I went to college a mere ninety minutes from home via The Metroliner train, legendarily the swiftest service between New York and Philadelphia.
Nonetheless, I chose instead to drive the Saab 900 turbo my dad gifted me as hush money for my childhood. I named the car Phisto, (short for Mephistophelian Bargain.)
Purportedly a two-hour drive, I cleavered half of those minutes off, pushing Phisto beyond its owner’s manual’s stated fastest cruising capability.
While I understood what was meant by speed limit, I simultaneously misunderstood, assuming it didn’t mean my limit.
Early on, whenever stopped by a flashing light in my rearview, the cop would say,
y’know you were doin’ 90.
And I’d think, is that fast? while saying,
so sorry, officer.
Then I’d hand over my driver’s license with a hundred-dollar bill protruding like a stick of gum being offered, from my wallet’s transparent plastic holding sleeve. If I were handed back the license with the money still there, I was also handed a ticket. But if the officer gave me back my license minus the cash, I would be spared the violation along with the fine. My father had schooled me in this peculiar practice and supplied the hundreds.
Speeding is illegal and common. Bribery is more illegal but less common. It’s the rare few of us dabbling in police-bribing before our 19th birthday.
Just shy of my 21st birthday, I began working in advertising. My first job was for the small firm paying me $11,000 to lie.
I told lies about a second-tier cruise ship. My words making the ship’s powdered eggs freshly-laid, the croissants cloud-like, the canned milk wholesome. I equated miniscule accommodations to meditative oases, I likened being stuck at sea for a week, to falling in love. Some called my words hyperbole. Others ventured falsifying.
I called it work.
My first year of work earned me a glass trophy, a $5,000 holiday bonus, and a job offer from a more famous ad agency. Banking the bonus, I accepted the job offer, soon displaying my glass trophy atop my new desk slightly to the right of a beautiful black and white photo in a sterling silver frame of a dog I did not own.
At the more famous ad agency, I lied in more categories. Lying about the value of over-priced laundry detergent. Lying about a women’s athletic shoe being designed by women. Lying about a fast food chain having healthy menu choices. Crafted with burgeoning expertise, my lies resulted in clients specifically requesting my lies over lies of less agile liars. I was proud. I was promoted.
Senior Copywriter would become my new moniker, titularly expressed on stiff new business cards.
I handed them out liberally, buoyed my business cards read Senior Copywriter instead of expert liar.
There was also fun official nomenclature my fellow-liars and I used within our profession.
Lending Credibility: Claiming a sneaker is specifically designed by women and for women lends credibility to the brand.
Permission to Believe: Consumers want the famous brand detergent, but are concerned about cost, so we give them permission to believe they are making a prudent decision spending more.
Consumer Education: We are providing much needed and sought-after information.
Entertainment value: We improve people’s lives, entertaining them via humorous or otherwise intelligent media messaging they would be exposed to anyway.
I self-lied about my job, convincing myself my work was no different than my friends’ careers.
My friend Dr. Carol was a physician, my friend Andy a teacher, and Cynthia worked in legal aid.
Masquerading as an honest parent, I lied to my toddler son.
Mommy, the moon sleeps above our roof, doesn’t it?
Arthur asked me, noticing the moon settling in the night sky just over our house.
Yes, Arthur, isn’t that amazing? Responding as if to a Nobel scientist discovering a new planet.
Thinking myself a nurturer of wonder and awe, I never summoned the simplest truth. This was the Tooth Fairy. This was Santa. Like amassing a grotesque ball of knotted tangled twine, I stretched and contorted tales beneath a guise of creating a magical childhood.
Creating is a sweet word for lying.
The months leading up to Arthur’s birth had been rough. Arthur’s amniotic fluid depleting itself for reasons my doctor couldn’t uncover. Simultaneously, though I hated cigarettes, I pitched a tobacco client. The potential for more money looming large, I worked long hours honing my finest lies.
Everyone already knew cigarettes carried a death sentence. Still, the tobacco client had me sign a non-disclosure agreement before reviewing documents on smoking’s dangers.
Deep within one of these secret documents a surprising truth popped up, like a swimmer previously assumed to be drowned suddenly crashing through an entirely still lake surface. According to long-range research, if a person waited until their 40s to smoke, but then smoked habitually, they would eventually die OF ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE before cigarettes could kill them. Corralling my creative teams and assembling campaigns based on this truth, we pitched cigarettes to the unplumbed demographic of lifelong non-smokers older than 40. Asking healthy middle-agers to consider lighting-up invigorated our collective creative juices. We were inspired and excited – offering our future selves something harmful that wouldn’t harm us, like putting down-payments on sexy motorcycles we could ride into our golden years, guaranteed not to crash
One headline proposed: Try one, it won’t kill you. Really.
Another was, You’re not dying to try smoking? That’s right!
I named it the Truth Campaign.
Nearly nine months pregnant when my team and I presented the work to the tobacco folks, I attempted ignoring everyone’s smoking in the windowless space. As a respectful nod towards my robust abdomen, some exhaled their puffs with skyward velocity– festooning our conference room with billowing streamers of white mist resembling cartoon umbilical cords.
The tobacco folks smiled and nodded throughout our presentation, applauded enthusiastically at moments, shook my hand vigorously during the elevator goodbyes.
Days later, our agency was awarded the business, but instructed not to pursue the Truth Campaign. While the clients were impressed, calling the truth radical, gutsy, and honest, ultimately it made them… uncomfortable.
Truth is such an interesting concept,
They’d repeatedly say in their congratulatory memos, as they assigned us the business and delivered our new targeted marketing brief:
Convince young adults that smoking is cool.
My son was born three days later. 6.9 lbs. of sublime new life sleeping atop my chest that first night in the hospital, his endlessly deep breaths communicating complete and utter trust.
My attorney got me out of my agency contract.
I left with bonus money from helping secure the tobacco business.
J Brooke (They/e) won Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Award for their autobiographical essay, “HYBRID”, in the Womxn’s History Month Special Issue. Other awards and publishing courtesy of The Harvard Review, The Maine Review, The Southampton Review, Bangalore Review, Beyond Queer Words 2021 Anthology, and The Fiddlehead (forthcoming). Brooke was Nonfiction Editor of the Stonecoast Review while receiving an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. Brooke currently resides with their spouse Beatrice on land stolen from the Hammonasset People. Twitter: @jbrookewrites Instagram: jbrooke_writes
Photo by Vova Krasilnikov