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CEO
Marcus Johnson, CEO, stood at the pinnacle of his career on the 57th
floor of the Gateway Center complex in downtown Atlanta with the discerning
eagle eye of a businessman eyeballing the slithering humanity from his lofty
vantage point, contemplating total disaster. Stock prices for GlobalNet had
surged ever higher to an all time high that experts just two years previous had
written off as a dying dynasty. But, modern marketing techniques combined with
the best that technology could provide proved too much for these do-gooder
health Nazis who thought that just because people were dying from a product,
necessarily meant the product was flawed. CEO, Marcus Johnson, had showed 'em,
all right. Youngsters were literally smoking their lungs out everywhere. In
ballparks across the land, as the camera panned across vigorous healthy
athletes and cheerleaders kicking youthful legs and pumping pom-poms to
victory, there were two lasting impressions drilled into fans’ skulls:
cigarettes and beer. The very act of smoking was synonymous with clean living,
sports cars, volleyball on the beach with women in thong bikinis, major tennis
shoe endorsements, snorkeling, sailing, walking barefoot in the sand,
contemplating eternity, and especially, "It's not what your parents would
want you to be doing as a teenager." That was the key selling point.
Revolution. Confrontation. Babies were starving in Africa. The world was
screwed, and rock stars thirty years ago smoked dope; now, one good album and
the lead guitarist ODed on a good injection of designer drugs. Tobacco was a
plant that existed in nature, too. It grew in the sunshine.
Getting slam ass drunk and having a
good puff afterwards was as American as apple pie and peanut butter. And that
was just the problem. Advertisement was a two edged sword that cut right down
the middle between what everybody wanted to believe was true and what was an
outright distortion in order to make the truth much more palatable; and the
truth was always much more acceptable whenever it was salted with a tad grain
of doubt. If smoking were so bad for youngsters then did parents think
youngsters so immature as to not recognize the real dangers in the world around
them? Didn't some guy in the paper just step off a street corner and get hit
with a thirty-ton truck? And what about the terrorist threats on Channel 4 from
Russia claiming they could explode a nuclear device in downtown Detroit? If
youngsters couldn't recognize the dangers of something that was so obvious,
then it was hardly the fault of the manufacturer in creating a product that was
no worse off on teenagers than breathing the exhaust fumes of a city bus? Okay,
so some lady in California is hooked up to a respirator, with clear plastic
tubes cut into her throat to get oxygen to her brain. She was the other
generation, the older generation, the Vietnam thing, the stuff on the public
channel that you greased by on your way to the jammin' rockin' music video
station. She remembered the Beatles in Atlanta: what a crock full of shit. Love
me do. Not like funk psyche out rap: "We dead, we dead, it dead, we funk,
funk a lot, shock a lock, shock a death, reality, big death, your mothers womb,
your father is a junkie." That was music. It's the silliness your parents
fought for whenever they were young, that they grew up knowing was an absolute
crock full of shit that had to be rebelled against in order to raise you
without the hypocrisy of what was obvious to them, now, that's all a crock full
of shit that they strap to your ego to hobble you around so that you take out a
cigarette behind the hedges in the backyard, striking a cool match, thinking,
"Man, what a crock full of shit this is."
Fear, that’s what drove the market.
That was modern marketing for you.
That's why marketing devised low tar
and nicotine cigarettes: in order to create the statistics that proved the
results that the statistics created, in order to pacify the public’s perception
of what they believed they ought to be smoking. Low tar and nicotine cigarettes
had just the same tar and nicotine as regular cigarettes. It was a machine that
manufactured air holes in the paper, to dilute the concentration of tar and
nicotine that another machine detected as a design function of the test. The
smoker simply pinched the air holes with their fingers and lips and got the
full hit of tar and nicotine. That way, everybody remained content: the smoker
with their addiction, the employees at GlobalNet with their families to
support, and the Unemployment Commission who didn't need another bankruptcy to
burden their statistics. That was progress for you. People were dying of cancer
like ever before, but fascist health Nazis with spineless Congressmen could be
satisfied with the results that proved nothing on flashy graphs and charts with
twelve second sound bites to the contrary extolling the virtues of freedom,
that Congressmen could take back to their district to pound the podium in an
agitated state of reform fever. With technology, cancer looked quite safe well
into the enjoyment of the next century, in fact.
