More Equal

More Equal? Part 1- A Greenville Story

She thought she was the more equal of the marriage.

I hope by the time you read this the correct follow up to the Cancer series will have been published. Going on almost a month since I first submitted it. It sat for 2 weeks, was sent back resubmitted again and now sitting for another 2 weeks. I submitted Cancer part 2 on 2/06.

This story came to me as I was reading another story and a sentence of "She thought she was more equal." Being equal was the focus of the story but that line caught my eye.

Still no editor, I'm beginning to believe my public school education has let me down.

Jackson's Story

My boss had just left my office, well cubicle really. Again he had some issue with the work I had done for this account I was working on. I work at a marketing company. We handle small and medium size businesses. I'm currently working with a trash company. They just took over a roofing company and want to rebrand it, but of course, not lose the long standing customer base and gain more business. He didn't like any of my idea's. Than again, he hasn't like much I have done lately. Its an important account. They are the largest company we've worked with so far.

I hate my job. I have been here 12 years and hate it more and more every day. Not really doing the work, its the company I hate. I understand we need to make money. That's why people are in business. But they believe money is everything. We do the cheapest job possible with some of the highest rates. The pay sucks and the only things that make it worthwhile are the benefits and not having to work weekends. This lets me have time for my family.

My boss is the biggest asshole I've ever met. Randy Wilkes, scion of the Wilkes empire. Or so he thinks. He's one of those guys that went to a good college, Vanderbilt the so called Harvard of the south, because he's a legacy. Tall at 6 foot, blond hair green eyes. Believes he's God's gift to woman. He thinks he knows the business but doesn't know shit. He's the owners son and has a fucking degree in accounting. He knows nothing about marketing. He likes pretty pictures and catchy jingles. He's a dick.

Me, I'm Jackson Barrett, 36 years old, 5 foot 10 inches tall. A little pudgy because I sit all day and the only exercise I get is doing the yard work and lifting a beer once a night. I've never been a gym rat kind of guy. I was the kid walking around school with a notepad full of drawings. I wasn't a nerd, but I had friends in the nerd group. Heck, I had friends in every group. Not that I was the popular kid in school. I just got along with everyone. That trend continued in college and after. I have a pretty good friend group.

Besides my friend group the most important person in my life is my wife Renee, 36 also, 5 foot 3 inches. Its not polite to talk about a woman's weight. We have 2 kids together, Jackson Jr or,JJ as we call him, 10 years old and Paula 7. So with having the 2 kids she has put on some weight. Renee was a stay at home mom until 2 years ago. We met at college, East Carolina. I was studying Art with a minor in Marketing. She was taking accounting courses. She now works for Apex Accounting.

The last couple of years have been stressful. Besides the job, Renee has been putting more pressure on me to make more money and spend more time with the kids. I do well enough. I took care of all the bills before she went back to work. Now it seems I don't make enough. You only get rich in marketing if you own the company.

Maybe its the fact that she spends most of her money on clothes, jewelry and the new car she had to have. For an accountant she dresses better than most executives. It wasn't always like that. Renee has done very well on her job. She's gone from just doing small business accounts to an account manager for several large companies. She does some travel to cities around the state. She had to work a couple of weekends around tax time. I guess that's to be expected in that business.

Our kids have gotten more active as they got older. JJ is on a soccer team now and Paula is part of a cheerleading group some mother started for the sisters of the soccer players. I try to make all his games but its been hard with this new campaign I've been working on.

People think marketing is sitting around coming up with clever slogans and jiggles. It is but it isn't. You have to understand the business, why people use it and why they don't? What are they looking for from that business? You need to learn about the business. So I've been learning about the trash and roofing business. The Allied company had bought Spencer Roofing and wanted to brand it Allied Carolina Roofing. So I've been spending time out of the office. The trash and roofing businesses aren't that glamorous.

As I said Renee has been a little bit difficult to live with since she went back to work. Besides the money and time demands her attitude has been getting shorter and shorter with me. Sometimes it seems like I couldn't do anything right. I was beginning to worry about how strong our relationship is. The kids mentioned a couple of times she picked them up late. I had to pick up the kids once or twice when she had a meeting with a client. I've noticed she's not as attentive to them as she used to be. Leaving me with more of the family duties.

Sex is another victim of her new attitude. We had a pretty robust sex life considering we have young kids at home. 3 to 4 times a week. After she started work it dropped to its now current once a week if I was lucky. It didn't happen all at once. Slowly, like a frog in a pot. While we never had the wild monkey sex we took care of each other. The blow jobs stopped and anal was now off the table. A wild night was when we did it doggy style.

One day I came home after having a bad day at work. Randy had told me he wanted to take me off the Allied account. I had been working on it for a month. Spending time with Adam from ACR and Ralph from Spencer Roofing and I felt we coming to agreement on a marketing campaign. Randy had done this before to a couple of others. They had almost completed the marketing campaign and he comes in and finishes it to take all the credit.

