Ron Goode never recovered. For the next hour, he could only scream at Nick, in violation of every McLuhanesque injunction against putting out heat in a cool medium. Even Oprah strained to calm him down.
For his part, Nick assumed a serene mask of righteous serenity and merely nodded or shook his head, more in sadness than in anger, as if to say that his outburst only validated everything he had said. "All well and fine, Ron, but you haven't answered the question," or, "Come on, Ron, why don't you stop pretending you didn't hear me," or, "And what about all those people you irradiated during those nuclear test blasts in New Mexico? Want to talk about their cancers?"
During one of the commercials Ron Goode had to be physically restrained by a technician.
The head of NOMAS and the representative of the teachers' organization did what they could to come to the aid of their federal benefactor, but every time they ventured a comment, Nick cut them off with "Look, we're all on the same side, here," a statement so dazzling that it left them mute. When they finally rejoined that they could not find one square inch of common ground between their humanitarianism and the fiendish endeavors of the tobacco industry, Nick saw his opening and pounced. No one, he said, was more concerned about the problem of underage smoking than the tobacco companies. Not, of course, that there was a shred of scientific evidence linking smoking with disease, but the companies, being socially responsible members of the community, certainly did not condone underage smoking — or drinking and driving, for that matter — for the simple reason that it was against the law. Here was the ideal moment to unveil their new anti-underage smoking campaign.
"As a matter of fact, we're about to launch a five-million-dollar campaign aimed at persuading kids not to smoke," Nick said, "so I think our money is on the table."
6
Nick heard the urgent chirruping on his cellular telephone inside his briefcase when he retrieved it from the greenroom in Oprah's studio, but ignored it. He continued to ignore it on the drive to the airport. The cab driver, half-curious, half-annoyed, finally asked him if he was going to answer it. It pleased Nick to know that BR was going through significant agonies on the other end, so he did not pick up. In the waiting lounge at O'Hare, he did, more because people were staring than because he wanted to put BR out of his misery.
"Five million dollars?" It was BR, all right. Nick put his blood pressure at about 180 over 120. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Probably. It's been a very stressful period for me. But I'm feeling much better now."
"Where in the name of God are we supposed to get five million for, for anti-smoking ads?"
"It's not all that much when you think about it. RJR is spending seventy-five million a year on those stupid dick-nosed camels. You'll probably get a lot of good press out of this."
BR was fulminating, making legal threats, saying they were going to put out the story that he was having a nervous breakdown. On and on. It was very satisfying. In the middle of it, Nick heard BR say to someone, "Who? Oh, Jesus." Then he said to Nick, "It's the Captain on line two."
"Give him my regards."
"Stay on the line." Nick stayed on, not because BR had asked him,but to see what the reaction would be from the most powerful man in Tobacco to the news that an upstart executive VP had just committed his industry to spending some serious money to alienate potential customers.
He waited for over ten minutes. They called his flight, but the people at the gate wouldn't let him on while he was using his cellular telephone.
BR came back on. His voice had changed from open bellowing to ice water squirted through clenched teeth. "He wants to see you."
"He does?" Nick said. "What about?"
"How the hell should I know," said BR, hanging up with an emphatic klump.
There were no direct flights to Winston-Salem from Chicago, so he had to fly to Raleigh. On the way there the woman sitting next to him, heavyset, in her late fifties, with hair of a color not found in nature, kept staring at him as he read, out of habit, from his clipping file, an article in Science magazine entitled "Scientific Standards in Epidemiologic Studies of the Menace of Daily Life."
"I knowyou," she said accusingly, as if her inability to identify Nick were his fault.
"You do?"
"Uh-huuh. You're on the television."
Nick heard a stirring from the seat behind. What's this? Celebrity in their midst? "Who is it?"
"I knew I'd seen him."
"It's whatsis-name, from America's Funniest Home Videos." "What would he be doing going to Raleigh? Anyway, he'd be sitting in First Class."
"I'm telling you…"
This happened to Nick fairly often.
"Yes," he said quietly to the lady.
"I knew it!" She slapped the issue of Lear's magazine onto her lap. "Studs."
"Yes. That's right."
"Oh! You must have been so humiliated when she said that you kissed like a fish."
"I was," Nick said. "It was hard."
Taking pity on Nick, she shared her own disappointments in love, in particular those pertaining to her second marriage which was apparently failing. Nick was not good at disengaging himself in these situations. After an hour of sympathetic listening, his neck muscles had hypercontracted into steely knots of tension. He would need a session with Dr. Wheat when he got back. He found himself yearning for a terrorist incident. Fortunately, what the pilot announced as a "severe thunderstorm system" moved in and things got so turbulent inside the cabin that the woman forgot her problems of heart, and left deep fingernail impressions on Nick's left forearm. By the time he checked into the hotel it had been a long day and he was too tired to do anything but drink two beers and eat about four hundred dollars' worth of nuts and pretzels from the minibar.
His room service breakfast arrived and with it the morning paper, the Winston-Salem Tar-Intelligencer. He flipped it open and to his surprise saw his picture on the front page, in color, beneath the fold. The headline read:
Fighting Back: Tobacco Spokeman Rips Government "Health" Official For Manipulating Human Tragedy.
The article fairly glowed with praise for his "courage" and "willingness to cut through the cant." They'd even managed to get a sympathetic quote from Robin Williger in which he absolved Nick of personal responsibility for his cancer and said that people ought to take more responsibility for their own lives.
The phone rang, and a businesslike woman's voice announced, "Mr. Naylor? Please hold for Mr. Doak Boykin."
The Captain. Nick sat up. But how did they know where he was staying? There were many hotels in Winston-Salem. He waited. Finally a thin voice came on the line.
"Mister Naylor?"
"Yes sir," Nick said tentatively.
"Ah just wanted personally to say, thank you."
"You did?"
"I thought that government fellow was going to have himself a myocardial infarction right there on national television. Splendidly done, sir, splendid. Are you here in town, do I gather?"
It was a sign of the really powerful that they had no idea where they had reached you on the phone. "Would you lunch with me? They do a tolerable lunch at the Club. Is noon convenient? Wonderful," he said, as if Nick, many levels below him on their food chain, had just given him a reason to go on living. They fought a war over slavery, and yet they were so courteous, southerners.