Red Meat Cures Cancer (5 page)

“Got it, Frank,” I said as I jotted a note to myself. “Burgers for the cripples.”

I agreed with my corpulent commander for no other reason than to get rid of the matter. I still had to break the bad news about the SERMON suit, an item that might push him over a dangerous anger ledge. Mostly dangerous to me. Biff Dilworth, however, couldn’t leave well enough alone.

“Frank, have you thought about lowering the temperature of the Fanny Pack? I mean, isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place?”

“What do you think I am, Biff? Some kind of douche bag? Of course I’ve thought about that. Why don’t you think about this? Our customers like their food good and goddamn hot, and that’s how they’re gonna get it.”

Biff was showing unusual resolve.

“I’m all for hot, Frank. Gracious knows I enjoy a steaming beverage on occasion, but scalding the faces of our clientele seems a bit extreme.”

The Link never reacted well to direct assaults on his opinion.

“Look, Dilworth, when I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head, all right?”

“It was just a suggestion, Frank. By the by, your chosen riposte is a bit dated.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” the Link responded dismissively. “What else do we need to discuss, Sky?”

As I prepared to answer, I noticed that Biff, Annette, Chad and the rest of the board had become dejected and disinterested, sitting with their heads down and their eyes averted.

“Well, there is a small annoyance involving our good friends from SERMON.”

“What do those a-holes want now?”

News of the industry-wide suit was too much for the Link to take. He started whipping Triscuits at the board members, causing Ned, Ted, Fred and the rest to clear the room. After taking out a flask of shandy and downing what he referred to as his “medication,” he asked the recording secretary to draft a proclamation of war against SERMON. Delivered in a rage, most of its provisions rambled on about the capture of Savannah and the resignation of Salmon P. Chase. I took cover under a conference table until he calmed down.

“C’mon out from under there, Thorne.”

Strangely, the Link felt obliged to explain himself.

“I don’t mean to get so agitated, Sky, but those jag-offs from McDonald’s and Burger King have been trying to drive us out of business for years, and we’ve beat ’em back with nothin’ but muskets and spit. So I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna sit by and watch SERMON destroy us now. You understand me, Thorne. I know you do. Hell, you’re like a son to me.”

This was how the Link concluded most meetings with me. By tacking on a few words of encouragement, he made sure I remained his number one Union soldier—an unquestioning loyalist. I, of course, dutifully listened, but I knew the sentiment was a chocolate Easter bunny—sweet and hollow.

“That’s why it’s so difficult to say what I have to say to you.”

Wait a minute. The Link was adding something new.

“Thorne, if you don’t get our market share up to five percent by the end of the fiscal year, I am going to be forced to make some changes.”

“What do you mean by changes?”

“You’ll have to leave. The stockholders will demand it.”

“Frank, you know I don’t have direct control over our market share figures.”

“Thorne, when performance isn’t there, heads have got to roll. We’re all slaves to Wall Street.”

“I understand that. But why should my head roll?”

“Visibility, Thorne. You are one visible motherfucker. I’ve been running your name up the flagpole for so many goddamned years, everybody knows you. And they like you. But if you don’t hit the figures, you’re gone.”

“Frank, we’ve never had a market share higher than three and a half percent in the history of the company.”

“You’ll find a way to make it happen. I’ve got confidence in you, boy.”

“I’ve got nineteen years with Tailburger. One more and I get my pension. If I don’t make that, I walk away with nothing.”

“I don’t want to hear those negative thoughts. Just get out there and kill Confederates. You got me? (Pause) Oh, one last thing, Thorne. How’s the membership list look out at Crooked Creek? Any openings for an old guy like me?”

“I haven’t heard of any,” I replied, as if I’d lift one finger to help this fuck join a golf club.

“Well, let me know if you do. I’m itching to tee ’em up out there. You know that’s always been a dream of mine.”

I nodded, turned and walked out, ending our confrontation. Exchanges like this were difficult to take at my age. The Link had been a reasonably sane man when I went to work for him years before, but now he’d lost his way to the wheelhouse, and whatever respect I originally afforded him had diminished dramatically. Why the hell did I put up with his shit? I felt like a child in his presence, continually trying to please this oafish, hatemongering, manipulative maniac. Who was he to jeopardize my twenty-year record? All I could think about was getting out, but I couldn’t. The company had to hit the 5 percent market figure or I was looking at the loss of any retirement plans I’d ever entertained, and the end of my insular Tahitian dream.

BACK IN LOS ANGELES

To bolster our impending Torture campaign, I returned to L.A. for a meeting with Ship Plankton, a hot young Hollywood director whose new movie,
Dongwood,
was due for a summer release. With “blockbuster” written all over it, and some of its scenes still not in the can,
Dongwood
was the perfect vehicle for a Tailburger product placement. If we could get Dirk Harrington, the film’s star, to chow down a Tailpipe with cheese in front of thirty million people, sales would soar.

