“As long as Malcolm Goldman is a part of it, I won’t do it.”
Frank looked the reporter up and down. “You have to.”
“No, I don’t, actually. This is America, remember? I have the freedom to speak or not speak. First Amendment.”
Frank sighed and slid open his desk drawer. “I was always partial to the Second Amendment.”
Eugene tried not to react as Frank pulled out his handgun and took aim at Eugene’s crotch.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Eugene said as calmly as he could.
“Don’t worry,” said Frank from behind the sight, “you don’t use those things anyway. I doubt you’ll miss them.”
“You need me too badly to injure me like that.”
Frank shook his head. “Nah. Not really. We talked about this at the dinner party and all basically came to the same conclusion. In fact, it was the quickest we decided on anything all evening. They were all right with me killing you, but I’d rather just shoot your balls off.”
Eugene was beginning to sweat. “I thought we’d decided to behave sophisticatedly.”
“What, you saying I’m not a sophisticate?” Dr. Leinenkugel asked, cocking the gun.
Eugene’s hands instinctively flew down to cover Frank’s target. “No, no, no. I’m not saying that at all. I’ll do it. I’ll report your story. Are you happy now?”
Frank shrugged, but didn’t lower the gun. “Eh. Not really. I kind of just want to shoot your balls off anyway.”
Eugene’s eyes widened.
“But I won’t,” Frank said, lowering the pistol. “Now get the hell out of here and go woo the masses. And you know what’ll happen if you don’t?”
“Something to do with my balls?”
“Yes. The worst kind of something to do with your balls. Now go.”
Eugene stood awkwardly for a moment, before saying, “But…you gave me a ride here. I don’t have any way to get back to my crew.” His mind perversely leapt back to all the hot dates when a tactic similar to this one had worked out to his advantage.
“Oh, right. Well, come on, then. I’ll give you a ride back. You can even ride shotgun.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A STAGE WAS CONSTRUCTED IN the square and angled in just the right position so that when the cameras focused on the podium, neither Norman’s Tavern nor Jared’s Taxidermy could be seen in the shot. A special task force was assembled to keep tabs on Old Carter, making sure he was unavailable for comment and could never wander into frame.
Georgina had lobbied to have the stage built to face the opposite direction, so that the salon would be visible just to the left, but the placement of Wild West Guns and Ammo right next door was ruled too controversial to have on screen by seventy percent of the media outlets that were to be covering the press conference that afternoon.
Malcolm Goldman and Eugene Thornton were to be put through a grueling brief just after sunrise that morning, being given the dos and don’ts of what an acceptable question consisted of in both content and form.
As Eugene and Malcolm sat in the lobby of Laurel and Georgina’s temporarily closed salon, Dr. Leinenkugel, who was in charge of the briefing, opened his training with a few questions to see where the reporters were on the learning curve.
“Thornton!” Eugene, who had been slouched over, insulted into apathy, snapped to attention. “Thornton. Ask me a question.”
Eugene rolled his eyes and asked the first thing that came to mind. “Why would the world believe any conclusion that a bunch of backwoods hicks concoct out of the overwhelming pressure of the whole world’s crushing expectations?”
Frank shook his head disappointedly. “That’s not even close to the kind of questions we need from you. Besides, the answer is obvious. Everything’s relative. If the whole world wants to believe something, the whole world will believe it, and then who is the crazy person—the one who believes the lie that everyone else in the world believes, or the one who says, ‘No, entire world, it’s not me who’s wrong, it’s all of you?’”
Eugene rolled his eyes.
“Goldman!” Frank shouted, though quite unnecessarily, since Malcolm was already stiff at attention. “Shoot a question at me.”
Malcolm sputtered for a moment, spouting out sounds not native to English, before finally stammering, “You’re right in everything you say.”
Frank considered it for a moment, nodding his head slightly, squinting his eyes. “Yes,” he finally concluded. “That’s about the sentiment we’re going for here. I just need you to phrase it into some sort of a question. Wait. You’re a reporter, right? I didn’t just make that up in my mind? I didn’t just assume incorrectly when I saw you with a cameraman and that news van, right?”
