Red Meat Cures Cancer (6 page)

6

Family Matters
or So They Say

The next day, I decided to call my son, Ethan, twenty-two, one of the founders of a Silicon Valley start-up called
Macrocock.com
. Macrocock had something to do with computers, wakeboards and “living large,” but I couldn’t quite track it all. So far, it had nothing to do with turning a profit or, frankly, seeing
any
revenue. Ethan did, however, assure me of two things: (1) the business plan was “rad,” and (2) the stock options would be worth “gazillions” when the IPO, which would be any week now, came. In the meantime, my job as a supportive parent was to keep sending my love and, until the second-round financing came through, a monthly check. I also held a small equity interest in the company.

“Hello.”

“Ethan?”

“Yeah, this is Ethan. Who’s this?”

Macrocock management evidently encouraged the playing of unlistenable music at ungodly decibel levels.

“Ethan, it’s your father.”

“Who?”

“Your dad. IT’S YOUR DAD!” I shouted.

“No need to raise your voice, Pop. I hear you. Let me turn down the tuneage.”

Ethan returned to the telephone.

“There. That’s better.”

“What was that racket, Ethan?”

This was the closest I could come at the moment to showing an interest in my boy’s musical taste.

“Oh, the music? It’s this soca speed-metal band called Abundant Fuck. They rage, don’t they?”

“Full on. No question about it,” I replied, my sarcasm barely concealed.

“Dad, there’s more to music than Kansas, Boston and Chicago. Trust me. Any band named after a place sucks.”

He had a point with Manhattan Transfer and maybe the Bay City Rollers, but Chicago? Despite the hurtful criticism, I continued undeterred.

“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about . . .”

“Dad, can you hold a minute? I need to take a slash.”

Without giving my response, I was put on hold by a child whose bladder was the size of an acorn. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a telephone call without a bathroom break. A few minutes passed before he returned.

“Sorry ’bout that. All this Red Bull is sinking me. How are you doing?”

“Well, I’m fine, but I haven’t heard from you. How’s the Internet world?”

“Dad, it’s incredible! We’re so close to getting second-round financing, we need to develop our site. Then we’re going to open the kimono.”

“Open the kimono?”

“Reveal our idea.”

“That’s great. I was starting to wonder what was inside that kimono myself.”

“I’m sure. It’s insane out here. It’s like we’re shredding, but at the same time we’re strappin’.”

“Strappin’ ” was Ethanspeak for “I need more money.”

“How much do you need?”

“Fifteen hundy would be huge.”

“You guys aren’t committing any felonies, right?”

“Dad, c’mon, this is me you’re talking about. Everything’s cool on the cube farm. We’ve had a bit of scope creep, but that’s all right.”

“What’s scope creep?”

“The project’s scope. It’s just expanded a bit.”

“Okay, I get it. Still living with Skull?” I asked, referring to Ethan’s best friend.

“Oh, yeah. It’s working out well. He programs code for us. He’s a real propeller head.”

Skull may have been a propeller head now, but in a prior life he was known as the guy at Ethan’s high school who liked to drink bong water. It’s important to know your kid’s friends.

“Good. I just wanted to make sure you were alive. I hadn’t heard from you in a few weeks.”

“Sorry, Pop. I’m turning into a real bithead. Sometimes the world moves too fast for family contact.”

“Well, slow it down once in a while and give me a call.”

“I will. Look, I gotta go. Stay on the bleeding edge, all right?”

My son’s vocabulary made him sound like the trailer for a movie nobody went to see.

“I’ll try. Take care of yourself, okay? I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye, Dad.”

“Good-bye, Ethan.”

Like most things these days, my conversation with Ethan left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied. Maybe it was because I’d spent half the time on hold while he urinated, but I suspected there was more to it. It had taken me a long time, but I’d finally reached the point in my life where I was more concerned about my kids’ dreams than my own. Perhaps it was because they stood a better chance of coming true, but whatever the reason, I was convinced that the inner happiness I so desperately sought was tied to their happiness. This had not always been the case. Having neglected Ethan’s and my daughter Sophia’s needs for too many years as I toiled for Tailburger, I was trying to make it up to them with more attentiveness. Problem was, they didn’t have much time for me now.

