New Olympians
The commuters were mostly young, not many appearing to be past early middle age, uniformly smart in their conventional business clothes and they had uniformly intense, closed expressions. Among the crowd that jostled and pushed around the corner into the street called Minories and over the crossing to Tower Gate station on the Docklands Light Railway was Robin Jonson, a thirty – five year old Corporate Account Executive whose unlined face wore the same strained expression as all the others, all the people were pushing on towards new challenges, new opportunities, oblivious of the vomit, the roaches and the empty wraps that, along with other street litter, they trod underfoot. Robin, like the others, thought it was the street litter that made the bitter smell in his nostrils but he was wrong. It was the smell of fear, of loneliness, of decaying hope. So many people moved around that corner on their route through a world of plenty. They were the warriors, the conquistadors of materialism and they had built a citadel in which human beings had never had so much. They lived however in a world inhabited by people who had never had less. The smell of the crowd they made would have told a more primitive creature that they were all hunted.
Robin was eventually carried by the press of the crowd onto the platform of the elevated railway. Emerging from the staircase he had climbed to a platform above the street he noticed a poster. It was a small landmark that he always looked for on his journeys to work. It advertised the work of a missionary group among the homeless and hopeless. The poster depicted a glowing figure reaching towards the crowd. “Jesus Saves” it proclaimed. Robin flushed with anger as he saw that some witless and unoriginal person had aerosoled “Moses Invests” across the image of the Messiah.
Although he was used to the cruel jibes that his belief prompted, Robin was furious that people could belittle the two thousand years dead prophet in such a crass way.
Corin Dreckmeyer, slim, tanned, handsome, with even, preternaturally white teeth, fair hair with perfectly symmetrical grey streaks at the temples, preposterously blue eyes and a too perfect nose was approaching forty and perfect. Even the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were perfect. He was not afraid of getting old. Age could give a man distinction if it was properly managed. Everything could be managed.
The President of UK Operations for New Olympus Pharmaceutical Corp. was the youngest divisional president in the organization. One day he would be President of the whole corporation. It was the goal to which he had dedicated his life.
Corin lived in an apartment in one of the exclusive Docklands developments guarded by private security staff. The central courtyard of the block was a community centre with two bars, two restaurants, a gym with pool, a marble dance floor under a retractable roof, an ornamental garden & secure parking. In the basement was a meditation room and a Primal Scream Therapy room. Like most of the development’s inhabitants Corin seldom made use of these facilities for any other reason than urgent coitus of the type that should not be allowed to interrupt the networking opportunities of social occasions for too long.
Dreckmeyer was single and thought relationships counter productive. His attempt at marriage had been aborted after less than a year. “The bitch made demands,” he told the group of friends who helped him celebrate the dissolution of the union.
Since then, Corin had taken refuge in serial, emotion – free couplings.
As he shaved and dressed he felt mightily pleased with himself, reflecting on a story the Radio had told while he was taking a shower. Some survey had shown that most white, professional males had less than ten sexual partners in their lives. “Jeez,” thought Corin. “I’ve had what? must be – ah – fifty, sixty, more, and I’m not yet forty;” the idea that a lot of his peers had had less than their share of partners because of his efforts pleased him greatly.
Corin wondered as he made his way to work whether any of the other men who would be at the mornings meeting had penetrated so many women. Things like that, numbers, were important. There was empowerment in numbers. Big numbers empower. The biggest salary, the most lovers, the highest IQ, most expensive car, top floor apartment. The things a man could be measured by empowered him. But there was also empowerment in the smallest number of all.
Being Number One.
Corin could not contemplate being anything except number one. His seldom driven car was the most expensive in the garage. His apartment was the most expensive in the development as was his mostly pointless, minimalist furniture. He was top man in his company’s UK operation and about to make the leap to the headquarters in northern Ohio.
Corin’s journey through the precincts of the regenerated docklands did not take him long but it was a few minutes in which he could consider the modernity and power of the huge, new buildings around him, the very fabric of which seemed to contain the energies necessary to conceive success.
