The three potential positions for Stonetree that kept recurring, in descending totem pole order, were Chief Financial Officer, Senior Executive Vice President/ Administration or Executive Vice President for North American Grants. The first played to his expertise while the second would make him Black’s right hand man with continual exposure to her considerable skill set. The third, however, was the most appealing to him. Not only would it provide interaction with all of the upper management functions but would also be the nursery of TCF’s weltanschauung. And probably be the most fun.
“Arthur, I’ll do whatever you think works best. I’ll guess that would be Exec VP.”
He heard a dramatic sigh.
“That’s not what I asked.” He paused.”Try this. Which position would you like to assume?”
“Well, like I said…”
“By the way,” Camden interrupted.”Did I mention that the Grants spot comes with a special car allowance?”
“Uh…doesn’t everyone in upper management get one?”
“Not a special one. Grants comes with a pre-owned auto from Hendricks Used Cars. As they don’t provide leases, TCF will purchase said jalopy and transfer title to whomever qualifies as sort of a signing bonus.”
Stonetree smiled and shook his head in surprised disbelief.”As I was about to say, I think I’d like to try Grants, if you agreed that would be a good choice.”
Camden waited but a second before responding.”I certainly do. So let’s talk logistics. Can you come down here, say a week from Monday for a few days? Jamie’ll be flying in that afternoon on a company plane. You could join her.”
He looked to Sharon then responded in a slightly panicky voice.
“That…could I have a rain check? Because after the wedding we had to cancel the honeymoon trip because her symptoms were acting up and then she had to focus on the new store and then I had the hernia surgery and you know how that turned out and when that got fixed she was getting ready for the trials and I promised her after she got fixed, you know, was still in recovery but able to travel, that we’d go to Aruba for a week so she could just lay in the sun and…”
“No dice.”
“Arthur? Please?”
“Nope. No way. You guys ought to spend at least two uninterrupted weeks for best results. Trust me. I did after all invent the stuff.”
“You’re sure? I mean…”
“We’ll manage without you. Besides, it’ll be a month before we get around to even thinking about our first beneficiaries.” He paused.”Made your reservations yet?”
“Actually, I was putting that off until we talked.”
“Do you think while you’re down there you could, let’s see, check at a pharmacy to see if they still carry Blue 1000?”
“Sure. But why?”
“That’d make your journey a business trip. I’ll have Logistics arrange for one of the Gulfstreams to deliver you both safe and sound.”
They spoke a few moments more then Camden signed off with his best wishes for Sharon’s convalescence and a promise to forward the chili recipe.
She looked up and blinked a few times.
“Who was it, hon?”
“Arthur.”
“Did you guys settle on your…did you ask him about the Grants one?”
“He thought it would be a good fit.”
She smiled then cuddled closer.”So when do you start?”
“He said after Aruba.”
“Goodie.”
“But he also mentioned for your recovery purposes that we make it a two week proposition.”
She thought a moment.”I could live with that.”
“Any other requests?”
“How about a kiss goodnight.”
“Shar? It’s not even 10:00…as in a.m.”
Her eyelids fluttered slightly.”Okay, then how about a kiss good morning?”
“That I can do.”
And he did.
“Could you read me a bedtime story?”
He lifted the tablet and set it on his knees.”I’ve got just the thing. Part of it’s about pleasant dreams. Jip wrote it.”
“I think Becky’s falling in love with him.” She yawned.”Story, please.”
“Okay,” he replied, lifting the device.”Coming soon to a theatre of the mind near you…”
Weekend at Prism
Please pardon me if my prose is not as polished as usually required by my overseers here at Pinkie but the past 24 hours have left me feeling ridden hard and brought home wet.
The rollercoaster began its ascent as I was getting out of the shower yesterday. Apparently, America’s favorite pop culture guru Kurt Andersen (with whom I may be sharing a microphone in the foreseeable future) indicated on his excellent PRI showcase Studio 360 that yours truly was somehow involved with an incipient announcement regarding a concert coming to a Fox channel near you, to be held in Las Vegas shortly before that kid in the diaper shows up on January 1st. The scores of messages on my trans and a clocked-out text/email folder indicated something was afoot. Then around 6:30 yesterday evening, a message appeared on this site which really got the engines revving.
Titled An Open Letter To Andy Polanski, it read:
My dear Andrew,
I hope you and CCBBA are enjoying the final leg of your current tour with the completion of those SRO gigs at The Staples Center in The City of Angels. I’ll guess you’ve finished the sound check for tonight’s show though still have that usual full plate to attend to, so I’ll keep this short.
I recently met with Messrs. Franklin Potcheck and Benjamin Walbee to discuss the possibility of Obsession playing a small part in the Prism opening come New Year’s Eve. After getting the band dialed in on a conference call, an agreement was reached tout suite and I’m delighted to inform you that we’ll be performing as the second act to grace the stage of the magnificent Oasis Theatre.
While I was still catching my breath, Mr. Potcheck queried: “Laura? If your colleagues weren’t agreeable or available to being our headliners, and you were us, who would you have sought out?”