Sophia was a junior at Cornell and seemed to be doing well, but I worried about her brother. I still felt guilty about the job I’d done helping to raise Ethan. He was a good kid, but a bit misdirected. When I divorced his mother, Ethan metamorphosed overnight from a happy young boy into a dour presence. Only now was he starting to flourish a bit. Without a college degree or any training, Ethan brought few skills to the table at Macrocock, but I didn’t care. As long as he was excited, I would support him, even if that mostly meant sending money.

Raising a child who could support himself financially was important, but raising one who could support himself emotionally and spiritually was more important. I wasn’t sure I’d succeeded on any of those fronts. I wanted Ethan to be independent and venture out on his own. On the other hand, I selfishly still wanted him to need me and to come to me with any big decisions he was facing. Mostly I wanted to prevent him from joining a cult. Somehow we had struck upon a hybrid of all this in our relationship. He came to me with most of his difficult dilemmas and a few I felt he could have wrestled with on his own. I wanted to be a good father, but a three-hour conference call about whether or not to sign up for basic cable
and
the movie channels seemed a bit much. I felt certain Ethan would find his way eventually. It just might take a little longer than I expected.

My reverie was interrupted by the Link, who came barreling into my office.

“Thorne, we’ve got a goddamn hydrogen bomb exploding in our faces. One of our asshole seniors working the window in Amarillo hit a ’Nam vet in the face with his pepper spray. Last thing I want to do is go to war with a bunch of psycho Agent Orange types. Get on it.”

To solve the Amarillo uprising, I began the process of calling across the country, first to our regional vice president in Dallas, then to the franchise owner of the affected store and finally to Zeb Nettles, our public relations guru, who would do whatever was required to keep our name out of the papers for pepper-spraying a war hero. In the middle of my efforts, the Link reentered my office and laid himself out on my couch. With his wife of thirty-five years, Wilhemina, gone, he often told me how lonely he’d gotten. Lately, the loneliness seemed to intensify. This proposition was hard for me to believe, considering the stable of prostitutes he kept busy. Put three shots of bourbon down his gullet and the Link would fuck a door handle if you put it in front of him. Nevertheless, he’d always insist, “Willy was my everything, Sky,” whenever the topic came up. “Ned, Ted and Fred have their own families now. All I’ve got is the business.” Sadly, I was starting to feel the same way.

“God, I miss her, Thorne.”

“I know, Frank. I’m sure it’s very hard.”

“Hard isn’t the word.”

The Link was crying now, sobbing into the sleeve of his red sweatsuit. I comforted him the best I could until noon, when I gingerly excused myself and left him supine.

Wednesdays meant lunch with Cal Perkins, my best friend from childhood and a walking contradiction. By all outward appearances, this father of three was an upstanding member of the community. Dark-haired and trim, he served as a deacon at Pittsford’s First Presbyterian Church, was a fixture at Little League games and ran a successful telemarketing business. Cal had married later than most of the guys in our circle of friends, a move that appeared Solomon-like in retrospect. While the rest of us were getting divorced or, at a minimum, bitter and disillusioned about love, he was still dating twenty-two-year-olds who were impressed by any man who ate with a fork. He finally chose Jenny, a beautiful and saccharine-sweet person whom he met, aptly, in the fresh produce section of the local Wegman’s supermarket. They married (I was the best man), started a family—one boy and two girls—and settled comfortably into the American dream.

Cal had a secret, however, that even among those close to him, only I knew. The basis of his business success was an endless series of adult telephone and Internet sex services bringing in $4.99 to $29.99 a minute, day after day, night after night, as millions of men pleasured themselves and Cal got filthy rich. Oh sure, he had tried in the early days to sell other items via 1-800 numbers such as gift baskets, furniture and mattresses, but what really sold, when he looked at the various industries, was sex.

