Arthur Hailey - Overload

"Henrietta's right" Luther said. "I do think the same way she does. Both of us will take the guilt with us to our graves."

His wife added, "So you see what I mean when I say that whatever we do-including working to pay for a van for Karen-is really nothing."

"It isn't nothing," Nim said. "Whatever else is true, it's a whole lot more than that."

They walked from the apartment lobby to the street outside. Nim's car was parked a few yards away.

"Thank you for telling me what you did," he said. "I'll try to do something about the van, just as soon as I can."

* * *

As Nim

had

come to expect, some verse from Karen arrived two days later.

When young

Did you ever run on sidewalks,

Playing the game

Of avoiding cracks?

Or, much later,

Straddle hairlines mentally

And strut vicarious tightropes,

Dreading, yet perversely courting,

Disaster from a fall?

"Disaster" did I say?

An aberrant word!

For there are other falls and penalties

Not wholly catastrophic,

But cushioned by largesse

Of joy and glory.

Filling in love is one.

Yet wisdom cautions:

A fall is a fall

With aftermaths of hurt and pain

Only delayed, not circumvented.

Tish, tosh!

Away with wisdom

Hooray for crazy paving, tightropes, hairline!

Right now, who's wise, or wants to be?

Not I.

Are you?

The subject was Tunipah.

"Talking to the Governor of this state about anything," J. Eric Humphrey declared in his clipped Bostonian accent, "has about the same effect as putting one's band into a pail of water. As soon as you take the hand out, the water is exactly the way it was before, as if the hand had never been there."

"Except," Ray Paulsen pointed out, "your hand would be wet."

"Clammy," the chairman corrected.

"I warned you," Teresa Van Buren said. "I warned you right after the blackout two months ago that public memory is short, that people-including politicians-would forget the power shortage and the reasons."

"Memory isn't the Governor's problem," Oscar O'Brien assured her. The general counsel had been with Eric Humphrey during recent sessions at the state capitol, where proposals for new generating plants -including Tunipah-had been discussed. He went on, “There's only one trouble with our Governor: He wants to be President of the United States. He wants it so bad, he can taste it."

Nim Goldman said, "Who knows? He might make a good president."

"He might at that," O'Brien conceded. "In the meantime, though, California is rudderless, stuck with a head of state who won't take stands or hand down decisions. Not if they're likely to offend a single national voter."

"Allowing for slight exaggeration," Eric Humphrey said, "that is the essence of our problem."

"Furthermore," O'Brien added, blowing cigar smoke, "the same thing applies-for similar if different reasons-to every other public figure in Sacramento."

The five of them were at Golden State Power & Light headquarters, in the chairman's office suite, seated informally in the lounge area.

In less than two weeks public hearings on the proposed coal-burning, high-capacity generating plant at Tunipah would begin. And while the project was vital to California-a viewpoint agreed to privately by the Governor, his aides and senior legislators-for political reasons none would lend public support to the Tunipah plan. The utility, despite strong opposition forces, must "go it alone."

Something else the Governor had rejected was GSP & L's plea that the several regulatory agencies which would be intervened with licensing Tunipah should hold joint hearings because of urgency. Instead, regular procedures would take their course. It meant a long, exhausting series of submissions and argument before four separate government bodies, each concerned with a differing aspect, though often overlapping.

Teresa Van Buren asked, "Is the Governor, or anyone else, likely to have a change of heart?"

"Only if the bastards see an advantage to themselves," Ray Paulsen growled.

"And they won't." Paulsen had grown increasingly bitter of late about the frustrating delays in having plans approved. As the executive in charge of power supply, Paulsen would have the unpopular job of initiating power cuts when they became needed in the future.

"Ray's right," O'Brien acknowledged. "We all know bow the Sacramento gang left us holding the bag on nuclear, admitting-off the record-the need for nuclear plants, but without the guts to say so out loud."

"Well," Eric Humphrey said incisively, "whether we like that attitude or despise it, the same is true again. Now about the Tunipah hearings. I have some thoughts to share with you. I want our own participation in those hearings to be of the highest caliber. Our presentation must be factual, reasoned, calm and dignified. Under cross-examination the responses of all our representatives must be the same, with emphasis on courtesy and patience. As part of their tactics, the opposition will try to provoke us.

We must resist that provocation and I want all our people briefed to that effect."

"It will be done," Oscar O'Brien said.

Ray Paulsen regarded Nim somberly. "Remember that applies to you,” Nim grimaced. "I'm already practicing restraint, Ray-right now."

Neither had forgotten their clash at the management meeting where Nim and Van Buren favored a hard-line public airing of the utility's problems, Paulsen and a majority of others the reverse. Judging by the chairman's instructions, the "moderate line" was still in effect.

"Do you still believe, Oscar," Eric Humphrey asked, "that it is necessary for me, personally, to appear at those hearings?"

O'Brien nodded. "Absolutely yes."

Behind the question, obviously, was Humphrey's wish to avoid public attention. During the past ten days there had been two more bombings at GSP & L installations, none causing major damage but a reminder of 1the continuing danger to the utility and its personnel. Only yesterday a warning, telephoned to a radio station, declared that "more Golden State Piss & Lickspittle management criminals will shortly pay the people's penalty for their misdeeds."

O'Brien added, "I promise it will be a brief appearance, Eric, but we need you on the record."

The chairman sighed. "Very well."

Nim thought with wry humor: As usual, the low-profile strategy would not apply to him. At the upcoming hearings Nim would appear as a key witness and, while others from the utility would testify on technical matters, Nim would present the broad sweep of the Tunipah project. Oscar O'Brien would lead the witnesses through interrogation.

Nim and O'Brien already had had several rehearsals in which Ray Paulsen shared.

During their work with O'Brien, Paulsen and Nim had suppressed their normal antagonism and at moments had come close to amiability.

Taking advantage of this, Nim raised with Paulsen the subject of a used van for Karen Sloan because transportation was a subordinate department under Power Supply.

To Nim's surprise, Paulsen was interested and helpful. Within forty-eight hours of their conversation, be had located a suitable van which would shortly be available for sale. More than that, Ray Paulsen was personally designing some modifications. They would facilitate loading Karen's wheelchair into the van and, once inside, locking it in place. Karen telephoned Nim to say that a GSP & L mechanic had visited her to measure her chair and check on electrical connections.

"One of the best things that's ever happened to me," Karen told Nim during their phone talk, "was your seeing that red circle on the map that day and afterwards coming here. Speaking of that, when are you coming again, dear Nimrod? Soon, I hope." He had promised he would. Later, Nim had phoned Karen's parents, Luther and Henrietta, who were delighted about the van and were now arranging a bank loan to cover most of its cost.