The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [45]
“I’m going to start a Left Bank Magazine and call it Anything Gauche’’’
“Very funny, ha-ha.”
“Zop, zop.”
“Listen you bums, this is no fly-by-night proposition. I tell you we’re all ready to roll. We’re getting the financing under control this very minute. Yeah, you heard me. And we didn’t have to go to any nympho Society bag for it either. Wanna know how we did it? Come on, guess how.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well guess, dammit. What does Paris need most?”
“I don’t know.”
This made the Editor furious. “Think, man, think. Here you are, you and a couple of hundred other hungry bastards like you, sitting around this bistro, knocking it back. So what happens? Maybe a little later you’ll try to scrounge up a few lousy potato chips or some such crap, but what would you really go for in a big way if they had it around, easy to get at. In machines? Come on, what?”
“A couple of shrunken heads.”
“Popcorn, you fools, popcorn!” he bellowed triumphantly. “I’ll put it to you this way: just think how many cafés there are in this vast sewer we call Paris. Then think how many people there are drinking at this very moment, who want a little delicious sustenance to keep them going. Now just roll those numbers around in your mind awhile and you’ll get some idea of the business our popcorn machines are going to do. We grow the corn right here in France, pop it, install the machines and walk away with the profits. I tell you the whole thing’s just beautiful. And here’s the genius who figured the whole thing out.” He waved in the direction of the weedy Abstractionist, who came to life at these words, acknowledged them with a modest smile of achievement, and began a scientific discourse on the planting of the crop.
“But how are you going to make France popcorn-conscious? The French won’t know whether to eat it or rub it in their hair.” This was me.
“All in good time. All in good time,” said the Editor soothingly. “We’ve already started our publicity campaign in a small way. Did you happen to notice the shocking-pink van outside? Well that’s ours. Ray” (that was the Abstractionist) “will paint the popcorn sign on tomorrow. And last week when the news of this venture slipped out prematurely—naturally we were powerless to prevent it—there immediately appeared in the correspondence columns of the Herald Tribune two letters, one for and one against. ‘This nefarious attempt of the Coca Cola Empire to extend its frontier by blasting further commercial inroads into French Cultural Tradition!’ The phrase is our learned colleague’s here,” (Beard Bubbly) “who incidentally wrote them both. Also, we were gratified to notice that the cause célèbre has already spilled over to the correspondence columns of France-Soir today, and who knows, if this keeps up a real letter may soon be written on the subject.”
I was beginning to get interested in all this. I mean it made a lot of sense to me. I adore popcorn, anyway. I was going to find out more about the magazine when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Larry. Or thought I did. Just one of those things. I went all weak and woozy. I leaped from my chair and rushed off in his direction, a big, fat, stupid grin all over my face. It wasn’t Larry, of course, or anything like; it was one