Molloy goes west

Rainbows end down that highway where ocean breezes blow.
RH

Another slow train to the coast...
JM

Molloy slumped loathingly into his cubicle on Monday morning, exhausted and depressed. He switched on his computer and took a few hard swigs from the tall Styrofoam cup that held his coffee. His eyes were heavy and tired and his head was throbbing. He spaced out while the machine fired up and the programs loaded one by one.

The offices of Thompson and Joyce Advertising Company were dark and dank at 7 a.m., even though outside the sun blazed intensely. The closest windows to Molloy’s cubicle were located two gigantic rooms away and down a long hallway that led to the mailroom. Molloy had left most of the lights off in the copy room to avoid the stinging burn of neon lighting. He was the only one in the otherwise empty, dark room.

He clicked through his office email without reading any of them. Fifty-six new messages plagued his inbox, mostly from his three supervisors who were asking or telling him the same things three different times even though each of them had been cc’d on the previous two emails. For example, Molloy noticed this brilliant exchange that took place over the weekend:

Sent: 6/4/05, 2:24 p.m.
From: H. Beale
To: Molloy, Burroughs, Yates

Molloy-
I’m still waiting for the Belgium Crunch copy. Please send first thing Monday morning. Thanks.
--H.B.

Sent: 6/4/05, 4:16 p.m.
From: Burroughs
To: Molloy, H. Beale, Yates

M. Please get your Belgium Crunch suggestions to me pronto.
--B.

Sent: 6/5/05 6:49 a.m.
From: Yates
To: Molloy, Burroughs, H. Beale

Molloy, I’m not sure if anyone else has asked for it yet, but we NEED that Belgium Crunch copy on Monday morning. Please make an effort to get it in to us at all costs!

--Yates

And here’s the real kicker: Molloy looked through his “sent items” box and found this email, sent on Friday afternoon:

Sent: 6/3/05, 4:21 p.m.
From: Molloy
To: H. Beale, Burroughs, Yates

Beale,
I have pasted my suggested body copy for the Belgium Crunch cookies below. I look forward to the meeting on Monday. See you then...
--Molloy

And below was Molloy’s copy:

Belgium Crunch
These Belgium Crunch cookies are made from the richest, finest chocolate in Europe and combine the perfect elements of texture and flavor in every bite.


Molloy was tempted to copy and paste the whole thread into an email and send it to his bosses. Instead, he just printed out his copy, walked it over to Beale’s desk and placed it on top of his keyboard. Beale would have to be an imbecile to miss it, but Molloy wasn’t putting it past him. He printed out a second copy for when Yates or Burroughs approached him and demanded it.

Then he hunkered back down at his desk and began responding one at a time to his emails. Over the next hour, the other T&J copywriters began filing into the office. Most just gave Molloy a desperate wave or a suppressed hello, to which Molloy responded every time with a “‘Sup” without looking up from his screen.

The other copywriters and copy chiefs were in their 30’s and 40’s, at least 10 years older than Molloy. Molloy had nothing in common with them, except for their mutual appreciation for a good drunken night. With the exception of one or two, they were all drifters and winos, men who had stumbled into this job because of their connections to Beale, who was the biggest drunk of them all. There wasn’t a single woman who worked in the west coast office of T&J—not because they never hired women, but because no woman could stand being around these foul-mouthed drunks for any amount of time.

Most were hack journalists and wannabe fiction writers who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. Beale had presumably met most of them at some dive bar in Oakland and invited them to an interview the next day. Sometimes guys would show up for interviews and Beale would have no idea who they were or where they came from—he had blacked out the night before and had no memory of scheduling an interview with the homeless guy who slept outside of the Kingfish or some other dive. So Beale would throw them out of the office, screaming and jabbering like a pit bull on speed while chasing and threatening to beat them with a rolled up newspaper.

Molloy wondered how he had even wound up in this place. Two years ago he had been a promising entry-level ad writer and college graduate in New York with at least some sense of hope and illusions of upward mobility. Jim Thompson, the CEO and co-founder of T&J, had taken a shining to the young Molloy while he was still working out of New York and assigned him to help out the senior writers on some of the big accounts that were really driving the firm and making big money. Then one day after Molloy had been working there about a year, Thompson pulled him into his office.

“Molloy, sit down for a second, I want to discuss something with you” he had started out. Molloy had always described Thompson as a cross between Mr. Burns from the Simpsons and Lumberg from Office Space. He was a tall, dangly guy with a white beard and eyes that were beat red all the time. Thompson was a notoriously passive-aggressive boss, often assigning supervisors to scold employees when Thompson himself had a problem with the way they were dressing or where they were parking in the parking lot. So Molloy knew something was up when Thompson had invited him personally into his office.

“Molloy, now you know we’re expanding by adding a few offices on the west coast,” he glared down at Molloy looking for a sign of agreement. Molloy nodded. “And we want to give you the opportunity to help open the Oakland, California office. It would mean a little bump in pay and a little more responsibility, and we think you’re up for it.” Molloy remained silent but nodded a few more times. “Now Hank Beale is going to head up that office and we think you’re going to work great with him. We’re about to close on some great account opps with a few wineries, a grocery chain and a vodka company out there, and we want you to help write packaging content. We’re working with some great designers and branding consultants who have seen your work and are excited to have you on the team. Beale is also looking forward to this, so we trust you’ll agree to the terms.”

A week later Molloy sat up from a barstool somewhere in Greenwich Village and hailed a taxi to JFK airport. He woke up in Oakland airport.

Just as Molloy was thinking about all this, Beale stumbled into the office. It was 8:45 in the morning on Monday and he was drunk. Molloy was the first one he spotted.

“Molloy, goddamn it, how was that goddamn ball?” He was slurring and it came out like “awe ‘uz dat gawd-damn baaaalll.” Molloy was embarrassed and said nothing but Beale kept at it. “Did you score with any blond broads or red-haired vixens?” Blund bruds or red-aairrred vickenszzz.

Oh Jesus, what the fuck is this? Molloy thought. “Nah, Beale, sorry, just had a few drinks, that’s it.”

“You fuckin’ pussy. Goddamn it, you can’t even get some cunt for a night? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Molloy just shook his head. The other writers were staring at him and he didn’t want to make a scene. Finally Beale gave up and went over to his desk.

Molloy thought for a while about the ball and that strange lunch the next day with Lizzy and her friends. He wondered what had happened to Tom and why he wasn’t at lunch. He probably didn’t score with any blond broads either. And what was up with that Cindy chick? She had ignored her boyfriend for the first 15 minutes and was totally hitting on Dark hardcore, and then she came back from the bathroom and was all over that guy—what was his name, Chad?—for the rest of the time. Weird. And she didn’t eat a thing. Everyone else had chowed down like it was the last supper, but Cindy had just picked at some bacon and had maybe half a piece in total. Strange. Well, he was interested in learning more about this freakish crew. They had arranged to meet at a bar in Berkeley for Thursday night, and it was all Molloy could think about all morning.