Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin (11 page)

That’s right: I predicted the Underwear Bomber in 2006. You could look it up. Around the same time, I repeated the prediction in public appearances and, as I remember, a couple of times on television. (I firmly believe that, in this world of ever-diminishing irreplaceable resources, using a line only once represents the sort of wastefulness our society can ill afford.) And what transpired on
Christmas Day three years later? Another bozo tries to blow a hole in an airplane and succeeds only in setting his underpants aflame in a manner that might have rendered him ill equipped for the seventy-two heavenly virgins who were to be his reward if he succeeded. And how is this bozo described by friends and family? Naïve. And where was this bozo educated? University College London, within commuting distance of that diabolical trickster Khalid the Droll.

Has that name—Khalid the Droll—been mentioned even once in the endless press and television interviews with so-called security experts who prattle on about “connecting the dots” and “fostering interagency cooperation” and “eliminating stovepiping”? No, not once. Not once have the people who pontificate from Washington on Sunday morning television shows—the people I refer to as the Sabbath Gasbags—said, “Somebody should have followed up on Trillin’s underwear tip.” Not once has anybody considered the possibility that, after the shoe-bombing scheme worked to perfection, Khalid the Droll announced to his cell, “When they’ve had a few years of taking off their shoes, I bet I can make them expose their private parts to full-body scanners.” Not once has one of these after-the-fact analyzers considered the possibility that, just as the thirties Communists and the early-sixties New Right tried to bore us into submission, Khalid the Droll is engaged in an elaborate scheme to embarrass us to death.

And what will be the next step in this scheme? I’m working on my prediction now. I just hope somebody is paying attention this time.

2010

2009

As it happens, I went to Boy Scout camp with Marc Rich. That’s right. Who’s Marc Rich? Is that what you said? The question, if I may say so, reveals an abysmal ignorance of world affairs. Marc Rich happens to be the reclusive, enigmatic, fabulously wealthy commodities trader who was just accused by the government of flimflamming it out of $48 million in taxes and is now believed to be hiding out in Zug, Switzerland, or maybe Spain. That’s who. I went to Boy Scout camp with him, in Missouri. In 1949. We lived in the same tent. The name of the camp was Camp Osceola, BSA. It was where Boy Scouts from Kansas City went to camp. I can tell that you don’t believe any of this.

One reason you don’t believe it is that you think I make things up. The other reason you don’t believe me is that all of the stories you’ve read about Marc Rich talk about how he came to this country with his family from Europe during the war and grew up in Brooklyn with his friend Pincus (Pinky) Green—also a fabulously wealthy commodities trader now, although only marginally enigmatic—and life as a Kansas City Boy Scout doesn’t fit your picture of the young Marc trading some Borough Park candy store owner one used Batman comic for enough egg creams to float the entire stickball team. All of the stories you’ve read, that is, unless you happened to read the story in
The Kansas City Times
on October 5, which revealed that before moving to Brooklyn, Marc Rich’s family lived in Kansas City for six years (“Mr. Rich’s life-style apparently was nurtured in Kansas City, where he spent his formative years, investigators said”) and that for two years Marc went to Southwest High School, which is where I went and where, as long as we’re on the subject, the photographer David Douglas Duncan went, and also Charlie Black, who played basketball for the University of Kansas.
The Kansas City Times
did not reveal the
Camp Osceola angle. I’m revealing that now. Marc Rich and I were at Osceola together. Not Pincus Green. I’m not one of those people who can remember every tiny event of their childhood, but I can tell you that there was nobody at Camp Osceola called Pinky.

Still don’t believe me? Then do this. Ask someone who attended the second session of Camp Osceola in 1949 about this incident: After lunch one day, Skipper Macy—the director of the camp, and the man who always said “fine and dandy”—got on the subject of languages. Don’t ask me why; I already told you that I don’t remember every little detail. Skipper tried to find out which camper spoke the most languages—ordinarily, I’ll admit, that was not a question that provoked intense competition at Osceola—and which camper do you think was finally called up on stage and slapped on the back by Skipper and told that it was fine and dandy? Right. Marc Rich. You have probably already guessed which Troop 61 Boy Scout—known up to that time mainly for his inability to do knots—said, “And to think … we’re in the same tent.” Right again. Me.

I hope you don’t think I’m bringing this up to get a little reflected fame from the fact that my lifestyle was nurtured in the same tent as the lifestyle of the defendant in the single largest tax evasion case in the history of the republic—like those people in Kansas City who say they bought a necktie at Harry Truman’s haberdashery at Twelfth and Baltimore. If everyone who says he bought a necktie from Harry Truman really had bought one, the store wouldn’t have gone broke, and Harry Truman wouldn’t have gone to the Senate, and Roosevelt would have been succeeded by William O. Douglas, and Clifton Daniels would be married to the daughter of a man who was known as “The Cravat King of KC.”

