Boomsday

Chapter 19

“Wonderful news,” said the junior senator from the great state of Massachusetts as Cass entered his office. “We lined up two more- Hey, what happened to you? You look like you ran into a tornado.”

Whatever the right metaphor, Cass did look at a minimum out of sorts. Her eyes were red and puffy. She had gotten out of the cab to walk up Capitol Hill to try to clear her head and then burst into tears by the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon, a well-known D.C. locale for emotional outbursts. She had a good sob lasting fifteen minutes, all the time trying to conjure the voice of the drill instructor from basic training to shake her out of it.

“I’m okay,” she announced with defiance. “I’m fine. I am totally…fine.”

“Then why is your chin doing that quivering thing?”

“Because my father,” she said in a voice loud enough to carry into the outer office, “is an asshole.”

Randy said in an even voice, “Well, I rather thought that was established a long time ago.”

She handed him the BlackBerry and commanded, “Scroll.”

“Sweet cakes, you know I hate these damn things. Couldn’t you just tell me in your own wo-”

“Scroll.”

“All right, all right, keep your knickers on.”

He read it, groaned, and tossed the device onto his desk. “At least he’s consistent. What a prick. Sorry, pumpkin. Now look, we got two more votes. They ate up the ‘meta’ business. The smart ones get it right off. The dumb ones, forget it. It really is in that regard representative, the Congress. Remember what Senator Hruska said about-”

“Excuse me,” Cass said. “Are we finished consoling me and now on to Senator Jepperson’s thoughts of the day?”

“I was just musing,” Randy said. “I agree with you. He’s a complete penis-head, your father. It’s a wonder you don’t have an eating disorder. How are we coming on the Wrinklies campaign?”

Cass sighed. “Can we talk about my prick father for just two more minutes? Then I promise I’ll spend the rest of my life on you. I’ll never mention myself again.”

“All right, on that condition.”

“You know, I can never tell if you’re being serious,” Cass said.

“Neither can I,” Randy said.

“Look at it,” Cass said. “There’s something weird about the timing. Why attack me publicly now? It’s almost as if it’s orchestrated. But who would orchestrate it?” She considered. “The White House?”

“Darling, don’t get me wrong, but the White House might have other things on their mind.”

“Like Massachusetts senators?”

“Well…”

“As a matter of fact, you may have a point. The White House has staked out an anti-Transitioning position. So, darling”-Cass grinned theatrically at Randy-“it might be about you after all. Happy now?”

A look of quiet alarm came over Randy’s face. “Go on.”

“Frank’s a big Owl, big fund-raiser for the party. Probably wants to be an ambassador or something in the second term. At least, his wife probably wants it. He comes out swinging against me. I’m-sorry to dwell on me for a moment-somewhat identified as the person who came up with your big idea. So the White House tells him, Go after her. That’ll hurt Jepperson. It’s plausible. It’s one explanation. Unless Daddy Dearest just woke up one morning, drank his fresh-squeezed orange juice, and said, ‘I think I’ll call my daughter morally repellent today.’ I wonder…”

“What?” Randy said, now all attention and fearful that he was going to find himself within the blast radius of the Cohane family saga. No one wants to be collateral damage in someone else’s personal tragedy, especially if you’re running for president.

“…what else they’re planning,” Cass said.

Randy picked up the phone and said, “Send Mike Speck in, would you?”

A few minutes later, Mike Speck entered. Speck was a former Secret Service agent who handled what Randy called his “special legislative assignments.” Randy had brought him aboard his Death Star staff at the beginning of his second, scorched-earth Senate campaign. As Randy described what he called “the problem” to the stony-faced, laconic Speck, Cass almost felt a twinge of concern for her father, knowing that this scary-looking man was headed his way. This was surely the senatorial equivalent of sending Luca Brasi to make someone an offer they couldn’t refuse.

After Speck left, not having uttered more than three words, Cass said, “He’s not going to break my father’s legs or anything, is he?”

“Maybe a pinky or two.” Randy had already moved on to the next thing. Cass found him very focused these days. “Okay. Now-how’s the Wrinklies campaign coming?”

“Terry wasn’t hot for it. He hated it, actually.”

Randy rolled his eyes. “Well, Terry isn’t paying for it, is he? How soon can you get it up and running? We got momentum going here, kiddo. Have you seen the latest numbers? Who was it said it’s the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and end as superstitions?”

“Huxley. Thomas, not the one who wrote Brave New World.”

She had seen the numbers, and they were trending-“creeping” might be the better term-their way.

There had been more violence. The latest incidents had been triggered when the Florida State Legislature passed a law exempting mausoleums from state sales tax. As Boomers faced the inevitability of death, despite their healthy diets and exercise and yoga and not smoking and drinking pomegranate juice every morning, they had started to build themselves mausoleums. As with the mansions they had erected in life, so in death they planned to-sprawl.

