Red Meat Cures Cancer (17 page)

For years, I’d convinced myself, or maybe pretended, that our products didn’t cause heart disease, E. coli, cancer or obesity, laying all the blame at the feet of cigarettes, inactivity and fresh vegetables. But now, I was directly responsible for the illness and possible death of little children, including my best friend’s son, and I couldn’t deny the truth any longer. I was some kind of sicko. Even if the kids survived, I was furthering society’s decay by promoting prostitution on the
www.lustranch.com
swamp of Internet sex and pornography.

Who did I think was entering our Nail Some Tail Sweepstakes from their computers? At the time we started, I told myself it was a group of consenting adults over the age of eighteen, but in my heart of hearts, I knew better. I was contributing to the delinquency of minors who I was certain logged on to the Lust Ranch site with alarming frequency. Who were these kids? Probably ones not so different from Ethan or Sophia, just a bit younger.

The darkest thoughts crossed my mind about those exposed. They were the children of broken homes who went unsupervised for hours at a time. Kids who sure as hell weren’t doing their home-work. Kids who were bored and indifferent to anything being taught at school. They were interested in hoarding weapons and making bombs, and had easy access to both the materials and the know-how. They wore trench coats to class (when they went), and saw glory in defacing themselves with swastikas while resurrecting the ghost of Adolf Hitler and his intolerant band of hatemongers. They were the disaffected youth of today. Numbed by the incessant and unprincipled grab for gold they observed their parents take part in, they perceived themselves to be worthless objects of neglect. People could eat shit and die. Apathy. One vision of America: for sale.

“Pull back from the edge, Sky,” I warned myself. I was drinking now, voluntarily making vivid the many thoughts that crossed my mind. I was scattered and vacillating. Maybe this whole thing was just about burgers and some skin. Nothing to get too hung up about. Hamburgers and pretty girls—the same things that had been making this country great since the advent of rock and roll. A convertible Corvette. A big-titted blonde with her hair in a ponytail. A cold can of Budweiser. That’s what we stood for. That’s what Tailburger and America were all about. Who cared if the blonde’s shirt was off and she was blasted out of her mind and she was riding the biggest anal vibrator you’d ever seen? Surely those facts alone couldn’t distort the American dream and everything else we’d woven so tightly into its fabric. We’d been marketed a new bill of rights. Making gobs of money. Skiing at Telluride. Driving a Range Rover. Owning a chocolate lab. Retiring comfortably at forty. Buying a second home. Watching our stock portfolios triple every year. Sending our kids to Ivy League colleges. Traveling to Fiji. These were the God-given rights of every U.S. citizen. It was marketing. That’s all. Plain and simple marketing. No more, but no goddamn less. And the newest right, one that flouted the natural order and ranked high among the all-time sales jobs, was our right to cheat death. Plastic surgery, vitamins, skin creams. The frayed end pieces of the American dream were showing, and there was little to believe in or to do anymore except worship at the altar of youth that we had created. Once our culture of convention was ridiculed to death and then banished to obscurity, we forced ourselves to live within a paradigm of inevitable self-hatred. If youth was equated with all that is good, the opposite was true, and our long march toward old age was little more than a Bataan death march toward all that is bad.

I was drunk and delirious now, a lit Commodore resting between my forefinger and thumb. Life
was
one big accumulation of wounds, and if I’d been able to irradiate myself like the meat in the supermarket, I would have. To suffer one calamitous radioactive blast of gamma rays in order to clean away the hate and the fear and the pain I felt would have been worth every health hazard posed. Bad enough I couldn’t protect my children from this world-view, but worse, I was partially responsible for it. I knew they were going to find out about Internet porn and cock rings and cocaine-inspired orgies, and that one more sex site hadn’t tipped the scale in favor of moral chaos. It was simply another choice like everything else in life, and either you had the skills to cope with the freedom to choose or you didn’t. And if you didn’t, God save you, because the slope has never had more silicone on it. But I also knew that the false idols of money and fame and power and youth thrived because of the perceived void of worthier things to believe in, a perception cemented by massive advertising and the promotion of everything Tailburger stood for.

