The Elgin Ham
by Alyssa Greenberg
Art by Danielle Klebes
“This is the one,” Kate’s boss Amalia said. “I feel it.”
“Elgin Ham,” Todd from Product Management said, lingering over the words like he could taste their smoky, sodium-laden flavor.
“Elgin Ham,” confirmed Amalia, solemnly. In its own Zoom square, the ham on its rotating pedestal glowed under a half-dozen specially-calibrated lights. It was massive, Kate thought, remembering an infographic showing how over time American livestock had ballooned in size. Hormones, she knew, looking at the Elgin Ham, but it was hard not to get lost in its rich, decadent glaze, its glistening, cross-hatched carapace, its robust pink interior.
Kate created the Elgin Ham marketing pitch deck, watching cold winter clouds scud across the sky outside her window while Amalia and Dane surveyed the brightly-colored slides. The deck then went to the client, a small family-run grocery store outside of Corvallis, Oregon that had become a local sensation. The grocery owners were a couple in their fifties, plainspoken and polite, who could see that the attention their hams were getting on social media was only partly due to bored local teens. People were starved for human connection and their hams—the Elgin Ham—could provide positive energy. The grocery owners reminded Kate of her parents, whom she hadn’t seen since last December. Ultimately, they loved the idea.
As the agency celebrated, Kate hastily wrote a birthday message to her father. She hoped the assortment of high-quality cured meats and dried fruits would get there in time.
“I said, do you have anything you want to add?” A dozen faces were suddenly focused on her. Kate dropped her pen and said, “I’m just really excited to see where we go from here.” Everyone cheered.
Afterwards, Kate debated whether to take a CBD gummy before or after cleaning. She FaceTimed her best friend instead. Leila had gone to the same school and interned with Kate, but hadn’t taken to the 9-6 life. Now she did fetish videos and game reviews, and had paid off all of her student loans. Leila had eleven thousand Twitter followers to Kate’s seven hundred. Strangers often bought her things she tweeted about. Leila’s apartment vestibule was constantly filling up with packages containing sex toys, video game consoles, and makeup that her doorman diligently hustled inside, while Kate had to personally watch the mail carrier dropping off her meal kits and rush outside to make sure package thieves couldn’t get them.
They discussed Leila’s other project, organizing sex workers against punitive laws. “You did it,” Leila said when Kate explained the Elgin Ham, which embarrassed Kate; it wasn’t exactly a signal achievement in the grand scheme of everything. “You sold nihilism right back to them.” Neither of them knew what this meant, but they screeched with laughter.
When they finally calmed down, Leila flicked away tears with her long nails. “Have you thought any more about leaving?”
“I can’t,” said Kate. “Interviewing right now? Telling a bunch of disembodied heads on screen about my five-year plan?”
Leila nodded sympathetically. “Asking what your five-year plan is should be punishable by death.”
“I can’t even think about a one-week plan without wanting to die,” Kate groaned. Phase 1 of Elgin Ham was due by the end of the week.
“If you die we can’t go to the beach when this is all over and dump vodka Red Bulls down our tits and ass cracks like we’re twenty-three,” Leila reminds Kate.
“That’s true,” said Kate. “I’ll wait to die until after that.”
Danielle Klebes, “Utopia” series
Phase 1 began. Ads appeared in email inboxes, between paragraphs on news sites, and on Instagram. The photographers they’d hired had photographed an Elgin Ham under beautiful pastel lights, somehow without making the meat look disgusting.
It’s amazing how they managed not to make the meat look disgusting, Kate thought about messaging the main Slack channel. But Kate knew she couldn’t really be herself here. There was no way of knowing what was really private. She erased it, then poured herself a seltzer.
•
They hired community managers for the Elgin Ham accounts. Quinn from Analytics demonstrated that people consistently chose the Elgin Ham Streaming TV Experience over other Experiences. ORDER YOURS TODAY, the ads said, and they didn’t have to elaborate: with this ham, your holidays can feel normal this year.
•
“I have to say,” Amalia told Kate, “you have grown so much during this time. Most people would have just collapsed under the pressure. You remind me a lot of myself at that age, when I didn’t have two pennies to scrape together. Paloma, no! Paloma, what have we said about not playing javelin while Mommy is working?”
