Red Meat Cures Cancer (7 page)

“Yeah, along with ninety-two percent of the market. I really feel sorry for them.”

Pappy arrived with two steaming plates of rigatoni. The fresh peas, prosciutto and light Parmesan sauce made it our favorite and got us to shut up for a few minutes. Cal didn’t stop for long.

“Just think about it, Sky. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I will.”

“If it’s any consolation, you’re not the only one with problems.”

“Really? You mean your life’s not all sunshine and virgins?”

Cal shook his head no.

“So, what’s the matter?”

“You name it. I’ve got a video dominatrix with repetitive stress disorder, two self-love artists with carpal tunnel syndrome and our ISP keeps crashing.”

“What’s an ISP?”

“Internet service provider.”

“My heart’s bleeding for you.”

“Lately, I keep having this nightmare that Jenny finds out what I do for a living.”

“Eventually she’s going to.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why don’t you just tell her? Get it over with.”

“I should. I know I should. I’ve just got to do it, right?”

“Yes. Tell her tonight.”

“I’m going to. Tonight’s the night. Tonight is it. No more delay. I’m going to pull her aside in the bedroom and say, ‘Jen, I’m part of the adult services industry.’ It won’t be so bad.”

“It won’t be bad at all.”

“This is as good a time as any, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“I know.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“Not a chance. She’d kill me.”

Out in the parking lot, it was difficult not to notice Cal’s new car.

“How do you like it?”

“Is that the new Jag?”

“Yes it is. Gorgeous, don’t you think?”

“It’s okay,” I replied halfheartedly, knowing it would piss him off.

“Okay? You’re high. You love it.”

“Must have sold a lot of jam to get that.”

Cal smiled at me.

“You’d be amazed. It’s the alternative spread today.”

I had mixed feelings about Cal’s success. I was happy for him, of course. He was making a ton of dough and hadn’t become some raging asshole because of it. He also shared his financial success every chance he got and was the only friend I had who would call up with a spare ticket to the Super Bowl or Final Four. Still, years earlier, he offered me the chance to go into business with him and I said no. At the time, I considered a trip into the void of the porn industry dishonorable and beneath me. I was going to make my mark aboveboard in something legitimate and respectable. Then something unexpected happened. The gap between what he did and what I did narrowed, as sex became the primary sales vehicle in every industry including fast food, particularly for Tailburger. Now the difference between our career paths was as negligible as a bikini top. On or off? In hindsight, the choice seemed obvious.

7

Sunday’s SERMON

Muffet Meaney, SERMON’s executive director, was known in our business as the “Beef Bitch” for her self-righteous stand on everything involving steers and bovines. Because of the potential lawsuit Tailburger was facing, I was on my way back to Washington, D.C., to try to reason with this woman whom I’d met briefly two years before when we each testified before a Senate subcommittee about the effect of steroids on cattle. She believed they were getting too much, while I naturally held a more permissive view on the topic. To this day, whenever I get a scrawny piece of meat, I think of her.

After my customary fit of claustrophobia, I settled into my seat at the back of the plane (no first class for this executive) and started the Mott the Hoople CD residing in my Sony. “Thank God, they’ve remastered the classics,” I thought as I slipped my headset on and settled in for the two-hour trip. I didn’t know why Ethan couldn’t appreciate the great music of the Nixon years. It was still speaking to people three decades later.

Baffled by the generation gap, I used the flight time to prepare for the next morning’s meeting. Ned, Ted and Fred gave me the Operation Tenderize surveillance dossier to educate me about Meaney’s soft spots. She lived alone, spent most of her time working for SERMON and indulged her taste for voyeurism by watching
America’s Most Wanted
and the
Antiques Roadshow.
She voted for Carter in ’76
and
’80, Mondale in ’84, Dukakis in ’88, wore an Admiral Stockdale T-shirt to a Perot rally in ’92, failed to vote in ’96 and volunteered for the 2000 ballot recount in Florida. She went to church on Sundays, after which she always stopped at a local TCBY for a plain vanilla, medium-size yogurt with Oreo topping. She also had a vibrator the size of West Virginia and, judging by her battery-buying habits, the necessary libido to use it frequently.

