Beating Around the Bush (7 page)

“The violence for a twelve-year-old boy doesn’t bother you?”

“It’s just a video game. By the way, Jimmy has given me a list of the new ones coming out for Christmas.”

Jimmy said, “I can’t wait for ‘Car Stealers,’ ‘Torture in Iraq’ and ‘Blowing Up Public Schools.’”

“They all sound interesting,” I said. “In my day we played Elvis Presley records. Now video games seem to be the indoor sport.”

Carla said, “Thank God. It got Jimmy through the sniper crisis. He couldn’t sleep while the snipers were out there.”

Jimmy said, “How about ‘Saving the Human Race—No Matter What the Cost’?”

“Suits me,” I said. “It makes you think.”

IN 2003 THE COUNTRY celebrated the 100th anniversary of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s first flight. On December 17, 1903, Orville took off near Kitty Hawk, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and stayed in the air for 12 seconds. Then Wilbur, on the same day, flew the same plane 852 feet in 59 seconds.

What very few people know is that it didn’t work out as well as everyone expected. Two weeks later they started an airline, Wright Brothers Express, which flew between Dayton and Akron, Ohio. Two weeks after that, they filed for bankruptcy.

Orville said: “We didn’t expect business to be that bad. People just weren’t flying as much as we expected.”

Wilbur said: “We offered discount fares, frequent-flier miles and free coffee—and we still had to go into Chapter 11. The banks wouldn’t give us any more money.”

Orville said, “To stay afloat, we were told we had to downsize our operation.”

“The only way to do this,” Wilbur said, “was to fire either Orville or myself. It hasn’t been an easy time for either of us. I should have stayed because I was the more experienced pilot. I flew the plane 852 feet and Orville flew it only 120 feet.”

“But,” said Orville, “I was the first one to fly.”

To eliminate unneeded help, the bankruptcy judge said the brothers had to fire all the ground mechanics, except the one who turned the propellers to start the plane.

The Wright brothers blamed themselves for choosing to make the first commercial route between Dayton and Akron. Orville said, “No one in Dayton wanted to go to Akron, and no one in Akron wanted to go to Dayton, so we offered flights from Dayton to Cleveland.”

Wilbur said, “It didn’t get us out of the red, so we asked the government to bail us out. We argued that if the Feds didn’t come to our rescue, there would never be commercial aviation.”

Orville said, “The government turned us down on the grounds that if flying ever caught on, many airlines would go bankrupt.”

Wilbur added, “When we were turned down by the Feds, Wright Brothers stock plummeted.”

Orville agreed: “Wall Street stopped believing in us. The only thing we still had was our bicycle business.”

Wilbur said, “That is what we were originally noted for.”

In spite of all the setbacks, the Wright brothers continued running their airline with one, then two, and then three planes—all made of muslin and plywood.

They flew to Muncie, Indiana, Paducah, Kentucky, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. The name Wright Brothers Express never caught on, so they decided to change it to United Airlines because it had more sex appeal to it, at least until it went broke.

THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON in the world that every time I get lost I refer to my book,
Foreign Affairs for Dummies.

Here is what it says:

QUESTION: If a smoking gun can’t be found in Iraq, where can you find one?

ANSWER: In North Korea. They announced they have a smoking gun and are proud of it.

Q: If they can’t find one in Iraq, then why should we unilaterally go there?

A: Because our troops are there. They are prepared to fight in Iraq, but they are not prepared to fight in North Korea. The Bush Administration has been ready to fight in Baghdad for over a year, and if we don’t topple Saddam Hussein now the U.S. will have egg on its face.

Q: How much money will it cost us to go into Iraq and find a smoking gun?

A: Probably $200 billion.

Q: So, if we don’t go into North Korea we will save $200 billion?

A: That’s correct. That way the president can afford to give us another tax cut.

Q: How do our allies feel about this?

A: Most of them are for us, but don’t want American troops on their soil if we go to war.

Q: Is it true when the president says that oil is not part of the equation in our foreign policy?

A: Of course it is. When you’re acting diplomatically, you can’t let petroleum get in the way of liberating a dictatorship.

Q: Is North Korea a dictatorship?

A: Probably, but we can’t do anything about it because it’s too close to China, and we don’t want the Chinese to get mad at us, because they are our best trading partners.

Q: A lot of countries have smoking guns now—Pakistan, India, China, North Korea, Israel, France and Great Britain, to name a few. How many countries are we going to attack after we wipe out Iraq?

A: We’re not necessarily going to attack them. In a lot of cases, we’ll just bomb their smoking gun factories.

Q: Can we send UN inspectors into the countries that are suspect?

A: You can’t send them into France and Great Britain because you would be violating their sovereignty.

Q: How long will it take to eliminate Saddam from power?

A: Anywhere from two weeks to two years.

Q: And how long will it take for a democratic regime to take his place?

A: Anywhere from two weeks to two years.

Q: Am I going crazy?

A: It’s very possible.

THOMAS GREENTREE was taking antidepressant pills. Each one cost $10.

When I saw him, he was very depressed.

He said, “I have no more money for pills. I used up my health insurance, and I can no longer borrow from my relatives.”

“That’s tough. What are you holding in your hand?”

“It’s my last pill. After I take it, it’s all over for me. I’ve been staring at it for hours. I’m depressed if I take it, and I’m depressed if I don’t.”

“That’s tough.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken them in the first place, because now I’ve gotten used to them.”

“Couldn’t you take a placebo and pretend it’s an antidepressant?”

“It doesn’t work for me because I know it’s a placebo. Anyhow, my health plan won’t pay for placebos. Would you like to see the pill?”

“Of course. This is a collector’s item.”

