Nim’s voice rose. “For Chrissakes, Harry! Do you understand what you’re saying?”
“Take it easy,” London cautioned. Others in the bar had glanced their way. He added quietly, “Sure, I understand.”
“In time …” Nim leaned across the table, balancing his words the way a conjurer might stand a plate on edge. “In time the burns will heal. They’ll do skin grafts. But you can’t order a new penis from the Sears catalogue.”
“It’s true. Can’t deny it.” London shook his head sadly. “That poor benighted bastard!”
The cocktail pianist was now into Lara’s Theme and Harry London wiped away a tear.
“Twenty-eight!” Nim said. “That’s how old he is. For God’s sake, twenty-eight! Why, any normal man that age has still got ahead of him a lifetime of …”
London said curtly, “I don’t need a diagram.” He finished his beer and motioned a waiter for another. “One thing you gotta remember, Nim. Not every guy’s an all-star cocksman like you. With you, if you lost out the way Wally has, I could understand it being the end of the road, or you thinking it was.” He asked curiously, “You ever kept score? Maybe you could get in The Guinness Book of World Records.”
“There’s a Belgian writer,” Nim said, his thoughts for the moment diverted, “Georges Simenon, who says he made it with ten thousand different women. I’m not up to that many, or even near it.”
“Leave out the numbers, then. The point is, maybe his dong was never as all-fired important to Wally as yours is to you.”
Nim shook his head. “I doubt it.” He remembered the times he had seen Wally Jr. and his wife, Mary, together. Nim’s finely honed instincts told him the two of them had a good thing going sexually. He wondered sadly what might happen to their marriage.
The beer and double vodka arrived. “When you’re coming back,” Nim told the waiter, “bring the same again.”
It was early evening. The bar they were in—The Ezy Duzzit, smallish and dark, with a sentimental pianist who was just easing into Moon River—was not far from GSP & L headquarters. Nim and Harry London had walked over here at the end of their working day. The third day.
The past three days had been the worst short period of his life that Nim ever remembered.
On the first day, at Devil’s Gate, the sense of stupefaction following the electrocution of Wally Talbot Jr. had lasted only seconds. Then, while Wally was still being brought down from the tower, standard emergency procedures went into high gear.
In any big utility company, electrocutions are rare but inevitably they happen—usually several times a year. The cause is either momentary carelessness, nullifying costly and rigid safety precautions, or a “thousandth chance” accident such as that which happened so swiftly while Nim and others watched.
Ironically, Golden State Power had an aggressive publicity program, aimed at parents and children, warning of dangers when kites were flown near overhead power lines. The utility had expended thousands of dollars on posters and comic books devoted to the subject and distributed them to schools and other agencies.
As Fred Wilkins, the red-haired technician, was to disclose with anguish later, he knew of the warning program. But Wilkins’ wife, Danny’s mother, didn’t know. She tearfully admitted having a vague impression that she might have heard something of the kind, but had forgotten when or where, nor had the memory surfaced when the kite—a birthday present from grandparents—arrived with the morning mail and she helped Danny put it together. As for Danny’s climbing the tower, he was described by those who knew him as “a determined boy, and fearless.” The hooked aluminum rod he had carried aloft was a gaff his father used for occasional deep sea fishing; it was stored in a tool shed where the boy had seen it often.
None of that was known, of course, when a trained first-aid team, alerted by the camp siren, rushed to administer help to Wally Talbot. He was unconscious, had been badly burned over large areas of his body, and breathing had stopped.
The aid team, led by a registered nurse who ran the camp’s small medical clinic, competently began mouth-to-mouth breathing in conjunction with external cardiac compression. While the resuscitation continued, Wally was carried to the one-bed clinic. There, the nurse—taking radiophone instructions from a doctor in the city—used a closed-chest defibrillator in an attempt to restore normal heart action. The attempt succeeded. That, and the other measures, saved Wally’s life.
