Big Trouble

"Eliot," said Deeber, the way a parent talks to a naughty child, "you were given an assignment."

Eliot's assignment was to write a sidebar about the Haitian community's perspective on the day-care crisis. Deeber believed that every story had to have the perspective of every ethnic group. When he went through the newspaper, he didn't actually read the stories; he counted ethnic groups. He was always sending out memos like: While the story on the increase in alligator attacks on golfers was timely and informative, I think more of an effort could have been made to include the Hispanic viewpoint. The main reason why Deeber's car ignition had never been wired to a bomb is that reporters have poor do-it-yourself skills.

"I know I had an assignment," said Eliot. "But I've been working on this story about ... "

"The pelican story?" sneered Deeber. Eliot thought

 Princeton must have a course in sneering, because Deeber was good at it.

"Ken," said Eliot, "it's an incredible story, and nobody else has it. There's this guy, this old Cuban guy in Key West, and he trains pelicans to ... "

"Drop bombs," sneered Deeber. "It's the most dumb-ass thing I ever heard."

"Ken," said Eliot. "This guy is amazing. He actually tried to use a trained pelican to kill Castro. Something went wrong, maybe the bomb malfunctioned, maybe the pelican got confused, but the thing apparently blew up outside a hotel in downtown Havana, sprayed pelican parts all over a bunch of French tourists, and the Cuban government claimed that it was some kind of atmospheric ... "

"Eliot," said Ken, "I don't think we're serving our readers with that kind of story."

"But it's true," said Eliot. He wanted to grab Deeber by his neck. "It's a great story. The guy talked to me, and he ... "

"Eliot," said Deeber, "Do you realize how important day care is to our readers? Do you realize how many of our readers have children in day care?"

There was a pause.

"Ken," said Eliot, "do you realize how many of our readers have assholes?"

Deeber said, "I see no need to ... "

"All of them!" shouted Eliot. "They all have assholes!"

Quite a few people in the newsroom heard that through the glass wall to Deeber's office. Heads were turning.

"Eliot," said Deeber, "I'm ordering you right now to ... "

"Let's do a series on it!" shouted Eliot. "RECTUMS IN CRISIS!" The entire newsroom heard that.

Deeber, aware that people were watching, put on his sternest expression.

"Eliot," he said. "You work for me. You do what I tell you. I gave you an assignment. If you want to keep working at this newspaper, that assignment will be done, and it will be in here"—he pointed to his computer—"before you go home tonight."

"Fine!" said Eliot. He stood up and crossed around to Deeber's side of the desk, which caused Deeber to scoot his chair backward into his credenza, knocking over several journalism contest awards.

Eliot said: "How about I put it in there RIGHT NOW?"

Then he put his left foot through Deeber's computer screen. His foot got sort of stuck in there, so when he yanked it back out, Deeber's whole computer crashed to the floor. In the newsroom, there was a brief but hearty outbreak of applause.

Except for the time a drunk loading-dock employee drove a new $43,000 forklift into Biscayne Bay, nobody had ever been fired from the newspaper faster than Eliot. His coworkers expressed their sympathy and support; in fact, Eliot became a minor cult hero among reporters all over the country. But it was pretty clear he wasn't going to get another job in journalism, especially not in Miami, where he wanted to stay so he could be near his son, Matt, who lived with Eliot's ex-wife.

And so Eliot became Eliot Arnold Advertising and Public Relations, working out of a small office in Coconut Grove. At the beginning, he spent most of his time going around begging people to become his clients. But after a couple of years of hard work, he'd reached the point where he spent most of his time going around begging for his clients to pay the money they owed him. Either that, or he was listening to clients tell him why his work was not acceptable. This is what the Client From Hell was doing.

The Client From Hell's latest brainstorm was Hammerhead Beer, which tasted so awful that the first and only time Eliot put some in his mouth, he spat it out on his desk. Eliot thought Hammerhead Beer was an even worse idea than the Client From Hell's previous project, a theme park for senior citizens called Denture Adventure.

But the Client From Hell actually paid his bills some of the time, so Eliot had developed an advertising concept for the beer. The Client From Hell was looking at it, and offering his usual thoughtful brand of criticism.

"This sucks," he said.

"Well, Bruce," said Eliot, "I tried to ... "

"Listen," said the Client From Hell, who did not believe in letting other people finish their sentences as long as he had any kind of thought whatsoever floating around in his brain. "You know what my business philosophy is?"