From: gwb
To: Hank Blakely
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002
Subject: Energy makes me tired
 
Let me know if I'm talkin' outta turn here, but I think Kenny Lay's popped a few rivets.
 
Fact, I think he ain't been right since August a' last year. Seems Enron 'd started goin' south about then, but the public wasn't in on it yet.
 
In the next coupla three months the talk 'round town was gettin' increasin' gloomy, and the effect on poor ol' Kenny was market. All of a sudden he was actin' anxious and pugnitious. You couldn't hardly get a civilian word outta him. Seemed like he gone from howdy to hell overnight.
 
I didn't realize how big the change was 'til the other night when I was listenin' to a 'phone tape from him to me.
 
I remembered that call; when the phone rang I'd had some kind of awful preminence that it wasn't gonna be a good thing, and sure enough it was Kenny callin' me from Houston.
 
Him n' me started off with the kinda chit-chat you do when you're waitin' for the real subject to loom up. And after a while, Kenny got 'round to askin' how we was all doin'. Only that ain't the way he put it. Way he put it was to ask about folks in partic'lar: Like Dick C, Donnie Evans, Paul O'Neil, and so on about some other fellas in my employ.
 
I told him ever'body was just fine. Then all peaches and sunshine he asks me: "And the money, George, how's that coming along? Proving to be helpful is it? You got enough to get everything done?"
 
Started me wonderin' who was tapin' who.
 
I told him sure, we was gettin' full usage a' the money, and how much we was appreciatin'.
 
"Well," he said, "That's just great, George. Glad to hear it. And I hope you know that no one down here begrudges you even a penny of it; not a single one of the — oh, let me see, that would be about...I guess 600 million pennies we've put up so far. Of course, eighty million of those came directly from me and Linda, and we don't begrudge you those, either."
 
Kenny's point was startin' to swim into view.
 
I thanked him again, but he went on like he hadn't heard me.
 
"Although..." he said, "...Although, you know, come to think of it, there might be a few down here who are a little concerned....."
 
What all they concerned about, Kenny-boy?" I said, as smilin' as I could.
 
"Well," he said, "I guess you might call it 'return on investment'. There are some who've been wondering why we're catching so much hell from some of your people lately. Some of my people are beginning to feel somewhat...unprotected."
 
"Okay, now, see, Kenny, that's —"
 
"But, you know what I told them, George? I told them they were being silly, You wouldn't do anything to hurt us, because you're one of our best friends...that's right, isn't it, George? You are one of our best friends?"
 
"Well, yeah, Kenny," I said, "but...well, I'm not sure we should be havin' this conversation right now -"
 
"Oh, and why is that, George?" And a little a' the friendly in his voice 'd got up 'n gone someplace else..
 
"Well..." I said, "You know. All this stuff appearin' in the papers ever' day 'n all....and Karl said maybe we shouldn't be so close in contact right in through here, and I —"
 
"Karl said that, did he? Well, well. " And he plain hung up without another word.
 
Actual, Karl 'd had quite a bit more to say about the subject than I let on. He'd lost a good deal a' money when conflictin' interest made him sell the stock just when it'd hit the fast part a' the slippery slope. He was extreme unhappy about it, and Karl can express hisself most forcefully about that kind a' thing.
 
That was in late November, a little 'fore the Dynegy buy-out fell through — well, Dynegy actual ran off like a bear a was chasin' it — and Enron stock was about as popular as a cattleman's booth at a Buddhist convention.
 
In all that time hadn't nobody heard from Kenny directly until about a week later, when he sudden begun makin' simultaneous calls to damn near ever'body in the administration.
 
But it didn't do him much good. Near ever'body seemed to be like "Ken who?" To hear them tell it, they didn't know Kenny Lay from Kennebunkport.
 
Then, in December Enron filed for bankruptcy, and that's when the letters started.
 
The first one was to Dick C's wife, Lynne, and it went like this:
 
        "They seek him here, They seek him there.
        Those news-hounds seek him everywhere.
        Is he sick or dead, or gone insane-y,
        That elusive reclusive Richard. Cheney?"
 

Then, about a week later, I got one:
 
        "Georgie-Porgie, puddin' 'n pie,
        Won his race
        And I know why."
 

Which Karl thought was pretty funny 'til he got his:
 
        "Captain Karl, pirate bold,
        What a shame if someone told!"
 

Which Karl didn't find one bit humorous.
 
The same kinda letters went to some other key fellas too, several of who was of the opinion the handwritin' was Karl's. Which left us up a investigatory tree, 'cause if there was one thing none a' us wanted to do, it was to get Kenny any more upset.
 
Kenny could tell some very interestin' stories if he was a mind to.
 
All in all, this is a pretty rotten time for Kenny to go off the deep end. It ain't like we ain't got enough trouble already.
 
If it was just any one thing, it'd be all right. But ever'thin's comin' together simultaneously at the same time. It was bad enough when all we had to do was explain how (but not why) we relaxed our guard on the terrorism thing, or the way we didn't quite win the terrorism war, just pushed it over to some new places. But Enron takes the cake. Now we got to come up with reasons why so many administration people is hip-deep in it, and why folks is takin' fifths and shreddin' ever'thin' in sight and shootin' themselves and all nonsense like that. Plus some new nightmare goes off like Old Faithful just about ever' damn day.
 
That's a awful lotta cow-patties in the turbines.
 
Thing scares me is, eventually even the people who think I know what I'm doin' is gonna get fidgety and start puttin' two 'n two together. It's like Jeb says, Just 'cause they let me get elected don't mean they's all dumb.
 
You know what'd be real nice? It'd be real nice if Ken decided to high-tail it to some island nobody ever heard a'. Somewhere they ain't got no extra-dictionary procedures, and where nobody even knew who he was, or ever heard a' energy tradin'.
 
Now that would do me a power a' good.