Cal got into the business early, and spent the first year reserving numbers like 1-800-BLOWJOB and 1-800-BIGTITS, to name a few. His cover was jellies and jams sold from 1-800-SPREDEM. The revenue from these breakfast spreads couldn’t pay for his Direct TV, let alone make him wealthy, but the sex lines and sex products offered via mail-order catalog sold from day one. And they sold huge—especially the sex products. Multispeed, two-pronged vibrators, clit-pleasing tendril root rings, anal-probing Venus flytrap stimulators, flavored lubes, purple butterfly orgasmatron eggs, silicone masturbation sleeves. I don’t know who used these things, but there were plenty of people buying them. Cal’s family remained blissfully unaware of his dual identity, but from time to time, all the covering got to him. If he couldn’t have confided in me, I think he would have gone crazy.

We always met at Pappy’s Den of Kielbasa, an old rehabbed restaurant painted red and known, ironically, for its gut-busting pasta. The restaurant, previously called Smolenski’s Den of Kielbasa, didn’t even serve kielbasa anymore, but since the name brought in famished Poles in busloads from Buffalo, it stuck. Pappy, the proprietor and resident bookmaker, led us to our usual table by a big bay window. Pappy leaned in and talked to us under his breath.

“You two want action on the Barcelona game?”

“Barcelona?”

“World Football League. They play Frankfurt Thursday night. How about the over under? You want to play that?”

“Pappy, do you ever bet on these games yourself?” I asked, genuinely curious about the answer.

“No, no. Not anymore. I’m still paying off my Super Bowl bets on za Bills.”

“My condolences.”

“So what you say? How ’bout WNBA? Two dimes on New York Liberty? Rebecca Lobo? Utah Starzz?”

“Two thousand dollars? Not today, Pappy. I don’t like the way the Starzz are playing. I’m more of a Detroit Shock fan. Maybe next Wednesday.”

“Minnesota Lynx vairsis Miami Sol?”

Although I’d never actually placed a bet with Pappy, I always tried to appease him. He seemed to enjoy taking bets more than running a restaurant. Summer was a bit slow for him as well. He didn’t take bets on baseball, and it was tough trying to push the teaser for a professional lacrosse game between the Rochester Rattlers and the Toronto Rock. Finally, he left me and Cal alone. There was no need to take our orders since we always had the same thing.

“You don’t look well, Sky.”

“It’s good to see you, too.”

“I don’t mean to insult you. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“We’re getting ready to launch this new campaign and I’m under a little pressure. We’ve also got these anti–red meat fanatics on our asses again. Same old shit. How about you? How are things?”

“Sky, the industry has never been better.”

Whenever Cal talked about pornography he called it “the industry,” mostly to make himself feel better, I think.

“We’re growing like mad. I’m projecting a two hundred and fifty-eight percent increase in revenue this year. I can’t get enough girls to work the phone lines. Our Internet revenue is soaring, and our sexual-products catalog is producing unlike ever before.”

Cal shoved a piece of bread in his mouth and continued talking.

“And get this. We’re in the process of building an actual ranch out in the Nevada desert. You’ll be able to go out there and fuck anything you want for a hundred bucks. We’re entering a golden age of adult entertainment. America has found its secret little outlet.”

“I’m happy for you. And for America.”

“Sky, it’s time for Tailburger to take advantage of this trend.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. The industry has gone mainstream. It’s getting more and more acceptable to be a part of it. Tailburger can be at the front end of it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. Think of the product exposure. We start with some space on our Internet site and go from there.”

At Cal’s site,
www.lustranch.com
, a person could find something to satisfy any fetish. Guy on gal, guy on guy, guy on gecko. You name it, they had it. Although Tailburger catered to the fringe, there was a line I worried about crossing.

“Cal, as tempting as that sounds, I’m not in a position to make that happen.”

“Of course you are. You’re just afraid to pull the trigger.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I’m not convinced I
want
to pull the trigger. I mean, Tailburger is still an American institution with a reputation.”

“As what? An also-ran in the burger business, selling awful, overfried hockey pucks to misfits and miscreants? You guys could be so much bigger. This could take you up to the majors, Sky.”

“Possibly.”

“No, not possibly. Definitely. I know I’m right on this one. I see the power of this thing every day. People can’t get enough sex. They’d rather fuck than find money. This is your competitive advantage. You think McDonald’s is going to touch the industry? Of course not. They can’t. They’ve made their bed with the family-friendly vendors. Now they’ve got to sleep there.”