Mark Leyner - Et Tu, Babe

How about the scene from On Golden Pond where Jane Fonda arrives from Omega Centauri to “visit” her father in the nursing home? You remember what it was like to watch her tenderly remove his toupee and then his hearing aid and his bifocals and his dentures and his truss, and then suddenly drain his cerebrospinal fluid through that horrible sucking proboscis? Well, imagine what it’s like watching that scene on Lincoln’s morning breath. It’s almost unbearable. But would you believe that the two of us were actually jumping up and down on the bed, cheering?

It was midnight. Arleen danced on the balcony clad only in white stretch-vinyl jeans and Walkman, bathed in moonlight. I’d been cooling out in the tub — the small fondue forks from my Swiss Army knife vibrating slightly in various acupuncture points on my physique. I focused my video camera beyond Arleen, and scanned the revamped cityscape. Every federal building — White House, Capitol, Executive and Congressional offices, Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, etc. — had been razed and rebuilt in an astonishing new style, each designed and constructed to simulate building blocks toppled in a toddler’s tantrum. And looming over the city, dramatically illuminated by floodlights, was a huge 1,000-foot white marble baby in diapers, arms akimbo, smugly admiring his own vandalism. The Überkind.

I twanged each impaled fondue fork and zoomed in on the monolithic tot’s chubby smirk.

“Überkind, Überkind, a thousand feet tall, what’s the best diet cola of them all?”

“Diet Pepsi. Diet Pepsi #1.”

(I was reading the Überkind’s marble lips through the zoom lens of my camcorder.)

“Thanks, babe,” I said, passing out.

In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Ed Gibbon’s gossipy tell-all chronicle of the West’s first millennium, Attila returns to his wooden palace beyond the Danube after sacking Aquileia, an Italian maritime city on the Adriatic coast, and declaims: “Sure we enriched ourselves with the spoils of a wealthy and effeminate people. Sure we stole their gold and jewels. Sure we stripped their palaces of splendid and costly furniture. We wantonly destroyed exquisite works of art. We defiled consecrated objects. We tortured and slaughtered their clergy. And let no man say that we did not imbibe tremendous quantities of Falernian wine and slake our sensual appetites on helpless, trembling captives — male and female. And yet, notwithstanding the amazing amount of fun I had in Aquileia, it’s so great to be home. My home … Here I don’t worry every minute about having to be the epitome of rapacious avarice and unrelenting cruelty. I can relax and be myself. How sweet to be in my large wooden palace again. How sweet to lie again in the warm beds of my innumerable wives.”

Could it be pure coincidence that the sentiments of one of history’s luminary strongmen and belletrists so perfectly mirror those of another who lives almost sixteen centuries later? I felt exactly the same way about returning home. Sure D.C. had been a blast. Sure the Lincoln’s morning breath had been primo shit. But it just felt so damn good to be back at headquarters.

And, as usual, the staff made quite a to-do over my homecoming. For the occasion, Desiree had outfitted the full detachment of bionic elderly bodyguards in the resplendent regalia of Hungarian hussars. Imagine: rimming the promenade that leads to the front entrance of Team Leyner HQ, a double column of testosterone-enhanced 90-year-old women with electrically activated polymer musculature in fur busbies with plumes and vivid yellow busby bags, sky blue dolman jackets, fur-lined pelisses slung over the shoulder, tight braided red trousers, and concertina-crinkled boots. Was I absolutely, 100 percent on-the-money when I hired Desiree Buttcake or what? I mean the woman just has this flair, this terrific panache about everything she does.

Frequently when I return from a tour or an extended holiday, the media is invited on the grounds to cover the festivities. But Baby Lago, my doe-eyed press attaché, had decided to keep this homecoming private. Ergo the huge banner depicting a just-awakened Honest Abe sitting up in bed and yawning, as his hapless valet succumbs and crumples to the floor.

* * *

With Shalimar snapping at our heels (Baby Lago’s three Lhasa apsos are each named after a classic fragrance by Guerlain: Shalimar, Samsara, and Mitsouko), we strode through the ebullient corridors of the new office annex, acknowledging the fervent salutations of word processors, proofreaders, and mailroom clerks as we headed toward the executive conference gallery, an elegantly appointed suite of terrazzo and aquamarine bulletproof glass.

Immediately upon returning from a trip, I convene a meeting of my inner circle to assess the current status of Team Leyner projects and to discuss opportunities or problems that may have arisen in my absence. Either Joe Casale or Desiree Buttcake will have prepared an agenda of matters they consider urgent and I’ll have usually punched a dozen or so items into my laptop while on the plane or in the limo. Do I always conduct my business with this kind of nonstop indefatigable intensity and zeal? You bet I do. Do I make any distinction whatsoever between my personal life and my career? No, sir, I do not. I work and I play at one speed: hyperdrive — Mach 9, adrenaline OD, total warp. It’s the only way I know how to live.

We get letters from kids all over the world asking everything from “What’s your favorite font?” to “How many egg whites do you eat a day?” But you’d be surprised at how many young people write in with the same basic question: “How do I know if I’m great or if I’m the victim of megalomaniacal delusions?” My standard reply is: “Sorry, kid, you’re probably the victim of megalomaniacal delusions because only an infinitesimal percentage of the species is truly destined for greatness.” Since I was a small child, I’ve had the feeling that simply by clenching my jaw and visualizing an explosion, I could blow up planets or stars in galaxies thousands of light-years from earth. Megalomaniacal delusion or fact? I’ve been lucky enough over the past few years to have developed a very close friendship with the acclaimed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. I first became personally acquainted with Stephen when his secretary wrote a letter to my editor at Vintage Books, to say that Hawking didn’t feel completely comfortable publishing A Brief History of Time until I’d reviewed the book’s fundamental theorem and given my critical imprimatur. Luckily I was between projects and happy to oblige Stephen and his publisher, Bantam Books. Recently, I was seated ringside next to Stephen at the Evander Holyfield/George Foreman bout in Atlantic City, and I mentioned my suspicion that I had the ability to destroy celestial bodies simply by willing it, and not only did Stephen find this plausible in the abstract, but actually correlated it with several heretofore unexplained Supernovae.

Ibrought my fist down on the conference room table with peremptory authority.

“Let’s get busy, folks. Joe, what do you have for me, babe?”

“Well, first of all, Mr. Leyner, Ken Dietrich — he’s VP Marketing for Pepsico Inc. — called about the agreement wherein you mention Diet Pepsi in a new book and Pepsico remunerates Team Leyner with $750,000 in cash, plus $250,000 in stock. He basically wants to know if we’ve made any progress on the product insert.”

“Tell Dietrich it’s done, not to worry about it anymore, and to get the check in the mail. What else?”

“Mr. Leyner, we have a minor personnel problem. Y’know our regulation prohibiting any Team Leyner employee from earning income outside the organization? Well, one of the mailroom clerks is selling marijuana grown on pieces of sod he’s removed from various major league baseball stadiums. He’s got Wrigley Wiggly, Fenway Dream Bean, Comiskey Park and Ride … he’s even selling marijuana grown on stadium sod from vintage years, like 1969 Shea Stadium Sinsemilla. I didn’t want to make a decision about the guy until you got back.”