Although Ship insisted by telephone that no opportunity existed for this kind of crass commercialism in his movie, I begged him for five minutes of his time. When that didn’t work, I reminded him of my closeness with Congressman Roxby and the pending National Endowment for the Arts funding bill that could go either way. With his leftward-leaning underbelly exposed, he agreed to a meeting within seconds.

Ship worked out of a bungalow on the back lot of Worldvision, a small production company he snared a development deal with after an ugly fallout with RCM, one of the industry’s big players. The sordid details of his split, splashed all over the cover of
Variety
and the other trade papers, involved laughing gas, male prostitutes, gerbils and an expense account. I decided not to bring it up.

On a small brick patio, my prey, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, sat sipping a Coke. Lanky and in his late twenties, with a full head of hair, he rose to his feet and smiled as we shook hands.

“Good to see you, Ship.” I greeted him like an old friend.

“Likewise, Sky. How’s the burger biz?”

“Hey, we’re in the entertainment biz, just like you.”

“I guess so. May I offer you something to drink? A soda?”

“Sure. Anything diet.”

Ship handed me a glass and struck an arty pose.

“So you want to talk about
Dongwood
?”

“I do. I’ll be direct, Ship. We want to do a product tie-in with your
brilliant
new film.”

“But you haven’t seen my
brilliant
new film yet.”

“I know. That’s true. I admit it. But with you at the helm, it’s bound to be that good.”

The fact that I hadn’t seen this brilliant new film didn’t hold me back a bit. To Ship’s credit, he ignored my transparent, and altogether pitiable, attempt at ass-kissing. When a man has to ask someone twenty years younger than him for anything, there’s something askew in the world.

“Sky, you’ve got to understand.
Dongwood
is a drama. It isn’t an action movie. It isn’t a romantic comedy. It’s the delicate story of a disgruntled carnival worker who wants a better life. In many ways, it defies categorization. I don’t want to trivialize this picture with fast food. Can you appreciate that?”

“I do appreciate that, but I believe Tailburger has a place in your film. I mean, what carnival worker in the world doesn’t eat a Tailpipe Deluxe now and again? Especially when he’s feeling discouraged.”

“Not discouraged, Sky. Disgruntled. There’s a difference.”

“Got it. Either way, he’s hitting the drive-thru.”

“Sky, I’m trying hard to be polite here, but let me explain things more clearly. The lead character in
Dongwood
is a born-again Christian and longtime vegetarian who subsists on nothing but leaves and berries. He quits his job assembling the Tilt-A-Whirl, wanders aimlessly, suffers a complete mental breakdown and eventually blows his own head clean off with a .357 magnum.”

“It’s perfect for us, Ship. It’s a temptation story. Here he is, the model, upstanding vegetarian and he gets weak. He drives by a Tailburger billboard and suddenly finds himself craving a huge, fried hunk of meat. Or better yet, he develops a sinful addiction to the Tailfrap, our beef-flavored shake.”

“Sky, the buzz is that Oscar may be watching this one. I know its sounds trite, but I can’t risk compromising my artistic integrity.”

Despite Plankton’s growing reputation and success, the rights to his last three pictures were owned by RCM. Meanwhile, Worldvision had suffered a recent series of box-office duds, including
Honey, I Had an Embolism
and
Son of Sharkboy III,
and was cash poor. Advantage Thorne.

“How does eight hundred thousand dollars sound?”

Ship put his drink down slowly and shook his head.

“For a single product-placement shot?”

“Of course not. We want four shots. We also want a licensing deal for clothing and toys—the usual stuff.”

“Sky, unless you think the kiddies will want a manic-depressive suicide doll, I don’t think my film lends itself to a toy line.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about toys for kids. I’m talking about toys for our heavy users: dysfunctional adults and prison inmates. Our new campaign is all about self-torture, which is why your film ties in so nicely. We’ll get four million doohickeys made cheap in the Far East, slap the word
Dongwood
across them and give them away with our special-edition
Dongwood
burger. They’ll be little pieces of plastic crap.”

“I’ll want creative control over the crap, of course.”

“No problem.”

“Eight hundred grand, Sky?”

“Eight hundred.”

“Well, I agree that it’s important for an audience to see the full depravity of a man’s soul. It makes him that much more appealing. I’ll tell you what. Let me fiddle with the script a bit and see what can be done.”

I had Plankton’s ass on a platter and he knew it. I left the lot of Worldvision and drove to the Staples Center to check up on Jelloteous, our other big L.A. investment. Having returned to the lineup the week before, he was averaging forty-two points and fourteen blocks during games and three Laker girls afterward. The team was thirty-six and eight and talking about a possible championship run.

