'Tell me what you really think,' Vic said to Rob. 'No bullshit. You think it's a bust?'
Rob looked at him, seemed about to speak, then shook his head.
Roger said, 'No, go ahead. We all set out to sea in the same pea-green boat. Or Red Razberry Zingers carton, or whatever. You think it's no go, don't you?'
'I don't think there's a chance in hell,' Rob said. 'You'll work up a good presentation - you always do. You'll get your background
work done in New York, and I have a feeling that everything the market-research boys can tell you on such short notice is all going to be in your favor. And Yancey Harrington.... I think he'll emote his fucking heart out. His big deathbed scene. He'II he so good he'll make Bette Davis in Dark Victory look like Ali MacGraw in Love
'Oh, but it's not like that at all -' Roger began.
Rob shrugged. 'Yeah, maybe that's a little unfair. Okay. Call it his curtain call, then. Whatever you want to call it, I've been in this business long enough to believe that there wouldn't he a dry eye in the house after that commercial was shown over a three- or four-week period. It would knock ~body on their asses. But -'
The beers came. The waiter said to Rob, 'Mr. Johnson asked me to tell you that he has several parties of three waiting, Mr. Martin.'
'Well, you run back and tell Mr. Johnson that the boys are on their last round and to keep his undies dry. Okay, Rocky?'
The waiter smiled, emptied the ashtray, and nodded.
He left. Rob turned back to Vic and Roger. 'So what's the bottom line? You're bright boys. You don't need a one-legged cameraman with a snootful of beer to tell you where the bear shat in the buckwheat.'
'Sharp just won't apologize,' Vic said. 'That's what you think, isn't it?' Rob saluted him with his bottle of beer. 'Goto the head of the class.'
'It's not an apology,' Roger said plaintively. 'It's a fucking explanation.'
'You see it that way,' Rob answered, 'but will he) Ask yourself that.
I've met that old geezer a couple of times. He'd see it in terms of the captain deserting the sinking ship ahead of the women and children, giving up the Alamo, every stereotype you can think of.
No, I'll tell you what I think is going to happen, my friends.' He raised his glass and drank slowly. 'I think a valuable and all too short relationship is going to come to an end very soon now. Old man Sharp is going to listen to your proposal, he's going to shake his head, he's going to usher you out. Permanently. And the next PR firm will be chosen by his son, who will make his Pick based on which one he believes will give him the freest rein to indulge his crackpot ideas.'
'Maybe,' Roger said. 'But maybe he'll
'Maybe doesn't matter shit one way or the other,' Vic said vehemently. 'The only difference between a good advertising man and a good snake-oil salesman is that a good advertising man does the best job he can with the materials at hand ... without stepping outside the bounds of honesty. 'Rat's what this commercial is about. If he turns it down, he's turning down the best we can do.
And that's the end. Toot-finny.' He snuffed his cigarette and almost knocked over Roger's half-full bottle of beer. His hands were shaking.
Rob nodded. 'I'll drink to that.' He raised his glass. 'A toast, gentlemen.'
Vic and Roger raised their own glasses.
Rob thought for a moment and then said: 'May things turn out all right, even against the odds.'
'Amen,' Roger said.
They clinked their glasses together and drank. As he downed the rest of his beer, Vic found himself thinking about Donna and Tad again.
George Meara, the mailman, lifted one leg clad in blue-gray Post Office issue and farted. just lately he farted a great deal. He was mildly worried about it. It didn't seem to matter what he had been
eating. Last night he and the wife had had creamed cod on toast and he had farted. This morning. Kellog's Product 19 with a banana cut up in it - and he had farted. This noon, down at the Mellow Tiger in town, two cheeseburgers with mayonnaise ... ditto farts.
He had looked up the symptom in The Home Medical Encyclopedia, an invaluable tome in twelve volumes which his wife had gotten a volume at a time by saving her checkout slips from the Shop 'n Save in South Paris. What George Meara had discovered under the EXCESSIVE FLATULENCE heading had not been particularly encouraging. It could he a symptom of gastric upset. It could mean he had a nice Iittle ulcer incubating in there. It could be a bowel problem. It could even mean the big C. If it kept up he supposed he would go and see old Dr. Quentin. Dr. Quentin would tell him he was farting a lot because he was getting older and that was it.
Aunt Evvie Chalmers's death that late spring had hit George hard -
harder than he ever would have believed - and just lately he didn't like to think about getting older. He preferred to think about the Golden Years of Retirement, years that he and Cathy would spend together. No more getting up at six thirty. No more heaving around sacks of mad and listening to that asshole Michael Fournier, who was the Castle Rock postmaster. No more freezing his balls off in the winter and going crazy with all the summer people who wanted delivery to their camps and cottages when the warm weather came.
Instead, there would be a Winnebago for 'Scenic Trips Through New England.' There would be
'Puttering in the Garden.' There would be 'All Sorts of New Hobbies'. Most of all, there would be 'Rest and Relaxation'. And somehow, the thought of farting his way through his late sixties and early seventies like a defective rocket just didn't jibe with his fond picture of the Golden Years of Retirement.
He turned the small blue-and-white mad truck onto Town Road No. 3, wincing as the glare of sunlight shifted briefly across the windshield. The summer had turned out every bit as hot as Aunt Evvie had prophesied - all of that, and then some. He could hear crickets singing sleepily in the high summer grass and had a brief vision out of the Golden Years of Retirement, a scene entitled
'George Relaxes in the Back Yard Hammock'.
He stopped at the Millikens' and pushed a Zayre's advertising circular and a CMP power bill into the box. Ibis was the day all the power bills went out, but he hoped the CMP folks wouldn't hold their breath until the Millikens' check came in. The Millikens were poor white trash, like that Gary Pervier just up the road. It was nothing but a scandal to see what was happening to Pervier, a man who had once won a DSC. And old Joe Camber wasn't a hell of a lot better. They were going to the dogs, the both of them.
John Milliken was out in the side yard, repairing what looked like a harrow. George gave him a wave, and Milliken flicked one finger curtly in return before going back to his work.
Here's one for you, you welfare chiseler, George Meara thought.
He lifted his leg and blew his trombone. It was a hell of a thing, this farting. You had to be pretty damn careful when you were out in company.
He drove on up the road to Gary Pervier's, produced another Zayre's circular, another power bill, and added a VFW newsletter.
He tucked them into the box and then turned around in Gary's driveway, because he didn't have to drive all the way up to Camber's place today. Joe had called the post office yesterday morning around ten and had asked them to hold his mail for a few days. Mike Fournier, the big talker who was in charge of things at the Castle Rock P.O., had routinely filled out a HOLD MAIL
UNTIL NOTIFIED card and flipped it over to George's station.
