They met in an office that had all the warmth of a cyanide factory. The place was a thousand feet in altitude and maybe ten billion dollars in attitude. A square building, it was a uniquely depressing slate gray, the color of suicide. The meeting was held in the Amoco room, in downtown Houston.

Eight big shot CEOs milled around the British Petroleum board room, sharing firm handshakes and plastic smiles. Several silver trays of delicious pastries sat a mere few feet away from eight coffee urns which dispensed everything from Columbian Gold to Brazilian Solid Nut flavors. None were decaf.

Among those in attendance were Chance Drummond, the President, George (Gus) Shipley, Vice President Operations U.S., and Harold Guttenspiel, CEO Foreign Operations Chief. Others included, Fred Conklin, Marketing U.S., Charlie (Chuck) Hofstetter, Maintenance, Tom Howard, Product Development, and Betsy Blankensett, CEO for Public Relations, the only woman on board.

The BP oil execs knew somebody had fucked up big time, and none of them wanted to be the goat. This latest tragedy was nothing new of course, being the third largest global energy company and the fourth largest corporation in the civilized world, BP was named by Mother Jones Magazine as one of the "ten worst corporations" in both 2001 and 2005 based on environmental and human rights records. In 1991 BP was cited as the most polluting company in the US based on EPA toxic release data. According to research, between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for 104 oil spills.

At 9:30 sharp, President C. R. Drummond stood at the head of the conference table and called the meeting to order. He wore an expression that suggested recent taxidermy.

"Gentlemen, if you'll be so kind as to claim your goodies and have a seat we'll get started. We have a lot to cover." His voice was deep and wet, like mud slipping down a drain. He nodded to Betsy. "Excuse me, that would be lady and gentlemen. Good morning, Ms. Blankensett." Betsy was absolutely gorgeous. She had a soft brown complexion, dark sparkling eyes and thick black hair that cascaded over her shoulders. When she smiled, she had dimpled cheeks you wanted to pinch.

"Good morning, Chance." She admired the way Drummond quickly diverted his eyes away from her ass which was shaped like a Golden Delicious apple. She took a seat at the table next to him, watching as he set his pastry on a plate, turned away and removed a wisp of jelly from his lip. After taking a sip of coffee, he brought his eyes back to the front. Almost bald, Drummond had narrow shoulders and wide hips, a tube of fat around his waist, and a thin mustache that looked like grease pencil.

"Good morning, gentlemen, I don't think I need to stress the emergency facing us here today." Drummond's glare was scalding. "Big mistake on our part. Major fuckage. There's more of our product floating around in the Gulf than we have available at the pump. The damned tree huggers are having a field day with this. Remember McCain and that twit from Alaska said 'drill baby drill.' Ha! I'd love to know how they're gonna champion that crap now."

"Let's face facts, men, the assholes on the hill have us by the short and curlies, and I guess we deserve some of it. After all these years, we have had a good run; I think we can all agree on that. But now, there is absolutely no doubt--we have reached a fork in the road. Do we produce a solution and solve this fiasco in the gulf now or do we keep pointing fingers and bullshitting our way through? I know the stockholders are having conniptions, however, I do realize when you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your main objective was to drain the swamp. I say we'd best fix it and fix it fast. I am open to suggestions--and they better be damned good."

As Drummond took some additional papers from his brief case, sunlight from the window glanced off his square diamond cuff links, sending bright dots around the room helter-skelter.

Gus Shipley spoke, "Well, C.R. I have got one thing going that I'd like to run up the flagpole, if you will allow me." Drummond eyed him as if he were a turd on the carpet.

"Go ahead, shoot, Gus."

Gus Shipley stood five-ten, a respectable height, but he was adolescently slender, with faded blue eyes and a smooth face. It was difficult to take him seriously, yet he was a forty-five year old math whiz that couldn't be ignored when it was time to crunch the numbers. When data was poured into his head it was swiftly sorted and sent to its proper location for speedy analysis. He stood and loosened his tie.

"Well, understand, I haven't had the opportunity to fly this one by you yet, Chance, but . . . Betsy, would you please get those lights for me?" Shipley licked his lower lip nervously.

Cartoonish images of long, black pipe and rippling blue water popped up on the screen at the far end of the table.

"Okay, C R, we know we've got that twenty-one inch pipe that's spitting out the crude." He flipped first one slide then another, showing the pipe, the oil rig above, a barge and then something resembling a nest of eggs floated along the bottom of the screen.

"So, you may wonder what this is." He used the mouse to indicate the nest of eggs. "I've had my maintenance people check with Nike, and they say they can supply us with six-hundred and forty-two thousand golf balls to stuff in that pipe. That's what you see now, moving along the bottom there. See? Heading for the end of the 21 inch pipe. Now we figure that with enough force . . . I'm talking fast and hard now . . . . . . slam . . . bang, we can shove those balls in that pipe then torque a cap over the opening to stop the bleeding."

