"What gets me, my friends, is that our taxes go to keeping these rainbow-chasers in gear. You know, those so-called free condoms aren't free. Uh-uh. You paid for them. And if you keep turning the other cheek, next year they'll have you paying for people's sex change operations, and then when they find out they're still not happy, you'll be paying for them to change back. And after that, you'll be paying again when they sue the state or the city government for malpractice and loss of quality of life because after they get their dicks sewn back on, they still won't function properly. "
"Oh, my God. The sponsors will kill us," moaned the WAKO station manager, rushing from the salon in curlers.
Thrush Limburger was deep into his second quarter hour of commentary when the plug was pulled on him. The ON AIR sign went out and although he was dimly aware of it, Thrush didn't care. He kept going, a human icebreaker of public opinion.
In the control booth, the station manager and the program director were going nuts. Thrush had locked himself in the sound booth, so they could go as nuts as they cared to. He was going to speak his piece. If they wanted WAKO to be heard, they'd have to put him back on the air. After that, they could fire him all they wanted. Just so long as Thrush Limburger had an opportunity to sit on that idiot station manager during the firing.
Thrush Limburger was off the air all of seven minutes. The switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. Thrush could tell because they were answering the incoming calls frantically. After three minutes of that, the station manager began pulling out his hair, steel curlers and all.
With a resigned gesture, he flipped the ON AIR switch.
And Thrush Limburger was back on the airwaves.
"For those of you just tuning in," he said without skipping a beat, "we're talking about Mrs. Bernadette O'Rourke, who is now languishing in jail because she thought her five-year-old son deserved to be shielded from some of life's more adult topics. Those of you who want to hear the Cowsills or Abba, or any of that tripe, we don't want you. Go find a station that does."
A groan came through the supposedly soundproof glass.
When he came off his shift, the station manager said, "Limburger, your fat ass is fired!"
"It's Branchwood, you pillow-biter."
As it turned out, they were both wrong.
Thrush Limburger became the hottest on-air radio personality in the Twin Cities. WAKO went all-talk with the next Arbitron book. And the station manager ultimately got a job next door in the hair salon, where his heart lay, anyway.
No one ever heard the name Race Branchwood again. Not even Thrush Limburger, who knew a good thing when he saw it and had his name legally changed to Thrush Limburger.
Within a year, he was all over Minnesota. From there, he self syndicated The Thrush Limburger Show, over his own network, the TTT Network. It stood for Tell the Truth. And he did. About everything.
By the time he had landed on TV, he was a genuine phenomenon, with a best-selling book, The Way the World Is, to his credit and rumors of a bright future in national politics swirling about his close-cropped head.
On the second anniversary of the day he had irrevocably become Thrush Limburger, the former Horace Branchwood was doing a restrospective.
"On the phone with me now is a very special person," he was telling his nationwide audience. "Now a lot of you may not know the name Bernadette O'Rourke, but she is a very special lady. It was her story, ladies and gentlemen, that got me started on my meteoric rise to-shall we say-greatness? How are you, Mrs. O'Rourke?"
"Just grand, Thrush."
"And little Kevin. How old is he now?"
"Seven. And he's now in the second grade in St. Mary's Catholic School, thanks to you."
"Ahem. For those who don't know, it was yours truly who brought the sad plight of Mrs. O'Rourke to national attention, resulting in the dropping of all charges and incidentally through the kindness and generosity of my original listening audience, the tuition that enabled Kevin to be enrolled in St. Mary's to begin with. Now you didn't call just to traipse down memory lane with me, Mrs. O'Rourke. Pray tell, what's on your mind?"
"It's this HELP nonsense, Thrush. It's starting to sound like that AIDS hysteria all over again. And over what? Eating bugs? Who would want to do that, for God's sake?"
