JON SURGAL
405
find? Don't choke on the onion dip, DeKoven, it's a rhetorical question,
I'll
tell
you what I find. I find 'Lieutenant Calley's Cookbook.' I find the
Memoirs of Pat Nixon. I find 'The Secret Life of CIA Plants.' And I find
that I have had enough of Nixon and Vietnam and Watergate. I don't pay
you for your social conscience, I pay you to be funny. I pay you to offend
all
of the people
all
of the time. So why do you persist in attacking the
same old enemies list over and over and over again. Have you no friends?"
Adriana was trying to slip her hand down the back of Mick's pants. He
stepped away from her. He did not even look at her. He did not want to
call attention to himself.
"Nothing is sacred,"
Heimlich intoned. "There will be no more excep–
tions. From now on I expect you to tread on the downtrodden.
Strong-arm the weak. Insult the injured and injure the insulted. Violate the
virtuous and needle the needy. Fuck the tired. Fuck the poor.
Shit on the
huddled masses.
Am I making myself clear? I expect you to retch on the
wretched of the earth. Give us blasphemy here! Give us betrayal of princi–
ple! Give us Barabbas! You've all been wallowing in the sacred cowshit,
and [ want
everybody out
oj
the pool!"
Mick looked away. His blood was trying to tell him something and he
did not want to hear it.
"This is going to be our Sacred Cows issue." Heimlich began to walk
among the guests like a seigneur touring his fiefdom. "So take up your
cleavers and fight to the death. I want red meat on my table this month.
Gettys, I want a cover with Mahatma Gandhi roasting a cow on a spit. Put
a big smile on his face. Put a bloody loin-cloth on him. Put KISS THE
COOK on the loin-cloth. Make it Elsie the Cow."
Mick looked around for Adriana. She was sitting on the couch next to
Mel Ostrov, who wrote the Gilda Goodhead column. She caught Mick
watching her and she smiled at him and dropped her head onto Ostrov's
shoulder. Ostrov looked embarrassed.
" ... something for you too, Ostrov," Heimlich was saying. "Give me a
medical report on how Negroes cause cancer in rats. Rothstein. The inside
dope on the secret marriage of King Kong and his new wife, Coretta King
Kong. You, Wild-And-Crazy-Breath, I've got a film review for you. A ret–
rospective on the snuff films of Albert Schweitzer. What else. Ah, Wheeler.
I've got another expose for you, Wheeler. Muscular dystrophy is hereditary,
and Jerry's Kids are
really Jerry's kids.
You got that? Mister McGuane, sir. A
feature on incest between the Naz and his mommy. Call it 'Murmur of the
Sacred Heart.' And something else. Right. You, Sussman. A script for a new
situation comedy: The
Ha!fWits
oj
Auschwitz.
In this episode Werner von
Braun invents E-Z-Off Oven Cleaner, Anne Frank sucks off a pig, and Tevye
the Dairyman steals Ilsa Koch's diaphragm and sells it to Shmedrick the
