ME: Great Scott! Was it bad?
COP: Bad? You shoulda seen it. Even their designer jeans was on fire. One guy had an Afro that was burnin’ so that LaGuardia coulda used it as a landing beacon.
ME: Holy smokes!
COP: That ain’t funny. Not funny at all.
ME: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just a figure of speech. You say they were driving a van?
COP: Well, it was before they pranged it. Naturally, there was about fifteen or twenty kids in the back sleepin’ off something, and the boob that was drivin’ musta been going ninety-five.
ME: Ninety-five?
COP: Buddy, all van freaks drive ’em flat out. They love to tailgate. Don’t ask me why, they just do. This one had Ecology Is a Gas written all over the sides in spray paint. Also a picture of the Grand Canyon at sunset.
ME: Gee, that’s too bad. How many fatalities?
COP: Are you kiddin’? Ain’t you ever heard the old saying “God protects drunks and heads”?
ME: Well, I’ll be damned.
COP: It looked like there was at least thirty of them, staggering around in the bushes with their T-shirts on fire, hollering, “Far out,” “Dynamite.” Me and Al hosed ’em down with CO2. For once they didn’t kill nobody in another car, like that kind usually does. They just got caught in a mean crosswind doin’ ninety-five and that old van went airborne and just left the road, hopped a culvert, and that was all she wrote. She flipped over a couple times and them heads spilled outta her like two pounds of dried beans leavin’ a one-pound plastic baggie.
ME: Wow!
COP: Yeah, you can say that. I got one word of advice. Watch out for them vans. They love to tailgate, y’hear?
He got up, paid for his coffee, and left.
It was after this discussion that I got to thinking about the whole new Van Culture and all the good things it’s brought to America; a new sense of togetherness for one. By the very nature of the van it tends to create crowds, and this can have, ultimately, a profound effect on our social structure, perhaps bringing together human beings after the splintering of the family group during the latter days of the seventies.
In fact, it’s already happening. The Charles Manson family was carted around over the landscape by its guru in a succession of vans, stolen and otherwise. The old Spahn ranch was never without a half-dozen vans liberally larded with Peace signs and Love stickers, all gassed up and ready to go out on another exciting hit. In fact, several of the murders attributed to the Family were over disputed ownership of vans. Manson also utilized a used school bus, seats removed, carpeted with old rugs, to house his bevy of love-conscious females before they finally settled down to good solid family life at the ranch. In one sense, Manson was a true social innovator.
So there you have it, class. Today’s discussion of The Van Culture. I don’t find it necessary to remind you that questions about this subject will appear on the blue book exam at the end of this semester.
I’ve done a lot of writing over the years about cars. I really do believe that in many ways, automobiles are one of the very few universal realities of American life in our century, like the horse was to people before 1900.
The horse. My mind greedily grasped at a new thought. I glanced in the mirror. The guy behind me seemed to have fallen asleep.
I play these little games when in cars alone, or in reception rooms waiting for Mr. Big to summon me. Sort of like Twenty Questions: the words that the horse has contributed to our language: Put on the feed bag, Horse feathers, Put out to pasture, Horse of another color, stop Horsing around.
I chuckled. That’s what I’m doing, horsing around. How come the car hasn’t done the same thing? Hmmm. That’s certainly a Chevy of another color. He’s going out to suck on the old gas pump.
Not bad. I remembered one madly self-destructive moment I perpetrated as a writer. I banged on the steering wheel. Why the hell do I always do these things?
General Motors publishes a magazine called Friends. It is a cheery, well-produced, colorful little monthly that, I guess, goes to people who buy Chevys. Maybe the name Friends means that if you buy a Chevy, you’re one of their friends.
Anyway, in all innocence, they asked me to do a piece. So what did I do?
Lemons on the Grass, Alas
Well, I had my semi-annual lunch the other day with my friend Howard. Howard and I shared KP together in the Army, and there’s something about pulling KP with a guy that draws you together. Howard works at a small but highly respected public relations agency known on Madison Avenue as “B&W.” Actually, their full name is Bugle and Weakfish, but “B&W” has more snap to it.
