Syrup Read Online Free PDF Page A

humble opinion. Smiles all around. There is paperwork to be signed, of course, but that’s fulfilled over the next few days, and suddenly Scat is lighting cigarettes with hundred dollar bills and buying CD collectors packs just because he can and fielding investment agents with hard smiles who all have strong opinions about how to invest three million dollars.
    So that’s how the story goes.
    Almost.

why scat should have studied pre-law
    Of course, you can’t sell ideas as such. You can sell patents, and you can sell copyright, and you can sell trademarks.
    Which is why when 6 says, “And he is prepared to relinquish his trademark rights for three million,” two thoughts simultaneously race through my brain. The first is like a high-pitched fire-cracker that screams into the night, and it goes:
    Three miiiiiiiiiillion dollars!
    The second feels like remembering I promised to pick my mother up from the airport three hours ago, and that one goes:
    Trademark?

contractual bliss
    The board gets much happier upon hearing that they can acquire Fukk for a bargain basement three million, and I leave Coca-Cola on the crest of their radiant smiles and 6 promising to call me and a heap of paperwork with lots of blank spaces for “Scat” and “Fukk cola product.”
    There’s a phone booth conveniently next to the bus stop, and I look up the address of the Los Angeles Patents and Intellectual Property Office. Defying all laws of nature, the first bus that comes along is headed toward it, and en route I stare out the window and wonder if I am a brilliant millionaire or a really big chump.
    There is, of course, no reason why I can’t go down right now and register Fukk. As long as I’m first, it’s mine. If Coca-Cola assumes that no one would be stupid enough to forget to do that before trumpeting their genius to large corporations, then that’s just lucky for me. I can slip down, fix my mistake and it will be like nothing ever went wrong.
    The thing that bothers me, though, is that 6 doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would, in the midst of a three-million-dollar deal, make any sort of assumption like that at all.

nice one, einstein
    I tear through the form, completing it in three minutes. At the desk, I ask the clerk how long I have to wait until I can find out if my application will be accepted.
    “Four weeks,” he says. He’s roughly my age, but no more forgivable for this.
    “Ah,” I say. “You see, I was kind of hoping to find out a little sooner than that.”
    “Were you?” the clerk says, almost as if he is interested.
    “Yeah,” I say, smiling a little.
    “Too bad, huh?” he says.
    He is looking over my shoulder for the next customer, so I say whatever leaps into my head. This usually just gets me into trouble, but very occasionally pays off. The law of averages, I guess. “You know, you look a little like Einstein.”
    Amazingly, a huge smile breaks across his face. “A lot of people tell me that,” he says. “And you know, working in the patent office and all ...”
    “Yeah, of course.” I laugh. I have no idea what he is talking about.
    “Hey, you know, about that application,” he says, leaning forward. “If you just want to pick a particular field, I can run a check for duplications right now.”
    “Really?” I say, turning on the good-buddy charm. Einstein and I could have played football together in high school, confided longings for senior girls in one another, hung out at pinball parlors. Except we didn’t. I’m a marketing grad with three million dollars at stake and he’s a pimply twerp in a dead-end job. “Hey, that’d be great. Can you just check for the name?”
    “ ‘Fukk’? Sure thing. Hang on a sec.” His fingers dance across the keyboard. Watching them, I feel a little lightheaded. This guy is about to tell me if I’m worth approximately three million dollars or exactly two hundred and eight.
    His computer pipes up with a small beep. Einstein frowns at it