the creative review that afternoon and ran the meeting. His work was professionally artdirected and mounted on foam board, with the best color output. He had done three approaches: “A Loftier Way to Live,” “DUMBO: the Next Right Move” and finished with his tour de force, “When the Bell Tower Chimes, It’s Time for Dumbo.” Arlen was ebullient about the last concept because it incorporated all of the property’s features: the building, the neighborhood and the bell tower. It included a photograph of a group of hip people staring at the reflection of the bell tower in the East River.

  After Dane presented his concept, “Location, location, sensation!” and explained the thinking behind it, he paused before the main event—“La Dolce DUMBO!”

  He set the scene, describing in detail the naked people on their bell-tower condo balconies as they toasted the harbor with glasses of Dom Perignon, fed one another chocolate dipped strawberries, and lifted their glasses to the rising sun.

  When he finished, the room was silent; his colleagues’ mouths were agape.

  “Very interesting,” Arlen said, “Okay, so let’s get rolling on my ads.”

  “Wait!” Dane countered as he came out of his self-induced erotic trance. “You said we needed different viewpoints. Now that you have them, you’re going with your point of view three times over?”

  “It’s not a democracy,” Arlen replied. “And it has nothing to do with who did the ads. If you came up with something outstanding I’d say so. It’s the work that counts…”

  “The work should count but you have the delusion that your work is genius,” Dane cried. “This campaign needs real ideas, not warmed over clichés. Let Paul decide.”

  “Paul isn’t here. I’m the boss,” Arlen said.

  “You can’t do this!” Dane exclaimed. “We need an idea equal to the majestic views. Your ego is getting in the way.”

  “Your attitude is in the way!” Arlen said.

  “Don’t you see? We need La Dolce Dumbo! Dane cried “What are you offering the people? When the bell tower chimes it’s time for DUMBO! What does that mean?”

  Dane performed his interpretation of Arlen’s favorite line by lumbering around the room stooped like a hunchback, swinging his arms, crying, “Ding-dong-ding-dong!” until he noticed in his peripheral view that his colleagues were staring at him aghast.

  No one in that room had ever seen this before at WIF—or anywhere else. What would Dane do next? In the apprehensive silence, Dane intuited that he had gone too far.

  “Are you finished?” Arlen asked.

  “Yes,” Dane said gratefully since it allowed him to minimize the damage.

  “We need to talk,” Arlen said and stomped off. Dane followed him out but Arlen did not talk to Dane. He wanted him to think about what he had done.

  Dane was in a panic. He believed Arlen was phoning Paul to have him fired. This was the only pretext Paul needed. “How could I be so stupid?” Dane asked himself rhetorically. “It’s a job!” Later Arlen appeared at Dane’s squalid office. Dane was relieved to see him and greeted him with a friendly, “Hello!”

  “I wanted to be fair,” Arlen said. “I described your work over the phone to Maury. He also hated it.”

  Under the guise of sportsmanship, Arlen slashed Dane’s ego again, triggering another outpouring of Dane’s anger.

  “Described my work? That’s ridiculous!”

  Arlen shook his fist at Dane before storming off. “You’ll never work in this town when I’m finished with you!”

  32. BUS POP

  Dane was sick with rage and frustration—at Arlen, at himself, at everything. He had lost his chance to ascend to advertising greatness and he might have lost his job.

  He was meeting Becky and Iris after Iris’s ballet class. How could he face them after putting their financial security at risk? He took a bus up to Lincoln Center. At a stop near Columbus Circle, a stocky biker type with tattoos pushed Dane aside as he moved to the bus exit. Infuriated by the man’s rudeness, Dane shoved him in the back. The strong man turned and landed a hard blow to Dane’s arm and ribs as he stepped down. Then he challenged Dane to fight in the street.

  Dane knew there was no reason to brawl with this man but after being pushed around at work, he couldn’t tolerate being bullied on a bus. Besides, his arm and ribs were throbbing and he needed to retaliate. Dane stepped off the bus and the two men circled one another. Dane assumed a boxing stance, his body angled to his opponent. He bobbed, he weaved—and he kept his distance.

  Dane’s aggressive adversary soon dispensed with the sweet science and went into street fight mode. He lunged like a wrestler, swung at Dane’s head with an open hand like a mauling bear, and dealt a glancing, scraping blow at Dane’s head with his fingernails. Dane sidestepped, backed away and threw a wild kick he learned years before in a complementary kung fu class. Although the kick lacked sufficient force and aim to inflict anything but laughter, and never approached its target—his opponent’s groin—it made contact just below the man’s knee, causing him to lose his balance. The burly bruiser stumbled and fell hard on the pavement, landing on his arms and wrists. He screamed in pain and writhed on the ground, swearing he’d kill the “skinny bastard that did this” to him.