The reason I’m telling you this is that the public should hear about Marc Rich from someone who actually knew him—instead of from all of those people who told
The Kansas City Times
that they couldn’t quite remember which one he was. We were at Camp Osceola together, in the same tent. We actually sang the same song together at campfires. The song went like this:

Now do you believe me?

I want you to know that what I am revealing about Marc Rich at Camp Osceola would be of no value to the FBI, which already knows that Marc speaks more languages than most Kansas City Boy Scouts and may even know that I can’t do knots. I wouldn’t rat on a pal. If I ratted on a pal, I couldn’t guiltless rest tonight. I do think, though, that the public has a right to know about the Camp Osceola angle. I can just imagine the questions the reporters from
The Kansas City Times
—not to speak of
The New York Times
—would have asked me had they but known that Marc Rich and I were in the same tent. They would want to know if Marc and I—on campfire nights, as the fire was burning down to embers—talked about crude-oil prices and arbitrage. They would want to know if Marc tried to snooker any campers out of their canteen money. They would want to know whether Marc was elected to the Great Tribe of Mic-o-Say—whose song, sung to the tune of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” went “O come all ye tribesmen, braves and mighty warriors, oh come ye, oh come ye, to the Great Mic-o-Say”—and, if so, whether the Indian name he adopted (since all tribesmen adopted an Indian name) was something like He Who Buys Cheap and Sells Dear, or maybe Brave Who Cooks the Books. They would want to hear from someone who really knew Marc Rich. That’s why I’m revealing all of this.

1983

1991

“Daddy, what’s insider trading?”

“Isn’t it customary in most families for the daughter to come down to breakfast and ask the father if she can buy the divine sweater she just saw in the window of some store whose name sounds like a traffic accident?”

“Definitely.”

“Then why are you asking about insider trading instead of whether you can buy a new sweater?”

“Can I buy a new sweater?”

“Certainly not.”

“That’s why.”

“What kind of cereal do you want this morning? How about a bowl of this stuff that fulfills your basic daily requirements of niacin, lipides, and riboflavin? That would be a real load off your mind, not having to worry about niacin, lipids, and riboflavin all that time. It would leave you free to worry about whether your breakfast is rich enough in thiacin and pantothenate.”

“That kind of cereal is gross, Daddy.”

“Now that I think of it, Niacin, Lipides, and Riboflavin sound like some lawyers I used to know. If you think the cereal is gross, you ought to meet Lipides.”

“Daddy, you know what Mommy always says: She says if you never give me a straight answer I’m going to grow up to be a smart-aleck like you.”

“I thought ‘certainly not’ was a pretty straight answer to the sweater question.”

“Daddy, what’s insider trading?”

“Okay. Insider trading is when someone who works on Wall Street gets material information that is not available to the general public and uses that information to make money buying or selling stocks.”

“What happens to someone who gets caught at insider trading?”

“He gets arrested.”

“But what’s his punishment?”

“His punishment is that he has to tell on someone else who’s doing the same thing.”

“At school, we call that squealing.”

“These people call it making a deal.”

“Don’t they ever have to go to jail?”

“Well, maybe if—”

“I know, Daddy: Maybe if they’re represented by Niacin, Lipides, and Riboflavin.”

“May I recommend a bowl of this stuff that gives you the same amount of energy the Olympic decathlon champion gets every morning at breakfast? Then if you’re only interested in maybe a little shot-putting you’ll have a lot of energy left over.”

“What I don’t understand, Daddy, is what people who work on Wall Street do who aren’t doing something you can get arrested for?”

“They try to get material information that is not available to the general public and then they use that information to make money buying and selling stock.”

“But if everyone who works on Wall Street does the same thing, why are just some of the people on Wall Street arrested?”

“Those people are arrested for stealing too fast.”

“I don’t think Mommy would call that a straight answer, Daddy.”

“Well, it’s a lot like the speed limit on driving. It may be true that everyone drives faster than fifty-five, but that doesn’t mean that you can whiz past a state trooper who’s doing sixty and not expect to be pulled over to the side. It’s the same with those people in the New York Parking Violations Bureau who got indicted for taking bribes from contractors. If they had just waited until they left government and then taken cushy jobs with the contractors, nobody would have said anything. They got indicted for exceeding the speed limit.”

“Is that your straightest answer—that business about exceeding the speed limit?”

“Why do you think people are always talking about the risks of life in the fast lane?”

“Could I please have a bowl of that cereal that’s chock-full of riboflavin?”

“Sure. Anything else?”

“Yes. I think I need a new sweater.”

“No problem.”

1986

DAVID SOUTER ASTONISHES

1990

HARRIET MIERS BRINGS TROUBLE ON THE RIGHT