“I didn’t either,” I said. “I was really looking forward to it. But then I had the trip from hell. And then things got even worse.”
“Poor baby. What’s wrong? Tell me about it.”
So I did, skipping the trip and going straight to the ambush interview by the TV reporter.
“Sweeps week,” she said scornfully.
“What?”
“Sweeps week. It’s when the networks pull out all the stops. They measure their ratings — their viewers — during sweeps week. The higher their ratings, the more they can charge for ads. So they show blockbuster movies, sensational stories, anything they think’ll get viewers. Don’t take it personally, hon. It’s all about money, not about you.”
“It sure feels like it’s about me,” I squawked. “It’s my work — my facility; my reputation — in the crosshairs of that… that…”
“Language, Bill. Language.”
“That reporter. That mudslinging, muckraking, holier-than-thou reporter. Am I allowed to call her that?”
“Of course, sweetheart — to me. I wouldn’t say it to her, though. Not unless you want every television viewer in Nashville to think you’re a grumpy old man.”
“Grumpy? Me? Hmmph,” I said. “I’ll be nice as pie. She’ll be eating out of my hand.”
“If I catch her lips anywhere near any part of you, her next story can be about her colonoscopy. The one I administer with her own video camera.”
I laughed, in spite of myself. “I should’ve come to your office instead of my office,” I said. “I’m thinking I might have gotten a warmer welcome.”
“I’d’ve been nice as pie,” she cooed. “You’d’ve been eating out of my hand.”
“Hold that thought for a few hours,” I told her. My spousal flirting was cut short by the buzz of my intercom. “Rats,” I said. “Peggy’s buzzing me. Probably more bad news. See you at home.” I pressed the intercom button. “Tell me you’ve good news, Peggy.”
“Can’t,” she answered. “You’ve told me never to lie to you. Do you want door number one, or door number two?”
“Excuse me?”
“You have two callers on hold. The dean’s on line one, and the general counsel’s on line two.”
“The general counsel? As in Amanda Whiting, UT’s top legal eagle?”
“Bingo.”
“Jeez,” I said. “If line three rings, don’t answer — it’ll be the Angel of Death calling.”
“No, he’s coming to see you in person,” she cracked. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“Swell,” I said. “I’ll tell the dean to talk slow — that way maybe I can skip the lawyer altogether.” The truth was, I rather liked the general counsel, but given that the Channel 4 reporter was probably already badgering her, I doubted that she was calling with good news. The dean, on the other hand, had long been a reliable, agreeable ally, from the moment I’d first pitched my unorthodox research program to him, years ago. How many years? Ten? No, twelve, I realized as I pressed the blinking button. That was 1992. Where does the time go?
“Hello,” I said to the dean. “Are you calling to fire me?”
“I can’t,” he said. “You’ve got tenure. Good thing, too, because you’ve stirred up a hell of a hornet’s nest.”
“I didn’t stir it up,” I protested. “I just happened to be standing near the tree. Somebody else took a whack at the hornet’s nest. I don’t know who, and I don’t know why.”
“Actually, I’m calling to make sure you know I’m in your corner,” he said. “You do good work. You’re a credit to the university. Let me know if I can help.”
“You good with a pair of tweezers?”
“How’s that?”
“It might take you and me both to pull all the stingers out of my hide.”
He chuckled. “You’ll be all right. Good luck, Bill.”
“I need it. Amanda Whiting’s on the other line.”
“Ah. You do need it,” he agreed, and for once I wished he weren’t quite so agreeable.
General Counsel Amanda Whiting was less agreeable than the dean had been. “We’ve got one hell of a mess on our hands,” she said. Her words were muddled, and for a bizarre moment I wondered if she was drinking. Then I heard the clatter of a knife on a plate, and I realized she was eating. “How do we clean this up and make sure it never happens again?”
“I’ve offered to give the bodies back,” I told her. “If anybody takes me up on it, I’ll gladly deliver the bodies myself. As to how to make sure it doesn’t happen again, I suppose we can check with the Veterans Administration every time we get a body. But what a pain. We screen bodies for AIDS and hepatitis; I didn’t realize we needed to screen them for prior occupation.”
“We live in litigious times, Bill. We can’t afford to risk lawsuits — million-dollar claims for pain and suffering — filed by relatives of those science-project guinea pigs you’ve got rotting on the ground.”
“What an eloquent description,” I snapped. “Mind if I borrow that? It would give that Nashville reporter a much better grasp of the merit and dignity of our research. ‘Science-project guinea pigs, rotting on the ground’: Have I got that right?”
“Sorry,” she said. “That was out of line. You know that’s not what I really think. I’m looking at it as a lawyer; putting it in the worst possible way — the way a plaintiff’s attorney would, if somebody slapped us with a lawsuit. It could happen.”
“Someone could claim my research caused pain and suffering? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“What about the pain and suffering of dying alone? Where were these sensitive, caring relatives when these poor guys were staring death in the face, with no one to hold their hand or say how much they’d meant?”
“It stinks,” she agreed. “No pun intended. But we need to tread carefully here. I know you have respect for the dead. We just need to make sure that others know that, too.” She paused, then cleared her throat. “The reporter’s pushing hard to get in.”
“No surprise there.” I sighed. “Look, I think it’s a bad, bad idea. We turn her loose in there with a camera, she’ll crucify us. You’ve never been out to the research facility. It’s not pretty, Amanda, what the body goes through after death. That’s why the funeral industry is so huge — that’s why we spend billions of dollars a year to make the dead look like the living. Because we don’t want to confront the ugly reality of our mortality. The buggy, bloated, putrefying reality.”
“Bill, I’m eating lunch here. Or was.”
“If there’s rice on your plate, make sure it’s not wiggling,” I said. She groaned, and I laughed. “But seriously, we don’t want her in there with a camera. She’s got an ax to grind. And she wants to put our necks—my neck — on the chopping block. Tell her no.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “We’re in a bit of a bind here, Bill,” she said finally. “We’re a publicly funded institution. We’re responsible — we’re accountable—to the taxpayers of Tennessee. We don’t have the option of concealing what we’re doing with their money.”
“I’m not trying to conceal it,” I said. “I’m just trying not to rub their noses in it. Because frankly, even though this work is important, it’s not real pleasant. You remember that old TV commercial — for shampoo or hair color? — that showed a gorgeous woman running toward a guy? Slow motion, her long blond hair bounding up and down, up and down, with every stride?”
“Yeah, that rings a bell. Vaguely. Your point being…?”