  Dane gasped and clutched his ribs. He w
as sure the man had cracked them with his first punch. He staggered uptown to meet Becky and Iris at Lincoln Center. The pain dealt by the ruffian’s blows screamed its reproach at Dane’s reckless anger.

  All the pain and swelling directed Dane’s thoughts to the real source of his anger. For the past month his career at WIF had gained momentum. It seemed possible that he would do big things; his reinvention would be complete. Now he was trapped as a secondstringer, reporting to Arlen, getting squashed by Arlen. The resident genius had to justify the money he was paid and so did the Wittmans who paid him. Dane was the reliable economy copywriter. Regardless what he did, he would be viewed at WIF as the world’s oldest junior copywriter.

  Becky immediately noticed the scratch on Dane’s forehead and his strained breathing. He said he fell on the sidewalk so she would not worry. That night Dane could not sleep. His body ached but it was nothing compared with his anguish over risking his job and career for a DUMBO building. “You idiot,” he thought, “You have a family. Remember why you’re in advertising in the first place.” Dane swore he would be cooler in the future, if there was a future, and would never again risk his job for ideas.

  The next day no one was around to fire Dane or note his contrition. The Wittman brothers and Arlen went to the pitch without him. For the first time, other people in the agency looked Dane in the eye with friendliness. Was this how they showed sympathy for his exclusion from the pitch after he worked so hard on it? Maybe they respected him for standing up for himself. Or they recognized him as one of them…the low-paid, voiceless help.

  When the pitch team returned—the Wittmans, Arlen and Saroja—they quickly dispersed—grim and tight-lipped—and closed their office doors. Dane’s behavior was never mentioned. Apparently, he was an afterthought, a status for which he was grateful. Dane was smart enough to say nothing but was glad the pitch had gone badly since a poor outcome validated his excluded work and eclipsed his extreme behavior. He was not proud of his selfish attitude but he could not repress it. He was 44 years old and viewed Arlen’s failure as his only chance for success.

  33. AFTERMATH

  “Dane. See Paul.”

  It was the phone page that always made Dane sick. It did not sound like the Paul who laughed at his copy, but the tyrant Paul who answered to no one and made up rules as he went along.

  Dane straightened his shoulders. He expected to be axed and wanted to make a dignified appearance like the soldiers marching to their executions in Paths of Glory. For two months, when each payday passed without a call to Wittman’s office, Dane thought he actually had a chance of lasting twenty weeks—the threshold for unemployment benefits.

  But this was no payday. It was Wednesday. The DUMBO pitch had gone badly on Tuesday and Dane had acted out on Monday. It was a perfect day for payback. In the fallout of failure, Paul could blame Dane for everything. Paul was on the phone when he noticed Dane standing in the doorway. He waved his hand and pointed to the chair on the other side of the desk. A voice in Dane cried, “Don’t sit. Run. Save yourself.”

  When the call was over, Paul observed Dane analytically as if attempting to understand a newly discovered hominid.

  “So, Dane.”

  “Yes?”

  “Oy, what am I going to do with you?”

  “Give me a big assignment so I can be on the cover of Ad Age?”

  Paul sighed. A smirk curled his lips just as his lunch arrived at the end of Deirdre’s manicured fingertips. She dropped it on Paul’s desk, gave Dane an impatient glance and walked out. Paul extracted an aromatic chicken parm sandwich from the bag and took a voracious bite.

  “Dane, what happened with you and Arlen…it wasn’t good.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No.”

  “I was only defending my ideas. I wanted you to get that business.”

  “I appreciate that you care. But insubordination? Arguing? This is not good.”

  “I didn’t realize I was insubordinate since Arlen was not technically my boss.”

  Paul ruminated the sandwich and the thought. Yes, Dane had scored points. Wittman studied the world’s oldest junior copywriter. Dane winced with every labored breath from the ribs he bruised in his bus stop beat-down. He seemed less pushy and more sympathetic.

  “Okay. This is what we’re going to do. We’ll move you to another office. You’ll be working with Roger. We’ll see how that goes, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “And don’t make enemies.”