As the President of UK Operations entered the foyer of the New Olympus Building he was noticed by Robin Jonson who, because he always felt diminished by the positive energy that Dreckmeyer seemed to emit, diverted from his path and walked to a nearby kiosk to buy a newspaper.
At the kiosk Robin scanned the headlines on the papers and magazines. “Darren and Katie Split.” “Star Paulo checks into clinic.” “Sinead’s therapist speaks out.” “Faith Healer to the Stars” and so on, over trivial stories about sport and showbiz celebs. He selected a rather subdued broadsheet and wondered why, in a world filled with people so obviously looking for something, others, like Dreckmeyer, felt so confident in denegrating Robin’s beliefs and religious ethics; beliefs that gave him a firm moral and ethical footing to build his life on. Robin Jonson tightened his lips and decided that neither Dreckmeyer and his sycophants, nor Satan, the great beast of Revelations would shake the simplistic faith that sustained him in this soulless place where everybody was looking for something to define themselves by, something to give their lives meaning. Success, Money, Love, Fame, Friendship, Sex, Power, Nirvana. The Force?
Everybody was obsessed with self – analysis, improvement, upward mobility, material goals. They read self-help books and slavishly made lists against which they could assess their positive attitude, achievement quotient and social standing. They shifted their paradigms, faced their issues, got in touch with their inner chjild and were there for each other. They developed the habits of highly effective people by prioritizing what they wanted to achieve, ignoring the fact that a highly effective waster makes a priority of slobbing out near the HiFi with a six – pack, a spliff and a supply of Mars Bars because to acknowledge there were, for some people, priorities not concerned with success and personal development would have made nonsense of it all. And still they were lonely, still in a mess.
Robin pulled in his gut, decided that religion needed a paradigm shift, felt the power of the Lord flow through him like a cocaine hit, increased his stride length and determined that he would one day be President of UK Operations, to the greater glory of God. Success would be his evangelism. People would take him as a role model and flock to be reborn in Jesus, rejecting the old gods of Hedonism and Conspicuous Consumption, as they clamored for the buzz that only self righteousness could give.
God would surely be there for him, after all he led a life of devout purity and material success would testify to his faith. Had not John Calvin himself believed that The Lord rewarded faith, simplicity and purity with financial success in order to encourage sinners to take a more righteous path. Robin felt indestructible as he stepped into the lift in which he would ascend the New Olympus Building.
In the office Fiona, the President’s personal assistant showed Corin the morning papers. One headline caught his eye. The Corporate Senior President of New Olympus had committed the corporation to join the fight against the growing drug culture in Western Societies. The corporation would commit both human and financial resources to a campaign aimed at rehabilitating persistent drug users and raising drugs awareness. The president had issued a statement that said. “We at New Olympus Pharmaceutical like to think of ourselves as the positive side of drugs. Our drugs cure sickness, relieve pain, improve mental alertness, promote physical well-being and contribute to mankind’s journey onward and upward to a brave new world. But we are constantly aware that there is a negative side to drugs. Abuse of pharmaceuticals and some natural products can lead people, victims of criminal activities by those concerned only with fast profit, to become negative contributors to our society. We feel that the time has come for the forces of good to line up against the tide of evil, to join together and cut out this cancer that is eating at our world.”
A document from the corporate motivational consultant caught the President of UK Operations’ attention next. It concerned the product launch of a new drug, Panglostone, a universal anti – depressant that would be of interest to government agencies responsible for dealing with social issues. The paper was littered with repetitions of words like ‘positive,’ ‘succeed,’ ‘inclusive,’ ‘modernise,’ ‘involvement,’ ’empower,’ ‘improve,’ ‘manage.’ ‘change.’ It was the language of a corporate pantheon . It was also the language of inadequacy, designed to make the reader feel that the rest of the world was positive and motivated and welcomed constant change as the route to success and universal improvement.
