In the late 70s, nearly twenty thousand veterans across the country had been killed, protesting for respect. Not food, not money, not socks. Respect. Remember us with a stamp. A day. An hour once a year on the vidnews. But America couldn’t show respect to someone it was ashamed of. Much easier to shunt them aside. Or find a pretext to slaughter them. To finish the job the Allahs started. The job the soldiers were supposed to finish. Around and around the circle went.
“They only gave the Geliniums to soldiers.”
Sun Yen’s eyes narrowed. “And Black Tops.”
• • • •
ZELDA PROPPED HER eyelids open with her thumb and forefinger. Actually she thought of propping open her eyes with the blades she and every former DV kept taped to their ankles. Her fourth meeting of the day. All about salmon salads. How was that remotely possible? She glanced at the thick twenty-six-page marketing deck emblazoned with striking yellow letters intended to shock the room into ecstasies of creative fervor, lips drooling ideas, blood-stained imaginations streaming out of their ears, hearts throbbing and pulsing with memorable moments in marketing history.
The woman in a long-sleeved black dress stared around the table. If Zelda recalled the stupid thing called the org chart, which she had first thought was a joke with its arrows pointing up and down and sideways like a bad drawing, this lady with the face of a boar was her direct supervisor, not Pietro, who was manager of the entire Bronx office.
Boar Face didn’t like Zelda. Perhaps, like all wild creatures, she had that cunning sense of enemies in the jungle. Or woods, wherever boars roamed. Boar Face instinctively felt Zelda’s diffidence, her inner laughter, how she took none of this corporate shit at all seriously. What was a thought-starter, Zelda had almost asked an hour ago before her brain oozed into a peanut butter-crusted glaze. Upselling propositions, positioning and then branding. Boar Face dribbled on about branding, branding, branding; if Zelda shoved her fingers down her throat, maybe she would knock down the woman with a heave and end all their misery. Only she seemed the only one miserable.
Grandma, you banned all languages other than English, how about banning marketing lingo?
“Jones was on a boat.” Boar Face pointed. “Would you like to share those insights?”
Zelda faded back into the room from the little sweet alcove starring Diego’s smile. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
The conference room of twenty-one people simultaneously looked into their laps. One of those cartoon balloons on the animatevid would read “uh-oh.”
“I mean that I just found out there may or may not be salmon in the Atlantic yet,” Zelda said quickly. “But it was very valuable. We go to greater lengths for our fish.”
Everyone’s heads perked up slightly to see if Boar Face would lash Zelda with the long wooden stick she carried around like a riding crop. Boar Face frowned.
“What lengths?”
“Pardon?”
“Lengths. You said a word. A word can be dynamic. It can change perceptions. That doesn’t mean it’s the right word. We have to determine that. Lengths. What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
Boar Face twirled the pearl necklace around her fleshy neck and turned to the other side of the conference table.
“But you’re right about the words,” Zelda plunged ahead. “I, um, kinda think we haven’t listened carefully enough to you.”
The twenty-one people in the room poured silent venom. Oh too bad, you wish you were getting out of trouble this easily. She flashed a quick sneer around the table.
“Obviously.” Boar Face rapped her stick. “Go on, Jones.”
“I don’t know the word. But maybe we should come up with a few words rather than all the art and videos and tag lines. Something that says salmon salad. But that also says be.”
“Be?” Boar Face frowned.
“The salmon.”
Zelda ducked past colleagues, alternatively snickering and looking for places on her skin to pinch. When she got back to her office, the memo was already flashing on the tiny digital directive boxes on their desks, which comprised the sole electronic means of communication.
“Each of you will submit one word per my suggestion at this morning’s meeting. Deadline is eighteen minutes.” A clock started ticking down like a bomb.
Zelda had a lot of words. The memo said one word. Would she be better off if she did only the one word and demonstrated she could pay attention and follow orders like the other headless imbeciles, or should she be bold and submit several words, showing how creative she was. Business environments were just so dumb that she had to waste her time considering these alternatives when she should be expending her limited attention span/interest on answering the question. Meetings, offices, memos, all this make-work so someone will eat salmon salad.
And keep this job, stupid girl, she scolded herself.
Boar Face twirled her necklace, feet on her desk. Zelda had sat for about three minutes since being summoned, taking in all the self-proclaimed award-winning marketing campaigns plaques that proclaimed her boss as a “champion of creativity,” according to an award from the Marketing Alliance of The Northeast.
Boar Face twisted her pasty face. “Eight words.”
“Yes.”
“Better. Tasty. Luscious. Classy. Prime. Delicious. Powerful. Fin-tastic.” Boar Face paused. “Is that a real word?”
Zelda shook her head. “I made it up.”
“But not the others?”
“I think those are established and acceptable English words.”
“I know. I went to the University of Pennsylvania,” she said haughtily.
“I went to Bronx Arts School. I think we used the same English.”
Boar Face looked as if she’d found a scabrous insect in her tea. “I shouldn’t have to do your work for you. Pick a word. Stand behind it. Fight for it.”
Zelda peered at the woman’s silvery sheened shoes. The damn shoes just pissed her off. People shouldn’t wear silver sheened shoes with silver buckles. It was dumb. Insulting in some way to people who would never wear shoes like that and yet had
