Red Meat Cures Cancer (3 page)

“What about the farmers? And the beef lobby?”

“They’ve been losing strength for years now. You know that, Sky. Oprah beat the shit out of them in Texas and it’s been all downhill from there.”

“Goddamn it all to hell! These maggots are trying to drive us out of business and you’re just gonna sit by and watch!”

“That’s not true. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Yeah, all right. Whatever. Look, for now, just keep 214 in committee. And keep me informed about this SERMON suit!” My anger was evident.

“Okay, okay, let’s keep this civilized,” Roxby said as he looked around the dining room to make sure nobody was observing my agitation.

“I’m counting on you, Burt. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll call you next week.”

When the Link heard about the SERMON lawsuit, he would react the way he always does to bad news. After slowly lumbering over to his office gun case, he would remove his favorite Civil War rifle, stroke it twice, tap his finger on the bayonet, and ask me if homicide was still a felony. Once informed that it was, he would tell me to fix the suit by any means necessary like some kind of Malcolm X of meat patties. This meant giving more money to Roxby and made our new marketing push critical. If our Torture campaign was to succeed, I had to get a signed contract with Jelloteous Junderstack, the one man who could save the franchise.

LOS ANGELES

Jelloteous Junderstack, a native of Belgium and the starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers, was known to eat twelve Tailburgers at a sitting. “You’ve got big-ass boogers,” Jelloteous told me over the phone the first time we spoke, convincing me right then he wanted to endorse our product. Unlike some other less principled companies that shall go unnamed (Quaker State, Vagisil, Fiber-con), we insisted our pitchpersons be Tailburger fans.

Only weeks before, Jelloteous looked like the perfect spokesman for our Torture campaign. Night after night, he maligned opposing defenses with his media-proclaimed “Close to Felonious, Highly Melodious, Last Name Junderstack, First Name Jelloteous, Jam,” an Earth-shattering, rim-rocking slam dunk delivered with unnerving ferocity. At eight feet two inches tall, Jello had an unblockable shot and a Q-rating off the Richter scale.

Unfortunately, in a recent game against New Jersey, our titan fell to the floor suddenly and without explanation, only to be trampled by Dikembe Mutombo. The unprovoked tumble raised suspicion about the strength of his heart, a common concern for those of enormous size. Sure enough, tests revealed an irregular heartbeat and a thickening of the heart wall, a genetic condition that was potentially fatal and thus career-ending.

Despite his heart trouble, Jello remained the hottest commodity in the NBA, and Tailburger would treat him as such until he bit the big Belgian waffle. The Link, unimpressed with the “quacks” at Cedars-Sinai, flew in a holistic doctor from Guatemala to give a fourth opinion that, unsurprisingly, ran counter to the previous three. When this tribal witch doctor, whose card read “Ancestral Holy Man,” pulled a pebble from a bag of dirt and concluded that Jello could continue to play with little or no risk, it was good enough for us. Until Jello’s disease was publicly connected to his impressive intake of our fried food, we were on him like spandex on a streetwalker.

I found Jelloteous on the floor of the Staples Center shooting free throws.

“Jelloteous! Schuyler Thorne from Tailburger. We spoke last week. How are you?”

“Mr. Sky. Helloo!”

We shook hands and my fingers disappeared inside his enormous hamfist.

“Listen, I brought a copy of your revised contract.”

“Berry goood.”

“And I want to set up a photo shoot for you and Blatherskite next week.”

Blatherskite was part of the California punk metal revival, so I was told by Calvin, one of the branding consultants at my disposal.

“Berry goood. I like za Blatherskites.”

“Do you remember the song ‘I’m in Severe Pain’?”

“Not so sure,” Jelloteous said, giving me a confused look.

“Well, the guys in the band are big fans of your felonious, melodious jam. And you’re going to have a cameo in the video for their new song, ‘Torture Me,’ which is the theme of our new campaign. Making sense? (Pause) Trust me. This is going to be one big love-fest.”

“Yes, big love-fest,” Jelloteous repeated.

