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become an early adopter of every new technology and helped Logos transition from a traditional ad house into a “creative communications company.” Under Bud’s watch,
advertising
had become a bad word. Logos didn’t have clients, it established strategic partnerships; it didn’t make commercials, it created market-driven branding solutions. It was all very Orwellian—he and Ray thought a lot alike. Along the way, Bud also transformed himself into the industry’s foremost snack-food guru. Every obese child in America who reached for a second fistful of chips did so in large part because of Bud’s tireless efforts. He was losing a loud argument with the operating system of his computer when Ray poked his head in.
    Ray’s probationary internship period had apparently come to an end. Bud offered him a permanent and full time position, which he accepted without negotiation. The salary was an abstraction. At twenty-four years old he would make more money than his father did down at the plant—and without the daily exposure to known carcinogens. That afternoon, he moved from his cubicle into a slightly larger one.
    The work turned out to be far less exciting than he hadenvisioned. He spent months at a time rewriting the same two or three concepts for the same two or three small partners. A half-trained monkey could have done his job, but he kept his head down and churned out copy. Sometimes after work he would hit the bars with some coworkers or go on the occasional date and bring a girl home to make sweat angels in the bed sheets.
    To keep himself intellectually stimulated at work, Ray taught himself new graphic design and web development languages. He played with open-source CGI programs like they were real-time strategy video games; from his cubicle, after hours, he built parody sites for real companies that were more effective and easier to use than their official sites. After that, he created a Big Brotheresque widget that could scan ten thousand status updates—chosen according to specific user demographics—and aggregate their keywords into a randomly generated ad for a product that did not exist, but which 0.78 percent of those people attempted to purchase. He received so many orders for a flowerpot full of dried elephant dung that he considered finding a company to produce them.
    Sometimes he would attempt to pitch his concepts to Bud and the others, but most of the time he kept his mouth shut and received an annual 5 percent raise for his efforts. After a few years he had saved enough money to finagle a sub-prime mortgage on a small condo he couldn’t really afford, but which offered an obscured view of Lake Michigan. He hated to leave the pretty Yugoslav girls behind, but it was an easy move otherwise. Everything he owned fit into his car—by farthe shittiest one in his new building’s underground lot—and it just took one trip downtown. The only decor was a framed black-light propaganda poster in the living room. It featured a man’s white face and the words BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU .
    A T THE COMPANY ’ S ANNUAL Winter Holiday Fiesta, during one of his many sallies for a drink, Ray bumped into some unfortunate woman so hard that she spilled her wine. The red shower floated airborne for an eternity before finding a place to settle amid her décolletage. He wiped at it with a napkin before realizing that he was feeling up a stranger—a stranger he had just doused in her own pinot noir. A nebula of stains darkened the front of her dress. She looked at Ray, her mouth agape, then looked down at her ruined clothes. They appeared to be expensive. The extent of the tragedy made itself apparent, and she pulled her shawl around herself. Her lips pursed into a slow smile and she laughed once, very loudly, and then threw her remaining wine at him. The stain didn’t register on his holiday sweater, so she took another glass from the table and tried