It was the declining values and
cynicism of young people, though, that especially bothered Marcus Johnson, CEO,
inspiring him to launch the disastrous campaign during the Los Angeles race
riots, that, on the surface, seemed like such a good opportunity to seize the
moment and associate the fine products of GlobalNet with healthy life and
zestful living. Adolescence was where the smoking addiction began and where
GlobalNet had its most successes in the past ten decades. Take a teenage girl
with any self-confidence and glob some fat on her thighs with no boobs and you
had a walking neurosis that would gladly vomit her brains to struggle into a
bikini. Then show a model strolling a beach in a thong bikini with a golden
tan, laughing with her guy friend in the convertible red sports car as she
holds her finger against the receding tide, with a glance of a cigarette held
aloft, panning the shot back on her nice well rounded ass and trim waistline.
Fear, that’s how you made a sell. But, how were you to account for these little
hoodlums in the Los Angeles basin who went about on national television beating
motorist brains out for the sheer excuse that there was no justification for
beating a motorist brains out that white cops had pulled to a stop, so
African-Americans immediately began beating up Hispanics, and the Hispanics
targeted the Koreans with large rocks, and the Koreans grabbed guns to protect
their stores from burning to the ground. Three representatives of the
African-American community, who didn't have the slightest idea what was
occurring, were immediately flown to New York, to the taping of an early
morning talk show where they assured the American public that, "Something
is happening." Then the President issued a statement, and the National
Guard was sent out to quell looters.
"An advertising coup!"
CEO, Marcus Johnson’s mind raced ahead in the midst of chaos and gang violence
killing, in a brilliant stroke of inspiration as he envisioned the cool
GlobalNet logo neatly emblazoned for ten thousand television cameras and news
reporters across the planet - T-shirts and beer mugs!
"Most importantly, this will be
good for the community," Marcus raised his CEO hand to the overwhelming
response of support and admiration that came whiffing across the board room
like the subtle sweet smell of the Danish rolls and powdered donuts.
"GlobalNet is committed to the youths of this nation, and this T-shirt and
beer mug campaign will only enhance our position in the coming quarter when the
usual quota of health Nazis make us appear before yet another Congressional
subcommittee about the usual birth defects, etc., lung cancer, etc., second
hand smoke, etc., etc., etc. that our product is notorious for causing. We'll
put a slogan on the T-shirt that reads something like, 'Just Say No To Random
Teen Violence'."
That was the slogan of the
disastrous summer campaign that saw GlobalNet stock slide an impressive 6.25
percentage points, jeopardizing his CEO position in marble elevators that
whisked him away to his corner office on the 57th floor with an
expressionless secretary sitting behind a glass desk with a picture of a son
and daughter that she never talked about, but real nice looking legs in a short
skirt whenever she wore them. Marcus greeted, with a simple CEO greeting,
"Hello," and she said to him with a nice secretarial, "Hello,"
and when someone came into his office that Marcus felt comfortable as CEO he
might offer a drink and say, "Judy really does have nice legs," and
the visitor might say, "Yeah. That's her name, Judy, uh?"
"Listen, what do you really
think of the T-shirt and beer mug campaign for the Los Angeles basin during the
race riots?" Marcus leaned forward in his CEO leather bound seat, folding
his hands together on his desk in rapt, concentrated attention.
"Marcus, I'm going to be quite
frank with you," the man twenty-three years younger than Marcus that
Marcus had beat only seventeen consecutive games of CEO racquetball in a row,
adjusted his glasses. "I was never a big supporter of competitive ice
skating, but your LA campaign has the potential of being as big, if not bigger,
than putting decals of our product tattooed across the forehead of the entire
Ugandan team during nationals last Christmas. Now, that was excitement, and it
certainly wasn't our liability especially when that unfortunate young lady was
killed when the lighting boom crashed down in the middle of her routine. There
was her forehead beamed across the planet with you issuing a statement of
horrified regret at the terrible loss of such an athlete when GlobalNet had
recognized her talent at such an early age. That certainly killed the Senate
subcommittee that had you sweating carcinogens being linked with sudden infant
mortality. GlobalNet grossed two hundred and thirty-five million bucks that
quarter. This could go through the roof, Marcus."
Of course, the stock price of
GlobalNet did not go through the roof that summer going into the critical fall
season that was further capped off with the Los Angeles race riots that was
going to be his biggest business triumph that quickly turned into his biggest
business rout. The Los Angeles race riots couldn’t have ended on a worse note
to cigarette smokers around the globe who tuned in to cable television just in
time to see GlobalNet consultants dragged out of red vans with NBA basketball
logos plastered to the side panels. The red vans with the NBA basketball logos
plastered to the side panels were yet another inspiration of the great CEO,
Marcus Johnson, for a city ripped apart by racial gang violence.
