THE REAL THING
I have one of the best jobs in the world. I go into the wilderness and bring comforting tokens of civilisation to my fellow men.
I seek the hardest paths into the remotest places, and there at the edge of awe-inspiring vistas I plant, for my employers, a sign which says, "Coca Cola – the real thing".
Naturally no-one who sees the sign has any immediate prospect of purchasing a Coke. But they will have reached this spot only after great exertion, possibly at the limits of their endurance, and they never afterwards forget the sign.
Here in the rugged mountains of *******, after two months of reconnoitring, I have finally found the perfect site. I have called in our helicopter teams, and the sign is in place. It is not large, but its jolly bright-red lettering cannot fail to catch the eye.
Tonight, in my modest hotel in the little walled town, I shall down a Cuba Libre and sleep the sleep of the just.
This morning, as I was about to check out, and with my return flight awaiting me, there stepped into the hotel lobby an urchin, who handed me a note. I stared at the smeared bubble-jet print: "Look to your Sign – A Friend". I turned to question the boy, but the hotel staff had already chased him off the premises.
I drove immediately to the high mountain, parked my car and began the long trek up to the sign. To my dismay, directly in front of it and completely hiding it from view, was a new sign. It read "Jones's Gold Medal Sausages", and had the address of a butcher's shop situated in some village with an unpronounceable name down in the valley.
I always imagined butchers to be fat and jolly. Jones was small and rat-like. At a rear table in the unpronounceable village's only hostelry, the Sheepdip Inn, I was showing him my cheque-book with the famous company logo prominent on each page.
"As you can imagine, Mr Jones, this cheque-book is, so to speak, bottomless."
"I don't take bribes."
I called for a tequila and Coke, and it was no surprise to me when the snot-nosed girl behind the counter said, "We only do Pepsi here, is that all right?"
"How many sausages do you produce, Mr Jones?"
"Oh, about fifty packs a day. People come from miles around, you see."
"On behalf of my company I will order 100 packs a day. These will be shipped to our national headquarters for sale in the canteen. That is not a bribe, that is a legitimate business offer."
He thought, and nodded. Like many before him, he would not long resist a multi-national colossus.
"Of course, with a guaranteed sale like that, you won't need to advertise." He nodded again. "So we can remove the sign?"
Six weeks later I was returning from my annual vacation at the Silver Glades Motivational and Charismatic Selling Park in Salt Lake City when my cellphone rang. "We've just had a fax from the canteen executive at our HQ over in *******. Something about inedible sausages failing to meet basic food and hygiene regs. They're pointing fingers at you." Damn.
Crisis management is my middle name. I flew back to *******, and armed with a public health inspector's damning report, I summoned Jones over to my hotel. I explained that I understood human nature, that naturally he would be tempted to reduce the quality of his sausages when placed in the position of a monopoly supplier. However, he would discover (using one of our motivational phrases) that he had caught his tits in a wringer, and I would close him down without hesitation unless he mended his ways. He thought for a moment, then gave his familiar nod. Crisis over. I went to my room and rang for a brandy and Coke.
I allowed myself 48 hours against jetlag, then made an early-morning start up the mountain to view my proud sign against the sunrise. I arrived, panting from my climb, just as dawn broke. I read in the mounting daylight (and with mounting disbelief) the words "Jones's Five-Star Funeral Parlour" followed by the same unpronounceable village name. This incongruous message, on sturdy metal supports smelling of fresh paint, had been sited with malign precision. Our company sign was once again completely obscured.
Discreet inquiries revealed that this Jones was a first cousin of the butcher Jones. I began an urgent exchange of encrypted emails with our legal department in Atlanta. Could I offer this wretched mortician an exclusive contract to bury members of our employee pension scheme when they passed on? I felt certain we had the power to make pension payments conditional on the beneficiaries agreeing to be buried by anyone we wanted.
My satisfaction with this solution was short-lived. Atlanta pointed out that, while such an agreement could certainly be imposed on our pensioners, it was unenforceable. Through the very fact of their death, they would be entitled to no further funds in any case, so they could renege on the deal with impunity and seek burial wherever they chose.
I am facing the worst crisis of my business career. With that sign rendered useless, I have nothing to show for more than four months of expense and effort. Ours is a kind company to achievers, but unforgiving of failure. I may lose my job. At the very least I shall have to return my stout mountain boots and my weatherproof clothing.
I am sitting here in the empty bar of the modest hotel in the bleak and damp walled town, drinking Malibu and Coca Cola with no certainty that my expenses will even be approved. I am steeling myself for what must be done. I must climb the mountain at night, and remove the mortician's sign.
It is done. I am not a superstitious man, but I defy anyone to climb a mountain alone on a moonless night and not feel the malevolence of the starving neolithic runts who once defended these slopes. Men who knew nothing of the world's greatest thirst-quenching experience, men who lived without leisure or disposible income in the dark days before Coca Cola (B.C.). But the funeral sign is removed, and dashed to pieces at the bottom of the moraine.
I suppose I knew it would happen. The morning after my ordeal on the mountain, I had once again asked for my bill and was waiting at the reception desk for the clerk, a local inbred cretin, to work out how to take the dust cover off the computer. Through the window I could see the unwashed urchin approaching along the narrow street, a note in his hand. He threw it in the doorway moments before the porter could set his German Shepherd dog on him, but I scarcely needed to read it. "Look to your Sign", it said. "A Friend".
I am back on the mountain. I am standing on the edge of the vista where my sign once stood. I know I have been followed, because I can hear the click of a camera shutter some way behind me. The sign -- my company's sign -- is at the bottom of the moraine, thrown down by hands unknown to join the one I uprooted last night. My prospects are now beyond rescue. I am on the edge of a precipice. I see only one solution.
END