| He polished, and he sang: Oh I’m just a drigalo and everybody knows lum da da da daaa da dum dum It wasn’t a hard assignment – just a few minor updates on the design. The boss made it sound as though the world didn’t exactly turn on the account. “Take your time,” he’d said. “There’s no campaign riding on this. I think they just got sick of being dicked around by the boys they were dealing with, and we’re the punishment. We’ll probably lose the account after this. Don’t make this your Mona Lisa.” “They’re all my Mona Lisas,” Joe said. He looked at the Dri-glo match. “Without the hyphen people would say drigilo, you know. No one gives the hyphen the credit it deserves. It’s the straight man of the punctuation scene.” “Where did you go? Shangri-La? You go off on your big mystery vacation and you come back with the philosophy?” “It’s not philosophy. It’s product design. Madison avenue has guys with PhDs working on this. I read an article.” He held up the matchbook. “Why not call it Dry with a Y, Glow with a W? I mean, that’s the idea. It dries and it glows. Why is something better because it’s misspelled?” “Ask the Dalai Lama. I have to go to the doctor. Nice to see you again. I was getting worried.” “Thanks.” Joe had gone back to his office and waited for the boss to leave; then he gathered up his sketches and unopened mail (two weeks gone, seven letters, none from Indianapolis or Salt Lake City) and stood by the door until he heard the elevator ding. Then he locked the office behind him and went to the washroom down the hall. It smelled like pine – no, it smelled like a pine tree had come to life, all 90 feet of it, and taken a leak in here. It never smelled like pine. No one ever stepped into a pine forest in Oregon or wherever they had them and thought man, this smells like a bathroom. He checked the stalls – no one. He threw his tie over his shoulder and unbuttoned his shirt. There it was. No worse but no better. A big ugly red rash to the left of his breastbone, a mix of welts and pimples and splotches. He’d first noticed it two days ago in the shower in a hotel. It gave him a start, until he remembered he’d been wearing a camera bag for the last few days; the rash was right where the strap went. Odd. Well, give it time. He buttoned up his shirt, adjusted his tie and smoothed it flat, running his hand over his clavicle. Whatever it was, it didn’t hurt. But he knew it was there, and that was enough. Joe stopped at the drugstore around the corner and dropped off the film – six days. Fine. He paused outside the store, wondering what to do with the rest of his day. He’d thought things would be clearer after the trip; that was the idea, however hastily formed. He’d simply told the boss he needed time off; the boss had nodded okay, and he’d gone home, called his mother to say he’d be out for a week or two - no mom, everything's okay. Everything's fine. He'd thrown some clothes in a suitcase and taken the bus to Terminal Tower. He’d looked up at the destinations and wondered which one would do the trick. Did it matter? And now he was back. He had three rolls of pictures and a rash. And an assignment, right. Joe went back to the drug store, found the household products aisle, and bought some Dri-Glo and a tube of salve. He drove home, catching himself rubbing the spot where the rash was. He polished, and he sang: Oh I’m just a drigalo and everybody knows lum da da da daaa da dum dum. Well, the matchbook didn’t lie. Smooth it on, let it dry, wipe it off. But you didn’t need that on a matchbook ad, for God’s sake. How about: Dries in seconds, lasts for weeks. Oh, they’d fight him: "no, it lasts for months." Sure it does, friend. Sure. Every housewife out there thinks you’ve been working in the labs non stop to find a polish that only has to be applied three times a year. One bottle lasts a decade. They’re not that stupid. You say months, they think days. You say weeks, they might think week. He looked at the end table. "Dry, yes," he said aloud, "but bone dry?" Maybe you didn’t want people to think about bones. Maybe that brought up the idea of some animal skeleton in the desert. Most bones people saw were wet and bloody and stringy, anyway. All the bones we had inside were hardly dry. Let me put it this way, friend: DRY BONES DON’T GLO. As the boss said: a one-shot. Don’t knock yourself out. He sketched out a design. Just the bottle on the front. The spine was black. The back of the book was black as well, but had the bottle upside down and inverted, like a reflection. Put the copy on the inside, so they’d see it when they opened the book. Perfect. Mona Lisa in the palm of your hand. Joe poured a Cutty and went out on the porch for a smoke. It was warm. Quiet, which was a nice change. Tomorrow’s the day I don’t wake thinking about her, he thought. Tomorrow. He rubbed his chest, then took his hand out of his shirt. It didn’t hurt, but he wished it would go away. |
 |
||
 |
|
||