That was an easy one. I told him I’d get the best popper-rockers on the face of God’s Green Earth, CCBBA.
Then Mr. Walbee asked if I was familiar with the concept of a good old fashion battle of the bands.
So my question to you is:
Would you consider engaging in a friendly dustup? Please reply here before 12:00 am Pacific.
Hoping & Praying,
Laura
PS Linda Bowen is headlining night #1! How cool is that?!?
This reply arrived at 10:00 pm Pacific:
My dearest Laurie,
Consider it done. And gracias for the kind invitation.
But make sure you and Obsession bring your best game to the table because we might put you on tilt before the first hand is over.
See you there, babe.
Andy
PS If Ms. Bowen needs an extra piano man for any of her set’s numbers, I’d be delighted to audition.
It was now but minutes past midnight, my deadline was seven hours away and only a pair of options were available. I could start writing then get some shuteye and polish over coffee. Or I could opt for sack time now, write time later. I chose the latter to allow things to sink in because of the likelihood this might become THE BIGGEST ROCK CONCERT EVER HELD IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, even though it was only part of the undercard before the Main Event featuring the championship bout among the Final Four. Ichiwawa!
Trouble was, the giddy excitement made it very unlikely I could simply hop into bed, pull up Blanky, close my eyes then drift off to the Land of Nod.
As I couldn’t recall any morphine being in the medicine cabinet (did you know that intoxicant is named after Morpheus? No, not the guy in The Matrix with the cool shades and blue and red pills; rather, a god of dreams who appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses), I decided on another proven snooze enhancer: downing a tumbler full of red wine while paging through a volume of medieval
art. (Wait! Now I get it. Morpheus tells Neo his life is all a dream. Score one for the Wachowski brothers…er, brother and sister).
Almaden Burgundy in one hand, coffee table book in the other, I planted myself on the sofa. Within 15 minutes I was getting a serious case of the blinks so settled on a final image, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.
If the title doesn’t ring a bell, I’m sure you’ve seen the painting or at least one of the innumerable spoofs of it. It’s from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and shows the naked Adam (including his tiny tinker) lounging in Eden with an extended finger (apparently he was left-handed?) about to be touched by God Himself (who’s surrounded by Seraphim, Cherubim and an assortment of other im.)
I woke with a start six hours later with the memory of a lucid dream, including its soundtrack. But before telling you about that, let me clear up a misunderstanding. While I did suggest to Messrs. Potcheck & Walbee the battle of the bands which is going to be THE BIGGEST ROCK CONCERT EVER HELD IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, it wasn’t my idea. Full credit belongs to an acquaintance of mine who over a lunch of cheeseburgers and onion rings casually outlined his/her concept for it. And as Woodward & Bernstein chose to do with their source authority Deep Throat, I’ll leave the decision of showing his/her ID to his/her discretion.
In my dream I was standing center stage in the Oasis Theatre, able to see the stadium was empty. In the background I could hear Jimmy Page riffing those two most exciting R&R minutes ever captured on vinyl, the lead break from Stairway To Heaven. Realizing it was coming from above, I looked to the ceiling of this techno-cathedral.
And there it was. The Creation of Adam.
But in this version, Adam had been replaced by Franklin Potcheck. And he was reaching out to touch the finger of Elvis. (Not the Baby Face Elvis of the 1950s nor the Bloated Elvis of the 1970s. It was the Perfect Presley as he appeared in the televised 1968 Comeback Special). And there were Monty Python blimps floating in the clouds advertising the World Standoff! Tournament. And the King had his arm wrapped around John Lennon’s neck, pulling him close. And behind them were George & Jimi & Janis & Freddie & Wexie & Buddy & Keith & The Ox and a passel more, except most of them now had im wings.
That’s it for now, dear Readers. More (lots more) to come over the next 76 days as we approach ground zero of a show with everything but Yul Brynner.
The End
CYD Update
The following information is provided to our Southern United Enterprises customers concerning the latest developments in the global war against the devastation of Camden-Young’s Disease.
For our new or younger readers, a brief explanation of what is currently known about the cause and spread of this affliction should prove helpful. Some of the following information is borrowed from the recently published 4th Report of the CYD Task Force. (The CYD Task Force presently has 130 subscribing organizations. The board of directors executive committee consists of representatives from the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the Pasteur Institute of Paris, SUE, and four other international health care leaders.)
There is now no real debate concerning the genesis of this epidemic. Virtually all recognized authorities on the subject agree that the envirus known as CYD was accidentally created during experiments at the H. Saferstein Genetic Engineering Laboratories near San Diego, California. The explosion and destruction of that facility undoubtedly marked the entrance of the envirus into the general population. Once this Pandora’s Box was opened, it could not be closed.
Theories on how the envirus spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere continue to be debated, but three interrelated possibilities are most often proposed:
1. The CYD envirus was carried across the continental United States by prevailing weather patterns. Wind or rain was the most probable initial vehicle of delivery. This theory would account for the spread of CYD throughout much of North America.