Who did I think I was fooling? Were my kids more obsessed with the celebrity culture than they should have been? Probably. No, definitely. Did they idolize the musicians and film stars and athletes for their money and lifestyle above all else? The answer was yes. Did they put up posters of AIDS researchers or Nobel prize–winning poets? Of course not. What did they think of their political leaders? That they were a big joke? Yes. That they were untrustworthy? Unbelievable? Unworthy? Yes, to all of the above. The politicians didn’t make enough money to be respected. They were hacks knocking out 145 K. There were Division II basketball coaches making better bucks than that. The only images put forward were those of intolerant, gun-toting Republicans and tax-happy, abortion-crazed Democrats. What about the new president? All they heard for months was that he was a moron. Then suddenly, after nine-eleven, he was brilliant. And the old one? For as long as they could remember he was portrayed as little more than a colossal joke. Labels. Marketing. Packaging. What was true? Who knew? A womanizing lech with an inability to articulate what he stood for in any consistent manner. That’s how they knew him. A liar and a cheat who swayed like a limp dick in the political winds. A man who kissed up to constituencies when it was expedient, acted indignant when it would help in the polls and catered to the Hollywood community whose love and approval he so desperately sought. He epitomized the philosophy that public deeds forgive private acts. To my kids, he was the ultimate hypocrite. If they’d known what their old man had been up to, however, they might have felt differently.

I’d contributed to the toxic environment as much as anybody, and my desire to do the right things in my life didn’t make up for all the times I hadn’t. It was the marketing process. The right burger. The right clothes. The right car. Quicker. Faster. Richer. More surface. Less substance. Videos. Sound bites. Super Bowl ads. Video games. Sex. Sex. Sex. A swirling, sweeping, twisted mass of commercialization polluting everything that it touched, including our children— including my children. We’d sold something to them, but what was it? An American utopia or a gilded prison? Everything was justifiable to make the dollars—to live the very lifestyle we touted. We were so much unhappier as a nation because of the direction we’d gone in. So much unhappiness. “A consumer culture that consumed itself” is how our epitaph would read one day. I pulled the covers over my head in shame. My only other emotion: guilt. There was a mean-spiritedness to it all—a self-hating mean-spiritedness.

24

Treading

The Link called the monthly Tailburger board meeting to order with a Frisbee-sized cookie in one hand and a can of Scuz Cola in the other.

“Mmmm, that’s good. Now we’ve got a, mmmmm, ooh that’s a good cookie, full schedule so we need to get started. A small piece of, mmmm that’s a good cookie, good news—SERMON’s boycott has lost all of its steam. SLLRRRPPPP!”

The Link brushed cookie crumbs from his hands and wiped a drop of Scuz from his chin.

“Picketing has come to an end for the most part, and even better, the police accidentally shot three vegetarian protesters outside one of our stores in St. Louis. So we’re making progress. Now, Sister Ancilla has an announcement she’d like to make. Sister, are you ready?”

“Yes, I am, Frank.”

Sister Ancilla scanned the long conference table from under her habit as if searching for a friendly face. Most of her burns from the Fanny Pack incident had healed by now and she was looking more or less like her old self. She wasn’t ready for runway modeling, but she’d regained the wholesome appearance one expects from a nun, or your average backup singer in a
Sound of Music
tribute band.

“As you all know, Tailburger has been a very good friend to the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother over the past year. Through your generosity, and in particular, the generosity of Mr. Fanoflincoln, who I thank very, very much, Tailburger’s Health and Life Fitness Center has been built on our convent campus and is ready to open. In celebration of this, I would like to invite all of you to the grand opening of the fitness center and the glorious Fanoflincoln Pavilion, one month from this coming Saturday, where we will honor your company and your wonderful chairman.”

The Link led the forced applause that followed.

“I expect all of you to be there,” he ordered before taking a long swig of Scuz.

After largely ignoring community service for the better part of thirty years, the Link was suddenly on a caring bender.

“If any of you have good ideas to make Tailburger a better corporate citizen, I want you to let me know.”

A father should know when and when
not
to encourage his sons.

“We should have a memorial golf tournament,” Ned blurted out.

“That would be HUGE!” Ted agreed, as he reached over to give his brother a high five.

“Enormo,” came Fred amidst his own effort to high-five Ned, nearly losing his visor in the process.

The Link was mortified.

“Stop shifting in your seat, Fred. There will be no high-fiving at the board meetings! Do you understand?”

“A memorial golf tournament? Who died?” Chad Hemmingbone inquired.

“Well, nobody yet. But as soon as someone does, we could tee off,” Ned replied.

“We could be ready to go right when they drop,” Ted concurred.

“Or it could be a fund-raiser for unwed mothers,” Fred opined.

“That’s not a bad idea, Fred.”

The brothers soon lost everyone around them by talking amongst themselves.

“I’m thinking we hold it at Knurly Bush.”

“I don’t know. The back nine at Knurly is just brutal.”

“You know, you’re right. It may be a charity event, but I still want to shoot a respectable score.”

“What about Locust Valley?”

“Now that’s a place I hadn’t thought of. Have you seen their new locker room?”

“The lockers are gorgeous! All beechwood. Just unbelievable.”

The Link had heard enough.

“Will the three of you shut up? PLEASE!”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Yeah, sorry, Dad.”

“Sorry, everybody.”

The Link took control of the meeting again.

