Thank You for Smoking

by Christopher Buckley

  A hand pressed against his chest over his heart. He leapt up in his chair, straining at his ankles and wrists. The hand came away and he felt something left behind on his chest, something sticky and clinging, like a bandage.

  Another hand, or the same hand, clamped down on his skin next to the first spot and left another whatever it was. Again, again, again, till his entire chest was covered, then the arms, the back, the legs from below the boxers to the ankles.

  Then his forehead and cheeks. Every square inch of him was covered. When he shifted in his chair, he felt like one adhesive mass, a Band-Aid mummy.

  "Look, can we get a little dialogue going here?"

  "Don't you remember, Neek, how I told you on de Larry King show dat we were going to dispatch you?"

  Dispatch? Dis? Patch? Nick grasped, reluctantly, that this lunatic had just covered him head to toe in nicotine patches. Which meant that a massive, indeed, probably lethal amount of nicotine was at this moment being delivered, through his skin, into his bloodstream. Not that there was any scientific proof that nicotine was bad for you.

  He made some calculations. Were there twenty-two milligrams in a patch? Something like that. And a cigarette contained about one milligram, so one patch was about one pack… felt as though they'd plastered him with about forty of them… which made… forty packs… four cartons? Even by industry standards, that was a serious day's smoking.

  "Let me read you something," Peter Lorre said. "Dis comes with the patches, in de boxes. Under 'Adverse Reactions.' Dis is my favorite part. I don't care so much about the incidence of tumors in the cheek pouches of hamsters and forestomachs of F344 rats. I don't even know what an F344 rat is. Anyway, dere are so many adverse reactions here, I don't hardly know where to begin. Why don't I read only de big ones?"

  Nick was starting to feel a little queasy. And his pulse seemed… well, he was nervous, for sure, but it was starting to beat pretty fast.

  "Look, I think it's perfectly legitimate that non-smokers feel they're entitled to breathe smoke-free air. Our industry has been working hand in hand with citizens groups and the government to ensure that—"

  "Neek. Just listen, okay? 'Erythema,' it says. Do you know what dat means? I had to look it up in a dictionary. All it means is redness of the skin, like from chemical poisoning or sunburn. I would say you are going to have very red skin, Nick. Maybe you can get a part in a movie playing an Indian. Heh heh. Oh, I'm sorry, Neek. Dat was in very poor taste."

  "My industry does forty-eight billion a year in revenues. I think we're looking at an attractive opportunity situation here. I think everyone in this room is looking at early retirement in Saint Barth's, or wherever."

  "Now dis I can understand. 'Abdominal pain, somnolence'—dat's sleeping, isn't it? — 'skin rash, sweating. Back pain, constipation, dyspepsia, nausea, myalgia.' Here we go again with dese words. Ah, okay, dizziness, headache, insomnia.' I don't understand, they tell you sleepiness then they tell you insomnia. We'll just have to find out. You know, you could be making an incredible contribution to science. You could be written up in de New England Journal of Medicine. What else? 'Pharyngitis'? I think dat must mean when your pharynx is broken, don't you? 'Sinusitis and… dysmenorrhea.' I don't even want to know what dat means, it sounds so horrible. You can tell me about it later."

  Burning. His skin was burning. "I would guess that you could start by asking for five million. And work your way up from there. I don't want to boast, but I'm an extremely important part of our overall media strategy, so—"

  "But I don't want any money, Neek."

  "Well, what do you want? I mean, I'm all ears, here." His heart. Whoa. Ba-boom, ba-boom.

  "What does any of us want? A little financial security, de love of a good woman, not too big a mortgage, crisp bacon."

  Nick's mouth was starting to go very dry and taste like it was wrapped in tinfoil. His head began to pound. His heart was going like a jackhammer. And something was brewing down there in his stomach that was going to come up… soon.

  "Uuuh."

  "By de way, did you see de story in Lancet? About dis incredible fact that in de next ten years 250 million people in the industrialized world are going to die from smoking? One in five, Neek. Isn't dat amazing? Dat's five times how many died in de last world war."

  Boomboomboomboom. "Urrrrrrrg."

  "Dat's the entire population of de United States."

  "I'll quit. I'll… work for the. Lung. Association."

