Trust is Blind

HARRY:
I can’t believe we’re still working here. What are we doing?


JOE:
It’s a good job. It’s the best job I ever had in my life.


HARRY:
We’re scum. We’re human filth. There is nothing redeeming about what we do.


JOE:
Yuh, maybe, but the whole morality thing is so relative. Besides, the golf vacations are fabulous.


HARRY:
We’re special assistants to thieves and cheaters.


JOE:
Sure, but we’re not thieves and cheaters ourselves. We’re just the hired help. I talked to my pastor about it, and he said that once they translated the bible into English, the whole right and wrong thing got confused and nobody is really sure what it says. Just think about that and you realize that....No, who am I kidding, we’re both going to hell.


HARRY:
Of course we’re going to hell. If we weren’t going to hell, we wouldn’t be working here.
(The phone rings and JOE answers it.)


JOE:
Senator Bill Frist’s office. No, he isn’t here. He’s somewhere else doing something that has nothing to do with his blind trust, his blind trust’s former ownership of Hospital Corporation of America stock, his brother’s ownership of HCA stock, his promise to the voters and the taxpayers that he didn’t know his blind trust owned HCA stock, and the fact that he sold this stock that he didn’t know he owned right before the stock price collapsed. Can I take a message? Well so’s your old man!
(He hangs up.)


JOE:
Jesus Christ. These voters talk to you like you’re working for them.


HARRY:
How did he let this happen? He was such a well-liked doctor.


JOE:
He was my inspiration. When I told him how much I admired his work as a heart surgeon and he said to me “Half the battle is knowing when to wash up,” I was transfixed.


HARRY:
How could you not be? But it’s over. This is even worse than when we worked for the House Ethics Committee. This is the bottom, Joe. We’ve totally hit bottom.


JOE:
We have to write the statement, let’s just write the statement.


HARRY:
Fine. Keep it short. “Senator Frist denies all wrongdoing.”


JOE:
“Denies” is so negative. He wants all our statements to be positive.


HARRY:
He’s positive that he denies all wrongdoing. He never knew that he owned HCA stock.


JOE:
It can’t be insider trading because he was outside when he told his broker to sell. He was playing golf. He didn’t know what he was doing.


HARRY:
He didn’t even know what he didn’t know.


JOE:
He knew nothing. And he still knows nothing. It was happenstance.


HARRY:
Exactly. None of this would’ve happened if the stock hadn’t taken a nosedive.


JOE:
God damn nurses. First they want to be paid every time they work. Then they want to be paid extra for working 12 hour shifts. Then they want health insurance. Health insurance for nurses. Do you believe that? You’re a nurse. Take care of yourself. What do you need health insurance for?


HARRY:
Hospitals would be so much better off without nurses.


JOE:
Exactly. That’s the kind of innovation that Senator Frist would come up with if people would only give him a chance instead of tagging him with every little stupid ethical code violation.


HARRY:
It’s no use. We’re washed up.


JOE:
On Capitol Hill, we’re washed up. But if we stick it out, the senator will get us jobs at HCA.


HARRY:
After the stock collapse? How likely is that?


JOE:
HCA is coming back up. This is temporary. It was just a wave of patient complaints. Whenever patients have to pay their own money for something, they get all testy.


HARRY:
Those patients are ridiculous. Between them and the nurses, it’s amazing we have any kind of health care business at all.


JOE:
Of course the hospital charges you a hundred dollars for a Tylenol. We serve it with water. There’s value added there.


HARRY:
Right. But they don’t appreciate that. Nobody appreciates what you do for them.


JOE:
Just say it was a blind trust and leave it at that.


HARRY:
It was totally blind. He made fun of it, that’s how blind it was.


JOE:
Remember when he used to come in here and make believe he was guessing what was in the blind trust?


HARRY:
He was so funny that time. Wasn’t he a scream?


JOE:
He was a riot. He says to us “Fellas, I don’t want you to tell me what’s in the blind trust. But I’m going to name off a bunch of stocks, and if I name one that’s in there, like for example HCA, just as an example, give me a wink and a nod, and then say Yes, it’s absolutely in there. Okay, here’s my list.


HARRY:
Here’s my list.


JOE:
Right, here’s my list. HCA.


HARRY:
Yuh, that was the first one on the list.


JOE:
What a funny guy. I fell out of my chair that time.


HARRY:
Yuh, those were great times. And now they’re over.


JOE:
This is so depressing. Couldn’t we just, you know, lie?


HARRY:
Lie about the whole thing?


JOE:
Yuh, just lie.


HARRY:
Like the White House does?


JOE:
Exactly. Like the White House does.


HARRY:
You can lie if it’s big enough. Like the war or the budget or something. But nobody will believe a lie about something this small. This tiny. This is just the kind of thing that people will think you’re lying about because it’s so small.


JOE:
Okay, okay, I got it.


HARRY:
You got it?


JOE:
I absolutely got it. There’s a terrorist plot to blow up the New York Stock Exchange. They’ve wired the computers so that as soon as HCA stock hits exactly 109...


HARRY:
The price it was the day before the blind trust sold the stock....


JOE:
The bomb will go off.


HARRY:
So he had to break open the blind trust and sell the stock or thousands of people would’ve been injured.


JOE:
Exactly. The doctor who risked his whole career to save lives.


HARRY:
You know, it’s good. But it’s not quite big enough.


JOE:
Okay, wait a minute. How about this one....