By now my neck hurt. Looking up at this big Belgian goober was hard work. I told Jello I’d see him up in the executive offices, where we were scheduled to meet with his agent, Manny “Satan” Manchow. The nickname started as a joke in the industry, but now Manny got off on it. Manchow was part vermin, part vacuum cleaner bag, and bilked every client for 15 instead of the standard 4 percent. He got away with it by negotiating the biggest deals and commanding client loyalty with the provision of hookers, drugs and anything else their spoiled asses desired. Father Flanagan he wasn’t.

In a small conference room overlooking the empty arena, I reluctantly gave a copy of the new contract to Manny. Nervous about Jelloteous’s heart condition, the Link ordered me to insert a clause calling for automatic termination of the agreement upon death. That way, if Jello blew a gasket during a game, Tailburger’s financial commitment would immediately end. Given that the contract paid Junderstack $1.5 million a year while he was living, things seemed generally fair to me. Manny, who read through the agreement and began scowling at me, seemed to have a different opinion.

“What are you trying to do here, Sky? Fuck Jello?”

“No, we’re not trying to fuck Jello.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re trying to fuck Jello big-time.”

“Manny, listen . . .”

“Satan. I prefer Satan.”

“Very well, Satan. We have no desire to fuck Jello. We believe the contract is fair in light of the situation with Jello’s heart.”

“And his wife and children? What about them? What about their situation? If he dies on a road trip to Portland and the money stops, what are they going to survive on? ESPY awards and food stamps?”

“Satan, Jello’s single with no family.”

I looked over to Jelloteous to confirm this fact but he just sat there with a glazed look in his eyes.

“That’s irrelevant, Sky. My client and the people of the Belgian Republic deserve and demand better than this piece of shit.”

Satan threw the contract back down on the conference table.

“The Belgian Republic? I thought it was a monarchy.”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s a military dictatorship. Jello is the biggest thing to come out of that wasteland since Jean-Claude Van Damme. He’s got an obligation to his fellow Belgilonians. They’re counting on him.”

“Counting on him for what?”

“For landing the best contract he can. He wants to go back and build shelters there for the homeless.”

“Do they have homeless people there?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Oh for Chrissakes, Satan. When was the last time he even went back to Belgium? No offense, Jello.”

“It’s been a few years.”

“How many?”

“Around ten, but what’s the difference? He sends money to his village.”

“I thought his father was an industrialist who owned four companies. I read all about it in
Sports Illustrated
last week.”

“Yes, but they’re small companies. By the way, he wants a fully outfitted Hummer.”

“Excuse me?”

“A Hummer. One of those military vehicles, but with leather and a CD player, all the bells and whistles. He saw Schwarzenegger’s on
Accent Hollywood.
”

After agreeing to insure against Jello’s possible demise, adding a Hummer, a health club membership and a lifetime supply of Tailpipe Burgers, I left the negotiations with Satan feeling lucky to have retained the bulk of the contract’s terms for my employer. I got stuck doing this piece of Tailburger’s business because the Link hated paying legal fees and had no intention of hiring outside counsel to do something he felt could be handled internally. Usually things worked out all right, but sometimes we got royally screwed. If Jello dropped dead anytime soon, this had the potential to be such a time.

I flew home from L.A. full of more regret than usual about my decision to stay on the Tailburger treadmill. At forty-eight, I knew my health was for shit, my personal relationships were worse, and I was losing whatever fire I’d once brought to the mission of the company: putting a deep-fried piece of beef into the mouth of every malcontent in the U.S. Now it was me who was cooked. I reminded myself that soon I’d have twenty years in and could take a reduced pension, but even the prospect of that failed to brighten my spirits. A call from my brother, King, who reached me on my cell phone in the Rochester air terminal, only served as a reminder of another way to live.

“Sky, it’s King.”

“King, where are you?”

I habitually asked my brother where he was whenever he called, then held my breath and waited for the answer. My fear, culled from experience, was that he’d say, “jail,” and I’d be forced to go bail him out. Fortunately, this wasn’t such an occasion, but it was close.

“I’m in Caqueta.”

“Where the hell’s that?”

“Colombia. I joined FARC.”

“FARC?”

“The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Don’t you read the papers? We’re fighting a war down here.”