He handed the tablet to me. “Be careful,” he warned, “I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

I examined it in the light. “It’s beautiful. I saw one just like it
on television. The announcer said: ‘It isn’t for everybody. See your doctor first.’”

Greentree said, “So I went to my doctor and he told me it’s only for people who can afford it. When I went yesterday and told him I had only one pill left, he said, ‘Then work yourself out of the depression like a man.’”

“That’s some doctor.”

“I am wrestling with the decision to take it or save it until my depression gets worse.”

“How serious is it now?”

“I don’t want to commit suicide.”

“That’s good. If you ever do, you can take the pill first. I’d give you some of mine, but they have different side effects. For example, they cheer me up, but every time I take one I feel like shoplifting.”

He said, “At least you have something you can count on.”

I said, “Why don’t you give the last pill to the Smithsonian Institution? You would still be depressed, but you would get a tax deduction.”

“I don’t have a job. That’s one reason I’m so depressed.”

“Have you ever thought of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?”

He replied, “Everyone tells me to do that so I won’t ask them for money.”

I said, “People who aren’t depressed always say that. It’s too bad you don’t have any money. If you did, you could go to Canada and buy the antidepressants at half price.”

“I think I’ll take the pill now. Will you stay with me until it works?”

“Of course. That’s what friends are for.”

ONE OF THE THINGS people worry about these days is losing their identity. There is something frightening about someone stealing your name and using it to charge everything from bedroom sets to Lexus convertibles.

This is how it is done. You order a camera and give your credit card number to a clerk. Someone in the store steals the number and sells it to a gang of Russian thieves in Los Angeles. They, in turn, sell your name to a group of con men in Nigeria, but your identity doesn’t stay in Nigeria long. It is traded to a master of forgery in Marseilles, who trades it to a gang in Buffalo.

Now your identity is in play.

The Buffalo gang works on the telephone. One of the members says he is you and orders a motorcycle, a trip to Tahiti, theater tickets to
La Boheme
and gifts adding up to thousands of dollars.

He has a post office box in Ottawa in case someone is trying to track him.

When you get your bill, you call your credit card company.

The credit card contact says, “How do we know you’re you?”

You say, “It wasn’t me and you can’t charge me for all the things I didn’t order.”

The contact man says, “You are a victim of identity theft, one of the greatest crimes in plastic history. Why didn’t you tell us at the beginning that someone else was using your name?”

“That is a poor excuse. I didn’t know until I got my statement,” you reply.

“If we issue another card, you have to promise not to tell anyone what the number is.”

“How can I charge anything if I can’t give anyone my number?” you ask.

“You can, but if you use it there is a good chance you could lose your identity again. But not to worry. We will be on the lookout for the person using your card.”

“Well, at least I can get back the real me,” you say.

“Yes and no. Someone may steal the number on your new card and pretend he is the real you.”

“Suppose I get a card in the name of another person so I would have someone else’s identity?”

“The people in Buffalo would soon find out about it and you would be swimming with the fishes.”

“This must be happening all the time. Isn’t there some way you can stop it?”

“People pretending they are other people is one of the oldest scams of the human race, but it has never been more profitable than it is right now. At least your family knows who you are.”

“I’m not so sure. The joker with my card charged a mink coat to my account, and when the bill arrived home my wife wouldn’t believe me that someone else bought the coat for his girlfriend.”

TELEVISION KEEPS GETTING BETTER and better. At one point, it was just an entertainment medium, but now it deals with all the problems of our society.

You can find a wife on TV and also a husband. You can get therapy for any difficulty—from depression to bed-wetting.

The network shows feature couples who have committed adultery and daughters who hate their mothers.

If that isn’t enough, there are shows where you can get a divorce and ones that have a judge decide a legal dispute between a claimant and his landlady, or determine if someone got diddled by his car mechanic.

There are child custody shows and programs for people with bulimia.

And there are, of course, reality shows.

Where do the producers get the people who appear on their shows?

We have to assume the people want to air their troubles for their fifteen minutes of fame. Also, it’s cheaper to wash their dirty linen in public.

There are talent agents who book people for these programs.

I sat in the office of Sam Starquest, one of the hottest flesh peddlers in the business.

A secretary came in and asked, “There is a lady outside who was abused by a priest and is willing to talk about it on the air. Do you want to see her?”

“No, I’ve already got too many people abused by priests. They’re very hard to place now.”

The phone rang. Sam, on his end said, “You need two women who hate each other and want to tear out each other’s hair on the Jerry Springer show? I have a pair. One woman accused the other of stealing her husband. They won’t be faking it. Right. I’ll send them over, but have your bodyguards on call in case anything happens.”

The secretary came back in, “Maury Povich is doing a show on incest. What can we offer him?”

Sam said, “Tell him we’ll get back to him. I know a brother and sister who may be willing to talk about it.”

I said, “You’re one busy guy.”

“You better believe it. I am now looking for twenty beautiful girls who want to win a guy who they think is a millionaire. They all have to be beautiful. The theme of the program is how greedy women can be.”

“I like the shows where the judge sternly chews out both the plaintiff and the defendant in the courtroom,” I said.

“TV is overloaded with those kinds of shows. I have a stable of judges in the waiting room.”

The secretary reappeared. “There’s a couple outside who want to get a divorce on the air, and they have a lady with them who committed adultery with the husband.”

Sam said, “I’ll call the divorce court. In the meantime, stick them in separate offices in case they lose their tempers.”

“I can’t think of anything they won’t put on TV,” I said.

Sam replied, “Not as long as it appeals to the 18-to-45-year-old age group.”

I NEVER REALIZED that duct tape would play such an important role in my life.