This language isolated its readers, made them feel as if they were the only person in the world who wanted to scream “No! Slow Down! Let me get my head round this. It was the sociology of the Emperor’s new Clothes. Who would be brave enough to see that there were no bright new clothes, just a jumble of threadbare rags tacked together by intellectually bankrupt carpetbaggers? Nobody wanted to be the first to shout out that the King had no clothes, for fear that everybody else would turn away and silence would ridicule the lone voice.
At the end of the motivational consultant’s paper was an invitation to call the Corporate President and CEO or one of his aides to discuss local strategy. The final sentence told Corin that his call would be received at 11.30 am GMT. which indicated that the invitation was in fact an order. It also revealed that the President and CEO did not intend to speak to Corin personally which worried the President of UK Operations.
Robin’s first task of the day was a routine session with the Corporation’s personal development counselor, following which he was required to study a proposal for a new product marketing strategy, copies of which had been supplied for all Presidents and Senior Vice Presidents.. His input to the lunchtime meeting would be required to reflect the contents of the document. In other words he would, after his counseling session, have ninety minutes to digest the contents of the twenty five page document and come up with a feasible marketing strategy for the UK launch.
The counseling session, a regular occurrence every three months was something Robin did not enjoy. The idea of the sessions was to encourage executives to let out their feelings, to confront any inadequacies they perceived in themselves and, with the help of the counsellor, a quasi-psycho-analyst, to deal with their negativity, throw out that which was dysfunctional in their lives and nurture their self – esteem.
If Robin was to be honest with himself, he would admit that he used to look forward to the sessions. Two hours of talking about his failings would act as a catharsis, leaving him feeling renewed and energized, empowered to deal with everything in a positive way, able to embrace change and be supportive to those who feared it or felt threatened by it. The therapy had helped him cope with stress caused by career, personal and relationship issues. Counseling had once enabled him to identify a deep anger he felt was due to mental abuse he had suffered as a child when, unable to live up to his parents expectations he had felt isolated and inadequate.
Robin had never realised that the love he had been shown by doting parents was in fact a form of abuse until he had talked it through with the counselor. Their love, the material support they had given him and the enthusiastic response to his meagre achievements had all been ploys to bind him to the controlling influence of their expectations. The memory of their demans made him experience guilt and self – loathing because he had failed them.
All that was in the past. Now he had found God the counseling sessions were nothing more than a meaningless journey through the lexicon of self analysis. Why should he want to talk about his spouse (the counselor preferred non gender – specific nouns but Robin knew his pastor would argue that if ‘wife’ was good enough for the Biblical wives like Ruth, Naomi and Mary it was good enough for any modern woman.) family or friends being there for him. His best friend, the only friend a man needed, was always there for him. God’s love empowered Robin to love and to share his joy in having discovered the goodness of Jesus.
Robin mumbled evasively through the interview, waffling about how his beliefs gave his life equilibrium and helped him deal with his issues. He no longer felt a victim because he understood that everything in his life had made him a stronger person and prepared him to deal with what was to come.
The counselor made a note that people who took refuge in religious faith were often covering signs of dysfunction by shifting the blame for their lack of self esteem onto a subliminal third party. Instead of saying ‘I must face my problems and by working through them, improve myself’ they were saying ‘I am the way God made me and to change myself is to defy his will. My failure is not my fault.’ Robin Jonson would need more counseling. A lot more counseling.
Robin left the session confident of having persuaded the therapist that those who were counseled by God had no need of human psychotherapists. Affirmation of his faith had, as usual, made him feel invincible. The counselor decided on recommending a course of personal intensive therapy at a hundred pounds an hour for Robin and congratulated himself of a good day’s work.
New Olympus Pharmecutical Corporation had pioneered Personal Development Counseling in the corporate environment. The therapy industry was a wonderful concept, if therapy could be translated into mechanics it would be a perpetual motion engine, constantly fuelling itself. Like science, therapy creates a new question for every question it answers. Corporations like New Olympus loved therapy just as they hated the social communities that divorced people from their corporations. If people were held within the embrace of the corporation, identified themselves with it, belonged to it and depended on it they would serve it well. So by promoting the culture of inadequacy and the isolation of the individual in an increasingly hostile society a corporation would gain a relationship with its staff similar to that of the all powerful medieval prophets of Christianity and Islam.
