The doctor, in his fifties, graying and distinguished, was a solid performer who knew every trick in television's manual, including how to smile disarmingly, when to act the fatherly physician, and at what point to use a simplistic diagram of a stomach. "My subject today," be informed his unseen audience, "is constipation."
Nim watched and listened, fascinated.
“ . . Many people worry needlessly. What not to do is take laxatives. Millions of dollars' worth are sold each year-a waste; many are damaging to your health . . . Most constipation is 'imagined.' A daily bowel movement can be a needless fetish . . . Let your natural cycle have its way. For some, five to seven days without is normal. Be patient, wait . . . A real problem: Some folks don't heed the call of nature immediately. They're busy, they postpone. That's bad. The bowel gets discouraged, tired of trying . . . Eat high roughage food, drink lots of water to stay moist . .."
Van Buren leaned across. "Oh God, Nim! I'm sorry."
He assured her softly, "Don't be. Wouldn't have missed it. I only hope I'm not an anticlimax."
The doctor was faded out, a commercial in. The program assistant took Nini's arm. "You're on, Mr. Goldman." She escorted him to the center of the set, where he was seated. While the commercial continued, Nim and the interviewers shook hands. Jerry, frowning,- cautioned him “Were running late, and don’t have much time, so keep your answers short." He accepted a sheet of notes from a stagehand, then, as if a switch had been snapped, his smile went on and he turned toward a camera.
"Our last guest today knows a great deal about electricity and oil. He is....."
After the introduction, Jean asked Nim brightly, "Are we really going to have electricity cuts, or is it just another scare, something which in the end won't happen?"
"It's no scare, and it will happen." (You want short answers, Nim thought; so, okay.)
Jerry was consulting the sheet be had been given. "About that alleged oil shortage . . ."
Nim cut in quickly. "It is not alleged."
The interviewer's smile widened. "We'll let you get away with that one." He went back to his notes. "Anyway, haven't we had a glut of oil recently in California-oil coming in from Alaska, from the pipeline?"
“There have been some temporary local surpluses," Nim agreed. "But now, with the rest of the country desperately in need of oil, any extra will disappear fast."
"It seems selfish," Jean said, "but can't we keep that Alaska oil in California?"
"No." Nim shook his head. “The federal government controls it, and already has an allocation program. Every state, every city in the country, is pressuring Washington, demanding a share. There won't be much for anyone when the available domestic oil is spread around."
"I understand," Jerry said, referring to his notes once more, "that Golden State Power has a thirty-day supply of oil. That doesn't sound too bad."
“The figure is true in one sense," Nim acknowledged, "but misleading in another. For one thing, it's impossible to use oil down to the bottom of every tank. For another, the oil isn't always where it's needed most; one generating plant may be without oil, another have enough in storage for several days, and the facilities to move big quantities of oil around are limited. For both reasons, twenty-five days is more realistic."
"Well," Jerry said, "let's hope everything is back to normal before those days run out."
Nim told him, “There's not the slightest chance of that. Even if agreement is reached with the OPEC oil nations, it will take . . ."
"Excuse me," Jean said, "but we're short of time and I have another question, Mr. Goldman. Couldn't your company have foreseen what has happened about oil and made other plans?"
The effrontery, the injustice, the incredible naivety of the question astounded Nim. Then anger rose. Subduing it, he answered, "Golden State Power & Light has been attempting to do precisely that for at least ten years. But everything our company proposed-nuclear plants, geothermal, pumped storage, coal burning-bas been opposed, delayed or thwarted by. . ."
"I'm truly sorry," Jerry interrupted, "but we just ran out of time. Thank you, Mr. Goldman, for being with us." He addressed a zooming lens. "Among the interesting guests on Lunch Break tomorrow will be an Indian swami and . . ."
On their way out of the TV station building, Teresa Van Buren said dispiritedly to Nim, "Even now, no one believes us, do they?"
“They'll believe soon enough," Nim said. "When they all keep flipping switches and nothing happens."
* * *
While preparations for widespread blackouts went ahead, and a sense of crisis peryaded GSP & L, incongruities persisted.
One was the Energy Commission hearings on Tunipah which continued, unchanged, at their original maddening pace.
"A stranger from Mars, using commonsense," Oscar O'Brien observed during lunch with Nim and Eric Humphrey, "would assume, in view of our present power emergency, that licensing procedures for projects like Tunipah, Fincastle, and Devil's Gate would move faster. Well, Mr. Commonsense Mars would be dead wrong."
The general counsel moodily ate some of his lunch, then continued, "When you're in there at those hearings, listening to testimony and the same old rehashed arguments about procedure, you'd think no one knows or cares what's going on in the real world outside. Oh, by the way, we have a new group fighting us on Tunipah. They call themselves CANED, which, if I remember it right, means Crusaders Against Needless Energy Development.
And compared with CANED's accusations about Golden State Power & Light, Davey Birdsong was a friend and ally."
"Opposition is a hydra-headed monster," Eric Humphrey mused, then added, “The Governor's support of Tunipah seems to have made little, if any, difference."
"That's because bureaucracy is stronger than governors, presidents, or any of us," O'Brien said. "Fighting bureaucracy nowadays is like wrestling a sea of mud while you're in it up to your armpits. I'll make a prediction: When the blackouts hit the Energy Commission building, the hearings on Tunipah will continue by candlelight-with nothing else changed."
As to the Fincastle geothermal, and Devil's Gate pumped storage plant proposals, the general counsel reported that dates to begin public hearings had still had not been set by the responsible state agencies.
Oscar O'Brien's general disenchantment, as well as Nim's, extended to the bogus Consumer Survey distributed in the city's North Castle district. It was almost three weeks since the carefully planned questionnaire had gone out and it now appeared as if the attempt to entrap the terrorist leader, Georgos Archambault, had been abortive, a waste of time and money.
Within a few days after the bulk mailing, hundreds of replies poured in, and continued to do so through the following weeks. A large basement room at GSP & L headquarters was set aside to deal with the influx and a staff of eight clerks installed there. Six were borrowed from various departments, the other two recruited from the District Attorney's office.
Between them, they painstakingly examined every completed questionnaire.
The D.A.'s office also sent photographic blowups of handwriting samples from Georgos Archambault's journal, and the clerks worked with these in view. To guard against error, each questionnaire was examined separately by three people. The result was definite: Nothing had come in which matched the handwriting samples. Now, the special staff was down to two, the remainder having returned to their regular duties. A few replies were still trickling in and being routinely examined. But it seemed unlikely, at this stage, that Georgos Archambault would be heard from. To Nim, in any case, the project had become a lot less important than the critical oil supply problem which occupied his working days and nights.