  "Good, Neek. Boys, don't you think Nick is making excellent progress?"

  "Urrrrrr."

  "You don't sound so good, Neek."

  "— rrrrr—" Bumbumbumbum. His heart was knocking on his rib cage, saying I want out.

  "Look at de bright side, Neek. After dis, I bet you're never going to want to smoke anodder cigarette again."

  "— roop."

  12

  “You see that?" a U.S. park policeman said to his partner as they sat in their cruiser on Constitution Avenue near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

  "Late for joggers," the other yawned.

  "Better check it out." They got out and walked toward Constitution Gardens and shone their flashlights at the object of their curiosity. It was a male, Caucasian — though the skin had a strange, lifeless hue and texture to it — six feet, 170 pounds, brown hair, athletic build. He was stumbling at the edge of the lagoon. Doper, for sure.

  "Sir. SIR. Stop and turn around, please."

  "Did you see his face?"

  "Yeah. Like a deer on speed. What's that all over his body?"

  "Bandages?"

  "Anything about any escapees from Saint E's?"

  "Nothing. Son of a bitch is fast. Look at him go."

  "Coke?"

  "Nah, that's angel dust."

  They cornered him on the small island in Constitution Gardens, where the preamble to the Declaration of Independence is carved into granite beneath your feet, along with the signers' names.

  "Sir?"

  "Get away from me! I don't even like your movies! I hated Casablanca1."

  "What's he talking about?"

  "Easy does it, buddy. No one's going to hurt you."

  "Get me the surgeon general! I have urgent information for the surgeon general]"

  "Okay, pal, we'll go see the surgeon general."

  "No one must know but her!"

  "That's right, buddy. What's that around your neck?"

  "It's a sign."

  " 'Executed for crimes against hominy.' "

  " 'Humanity.' "

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I don't know, but for someone who's been executed, he's moving pretty fast."

  "He looks like he's been executed."

  "Oh boy, stand back."

  "That's okay, pal. Take a deep breath. I never saw anyone spew like that."

  "He's on some dope. Better call the medics. Whup, stand back, there he goes again."

  "What's the matter, pal, something you ate?"

  "You know what they look like — those smokers' things, the patches."

  "Joe Rinckhouse tried those things. He's still smoking."

  "I bet he didn't put on that many. Hey buddy, you okay?"

  "No, he's not okay. Look at him."

  "Think we oughta do CPR on him."

  "Be my guest."

  "Uh-uh. It's your turn."

  "Let's wait for the medics. I don't like this. It could be some new sex thing."

  "Good thinking."

  "Coming through!"

  "What do we have?"

  "John Doe, four plus agitated, vomiting, dry as a bone. BP two-forty over one-twenty. Vomiting, erythema. Pulse one-eighty and regular. Looks like PAT."

  "Sir? Sir, can you hear me? SIR? Okay, let's get a Nipride drip going. Get up verapamil, ten milligrams IV push. Today, please."

  "Coming."

  "What are those things all over him?"

  "Looks like nicotine patches, a lot of them."

  "Maybe it's
the new suicide of the nineties."

  "Let's get them off him. Fast. There's enough here to kill a horse."

  "Ouch, this poor guy is going to be sore."

  "This guy is going to be dead. Sir? SIR? What is your name?"

  "Uh-oh. V-fib!!"

  "Okay, he's going to have to ride the lightning. Crank it up to max. Gimme the paddles. Ready? Stand back." Vvvvwvvwu mp. "Again. Clear." Vwvwvvvvump.

  "I like it! I like it! Back on sinus rhythm. Start the lidocaine drip."

  Nick awoke to the sound of bleeping machines and a headache that made him wish that he had not survived. His mouth tasted like it had been filled with hot tar and pigeon droppings. His hands, feet, and nose were cold as ice. He was conscious of wires leading to his chest and tubes leading in and out of every bodily orifice but one, thank God.

  He'd had this very strange dream. Dr. Wheat had gone bonkers while Nick was on the table hooked up to the DC current machine. He increased the voltage enough to power the Washington Metrorail system, while cackling maniacally to Nick that this was his big opportunity of getting into The New England Journal of Medicine.