“No, I’m a reporter.”
Frank, whose face had scrunched up in concern, was visibly relieved by Malcolm’s confirmation. “Phew. Okay. Good. For a second…man. Yes, okay.”
For the most part, Frank found Malcolm to be somewhat of a sponge when it came to absorbing all the rules that he set for the press conference, while he found Eugene to be more of a rock covered in saran wrap, sealed in a ziplock bag.
Dr. Leinenkugel eventually resorted to pointing at Eugene’s crotch whenever the reporter became too adversarial, and suddenly the right questions began to flow from his mouth.
Once that benchmark was achieved, Dr. Leinenkugel glanced up at the wall clock behind the front desk. Less than four hours until the press conference.
“You two, get out of here, send Laurel back in, and then go take no more and no less than two shots of Wild Turkey across the way at Norman’s. Doctor’s orders.”
* * *
Laurel paced around her beauty salon, trying to prepare herself for what she was certain would be a mega media mishap as soon as her lips started moving in front of the microphone. The rest of the Dinner Summit guests had slowly filed in to join her and Dr. Leinenkugel. Last came Eugene and Malcolm, looking much more relaxed than they had only an hour before.
Bill was leaning back against the front desk, propped up on his elbows, watching his wife do laps. He finally grunted and grabbed her arm when she tried to pass him again. She whirled around to face him, her eyes wide.
“Laurel. Stop. You’ll…uh, you’ll do fine. At least it’ll be over with, right?” It was about as much of a pep talk as he knew how to give. “Aw, screw it,” he said, and pulled her in by her elbow and kissed her. When she pulled back, she was still wide-eyed and looked slightly more frazzled.
From across the room, Jack, who had made himself as comfortable as he could in one of the barber’s chairs said, “I’d do it, seeing as how I’m used to speaking over a microphone…well, a bull horn, mostly, but they won’t hear it from me. It’ll be all, ‘Oh, so Laurel Sapphire thinks she’s too important to talk to us herself?’ and ‘Why aren’t they letting her on the mic? Is there something they’re afraid she might say?’”
Laurel nodded, but still wasn’t keen on the idea of addressing the world. “Sure, but there are things we’re afraid I might say. Like how we’re completely misleading the world with our solu—”
“Answer,” her husband corrected. “It’s only an answer, not a solution. Remember that. Never, never, never use the word ‘solution’ when you’re onstage. We’ve been over this.”
Laurel buried her face in her hands. “I’ll never get this right,” she moaned.
Bill put his arm around her, led her over to a bench in the waiting area, and sat her down.
“No, no,” said Bill. “You’ll do fine.”
Laurel sniffled, which wouldn’t do right before a press conference. Dr. Leinenkugel had been clear that she was to look haggard but capable, and if she were to begin crying, she knew her red eyes would push her into haggard-and-desperate territory.
She took a deep breath and stood to face the rest of the Dinner Summit attendees, who were all milling about—except for Bret, who was snoring with his head slung all the way back, resting agai
nst the wall behind the row of waiting-room chairs where he sat. The rest of the party seemed to simply be wasting time until the inevitable happened and Laurel got in front of a microphone, said a few things wrong, and allowed them to discover the mystery of where the Hopshirites had gone by experiencing it firsthand.
“Ahem. Everyone.” Everyone conscious turned their attention to Laurel. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry it has all come to this and that I got you all involved with this mess. I’ll do my best to make sure everyone isn’t made to disappear like the Hopshirites, but I”—she suddenly realized she was completely out of speech, but she understood the importance of completing the sentence—“I can’t make any promises.”
Gavin ran over from where he sat at his usual place behind the front desk and wrapped Laurel up in a big hug. “God bless you for your bravery, Laurel Sapphire.”
Laurel experienced a fleeting moment where she wished she could pull off practicing Christianity before Georgina ran up and got in on the hug. “Laurel, I just wanted to say, well…” Then the waterworks began and Gavin threw his arms around Georgina’s shoulders and led her off.