"Exactly right. Exactly right. And I've been meaning to address this matter myself. Now for those who don't read your newspapers-and even for those who do-HELP is another one of those viral plagues we hear so much about. You can't get it from breathing other people's air, touching their skin, and being bitten by a wild animal. In fact, if you want to get HELP, you have to do all the biting. Even then you probably won't get it. My friends, the only-and I mean only-way you can contract this dreaded fatal, incurable scourge is to consume in great quantities-eating just one won't do it-a lowly bug. Ingraticus Avalonicus is its scientific name. There are those who claim the Indians called it the thunderbug. It's a tiny thing like a dull brown ladybug and about as appetizing. Certain whackjob environmentalists are proclaiming it to be the solution to famine worldwide. All we gotta do is eat this little critter every day and figure out a way not to die."
"It's madness, Thrush," Mrs. O'Rourke said. "Sheer madness."
"And now they're claiming that the bug doesn't cause HELP. It's the thinning ozone layer. Well, if it's the thinning ozone layer, why is it only bug-eaters are coming down with Human Environmental Liability Paradox? That, my friends, is the true paradox. But it's simple. Just bear with me because here at the Triple-T Network, we always . . . tell the truth."
The retrospective show soon became the HELP show. Everyone called in. Microbiologists. Immunologists. Meteorologists. Epidemiologists. Entomologists. Everybody had a windy answer, but no one agreed with anyone else's answer.
At the end of it, Thrush Limburger had had enough.
"I have just now decided after listening to all sides of this growing noncontroversy, that only my on-site presence can possibly dispel the ridiculous myths that surround HELP, the greatest noncrisis since Swine Flu.
"Tomorrow-and you're hearing it here first-I am going to the Nirvana West headquarters of PAPA, where I will broadcast this show live and reveal . . . the startling truth about HELP."
And in a darkened office not far from the White House, a telephone rang. The handset lifted with a click. And a thin voice said, "Harpoon that whale."
Chapter 5
The in-flight movie was Dances With Wolves, possibly the only thing that could make a Boston to San Francisco airline flight even more interminable than it was necessary to be.
Remo told the stewardess clutching the plastic earphones, "Thanks, but these clouds look real interesting."
The stewardess leaned closer, showed perfect capped teeth, and asked Remo if he'd like a headset anyway because the airplane had a wide range of piped-in radio programs.
"Sure, why not?" said Remo.
"And you, sir," she asked Chiun, leaning over so Remo could fully inhale her perfume. Remo held his breath. Perfumes, even the subtle ones, tended to enter his sensitive nostrils like a fragrant Roto-Rooter reamer.
The Master of Sinanju said, "If you are going to expose your udders, madam, expose them to one who is not repelled by their grossness."
The stewardess straightened like a bent bamboo pole springing back.
"I beg your pardon," she said in a chilly tone.
Remo said, "Don't mind him. He gets crochety on long flights." But he was relieved when the stewardess went off in search of another aisle to fumigate. She had been nice to look at, but stewardesses, more so than other women, seemed to respond to Remo's Sinanju-enhanced pheromones. Usually they tried to sit in his lap. Often, they lost it completely and were reduced to tears by the simple and predictable event of Remo getting off at his assigned destination.
Remo plugged the stethoscopelike plastic plug of his earphone set into the seat jack and inserted the earpieces into his ears. He hit the On switch and began moving the numbered dial back and
forth.
He got rap, rock, opera, bluegrass, country, heavy metal, acid rock, and gardening hints. The last channel bellowed out in the unctious but exuberant voice of Thrush Limburger.
"My friends," he was saying, "you are being yanked!"
Remo unplugged both ends of the earphones and handed them to the Master of Sinanju, saying, "It's for you."
Chiun's wizened features grew curious, and while he was putting the earpieces in, Remo plugged in the other end.
Surprise, joy, and interest overspread his features and the Master of Sinanju settled down to listen. From time to time, he cackled with undisguised pleasure.
Remo could live with the cackling. It beat Chiun carping about the fragile state of the aircraft wing, which he invariably pronounced at the point of falling off whenever they flew.