Kate smiled placidly as Amalia told her nanny to take Paloma downstairs. Amalia had written a book about balancing work and family, and given everyone discounted tickets to her seminars, back when they went to things in person. Amalia believed in scheduling unstructured time, and suggested having different rooms in your house for work, play, and family. Kate unfortunately only had one room, for her entire life.
When Amalia returned, she said, “Ugh, kids. Anyway, where were we? Yes, your performance has been stellar. I think you can expect to see some positive changes.” She made her hands a pleased little sling under her chin.
“That’s great to hear,” Kate said. Amalia had always touted establishing boundaries at work, and it was now seven thirty PM, with a Zoom birthday party underway.
“I just have one thing to ask before I let you go,” Amalia said. “Would you be ok with Ryan presenting the next client meeting? I want to get him more up to speed.”
“What? Oh, sure.” Kate had just gotten a message from her mother.
LOVED the snack plate….reminds Dad and me of our honeymoon to Seville. Have U seen this?? [link to Jimmy Kimmel interviewing the Elgin Ham mascot over Zoom]
“I knew you’d be a trooper,” cooed Amalia. “Have a good night.”
Kate supposed that if she had a grand country estate in Connecticut and a venture capitalist husband it might be easier to not only establish boundaries, but avoid panic attacks about mutant strains. The tradeoff would be a small child occasionally throwing a homemade spear, but Kate felt that would be acceptable.
•
“How could we not have seen this coming?” shouted Dane. “A ham product! There are Jews and Muslims. Just shoot me between the fucking eyes.”
Someone was sobbing. They had turned their screen off but forgotten to mute themselves, so everyone had been listening to them for several minutes.
“Not to minimize,” Todd from Product Management began, “it was only one Twitter comment—”
“That’s how it starts,” Dane snapped. His salt-and-pepper head disappeared. Kate could hear him beating his fists on the hardwood of his home office.
“I have an idea,” came a quiet voice and Kate saw the green border light up around Tess, the intern. She and Tess had bonded back when everyone was in the actual office, discovering that they both knew how Dane was with young female employees when he drank. Tess had also seen Amalia’s house when she went to drop off a box of files in person, which had led to drinking Prosecco with Amalia and her husband, Mo, then waking up in a town car back to the city. It was good to have someone around who also understood how dangerous and absurd life was, Kate thought.
“We should see if the Larsens want to promote alternate products,” Tess said.
Dane reappeared on screen, glasses crooked. His nostrils flared as he said, “There is no substitute for the Elgin Ham.”
“I don’t think we should replace it,” Kate added. “We could do some vegan, halal and kosher versions of it. They’re actually some of the Larsens’ bestsellers.”
thanks, Tess messaged her, followed by the grimace, knife, and blood emojis.
Amalia’s face slowly emerged over her fingertips.
“I think that idea fucks,” said Ryan. Kate barely knew Ryan, because he started right before the stay-at-home order.
After the meeting, Kate, Ryan, Amalia, and Dane called the Larsens to present the new idea. The Larsens agreed that people should know that their brand valued people of all faiths and dietary restrictions.
thank GOD we have so much time and we’re only in phase 2, Amalia later messaged Kate. this is the only thing keeping me going right now. Kate thought there were more important things, but said nothing.
Your boss isn’t keeping you too late is she?? I read that goes on a lot in your industry!! her mother messaged.
give me that bitch’s address, Leila messaged. i just want to talk.
Kate couldn’t decide which to answer first. She struggled with decisions these days. She picked up Mavis, who yawned a fishy yawn in Kate’s face. Kate imagined letting Mavis go at an Elgin Ham, which would possibly make her a star. Many people had achieved viral fame for their Elgin Ham videos. Kate Googled if cats could have ham. The answer made her wonder if she deserved to have power over an animal. Kate had found Mavis in a truck’s wheel well. She knew that cats make choices to ensure their survival, but sometimes she wondered if Mavis wished that she could take hers back, and that someone else had taken her home from the shelter.