I found him in the gloom of the elegant bar of Les Miserables du Frite, a French watering hole frequented exclusively by expense account types. Actual money–dollars and quarters and stuff–hasn’t been seen in Les Miserables du Frite since the Truman administration. Howard was staring gloomily into his triple Wild Turkey on the rocks. I eased onto the stool beside him.
“Hi.” I greeted him coolly, as is the practice in these expense account joints, since everyone pretends he is at a business meeting and not a social whoopee. You never know when the bartender may be an undercover agent for the IRS.
“How are you, Old Sport?” I asked over my daiquiri.
“Rotten,” he muttered. “I mean rotten. This has been one hell of a day.” He took a deep slug of his Wild Turkey, making his eyes water. I could see he really was in a foul mood.
“Well, what’s up, Howard?”
“Did you by any chance read the damn automobile want ads in the Times this morning? The Classic & Foreign section?” He angrily chomped at a pretzel.
“Why no, Howard, I can’t say that I did. What’s the flap?”
He instantly whipped a tattered clipping out of his jacket pocket, glared at it, and barked:
“Let me read you this: ‘Sixteen-thousand-dollar Lemon for sale: 1979 Anaconda XGD Super-Wasp, retailing for thirty-one thousand plus available now at above price. Will supply buyer with twenty-four free bottles of Excedrin, which he will need, plus long list of Anaconda Super-Wasp dealers who claim they cannot fix this magnificent Lemon. No dealers please.’ ”
He slammed the clipping down on the bar in anger. “God knows how many people read that this morning! The phone’s been ringing from all over the country, and I may lose the damned account, just because of this horse’s backside, whoever he is!”
There was a long, pregnant pause, and all I could think of to say was: “Gee, Howie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had the Anaconda account.”
Howard snorted and laughed a bitter, creaking laugh. “Are you kidding? I never had a car account in my life. Wouldn’t touch ’em.” He swirled his drink with a swizzle stick like a man poking at a nest of hooded cobras.
“Well, then, what’s all the flap?” I asked.
“I am the number-one man on the NLGA account, brother, the big honcho, and I can tell you the fat is truly in the fire!”
“N-L-G-A?” I asked. “Isn’t that one of those new basketball leagues?”
“Look, buddy”—Howard sounded very serious—“I am in no mood for funnies, not today. The NLGA, for your information, is the National Lemon Growers Association, and I can tell you, the lemon industry has had it up to here with all this bad-mouthing lemons. Every time some fatheaded car company turns out a bummer, what does everyone call it? A lemon! Why a lemon, I ask you? Why not a cantaloupe, or a banana? For my money, bananas are a hell of a lot funnier than lemons. And you notice they use the word ‘lemon’ as a put-down? If something is bad, it’s a lemon, meaning, of course lemons are bad.”
Howard paused for breath. His face was getting a bit purple. His neck muscles were bulging.
“Gosh,” I said soothingly, “I never thought of that, Howard. You’re right. My old man used to call his Hudson ‘the lemon of the century,’ but until this very moment I never thought why bad cars are called lemons and not watermelons or cabbages.�
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Howard began speaking again in a low monotone, as one speaks in a bad dream:
“The NLGA spends millions every year trying to upgrade the lemon image, and one bird-brained ding-dong takes an ad out in the Times and blows it! Someday I’m just gonna quit this racket and take up fly-tying. It’s not easy being a PR man for a lemon, I can tell you that.”
“Oh well,” I said, trying to calm troubled waters, “what the hell, we all have our troubles, Howard.”
He thought about this for a moment and then answered in a thoughtful tone, “Yes, that is true. Have you ever heard of the BNAs?”
“No. Is that a new wonder drug?”
Howard chuckled. “BNA stands for Bad News Accounts. It’s a little group of us account men who have really bad accounts. We meet every Friday after work at Michael’s Pub and get drunk together. Misery loves company, and every one of us, to get in the group, has to have a really bad news account. Me, I got lemons.”
We ordered another round of drinks and, to be polite, I asked him, “What are some of the other BNA’s? I mean, what kind of accounts are they?”
“Well,” Howard said, “there’s old Pres Schuyler for example. Prescott Schuyler III. Dartmouth. You’d think he had the world tied up in a blue ribbon with silver filigree bells on it. Y’know what? He represents the ABA.”