By then a company helicopter was on the way to Devil’s Gate—the same machine which was to have collected Nim. Wally, accompanied by the nurse, was flown directly to a hospital for more intensive treatment.
It was not until next day that his survival was assured and the detailed nature of his injuries made known.
On that second day, newspapers played the story big, its impact strengthened by eyewitness accounts from reporters on the scene. The morning Chronicle-West gave it frontpage treatment with a headline:
ELECTROCUTED MAN IS HERO
By afternoon, though the immediacy had lessened, the California Examiner devoted half of page three to a Nancy Molineaux by-line story headed:
Sacrifices Self in Saving Child
The Examiner also ran a two-column cut of Wally Talbot Jr. and another of young Danny Wilkins with one side of his face bandaged—the result of abrasions when the boy slid downward near the top of the tower, the only injury he received.
TV and radio had carried bulletins the night before, but continued their coverage the following day.
Because of its human interest, the story drew statewide and some national attention.
At the city’s Mount Eden Hospital, shortly after noon on that second day, an attending surgeon held an impromptu press conference in a corridor. Nim, who had visited the hospital earlier, had just returned and listened from the fringes.
“Mr. Talbot’s condition is critical but stable, and he is out of immediate danger,” the young surgeon, who looked like a reincarnated Robert Kennedy, announced. “He has severe burns over twenty-five percent of his body and has suffered certain other injuries.”
“Could you be more specific, Doctor?” one of a dozen news reporters asked. “What are the other injuries?”
The surgeon glanced at an older man beside him whom Nim knew to be the hospital administrator.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” the administrator said, “normally, out of respect for privacy, no additional information would be disclosed. In this instance, however, after discussion with the family, it has been decided to be open with the press—quite frankly, to put an end to speculation. Therefore the last question will be answered. But before it is, I plead with you—out of consideration for the patient and his family—to be discreet in what you write and speak. Thank you. Please continue, Doctor.”
“The effects of electrocution on the human body are always unpredictable,” the surgeon said. “Often, death results when large charges of electricity pass through internal organs before escaping to ground. In the case of Mr. Talbot this didn’t happen, so to that extent he was fortunate. Instead the electricity passed over the upper surface of his body and exited—to ground through the metal tower—by the route of his penis.”
There were gasps, and a shocked silence during which no one seemed eager to ask the next question. Eventually an elderly male reporter did. “And, Doctor, the condition of …”
“It was destroyed. By burning. Totally. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”
The press group, unusually subdued, drifted away.
Nim had stayed on. He identified himself to the administrator and inquired about Wally Jr.’s family—Ardythe and Mary. Nim had not seen either since the accident, but knew he would have to meet both women soon.
Ardythe, Nim learned, was at the hospital under sedation. “She went into shock,” the administrator said. “I presume you know about her husband’s death just a short time ago.”
Nim nodded.
“The younger Mrs. Talbot is with her husband, but no oth
er visitors are being allowed for the time being.”
While the administrator waited, Nim scribbled a note to Mary, telling her he was available if needed, and in any case would return to the hospital next day.
That night, as during the preceding one, Nim slept only fitfully, the scene at Devil’s Gate Camp repeating itself in his mind again and again, like a recurring nightmare.
On the morning of the third day he saw Mary, then Ardythe.
Mary met him outside the hospital room where Wally was still under intensive care. “Wally’s conscious,” she said, “but doesn’t want to see anyone. Not yet.” Wally’s wife looked pale and tired, but some of her normal businesslike manner still came through. “Ardythe wants to see you, though. She knew you were coming.”
Nim said gently, “I guess words aren’t a lot of good, Mary. Just the same, I’m sorry.”
“We all are.” Mary led the way to a door a few yards distant and opened it. “Here’s Nim, Mother.” She told him, “I’m going back to Wally. I’ll leave you now.”
“Come in, Nim,” Ardythe said. She was dressed and resting on a bed, propped up by pillows. “Isn’t this ridiculous—for me to be in the hospital too?”
