Big Red Button

“Actors to the set please!”
The new Vice President of Sales for the office supply chain chuckles nervously, “To clean things up!”
The Assistant Director’s polite smile widens when she sees that the VP is serious.  “You know the office is supposed to look like this, right?”
“Really?  It’s a disaster.  You’ve got Post-It notes hanging from the sides of cabinets, storage boxes tipped over, file folders piled to the ceiling – if there was a ceiling – and papers spilling out of everything.”
“That’s the point,” she looks around for his assistant.  “That’s why they need the button.”
“Now see, I don’t think that’s necessary.  I think—“
Like every other damned thing, she realizes she’s going to have to do this herself.  “Sir, I’m going to need you to step off the set.  We’re about to start shooting.”
The AD leads the VP away as he attempts to enlighten her about why a new product needs to be presented in an appealing setting to grab the customer’s interest.  She wants to scream at him that the button is not the product but a prop, that it’s the goddamned store.  Instead she uses her new technique, reciting to herself, “Ignore, ignore, ignore…”
Paul Hatch takes his position at the edge of the set, holding the large red button.  He is beaming.  This was going to be it for him finally: The Big Break.
Paul had been a commercial actor for five years, slogging his way through countless non-speaking roles like “Dentist No. 3”, “Cat Owner”, and “Sleeping Husband”.  It was so hard for him to take after starring roles in college theatre productions of Hamlet and A Streetcar Named Desire.  He had The Gift.  He knew it, the school and local papers had known it, and finally, finally, after seeing him as “Carl”, the lead in this office supply chain’s witty commercial, television producers, film producers, and then, The World would know it.
The AD returned to the set.
“Carl?”
“Yes,” Paul raises his hand proudly.  “I’m Carl.”
“Small change to your dialogue.  When you enter, you stand by the desk and say, ‘Hey guys, has anyone seen my pen?’  Kate responds with her line, you look at the button, say, ‘Oh yeah!  Thanks Kate!’, and press it.  Then we’re done.”
Paul’s heart sank.  “I thought—?“
“Places everyone!”
The Director lets everyone settle.  When he’s satisfied he calls, “Action.”
Paul drags his feet across the carpeted set of the office.  “’Anyone seen my pen.’”
‘“Carl, you’re holding the Magic Button.  Why don’t you use that?”’
‘”Oh.  Yeah.”’
Paul, defeated, haphazardly presses the button.
“Cut!”

Twelve minutes after Paul presses the button, half of the city of Moscow is destroyed by a nuclear missile.

Six months earlier, Matt Leighton suppresses a burst of laughter at a video he’s watching online of a newscaster vomiting mid-report.
Matt has been working as a paid intern for the last eleven months in the marketing department of an office supply chain.  Matt likes to talk as little as possible about his job.  He has absolutely no interest in the work or the company.  When the inevitable question “So what do you do?” is asked by someone new, he answers something to that effect, adding, “The pay is alright and it affords me enough time to write on my film blog.”
Matt hears footsteps approaching his cubicle and switches back to a window for a craft store’s website.
“Matt?”
Matt doesn’t turn to face his boss but brings his head closer to the computer screen, feigning concentration.  “Hey.”
“How’s the button search coming along?”
Matt turns now and presents his findings on the monitor as if he were a model on The Price Is Right.
“Sewing buttons?  Why are you looking at sewing buttons?”
“You wanted options.  A smorgasbord of buttons.  That’s what you said.  Well, maybe not ‘smorgasbord’.”
“Buttons you can press.”
“You can press one of these buttons.  With an iron.”
“Ha ha.  I need you to find some real options.  Today preferably.”
“Isn’t your presentation on the twenty-third?”
“Yes, and I have to look at a bunch of buttons, pick one, and then write something up about why this button is the perfect ‘Magic Button’ for this new campaign.  I need two more weeks.”
“Ok, ok.  I’ll find your button.”
Matt’s boss exits the cube.  Matt watches the video one more time before restarting his button search.
Forty minutes later, on Google’s twenty-eighth page of search results, Matt finds a link to a place called Uncle Sam’s Surplus.  Underneath, in the excerpt from the website, he sees M1 Bayonets, Canteen Covers, Artillery Netting, and, highlighted, Buttons.  He selects the link and scrolls down the page.  He comes across the famous Uncle Sam poster, modified to read, “I Want You To Buy These Barely-Used Buttons!”  Next to the poster is a terribly-lit photograph of a pile of large red buttons on a camouflage blanket.  They look ridiculous to Matt so he decides to purchase one.  However, he cannot purchase one but a “Patriot’s Bundle” of twelve.  The price is dirt cheap so he buys them using his boss’s company credit card.