“I’ve got a new cost-cutting measure I want to discuss with the board. As you know, we are living in uncertain times here at Tailburger, what with the SERMON lawsuit and the up-and-down sales we’ve been experiencing. Although revenues have increased in the last few weeks, we must be prepared for some serious belt tightening.”

Phrases like “belt tightening” are frightening when spoken by a man with a sixty-six-inch waist.

“I’ve got one word for you. I want you to listen to it and then think about it.”

The Link’s long history of asinine ideas was so legendary among board members, we actually looked forward to them as comic relief. Laughter turned to fear only when, and if, he attempted to implement one of them. At this point, however, everybody’s ears were happily attuned.

“Baboon!”

Silence hung heavily in the air as we stared at the Link and then each other.

“Did you say, baboon?” Annette asked.

“Yes, baboon.”

“As in baboon meat?” I asked, hoping to be wrong. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious. We can import it from South Africa and it’s a third cheaper than U.S. Grade A.”

“What grade is the baboon meat?” Annette asked.

“I have no idea. I think it’s more of a pass-fail system over there.”

Annette looked at me and rolled her eyes.

Instead of dismissing the Link’s ideas immediately, the board had learned to systematically punch holes in them and let them sink under their own weight.

“Would we be telling people what they were eating?” Sister Ancilla wondered aloud.

“Sure. We could call it our Primate Burger or maybe do a combo platter with ribs, you know Bab on a Slab, something like that.”

“Frank, what about the taste?” I still couldn’t believe he wanted to do this.

“Have you ever had baboon?”

“I haven’t been so fortunate,” I responded.

“It’s pretty damn good.”

“Let me guess. It tastes like chicken.”

“Hell, no! It tastes like buffalo meat, only gamier. We’d have to doll it up with tons of mayo and maybe a barbecue sauce, but it could work.”

“And who would be our suppliers?”

“I told you. South African baboon farmers. There’s a town called Warmbaths where they’re raised.”

Biff Dilworth, our resident academic, adjusted his bow tie, signifying he was about to speak.

“Frank, I hate to be a wet blanket on the baboon front, but there is an ethical issue.”

The Link was nonplussed.

“What fuckin’ ethical issue?”

“Primates, such as the baboon and the chimpanzee, are the closest species to Homo sapiens. We share ninety-eight percent of our genes with these animals. They are sentient and intellectually sophisticated creatures.”

“Hey, Professor, you wanna put it in English for the rest of us?”

“All right, Frank. Monkeys and men are similar creatures. It follows therefore that eating monkeys is similar to eating each other and thus morally reprehensible.”

“That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

Biff could mount only an intellectual defense to such a direct attack.

“Well, I happen to know a senior research fellow at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, who would disagree with you wholeheartedly.”

“Whoop dee freakin’ doo, Biff.”

“I just don’t believe we should extend the number of species we eat. The whole thing is a bad idea, and that’s all I have to say,” Biff huffed, crossing his arms across his vest.

“What do you think, Thorne?”

“Frank, I’m inclined to agree with Biff for a more practical reason. Our customers are used to beef, and I think the idea of eating baboon may gross them out and cost us market share. It sure as hell grosses me out.”

Annette nodded her head along with Biff, Chad and the rest of the board.

“All right. I can see you’re going to fight me on this one. We’ll table the decision for the next meeting. In the meantime, Sky, I want you to do some focus groups and taste tests. I don’t want Tailburger to be last on the baboon bandwagon when it rolls across this country.”

When any of the Link’s ideas were dismissed, nobody on the board gloated. We knew there’d be another along to take the prior one’s place momentarily. The Link would mutter “shitheads” loudly enough for the rest of us to hear and then get back to the business at hand, otherwise unmoved.

“We’ve got to do something on the BSE front,” the Link said, using our company’s preferred reference to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or mad cow disease. “Now I hate to say it to you again, Thorne, but we got killed on Bill Maher’s show
.
I don’t know what you and Hitch were doing out there, but you looked like a couple of doofuses. People probably think they can catch this crap now.”

The Link had told me every day since the airing that I’d “stunk up the joint,” during my television appearance, but he wanted the satisfaction of telling me in front of the board. Once he had done so, he got the faraway look in his eyes that we collectively dreaded, the one that signified his launch into the land of Lincoln.

“So Thorne, I ask you and the whole board, ‘Can we do better? The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present...’ ”

Halfway through the Link’s recitation of the Railsplitter’s words, the rest of the board members, except me, joined in to form a chorus.

“. . . The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion . . .”