•
It was late spring and politicians told people that they couldn’t end this thing if they didn’t make good choices. People continued to make bad choices, however, and local governments kept closing things. When deaths slowed, the governments reopened things, but then, strangely, bad choices continued, despite how many times people had been told to make good choices.
One particularly bad choice was people waiting to order their holiday Elgin Ham. The day a celebrity chef featured it on YouTube, several wealthy customers bought up every single Elgin Ham from the grocery’s supplier. This was very good for the brand, Dane assured the worried Larsens.
Many people, Amalia included, didn’t understand why people wouldn’t stop making bad choices. As Phase 3 launched, Amalia helpfully sent out travel tips. She would be traveling safely to Colorado with her family and their nanny for three weeks, and would have patchy Internet. Kate would not be traveling anywhere but the park and the beach.
To add complications, other grocery chains were now passing their own, inferior hams off as the Elgin Ham. The client hoped for more inventory by the end of August, but the problem, Kate knew, was that they had been forced to contract with meatpacking plants where workers, mainly undocumented, had to keep coming to work whether they were sick or not. This made Kate feel numb, but she knew she couldn’t quit. The economy had taken a nosedive, and it had taken her so long to get this job.
•
After going to a protest against police violence, Kate and Leila went home to calm down. They had seen a cop pick up his bike and ram it into a protester's face, sending a gout of blood rocketing across the sidewalk. Kate and Leila had tried to shelter the young man so a medic could reach them, but the cops had knocked them both to the ground too. Afterwards, they smoked cigarettes with shaking hands on Leila’s fire escape and sent tips to a Twitter account that documented this kind of thing. Once they had calmed down, it became almost funny.
That weekend, Kate and Leila went to the beach, where they drank booze out of paper bags and watched the Elgin Ham skywriting plane leave its puffy message over the water.
“Someone’s going to fuck it eventually,” said their friend Stuart.
“Nobody can even get it,” corrected Danielle. “There’s a waitlist.”
“Watch, when they’re available again, there’s going to be a video of some sicko fucking it.”
Kate went to throw out her trash. When she came back, her friends were discussing the news.
“They have to pass the relief bill and hit the vaccine milestone at the same time,” Caleb was saying. Caleb was their health expert; he had helped many of their parents navigate the onerous online vaccine appointment portals.
“There’s no way they’ll pull it off,” said Leila, applying more sunscreen. “Every step of this thing has been a disaster.”
“Let’s not despair yet,” Caleb protested.
“You’re right,” Leila said. “There’s Christmas. We can all chip in for one Elgin Ham and eat it outside in a tent.”
Kate scooched her towel closer to Leila, but not so close she would need her mask on. “We forgot to bring vodka Red Bulls,” she reminded Leila.
Leila groaned. “Now’s not the right time, anyway. We have to wait until it’s all really over.”
“We might be dead,” said Kate.
“Vodka Red Bulls in hell, then,” Leila said.
“Deal.” They shook on it.
Danielle Klebes, “Utopia” series
Kate was playing with Mavis under her apartment’s AC unit when her phone rang. It was one of the hottest nights of the year, and the city had just reported a record number of deaths.
“Don’t look at the company Instagram,” Tess said. Kate flung her laptop open and looked at the company Instagram.
“Oh God,” she said.
“It’s so bad,” Tess whispered. “What if someone attacks the store? What do we do?”
Amalia was still in Colorado with her patchy Internet, and Dane was on an ayahuasca retreat in the Catskills, and so they were on their own.
“I think I have an idea,” said Kate.
In an hour, they were on a call with Regan in the IT department.
“There are solutions for when internet psychos threaten to become in-real-life psychos,” Regan said. “But it’ll cost us.”
“I say we throw down,” said Ryan. “But it’s up to Kate.” He had been promoted before Amalia left for vacation. Kate would have to ask about her own promotion when Amalia returned, but she would have to tread carefully. Sometimes you could catch Amalia at the right moment, but other times you were burdening her with toxic energy.
Kate thought. Her skin felt aglow, like she was under bright lights.
“Whatever it takes,” Kate finally told Regan.
