Part 23 (1/2)
”I know you need to do this,” Julio said. She nodded, but realized there was more he wanted to say.
He seemed to chew on the words for a while, eventually coming up with ”p.r.o.ntoTester is still due on Thursday.”
”So run your spot,” she said. ”The Machine of Death. Cut it down to twenty-eight thirty, put the blue-card on the back. Heck, record a narrator. Make it look good. Make it look serious.”
He looked up at her. ”You really want to put me out of a job?”
”It's nothing personal,” she said. ”Not with you, anyway. You'd find another gig.”
Julio shook his head. ”Look, I understand you're mad. I read those emails. I know how he screwed you over.”
”You knew?Great,” she spat. ”Thanks for telling me about it.” She opened the car door and slung herself into the driver's seat. The faster she could leave this place behind, the better.
”Wait,” he said. ”I'm sorry. It's not-I mean, look, a lot lot of vile stuff goes on. After awhile you just stop noticing. It was nothing personal.” of vile stuff goes on. After awhile you just stop noticing. It was nothing personal.”
She started the car. ”So do it,” she said. ”Run the spot. Say it was my idea. I don't care, I'll take the blame if it means...” There it was. There was the thought she'd been dancing around. ”If it means it brings him down. Brings the whole company down.”
It was said. It was out loud. It was real.
Suddenly it even seemed possible. possible.
”I got a good thing going here,” Julio said lamely.
She felt something weird. She glanced up at the rearview mirror and realized that she was smiling. It would be malicious to air the joke spot. It would be fun fun.
”You know you want to,” she said. ”Just make sure you cash your check first.”
It had been so long since she'd had this kind of time to herself that she felt paralyzed.
She paced her living room, waiting for anything. A text message from Julio. A call from Rockefeller+King. Any indication that she'd done the right thing, that her decision had made any any sort of difference at all to anyone. sort of difference at all to anyone.
Jack called. She didn't answer. He called again. She sent him to voicemail.
She had trouble sleeping, so she bought more beer and spent the night sending press releases to every news outlet she could think of, promoting the Machine of Death-”new, from the makers of Fat-It-Out.”
When she didn't come back to JBE the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, Jack eventually stopped calling. She tried accessing Jack's email again, but the pa.s.sword didn't work anymore. Her heart seized in her chest at the thought that he had discovered her intrusion.
She called Rockefeller+King three times, but each time hung up before the receptionist answered.
The weekend pa.s.sed in fitful bursts of anxiety, and she heard nothing from any quarter. She presumed that Julio had either improbably grown a pair and s.h.i.+pped the spot as-is to the affiliates, burning the place down, as it were; or that Jack and Julio had spent a frantic, sleepless 72 hours preparing an all-new, twenty-eight-minute infomercial.
Either way, she felt guilty.
She went to Wal-Mart to buy yogurt and saw Fat-It-Out still on the shelf, toxic coating and all, and it renewed her fervent hope that Jack would burn in h.e.l.l.
Her phone woke her up, and she answered it groggily without looking at the caller ID.
”Kel, can you please come in today, please,” Jack said. There was something different about his voice-he wasn't demanding, pleading, or shouting; he was just asking politely. asking politely. It threw her off guard. It threw her off guard.
She thought about asking how things were, but didn't. She tried to think of an excuse, but couldn't. Then the call was over and her conscience had said ”okay” before the rest of her had even woken up yet.
”Moron! You are a moron!” she shouted at herself in the shower.
”'Can you please please come in today, come in today, please please,' oh, you son of a b.i.t.c.h,” she chanted mockingly to her shoes.
”d.a.m.n it d.a.m.n it d.a.m.n it,” she told her mirror as she pulled out of her driveway.
She turned on the radio, and the voice that greeted her almost made her wipe out her mailbox. For a moment she thought she was still asleep, and dreaming.
”Get the ultimate ultimate peace of mind-from one peace of mind-from one tiny tiny machine that fits machine that fits anywhere anywhere,” a jaunty voice told her. It was Mark, the announcer they used for every infomercial. He could sound excited about anything. anything. ”Order now and ”Order now and we'll we'll pay the first payment of $29.97. pay the first payment of $29.97. You You only pay s.h.i.+pping!” only pay s.h.i.+pping!”