At San Francisco International Airport, Remo rented a car and they drove north on Highway 101 past parched orchards and vineyards and into a hilly area dominated by evergreens and towering redwood trees.
"Thrush Limburger have anything good to say?" asked Remo, who really didn't care, but thought Chiun deserved a little conversation after a relatively peaceful flight.
"You are being yanked," said Chiun, who wore a simple but garish vermilion kimono.
"I think I caught that much. About what?"
"About everything. Especially, you are being yanked about this HELP."
"There, I agree with the guy."
"Thrush the Vocal is a brilliant man."
"Says who?"
"No less an authority than Thrush Limburger himself."
"Because . . . ," Remo prompted.
"Because he says so in a loud voice and accepts telephone calls from common Americans who do nothing but agree with him. They are apparently a new emerging sect, called Rogers."
"Rogers?"
"When the great-voiced one pronounces a thing to be true, immediately, Americans in vast numbers call in and say 'Roger, Thrush.' It is apparently a secret code they have so that they recognize one another even over the telephone," Chiun added.
Remo rolled his dark eyes. "Yeah, it's pretty secret all right. Only you, me, and thirty million other radio listeners are in on it."
"He is also coming to this place."
"Oh, great," groaned Remo.
They had left the city behind and the landscape had turned piney and cool. Remo followed the signs to the town of Ukiah, where Nirvana West was located.
"This place is supposed to be only one step above a commune, so we may have a problem finding it," Remo said.
"Just listen for the whacking," said Chiun unconcernedly.
"Whacking?"
"It is their job, according to Thrush. Whacking. They are whackjobs."
"Little Father, a whackjob is a-"
Chiun's hazel eyes, younger by decades than the surrounding face, looked to Remo curiously. He stroked a tendril of beard that clung to his tiny chin.
Traffic started to get heavy.
"Never mind," said Remo. "You keep your ears peeled and I'll keep my eyes on the road."
"No whacking will escape my notice," Chiun promised.
Further along, the traffic thickened and slowed. Before they had traveled another mile, they were bumper-to-bumper with a line of cars wending their way through the parched hills.
"Damn," Remo said.
"Let us walk," said Chiun.
"Do you have any idea how far it is to Nirvana West?" said Remo.
"No," replied the Master of Sinanju, stepping from the car. "And neither do you. So we will walk because we cannot sit here and inhale the stink of others' vehicles until our lungs and brains die."
Remo pulled over, got out, and followed. He saw that the traffic jam of vehicles was far worse than he thought. He stopped and knocked on a car window. It rolled down. A woman with thin blond hair and translucent teeth poked her head out.
"Any idea how far Nirvana West is from here?" Remo asked.
"At the end of this jam," said the woman.
"What is this?"
"This is the media traffic jam."
"It's not moving. Is there another way to get there?"
"You could hook around to the other side. But I hear the federal jam is even worse."
"Damn."
"Or you can sit on my lap and play coochie-coo," the blonde added.
"Thanks, but no thanks," said Remo, going to catch up with the Master of Sinanju.
"If we follow this to the end we'll get there," he said.
"Of course," said Chiun, who walked with his hands serenely tucked into the wide joined sleeves of his kimono.
They walked until they had rounded a piney hill and the line of cars-they saw TV microwave vans idling in the line like dejected war elephants-turned off the highway, and onto a wooded path.
They cut through the woods and started up the hill. Halfway up, they had a good view.
There were three lines of cars, all converging on a woodsy vale that might have been any patch of Northern California land except for the tents that dotted the place. Most were tents. A few were tepees. Big army tents were being pitched at one end. At the other, there were the pup tents and tepees.
The pup tent and tepee end were obviously the PAPA camp.
Most of the PAPA adherents, however, were climbing a brushy hillock in a double line. They bore three shrouded figures in stately procession. At the head of the line was a man in buckskin whose trailing war bonnet even at this distance didn't quite conceal his bald spot from Remo's sharp eyes.
