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Leonardo Palmieri, the man whose face was to be found on the next Vox product… cereals would have been perfect, if Vox had produced cereals… was the pivot of the discussion. Palmieri had always been a natural team leader, having contributed for years to office life posing out of place questions, not making coffee, trying, in turn and according to the person, to fuck with or fuck everyone, and generally slowing every project ever approved in the division.
There was a quote that defined him perfectly, and that quote was “him being a Working Joe doesn’t mean he’s not a shithead”. The Working Joe definition had somehow been adopted in contraposition to Oscar, whose I.Q. made him the equivalent of a local nobility, birthright-granted one step ahead.
From the Oscar archives: Liverziani on the Palmieri topic: “It’s amazing cause you can see fear in his eyes. When you’re talking and it’s your turn he freezes, you saw him, and looks at you with them popped eyes. He’s panic-stricken.”
It was the kind of urticating behaviour Oscar heard some of the accounts girls define lost puppy looks. He looked at you with those eyes and you just hoped he was not gonna try and suck away your soul.
“That’s the proof to that theory I told you” Liverziani had continued. “I always wondered whether he really was a total nobody or something else. Or maybe a total nobody and something else. Know what I mean? You see he’s a nobody, you tease him a little, but then you’re over it, ain’t you?”
“Are you talking cover-up?”
“Right there, a cover-up. Think about it. If the world’s mean and nasty smearing yourself in shit can be your way.”
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