Snowball Effect

I couldn’t resist Michael Dabney’s proposition in the Checkers Lounge at the LA Hilton Checkers hotel during the Entertainment Industry Advertisers’ Association convention—well either of his propositions, really. I’d never done it with a black man before, and that had become somewhat of a special fantasy of mine. I was attending the EIAA convention, because I’d been working with a small firm that had exclusive contracts with a few actors’ agencies for commercial TV work. Dabney worked for a much larger and more influential black-owned firm representing the recording and advertising portfolios for black singers—mostly bad-boy rap artists.

“But why me?” I asked.

“You mean other than trying to get your luscious body in bed?” Michael asked. But he was smiling that enigmatic smile at me that I found so engaging, and he was so glib and given to turning of phrases and playful double entendres that I didn’t take him seriously. Besides, he was far more luscious than I was. Not American black, but a transplant from the Caribbean and all hot sexy looks and lean and trim body, emphasized by his graceful, fluid movement. And he had a smooth, rich voice and an expert grasp of the disarming sales pitch technique. He could talk the chastity belt off a nun. Which probably was why he was head of the marketing department for Johnson Brothers, the rising black advertising firm in the music industry.

“No, I mean that I’m a white guy and Johnson Brothers is an all-black firm representing black musicians only. Why are you offering me a job under you?”