nanowrimo 2k9

They were only a little short on time, his companions had known to meet him in the reception area before the time wore out, so they were almost expecting him to make such a bizarre journey. They werew.

“Well there, Chuff, glad you made it through that meeting, you passed the first test. Dont worry, son it will get easier. When you are as big an asshole as I am, most anything that would be a crisis just passes through harmlessly. That is why you are on asshole training. Also, stealing bath salts: good touch. Here is how it works, we expense her bill out to the company consulting us, who is also paying our wage separately. Now Rosemary maybe be old, ugly, and gullible, but she definitely knows how to fill out paperwork. Those bath salts were bought with company money, which is why they are kept in the company janitors closet. So, you weren’t stealing from her directly, and they will be replaced with a separate order to the same company, effectively she is getting twice is much out of it by simply filing the proper requisition when it comes through. Its all legit, the company recognizes both pieces as being legitimate expenses (its actually part of Rosemarys contract).”

“But I was caught trespassing and stealing company property.”

“Right, which is why we brought you here first. Kid, this account is closed, we are delivering our product to the people at this company, we didn’t even have to close the sale. There is no way you can screw this up. Seriously, my first meeting they took me out to a similar shithole company, and I actually let one rip that you could see the cloud of gas rising up. It was great, everyone just kept going on like it hadn’t happened, they pretty much had to take it.”

“There is no recourse? Will they call again?”

“Well, of course they will, thats the beauty of it. We sell them this product in a series of one-on-one meetings, if individual ones dont work, they just get buried in the paperwork. The guy signing for the bills just sees that they are on balance posistive, and he certainly wont subject himself to any bullshit meetings, y’know, he was already sold on this crap a long time ago by whoever was higher up than him. He has to go to our a-product. What you’re seeing here is like the laptop  bag with the laptop. Understand?”

“No.”

“Good, keep it that way, once you start thinking you understand all this crap you will have been won over. Thats not your job, which is why we are burying you with all this. We wouldn’t even let you near a B-level meeting, or even a standard all-hands. We need to break you in and make sure that you are actually capable of making it through it. For now, just keep listening, stay alert, and even pitch in some complementary words. Smile and nod any time they ask a question. Make your eyes light up when you hear it if you can. Make it seem like they really get it and how impressed you are with their perception. More on that later.”

They had been walking along the sidewalk through an average seeming office park. There wasn’t anything else around there besides more offices parks and a single taco truck in the distance. The elder assholes knew exactly where they were going. There was no where else to go, and no way to catch a cab at this end. None of them bothered renting a car, they were too collectively hung over, and any officer would just smell the vapor burning off a car like that. Plus, none of them even knew how to drive. It was just a diversion from their real calling: being marketing assholes.

A the end of the parking lot was a dingy little truck. It had been converted from an old ice cream truck and fitted to just have a small fryer that was constantly cooking up chicken and carne asada. The menu was still for ice cream, there was a small pink piece of paper with some crude handwritintg that just said: “TACOS .50″.

“My good sir, I need 20 tacos, please.” Handing him a ten dollar bill. Behind the counter was a large mexican man with a handlebar moustache and crude tattoos reaching past the collar of his shirt, one curling behind his ear and reappearing above the lobe. He smirked, knowingly, turned around, and dropped a rack of beef into the fryer.

“So this is the taco spot, been looking forward to this all morning” said the balding man, licking his lips. Chuff was just beginning to notice how much the other men were sweating being ourside. They   all pulled off their suit jackets and sat their in the loud, angry silence of tacos cooking. Baking under the sun. The gravy was still strapped close to Chuffs skin, and was beginning to sweat again. He reached under his shirt and pulled it back out. The crumbs of the biscuits had dissolved into the gravy and the whole thing was beginning to resemble a kind of beige meatloaf.

“GOOD IDEA, CHUFFERS”, Barry said. “I didn’t catch that you had managed to smuggle that one out, how did you manage to remember a quart bag with how you were feeling most of this trip. Thats a good fucking trainee, man, you got a future here.”

“20 tacos, come get it”

“Gracias,” Said Glenn, taking them and throwing a handful of pennies in the tip jar. The cook smiled and muttered something appropriately rude under his breath.

Glenn came back holding two sagging plates of tacos, and they made their way to a nearby picnic table, set up under an awning pulled out around the truck. Barry, snatched the bag of gravy from Chuff.

“Now this is how a real man settles his stomach,” he unwrapped the first plate of tacos, grabbed on eoff the plate and with one hand popped open the corner of the country gravy and poured it across the open taco sitting on his hand. He covered that gravy with some of the local hot sauce.”

“How can you possibly eat after all that shit we had at breakfast?”

“CHUFF SHUT THE FUCK UP AND EAT THE GRAVY TACOS NOW WE DONT TALK AT LUNCH AND WE ALREADY HAD TO BAIL YOU OUT OF THAT OTHER CRAP. YOU EAT THIS SHIT, YOU HOLD THAT GAS AND YOU SIT IN SILENCE.”

“SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.”

That shut Chuff up. He obeyed and had 8 tacos covered with gravy and hot sauce in the boiling sun, hungover and wrestling with nausea.

No one ever said being a marketing asshole would be easy. Chuff was learning that now.