Wholly Smokes (12 page)
FACT: Smoking does keep your weight down. In clinical tests, people who smoked S
TREET
L
IFE
weighed up to
TEN POUNDS LESS
than those who refrained from smoking. The non-smokers typically satisfied their cravings with fats and sweets, which often lead to skin problems, heart disease and diabetes.
And over here’s a math problem, figuringhow much tax the government gouges out of apack of cigarettes. Teens always like to ponder how the government is out to get them.
For those kids already smoking S
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IFE
, we’ll of course be offeringsales incentives. They can save our coupons and get all kinds of badass stuff with our logo: lighters, leather jackets, bandannas, boot holsters, special tattoos, jewelry to be worn in the nose, tongue, nipples, and so on.
BOARD MEMBER: What about music?
DWIGHT: We’ve created a music video that says it all.
THE MUSIC VIDEO (shows a popular rap group wearing caps, billowing t-shirts, baggy shorts, and shoes an inch thick. They flap their elbows and knees, glower at the camera, and periodically twist their hands into grotesque, spastic-looking gang signs. The logo on
everything, like the huge graffito in the background, says, S
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IFE
):
They tell you don’t smoke, but that’s just jive
They don’t wanna let you just be alive Just B, just B, just B, Just B, just be, just B. A. live S
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IFE!
Dad say, Don’t you smoke, son, cuz
you 2 young It bad fo’ you, it bad fo’ yo lung And we don’t wanna let you have no fun
Bring me that ashtray and shut yo face But Dad’s blowin’ smoke and he’s a
disgrace To the whole human race Dis, dis, dis, disgrace, Dis, dis, dis, disgrace, to the whole human race
.
S
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L
IFE
!
Teacher say, Don’t smoke on the schoo’ proppity
Drive by, smoke her, hippity hoppity She puffin’ away on the playground herself
She only worried about my healf
It legal fo’ them, why not fo’ me?
It legal, it legal, it legal
It legal, it legal, it legal fo’ them, why not fo’ me?
S
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L
IFE
!
DWIGHT (suddenly draws his cut-lass, leaps up on the conference table, and begins a wild dance. His sea boots kick over coffee carafes, he stomps on papers, he writhes and screams and whirls the cutlass overhead): Yes, yes, I’m the scourge. I’m the scourge. I’m the scourge of the goddamn Caribbean!
(Grabs a woman and hauls her up on the table. They struggle. Dwight’s “white bandanna” comes off. It turns out to be not a bandanna at all, but a bandage. Its removal reveals a shaved head bearing a large scar.)
BOARD MEMBER: Stop him, someone! And for God’s sake, turn off that camera.
In secret, Dwight Badcock had been undergoing
surgery for a massive brain tumor. He was now taken away again to the hospital, for more surgery. Was the tumor producedby grandfather Horace, painting the infant Dwight’s little head with tobacco tar? We may never know for sure. In any case, Dwight was no longer head of the company.
Dust in Badcock
Dwight was succeeded by his son, Dustin Badcock, an anti-tobacco activist. He was able to stop all cigarette advertising aimed at children, especially the infamous Operation Puff Love. He vowed that he would close the tobacco side of the business entirely, and concentrate on food. The shareholders threatened lawsuits to stop him. Dustin soon found that he had…
a tiger by the tail. If I stay in charge, I am guilty myself of producing the very poisons I’ve always fought against. If I resign, or they force me out with a lawsuit, GST will become even bigger and better at poisoning Americans. Somehow I’ve got
to find an acceptable way to shut it all down. Maybe all these state and federal health lawsuits will help… or maybe new federal regulations…
Yet his final rescue came neither from state nor federal government, but from an unexpected quarter.
In January, 2009, an out-of-work factory worker named Delmar Birtwhistle, of Soybean Station, Nebraska, was smoking as he drove his pickup on an icy country road. When he attempted to remove the cigarette from his mouth after a puff, it stuck to his lip, and Mr. Birtwhistle pulled the hot coal off the end. It fell into his lap. While pawing frantically at it, Mr. Birtwhistle managed to run his pickup off the road. He was fortunate in that he ran off on a driveway. He was unfortunate in that the driveway led him straight through the glass front of a fast-food restaurant. Moreover, the restaurant happened to be filled with handicapped children.
