Ann watched the exhibition from the far corner. Her makeup valiantly attempted to disguise the dark half-moons of exhaustion under her eyes. She had offered to raise funds for the ads I'd proposed by playing poker at the no- limit tables in Auberge casinos. Her mood dripped from her like weak acid, cutting when it had the strength.
The first pitchman pulled some illustration board from a fake leather portfolio. You could have attached his face to an axe handle and used it to split logs.
'This is a preliminary concept,' he said in a nasal voice, deeper than I'd expected, 'of our visualization of the ideation you related to us over the phone.'
Ann winced.
I lit up a Camel and leaned back to gaze at the small sign he held. In cheerful, pink-hued lettering, it read
You Won't Feel Guilty
Or Full of Sin
On the First of the Year
When God's Done In!
'Too wordy,' Ann said, looking out the window over the L.A. basin.
The hack protested weakly. 'It's a unified conceptualization that encapsulizes the elements you requested-God's death and the date of it.'
'It's a damned ad for Burma Shave,' she countered, 'not for a specific philosophical point. The date is vague,
is a colloquialism'-she turned to stare the man directly in the eyes-'and I could write better jingles on a Scrabble board.'
The man harrumphed, retrieved his portfolio, and departed. Back to shaving cream, I suppose.
'Next,' I said to the crowd.
One nervous young man gulped and rose. 'I can see you're no match for me.'
He left without giving us a show.
'Next.'
A heavyset, ruddy man turned a sketch pad my way. Tasteful blue letters on a gray background read
God Is Not Dead...
Yet!
'Not bad,' I said.
'It's a negative,' Ann said through a barely stifled yawn. 'We need a positive statement that god will die. And the date.'
'Is she with you?' the huckster asked.
'Next.'
A short, plump, woman aged a few years older than I volunteered next. She peered at me cheerfully through thick eyeglasses set in a black pair of men's frames.
'So,' she said, smiling, 'you want to tell everyone that God's dead.' She spoke with a mild Russian accent. Her hands made dramatic flourishes as she pulled a poster from a thick cardboard tube.
'Here's what's going to catch their eyes!'
The poster unrolled to reveal a carefully watercolored image of a crucified skeleton. It looked hauntingly lonely. On its shoulder perched the tiny skeleton of a dove. Beneath the scene-in lurid yellow letters-shouted the logo
The Year of Our Lord 2000
Won't Be!
The woman smiled with pride. She seemed to be the sort who probably had a lovely garden in her front yard and made cookies for all the neighborhood kids.
Ann cleared her throat as gently as she could. She looked in my direction, imploring.
'Uh-it's very nice,' I said, 'but it's, um... a bit obscure. It'll go right over most people's heads.'
The woman nodded with a resigned smile. The watercolor disappeared into the brown tube. She shouldered her
