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.
I brought 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.”
“Eighty-six him, babe. No freelancing means no freelancing, no exceptions. And impound the sod.”
“OK, Mr. Leyner.”
“Joe, any paternity suits this week?”
“Only two, Mr. Leyner. Both women are members of the Ecuadorian Olympic Equestrian Team, and their attorney’s hired a forensic DNA-fingerprinting laboratory to provide incontestable evidence that you’re the father.”
“As soon as the meeting’s over, Joe, I want you to Fed Ex the director of the lab a Team Leyner belt buckle and insignia magnet, and an official Team Leyner trivet. OK, babe?”
“Consider it done, Mr. Leyner.”
“Anything else, Joe?”
“Two more things. While you were away, a Japanese industrialist named Takeshi Oshiro, who owns the Uchiyama Paper Manufacturing Company, paid $19,250 in a public auction at Sotheby’s for one of your discarded deodorant sticks with a stray armpit hair and — this is such a weird coincidence — he’s hired the same DNA-fingerprinting lab to confirm that it’s your armpit hair, and if it’s not, Sotheby’s has agreed to refund the 19K and change. And lastly, I just wanted to remind you that this coming Friday they’re shooting the commercial for Becker Surgical Devices and they need you on the set at about ten A.M.”
“Thanks, Joe, good job. Desiree, you’re up.”
“Well, first of all, I’m happy to report that we’re close to completing a comprehensive demographic analysis of your readership, which means that now we’ll be able to develop software that can alter your texts depending on which regional or even local audiences we’re targeting. For instance, in a forthcoming novel, you have a giant who eats postmenopausal crossing guards. OK — we now know that you have a rabidly enthusiastic following in the rural northwest, but in the rural northwest they don’t have crossing guards because generally kids out there don’t walk to school. So with the new demographically based software, the computer can flag something like that and change the postmenopausal crossing guards to postmenopausal school-bus drivers or whatever is appropriate for the rural northwest edition. It’s yet another way of making readers feel as if you’re writing just for them.”
“That’s really cool.”
“It’s also a pleasure to report that the initial response to the 1-800-T-LEYNER number has been just fabulous.”
“What’s the deal on that, Dez? You get a choice of different messages when you call or what?”
“A fan calls 1-800-T-LEYNER and — using a touch-tone phone, of course — dials 1 to hear an excerpt from your upcoming book, 2 for your most intimate thoughts about weight-lifting, 3 for dating advice, 4 for an up-close-and-personal tidbit from Arleen, and 5 for a cute anecdote about Carmella. And the messages change every week. It’s $2 for the first minute, $1 for every additional minute. Fans under 18, please don’t call without your parents’ permission.”