I didn’t say a word, afraid the anger inside of me would erupt. I was furious at the Link for ordering me to change the cooking policy—for threatening my job and financial security if our market share didn’t reach 5 percent—for literally driving me to the point of pornographic desperation that I’d now reached. But I was angrier at myself for the weakness of my character—for my lack of backbone when it came to making unethical decisions—for my failure to do what I knew was the right thing on so many occasions. I suffered while the others just kept talking.

“. . . As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew!”

“You’re damn right we do,” the Link exulted as they finished in unison. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he continued.

The board groaned.

“What about putting a Mad Cow Burger on the menu? We’ll cook it extra rare. I’m talkin’ over and off—smother it with bleu cheese and put it on moldy bread. Add a catchy slogan, ‘Go Crazy Like the Cow,’ and I see big sales.”

“I see big lawsuits,” I said. “You have no idea what a mistake that would be, given the current regulatory climate, Frank.”

I wanted to come out with it right there and tell everybody present that our stupid burgers had put eight kids in the hospital, but I held back. Embarrassing the Link that way would serve no purpose.

“Damn lawyers have wrecked everything. Lincoln’s the only decent one who ever lived.”

“Maybe here’s where we do our golf fund-raiser,” Ned said, to no one’s surprise. “It can benefit all the little boys and girls suffering from mad cow here in Rochester.”

“Good thinking, big brother,” Ted added, adjusting his visor to cut the glare from the boardroom’s artificial lighting.

“That would be great,” Fred chirped enthusiastically. “Can I sponsor the closest to the pin, Ned? I’d really like to do that for the kids.”

“Hey, hey, closest to the pinhead,” the Link angrily called to his youngest son. “There’s just one problem, numbnuts. There aren’t any kids suffering from mad cow disease here. It’s only in England. We’re just fighting the perception of danger.”

“Oh,” Fred replied despondently, his enthusiasm momentarily jettisoned. “Well, then let’s do a golf fund-raiser to fight that.”

“To fight the perception of danger? What are you, stupid?” Chad Hemmingbone, who had lost his patience, asked.

“Watch it, Hemmingbone!” the Link warned.

“All I’m saying is that we could do a best-ball tournament. That’s all I’m saying,” Fred, now clearly on the defensive, futilely tried to explain.

Annette, the most intelligent member of the board, announced that she had a mayoral commitment, mercifully expediting the end of our meeting. She smiled at me as she left, blissfully unaware of the pain I was enduring. The room gradually emptied until I was alone with the Link.

“Frank, we need to talk.”

“What is it, Thorne? And keep in mind I’ve got battlefield practice tonight. We’re reenacting Sherman’s burning of Atlanta.”

“Look, it’s about our cooking policy. Some kids, friends of mine actually, got sick last weekend from eating Tailburgers. They think it may be E. coli.”

“Are they sure?”

“Well, no. Not yet. The doctors are running tests and the families have agreed to wait for the results before going to the press. But we’re sitting on a time bomb.”

“Jesus H double Popsicle sticks. How in the hell did this happen, Thorne?”

“It’s got to be our policy of undercooking the meat.”

“What policy?”

“The one you authorized. Remember? You wanted the insides soft?”

“I never authorized that policy.”

“What?”

“I said I never authorized that policy.”

“You did, too! You demanded that I roll it out. You made me ‘take it to the front.’ All against my better judgment!”

“Funny. I just don’t remember that.”

“I don’t believe this shit.”

The Link smiled mischievously at me.

“Just calm down, Thorne. Calm your Confederate ass down.

I’m only yankin’ your chain. I know I called for that policy. And I’d do it again in a minute if I had the chance. Have you seen our sales lately? Shootin’ through the goddamn roof. Remember Ralph Nader? Patron saint of Tailburger?”

I tried to compose myself, but it was difficult.

“Sky, here’s what I want you to do. You say you know these people?”

I nodded. “Well, sort of. My best friend’s son is one of the kids who’s sick.”

“Good. Here’s what I want you to do. First, go talk to your friend. Tell him to get a handle on all the other parents. Then mention a possible settlement. But whatever you do, don’t admit anything. Do you understand me? If this thing turns out to be E. coli, we’ll pay up, but we’ve got to keep it out of the papers.”

I drove straight to Annette’s house after work. She met me with open and unquestioning arms, the kind of limbs I couldn’t get enough of, now that I’d found them. For weeks, she’d been my sole source of comfort. Simple and straightforward. Loving and honest. Regrettably, all the things that I wanted my relationship with Annette to be would have to wait. I should have told her everything that was going on in my life and at Tailburger, but I couldn’t. I was a liability to her, although she had no idea how true that was. Even in the warmth of her embrace, I was a false actor, selfishly hiding my darkest secrets and greatest needs. I was obsessed with only one thing: Tailburger market share, which had almost reached 5 percent. If I could just hold on a little longer, I’d be home free and on my way to insular Tahiti.