“Your horrible slanders against Taunton are crystal-clear to, ah, a person with some grasp of our unconscious drives. I was pleased to hear you voice them. They meant that you’re halfway back to your real self. What is our central problem-the central problem of the real Mitchell Courtenay, copysmith? Lick the opposition! Crush the competing firms! Destroy them! Your fantasy about Taunton indicates to, ah, an informed person that you’re struggling back to the real Mitchell Courtenay, copysmith. Veiled in symbols, obscured by ambivalent attitudes, the Taunton-fantasy is nevertheless clear. Your imagined encounter with the girl ‘Hedy’ might be a textbook example!” “God damn it,” I yelled, “look at my jaw! See that hole? It still hurts!” He just smiled and said: “Let’s be glad you did nothing worse to yourself, Mitch. The id, you see-” “What about Kathy?” I asked hoarsely. “What about the complete data on the Consies I gave you? Grips, hailing signs, passwords, meeting places?” “Mitch,” he said earnestly, “as I say, I shouldn’t be meddling, but they aren’t real. Sexual hostility unleashed by the dissociation of your personality into ‘Groby’-Courtenay identified your wife with a hate-and-fear object, the Consies. And ‘Groby’ carefully arranged things so that your Consie data is uncheckable and therefore unassailable. ‘Groby’ arranged for you-the real you-to withhold the imaginary ‘data’ until the Consies would have had a chance to change all that. ‘Groby’ was acting in self-defense. Courtenay was coming back and he knew it; ‘Groby’ felt himself being ‘squeezed out.’ Very well; he can bide his time. He arranged things so that he can make a comeback-” “I’m not insane!” “My analyst-!” “You’ve got to believe me!” “These unconscious conflicts-” “I tell you Taunton has killers!” “Do you know what convinced me, Mitch?” “What?” I asked bitterly. “The fantasy of a Consie cell embedded in Chicken Little. The symbolism-” he flushed a little, “well, it’s quite unmistakable.” I gave up except on one point: “Do people still humor the insane, Mr. Schocken?”
“You’re not insane at all, my boy. You need-help, like a lot of-” “I’ll be specific. Will you humor me in one respect?” “Of course,” he grinned, humoring me. “Guard yourself and me too. Taunton has killers-all right; I think, or Groby thinks, or some damn body thinks that Taunton has killers. If you humor me to the extent of guarding yourself and me, I promise not to start swinging from the ceiling and gibbering. I’ll even go to your analyst.” “All right,” he smiled, humoring me. Poor old Fowler. Who could blame him? His own dreamworld was under attack by every word I had to say. My story was blasphemy against the god of Sales. He couldn’t believe it, and he couldn’t believe that I-the real I-believed it. How could Mitchell Courtenay, copysmith, be sitting there and telling him such frightful things as: The interests of producers and consumers are not identical; Most of the world is unhappy; Workmen don’t automatically find the job they do best; Entrepreneurs don’t play a hard, fair game by the rules; The Consies are sane, intelligent, and well organized. They were hammer-blows at him, but Fowler Schocken was nothing if not resilient. The hammer bounced right off and the dents it made were ephemeral. There was an explanation for everything and Sales could do no wrong. Therefore, Mitchell Courtenay, copysmith, was not sitting there telling him these things. It was Mitchell Courtenay’s wicked, untamed id or the diabolic ‘George Groby’ or somebody-anybody but Courtenay. In a dissociated fashion that would have delighted Fowler Schocken and his analyst I said to myself: “You know, Mitch, you’re talking like a Consie.” I answered: “Why, so I am. That’s terrible.” “Well,” I replied, “I don’t know about that. Maybe . . .” “Yeah,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe . . .”
It’s an axiom of my trade that things are invisible except against a contrasting background. Like, for instance, the opinions and attitudes of Fowler Schocken. Humor me, Fowler, I thought. Keep me guarded. I don’t want to run into an ambivalent fantasy like Hedy again, ever. The symbolism may have been obvious, but she hurt me bad with her symbolic little needle.
fifteen Runstead wasn’t there when our little procession arrived in executives’ country of the Schocken Tower. There were Fowler, me, Jack O’Shea, secretaries-and the weapons squads I had demanded. Runstead’s secretary said he was down the hall, and we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. After an hour I suggested that he wasn’t coming back. After another hour word got to us that a body had been found smashed flat on the first setback of the Tower, hundreds of feet below. It was very, very difficult to identify. The secretary wept hysterically and opened Runstead’s desk and safe. Eventually we found a diary covering the past few months of Runstead’s life. Interspersed with details of his work, his amours, memos for future campaigns, notes on good out-of-the-way restaurants, and the like were entries that said: “He was here again last night. He told me to hit harder on the shock-appeal. He scares me . . . He says the Starrzelius campaign needed guts. He scares hell out of me. Understand he used to scare everybody in the old days when he was alive . . . GWH again last night . . . Saw him by daylight first time. Jumped and yelled but nobody noticed. Wish he’d go away . . . GWH teeth seem bigger, pointier today. I ought to get help . . . He said I’m no good, disgrace to profession . . .” After a while we realized that “he” was the ghost of George Washington Hill, father of our profession, founder of the singing commercial, shock-value, and God knows what else. “Poor fellow,” said Schocken, white-faced. “Poor, poor fellow. If only I’d known. If only he’d come to me in time.”