  "Ohhh," he groaned, alerting a nurse, who scurried off for a doctor. People in white came and hovered. There were hushed conversations. A voice addressed him.

  "Mr. Naylor?"

  "Urrr."

  He heard dimly the word morphine, followed by a warm sensation in his arm, followed by… visions of a voluptuous red-haired woman, with glasses, naked, on a horse.

  Horse?

  Suits entered the room.

  "Mr. Naylor? I'm Special Agent Monmaney, FBI. This is Special Agent Allman. We've been assigned to your case. Can you tell us what happened?"

  Nick peered through the druggy haze at the cavalry. Monmaney was tall, rangy, with intense, pale, timber wolf eyes. Graying at the temples. Good, a G-man with experience. Allman was stocky, built like a fireplug. Excellent. He could be the one to beat Peter Lorre's face into rennet custard. He had a ruddy, almost jovial sort of face that made him look Eke everyone's favorite high school teacher. Nick would have preferred him to look leaner and meaner, like Monmaney, but that was all right, as long as they functioned like a team and their guns were oiled. He saw Peter Lorre, on his knees, begging them for mercy as they emptied their 9mms into his chest.

  A tsunami-sized wave of nausea rolled through him. Nick's eyes went groggily back to Monmaney, who was peering at him without sympathy. Yes, a real killer, this one, looked like he flossed with piano wire.

  They asked questions. Many questions. The same questions, over and over and over. Nick told them what he knew, which was that he had been abducted and tortured by a dead Hungarian movie star. He told them about hurling his cappuccinos at the bum. Surely someone on K Street had witnessed that. His last memory? Feeling like his heart was trying very urgently to exit his body, along with everything he had eaten in the last two years. Speaking of which, boy was he hungry. Gazelle had brought him Double-Stuff Oreo cookies, the kind with extra cream filling inside, but the nurses took one look at it and carried the bag out of the room like it was toxic waste.

  Agent Monmaney made him go over it again and again and again, until he was tempted to start making things up just out of sheer boredom. Agent Allman merely stood by, nodding pleasantly, looking jovial. A little sympathy would have been nice. But it was all detail, detail, detail. Nick became annoyed. He was tempted to ask them what was their last assignment, driving tanks in Waco?

  Mercifully, Dr. Williams came in and they left. As soon as they were gone he started telling jokes about J. Edgar Hoover wearing pink tutus. Dr. Williams was Nick's new cardiologist, a very pleasant fellow in his early fifties with a hearing aid that was the result of having served as a navy doctor aboard destroyers during Vietnam.

  The idea of being in the care of a cardiologist at only age forty alarmed Nick, but Dr. Williams set him at ease by explaining in a clear and friendly way exactly what had happened.

  He had had a very close call. The massive dosage of nicotine had caused a condition called paroxysmal atrial tachycardia, which he likened to driving along at sixty miles per hour and suddenly shifting into first gear. The heart is asked to do things it wasn't made to do, namely pump at an insanely fast rate. In the Emergency Room, the PAT had degenerated into ventricular fibrillation, where the fibers of the heart muscles go wormy and stop pumping blood efficiently, thus depriving his brain of oxygen. The massive electrical charge administered, in microseconds, through the defibrillator paddles arrested all the heart's own electrical activity and permitted its own pacemaker to restore vital functions as a pump. Nick took it all in, struggling against great weariness. It occurred to him, during the portion of the lecture on defibrillation, that between Dr. Wheat and now this, he had spent a lot of his life being electrocuted. Dr. Williams said that, ironically, it was his smoking that had probably saved him. That many patches on a non-smoker would almost certainly have brought about cardiac arrest sooner.

  The second morning, a nurse came in to check on his wires and tubes and noticed that his chest had been smeared with nitroglycerin jelly, a precaution to offset the toxic effects of nicotine. She went pale, then looked angry as she wiped it away, muttering, "Jesus Christ," which got Nick's attention. At first she was reluctant to say what the problem was. Finally she… told him that NTG was always to go on the arms, never, ever, ever on the chest. Why? Because if his heart had gone wormy again in the middle of the night and they'd come running in with the cart and put the paddles on his chest where the nitroglycerin was… she made a boom gesture with her hands. She stormed off in search of the orderly, leaving Nick to wonder if he might be safer in his own bed at home.

