Thank You for Smoking

'Twelve.'

'He must be quite precocious. So how does he feel about what you do?'

'Frankly, twelve-year-olds don't care where the money comes from. I could be a vivisectionist and I don't think it would make a whole lot of difference as long as I keep him in Rollerblades and snowboards. Not that I equate vivisectionists and the tobacco industry. As a matter of fact, I feel very strongly about animals being, you know, used for dubious scientific purposes. The ones they torture out at NIH. My God, those poor little bunnies. It would break your heart to see them in their little cages, puffing away.'

'Puffing?'

'Those smoking machines they attach to them. Criminal. Listen, if I had to smoke like seven thousand cigarettes a day, I'd get sick, probably. And I consider myself a heavy smoker.'

'But doesn't it bother you being vilified like this? There are easier ways of paying mortgage and tuition.'

'If it makes other people happy to have me play the role of villain, when all I really do is provide information about a legal and, I might add, time-honored industry, fine, no problem. Whatever.'

She flipped through her notepad, making Nick suspicious.

'You were a reporter at WRTK.'

'Um-hum,' Nick said, lighting up. 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Heather seemed to find this amusing. 'No, please. Isn't their nickname W-Right To Know?'

'Um-hum.'

'Is this an uncomfortable subject for you?'

'Not at all,' Nick said, thoughtfully exhaling straight up so it wouldn't go in her face, though this made him feel like a metal dolphin in a fountain.

'I looked up the news clips,' she said delicately, 'but if you're agreeable, it would be better if you could tell me about it. So I get everything right.'

'It's just kind of old news, is all. This is going to be a big part of your piece?'

'No. Not big. So this happened at Camp LaGroan.?'

'Um-hum.' Nick slowly stubbed out his cigarette. Thank God for cigarettes, they gave you time to get your act together, or at least to look philosophical. 'You'll recall President Broadbent liked to spend time with the boys, being a former marine and all. And I was in our van, monitoring the radio. We'd gotten the base frequencies from, well, someone, which you probably already knew, since you know all this, anyway,' he sighed, 'so we had the frequency and I was monitoring it and there was this, suddenly there was all this radio traffic about Rover choking to death on a bone. Rover being President Broadbent's Secret Service code name, and the fact that at that very minute the President was in the mess hall having lunch with the boys, so I, you know… '

'Went with it?'

'Um-hum. And it turned out to be a different Rover that had choked to death.'

'The commandant's dog?'

'Um-hum. A German shorthaired pointer. A six-year-old, sixty-seven pound German shorthaired pointer. On a chicken bone.'

'And…?'

'This was not a career-enhancing episode.'

'It must have been awful. I'm sorry.'

'I look on the positive side. How many people get to announce to the nation, 'The President is dead.' It's quite a feeling to say those words. Even if he wasn't dead.'

'Yes,' Heather said. 'It must have been.'

'Do you remember when Walter Cronkite said, 'We have just received this news flash. President Kennedy died at one o'clock, Eastern Standard Time.' You're probably too young. It was an amazing moment. I always used to get a chill when I thought about it. I still get it, except that it's immediately followed by the urge to vomit.'

'What happened afterwards?'

'Walter Cronkite became the most respected newsman in history. I became a spokesman for cigarettes.'

'It must have left you pretty damaged.'

'On the contrary, I have extremely thick skin. It's practically like leather. I'd make a very comfortable Chesterfield. Couch, not cigarette.'

'It didn't seem that way on the Oprah show,' Heather said. 'You really tore into that guy.'

'That guy? Please. That guy is a dork. There are an awful lot of sanctimonious people out there who expect everyone else to canonize them because they're going around like hall monitors confiscating all the ashtrays. And once they've confiscated the last ashtray, do you think they're going to stop there? Oh no. They'll be slapping warning labels on kids' Popsicles. 'Warning, the surgeon general has determined that Popsicles make your tongue cold.' '

'Speaking of kids, what about this five-million-dollar program you announced on the Oprah show? Doesn't that indicate that your industry feels guilty about its product?'

'No,' Nick said. 'Not at all.'

Heather appeared to be waiting for a better answer.

'I think it shows a remarkable sense of sensitivity.'

'But isn't it hypocritical for the tobacco companies to mount an anti-smoking program for kids when they're spending millions in advertising to hook them in the first place? That absurd camel, Old Joe, with the nose like a penis and a saxophone. Honestly.'

Nick shook his head. 'Boy, you put up five million dollars to keep kids from smoking, and does anyone say, 'Thanks'?'

' 'Thanks'?' Heather laughed.

'Not that we're implying that smoking is harmful to their health. But you don't want to take any chances where children are concerned. I mean, they're the future, right?'

'Wow,' Heather said.

' 'Wow'?' Nick said. It was her admiring tone that threw him off balance.

'I… ' she flushed, 'this is awkward for me.'

'Please,' Nick said, almost taking her hand, 'tell me.'

'It's a little embarrassing.'

'You don't have to be. Really.'

'I find this all very… stimulating.'

'What do you find stimulating?'

'Your total absence of morality.' She sounded excited. Her eyes looked dreamy behind the glasses; she was leaning in close to him. 'I get the feeling you'd do anything to pay that mortgage.'

'Well, within limits.'

'I was raised Catholic. Maybe that's why I find evil so refreshing.'

'Evil?' Nick said with a nervous laugh.

She reached over and with her thumb and forefinger started playing with his silk Hermes tie. 'But rarely have I seen it so attractively packaged.' Her eyes raised slowly from the tie to his. Dimples. 'Sick, isn't it?'

'Oh,' Nick shrugged, 'I'm not much into judging.'

'I've actually gone to shrinks about it. They say it's all bound up with my feelings about religion and authority. Some women are turned on by dirty talk. I'm turned on by moral degenerates.'

'Well, I don't really see myself as—'

'Oh,' she said huskily, 'shut up and tell me again about your plans to get more children to smoke.'

'Don't you have it backwards?'

'Oh no,' Heather said, dipping into her zabaglione and putting a custardy finger into her mouth, 'I don't think so.'

'Off the record?'

Her chest swelled. 'What about very… deep… background?'

'Check.' Nick waved to the waiter.