Page 29 - Just Deserts

The Decimator

of piece of—oh, what the hell was I supposed to say? Those wops
couldn’t build a decent tank when we beat their asses in the war, and
they still can’t make a machine that’ll stand up to a Mercedes—or
even a Toyota!”
This time Connie had a thoughtful look. Kenostaphos glanced at
her questioningly. “No, no, I got it, all right,” she said. “It’s really just
as funny as the others, but now it is dawning on me just how
insidious those old film clips are. His target audience—and most of
the people just happening to watch these commercials, as well—
would be sucked into the context of the Decimator movies, sort of
short-circuited into the suspension of disbelief they are already
conditioned to by thousands of hours of identifying with on-screen
heroes. It’s not like a fresh image of Sunderbar videotaped last week
making a clearly political pitch—against which a very different set of
unconscious responses have been developed by those same viewers.
Is there another one? I’ve lost count.”
Kenostaphos nodded. “Yes, one more, from the first in the series.
The outtake is particularly devastating, given the shift in public
morality in the intervening years.”
He played the Iconoplast excerpt of young Billy’s rescue by the
dauntless Decimator. It ended with Rod Deal’s stirring declamation
of altruism, the cinematographer conferring beatitude upon the actor
with several less than subtle techniques. Whereupon the fifth treasure
buried in the Jenkins garage became manifest: Rod Deal crashed into
the dingy dungeon, lurched to the curtains, then back to the boy in a
burst of harsh arc lights. Sunderbar pulled down the gag and began
fumbling behind the chair. “Are you all right, Billy?” he rasped.
Instead of clichés of gratitude the lad squealed like a stuck pig and
squirmed violently in his chair. “Help!” he shouted to unseen ears
off-camera. “He’s drunk again! And he pinched my—my bottom!
Mommy! I don’t want to do this scene again. Get me out of here!” A
blurry figure moved in front of the tableau, effectively terminating
the scene.
Kenostaphos set the two tapes rewinding. “Well, Ms.
Gegenschein: what do you think? Iconoplast has the commercials
well into post-production, and we can probably guess when they will
start saturating the airwaves. I know a company—totally discreet,
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