“Come on, Howie,” I interrupted, “now I know they’re a basketball crowd.”
“Not Pres’s ABA,” Howard snorted. “He represents the American Baloney Alliance. This is the national association of baloney makers, and let me tell you, Schuyler is fighting an uphill battle with that one. Everywhere you turn, somebody is hollering at somebody else: ‘That’s a bunch of baloney,’ or ‘What a lot of baloney that is, you fathead.’ Always bad-mouthing baloney. Nobody ever says, ‘What you just said is liverwurst, or salami, or olive pimento loaf.’ It’s always baloney that gets put down. They do it on TV! Kojak is always saying to some drug pusher, ‘That’s baloney. Now gimme the real dope.’ One day Schuyler’s gonna kill himself. He can’t get anyone to say a good word for baloney.”
“Frankly, Howard,” I said, “I’ll never use those phrases again myself. Are there others?”
“Yep. How ’bout poor Herbie Morrison and the TBPA? That’s a real bad one.”
“TBPA?” I asked.
“Turkey Breeders’ Protective Association. Every time a real stinkeroo opens on Broadway, what do they call it? A turkey! Why not a duck? For my money, a duck is a damn sight funnier than a turkey. Or maybe an ostrich. No, it’s always a turkey! Burt Reynolds’ last three pictures almost killed poor Herb. It was turkey-turkey-turkey, night and day. Sometimes he comes to our meetings and just sits in the corner and cries.” Howard brushed away a tear.
“Well, how do you fight this thing?” I asked.
“Well,” Howard went on pensively, “we try everything. For example, we spent about a quarter of a million tracking down just how this damn lemon business began. And we found out that it all started with some dumb clodhopper named Bergen W. Clutterback, who was a dirt-track racer in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He sold plows on the side. Well, in 1903 he got beat by six laps in a ten-lap race at the Kalamazoo Fair. He was driving an Ajax-Kavanaugh Kangaroo. After the race, the press quoted him as saying: ‘This dang pile of junk ain’t got no more spunk than a three-cent sour lemon.’ The phrase caught on, and ever since, bad news cars are invariably lemons. We tried to counteract it by releasing press blurbs to the effect that Clutterback never saw a lemon in his life, and furthermore, was quite possibly a blood relative of Clayton L. Clutterback, Jr., a notorious checkkiter and confidence man from West Pumphandle, Kentucky, and hence a man not to be trusted in any way. Not a single damn car magazine ever carried the story! And why? Because they like to call cars lemons, that’s why! It sure as hell beats me. We elected a National Lemon Queen, and do you think that Johnny Carson interviewed her? Are you kidding? We had a forty-six-page Lemon Lovers’ Cookbook published. It cost a bundle. In six months it sold a hundred and forty-eight copies. And now this damn want ad in the Times!”
I cleared my throat and made another game attempt to cheer up my friend. “Well, Howard, it’s true that you and the lemon people, and the baloney and the turkey guys, are fighting an uphill battle. But there must be plenty of people who have it worse than you.”
The bartender brought us another round and set another dish of pretzels down in front of Howard.
“Yeah,” he muttered, “I suppose that’s true. Lemons ain’t so bad, I suppose. It could be a lot worse. Every time I have a really rotten day I remind myself of what happened to poor old Sylvester Snead. Over at Y&R. You probably read about it. It happened three, maybe four months ago, but already it seems like years back. He was one of the nicest guys I ever knew.”
“Yeah,” I interrupted, “I think I read something about him. Sylvester Snead. A Times obit, am I right?”
“Yep”—Howard’s voice sounded sad and a little tired—“went off the George Washington Bridge at high noon. Just couldn’t take it any more. He was the founder of the BNAs. Old Sylvester began the club, and I can tell you we all miss him. And since he’s gone, it ain’t the same without him. He had the worst account of all. Had the account for seven years, longer than anybody in history.”
Howard moodily dipped into the pretzels. Hesitantly, I asked, “What was his account?”
“The ICM. That’s what killed him! I wake up nights in a cold sweat, afraid they’re gonna assign that damn account to me. The ICM is one of our top accounts, but I–personally–would just as soon have a good case of leprosy. Lemons are bad enough!”
