Only rarely did Howard have to go out to a site when the materials began leaking before the job had been completed. Then he would assess the extent of the spill and make recommendations for its containment until the company could finish the job and vanish like a huckster’s pipe dream. Howard survived in consulting for the company by conducting most of his business over the phone or using email. The other workers couldn’t smell his presence in the close proximity of a chemical waste dump. Having him come into their office was another matter. There were boundaries that the business community simply would not cross and Howard’s medical problem was well beyond the pale of acceptance. He could visit their pristine offices for short periods, but no one had any intention of putting up with the stench of rotting garbage from a permanent employee on a daily basis. He tried mightily to overcome his social affliction by dressing in impeccable Italian made three-piece suits and silk shirts, but to no avail. A gilded garbage can will, no matter how thick the coating of purest gold, still stink!
Howard’s wife, Anita, was an extremely patient woman. She had been a research chemist herself before moving into middle management. Her doctorate in pharmacology and her experiences as a scientist had made her deliberate and methodical in everything she did. She rarely moved without garnering a solid consensus of support behind her proposals. As a consequence, her subordinates adored her as a boss who listened carefully to them before she made fools of them all by spouting off to a member of upper management. Management loved her for the unwavering support she gave their goals. She could always find a way to accomplish the ends which they had in mind. She would listen to their needs for hours on end and then retreat to her department to have a conference with her subordinates, then emerge a day, perhaps two days later, with a salient plan. Invariably, her plans succeeded.
She was patient with her husband as well. She understood that the tragedy that had stuck his body was not completely of his making. Before the accidents he had been excruciatingly careful about observing State and Federal pollution laws. But after he had lost his job, he had changed. It wasn’t merely the stench that his body produced after he had absorbed the toxic chemicals; he had lost all respect for the rule of law. Once the petite legalisms of equal employment for the disadvantaged had been revealed for the paper tigers they were, he had become embittered with society’s mores and took a positive delight in screwing the system that had damned him. If the business world didn’t have to play by the rules, neither did he.
Howard rightly recognized that the country’s laws had been skillfully twisted by the armies of lawyers that worked for the rich and powerful. Only the small and weak had to obey the laws. The change in the country’s laws couldn’t have been said to have been gradual. There had been no question from the start that the rich had no intention of letting the great unwashed have a hand in governing the country. The Jeffersonian ideals of an agrarian democracy were throttled in their infancy by the evil twins of Federalism and elective representation.