Successive Presidents and CEO s of every corporation like to stamp their mark on the fiefdom and the incumbent at New Olympus was no exception. Soon after his appointment the current President had toyed with the idea of introducing a corporate uniform. There had been meetings with image consultants and designers, discussion papers had been drafted, consultative documents circulated and large quantities of paper wasted. No official uniform was ever adopted to attract the ridicule of liberals or the invective of freethinkers, there was no need. So anxious were the staff of New Olympus to conform that within weeks all administrative and management staff had adopted an unofficial dress code that became the de facto uniform. Everybody wore dark suits with white shirts or blouses. The men might have a contrasting self coloured necktie and the women a belt or similar accessory. Women also allowed themselves understated jewellry or make up.
The president wrote in the Corporate newsletter that he was pleased to see staff took such pride in their appearance and within weeks the self imposed standards became even more rigorous.
New Olympus Tower in London overlooked an ersatz Roman piazza into which people poured from the surrounding offices at lunchtime. Some people strolled in groups or pairs, some walked purposefully alone, hurrying to commune with secret vices that would be interpreted by colleagues and managers as signs of weakness but were in fact an act of reverence to their individuality.
“Perrier water please, with a twist of lemon, and…” somebody would look round furtively before completing the request, “put a large gin in it too, please.”
Another would scrawl on a slip of thin paper ‘Ã?£20 win – The Optimist – 3:20: Newmarket,’ handing the bet, with the stake money to a disinterested cashier.
Others hung around the newspaper kiosk scrutinising Computer Magazines or Trade journals until they were sure nobody could hear, then they would nervously ask the proprietor for copies of ‘Asian Babes’ or ‘Fetish’, pushing their purchases into a briefcase before moving on. All human life was there, all of it hissing in a pressure cooker with a faulty seal.
Corin Dreckmeyer looked down on the little dramas being played out in the piazza as he tried to understand his conversation with an aide of the President and CEO.
Having dutifully called the Corporate Headquarters in Ohio at eleven thirty GMT, Corin had listened to a recorded message from the President and CEO, extolling the virtues of panglostone, a new mood adjusting drug, then he was connected to an aide with whom he was not acquainted.
“The Marketing Strategy in the UK is really governed by the structure of the healthcare industry,” Dreckmeyer began but was cut short by an aggressive voice.
“Healthcare Industry my ass. Hell, Dreckmeyer, didn’t you listen to the message. Panglostone is a universal mood adjusting drug. It ain’t for doctors to give out like dime bags. The market is not healthcare, it is law enforcement agencies, the military, governments.”
“Well, the government will have to license it of course but….”
“License it? All they have to do is put it in the fucking water supply. For fuck’s sake Dreckmeyer, depression is a global pandemic. Do you know how much productivity the western economies lose each year through people being too fucked up in the mind to get out of bed?”
“You mean give it to everybody, without telling them. I don’t think European Governments will….”
“You let us worry about European Governments. Your job is the UK. We got a special relationship there. Your guy will do what he is told. Besides, panglostone is cost effective. Empty prisons. No anti – social behaviour. Hardly any alcohol and drug abuse. Your guy over there will love it because the little people will feel safe and if the little people feel safe that means votes for the government.”
As the conversation had gone on Dreckmeyer began to understand the elegance of the plan. New Olympus Pharmaceuticals had, from the days when it had been the rather less God-like Mid – West Drug Co. traded on peoples’ sense of failure. Its early advertising had featured a run down clerk who would have coped much better if he had taken sleepsound pills, thus enabling himself to face each new day well rested.