“ICM …” I mused. “Don’t they make some kind of computers or something?”
Howard rolled his ice cubes angrily. “Buddy, if they did, Sylvester would still be with us today, telling his rotten jokes and playing handball. ICM does not make computers, not by a long shot.”
“Okay, Howard, let’s have it,” I said. “ICM means what?”
Howard, with his inborn sense of dramatics working at full blast, intoned: “International Crock Manufacturers.”
“My God!” I gasped. “Poor Sylvester!”
“Now you know what some guys have to face.” Howard wearily sipped the last of his drink. “Sylvester spent his life fighting the phrase ‘It’s a crock.’ A crock of what? Well, both you and I know. Nobody ever says, ‘It’s a cup,’ or ‘It’s a galvanized pail.’ No, it’s always a crock, and it finally killed poor old Sylvester. And one day lemons are gonna get me.”
My agent nearly killed me for that one. In fact, she said that she would much rather handle a writer who is a drunken bum than one who deliberately bites the hand that feeds him. Madness, all is madness. What could I say to her, that if I had been born in India I would have been one of those guys who spends his life stretched out on a bed of nails, peering up at the sun? Actually, I did tell her that. She did not laugh. Neither did the editor of Friends magazine. I had lost my only friend at Chevrolet.
The little electric car that runs on the track along the wall of the tunnel whipped past me, driven by a tired-looking cop wearing a crash helmet. He was heading toward the front of the line, and the trouble that had brought on the blinking yellow light.
“Christ,” I muttered, “what a job. Being a cop and spending your life in the goddamn tunnel.” Do they still have eyes, or are they like those fish that live in the caves?
I studied the tile wall of the tunnel next to me. No graffiti. Must be the only public wall in any city in America that doesn’t have illiterate crap scrawled all over it by the barbaric horde.
Strange thing, this tunnel. You go through it all your life, and you hardly ever think of it. I remember watching a 4 A.M. movie in a hotel room, and it turned out to be about a bunch of tough guys building the tunnel. It was called Sand Hogs or something, and Victor McLaglen had his shirt off all the time and was covered with sweat. Truly heroic. How come they don’t make movies about stuff like that any more,
about guys that really do things? The world has been overrun by a niggling, scurrying pack of Al Pacinos, Woody Allens, and Dustin Hoffmans.
I hunched in my steaming car, musing on and on into further, more alien destructive areas. How about a movie about the guys who built the Verrazano Bridge? That’s a hell of a thing. I suppose today the only movie you could sell would be a bunch of guys blowing up the Verrazano Bridge, led by Lee Marvin and his gang of crazies. Well, we live in self-destructive times, and I’m right in there with the rest, right? With that “Lemons” piece.
Four or five cars in my line began honking angrily. This wait was getting to us.
A giant New Jersey commuter bus in the other lane stopped. I felt a row of commuter eyes peering down into my lap. It had a four-color advertising sign emblazoned on its side, plugging an elegant English gin, tropical shores, sparkling seas, and waving palm trees. I studied the scene. A gin and tonic would taste good down here in the bowels of the pyramids. I gazed hungrily at the gin ad. The beach scene looked far more real than anything down here. Probably was. The commercials today are more real than the products. Means transcending ends.
If this goddamn tunnel collapsed with all of us down here, a thousand years from now they’d dig up the bus and there would be that picture. I imagined the art director of the agency in conference with the gin guys; endless hassling over the second palm tree from the right, and whether the girl should wear sandals or not. I had been there. New York, the commercial capital of the world, like Paris used to be the art capital.
The cardboard water sparkled, the trees rustled silently, and the crystal bottle of gin looked cold and remote.
The Lost Civilization of Deli
The expedition had been working the site, with minimal success, for some time. Tempers were frayed. Even the most civilized and erudite members of the party were nipping at one another. The rains, alternating with the searing heat, had worn down all of them. That and, of course, the looming sense of failure. None of them, in spite of earlier optimism, had the vaguest idea that they were about to make a strike that would rival, and indeed surpass, the discovery of the fabled Rosetta Stone of millennia past.
A Fistful of Fig Newtons Page 15