  He had many visitors. His mother brought Joey, who was technically fascinated by the story of how the orderly had turned his father into a human bomb, and peppered Nick with questions as to where he could buy nitroglycerin jelly and defibrillators.

  Bobby Jay and Polly came with flowers and fruit baskets and illicit cheesburgers and Bloody Marys, compliments of Bert. They also brought the fake fireplace from Bert's Grill, just to make him feel at home, a very thoughtful gesture, though the nurse forebade them to plug it in. Polly got all teary-eyed when she saw how pale he was; and blue, in parts, from where the vasoconstricting nicotine had shut off the blood to his extremities. Nick hadn't yet started entertaining sexual thoughts, but he hoped, how he hoped, that when he did, the shutoff of blood would not have had long-ranging effects on those particular extremities.

  Jeannette came, twice, sometimes three times a day. She was very concerned, very caring about it all. Nick wondered if he hadn't misjudged her. It's tough being a woman in a man's world, so, clearly, some women get tough, but that doesn't mean they're dykes or dominatrixes. She brought truffles and strawberries from Sutton Place Gourmet and flowers, interesting flowers that, well, seemed rather sexual, frankly. Could she do anything for him? Check on his apartment? Pick up his dry cleaning? Clear his messages? Take Joey to his Little League games?

  BR came by, acting like Patton on a surprise inspection, storming off to notify the hospital's chief administrator that this was one Very Important Patient in Room 608 and by God he expected Nick to be treated as such, even if she had to bring the bedpan in herself at four in the morning. He called Nick five times a day with a progress report. The Academy — the entire tobacco industry — was enraged by this and was calling in all its congressional chits, demanding that tobacco state members call on the White House to put pressure on the attorney general to put pressure on the FBI. (Perhaps that explained Agent Monmaney's brusque bedside manner.)

  The Captain called regularly with his progress reports as he worked his way through his congressional Rolodex. He had spoken with Senator Jordan, the Gulfstream-hogging whore, informing him that he expected him personally to call the President and instruct him to tell the FBI to get on the hump and nail these sons of bitches. Or he'd had his last free ride on his G-5.

  It was very gratif
ying. Nick was extremely touched. Tobacco takes care of its own.

  Heather snuck in after visiting hours so that she wouldn't run into any Academy staffers. She and Nick had decided to keep their little thing between them, just for security's sake. He didn't want BR and everyone else to know he was sleeping with the enemy; not that she'd written an entirely unflattering piece, but in BR's book, all reporters were the enemy.

  She sat at the foot of Nick's bed, wearing a light summer dress with her hair up in a Gibson girlish sort of way, strands of hair dribbling down her neck. She looked quite alluring. Nick, however, lacked the energy to talk amorally, her kind of verbal foreplay, so he just listened to her talk about how she'd gotten a job interview with Atherton Blair, the rather self-satisfied, bow-tie-wearing, Ivy League assistant managing editor of the Sun, Washington's legit paper. She was working on a story about the new image guy that the President had hired; she had information that he'd once done some consulting for a close relative of Erich Honecker, the former East German dictator who'd built the Berlin Wall.

  Jeannette called the next day to say that she had "convinced" Katie Couric of the Today show to do a live remote interview from his hospital bed. Nice as Jeannette had been, Nick doubted she'd had to do much arm-twisting to bring about an interview. Nick was frontpage, above-the-fold news, for crying out loud. They'd been deluged with interview requests.

  "I don't want you to think that we're in any way capitalizing on this," she said, "but if you're feeling up to it, I don't think we should pass this up."

  True enough, Nick's kidnapping had been a godsend, after a fashion. The gasper groups were falling all over themselves trying to distance themselves from the "nico-terrorists" — as the perpetrators had been dubbed by the tabloid press — and were busily denouncing this "deplorable," "extreme," "repellent," "intolerable" act. Even Nick's Oprah punching bag, Ron Goode, was quoted in Newsweek as saying that no matter what his personal opinion of Nick was, he certainly didn't deserve to be murdered for his views. Doubtless, he'd been coached, swine; and just as doubdess, it had killed him to say it.