As Remo and Chiun watched, the procession came to a shallow ditch at the hillock's rounded top. They lined it and without preamble, the shrouds were unceremoniously unrolled like flags, and three slightly stiff corpses tumbled out to land in the ditch with a thump.
"We commend our brethren to the earth, where they will abide in ecological harmony, nourishing the roots of the weeds that feed the thunderbugs that feed us now and by the millennium will feed the whole world," chanted the man in the war bonnet.
"Savages," said Chiun. "These people are savages."
"Because they don't bother with caskets?" asked Remo.
"No," said the Master of Sinanju. "Because they are morons. I do not care if they bury their dead in expensive shoe boxes or not. But there," he said, pointing to the hole the mourners were filling by the simple action of kicking clods of dirt in with their sandals and moccasins, "is where the dead are buried."
The Master of Sinanju pointed to a ring of stones at the foot of the hillock. A rusting bucket sat beside it.
"And over there," he added, "is their well. They are burying their dead uphill of their drinking water. In two months, it is going to taste like rancid duck. Have they no brains?"
"If they had," Remo said, "they wouldn't be eating bugs."
The ceremony, such as it was, was hastily concluded.
Someone could be heard asking, "Shouldn't we have waited for the media to set up their cameras?"
The man in the warbonnet-who Remo took to be Theodore Soars-With-Eagles-replied, "No. It will be better that they record my predictions for the endangered American people than the sight of our dead brethren. For if the federal government does not act soon, the dead will be beyond counting."
"What if they don't act?"
"They will act because the destruction of the ozone layer that is causing this will force them to act."
"They didn't act for acid rain."
"Or global warming."
"Or AIDS," someone else said.
"They will act here because it is not innocent trees, or deer, or persons who practice simple alternate lifestyles who are threatened, but the very ones who hold power in our corrupt society. For all know that the depletion of the ozone layer lets down carcinogenic ultraviolet rays, killing those who are cursed by being born light of skin. This is the first Caucasian-specific disaster in human history. The white man cannot wish this away."
Chiun frowned. "I do not understand a single word that man has
said, Remo."
"Basically, he's doing a Chicken Little."
Chiun looked blank.
"He's claiming that the sky is falling," Remo explained.
"Is this true, Remo?" Chiun asked. "Will only whites succumb to this threat?"
"Only if they eat bugs. Come on, let's start looking around."
They started down from the hillside just as the first wave of press began setting up their cameras in front of a wooden dais evidently set up for Theodore SoarsWith-Eagles's press conference.
"Let's try to avoid these guys," Remo whispered.
"How? There are so many."
"Let's at least try," said Remo. "Remember our last assignment, where we were up to our hip pockets in television anchormen? Smith is still trying to explain the network casualties to the President."
"It was not our fault so many died."
"Maybe not, but half these guys have your description memorized."
They worked their way around and came upon a malodorous slit trench filled almost to overflowing with yellowish offal.
Chiun peered inward. His nose wrinkled up.
"How can they live in such filth? They do not even bury the waste of their miserable bodies."
"Since they eat only bugs, I'm surprised there is any waste. Boy, does it smell bad in there."
"What can one expect of dead bugs that have passed through the bodies of idiots?"
They leapt over the trench and continued on to a bivouac area where preparations for a full-scale press conference were under way.
A food-service truck was in operation, manned by two men in cook's whites.
"Come get your lobster salad sandwiches here," one cried. "We have lobster salad sandwiches and lobster salad bowls. Tastes just like thunderbug. All the taste and no risk to your health."
The food-service truck was immediately surrounded. Money changed hands and sandwiches were grabbed by eager hands.
Some members of the press, already unable to get close to the truck, held up remotes here and there.
"You know, it's strange knowing we won't run into Cheeta Ching or a Don Cooder out here," Remo remarked.
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