Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [34]
Before opening the now immaculate fruit can, the billionaire’s servitor, following Step #5, had to “process”: “This action will consist of washing and rinsing the hands four distinct and separate times, being extremely careful to observe the four phases in each washing. That is to say, the man first must brush every minute particle and surface of his hands and fingers. He then puts each finger tip into the palm of the opposite hand and cleans each finger by rotating and pressing the fingers against the palm. He then interlocks the fingers and slides them together. The last phase is grasping the palms together and wringing them.”
The can and the man both now thoroughly scrubbed, it was time to remove the fruit, which required that “Fallout Rules” be observed: “While transferring the fruit from the can to the sterile plate, be very sure that no part of the body, including the hands, be directly over the can or the plate at any time. If possible, keep the head, upper part of the body, arms, etc. at least one foot away.”
There was a postscript: “This operation must be carried out in every infinitessimal detail, and HRH would deeply appreciate it if the man follow each phase very slowly and thoughtfully, giving his full attention to the importance of the work at hand.”
The fruit was now ready to be dished up to Hughes, who did not bathe or shower for months at a stretch, and dined on a bed whose sheets were changed just a few times a year, in a room that was never cleaned.
Yet this memo was merely one in a long series, all part of an elaborate set of rituals the billionaire had dictated over the years, and which by now filled a thick and constantly updated looseleaf binder kept in the penthouse. Its purpose—to prevent the “backflow of germs.”
The invisible threat required special vigilance. It had been a central preoccupation for more than a decade, and even before Hughes drifted into seclusion he would neither shake hands nor touch doorknobs. Now he demanded that everything his Mormons delivered to him be handled with Kleenex or Scott paper towels, “insulation” to protect him from “contamination.”
The five Mormon nursemaids were his only human contact. Yet even they were not allowed to enter his room unbidden or to speak to him until he spoke first. There was no socializing, no idle chitchat. Hughes kept his door closed most of the time and rarely talked to them at all, instead communicating by memo even with these men in the next room. In part, it was because he was nearly deaf and refused to wear a hearing aid. To be heard, the Mormons would have to stand close and shout. Hughes didn’t want them that close, and both his body odor and breath were so rank that they didn’t want to get near him.
Still, he needed to control their every movement. None had been allowed a day off since joining his retinue, and while they finally bargained for a twelve-day-on, four-day-off schedule in Las Vegas, Hughes often ignored the man on duty, preferring to call back an escaped Mormon to perform some absurd task, such as measuring the slippage of his pillow. At times they were all on “stand-by.”
“The moment each man arrives at home from his duties at the hotel, call and give him the following message,” Hughes had dictated when he first established the standby rules. “ ‘HRH said he would be extremely and deeply grateful if you would be kind enough to remain at home without leaving for even one fraction of a second for any reason whatsoever, no matter how great the