American passions have a certain viral quality. Competitiveness had entered in. Vast mausoleums were going up all over the state, with features that not even old King Mausolus could have envisioned: “grieving rooms” for the visiting relatives, with music playing twenty-four hours a day (in the event the bereaved felt like stopping by at three a.m. for a quiet sob after hitting the International House of Pancakes); theaters with padded seats where the bereaved could watch home movies of the dearly departed. An entire new industry had sprung up around just that: companies that made epic documentaries about you, complete with interviews, testimonials, animations, sound tracks. One aging Boomer-owner of a string of foreign car dealerships-had commissioned an IMAX film of his (not all that interesting) life, to be shown in perpetuity on the walls of his 360-degree mausoleum. Other Boomers were channeling their intimations of mortality into art: commissioning paintings that celebrated their lives, to hang for all eternity in climate-controlled air beside their remains. Carl Hiaasen of the Miami Herald expressed the opinion that it might just be simpler to wall them up in their mansions, “preferably alive.” Vast sums of money were being spent on this literal decadence. In due course, the Florida Mortuary Builders Association petitioned the legislature for “special variance”-in other words, tax exemption. The measure passed in midnight session, when no one was looking.

To offset the revenue loss, lawmakers quietly voted during the same session to increase the sales tax on soda, beer, skateboards, video games, and the hypercaffeinated beverages so favored by the youth of the Gator State. (The legislature was banking that they were too brain-dead to notice that their taxes were being raised.) When this news was revealed in the harsh light of day-and the Florida sun can be pretty harsh-it was not greeted with enthusiasm by younger Floridians, who vented their rage by assaulting and defacing the more extravagant mausoleums. Governor George P. Bush once again had to call out the National Guard. The pictures on television of bayonet-wielding soldiers guarding enormous Boomer tombs at the public expense made Transitioning an increasingly attractive proposition. So, yes, Cass had seen the numbers, and Randy was right: There was momentum out there.

“Randy,” she said.

“Um?” He was scribbling notes for his speech that night to ABBA-the Association of Baby Boomer Advocates.

“We’re not actually expecting Transitioning to…”

“Hmm…”

“Pass?”

Randy took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. “If you’d asked me that a month ago, I’d have said it was likelier that icicles would form in hell. But you know, we’re getting more and more votes. Just as long as we keep giving away the store, mind you.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “But at the end of the day?” He sniffed philosophically. “Nah. Not a chance. On the other hand, this is America. Our national motto ought to be: ‘Since 1620, anything possible, indeed likely.’” He began to hum the words to the Billie Holiday song: “The difficult we’ll do right now, the impossible will take a little whi-ile…” He said, “That was the Seabees motto in World War Two. Well, point is, we’re making a fine nuisance of ourselves. A very fine nuisance,” he murmured, looking over his text. “I’m told the White House is passing peach pits over this. They’re going to have to deal with Randolph K. Jepperson sooner or later.” He handed her the legal pad. “Want to run this through your washer-dryer? It’s my speech to ABBA. ABBA. Can you imagine naming yourself that? Mamma mia.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Cass said.

“No, darling.” Randy smiled. “Mother created the monster. You merely added a few finishing touches.”

ABBA had formed a few years earlier when a faction of members of the American Association of Retired Persons decided that aging Boomers needed their own lobby. The split with AARP had been contentious and litigious. Given its demographics-77 million, average household income of $58,000-it had quickly become a formidable lobby. Its guiding philosophy was: “From cradle to grave, special in every way.”

ABBA’s headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue near Dupont Circle had been designed by the architect Renzo Nolento at a cost the organization preferred not to discuss in public. The building’s lobby consisted of an elliptical atrium with brushed steel walls. In an interview with Architectural Digest, Nolento revealed that he had been inspired by the platinum stainless steel finish of the Sub-Zero refrigerators popular among ABBA’s membership. “I wanted to express a certain coldness,” he said, “but also a forcefulness that conveys the idea ‘Don’t fool around with us because we are very powerful, okay?’” The metallic walls were inscribed, “Ask not, what can your country do for you. Ask, what has your country done for you lately?”

Randy whispered to Cass as they were escorted to the greenroom behind the stage, “Here we are again-behind enemy lines.”

He and Cass had debated whether he should accept the invitation to speak to ABBA. The Boomer membership was not particularly happy that Senator Jepperson’s chief adviser, Cass, had been inciting youth mobs to attack their retirement communities. But recognizing the value of getting ABBA “on board” in the Transitioning debate, Randy had been in quiet talks with the leadership. People might not smoke anymore, but the “smoke-filled rooms” lived on one way or the other. And in the spirit of those locales, he had, in the manner of his ilk, been making certain promises.

Among others, Randy had pledged his support for the cosmetic surgery benefit ABBA had been lobbying for, along with a Segway “cost defrayal” so that creaky-kneed (or just plain lazy) Boomers could deduct the full cost of these devices that were now ferrying so many of them around the nation’s sidewalks and malls. He’d also agreed to support other ABBA legislative goals: a federal acid reflux initiative; a grandchild day care initiative; visa requirement waivers for elder care; and a sure-to-be-controversial subsidy for giant flat-screen plasma TVs (for Boomers with deteriorating eyesight).

Randy had been busy. What he had not done was inform Cass of the full extent of his private deal making. She, destroyer of golf courses and assailer of gated communities, disturber of the Boomer peace, may have been “behind enemy lines” tonight, but Randy was among new friends.