Then, a studio full of laughter. ”We're going to get one for the studio right away,” the morning-zoo deejay said. His dimwit partner chimed in with an old-man voice. ”Maaake sure to get the ruuuush delivery,” he squeaked. ”I don't know how loooong I haaaave.”
When she got to JBE, the parking lot was full. Inside the office, college kids chattered into headsets.
She tried to walk to Jack's office, but her feet led her the other way, towards Julio's edit bay. Towards a friendly face.
Julio wasn't in yet, but something weird was definitely going on. After a second of nervous fidgeting in the hall, she ducked into Julio's room, closed the door, and woke up his computer.
Blogs were buzzing. Clips from Julio's joke spot were Featured Videos on YouTube and littered the Reddit front page. The AP had cribbed from her press release, which meant that major outlets and networks would pick up the story in the coming week. Everyone had an opinion-was the Machine of Death just a hilariously bad commercial, or a subversive viral marketing gimmick?
Or maybe-just maybe-something more?
”A spot-on satire of infomercial idiocy, made better by the fact that there apparently is is an actual product you can buy,” wrote a columnist at AdWeek magazine. an actual product you can buy,” wrote a columnist at AdWeek magazine.
”rofl i'd totally buy one,” a YouTube commenter added.
And then this, from an article on Slashdot: According to patent records, this JBE product (from the folks who brought you Gyno-Paste!) is actually a repackaging of a genuine medical device developed by a UCLA team who never found an investor. It's one of those ”who knows what REALLY happened” scenarios-the head of the project died in a plane crash (allegedly after a meeting with the Defense Department), just before he was set to unveil the device at MD&M East, the big medical-equipment trade show in NY. It doesn't sound too far-fetched to think that this is a case of sabotage that n.o.body cares enough to investigate (or is being prevented from investigating), because according to the NTSB report the cause of the plane crash was ”water contamination of the fuel system”-something every pilot is trained to check for during preflight.
Kelly's eyes froze on the word water water. She felt the blood drain from her face. She could still see that research paper hidden away in Jack's email, the one that contained the lead scientist's C-18 result.
WATER.
This was nuts. The p.r.o.ntoTester-the Machine of Death-was a stupid cheap device that didn't work, just like Hair-B-Gon didn't actually actually remove hair, just like Gyno-Paste didn't remove hair, just like Gyno-Paste didn't actually actually rejuvenate genital skin, just like Fat-It-Out didn't rejuvenate genital skin, just like Fat-It-Out didn't actually actually replace eating healthy and exercising, no matter what Mark a.s.sured the consumer in calm, earnest tones. replace eating healthy and exercising, no matter what Mark a.s.sured the consumer in calm, earnest tones.
They couldn't actually believe believe the spot. They must think the spoof infomercial was a joke, postmodern geek-humor. The radio deejays and the kids on YouTube wanted p.r.o.ntoTesters to go with their Ninja Turtle toys and Super Mario-emblazoned hoodies. the spot. They must think the spoof infomercial was a joke, postmodern geek-humor. The radio deejays and the kids on YouTube wanted p.r.o.ntoTesters to go with their Ninja Turtle toys and Super Mario-emblazoned hoodies.
But if Julio had somehow been right right-if those little paper slips could say WATER and somehow somehow mean water contamination in an airplane's fuel tank-then someday, maybe soon, those blogs would go into overtime, and Jack's Chinese warehouse would sell out in a day and a half, and the box would be reverse-engineered by everybody, everywhere, and there would be lawsuits and government inquiries and everything would go to h.e.l.l and n.o.body would be laughing. mean water contamination in an airplane's fuel tank-then someday, maybe soon, those blogs would go into overtime, and Jack's Chinese warehouse would sell out in a day and a half, and the box would be reverse-engineered by everybody, everywhere, and there would be lawsuits and government inquiries and everything would go to h.e.l.l and n.o.body would be laughing.
A machine to predict death. The most ludicrous idea in the world.
But people had bought Fat-It-Out.
She stood up and closed her eyes and could picture bright red boxes lined up at Wal-Mart, crammed into a million shopping carts. ”Machine of Death,” the boxes would say, ”now with pota.s.sium.” And everyone would buy ten of them.
She opened her eyes, and turned around, and Jack was standing in the doorway.
”Are you hot?” he asked. ”You're sweating. Here, let me hit the A/C.”He walked into the room and brushed past her on his way to the thermostat. She felt her skin p.r.i.c.kle.