Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [33]
Of course. The billionaire’s guards could not club down the kiddies, not even if they really ran amok and rushed his penthouse retreat.
“[Q]uietly explore alternate possibilities such as: Moving it to the Sunrise Hospital and making it a charity event. We could start the ball rolling by donating 25 or even $50,000. I just want to see it moved to a place where, if something goes wrong, it will be a black mark against Las Vegas—not a black mark against us.”
His was no ordinary paranoia. It had sweep and grandeur, but he could also focus its full intensity on the smallest incident and bring all his terror to bear. And while his paranoia encompassed virtually everything, it really zeroed in on all forms of “contamination.” Unwashed and living in filth, he was forever cleaning the space around him.
Nothing obsessed him more than the purity of fluids, and he had discovered something shocking about the Las Vegas water system, which he set out in another anguished memo:
“This water system will comprise the only water system in the world where the outlet of the sewage disposal plant plus tons of raw, untreated sewage flows right into a small, stagnant pool of water, and then flows right back out again, through a screen to remove the turds, and then into our homes to be consumed by us as drinking water, washing water, and water to cook with.”
Well, not exactly by “us.” Hughes himself drank only bottled water and insisted that it be used in cooking his meals. He had done so for twenty years. Indeed, he drank only one brand, Poland Spring water, only from quart bottles, and only if bottled in its original plant in Maine. As for washing, that was no big problem, since he rarely washed at all. Still, the local water pollution upset him deeply.
“It is not so much the technical purity or impurity, it is the revolting, vomitous unattractiveness of the whole thing. It is sort of like serving an expensive New York Cut steak in one of our showrooms and having the waiter bring the steak in to a customer in a beautiful plate, but, instead of the usual parsley and half a slice of lemon and the usual trimmings to make the steak attractive—instead of this, there is a small pile of soft shit right next to the steak. Now, maybe technically the shit does not touch the steak, but how much do you think the patron is going to enjoy eating that steak?
“I think he would lose his appetite very fast.”
Hughes himself never had much of an appetite. He generally ate only once a day, at some odd predawn hour, and took forever to get down his meal, often requiring that a bowl of soup be reheated several times. Sometimes he did not eat at all for days, other times he subsisted for weeks on desserts alone. But he was very picky about the preparation of his food, especially about any possible “contamination.”
Earlier he had dictated a three-page single-spaced memorandum titled “Special Preparation of Canned Fruit”:
“The equipment used in connection with this operation will consist of the following items: 1 unopened newspaper; 1 sterile can opener; 1 large sterile plate; 1 sterile fork; 1 sterile spoon; 2 sterile brushes; 2 bars of soap; sterile paper towels.”
Hughes carefully outlined nine precise steps to be followed religiously: “Preparation of Table,” “Procuring of Fruit,” “Washing of Can,” “Drying of Can,” “Processing the Hands,” “Opening the Can,” “Removing Fruit,” “Fallout Rules While Around Can,” and “Conclusion of Operation.”
Each step was intricately detailed. For “STEP #3 Washing of Can” he instructed: “The man in charge turns the valve in the bathtub on, using his bare hands to do so. He also adjusts the water temperature so that it is not too hot or too cold. He then takes one of the brushes, and, using one of the bars of soap, creates a good lather, and then scrubs the can from a point 2 inches below the top of the can. He should first soak and remove the label, and then brush the cylindrical part of the can over and over until all particles of dust, pieces of the label, and, in general, all source of contamination