By the second day following the transplant, the mole had almost completely subsumed the girl. The only vestige of her that remained visible amid the throbbing brown neoplasm was the big toe of her left foot, which she could still wiggle in response to questions.
I asked her: “After all that’s happened to you, do you still idolize Leyner, do you still consider him some sort of messianic savior?”
“Yes! Yes!” She wiggled emphatically.
I’ll never forget that fuchsia toenail twitching zealously, as her EEG became flatter and flatter.…
CHIP GIBSON: Let’s go back to 1983 or 1984. I’m fuckin’ selling stolen $5,00 °Chanel quilted leather biker jackets out of the trunk of my car for $600 a pop. And I’m bangin’ this manicurist on weekends — fuckin’ bangin’ her in a hot tub at a friend’s condo in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and I’m drivin’ at the time a fuckin’ … a fuckin’ … uh … a fuckin’ … what the hell was that called … a fuckin’ … fuckin’ uh … Toyota Celica GT. Red. And I got this air freshener on my rearview mirror — you send a photograph of yourself to this company in Florida and they make an air freshener out of it — so I got this little cutout of myself dangling from my rearview mirror and it smells like a fuckin’ coconut. And this broad’s got a big fuckin’ brown recluse spider bite scar on her ass…
You want “oral history”? I can fuckin’ go back to 1958, for Christ’s sake. There I am, I’m in the doctor’s office, I’m fuckin’ five years old. My parents take me to this doctor to see why I talk like this. ’Cause, see, my parents don’t talk like this. My father’s a pretty well-known anthropologist at Yale — he’s pretty famous for translating the hieroglyphs from the fuckin’ … the fuckin’ … who the fuck … they’re like the earliest fuckin’ wetbacks … the fuckin’ … the Mayans. The Mayans. And my mother was like head of the Brandeis Alumni Association, y’know, nationwide. So they don’t know why I talk like this and they take me to this specialist. And we’re sittin’ there. And I remember I’m eatin’ a fuckin’ corn muffin and I’m hittin’ the doctor on the side of the head with the back of my hand while I’m talkin’ to him like whap! c’mon, you stupid prick, what’s your fuckin’ problem? and I’m sprayin’ corn muffin in the guy’s face, I’m like pollinating this fuckin’ guy with these yellow crumbs and I’m like whap! whap! y’know? ’Cause I hate this guy, I hate this prick. And he says to my parents: I don’t think there’s any neurological damage, maybe he should see a speech therapist. And I’m like fuckin’: don’t quit your day job, Doc. Whap! Whap!
At any rate, I did eventually see a speech therapist, and in 1992 I became Senior Vice President, Trade Sales and Marketing Division, Random House, Inc., and that’s how I originally met Mark Leyner.
Leyner’s recent problems, beginning with the Lincoln’s morning breath theft and culminating with his disappearance, disrupted the most elaborate, energetic, and expensive sales and marketing program we at Vintage had ever undertaken for any author. Since Leyner had his own Saturday morning cartoon show and a Leyner doll, Vintage had secured a deal with Toys “Я” Us to sell his books in the toy stores next to the dolls. One of the most exciting things about the project for Vintage was that — with Toys “Я” Us — we had the opportunity to reach a subteen group, giving us a whole new market. Then we signed a fifteen-year deal with Mattel to sell a line of Team Leyner preschool and infant toys based on characters from Leyner’s books. There was a cuddly little stuffed “Carmella,” a “Joe Casale” tub toy with movable flippers, a “Kid Woman” talking doll that spoke Spanish or Quechua depending on which braid you pulled, bionic elderly bodyguard “action figures”—we anticipated annual sales of close to $200 million. But now the entire marketing program is on what’s called “permanent hiatus.” It’s a shame.
I like Leyner personally — he’s a hell of a lot of fun to party with — but I don’t think he’s ever considered how many people are hurt by his irresponsible behavior. And I don’t think it’s going to be a very “Team Leyner” Christmas for all the folks we’re going to have to lay off.…
[The announcement of Leyner’s disappearance sent Mattel stock plunging on the New York Stock Exchange to $35,625 a share, down $8,075. The news also sent shock waves through the Tokyo Stock Exchange. At the midday recess, the Nikkei index of 225 issues was down 6,574.75 points, or about 15 percent, to 24,115.79.]
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: On a number of occasions, on the way home from the Supreme Court, I stopped in at Team Leyner Headquarters for a Coke or a Bud Light — but it was no matter of great import …
SENATOR CECIL VALGUS: Justice Thomas, approximately how many times did you stop in at Team Leyner on the way home from the Supreme Court?
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: Senator, I’d say approximately 1,100 times I stopped in at Team Leyner — and in order to continue a debate I’d been having with Mark about, say, the relationship between quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence or St. Augustine’s conception of a neo-Platonic God or Lacanian psychoanalysis — I’d stop in at Team Leyner Headquarters and have a Diet Dr. Pepper or an Amstel Light.
SENATOR CECIL VALGUS: Justice Thomas, did you ever — on any of these approximately 1,100 occasions when you say you stopped in at Team Leyner Headquarters to continue a discussion — take anabolic steroids, Thorazine, Percodan, or LSD with Mark Leyner?
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: Senator, I categorically deny that. I did, on several occasions, stop in at Team Leyner Headquarters on the way home from the Supreme Court to continue a discussion I might be having with Mark about the sonnets of Gerard de Nerval or the impact of movable type and gunpowder on the decline of the feudal nobility, and I did on a number of those occasions have several tablespoons of Maalox Extra-strength Antacid/Antiflatulent and several Extra-strength Tylenol Gelcaps.
SENATOR CECIL VALGUS: Justice Thomas, did Mark Leyner ever discuss with you his desire to develop a clandestine nuclear weapons plant at the Team Leyner facility?
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: No, Senator.
SENATOR CECIL VALGUS: More specifically, Justice Thomas, did he ever discuss with you using funds from a secret family trust in Liechtenstein to acquire the technology to produce weapons-grade plutonium?
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: Senator, that is absolutely, categorically untrue. Nothing even remotely resembling such a conversation ever took place between Mark Leyner and myself.
SENATOR CECIL VALGUS: Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions for Justice Thomas.
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to the members of this committee, I must express to you my belief that conducting these investigations into the activities of Team Leyner at a time when Mr. Leyner is unable to participate and unable to refute the scurrilous attacks on his name — at a time when his whereabouts are unknown and his well-being, his very existence, is in doubt — is profoundly unfair, and it’s tearing the very fabric of our society asunder.
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: I was the last person to be alone with him before he vanished that afternoon. He was dressed in a green uniform with gold epaulets, crotchless blue pantaloons, and red top boots, unshaven, bleary-eyed, working relentlessly — mauling his computer keyboard like some kind of rabid animal — pausing intermittently to gobble a handful of electric-eel roe from a nearby terrine, wiping his mouth on a piece of fan mail, and then renewing his assault. I don’t know how graphic you want me to get — but it was obvious that he was extremely aroused by whatever he was writing. And there was just something so incredibly sexy about him as he worked. He was so … he just had this … this “thing” about him.