He didn’t like picking matchbooks off the floor; made him feel like a bum fishing for cigar stubs in an ashtray. But this one he couldn’t resist. He looked down and it looked up at him. Orange and blue, what his teacher had called the “World’s Fair colors.” New York, 1939. Prof said the combo wore thin by the Fair's end, and no one would use them again for twenty years. No one would avoid the colors; they’d just never occur to anyone for a while. No one would look at a design and see orange and blue until we had rockets on the moon.

But the guy who did this book still saw them. This guy was going to bring back orange and blue and didn’t care what you thought about it. Joe examined the matchbook as he headed towards in the elevator. A forty-strike, which the boss had forbid him to sell – the margins weren’t any better, and customers rarely reordered them. Twenty matches were just right. Forty matches seemed like more than you’d need – you weren’t really smoking that much, were you? And when the book you down to three or four the book was harder to hold, and it seemed like a lot of cover for just a few bent matches. Too much. But man, you could design the hell out of a forty-strike; look what this guy had done. Starts with a bum hand – Associated Gas & Oil, a division of Associated Products, good look making that work – and knocks you out on the front. What is that, the sun? The Japanese flag after a haircut and dye job? It worked, whatever it was. He peered at the slogan: hand-lettered high-school penmanship type, but meticulous. Look at those fs. You had to know what you were doing without hesitation. No room for amateurs; it was like cutting a diamond or doing a circumcision. One motion. Sure hand.

Look at the way the sans-serif T in “Associated” is notched so it fits in the sun. It’s just a work of art.

The elevator stopped; he got in with a man in a gray suit carrying a stuffed cat. He got off on nine and turned left. Joe made a note to check the building directory one of these days. That wasn’t the first time people brought dead things up to nine. Taxidermy repair, maybe. He hoped.

In his office he pulled up the shades and looked out the window. Cleveland in January. The great lake was frozen and white, looking as if the world had been caught in mid-yawn.

Texas gas. No one will ever name a gasoline for Ohio, Joe thought. Where would you want to go with a thankful of Ohio Regular? A tank of Texas Gasoline would have to get you from one end of the state to the other. Drive from Abilene, wherever the hell that was, to the World’s Far. Alamo Beer in one hand, wheel in the other, twang on the radio, top down . . . nah, convertibles were California. Texas was a pickup truck with steer horns for a hood ornament.

Not that he’d been there. But he’d seen cartoons. He could imagine it. A little filling station on the side of a long straight road, scrub brush, tumbleweeds. One old cranky guy sitting in the shade taking a pull off a Coke, hound at his feet. Both would give you equal looks of indifference when you pulled up. You’d get out, stretch, crack your back – man, Texas is big, been drivin’ for nine days straight – and check your choices: Texas. Perfect. Blue Streak. What if you took a little of each? What if you dared to combine orange and blue again?

“Wouldn’t recommend it, mister,” the old man would say. Or maybe podner. Texas was podner country. Mister was for outsiders. What gave you away? Some city slicker detail you could never remember to change. The shoes. It was always the shoes. “You combine those gasolines, you’ll be in New Mexico before you have time to find the brake.” Then he’d spit.

There was a knock on the door; Joe turned around. “It’s open.”

The boss came in. He looked pale; his glasses had slid down his nose to a position that made their use seem unlikely. He had a manila envelope in his hand. “Up for a road trip. Joe?”

“Where?”

He pushed up his glasses, blinked. “It’s not exactly Ashtabula. More like north of it. But you can stay in Ashtabula.”

“When you put it like that, sure.”

“Good. Here’s the skinny on the client.” He held up the envelope. “He’s not used to the personal touch. Man was mighty impressed we’d send a representative out, so hit him up for a large order. He balks, tell him you have other business in town, leave it at that. And have a steak on me, okay? I mean, just you. This isn’t one you have to take out and liquor up, I don’t think. You know I’d go, but, well –“

“Don’t worry. I like to drive, remember? I just need to find someone to feed the dog.”

“I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“I don’t. So I guess I’m ready to go.” Joe smiled.

The boss just looked at him.

“Sorry,” Joe said.

“Okay, well.” He coughed. “You want to start out today, you can. You caught up on the other account? Yes, of course you are. Say – what’s this?” He picked the Consolidated matchbook off Joe’s desk. “That’s an old timer. Where’d you get this?”

“Found it.”

“I had a pal used to represent them. Haven’t seen this in a while.” He tossed it back on the desk. “They went bust in ’39. You ask me, they spent too much on the goddamn matches.”