Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

“What kind of information?” he said cautiously.

“The kind,” the president said, leaning forward, suddenly every bit the commander in chief, aiming soul-seeking missiles into Gideon’s eyes, “that causes tides to turn. Let me pay you a compliment: We didn’t call you in here just to fuck around.”

Good Lord, Gideon thought. What had this man eaten for breakfast? Flapjacks with nitroglycerin syrup? Another thought came to mind: Were they recording this? You never knew with the White House. But then why record yourself in the act of offering dirt to a man of impeccable moral rectitude? Impeccable, that is, apart from the business about killing Mother.

“I would like to consider it,” Gideon said nervously. “I would like to pray on it.”

The president’s look of cold command suddenly congealed into panicked horror at the prospect that Gideon was about to invite him to get on his knees in the Oval Office and pray with him. He’d done that the last time with the “Stomach Madonna” woman, as the tabloid press had unfortunately dubbed Mrs. Delbianco.

Sensing the president’s discomfiture, Gideon added quickly, “In the privacy of my own heart.”

The president sighed with relief. “Of course. If there’s anything we can do for you in the meantime…”

Bucky shot the president a cautionary look-too late.

“There is something, actually,” Gideon said.

“Oh?” the president said, as if delighted to hear it.

“The memorial to the forty-three million.”

“Oh. Right.” Shit.

For years, Gideon had been petitioning various congressmen and senators for a memorial on the Washington Mall to the 43 million unborn souls since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.

“Well”-the president stood, smiling broadly and extending his hand-“we will certainly give that our prayerful thought.”

Cass had come up with the notion of a television and Internet advertising campaign to stigmatize old age. This would, theoretically, nudge voters toward greater acceptance of Voluntary Transitioning. Randy loved the idea and, in the spirit of the thing, volunteered to pay for it out of his own deep pockets. Terry was less enthusiastic, for practical reasons.

“Cass,” he said, “some of our best clients are CEOs in their sixties, some in their seventies. You really want to run public service announcements on TV telling them they’re selfish bastards and should kill themselves? Speaking as the founder of Tucker Strategic Communications-and incidentally as your employer -let me just say that this company is not out to commit suicide.”

“Terry,” Cass said, “we’re not urging our clients to Transition.”

Terry furrowed his brow and clicked on one of the storyboard slides in the PowerPoint presentation Cass had prepared. He read aloud:

“Spot number four. ‘Resource hogs’? Now we’re calling old people resource hogs?”

“Problem?” Cass said matter-of-factly.

“Well-it’s a little harsh, isn’t it? I never thought of Grandma and Grandpa as resource hogs. What happened to meta ?”

“Terry, Terry, Terry, we’re simply making the point that nonproductive longevity only consumes resources that would be better spent on younger generations, who are currently being crippled with passed-along debt as a result of-”

“Thank you, Ayn Rand.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “So, no problem?”

“What about this one?” Terry punched up another slide: “‘Wrinklies’? We’re calling them Wrinklies?”

“I wasn’t going to put that on TV.”

“That’s a relief,” Terry snorted.

“I’m going to plant it,” she said brightly. “Have a third party send it into CASSANDRA and then make it our own. I think the kids’ll go for it in a big way. ‘ Wrinklies . Ew, gross! So heinous.’”

“Was Einstein a Wrinkly? Eleanor Roosevelt…Helen Keller?”

“ They gave something back. Einstein showed us how to blow ourselves up. Now that’s what I call transitioning.”

Terry gave her a worried look. But on she went. “This campaign is about self-indulgent aging Boomers who are wrecking the U.S. economy and economically enslaving the next generations. This is not about The Miracle Worker or Eleanor Roosevelt. Though she really was wrinkly. Will you please just chill?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Yes. For heaven’s sake.”

“I couldn’t tell. This one…” He clicked on another slide. Up came an image of a group of gaunt, hungry-looking youths staring hollow-eyed at a large empty bird’s nest. The caption read: “What kind of nest egg will you leave them?”

“I guess it works,” he said. “But kind of a downer, though.”

“It’s supposed to be. What’s eating you? It’s like you’re suddenly a double agent working for the American Association of Resource Hogs.”

Terry sighed. “I don’t know. This is starting to give me the creeps. Urging old people to kill themselves. Norman Rockwell it ain’t.”

“Omigod, Terry.”

“What?”

“That’s it! You are such a genius.” Cass hugged him. “You really are. It’s beyond brilliant. I can’t even discuss it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Norman Rockwell.” Cass snapped her laptop shut and dashed out of the conference room, leaving Terry to shake his head and go back to work.

Two days later, she burst into his office with the laptop, smiling like a cat that had just swallowed an entire cage of parakeets. He hadn’t seen her look this happy-ever.

She put the laptop in front of him, fired it up, and clicked on the “Start Slideshow” icon.

Terry watched.

Cass had hired a computer graphic artist to duplicate Norman Rockwell’s sliced-bread, rooster-crowing, soda-fountain, friendly-cop, Thanksgiving-turkey America -only on the theme of Voluntary Transitioning.

The first slide showed a man and wife in their seventies, holding hands, smiling as though they were embarking on an ocean cruise. They were walking into the doorway of a homey, gingerbread-style house whose address might be 15 Maple Street. Above the doorway was a bright yellow sign that read, VOLUNTARY TRANSITIONING CENTER-WELCOME, SENIORS!

The next illustration showed a pair of perfectly healthy-looking people in their mid-sixties thumbing their noses at a frustrated-looking Grim Reaper. The caption read, WE’LL DO IT ON OUR TIMETABLE, THANKS-NOT YOURS!

There were half a dozen illustrations. The last one showed an elderly man in a comfy, fluffy bed attended by an attractive and shapely nurse dressed in a traditional starched uniform. The man was smiling sleepily. The nurse was smiling back at him as she adjusted the valve of an IV drip running into his arm. The caption read, OFF TO A HEAVENLY REST!

Terry looked up at Cass, who was still beaming.

“Well?”

“I’m speechless.”

“Aren’t they fabulous?”

“Lethal injection never looked so warm and fuzzy. A happy occasion for the whole family. I’m sure the Rockwell estate will be thrilled.”

“You were so right. It needed to be uplifting. Randy loved them.”

“Did he? How is Randolph of Bosnia?”

“Ooh,” Cass said, “do I sense a note of-something? Hel- lo ,” she said. “Who was it that kept telling me to get laid?”

“He’s a client. And what is Tucker’s first law?”

“No schtupping the clients. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I figured this is different.”

“How, exactly?”