Dawn of the Unthinkable (32 page)

“Well, Mr. Ryan, that’s an interesting story
as far as it goes. I’m just not sure that it goes any further, you
understand, because even if you have all those Weebles tilting
toward it, without the right publicity, apparently no one else will
ever hear of it. The idea will ‘die aborning’ as they say, and no
one will ever get the chance to vote on it. That would be a damn
shame, because I think it has some merit, at the very least it
should be discussed. Now, of course, I work for the Associated
Press, and our stuff appears in quite a few papers. If you wanted,
I could become your exclusive reporter for this, whenever you or
the rest of your group uttered a peep, I would make sure it would
get into print if it were newsworthy. This would keep you from
having to go hat-in-hand, begging for coverage. A pretty good deal,
I’d say.” Grayboys sat back, smugly convinced that he had made a
successful pitch. If he could get on board firmly now, he could
ride on their backs like a tick, sucking the juice out of this
story.

Ryan looked at him and snorted. He said
indignantly, “What, do you think I just fell off the truck? I know
that if this story breaks, and we think it will, I’ll be hotter
than hot for a while. If I get involved in an exclusive deal now,
I’ll be pissing away my opportunity to talk to Ted Koppel, Dan
Rather, or any other mega-newsman who may come knocking. No sir,
I’ll give you favorable treatment because you were the first, but
that’s about it. If you don’t like that, then another guy will come
along, and maybe he’ll be willing to write it up. What do you think
of that, Mr. Grayboys?” Now it was Ryan’s turn to be smug because
he felt he had shown that he wasn’t a naive waif just waiting to be
led around by a news reporter.

Ryan’s understanding of the situation
surprised Grayboys. He would have to adjust his tactics to make
sure he landed this fish. He had become accustomed to dealing with
the knuckleheads of the world who were dying to spill their beans
to the first reporter that would pay them any mind. Here he was up
against someone who knew the value of their story and wasn’t just
going to give it away. Well, that was all right. He had used his
limited charm to his advantage before. He figured he could make it
work for him this time, too.

He said, “Ok, Mr. Ryan, it is an interesting
story, and if there are already quite a few people lined up to
support it, then it becomes even more interesting. Perhaps we can
help each other. If you give me a little more inside access than
the average reporter that might show up once we’ve run the story,
then I’ll give you whatever limited advice you may want from an
elder newsman. There are quite a few ways to have this story come
out, and those that would portray you as a crackpot leading a
desperate group of revolutionaries are not going to win you much
support in the upper echelons. Now, you might say that you don’t
need the upper crust, that you can push this through with the sheer
numbers of the poor and working class. That’s just dreaming because
the upper echelon controls the media, especially TV. One thing the
poor do is watch a lot of TV, and the people who put the
programming on the air have more money than you or I could dream
of. Do you think they are going to be bullied into airing stories
about you, who suggests that they give up all the goodies they and
their ancestors have stood on the shoulders of the poor to acquire?
Of course not, you don’t see them airing admiring documentaries
about Castro, do you? No, and they won’t touch you either, unless
you build up creditability with small, objective stories that start
as a whimsical, ‘Gee, whiz, will ya get a load of this!’ pieces and
then build up as the idea sinks into the public consciousness. I
can do that sort of write-up. My articles are usually used as
column fillers anyway, so we can sneak the first story in as a two
to three paragraph short and then go from there. What do you
think?”

Ryan eyed the man appraisingly. He could see
that he was pressing and sensed that his career could use a shot in
the arm, judging from his worn out suit. He thought he should
consult again with Cunningham, but then, wasn’t he the original
thought guy behind this whole idea? Why should he have to consult
anyone? This guy seemed trustworthy, and his approach to the story
made sense. Besides, Ryan was finally getting the attention he felt
he deserved, and the AP had never turned his article down before
(because he had not sent it to them), so he had no bad blood with
them. So why not go with this guy and see how things shook out? He
would get Gryaboys’ promise to let him see the story before it went
in and get final approval on all stories in the future. In that
way, he could control the way it spun out and show his value to the
others in the group who had been making most of the big gains for
them recently. His role was public relations; here at last he was
getting his chance to do it. But before he agreed to get into bed
with this guy, he should at least check out some of his work.

