Today, Spencer has a fair number of such eventualities to untangle, to sort into knot free fibers, to lay out in fine, straight lines in the bin of accomplishment. The SFL’s Divisional Playoffs were held yesterday. Certainly not to Spencer’s surprise, the San Francisco Prospectors and the New England Minutemen emerged as winners and will meet in Killerbowl XXI on New Year’s Day.

Ida Moulay sits across Spencer’s desk from him, transcribing his instructions onto a tiny voice-actuated tape recorder.

“I want XXI given saturation promotion,” he dictates. “Ten second teaser spots during station breaks for starters. Get the art department to design a clever XXI logo. Full-page ads in all the general entertainment newsmags, the specialized journals and the horn sheets. Have our agency prepare three sets of comps for my approval, one for each of those three market segments. Line up pregame specials for showing by all our affiliates. Make at least one of them a vivifyzation. Those always go over well when they deal with football. Get Enge to do something on his program. Not just this week, every week from here on out. Issue the usual public relations releases. Include quotes from Barin, maybe even get one from the President. I’ll leave that to you. And a direct mail piece. I want a mailer to go out to everyone who has punched up at least one replay in the past year. Stress that this is the game of the century. Promise plenty of action, bloodshed, killing, you fill in the words. And a contest. I want a contest. A ‘Pick the Killerbowl Winner’ contest. Run it in two divisions, junior and adult.”

He interrupts his conceptualizing to insert a brief explicatory footnote. “Do you get what I’m striving for, here, Ida? I want XXI to be the number one topic from now until January first. I’ll hold you personally responsible for seeing that it is.” He slips down into his chair, pulls out a lower desk drawer, and props his feet up on it. He draws his finger across his throat and gestures at Ida’s recorder.

Ida snaps a toggle, and the recorder shuts off.

“This game is quite important to me, Ida. So much so that I plan to become personally involved in its outcome. I will be Harv Matision’s control for this one. I want you to take over the Prospectors’ man. Can you handle it?”

“Yes.” She’s filled in as a programming adjuster on numerous prior occasions. She knows the procedures quite well.