“Jelloteous, hello.”

“Mr. Sky, hello. How are you?”

“Still breathing. And you?”

“I am cool.”

“Glad to hear it. How’s the ticker?”

Jelloteous thumped his chest with a closed fist.

“Berry good.”

“And the video shoot with Blatherskite? How’d that go?”

“It was fun, but Blatherskite is crazy guys.”

Blatherskite, an Orange County, California, outfit whose first album,
Stinky Finger,
had rocketed to number one, was known for its sophomoric antics. Although Jelloteous didn’t mention it to me, I found out later that the band had set his gym bag on fire during the filming of the video. As a good-natured sort, Jelloteous took the stunt as well as could be expected, considering the fact that his passport and work visa were in the duffel. Fortunately the Belgian embassy straightened everything out and halted the deportment proceedings in plenty of time.

Assured that our investment was healthy, I returned to Rochester on a red-eye through Chicago, cautiously optimistic about the new campaign. It was revolutionary in a way. As far as I knew, the themes of personal abuse and self-torture had never been used to sell fast food. I felt a perverse pride overcoming me.
Why Just Abuse Your Body, When You Can Torture It?
might take its place in advertising history next to such legendary catchphrases as
Have It Your Way
and
Where’s the Beef?
Admittedly, ours was a bit wordier, but execution would determine its fate as a shibboleth. This campaign needed to succeed unlike any other we’d done if I was to get our market share up to a full 5 percent and save my job. The stakes were so high for me personally, I preferred to focus on the plan.

The release of Blatherskite’s “Torture Me” video would coincide with the start of the band’s Torturing America’s Ears Tour
.
There seemed to be an inordinate number of state fairs and tractor pulls on the summer schedule, but my advance people assured me these venues were breeding grounds for the pollen spores who bought our burgers.

At the same time, a blitz of thirty-second television spots, featuring interspersed shots of Jelloteous happily munching on Tailburgers and completing his “Felonious, Melodious” jam, would begin running on cable stations and the major networks in each of the top one hundred markets. A slew of Internet banners, billboard ads and radio spots, all of which were in development, would increase our penetration. And then, on top of it all, we’d add the
Dongwood
angle. Yes, wheeling my pre-owned, near luxury Eurosedan into my driveway, I felt I had a winner on my hands. It had to be.

Home. I still lived in the same four-bedroom Georgian colonial Jess and I bought two years before our split. Although I moved out when we separated, I returned after Trip Baden stole my wife and kids and forced them to live in his tacky mansion.

A blinking message machine greeted me in my drab, avocado kitchen. I placed my shoulder bag on the linoleum floor, hit the playback button and braced myself for the worst. Lately, nothing but bad news seemed to emerge from this contraption’s speaker.

“Sky, it’s Dick.”

Dick Tinglehoff, also known as Dick Jinglehoff or Dick Jerkoff, depending upon the quality of his work, was Tailburger’s main radio and television jingle writer. The rest of his time was spent as a junior high school music teacher at Hardale Country Day, a local prep school for the mildly affluent. He had composed many of our moderately successful, memory-jogging melodies in the past. Most, however, were instantly forgettable. For some masochistic reason, I had remained loyal despite his recent “Burgers All over the ’Hood” effort and the “Red Meat Rap” fiasco. Now, I was under pressure from the Link to fire Dick if he didn’t come up big for us in the new campaign.

“Hey, I’ve got a hook that’s da bomb on my hands! Listen up. Okay, here goes.”

“Da bomb?” I repeated out loud.

Dick started hissing and alternatively chanting, “boom, boom, boom,” trying his best to imitate an inner-city beat box. Then he began singing in his inimitable warble.

We don’t bake ’em,
We don’t broil ’em
We just grease and fry and oil ’em

Here at Tailburger
What you’re eatin’
Is a big old piece
Of bloodred meatin’

Every burger
We just scorch ’er
Every body
We must torture!

Despite repeated interventions by family and friends, including the vice principal at his school, Dick couldn’t seem to shake his ghetto obsession. He confessed to me that it started in the ’80s with someone called Run-DMC and had continued through the ’90s with the groundbreaking work of a band called Niggaz with Attitude. Now, the walls of the music room at Hardale were covered with posters of somebody named Dr. Dre and a quilt with the words “Thug Life” in the middle, which Dick had stitched to get over the death of someone named Tupac Shakur. A hit with students, Dick was beginning to lose his popularity with parents.

“Imagine that coming out of a ghetto blaster in Compton. Let me know what you think when you get a minute, Sky. Call me.”

Dick’s enthusiasm was admirable, but once again he’d ignored my warnings that the food stamp demographic was only 2 percent of our total business. I opened the liquor cabinet and fixed myself a drink. My confidence in the campaign, like the double martini now in my hands, was shaken.