  “I won’t,” Dane promised. For that moment Dane meant it. His hands were shaking in his pockets. When he closed the door of the conference room, he laughed. He had escaped termination again. Making enemies seemed to be the price of making his way but he was given the second chance for which he prayed. Now he must honor his pledge never to risk his job for his ego. He would take opportunities when given, cooperate and do what was asked of him.

  Although he was banished to the nether end of the office, far from his benefactor and from the source of his creative tasks, Dane was in a state of grace.

  “Yes!” he exulted. “I am a survivor!”

  Case 1-H

  SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

  34. IN THE CLOSET

  Dane was evicted from the dusty conference room he shared with discarded computer parts, as Paul decreed, but his exile was only part of an agency-wide expansion. The Wittmans sent out a special bulletin that WIF would take over a vacant office suite and occupy the entire second floor. This prompted a wave of optimism. It meant growth, prosperity and more room for everyone.

  His new workspace was a former supply closet abutting the creative director’s corner office, on the opposite end of the floor from Paul. It did not denote promotion so much as detention. Sufficient space was provided for Dane, a desk and a book-case. When he tipped his chair it leaned against the wall behind him.

  Despite its punitive dimensions, the office cell provided unforeseen benefits. It was near the studio so Dane was among creative people and beyond Paul’s supervision. Perhaps now he could separate himself from the Wittmans and craft his own image with the account people. His nook was secluded, too. If he got drowsy at four, he shut his door and took short naps. But when he opened his door, a plume of smoke drifted out of the creative director’s office next door and filled the hallway.

  People seemed to forget about Dane in his new locale but when he thought he was safe from the others, they flushed him out. Once while his head was bowing and his chin tipping over his chest, the door opened and banged against the corner of his desk. Dane started, his chair tilted back, his knees smacked his desk and he fell out of his chair in agony. It was Deirdre Ryan wanting to know if everything was all right.

  35. ADVERTISEMENTS FOR HIMSELF

  Dane accepted his closet office and demotion with quiet patience and good will. He had learned his lesson after the DUMBO debacle. He was intent on keeping his job and being a good employee.

  Even so, in the tiny room, he could not prevent a colony of thoughts from festering in the anaerobic recesses of his subversive brain. He had been dumped in an obscure corner, he remained Wittman’s personal copywriter, and he barely made a living. Creative assignments trickled in—name a new building here and do some signage there—but these tasks were neither here nor there. They would not make advertising pay off. He still earned less than his teaching salary.

  Idleness was Dane’s persistent problem in large part because he was a diligent worker. A messy desk made him nervous, so when he received an assignment he worked overtime to complete it.

  To keep his mind and self-esteem alive and advertise his skills, Dane wrote proverbs and taped them to his door. One morning he arrived at his closet office and his proverbs were gone. Dane asked if anyone had seen his proverbs. He was told to see Gary.

  “Talk to Paul,” Gary said.

  “I personally had your proverbs removed,” Paul said.

  “But why? Dane said. “They’re creative and wise.”


  “They did not reflect the agency’s work. We post only our creative.”

  “You’ve violated my First Amendment rights,” Dane pointed out.

  “You can write what you want,” Paul replied. “But it’s my right not to have it posted. I don’t want them representing the agency to clients.”

  As if clients were strolling by Dane’s closet!

  Was it possible that Dane had been in his first advertising job for only six months and it felt like he had been there for years?

  36. GREEN ACRES

  Over time Dane’s exile to the other end of the WIF offices went from liberating to tedious. He was on Paul’s version of probation.

  It was 4 PM. Dane tilted back against the office wall a foot behind him. He inhaled cigarette smoke from the creative director’s office when Alfonse, the psychopathic designer, opened the adjacent door to return to the studio. Julius, the studio manager, reprimanded Alfonse and Alfonse shouted back. Dane was idle, tired and uninspired. The job that had meant so much to him felt like a dead end. Why did his dreams end this way? WIF was shaping up as a garbage heap to him, and advertising as a fiasco, when Paul Wittman’s voice came over the intercom. “Dane, see Paul.”

  Now Dane was immune to this summons. He no longer expected to be fired. Or he was so dispirited that he wished to be put out of his misery.

  When he entered Wittman’s office, the benevolent despot was using chopsticks to slurp up Udon noodles from a Styrofoam container.

  “So, Dane, are you busy?”

  Dane no longer felt chest pains when asked this question. He concluded that Wittman already knew the answer and was toying with him.

  “I have something for you. It’s Green Acres. They’ve been my client for years and I don’t have time anymore. I’m bequeathing it to you.”