Melanie, who had been standing in the far corner of the room, speaking in hushed but harsh tones to her husband over her cell, finally ended her call and approached Laurel urgently. She grabbed Laurel by her forearm and dragged her away from the others.
“Let’s go over this speech. I didn’t spend forty-three hours in labor to pop out a baby only to have her disappear. Enough of this ‘You’ll do fine’ nonsense. You’re going to do terribly, most likely, but I’ll be damned if it’s for lack of trying. Now give me those cue cards.” Laurel reached in her back pocket, slid them out, and handed them over to Melanie. “Good. From the top. Go.” Laurel wasn’t ready, and she could only stare wide-eyed.
Melanie slapped her across her right cheek, then said, “Go.”
Laurel was stunned from the sting. “Melanie, do you have postpartum—”
Melanie slapped her across her left cheek. “Now your cheeks are rosy for the camera. Go.”
This time Laurel began from the top.
* * *
Laurel had gone over her speech nine more times before she walked on stage. She’d practically memorized her cue cards by the last time through. Her cheeks stung like hell, but she thought that maybe this wouldn’t go so poorly after all. She looked behind her onstage where Bill, Frank, Jack, Bret, Melanie, and Gavin sat. They smiled reassuringly at her. She knew they were terrified.
She tapped the mic and cleared her throat. “Citizens of the world,” she began, having to block out the memory of all the times Bill argued for striking that line from the speech on account of it being too corny and sort of making her sound like she was from another planet, “the best minds of Wimbledon, Kentucky, have come together, deliberated, and come up with a solution—erm, I mean, an answer, that is, really, not a solu—an answer to this terrifying global crisis that we face today.” She finished the sentence quickly, hoping she hadn’t botched the whole thing too much already.
Whether out of befuddlement or courtesy, the audience was silent, almost conspicuously so. She wondered if they were all hiding something, but then she remembered that, no, it was she who was hiding something from them. Then she remembered she still had more left to her speech. “Before we reveal our…er…solu—um, answer,”—why can’t I just say the right word?— “I’d like to invite Dr. Frank Leinenkugel to come up here and explain how we arrived at this”—she paused, made sure she was going to use the right word, then— “answer.”
And just like that, she was done.
She went to take her seat as Frank rose from his, smiling charitably. She knew behind that smile he was brainstorming how to cover her blunder so that the news commentators wouldn’t tear it to pieces afterward.
The spectators clapped politely but seemingly hesitantly to welcome Frank to the podium, next to which stood two easels, each covered with a white cloth. As Frank introduced himself and explained his many credentials, Laurel couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t dress himself in something other than his mechanic’s jumpsuit this morning. The man needed a wife.
He pulled off the cloth from the first easel to reveal a more professional version of Malcolm’s pie charts. Speculative murmuring rolled through the crowd, and Frank began explaining the significance.
Georgina leaned in toward Laurel and whispered, “I know this presentation is complete crap, but Frank sure does make it seem like common sense.”
Laurel agreed.
“And that,” Frank said to the cameras, “means that it is the lack of body hair in today’s world that is causing this cooling process, and if this continues, well, I’m afraid we’re going to be sitting around watching African children die of the cold. If you can handle that on your conscience, then please, continue on with your life like nothing is happening. But if you, like me, have a conscience that won’t allow for inaction in the face of such horrific happenings, then you’ll do what you can.”
“But what can I do?” a man shouted desperately from the crowd.
“That’s exactly the question we all wondered, and that brings us to our answer. In fact, it’s the only logical conclusion that can possibly be drawn from the data. The world is too hairless, my friends. We have begun shaving off every hair we can spare and for what reason? Can you think of one? And I mean a real reason. You don’t find it attractive? Why not? I mean, really, why not? We’re meant to have hair, either by evolution or by intelligent design, we are absolutely hairy beings. If we want to save this world from another ice age, if we want to save the poor African children, we’ll stop this madness, we’ll stop removing our body hair. We must shun the shavers—”
“Yeah!” shouted a few of the mob.