Later, Tess reassured her. “It shows initiative. Someone could die.” Ordinarily Kate would tell Leila, but now that would create a legal issue.
“These people are the worst.” Kate scrolled the comments. “It’s not the Larsens’ fault there’s no hams.”
“Everyone’s brains are broken,” warned Tess.
Although Kate knew there were ethical and environmental problems with how they’d made the Elgin Ham a coveted luxury item, it didn’t seem right that anyone was being threatened. The people making threats weren’t doing it because they cared about workers; they were just angry that they hadn’t gotten something that had been promised. Now swarms of accounts based in Chechnya would descend on the computers of the evildoers and in turn wreck their lives. Kate was already getting confused messages from the Elgin Ham social media community managers, but long ago, Amalia and Dane had made her swear never to reveal this secret weapon. Anyone in our position would do the same, Dane had said. Kate imagined repeating this to Leila, and her stomach doubled in on itself.
•
“You have to make this go away,” said Dorothy. Behind her, the wood panels of a living room glowed from the light of a single antique lamp.
“We’ll do anything,” said Amalia. Her screen was dark; she was out on her patio. Kate had heard from Tess that Amalia and Mo were struggling; Amalia had called Tess last Saturday and sobbed non-stop for an hour. Kate was on her building’s roof, even though the distant protests were so loud that she mostly had to stay muted.
“We can’t live like this,” said Dorothy, near tears. It was six PM in Corvallis, which meant it was eleven PM for Kate and the rest of the team. Time had ceased to be real to Kate since the nationwide shelter-in-place order.
Dane cleared his throat. “We can extend Reputation Management.” This was what the employees were to call the Chechnyan troll farms if asked by anyone, but really, if asked, Kate knew, they were meant to direct all questions to a fake number that Dane and Amalia had set up for this purpose, while they contacted their lawyers.
“That’s not it,” said Dorothy. It was just her on the call tonight; Pete was back in the hospital. Kate had already dropped a card in the mail, signed All of Us.
“It’s these lunatics on the radio and internet,” Dorothy continued. “They’re saying the sickest things. That the hams are actually children. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. It’s killing Pete.”
“Dorothy, I’m so sorry,” said Amalia. “We will do everything in our power to make you whole.”
“We’ll pull the campaign,” Dane said. “Everything. Ryan and Kate, what do we have coming up?”
“Uh,” said Ryan.
“The gaming tournament livestream,” said Kate. “The ship billboards.”
“The virtual film festival,” said Ryan. He and Kate had gotten to talk, and she found that she didn’t hate him. He hadn’t known she was up for a promotion. I feel like a piece of shit, he’d told her, when they randomly met in line to pick up bagels and wound up getting high in the park nearby. My sister went through that same bullshit, some guy six years younger got promoted over her. I feel bad for perpetuating that shit. I wanna do what I can to fix it, you know?
Dorothy pressed her spotted knuckles against her mouth. “It’s not just that,” she said quietly. “Some of that stuff makes people happy. People need laughter. I just don’t understand where all of these other ideas come from. How people decide that there’s some big puzzle in life with all these connecting pieces and the thing you sell is a key to that puzzle.” Her gray bob shone in the lamplight.
Nobody knew what to say to that.
“I guess there’s just a lot of anger in this country,” Dorothy finally said. “That’s all.”
“Let us know what we can do to help,” said Kate. “Anything.”
Dorothy’s face lit up. “Thank you, doll,” she told Kate, sounding somehow older.
Kate’s phone buzzed as the call ended. It was Ryan, with a video attachment. SOS, the message read. Can’t let her see this.
In the video, a tan, muscled man leered into the camera before revealing a bed. In the middle of the bed was a ham, and there was a hole in the ham. Kate hastily x’d out of the video, as if the call was still going on, even though there was only the distant sound of chanting, police sirens, and helicopter blades.
•
There was a lot of resentment these days. Not only had the vaccination program faltered, the virus had mutated. Kate sucked at her vape pen before she got on the call with Amalia. She had stopped caring about her rule (don’t work high) the first time Dane had called on a Sunday afternoon to rant.
