Free Wholly Smokes by John Sladek Page B

threatened lawsuits to stop him. Dustin soon found that he had…
    a tiger by the tail. If I stay in charge, I am guilty myself of producing the very poisons I’ve always fought against. If I resign, or they force me out with a lawsuit, GST will become even bigger and better at poisoning Americans. Somehow I’ve gotto find an acceptable way to shut it all down. Maybe all these state and federal health lawsuits will help… or maybe new federal regulations…
     
    Yet his final rescue came neither from state nor federal government, but from an unexpected quarter.
    In January, 2009, an out-of-work factory worker named Delmar Birtwhistle, of Soybean Station, Nebraska, was smoking as he drove his pickup on an icy country road. When he attempted to remove the cigarette from his mouth after a puff, it stuck to his lip, and Mr. Birtwhistle pulled the hot coal off the end. It fell into his lap. While pawing frantically at it, Mr. Birtwhistle managed to run his pickup off the road. He was fortunate in that he ran off on a driveway. He was unfortunate in that the driveway led him straight through the glass front of a fast-food restaurant. Moreover, the restaurant happened to be filled with handicapped children.
    Though no children were actually hurt, many were said to be traumatized by the crash. Their guardians sued GST; the restaurant sued GST, and even Mr. Birtwhistle sued GST.
    The essence of Delmar Birtwhistle’s case was that his whole life had been plagued by tobacco. His mother had smoked heavily during pregnancy. His parents hadboth chain-smoked all duringhis childhood, saturating his little lungs with second-handsmoke. His only childhood toys were ashtrays, lighters, pipe-cleaners, and Christmas cartons of cigarettes. When they went shopping, his parents would lock him in a smoke-filled car with the windows rolled up (This fact gave rise to the new legal concept of “third-hand smoke.”)
    At school, his teachers and all of the older kids smoked incessantly. He held out for a time, but finally Little Delmar, just seven years old, inhaled his first Hit. Soon he was up to three packs a day, a habit he maintained for life.
    When Delmar reached adolescence, he was able to support his habit only by crime. He began by breaking into vending machines, and moved on to gas station holdups. In prison, where cigarettes were precious currency, his habit forced him to smoke up a fortune.
    After prison, Delmar tried going straight. He married Thelma Harris, a woman who workedin the Hits factory. She too was addicted. They filled their house with thick smoke and with Hits smoking memorabilia – lighters, ashtrays, placards, neon signs. Delmar tried to get a job at the Hits factory himself, but there was the problem of his prison record. It was hard to find work anywhere – those companies who hired excons usually had no-smoking policies.
    When he saw his little son playing with ashtrays and lighters, Delmar realized his own lifehad been ruined by GST, and now they were about to ruin his son’s life too. Distraught and suicidal, Delmar jumped in his pickup and went for a drive in the country. He lit a Hit to soothe his jangled nerves. Because of its “defective construction,” the cigarette stuck to his lip. The hot coal fell into his lap, “burning him severely” says the lawsuit, “in a tender area.”
    “My client’s entire life has been corrupted and devastated by GST. Its shadow lay over him from before his birth until the day of his terrible accident. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we ask only that GST, at long last, begin to pay for this wanton destruction!” The plaintiffs asked for punitive damages of 130 billion dollars.
    As the scent of money spread in the water, GST was soon surrounded by the circling fins of many more lawyers. There developed a class action suit for all persons injured by smoking-related accidents, including not only car accidents, but several light plane crashes, a forest fire, many hotel fires,