I had decided to make some serious changes in my life, Randy talking about taking me off the Allied account was the final straw. At the end of the day I invited Carrie Dupree, Sean Mercado and Alonso Jones out for a drink after work. I told them I needed to talk to them about something important.

We met at 5:30 at a bar around the corner from the office. Very rarely do we four get together. Okay, we never got together outside of work, so they all had questions when they got there. After ordering drinks I made my announcement. "I'm going out on my own and I want you three to join me."

I was met with stunned silence. Each one looking between the other and me. Not knowing what to say. "I know this has come out of the blue but for me its been brewing for a while. I can't deal with Randy any longer. I don't know about you but I haven't gotten a raise in a couple of years and the bonuses have been shit. Earlier Randy came in and told me he was taking me off the Allied account after I've been working on it for months. I'm done."

Alonso was the first to speak, "Jesus Jackson believe me I know how it is dealing with Randy. The guy has no clue about the business. I'm not going to say I've never thought about quitting before, but this a big leap." Carrie and Sean nodded in agreement.

"It is a leap alright, a leap of faith. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision. I've been contemplating about this for a while. I was thinking that as a small company we could go after business that normally don't use marketing companies. You know a lot of these companies relies on social media and many of them are getting the wrong people to do it or are doing it wrong. Also we can go after traditional businesses. We can set it up so that we can be nimble and quick. Offer fast turn around times. Since there won't be anyone looking over your shoulder you'll be able to male decisions quickly.'

"I found some office space that is affordable and we can get it in exchange for services rendered. The landlord has a couple of businesses that could use new marketing.

"I picked you three because you're the best at GWA. You're independent thinkers. You each can lead your own teams with no hand holding. Right now I'm just asking you to think about it and of course keep quiet about it for at least the next month."

Carrie seemed the most pensive out of the group. I wasn't lying when I said I picked each of them because they were the best. They each bought something different to the table. Carrie was an artist par excellence. Alonso was a wordsmith and Sean could do anything that needed to be done. I felt confident they could each lead their own team. One thing they didn't know is I picked them because they could afford it. They were all single with no family to worry about. So that was one impediment they didn't have to worry about, unlike myself. They all agreed to give it some thought and more importantly not say anything to anyone.

Having made the decision to leave I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Things at home were getting worse. Renee had told me I needed to do more around the house. She would be working more and I needed to pick up the slack. She didn't ask what I had going on, just made her declaration for me to do more. Her attitude was getting worse by the day. We had agreed to take turns cooking except when it was her turn she was either ordering food or asking me to cook more and more.

Sex had dropped to non-existence. I couldn't remember the last time we had sex. She hadn't said anything about it. I had finally begun to think something might be rotten in Denmark, or at least in Greenville. Her work hours had changed lately. We weren't talking much at all. I was feeling more and more like her flunky than her husband.

I made an appointment to talk to Adam at Allied a couple of weeks after meeting the group of three. I was going to do something I never thought I would. I walked into their offices off of Marsh Rd. The offices were huge. They have 6 satellite offices around the southeast U.S. And had 2 whole floors in this building.

Adam greeted me and lead me to the conference room. We had become friendly over the last month as

we worked on the marketing campaign. Besides Adam, there was also Ralph, Yvette the CFO and his father Barry Shepard who was one of the owners.

Shaking hands and getting introductions out of the way I started my presentation. "First I appreciate you all meeting with me. But I'm here not to represent GWA. I'm here to pitch you on letting my new company handle all your marketing going forward. I've decided to go out on my own and I would like for you to be my first client."

Yvette ask the first of many questions, "So what happens to all that money we spent with GWA? Are we going to throw everything you have done down the toilet?"

"Good question, What I propose is that I finish the current campaign pro bono if you switch to me. You pay for anything after this. I have some drafts to present that I'm sure you will be pleased with. Adam, Ralph and I have had many talks about the direction of the company. The campaign I've come up with is more cost efficient by using less legacy media than traditional campaigns.

The next 2 hours were filled with questions, some hesitancy from Barry, worry about cost from Yvette and most importantly support from Adam and Ralph. By the end I had my first client. Barrett and Associates was off and flying, at least hovering.

I walked in the door one day to be greeted by Paula. She was excited to tell me about something at school. I set my briefcase down to pick her up. We walked into the family room and Renee was sitting there with a glass of wine and a funny look on her face I would come to remember for some time. I should have known something was up because she usually has wine after dinner and not before. Once I was done playing with Paula she said go change, dinner is ready.

The kids dominated the conversation with getting us up to date on their day. JJ had a big game this weekend, If they won his team would be in first place. Not to be outdone Paula said her cheerleading team had a new routine. Once dinner was done I cleaned up and did the dishes. I went into the family room with my daily Sam Adams and Renee was sitting with her glass of wine. She looked up at me and said, "Jackson, We need to talk."

End of Part 1

Adam Shepard, Barry Shepard, Yvette Shepard have appeared in Trash Man (Romance), This is a test (Loving Wife)