Mitch Glint, ABBA’s executive director, stopped by to pay his respects. He extended a somewhat cool handshake to Cass, but a hearty one to Randy. They talked for a few minutes. As he left, he said, “We’ll talk more about those other things.”

“What ‘other things’?” Cass said when they were alone.

“Oh, nothing. Just been keeping the lines of communication open.”

“I thought I was your communications person.”

“And so you are, so you are. Fill you in later. Need to focus on my speech. Got to be on my toes now, or this crowd’ll have my guts for garters.”

She watched from backstage, through a partition in the curtains. Normally, Randy hardly limped at all. But when he was walking out onto a stage, he could make himself look like someone dragging out of the surf onto the beach after having his leg gnawed off by a shark.

That’s my boy, Cass thought.

Randy began, “When I was lying in the hospital bed after the explosion…”

She’d heard that before, many times.

“… thinking about the far greater sacrifices made by other Americans…”

Her mind wandered. She felt, sitting there in the shadows, like a political wife listening to the same speech for the four hundredth time. At least she wasn’t out there onstage where you had to force a smile. They must get the zygomaticus muscle equivalent of carpal tunnel syndrome, the wives.

“… no time for partisanship…”

She thought of Terry.

“… not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue…”

Cass’s lips moved silently: …but an American issue.…

“… but an American issue.…”

She was texting on the BlackBerry when she became vaguely aware, as if some bat had suddenly appeared and was flitting about in the backstage darkness, that Randy was uttering words she did not at all remember reading in the text she had written for him.

“For our agenda is very much your agenda.”

What?

“Indeed, there are more things that join us than separate us.”

What was he talking about? ABBA was the principal lobby for the enemy, the most self-indulgent, self-centered population cohort in human history, with the possible exception of the twelve Caesars.

She looked up from her BlackBerry and stared at the spotlit figure onstage. His right arm was raised in a pantomime of a Greek statue, index finger pointed upward as if to imply some spiritual connectedness with, or sponsorship of, the heavens, or perhaps some passing American eagle, or, failing that, the auditorium roof.

“Ronald Reagan used to say that the nine scariest words in the English language were ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

An amused murmur rippled through the audience.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen…”

Where is this going? Cass thought, curiosity turning urgent. She was on her feet now, subconsciously looking about for a long hook.

“… I am from the government. Run-while you have the chance!”

The audience laughed. Cass relaxed slightly. Speechwriters are fundamentally Calvinist: They become nervous if their principals exhibit free will and depart from the prepared text.

“Whatever you thought of his politics, Ronald Reagan was a great man. A courageous man. He took an assassin’s bullet and joked to the doctors as they desperately worked to save his life. He survived and saw through his presidency. He outlived many of his adversaries and contemporaries. Survived-but for what? Only to come down with Alzheimer’s disease. To die a long, lingering, and inglorious death. Was this any way to go? I think the answer must be-no. No way. No way. At all.”

Cass snuck to the edge of the curtain to peer out at the audience. They were stone silent, eyes fixed on Randy. She couldn’t tell what they were collectively thinking, but they weren’t coughing or fidgeting or furtively BlackBerrying.

“My fellow Americans, we are all of us going to make the Great Transition. We can inject ourselves full of drugs, have doctors replace our organs, change our blood, become bionic Frankensteins. But we were born with expiration dates stamped on our DNA. We can fool some of the diseases some of the time, but we can’t fool all of them all of the time. We are all of us sooner or later going to cross the river and rest in the shade on the other side. And just as this generation has always contrived to get the very best from life, so too can it aspire to wring the best from death. My fellow Americans, as Country Joe and the Fish, balladeers of our youth, put it so memorably, albeit in a slightly different context, ‘Whoopee! We’re all gonna die!’ Indeed. So I put it to you: Why not do it the way we’ve lived our lives-on our terms? Why-I put it to you-not do it on our timetable? And finally, I put it to you, my fellow Americans-indeed, my fellow Boomers-if we are going to make the ultimate sacrifice, isn’t the least our government can do for us is show a little gratitude?”

The audience applauded warmly when he finished. A few even stood. Mike Glint came out onstage to thank him and to tell the crowd that he had demonstrated that he was “someone we can work with.”

“Well?” Randy said when the two of them were in the car. Cass had been somewhat quiet. He had the exhausted but exhilarated air of a politician who has just heard the sound of a thousand hands clapping. “Was it good for you, too?”

“Yeah,” Cass said coolly. “I had multiple orgasms.”

“Well, what on earth is eating you? In case you didn’t notice, I just killed.”

“You’ve been doing deals.”

“Just a little back-channel dialoguing.”

“I knew you’d do it.”

“Don’t be a downer, darling. Come on-they ate it up. Veni, vidi, vici. Let’s go roast an ox, drink the best wine in Gaul.”

“Which of our fundamental principles did you trade away first? No, don’t tell me. Let me read about it in The Washington Post.”

“Cassandra. We have to do business with these folks.”

“No, we don’t. God-you’re such a…”

“What?”

“Senator.”

“I didn’t realize,” Randy said archly, “that it was a term of opprobrium.”