“It’s not looking good,” Amalia said, cradling a beer.
“Yes?” Kate wasn’t worried. She felt like she was wrapped in the Golden Fleece from her childhood book of Greek myths.
You doing it? Ryan texted her. If so you got this. I sent her a whole email about why you deserve it. You’re gonna fuckin crush it!!!
“Fuckers are trying to destroy what we built from nothing,” Amalia said, collapsing in tears. Kate knew that Amalia’s father, a Goldman Sachs vice president, had put half a million dollars into the company after Amalia and Dane graduated from Harvard Business School.
Kate said nothing. Amalia blew her nose and croaked, “You did good.”
“It’s nothing,” said Kate.
“Thank you.” Amalia gave Kate a watery smile. “I hope you’re holding up. I know it’s really tough, not being able to see your family for so long.”
Kate suddenly heard herself say in a strange, brazen voice, “Let’s talk about my promotion.”
Amalia’s eyebrows darted upwards, but not very far, due to Botox. “I would love to,” she said, “believe me, it’s just that we spent so much money making this whole thing go away that there’s no way I can get Dane on board. He is such a fucking shylock, excuse my language.” She placed her fingers over her lips, smiling nervously. “That will be item number one as soon as this hell year is over. I promise.”
“That’s great,” Kate murmured. Amalia smiled, and mouthed, “Bye bye now.” Just before her video and audio cut out, Kate heard what she was sure was Dane’s voice offscreen.
“That’s great,” Kate kept murmuring.
She lay back on her bed, feet dangling over the edge, and felt Mavis sniffing her toes.
Suddenly Kate shot up, and Mavis stared at her indignantly. Kate made sure there was food in the bowl and the air conditioning was set at seventy-four, grabbed her keys and mask, and left.
There was a crowd outside, gathering around a house with several people on the porch. One person had a bullhorn, another a banner with the name of a tenant union on it. Kate noticed that everyone was wearing masks, except for the police closing in on the house.
“Fuck the police,” someone screamed.
The cops picked up their bikes. Kate found herself in a kind of reverie. She deserved to feel what everyone here was feeling, whether or not she had helped bring the Elgin Ham to fruition.
A loud boom echoed, and people screamed. Kate looked up, and saw a column of smoke rising around the corner.
When she got to the intersection, someone said “Jesus Christ.”
The Country Ham Store, which sold entire hams, deli cuts and sandwiches, was on fire. A truck had crashed through its front windows, into the front of the shop, and fire was now crawling up the walls.
“Leave immediately,” hollered a burly police officer. “This is a crime scene.” Kate looked at the truck. There were stickers covering the back bumper; they were what Kate guessed you would expect.
Farther down the street, there was a man holding his phone on a selfie stick, an American flag tied around his neck, his face pink and glistening in the sun. The people gathered around him also wore American flags: tank tops, shorts, ball caps.
They took everything from you, the man screamed into his phone, and to the crowd. They stole your freedom, your jobs, your ability to provide for your family. We’re going to bring the storm to them. They won’t give you money, they’ll throw you to the globalists, but we have all the fucking clues! Patriots, rise the fuck up!
Kate saw people looking at her strangely. She was laughing, because there had been no ham in the Country Ham Store for a long time. The place had been gathering dust since before the pandemic.
She turned back towards the corner, hearing the first group of protestors moving towards the fire despite police orders. She scanned the crowd, and realized she was looking for Leila. Leila would be there, in the masses, always. Kate was suddenly sweaty and faint with desperation, and she knew that she would tell Leila what she’d done, the choices she’d made. She made eye contact with Leila, who wore a bandana over her face, just as a silver canister landed in front of the oncoming protestors and a plume of tear gas unfurled like a ribbon.
Kate and Leila had always joked about ordering a whole honey glazed ham at the Country Ham Store. Now they would never get to sit in the store’s cheap chairs gorging on their ham, plus a paltry vegetable side, would never get to leave a hundred percent tip. There would never be whole hams in the Country Ham Store again, because even though they weren’t the Elgin Ham, they reminded people too much of what they couldn’t have.
Danielle Klebes, “Utopia” series