Soon I was in my bed at the Four Seasons, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Meaney was the devil, a complete crank who wouldn’t know a fried calamari from a fried Tailburger if it lodged itself in her throat. I hated her kind, an extremist who saw one side of an argument and refused to be swayed by copious amounts of liquor or money. She was an environmental lobbyist until October 1987, when her husband, Mark, keeled over at a Tailburger in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Doctors said it was his diet, but I think it was the stock market crash. He took a beating and his heart couldn’t handle the strain. Meaney pointed out to the press that Mark was a member of our now defunct “Frequent Fryer” program and had consumed an estimated five thousand Tailburgers in his lifetime. What she called wrongful death in her lawsuit, we called a good customer.

Since that fateful day in Chevy Chase, she had agitated against us through her not-for-profit group SERMON, the type of radical leftist organization that supported UNICEF, Title IX and PBS. Flooding the airwaves with antimeat propaganda, she brought a religious fervor to the battle against beef. Every time I turned around, I saw her on
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer
barking about the use of pesticides on U.S. feed corn or the unsanitary conditions in American slaughterhouses. What a fraud. I bet her house was a mess.

To many people, she was a hero. To me, she was the epitome of the limousine liberal: a pro-choice, pro–gun control, anti–death penalty, social program–spending pinko with a Volvo station wagon and a house in Bethesda. I mean, didn’t she know how to have any fun? The answer was pretty clear as I walked into the lobby of SERMON’s headquarters on K Street. A large sign on the wall read,
Meat Is a Murderer.
“Very subtle,” I decided. I gave my name to the receptionist and took a seat on a big, burgundy leather sofa. “What a bunch of hypocrites,” I thought as I settled comfortably into its generous proportions and picked up a copy of
Eggplant Today.
With my guard down, I was confronted by the opposition.

“That’s Pleather, Mr. Thorne.”

I looked up from my magazine to see Muffet Meaney dressed smartly in a blue business suit and three-inch heels. I tried not to look at her dynamite legs and curvaceous pelvic region, but was unsuccessful and found my eyes lingering there a little too long. I still wasn’t sure what she’d said to me and replied accordingly.

“What?”

“The couch you’re sitting on. You probably think it’s leather, but it’s not. It’s Pleather, a synthetic fabric.”

“Very lifelike.”

“Isn’t it? Why don’t you come with me to my office, where we’ll have some privacy?”

For some reason, her use of the word “privacy” got me thinking the wrong kind of thoughts. As I followed her through a maze of cubicles, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about this woman that was giving me such an enormous woody. Maybe it was the heels or the way she spoke to me or the fact that I hadn’t had sex in eight months. I didn’t know. But whatever it was, it was powerful and it would be damn near impossible to be an effective advocate for Tailburger if I didn’t get my longings under control quickly.

My enemy stared at me from behind a large, mahogany desk. What a boondoggle. The leaders of these nonprofits always had offices the size of aircraft carriers. Yet here they were sucking tax dollars out of the economy with their free land and their precious charitable and educational purposes. What a racket.

“Ms. Meaney.”

“Call me Muffet.”

“Okay. Then call me Sky.”

“All right.”

“Muffet, I’m not going to hedge. From what I understand, you are currently considering a class action lawsuit, in conjunction with the various state attorneys general, against Tailburger and our fellow competitors.”

“We’re not considering it, Sky. We’re doing it. And don’t ask me why, because you know damn well why.”

“I
don’t
know why. Please. Enlighten me.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and prepared for her verbal assault.

“Do you have any idea how many people die every year from heart attacks in this country?”

“I know it’s a fair number. All those poor smokers.”

“It’s not just the smokers, Sky. It’s the hardworking men and women who shovel one fried Tailburger after another down their throats until their cholesterol levels cause coronary meltdowns. Then the U.S. government and its citizens pay to nurse the survivors back to health through the various Medicare and Medicaid programs. It’s time companies like Tailburger pay their fair share.”

“Medicare and Medicaid are for the old and the destitute.”

“Who do you think eats your burgers?”

“Can we come back from la la land for a second here? First of all, there is no scientific evidence that links beef to heart disease. Second, study after study shows that lean red meat is a nutritionally valuable part of any healthy diet.”

“That’s right.
Lean
red meat. Those studies don’t say anything about deep-fried fatty pieces of cow carcass with five spoonfuls of mayonnaise on them. Do you have any idea how many grams of fat are in a Tailpipe Deluxe?”

“I honestly don’t.”

“Well, let me tell you. A hundred and twenty-four grams. And that’s just the burger. Add a serving of your Enormofries and the total goes to nearly two hundred and forty-five grams of fat, most of it saturated. That’s four days’ worth of the recommended daily allowance for fat intake. And you want to sit there and tell me that your products are not causing heart disease?”