He decided to put him off for a while until
he did his background check. He stood up and said, “Bob, that’s an
interesting offer, but I’m going to have to sleep on it. Could I
get back to you in a day or two before you run your story? And if I
did give you inside access, would you allow me final story
approval?” He hadn’t spent his whole life working for the
government in vain; he was able to negotiate some pretty good deals
for himself with skills gained on the job.

His request took Grayboys by surprise; it
was something he usually heard from a media agent who was
representing a hot property who didn’t need the AP’s coverage. He
was always amused to hear from the same people on their way down,
begging him to write anything, good or bad, after their careers had
peaked. In this case, he wouldn’t give a media “nobody” any
approval rights, which he rarely did, anyway. Of course, he
couldn’t come right out and say that. He had to sugarcoat so that
it came out as a qualified yes. He said, “Well, I don’t usually get
into allowing people to edit my stuff. That tends to slant my
viewpoint too much toward what they think I should be saying
instead of what I think I should be saying. But what I’ll do is
give you a general idea of what the article is going to say. How’s
that?”

Ryan looked at him with all the fondness of
Jerry Seinfeld looking at Newman. “An alliance?” he said, quoting
one of his favorite characters.

Grayboys caught the allusion and acted the
Newman role admirably. “An alliance,” he confirmed, and they shook
hands.

Grayboys laughed and said, “You like
Seinfeld
, too, huh?”

Ryan said, “It’s one of my favorite shows, I
watch it every Thursday night.”

Grayboys said, “Well, there you go. We have
something in common. I watch it, too. Okay, well listen, Nick…can I
call you Nick? I’ll write up a little something now to see what
type of reaction we get. If I hurry, I might be able to get it into
tomorrow’s papers. After that, if there’s interest, we’ll sit down
and talk further about how you envision this thing working and more
about you personally. Sound good?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He moved to the door
to show Grayboys out.

At the door, he asked Grayboys what section
of the paper he should look for it in, and Grayboys laughed. He
said, “With me, it’s hard to say. My stuff is so far off the beaten
track that I’ve ended up in the cooking and pets sections. So
you’re going to have to look around. It depends on whether tomorrow
is a busy news day or not. If it isn’t, look for it more toward the
front sections. If it is, more toward the back or not at all.
Sometimes I end up on the cutting room floor. See ya, Ryan.” And
with that, he left, leaving Ryan to wonder if he had made a mistake
and hooked up with a hack. How would he explain this to the others
if the article made them look like a joke? Worse, what if it scared
Kennedy off, whom he assumed wanted to look privately at the idea
before he gave it any support. He wondered if he should call
Gryaboys back and tell him it was all just a big hoax, that the old
guy was out of his mind. But then he thought,
Nah, why should ?,
I’ve been working to get this publicized for years, why should I
call off the “First Contact” now?
He remembered the
Star
Trek
episode where the crew prepared to contact an alien
species for the first time; they spent several weeks studying them
before they actually made contact. Perhaps that is what they should
have done, thought of the media as aliens, and prepared for them.
He decided to wait to see if the article appeared at all before he
decided what his next move would be.

He got up early the next day to get the
paper and anxiously pulled through it. The economy was doing worse,
the President was trying to push through a massive tax cut, and the
rest of the world was fighting with each other as always. Usually,
Ryan would conduct a little mental exercise to see how he could
trace each problem, no matter how varied, back to its roots as a
disagreement over money, religion, or resources. But today, he
skipped that, quickly eyeing each page to see a glimpse of his
boy’s work. He was through the first three sections and starting to
give up hope, when he saw it in the “Lifestyles” section. Certainly
not what he expected, but better than nothing. It was in the block
set aside for whimsical tidbits about American life and had the
headline “On the Other Hand…”. It read:

