I wasn't too specific when I asked Isadora for her help in a little plan of mine. She agreed to help me after I pointed out that we'd saved her from Zacharias and after she determined that my credit was good. That left me free to concentrate on the setup.
The next day I canvassed advertising agencies from Capistrano Beach to Oxnard. By noon my ears begged for relief from the avalanche of garrulous pitches. Only a few of the alleged people with whom I spoke sounded more original than sandwich boards and handbills.
The handful of impressive ones I invited up to the Union Bank Building for a final decision in my office. Getting them to come to Old Downtown required that I reveal how much I was willing to spend on the campaign. After finding that out, none of them had any qualms about the campaign's contents, either.
Two days later, a dozen advertising types gathered in my office to win my business. They scuttled, strode, or swished in with their presentations in hand. I seated them around the room in a rough semicircle.
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 GuiltyOr Full of SinOn the First of the YearWhen 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, done in 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 2000Won'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 purse, headed for the door.
"Oh, well," she said, "win a few, lose a few-so it goes." She waved at everyone remaining in the office. "Ta!" she said, sparkling merrily.
At least she had a good attitude.
I gazed over the remaining faces. Judging by expressions alone, there wasn't much hope left. Except for one.
A tall, chestnut-haired woman sat bent over a sketch pad, making quick motions with a colored pencil. She glanced up at me, then at Ann.
"I'll go next," she said in a voice as low, cool, and sharp-edged as chilled dry wine. "It'll save you time, and you can send the others home before they embarrass themselves."
The rest of the candidates muttered like discouraged coyotes.
"Over whose heads in particular do you not want to go?" she asked us."Over anyone's," I said.
Ann gave her the once-over about five times. "It's an idea-saturation campaign. We want to reach everyone. People who aren't open to rational arguments. People who only respond to emotional assaults, such as the illiterate-or the intellectuals."
The woman nodded and resumed her sketching. The other contenders watched in agitation. Her dark hair caught bits of light from here and there in the room to reflect a rich red-brown hue. As she scribbled, she spoke.
"If you want maximum impact, stick to simple symbols and wording. Now, what exactly are you trying to convey?"
I watched her long fingers at work. "We want as many people as possible to get the impression that God will die on the first day of the year two thousand A.D."
She wrote something at the top of the pad with swift, precise strokes. Several of the advertising hacks leaned over to see what she'd drawn.
One of them sighed, picked up his belongings, and made tracks.
After a moment of considering the finished product, she turned the sketch pad over to show Ann.
"I think that's it," Ann said with a smile. "Dell?"
The woman turned it toward me. Large letters blazed in sharp angles of crimson.
On the First Day of the Year 2000God Will Die…
I nodded. She knew what to give the customer. Then I looked at the drawing below the slogan.
It was a fair likeness of God from the Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel. A good choice. Most everyone in the Judeo-Christian world and a good deal of people outside it have seen that image in one form or another.
A black circle surrounded the Godhead. Rifle crosshairs intersected at a point directly over His left temple.
"That says it." I stubbed out my cigarette. "Thank you all for showing up," I said to the others.
As they wandered out, Ann and I walked over to the woman. She stood. She was taller than I was.
"That symbol is going to be plastered all over the world," I said. "Whom do you work for, sister?"
"Nobody," she said. "I own an agency called McGuinneCorp. And my name's Kathleen, not `sister.'"
I could see it would be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.