"These young men crave something in their lives," Marcus
looked up from a fourteen-foot putt across a green that sloped slightly off to
the left with a mean bunker shot if played with a tad too much drift on the
ball. "What do these young men crave?"
"Attention," The Man From
A.C.L.U. with glasses, a pager, a cellular phone and portable fax in a leather
briefcase, said.
"No," Marcus stepped up to
putt. "Good thought though, Brad. But, what these young men do crave is
basketball."
"Basketball?" queried The
Man From A.C.L.U.
"Basketball. Trust me on this
one. Remember, basketball isn't just a game, but an opportunity. If there was
no basketball, there very well could be no slam-dunk. And what is it with each
slam dunk that is drilled into the skulls of fans?"
"Sports highlights?"
"No. Good, but no. When the cameras
pan in for the highlights, look close on the walls surrounding the head of the
awesome explosion of power of the athlete as he puts a silly ball through a
silly hoop. I mean, big deal," Marcus took a practice CEO stroke in the
chemically perfected grass. "So what that one team manages to get a ball
through a net more than another? You think GlobalNet budgets twenty million
dollars annually to get our name on the walls in auditoriums because we like
men who can jump real high and dribble? Get a grip," he tapped the ball
where it arched off with a sudden breaking lurch to the left, rolling short of
the pin flag. "Shit," he straightened up.
"Shit," The Man From
A.C.L.U immediately concurred. "Tough lay."
The red vans in Los Angeles were
instantly commissioned with slam-dunking faces of grimacing warriors as balls
were smashed through a cloth net mesh, the cowering faces of vanquished
defenders sent reeling to mortal collapse on the hardwood floor below. The
first squad car that spotted the van called for backup, impounding the vehicle,
hauling everybody off to jail.
"We're on a peace keeping
mission," the contract employee with a number 612 on his state issued
orange overalls explained to the Judge. "We're representatives of
GlobalNet. You know, 'One Hit Of Flavor Is Worth More Than A Gram Of
Satisfaction'."
"Don't you people comprehend
there is a riot going on in this city," the Judge shook his gavel at them.
"This is a god damned war zone, and you're telling me you're here on some
horse shit peace keeping crap?"
"Well, specifically,"
number 612 went on hurriedly, "We're here to hand out T-shirts and beer
mugs."
"T-shirts and beer mugs! Good,
that's very good! Very commendable."
"For the cigarette
company," added number 1423.
"Well, if I worked for that
company. . .," the Judge slowly drew a breath.
"It's not our company,"
612 interjected. "We aren't actually employed there. Our company actually
has nothing to do with what we do.”
“What do you do?” asked the judge.
“We don’t do anything anymore. We’re
contractors. The company we did work for went over to Japan with its production
unit to cut the bottom line on the intake manifold of fuel-injected motors.”
“Fuel-injected motors were quite an
advancement over the previous models,” 1423 interjected.
“That’s what you’re doing in this
city handing out T-shirts and beer mugs?” the Judge eased back in his chair.
“In a company you aren’t employed, in a city you don’t belong, driving a red
van in the middle of a riot. T-shirts and beer mugs!”
“It makes people feel better about
themselves,” said 864.
“So does killing,” the
Judge banged his gavel, hearing the argument somewhere before - a speech he
gave in college, perhaps? - fining GlobalNet two million and adjourning the
proceedings of three felonies until after a burger with cheese and large fries
with sweet tea for lunch. It was the ‘Lunch in a Box, Good Meal Deal’. There
was a picture of a basketball player slam-dunking a ball on the cardboard box
of fries. It was a promotional thing.
James Manton has traveled extensively throughout the United States,
in the early years throughout the western US, to several winters working with a seismic crew in Alaska,
and most recently to England and New Zealand.
His early enthusiasm as a writer was interrupted in the mid 1980's
with Lotus 123 and his first PC. DOS was soon conquered, then C.
He became a consultant, moving around quickly, gaining skills.
Windows was the next hurdle followed by object oriented C++ and Delphi, XML and Oracle.
He lives in Dallas and is a software developer for an Internet company in Hawaii and New York.
The first two chapters of his novel in progress, MicroMan, was a finalist in the Santa Fe Writers Project.
Email: James Manton
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