What would you do if everything in the
United States was suddenly yours for the taking? Money was no
longer needed, and everyone else would have a say in your standard
of living, and you in theirs? The Associated Press reports that
they have uncovered such a plan, developed in Philadelphia that is
being bandied about for consideration. The author and his team, a
group of racially diverse middle-class citizens from that city,
have apparently created a formally worded document that they would
like to see actually considered for implementation. The plan
features an admirable concern for the downtrodden with minimal
acceptable living conditions to be established that would eliminate
poverty, homelessness, and hunger. It would do this by
fundamentally outlawing excessive wealth and redistributing assets
based on an individual’s contributions to society, which would be
evaluated by everyone else in the United States. This would be
accomplished by
requiring
those currently considered as
wealthy to divest their assets over the course of several
generations. The plan also deals with business, religion, and other
major components of society. Its backers hope to gain public
recognition of it through a “grass-roots, word-of-mouth”
campaign.

Ryan was okay with the way it was written
until he got to the part about requiring the wealthy to divest;
that could light a fire under potential enemies of the plan. But
then he thought not because the small story was buried in a section
of the paper not known for hard news, so its seriousness had been
discounted already. He was not happy with that placement, but as
Grayboys’ story had been paraphrased in this story, that meant he
had no control over where it appeared. He wondered what his
reporter friend would think if he knew that it was under
consideration by a US Senator and a respected think tank. He would
probably want to move in with the Ryans’ and get every last word
about it from him. Ryan was steamed. It appeared his first foray
into public relations had not gone too well. Then he remembered, he
was supposed to have called Cunningham about the interview after it
was done. He better do it now before someone else saw the article
and connected him through whatever means they might have.

He reached for the phone to call the
professor when it rang. . . . It was Palma, and he sounded mad.

“Hey, Nick, how come the Wobblies aren’t
mentioned in here? I went to all the trouble of recruiting them to
this, and we’re not mentioned at all. What’s up?” He sounded testy
but not overly angry, as he wasn’t sure in how to proceed in a
fight with Ryan. Ryan was caught by surprise and desperately tried
to remember exactly what he said to Gryaboys. He had mentioned the
Wobblies piece in this, hadn’t he?

“Lou, man, I’m sorry if it didn’t come out
the way I said it, but to be honest, I can’t remember whether we
talked about your folks much or not. This is my first stab at this
public relations business, and I guess I’ll have to be more
careful. Anyway, there’s no telling how many people are even going
to see or react to the article, seeing where it’s positioned. What
do you think?” Ryan wanted to change the subject fast, as their
friendship did not have enough strength yet to withstand a major
fight. He didn’t want to risk pointing out that it was one of
Palma’s guys who had spilled the beans. Fortunately, Palma wasn’t
looking for a dust-up either, and he allowed himself to be
steered.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s not quite in the
right place for a political-socioeconomic makeover, but I guess
it’s a start. It’s in the Sunday paper, which has a larger
readership, but it does have a negative spin at the end. Has the
professor seen it yet?”

Ryan winced and said ruefully, “I don’t
know. He hasn’t checked in yet, I can hardly wait to hear what he
has to say. I’ll bet he’s not going to be pleased.” Ryan was
already figuring out defenses and excuses to hide behind when he
got called on the carpet. Wait till he got hold of that Gryaboys.
He was going to wring his neck!

Palma sought to reassure his friend. “I
wouldn’t worry about it. Like you said, this is your first crack at
it. You’ll get better. I’ve found the best thing to do with
reporters is not trust any of them and tell them as little as
possible. That way they have to try to fill in the blanks, and then
when they get things wrong, their credibility suffers. The better
ones won’t run with a story until they’re sure they have their
facts right, and then they’ll call it as they see it, which is
fair. Apparently the guy you hooked up with wasn’t looking at it as
a hard news piece, but as fluffy filler. Bottom line, we came out
looking a little silly, and now that I think of it, maybe it was
better that my group wasn’t mentioned after all. We already have a
kind of silly name, not that we’re not proud of it. Anyway, I don’t
think any permanent damage was done, although I would like to hear
what Cunningham thinks.”