A few years later a skinny blond youth was chased repeatedly from a beach by a dark haired swathy, glowering bully. After taking a course of Dr. Charlotte Hann’s vitality tonic the newly muscle bound blond boy would chase off his olive skinned rival as a clean cut, fair haired girl simpere “Oh Chuck, you’re my hero.” Such excesses were curbed by the civil rights and consumer protection campaigns but New Olympus changed its name and continued to market a pill for every problem. New Olympus had always made a lot of noise about its commitment to fighting the drug culture in American cities and by doing so it had endeared itself to the political establishment. Its corporate hall of fame was filled with consummate politicians and incompetent scientists.
The thrust of all New Olympus marketing had been to encourage people to dwell on their inadequacies, to become self regarding and to constantly compare themselves with their peers and to seek easy, chemical answers to the questions raised rather than searching for simple truths. And now New Olympus Pharmacutical Corp. would market the most simple truth of all.
Dreckmeyer had initially been thrown by the idea of putting mood adjusting drugs in the public water supply but he knew better than to say so and as the conversation had gone on he realised that the idea was not a bad one and that he would have no trouble buying in to it.. After all, he never drank water from the public supply. The stuff was recycled a few times. There was a joke that all water that came out of the tap had been passed by Heath Department officials. It was only a joke, but nobody he knew drank public water. They all preferred to buy bottled water from some mountain spa. Did nobody realise sheep piss too? It was not as if choice was being taken away from people who mattered. A person could drink free, drug adulterated water or they could buy unadulterated sheep – piss. And how much did it cost to buy drinking water. Two pounds a day? Three dollars. Only losers could not afford that and though panglostone could not make them winners it could help them cope with being losers. The rest had the choice.
The president’s aide was glad that Dreckmeyer readily accepted the marketing strategy for panglostone. He could move on to his main concern which was that a Senior Vice President in the UK was worrying Corporate intelligence.
“The President likes committed Christians. They are upholders of moral values that this company subscribes to, moral values that mean a lot to middle America and to middle England. But the President does not like our people to get involved with wacky fundamentalist cults.”
Dreckmeyer defended his executive. He was playing corporate politics. It would not look good if he abandoned Jonson too easily. The people at Headquarters might ask why he had retained a man whose faith he had no faith in. “Jonson is a good man. He is intelligent and he is creative. A problem solver. It’s easy to get drawn into these cults. Perhaps a little therapy might help.”
The President’s aide was not sympathetic. “He may be O.K. but the corporation is everything. Good men are dangerous. Creative ones more so. People like him are apt to think for themselves. And this organization does not want executives who think for themselves, they only rock the boat. A good executive is one to whom the corporation is everything. Mediocre people make good executives. People who know how to do what they are told without question. Creative people who find God are not what this corporation needs. Our intelligence suggests that Jonson is in too deep for therapy already. His cult has some controversial views. The president does not like controversial views. Middle America and Middle England, our customers, do not like controversial views.”
“What kind of controversial views?”
“The leader of the cult has said that people who take tranks are defying the will of God. The leader says if God wants you to be miserable and depressed then you better be goddam miserable and depressed. He also says Pharmecutical manufacturers are profiteering in the third world, the commie motherfucker. If the tabloid press get hold of that just when we are launching Panglostone it is going to make us look like a bunch of bastards. We decided you better let Jonson go.”
Dreckmeyer recognised that he was being told he had defended his man sufficiently. “Jeez, I didn’t know his problem was that bad. I’ll handle it.”
Now, recalling the converstion as he looked down on the piazza that was filling with the lunchtime crowd, Dreckmeyer knew what he had to do. He walked through to the big room that had been prepared to take the meeting due to begin in an hour, at one p.m, inspected all the facilities and called Fiona. “Have the contractors send a De – Fen technician. I may need somebody in the boardroom during the meeting.”
Once the senior management team were assembled and the preliminary discussions done with, Corin moved on to the main business of the meeting, the product launch of Panglostone. There was some initial resistance to the idea of adulterating drinking water with mood altering drugs, but once the President of Operations had described his own initial misgiving about the concept and confessed that he had overlooked the fact that people had a choice about taking the drug the objections were quelled. By the time people understood the high – minded morality of the Corporation’s plan and the social benefits it would bring in combating the spread of the drug culture among the D and E social classes and curbing anti – social behaviour among the young, the whole team were positively enthusiastic about the idea. Except for Robin Jonson.