Drummond bit his lower lip, trying not to laugh. "Jesus Christ, Gus, you are the master of the oblique answer. I think you need a vacation, my friend. That's preposterous! Sit down! Anyone else?"

"We don't have to use Nike," Gus murmured.

Drummond's eyebrows crinkled in concentration. "Shut up, Gus."

Betsy Blankensett wedged a knuckle in her mouth to keep from laughing.

"I say it's not our problem, Mr. Drummond. It's those assholes over at Halliburton. I love it when they speak politicianese, and kiss everybody's ass including Cheney's and the Pope's. Let them clean up after themselves," said Harry Guttenspiel. Harry always wore that pale, obsessive look of ambition so familiar to big corporation board rooms. He was short and bony, with curly black hair and a squirrel like face frequently speckled with late-blooming acne. Harry had a raspy cab driver voice, and he was always sucking on menthol cough drops.

"Harry! Where the hell were you just one minute ago when I talked about pointing fucking fingers?" The fat wormy veins in Drummond's temples popped up.

"Well, I just thought . . ." His face turned the color of spackle.

"No! You didn't think, Harry. Come on! Gentlemen, we need solutions, Godammit!"

Chuck Hofstetter raised his hand.

"Chief, I think our department has a good idea."

Chuck was shriveled and fuzzy-headed, with a florid beaked nose, stringy neck and papery, pellucid skin. He looked like one of those newborn condors that zookeepers are always showing off on the Discovery Channel. Arising from his pores was the smell of cigar.

"We're listening, Chuck."

"Well, I've taken the liberty of bringing along some drawings, if I may." Hofstetter stood and took control of the audiovisual support system. "Sorry, Chief, It'll just take a minute here." He fast forwarded past dozens of slides depicting the oil spill in the gulf.

"Okay, here we are. Gentlemen, you'll observe a cylindrical disc illustrated here." He circled the object with the pointer which he operated with the mouse.

"You'll note it looks very much like the one you most likely have in your tub at home. Now, I'm not sure if you know this or not, but the rubber properties of these stoppers create a suction effect when it covers the drain in your tub. My boys have researched--very quickly I might add, and located a supplier--the Widget Manufacturing Company, right here in Houston." Hofstetter flashed a big smile. "The head engineer over there at Widget says they can prefab a rubber stopper for us per our dimensions in less than a week." Hofstetter gazed around the table as he spoke and knew he had everyone's attention. His face radiated with excitement. Feeling he had momentum, he continued yakking like he was pushing timeshares. It was as if his tongue had come off the hinges.

"The diameter of our rubber stopper will be eight inches wider in circumference than the jagged-edged pipe where the crude is gushing out. Overlap, I call it." He smiled. "That would make it just over twenty-nine inches around. It's weighted of course to hold it in place until suction takes over. Gravity and all that. We figure to drop the stopper very slowly down, down, down, until it matches up with the bleeding pipe. The entire operation will be handled with robots and remote operation of course. Once we get the black bleeding stopped we can ascertain how to go from there. But the main thing is we'll stop the leak . . . and subsequently with that . . . the public squawking should taper off."

Sitting down, Chuck Hofstetter rubbed his nose fiercely, as if trying to dislodge a bumblebee. "Whaddaya think?"

For a moment, silence in the room hung like black smoke.

Drummond blew out his cheeks and shrugged. He gnawed at a fingernail, spit a piece of nail at the wastebasket.

Shipley rubbed his chin. He had another idea, but was afraid to ask for the floor. That would have been like asking a nun for sex. He explored his gums with a ragged plastic toothpick instead.

The meeting lasted nearly two hours and Drummond was dour. He felt that absolutely nothing had been accomplished concerning the big spill. He could not believe that nothing fruitful was culled from all of the high-priced bullshitters assembled in that room, but being honest with himself he had very little to offer either.

The last suggestion given by Fred Conklin from marketing was the most ridiculous. Conklin thought it was best to set fire to the oil somehow and eventually it would burn the well dry.

"What! Jesus Christ, Fred!" Drummond packed his briefcase and walked out. Betsy Blankensett was right behind him. She put her hand on Drummond's shoulder, as they approached the elevator like two impaired Siamese twins trying to get in sync with each other.

"You've got to dial it down, Drummond."

"I'm glad I don't have to answer any questions today," he said. "I'm going home and get drunk, Betts."

"Shit, Chance, who you kidding? You would gargle battery acid to get on Nightline."

"Yeah. I swear, BP and trouble seem to go together like shit and stink."

The executive's chauffeur waited by the limo when the CEOs came out and loaded up in the first car. They ignored the screaming frenzy of pissed-off ecological wussies gathered on the street. The driver acted unconcerned when he walked to the rear of the car to open the doors. A tall black man, he wore three-inch snakeskin shitkickers and walked with a swagger that suggested not brawn so much as hemorrhoidal distress.

Drummond helped Betsy Blankensett into the second car and muttered, "With all the money we pay those bastards, wouldn't you think they'd stop fucking the palms of their hands and come up with some answers."