There was hysteria beneath her voice, he thought, and her cheeks were too flushed, her eyes showed an artificial brightness. Nim remembered what the administrator had said about shock and sedation, though Ardythe appeared not to be sedated now.
He began hesitantly, “I wish I knew what to say …” Pausing, he bent to kiss her.
To his surprise, Ardythe stiffened and turned her head away. He ended by clumsily touching his lips to her cheek, which felt hot.
“No!” Ardythe remonstrated. “Please … don’t kiss me.”
Wondering if he had offended her in some way, finding it hard to gauge her mood, he moved a chair and sat beside the bed.
There was a silence, then she said, half musingly, “They say Wally will live. Yesterday we didn’t know, so at least today is that much better. But I suppose you know how he will live; I mean, what’s happened to him.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know.”
“Have you been thinking the way I have, Nun? About a reason for what happened?”
“Ardythe, I was there. I saw …”
“I don’t mean that. I mean why.”
Bewildered, he shook his head.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking since yesterday, Nim. And I’ve decided that what seemed like an accident could be because of us—you and me.”
Still not understanding, he protested, “Please. You’re overwrought. It’s a terrible shock, I know, especially coming so soon after Walter.”
“That’s the point.” Ardythe’s face and voice were tense. “You and I were sinful, so soon after Walter died. I’ve a feeling I’m being punished, that Wally, Mary, the children, are all suffering because of me.”
For a moment he was reduced to shocked silence, then said vehemently, “For God’s sake, Ardythe, stop this! It’s ridiculous!”
“Is it? Think about it when you’re alone, the way I’ve been doing. And just now you said ‘for God’s sake.’ You’re a Jew, Nim. Doesn’t your religion teach you to believe in God’s anger and punishment?”
“Even if it does, I don’t accept all that.”
“I didn’t either,” Ardythe said mournfully. “But now I’m wondering.”
“Look,” he said, searching desperately for words to change her thinking, “sometimes life causes one family to suffer—the way it seems: firing at it with both barrels-while other families go untouched. It isn’t logical, it isn’t fair. But it happens. I can think of other instances; so can you.”
“How do we know those other instances weren’t punishments also?”
“Because there’s no way they could be. Because all of life is chance—the chances we make ourselves, by error or bad luck, including the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all it is, Ardythe, and it’s madness to blame yourself, in any way, for what’s happened to Wally.”
She answered dully, “I want to believe you. But I can’t. Leave me now, Nim. They’re going to send me home this afternoon.”
Standing, he told her, “I’ll drive out soon.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure you should. But phone me.”
He bent to kiss her cheek, then remembering her wishes, abandoned the attempt and went out quietly.
His mind was in turmoil. Clearly, Ardythe needed psychiatric help, but if Nim himself suggested it to Mary or anyone else, he would have to explain why—in detail. Even under the seal of medical confidence, he couldn’t see himself doing that. At least, not yet.
The grief about Wally, Ardythe, and his own dilemma stayed with him through the day, refusing to be pushed away.
As if that wasn’t enough, Nim was pilloried that afternoon in the California Examiner.
He had wondered if, in view of the emergency employment of a helicopter to airlift Wally out of Devil’s Gate Camp, Nancy Molineaux might abandon her intention to write about the helicopter’s other uses.
She hadn’t.
Her story was in a box facing the editorial page.
The Captains and the Kings
… and GSP & L’s Mr. Goldman
Ever wonder what it would be like to have a private helicopter whisk you wherever you wanted while you sat back and relaxed?
Most of us will never experience that exotic pleasure.
Those who do fall into certain categories—the President of the United States, the British Royal Family, the late Howard Hughes, occasionally the Pope, and, oh yes, certain favored executives of your friendly public utility, Golden State Power & Light. For example—Mr. Nimrod Goldman.
Why Goldman?, you might ask.