“I can’t agree to the use of mass mind control drugs. I don’t think it’s ethical.” He announced. “The idea of controlling the mood of individuals so that everybody is uniformly content and compliant with the will of social managers is tantamount to usurping the role of God. God’s children are not given free will so that New Olympus Corp. can profit from them.”
“Ethical?” Dreckmeyer looked as if he had seen a turd seated at the table opposite him. “Who the frig do you think you are, Johnson? You’re a friggin’ senior vice president. Your not paid to think. You’re paid to do what you’re told. You do not question the ethics of the New Olympus Pharmaceutical Corp.You belong to New Olympus.”
“I work for God.” said Robin quietly.
“Just shut the fuck up Jonson,” Dreckmeyer exploded. “I’m taking you off the Panglostone launch. How the fuck you going to sell it to government if you start talking about God and shit?”
“I’m happy with that,” Jonson said. “I’ll give you three months to recruit my replacement, then I go and work among the poor. I’ve been considering it for some time.”
“You should have considered it sooner,” Dreckmeyer snapped. “This corporation can’t have you hanging around making trouble for three months. You’re a security risk.”
Dreckmeyer jabbed a well manicured finger at a function button on the digital telephone. In the security office along the corridor, a technician responded to the alarm.
“I can’t prevent the plan going ahead,” Johnson said plaintively, “but as a Christian I have to register my dissent. There’s no need to take this attitude.”
“Robin, it nothing personal, its just…” Dreckmeyer apologised, his voice trailing away as he realised he sounded like a movie character. The President reminded Johnson that at his level, dissent was not an option. Jonson was about to speak again but a door slid noiselessly open and the technician wearing the colours of De – Fen, the high – level compliance specialists, stepped into the room.
“No, please.” Johnson gibbered, “I’ll resign. I’ll sign a secrecy pledge…… OK? OK. I’ll agree. I have a family.”
“You shudda thought of that.” Dreckmeyer grunted casually as the technician lifted Johnson bodily out of his seat and carried him onto the glass enclosed balcony. The automatic door from the boardroom closed behind the pair before the glass wall of the balcony lifted. Johnson, held above the DeFen man’s head, could see down to the grey – green water of the old dock thirty floors below. An automatic blind lowered itself, shutting the balcony from view as the people in the meeting room turned to each other and began to chatter excitedly about the way Panglostone would improve the quality of life in the suburbs and open new marketing opportunities for their own divisions.
The Senior Vice President for Government liaison was still pleading for his life as the Defenestration specialist glanced over his shoulder and having assured himself that nobody in the meeting room could actually witness what was happening, launched his burden into the air over London’s docklands.
“Whatever is going on out there between Jonson and the Technician is none of our business. If we are asked none of us saw a thing. That is the official line.” Everybody nodded, too shocked to say anything. When questioned they would say that after their colleague went onto the balcony with the technician they did not see what happened. New Olympus executives were trained always to tell the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth.
“OK. We have a proposal,” Dreckmeyer said brightly, as he raised a hand to command silence, “to deploy a strategy aimed at persuading the Government, in response to increased social costs related to depression and mental illness, to adopt a policy….” The door to the balcony opened and the defenestration technician returned to the room. The splash that terminated Johnson’s fading scream interrupted Dreckmeyer briefly and he exchanged nods with the technician before continuing. “…adopt a policy of adding the New Olympus Corporation’s product Panglosotone to the drinking water. Are there any dissenting voices before we vote? No?”
“What about Jonson” asked one executive.
“Jonson was a shmuck.” Dreckmeyer snapped. “Schmucks don’t work for this organization. Remember that. Any adverse comments? Anyone? OK, Fiona. Minute that the proposal was approved unanimously. Good work guys. You know, all those desperate people out there, they have an entitlement to a little happiness, courtesy of the New Olympus Corporation.”