Though no children were actually hurt, many were said to be traumatized by the crash. Their guardians sued GST; the restaurant sued GST, and even Mr. Birtwhistle sued GST.
The essence of Delmar Birtwhistle’s case was that his whole life had been plagued by tobacco. His mother had smoked heavily during pregnancy. His parents hadboth chain-smoked all during
his childhood, saturating his little lungs with second-handsmoke. His only childhood toys were ashtrays, lighters, pipe-cleaners, and Christmas cartons of cigarettes. When they went shopping, his parents would lock him in a smoke-filled car with the windows rolled up (This fact gave rise to the new legal concept of “third-hand smoke.”)
At school, his teachers and all of the older kids smoked incessantly. He held out for a time, but finally Little Delmar, just seven years old, inhaled his first Hit. Soon he was up to three packs a day, a habit he maintained for life.
When Delmar reached adolescence, he was able to support his habit only by crime. He began by breaking into vending machines, and moved on to gas station holdups. In prison, where cigarettes were precious currency, his habit forced him to smoke up a fortune.
After prison, Delmar tried going straight. He married Thelma Harris, a woman who workedin the Hits factory. She too was addicted. They filled their house with thick smoke and with Hits smoking memorabilia – lighters, ashtrays, placards, neon signs. Delmar tried to get a job at the Hits factory himself, but there was the problem of his prison record. It was hard to find work anywhere – those companies who hired excons usually had no-smoking policies.
When he saw his little son playing with ashtrays and lighters, Delmar realized his own life
had been ruined by GST, and now they were about to ruin his son’s life too. Distraught and suicidal, Delmar jumped in his pickup and went for a drive in the country. He lit a Hit to soothe his jangled nerves. Because of its “defective construction,” the cigarette stuck to his lip. The hot coal fell into his lap, “burning him severely” says the lawsuit, “in a tender area.”
“My client’s entire life has been corrupted and devastated by GST. Its shadow lay over him from before his birth until the day of his terrible accident. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we ask only that GST, at long last, begin to pay for this wanton destruction!” The plaintiffs asked for punitive damages of 130 billion dollars.
As the scent of money spread in the water, GST was soon surrounded by the circling fins of many more lawyers. There developed a class action suit for all persons injured by smoking-related accidents, including not only car accidents, but several light plane crashes, a forest fire, many hotel fires, and a bizarre incident somehow involving a breast implant.
Buried under an avalanche of lawsuits, GST filed for bankruptcy in October 2011. An American era had ended.
The End
1614 Henry Badcock abducts Pocahontas.
1665 Enoch and Erasmus Badcock inherit plantations.
1666 Erasmus Badcock starts Great Fire of London.
1776 Samuel Badcock’s tobacco starts American War of Independence.
1862 Tristram Badcock dies in Civil War.
1865 Jezreel Badcock meets Scarlotta, gets an address in Gettysburg.
1878 Fillmore Badcock invents the baseball card.
1885 Fillmore Badcock’s death by tobacco gin (Cleveland).
1898 Adair Badcock dies in Cuba.
1898 Blessington Badcock dies in Cuba.
1917 Augustus Badcock invents Lady Fantasy.
1937 LeRoy Badcock takes passage on the Hindenburg.
1937 Augustus Badcock chokes to death on Cairo Cut Plug. Horace (“Boomer”) Badcock takes power.
1941 Horace Badcock invents Hits cigarettes, becomes two-star general.
1952 Horace Badcock paints cigarette tar on his grandson’s head.
1952 Elwood (“Woody”) Badcock begins medical commercials.
1961 Woody Badcock creates exploding cigar for Castro.
1975 Dwight Badcock takes over, introduces menthol cigarettes.
1990s Dwight Badcock starts Operation Puff Love.
1998 Death of Dwight Badcock. Dustin Badcock takes power.
2009 Delmar Birtwhistle’s accident.
2011 The end of GST.
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