Nine hours after actor Paul Hatch inadvertently blew up half of the capital of Russia, Wayne Farley, the Vice President of Online Sales for Uncle Sam’s Surplus, a division of the U.S. Government that sold new and used military goods at a “Significantly American Discount”, screams as a hood is yanked off of his head.  He looks around, squirming in the chair he’s been tied to, but everything is black.
Sixteen minutes earlier, Wayne was talking with his secretary about whether or not the Russians were stupid enough to retaliate, when a black hood was thrown over his head, he was bound, and then dragged off.
A spotlight is suddenly turned on, illuminating Wayne.  The rest of the room remains cloaked in shadow.  After his eyes adjust to the light, he notices that it’s one of the Larsen Electronics Magnalight Magnetic Base Military Searchlights – MSRP: $658.77, Uncle Sam’s Surplus “U.Save.America Special Price”: $319.99.
“Wayne Farley.”
Wayne is startled by the voice, its pitch digitally altered, most likely by the Voice Changer II – MSRP: $58.00, USASP: $19.99 – that comes from some dark recess in the room.
“What’s going on?!  Where am I?!  Am I in the basement?”
“Wayne Farley.  Are you or are you not responsible for all new and used U.S. Military goods sold online at Uncle Sam’s Surplus?”
“Well, yes, I suppose.  But what—?”
“Are you or are you not responsible for placing the ConstitutionArts Nuclear Launch Devices on sale online?”
“Now wait a minute!  Is this about the nuke that blew up Moscow?  Oh no!  I don’t make the decision as to what items are sold!  I—! “
“Yes or no, Wayne?”  The voice is unaltered.
“Dale?  Dale?!”
“Shit.”  The device is turned on again.  “I mean, ‘Shit’.”
Another voice, “Give me that.”
“Dale?!  For Christ’s sake!  What are you doing to me?!  Dale!  How long have we known—?”
“Remain silent accept when answering our questions.  Are you or are you not responsible for writing, ‘Show your pride for America’s Cold War victory over the Red Menace by purchasing a Patriotic Bundle of Big Red Buttons!’?”
“Dale?!  For the love of God!  I’ve done nothing wrong!  The approval to sell the buttons was provided by all U.S. Government Officials required, just as every other item!  Dale?!  Tell them I—!”
One man whispers to another, “What are you going to do to him?”
“He’s put the Nation’s Security at risk.  Someone has to take the fall for that.  Do you want to take the fall for that Dale?”
“I hear whispering!”
“Hell no.  But he’s a good guy.  He’s got a family.”
“They’ll be fine.  They’ll be taken care of.”
“’Taken care of’?  You mean killed?”
“Of course not.”
“But what about him?”
“He needs to be paraded around like an idiot until things cool down.”
“What about the guy who didn’t deactivate that button?  Shit, what about Paul Fucking Hatch?”

At present, Paul Hatch was holed up in his studio apartment.  Surrounding the building were members of the NSA, CIA, FBI, USMC and every other U.S. Government acronym.  The two windows were boarded up on the inside with pieces of Paul’s coffee table and desk.  He sat on his couch, the television murmuring, the red button in his hand, speaking to the news reporter and cameraman he had allowed inside to interview him.
The reporter, slowly being swallowed by a papasan chair, asks, “Paul, what do you want?”
Paul beams as he did before all his lines were cut from the commercial, “I want a lead role in a major film.”  He leans into the camera and gives The World his “Star” expression: confident, benevolent, a touch mysterious, positively dashing.
The cameraman zooms out to keep the red button in frame, waiting for the signal to take the shot.