Well, it seems that Mr. Goldman, who is a GSP & L vice president, is too important to ride on a bus, even though one—privately chartered by Golden State Power—was going his way the other day and had plenty of spare seats. Instead he chose a helicopter which …
There was more, along with a picture of a GSP & L helicopter and an unflattering portrait of Nim which, he suspected, Ms. Molineaux chose from the newspaper’s files.
Especially damaging was a paragraph which read:
Electric and gas consumers, already beset by high utility bills, and who have been told that rates must soon go up again, may wonder about the way their money is being spent by GSP & L, a quasi-public company. Perhaps if executives like Nimrod Goldman were willing to travel—like the rest of us—less glamorously, the resultant savings, along with other economies, could help hold down those persistent rate increases.
In midafternoon Nim folded the newspaper and flagged the article, then gave it to J. Eric Humphrey’s secretary. “Tell the chairman I figured he’d see this anyway, so he might as well get it from me.”
Minutes later Humphrey strode into Nim’s office and tossed the paper down. He was angrier than Nim had ever seen him and, uncharacteristically, raised his voice. “In God’s name what were you thinking of to get us into this mess? Don’t you know the Public Utilities Commission is considering our application for a rate increase, and will hand down a decision in the next few days? This is just the kind of thing to raise a public clamor which could make them cut our throats.”
Nim released some irritability of his own. “Of course I know that.” He motioned to the newspaper. “I’m as upset about this as you are. But that damn woman reporter had her scalping knife out. If she hadn’t picked the helicopter, it would have been something else.”
“Not necessarily; not if she hadn’t found anything. By using the helicopter indiscreetly as you did, you dumped an opportunity in her lap.”
On the point of snapping back, Nim decided to keep quiet. Taking blame unfairly, he supposed, could be considered part of an assistant’s job. Only two weeks earlier the chairman had told his senior aides at an informal meeting, “If you can save yourself half a day’s travel, and do your job faster and more effic
iently, use a company helicopter because it’s cheaper in the long run. I realize we need those aircraft for transmission line patrols and emergencies, but when they’re not in use that way, it costs very little more to have them in the air than it does to keep them on the ground.”
Something else Eric Humphrey had presumably forgotten was asking Nim to take on the two-day press briefing and to represent him at an important Chamber of Commerce meeting the morning of the first day of the press tour. There was no way Nim could have done both without using the helicopter. However, Humphrey was a fair man and would probably remember later. Even if he failed to, Nim reasoned, it didn’t much matter.
But that three-day combination of events had left him exhausted and melancholy. Thus, when Harry London, who knew some—though not all—of the reasons behind Nim’s depression, had dropped in to suggest some drinking after work, Nim accepted promptly.
Now he felt the liquor taking hold and, while he wasn’t any happier, an increasing numbness was somehow comforting. In a corner of his brain still functioning with clarity, Nim despised himself for what he was doing, and the implied weakness. Then he reminded himself it didn’t happen often—he couldn’t remember the last time he had had too much to drink—and maybe just letting yourself go once in a while, saying to hell with everything!, could be therapeutic.
“Let me ask you something, Harry,” Nim said thickly. “You a religious man? Do you believe in God?”
Once more London drank deeply, then used a handkerchief to wipe beer foam from his lips. “No to the first. About the second, put it this way: I’ve never made a big deal about not believing.”
“How about personal guilt? You carry a lot of that around?” Nim was remembering Ardythe, who had asked: “Doesn’t your religion teach you to believe in God’s anger and punishment?” This afternoon he had dismissed the question. Since then, annoyingly, it had replayed itself in his mind several times.
“I guess everybody’s got some guilts.” London seemed inclined to end his statement there, then changed his mind and added, “I sometimes think about two guys in Korea, close buddies of mine. We were on a recce patrol near the Yalu River. Those two were further forward than the rest of us, then we were all pinned down by enemy fire. The two guys needed help to get back. I was a topkick, in charge, and should have led the rest of us right then, taking a chance to reach them. While I was still dithering, making up my mind, the gooks found them; a grenade blew them both to bits. That’s a guilt I carry around; that and some others.”