Demac-Jonas’s “new” idea was based on my years of experience camping with my parents all over tourist areas in the Northeast. I’d often seen racks with sightseeing brochures in the hotels and campgrounds where we stayed, but noted that the big hotels in Manhattan never had them. Distributing brochures to tourists in New York hotels seemed a good idea and something that, surprisingly, no one else was yet doing.

Our technique was simple. We put brochure racks in all of Manhattan’s hotels. Then we went to retailers, restaurants, theater owners, and anyone else wanting to do business with tourists, and suggested that for twenty dollars per month we’d distribute their brochures through our racks. Eventually, we planned, we’d approach these accounts to handle all of their advertising. Instead, we found, the brochure business was enough. We were satisfied to distribute brochures that someone else’s creative efforts had produced, as long as we got paid for it. What I really wanted, it turned out, was just to be in business, not necessarily the advertising business.

Sounds crazy, but it was tough work. Because we were both too young to drive, we had to make all our deliveries in large truck bicycles with a big steel delivery box on the front. On hot weekends, after twelve or sixteen hours of delivery, it seemed we drank almost as much in soda as we collected for the service. Brochure pickups were done with taxicabs after school. Only a year later, when I turned seventeen and got a license and an old station wagon, did life get a little easier. But even sweating like a pig on the bike, I was still the president of Demac-Jonas Advertising.

We managed to snag a few real advertising clients besides the brochure accounts. Unfortunately, though, the only clients who seemed to respect me as an advertising man were those who refused to pay their bills. They needed an agency because the newspapers wouldn’t give them any credit. Only we were desperate enough to. It was one thing to welch on the New York Times, quite another to stiff two sixteen-year-old boys. One client, though, screwed us totally. This was a mail-order seller of computerized horoscopes who, after placing several thousands of dollars of ads with us, just locked his doors and skipped town.
Now we really were in trouble. We owed thousands of dollars and our largest client never answered the phone or came to the door, no matter how many times we called. We couldn’t believe it; we didn’t know what to do. Finally, in desperation, we broke open the door of his Madison Avenue office, hoping to find his whereabouts or at least something we could hock to help pay the bill.