“—denounce the pluckers—”
“Yeah!” shouted even more of the mob.
“—swear off the waxers—”
“Yeah!” shouted almost all of the mob now.
“—and condemn the trimmers.”
The shouts that followed were no longer coherent words. Fists pumped the air and whistles pierced through the racket until Frank lifted his hand and began motioning for the mob to settle down. “Now I know you people all have countless questions, so I’ll try to answer as many as I can in the time allotted. Yes, Mr. Goldman?” Frank pointed to the reporter who had his pen raised in the air.
“How, Dr. Leinenkugel, is the average person to know for sure that this isn’t some sort of liberal plot to control American society? I mean, this whole growing your hair out thing sounds a little like the liberal feminist ideology of the sixties. How do we know there isn’t a bias of that sort behind it?”
Frank nodded. “I’m glad you asked that, Mr. Goldman. How you know is that we arrived upon this answer among a bipartisan group of people. Mr. Hammersmith, Mr. Knowles,” Frank said, turning to the rest of the people sitting behind him, “would you do me the favor of coming up to the microphone for a moment?”
Of course they obeyed, having known they’d be called up since they’d rehearsed it earlier that morning.
“Mr. Knowles,” Frank began, “would you please tell me who you voted for in the two thousand election?”
Jack had protested adamantly that morning once he was told he’d later be asked to answer this question.
“He seemed like he knew what he was talking about!” Jack protested. “How was I supposed to know he would set us up with such misinformation? He had charts and graphs to back up that damn documentary! Charts and graphs! And experts!”
Frank had shrugged. “His charts were wrong, Jack. Not like ours; ours are indisputably correct because they are simpler, and simplicity is the basis of truth.”
Jack leaned into the microphone. “I voted for Gore.”
The mob chuckled.
Frank allowed himself a good one, too. “I know, I know. It all sounded good at the time.”
He turned to Bret.
“And who did you vote
for, Mr. Hammersmith?”
Bret leaned assertively toward the mic, forcing Frank to take a step out of his way.
“I voted for Former President George W. Bush.”
More chuckles from the mob.
“Again,” Frank said, “it sounded good at the time. Anyway, the point is that we had a meeting of very different political ideologies, all with varying agendas. One agenda was the same, and that was to do what we could to find the answer to the world’s worries. On that count we could all see eye to eye.”
Frank motioned to Jack and Bret, and they took their seats again.
Eugene Thornton begrudgingly raised his pen in the air, following the instructions he’d been given at gunpoint.
“Yes, Mr. Thornton?”
“Some might make the argument that this global cooling is meant to happen, that it’s somehow part of, let’s say, God’s will. What do you say to those people?”
Frank nodded solemnly. “Yes, well, we have thought—and prayed—about that, because it is a very important question that must be answered.”
He moved on to the next chart, revealing a professionally printed version of Malcolm’s graph.
“Allow me to explain this. On the X-axis we have the years since man was banished from Eden…”
After he’d finished his explanation, the mob was still silent, presumably soaking in Frank’s explanation, and Malcolm raised his pencil in the air again.
“Yes, Mr. Goldman?”
“Your arguments make complete and total sense, Dr. Leinenkugel, but do you really expect people to stop removing their body hair? I mean, I know the crowd seems enthusiastic now, but once the weeks go by, the months, won’t things get too…hairy for the general public to persist?”
Murmurs from the mob seemed to agree with Malcolm’s point.
“I sure hope not, Mr. Goldman. I sure hope not. And in fact, I truly believe that the public is willing to do what it takes when faced with a real crisis. Perhaps if we stop thinking of it in terms of sacrifice and begin considering it in terms of what we gain, it will all seem a bit more tolerable. Yes, we’re asking you to sacrifice having perfectly hairless bodies, but in exchange for that you get time, all the time you spent plucking and shaving, and you get to hold on to your money that might have been spent on waxing. You’re free from your expensive, time-consuming hairlessness, world!
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