“Before he became president he was the mayor of Buffalo. If he had been the mayor of Cleveland his name might have been Grover Buffalo. But I don’t know any history. What I do know is that the Socialists are squeezing Acorn, so I went to talk to Hollande. What does Acorn do in France? We relieve pressure on your system of social welfare, and you need that relief especially now. We write more high-end policies than anyone else in France, but that’s only a quarter of our business, because we take care of the middle and lower-middle class, too: shopkeepers, musicians.” He swept his left hand toward Jules in a gesture that said, voilà!
“If we pull out, your insurance and reinsurance markets go bananas. Sometimes even presidents don’t think of things like that, and it’s their job, isn’t it? The welfare state here needs all the help it can get, and right now Acorn is carrying much more than a bundle of straw, only one or two sprigs more of which could break the French camel’s back. He got it.”
“You threatened him?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. I just laid out the facts. Nobody fools around with us. We have under management more money than the GNP of any country in the world other than the US, China, Japan, and Germany. Our assets are greater than the GNP of all but the top thirty countries. And the man in the street, do you think he knows this? Governments do, they can’t help but know, and if, as sometimes happens, they tighten the screws on us, we don’t break down in tears, we seek alternative markets. We don’t have to fight, we just have to move, cast our eyes in another direction. That’s a luxury most people can’t even comprehend. You’ve heard of the expression ‘too big to fail’? Well, we’re too big to fuck. And that’s that.”
AFTER THEY FINISHED dessert, Jack leaned back in his chair. No one was going to eject them from this room, and he was in an expansive mood. “We’ve searched all over the world for what we need. We hired expensive music consultants – what the hell is a music consultant? – and they brought us crap. I don’t know anything about music, but even I figured out what was wrong with the American stuff. You know what they do? They take up to eight bars from really great songs of the fifties and sixties, orchestrate them a little, and start off that way. You think something really good’s coming, and suddenly the melodic line disappears, the tempo gets weird, and they start with a lot of off-key tricks. The thing I hate the most, the stressed surprise high note followed by an immediate drop. It sounds like …. Well it sounds as if they were saying ‘I!! don’t, You!! can’t.’ Get it? Like a roller coaster, suddenly way up, then a sudden drop, then repeated. They think that’s deep or maybe interesting. It’s just stupid. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. I’m familiar with that. I hear it on the radio in my car.”
“Is there a term for it?”
“Yes. Music for morons.”
“We had a few things – from New York, Boston – that were close but too academic. And the big shots have no interest. They think it’s below them.”
“Rilke published poems in a butcher’s magazine.”
“Whatever. Our signature theme will reach hundreds of millions of people again and again and again. We hope it will express us into the hearts of those hundreds of millions. That’s what’s important. Maybe I’m so set on this because it was my idea, and it arose from my analysis. Rich was not entirely convinced, and he said, ‘Okay, but I’ll have final say over the music.’ I said, ‘Why?’ ‘Because it’s so important,’ he said. ‘Oh? Why is it so important?’ And you know what he said? He said, ’This won’t be the face of the company, it’ll be its soul. If people love you for your soul, your face doesn’t matter and you don’t have to be perfect.’
“He doesn’t usually talk that way, because he hides that kind of thing so that he can disarm. I was really impressed, until he said, ‘Yeah, it’s like a chick, except with chicks it’s not true even if they have a great body.’ He’s really unpredictable. Still, I knew I had him. He’ll give final approval, and then present to the board. What have you got?”
“I’ve got nothing,” said Jules. “If you tell me what you want, maybe I can translate it to music.”
“Well, Monsieur … tell me again?”
“Lacour.”
“That’s right, Lacour. We need sixty seconds that can seamlessly loop, end to beginning, for use in television, radio, and internet advertising, to play in retail centers that are coming – banks have them, why not insurance companies – for telephone hold music, and for any other commercial purpose that may arise.”
“I don’t mean that, although it’s helpful. I mean what, or how, do you want people to feel?”
Jack thought for a moment before he spoke. “I want them to feel as if they’re riding across a sunlit plain, on a buckboard ….”
“What is a buckboard?”
“Like a flat wagon with a bench seat in front, and the back is for cargo. Pulled by horses.”
“I see.”
“Under an immense blue sky in a John Ford Western. I want the music to make them feel young, with the world in front of them, as if they can do anything and the best is yet to come. Like when you’ve just fallen in love. I want to make them see their own lives as a story worth telling. For them to feel courage and love upwelling within them. I want to focus their attention and make them happy, but with the trace of sadness that comes with anything beautiful.”
Jules was silent. He had not thought Jack capable of what had just been said. It was always tempting to see Americans as half-baked idiots, but it was just that, like Australians, their style was so peculiar and brash.
“What I’m trying to say is that I want the music to easily place something of high value in the immediate consciousness of the listener, something that will make an indelible impression and create gratitude. Look, I’m surrounded by all the crap” – he swept his hands in a motion that looked like he was clearing away gnats – “that money can buy. But I’m happiest when I’m home, fly fishing in a clear river in the woods, standing thigh-deep, the dark water rushing around me. That sound cleanses my life of all the crud that has stuck to it since I was six. It tells me who I really am – I’m not this – and I love it for that, and remember it like someone you love who’s lost. Can you do that with music?” Jack pressed. “I know that Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven could, but their kind of music would be inappropriate. The feel wouldn’t be right. Gershwin and Aaron Copland would have been great, but too recognizable, and anyway United beat us to the punch with Rhapsody in Blue. Fantastic.”
“United?”
“United Airlines. Yeah, they did that. It really worked. We’d like an original composition. I want people to say – the public and journalists both – ‘Who wrote that?’ In short, I want it to be ours exclusively, as if it had sprung from Acorn itself. Can you do that?”
“I can try.”
“How long will it take?”
“I could get it while I was driving home, and write it up by tomorrow. Or it might take months.”
“Months won’t do it. We’ve got to get rolling on this.”
“I can’t guarantee that I can do it at all. It’s not mechanical.”
“I understand. Would you like to discuss the terms?”
“Before I’ve written it?”
“Yes.”
“No. I’ll write it, and if you want it, then we’ll discuss the terms.”
Jack smiled. “Were you in business?”
Jules touched the center of his chest, sort of like a squirrel, and said, “Me?”