“Yes, I read the papers. What in God’s name are you doing down there?”

“Well, this week I’m getting my automatic weapon training.”

FARC, a Marxist guerrilla organization that had fought against the conservative Colombian government and its armed forces for fifty years, had evolved from a legitimate movement of political insurrection to little more than a protection service for drug kingpins.

“You’ve got to get
out
of there!”

“Not a chance. I’m here to help the oppressed people of this country.”

“King, I don’t think FARC’s updated its recruiting pamphlet. The people of Colombia are fleeing out of fear. You’re not going to be helping them. You’re going to be conducting kidnappings and making sure the coca and poppy plants are safe for the drug cartels. Do you understand? You’ll be working to help drug dealers. Is that what you want to be doing?”

“Well, no. But the guy who hired me didn’t say anything about that.”

“Are you sure?”

“To be honest, he was talking awfully fast and you know my Spanish isn’t that great, so maybe. Have you heard of El Jefe? That’s my boss.”

“El Heffay? The guy who has all the Bogota journalists and judges executed? Have you gone completely out of your mind?”

“Those are just rumors. He seems like a great guy. Really personable. Look, I need the money, Sky. What can I do?”

“How about trying a different line of work? Maybe a job with a nice 401(k) plan; one that doesn’t require a bulletproof vest.”

“This pays better than anything I can get up in the States. No health or dental, but lots of cash. Plus, I’m not violating any laws.”

“Since when was drug-running legal?”

“I don’t run drugs.

“Then what is it that you do?”

“I drive El Jefe around. You know, from one hideout to another. He’s always worried about assassination attempts, so he sleeps in a different place every night. It’s kind of exciting. And let me tell you, this guy knows how to live. I haven’t seen this much leg since that winter I spent as a water aerobics instructor for Carnival out of Miami.”

“Why don’t you come up to Rochester for a visit? I’d love to see you.” With grave danger imminent, lying was necessary.

“Oh, I don’t know, Sky. I’d really like to get there. Believe me, I would. It’s just hard to make plans that far in advance.”

“What are you talking about? You can come anytime you like.”

“Yeah, I know, but with El Jefe, every day is a lifetime.”

“I can imagine,” I said, my concern growing. “You really should come up. I can get some tickets for the Red Wings or something. Would you like that?”

Watching the Rochester Red Wings, the city’s AAA baseball team and affiliate to the Minnesota Twins, was as tempting a brother-to-brother outing as I could use to entice King. We’d grown up in the upper decks of Silver Stadium rooting against the likes of the Toledo Mudhens and the Tidewater Tides, urging our Wings on to the Governor’s Cup, the greatest heights one can reach at the Triple-A level.

“I’d love it. I haven’t been to a Wings game in years.”

“They’ve got a beautiful new stadium. It’s called Frontier Field.”

“If I come, should I bring El Jefe?”

“Do
not
bring El Jefe!”

“I’m kidding. God, you’re tense. You’ve got to stop working so hard.”

The irony of my brother’s words escaped him.

“Be careful down there, okay?”

“I’ll call you soon.”

Closing up my Motorola, I decided that it was the name King that had caused my brother’s problems. It must have created a certain sense of entitlement in his youth as he walked around with this royal appellation. He was allowed to get away with anything he wanted. Kings don’t have to do much in this world to get by, and when they screw up, they are forgiven, if for no other reason than who they are by birth. This was how it worked with King in our family, something I could never understand and had finally stopped trying to figure out.

On reflection, it occurred to me that I was fortunate in one regard, because you often heard about characters like King, but rarely met them or had one in your own family. Most people’s siblings led the same mundane lives they did, working as lawyers or accountants or salesmen with a house in the suburbs, a wife, a few kids and a dog. They didn’t come close to living life without the proverbial net, but were perpetually fascinated by those who did. People like King, who flitted from one thing to the next, moving entirely outside the conventional and often suffocating expectations of themselves and others. People whom we pitied one moment and admired the next. People whose lives we’d like to step into, if only for a while, to see what we’re missing. Or perhaps to reassure ourselves that we’re not missing anything at all.