2. The CYD envirus first infected cattle in the Southwest and Midwest, and then spread to the general population through beef products. While the sudden death of 71% of the cattle population of the United States in the second-and third-generation herds after the SGEL explosion has been clearly linked to the CYD envirus, the transmission of the envirus via this medium has not been definitively demonstrated.
3. The CYD envirus linked with beef-related feed products such as Soyaplus IV and spread to humans via consumption of contaminated meat.
Unfortunately, progress in vaccinating against or curing CYD has been hampered by the fact that science is just beginning to understand the fundamentals of the broad subject of envirus technology. It is difficult to fight an enemy that has never been wounded and apparently requires neither food nor shelter nor sleep. (Perhaps the time has come to drop the name Camden-Young’s Disease and rename this affliction Nemesis, as has been suggested by many authorities.)
The recent spectacular breakthroughs in the treatment and cure of other blood-related disorders have not transferred well to CYD research. While Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome has all but been eradicated and leukemia is but a memory, CYD continues to evade its trackers. Those organizations attempting to develop vaccines and cures have thus far, unfortunately, failed in their efforts. A few other organizations, including Southern United Enterprises, have nonetheless made significant progress in treatment. The SUE Febrifuge Blue series continues to be the standard against which all other medications are measured.
The Tourraix-Camden Blood Composite, developed by Southern United Enterprises, remains the definitive diagnostic tool for predictive analysis of CYD infection. This test has been administered to most of the United States population between the ages of 14 and 32, the only persons apparently vulnerable to the CYD envirus. An explanation for these mysteries continues to elude us. Reports that new, alternative test or tests are equal to or superior to Tourcam are clearly premature owing to a lack of efficacy and publication in peer reviewed journals, no doubt due to miniscule and inconclusive study samples.
With tens of millions of sets of data available from Tourcam tests and follow-up reports, SUE has created the definitive profile of the pandemic proportions of the current crisis. While we may not know what CYD is, we do know what it does. And it can be treated, as all users of Febrifuge Blue know.
One percent of all individuals tested and continuously monitored have been identified as Class A carriers. All Class A carriers show the blood clue that evidences the envirus and all Class A carriers develop the same set of primary symptoms.
The first outward sign of active CYD is a deep, persistent reddening of the eyes and a marked sensitivity to light. (Anyone who develops these symptoms and maintains them for more than 48 hours should consult his or her physician.)
Within three weeks of the onset of CYD, Class A carriers typically develop a low-grade fever of a half to a full degree above normal. Within a few days of this elevation in temperature, increasing thirst becomes apparent, and the individual may experience tremors in the extremities. Lung congestion, especially in older members of the target population, is common.
The only other primary symptom of a Class A progression is the oftentimes loss of some or all hair approximately four months after onset.
Within six months, Class A carriers will follow one of five prognosis profiles, four of which respond favorably to Febrifuge Blue tablets or injections.
Class A-l carriers (32%) experience only episodic bouts of eye redness, thirst, and an occasional low-grade fever which lasts from two to five days.
Class A-2 carriers (29%) develop a mild set of secondary symptoms, including a chronic fever between one and one- and-a-half degrees above normal, a general malaise, and an increased intake of liquids equal to approximately four percent of body weight per day.
Class A-3 carriers (27%) develop a more marked set of symptoms, including a chronic fever of between one-and-a-half to two degrees above normal, episodic muscle weakness, transitory confusion
, mild aural hallucinations, and an increased intake of liquids equal to approximately eight percent of body weight per day. Death from these symptoms is rare.
Class A-4 carriers (10%) experience transitory bouts of severe symptoms, including fevers in the 103-104 degree range, persistent muscle cramps, moderate aural and visual hallucinations, chronic dehydration, nausea, and damage to various organs caused by the high level of stress placed on the body by these secondary symptoms. Death within three months of the first episode is sometimes reported.
Class A-5 carriers (2%) experience fevers approaching 106 degrees as soon as the hair loss phase ends. Blindness, severe hallucinations, and coma are common. Death can follow within seventy-two hours, although some individuals, especially those who have embarked on a program of supervised care, do survive.
Unfortunately recent studies confirm that any individual diagnosed as being a Class A-1/4 carrier runs a slight risk of developing Class A-5 symptoms at any time. Use of the Febrifuge Blue line of products may, we believe, diminish this risk.
Nineteen percent of all individuals tested and monitored have been identified as Class B carriers. All Class B carriers evidence similar blood clue as Class A carriers and often report the same primary symptoms. Hair loss, however, is sporadic, partial, and temporary and is followed by a dormant period of between ten and thirty-six months. Then the individual may, in 5% of cases studied, manifest one of the five Class A prognosis profiles.
Fifty-four percent of all individuals tested and monitored have been identified as Class C carriers. These individuals carry an alternate blood clue and experience a very mild set of primary symptoms. Typically the Class C carrier suffers a less severe reddening of the eyes and transitory headache. After two weeks these symptoms fade and return only for brief periods at increasingly longer intervals.
Camden's Knife Page 34