“What about our low-calorie option, the Halfpipe?”

“For your information, the Halfpipe is a deceptively named product. It’s got ninety percent of the fat of the Tailpipe and seventy-five percent of the calories. Not what you’d call a heart-smart choice.”

“Well,
hell,
we put a seaweed burger on the menu two years ago and I think we sold forty-three of them across the country. We’re just giving people what they want. Is that a crime? I can’t think of anything that doesn’t cause ticker trouble. You can’t hold us liable.”

“Oh, yes we can. And we will.”

Muffet Meaney was, in my son Ethan’s vernacular, a hottie. About five feet four inches tall with a 36C chest, she had curves in all the right places and a face that reminded me of a young Marlo Thomas. Here I was trying to be a hard-ass negotiator and all I could think about was getting intimate with her. “Get a grip,” I told myself as she rambled on about quadruple bypass surgery and artery blockages. There was sure as hell no problem with my blood flow. I was toast.

“What about settlement negotiations?” I asked.

“We’ll listen to any serious settlement offer that’s made.”

“What kind of dollars are we talking?”

“The kind of dollars that Tailburger can’t even come close to putting on the table. You’re just a tadpole in this deal. We’re going after the big fish. Once McDonald’s and Burger King come to the table, we’ll let you know what your share is going to be.”

“So what you’re saying is that all we can do right now is to sit on the sideline and wait.”

“Basically.”

“What if we wanted to cut our own deal and get out early?”

“You’d have to come up with something pretty attractive, but I’d be willing to listen.”

Now I had met the real enemy and it wasn’t Muffet—it was me. All of our arguing had created some bizarre sexual tension between us. Despite my natural frustration at the unenviable position I found Tailburger in, I couldn’t help what came out of my mouth next.

“Would you also be willing to have dinner with me tonight?”

Muffet looked at me with some surprise and then smiled ever so slightly.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“C’mon. You’ve got to eat.”

“This would be strictly on a professional basis, right?”

“Well, not exactly.”

Muffet smiled a bit more broadly.

“Sky, let me make sure of something before I agree to this. You don’t think you can wine and dine this situation away?”

“Of course not.”

Muffet hesitated and took a long look at me.

“I guess sharing a meal wouldn’t be against the rules.”

The potential repercussions of dating the opposition didn’t occur to me right then. The moment she said yes, my imagination wandered until all I could picture was the two of us naked and alone on a bed of rose petals—a psychic remnant from watching
American Beauty
one too many times.

Later that night we met at Ristorante Piccolo, a tiny hideaway on 31st Street just off of M in Georgetown. The younger set surrounding us made me feel like a college boy who couldn’t wait to get his date back to the dorm room. After a few drinks, her guard came down.

“Some days I wish I wasn’t fighting against the beef industry.”

“Why do you say that? You’re pretty good at it.”

“Mostly because of Mark. (Pause) If he hadn’t died, I never would’ve gotten involved with SERMON. I guess I still miss him and work is a constant reminder he’s gone.”

“I know how you feel. I lost my wife back in ’94.”

“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Were you married long?”

“Ten years.”

“That’s how long I was with Mark. Didn’t the house seem so empty?”

“Well, in my case, it was already empty.”

“It was?”

“See she wasn’t technically my wife at the time she died.”

“No?”

“No. Not technically. (Pause) We were sort of divorced.”

“I see.”

“And she was sort of married to another guy.”

“Sort of?”

“Yes. (Pause) To
Triperrr.
Isn’t that an awful name?”

“I don’t care for it.”

“Me neither. I hate it. (Pause) Anyway, I still loved her. (Pause) A lot.”

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

I nodded.

“I think about Mark every single day. Everyone said time would make it better, but it hasn’t. In some ways, it’s gotten worse. I find myself feeling lonely more often than I like to admit. (Pause) Do you think the pain ever just goes away for good?”

“No . . .”

Muffet was disappointed by the first part of my answer.

“. . . but I think you’ll be happy again.”

“I hope so.”

I’d misjudged Muffet Meaney. She wasn’t the row of razor wire I’d observed from a distance. She was more like a flower—a sensitive, intelligent, thoughtful, caring, woman who only needed sunlight, some water and a spray or two of Miracle-Gro. She was vul-ner-a-ble, and just like me, she’d loved and lost.

Muffet and I made eyes at each other the rest of the night (except when I was outside smoking Commodores) and successfully forgot about our earlier meeting. Though the evening was devoid of rose petals, I knew that, upon kissing her good night, I had to see her again.