Making the Galaxy Great

At 1:55, Jason strolled past Evie’s cubicle on his way to the conference room. She flashed him a mischievous grin.

“Nadine just walked by with a cart full of coffee and waters and stuff. Have fun.”

Jason made a finger-stuck-in-an-electrical-socket face. “I’d rather be chased by drug dealers,” he confided.

Nadine was just leaving the room when he walked in and she gave him a stern, disapproving glance. “I hope we don’t have any awful interruptions again today,” she said as she left.

Rick Wallace, the new product manager for Buster’s, was the next to arrive. He was a couple of years younger than Jason, and had been promoted to product manager about three months ago from a regional sales position. He was tall, with waxy brown hair and a slight convex curve beginning to form in his midsection. He reached a huge hand out to Jason as if they were meeting for the first time.

“So, Jason, have you tried out the new 17th at Winterhill?” he asked eagerly.

Jason rued the day he had admitted to Rick that he had played golf once or twice in his life, without clarifying that he never intended to play another round unless a gun was held to his head.

“I’ve been focusing on basketball the last couple of months,” he replied. This was true insofar as he had played basketball one evening with his college friend Ed and some of Ed’s coworkers when one of their regulars was on vacation.

“Ah, how’s that going?”

“So far so good. Haven’t broken anything yet.”

“That’s . . . great,” said Rick distractedly as he focused his attention on the tray Nadine had just left on the side table. “Just fruit? No cookies?”

Jason shook his head gravely. “I propose we call off the meeting.”

Sandy Carlyle, Schnitzelberg’s webmaster, dashed into the room, panting from rushing down the hall. “Oh, good, I’m not late. Where is everyone?”

Jason shrugged. ”They probably heard about the cookie fiasco.”

He offered her a cup of coffee, while a young man named Alan Patterson, the assistant account representative from Barnes & Bottwick, slipped into the conference room with the stealth of a pickpocket. He was carrying a large, black leather portfolio of the sort used by advertising people. He was also dressed in a black jacket and very skinny black jeans, with a collarless gray shirt of some shiny fabric. His hair was trimmed short on top and even shorter along the sides.

“Oh ,Alan. How was your flight from Newark?” asked Sandy.

Alan made a short, somber, fluttering sweep of the air with his left hand, which could have signified almost anything except happiness, then returned to the delicate task of setting his portfolio against the wall. “Gwen will be here in a moment,” he said to his shoes.

“There they are,” said Morris Ambling as he entered the room, as though pleasantly surprised that the meeting attendees were actually in attendance. He was accompanied by Gwen Glass, the Barnes & Bottwick senior account executive. “Fourteen hundred hours. Everyone ready to go?Gwen, can I get you some coffee? Water? Fruit?”

Gwen Glass placed her overstuffed satchel on one end of the table. She wore a fluorescent yellow blazer, nearly the same color as her hair, over a black skirt and black stockings. She was thin, in the way that advertising people often are, yet her skin still seemed tightly stretched over her meager frame.

Ambling clapped his hands together. ”Folks, the first thing I want us to do is let Gwen show us the final versions of our TV spots. As you know, these spots start running in just a few weeks, right before the baseball . . . er, playoff series . . . whatever. This will be the most extensive, and most expensive, campaign that Schnitzelberg Beer has ever launched. And of course, we hope, the most successful.”He smiled broadly and confidently. “Gwen, we’re ready if you are.”

Gwen motioned to Alan, who lifted a laptop computer onto the conference table with great effort. He attached the cable that allowed the video to project on the screen at one end of the room. Jason imagined watching the ads as holograms from a demmerat instead.

In the first spot, titled “Beach Bum,” a group of young men and women were gathered on the beach, waiting for someone named Dirk.

“As we discussed in our preliminary meetings, all of the characters are young and physically fit,” Gwen pointed out, though this fact would have been impossible to miss. “They are the ideal to which our target audience aspires. And Morris, you’ll note that we followed your instructions with regard to the model mix and replaced one of the brunettes with a redhead; and the black male has more Caucasian features than the original.”

“Excellent,” said Morris. He leaned back in his chair, with his big hands lassoed around his stomach.

Please tip over, Jason muttered under his breath. Please please please.

Seven seconds into the spot, one of the women in the ad pointed off–screen and said: “Look, there he is! Dirk!” The others began to chorus: “Dirk!”

There was a cut to a beautiful German Shepherd at the wheel of a Jeep, which he humorously appeared to drive onto the beach. The young people then broke into a spontaneous display of raucous excitement and tan skin. The young men sprinted to the car to unload open coolers, in which cans of Buster’s beer could be seen prominently peering through the ice (which somehow hadn’t melted in the bright sun), while the women grouped around babe-magnet Dirk. In the closing scene, Dirk was on a large blanket, wearing sunglasses, while the humans threw Frisbees and played volleyball. A voiceover provided the tagline: “Bust up the place with Buster’s.”

“We also incorporated your request to eliminate the scene where two men are ‘shooting’ beer from the cans,” said Gwen, locking eyes with Morris Ambling.

The second spot featured Dirk the dog jumping from an airplane with six-packs of Buster’s beer strapped on his back, to rescue thirsty hikers stranded on a mountainside. Both ads featured the address of the new Buster’s web site — Sandy’s responsibility — where visitors could register to “Win a Buster’s Beer Blast.”

When it ended, Gwen looked around the room as a confident smile stretched her gaunt cheeks to their limit. “Well, what do we think?”

“It’s killer,” said Rick. “Really killer.”

“Yes, I think we’re getting to a good place,” said Ambling, who unfortunately had maintained his balance on his chair.

Jason felt a nasty, gnawing sense of irritation burrowing into his gut. He took a deep breath. He swallowed firmly. “I . . .” he began, and all eyes were suddenly on him. He realized at that moment that he didn’t actually like his job or most of his colleagues.

“I just don’t know what we’re doing with this. It doesn’t feel right at all.”

He held up a copy of the demographic profile he’d brought. “We’re not selling beer to underage drinkers on spring break. Buster’s is good beer. It’s not some mainstream shit that tastes like carbonated water with alcohol. It’s a pilsener that’s based on a recipe that the Hauck family brought from Bohemia when they came to America. So I don’t know why we’re trying to sell our beer the same way as those mainstream beers. We don’t need dogs, or horses, or beaches—”

“Then what the hell do we need?” Morris Ambling had risen from his chair while Jason spoke and his face was noticeably rose-colored under his mane of hair. Jason wondered if he was about to be fired. He turned away from Ambling and everyone else at the table and stared out the window. Cottony clouds floated across a blue sky. They looked like puffy spaceships.

“Aliens!” he gasped.

“What?” said Rick.

Jason gulped. Time to take a leap.

“We need aliens. We show a spaceship landing in front of a store. A tractor beam pulls a bunch of Buster’s beer out of the store. And then you see inside the spaceship and an alien takes a sip and his little gray face bursts into a smile. Our tagline could be something like: Busters. Worth the trip.”

The entire meeting, including Gwen Glass and her protege, Alan, were staring wide-eyed at Jason. He could feel sweat meandering in a slow, ticklish stream down his back.

“I . . . love it!” cried Ambling, smacking the table. “Except I think we should have them land on the beach. And maybe the dog gets on the spaceship with them.”

“Maybe the dog flies the ship when it leaves,” Rick suggested.

“Alan, are you capturing all of this?” said Gwen.

Jason sat down and stared at his hands. If only there had been cookies.