Always (35 page)

“Yeah,” I said quietly as my pager hummed. “She's pretty lucky.” As soon as I looked down at it and saw *911 I knew Charlotte would not fill in and I would miss yet another opportunity to see Henry.

That night in 1999 I returned home and as the water from the sprinkler splashed against the passenger side of my car, I remembered the letter in my purse from the little boy with the sick cells. I retrieved it and read it again, thinking it would take my mind off Henry so I could focus on reality. But then I refolded it and wondered again, why couldn't I let him go? And for the first time I knew the answer to that question as Brandon opened the house door with a smile on his face and walked toward the car. It was because sometimes holding on to absolutely
nothing
. . . is holding on to something, if it means something to you.

Cambridge, Masschusetts

Harvard University

Saint Patrick's Day, March 2000

HENRY

Although we were invited to participate, I didn't feel comfortable being a part of the St. Patrick's Day celebration in Boston. I couldn't even imagine a few of those drunk, green-beer-drinking politicians joining me in Atlanta on Martin Luther King Day. But I was invited to address a convention, so I did a book signing at a bookstore in Brockton called Cultural Plus and then I swung through Boston for a photo op.

Of all my visits during the campaign, the one that stands out the most was my invitation to speak at Harvard, probably because I had come very close to attending Harvard Law. I spent an hour or so with a photographer from UPI and about ten or so Rhodes scholars in the JFK School of Government. I have always been enamored of youthful intelligence. College students have been the moral conscience of nearly every industrialized country in this century. From the acts of civil disobedience viewed by the world at Kent State to the lone student staring down the barrel of the armored tank in Tiananmen Square, not only have students asked the rest of society
why?
they've stated categorically
why not?

After leaving the School of Government, a couple of assistants
and I attended a general assembly which was going to be broadcast on the campus television network and possibly picked up by C-SPAN. Backstage, I prepared my notes to make sure I was ready for anything these young, bright minds could dish out.

I thought about Malcolm here as well as people such as George Wallace, Lenny Bruce, and even Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Now the name of Henry Louis Davis the Second would be added to that list.

I was not nervous, because I was in debate form. Every Sunday Leslie, Herbert, Ed, Penelope, and I would go through at least two hours of mock debates, whether I was on the road or not. If I was away, it was done via conference call or an Internet chat room. It was simply crucial. We would review the important issues from the week, the other candidates' views, and we practiced over and over again not just my response but the
perfect
response. We even practiced what the other candidates would say. Herbert used to carry around this sign that read, “Character, Clarity, Correctness,” and would put it in a visible place as we rehearsed. In other words, I was graded on each answer based on how well I had done in each of those areas.

As I took my trademark half-jog onto the stage, there were a couple of boos from the back of the audience, but by and large the greeting was warm and enthusiastic. We were warned beforehand that the school had a very large and growing conservative contingent that was possibly planning to disrupt the gathering, but I was ready for that as well. There were a couple of well-thought-out questions regarding America's foreign policy with India and my plans to ensure that Social Security was around when the younger generations needed it. One asked if I suspected the CIA or some other government-backed agency had anything to do with creating AIDS, and how could a satellite read an automotive tag from outer space yet be unable to detect poppy fields in Columbia. “With all due respect, sir, I think that is irrefutable evidence that the U.S. government both created the AIDS virus to get rid of the undesirables as well as assisted South American drug lords for the exact same reason.”

After I gave him a very noncontroversial answer, another student asked a very good question in a very bad manner.

“Yo, Senator Davis. My name is Tron and I am from the boogy down round bouts Yankee Stadium. It's crazy-go-bananas back there but I'm sure you know the area. My question is this, Money. In his book
Black and White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal, white
Professor Andrew Hacker of Queens College says there's a gulf between people of color and the white oppressive majority which may not be closed unless the
black
man makes a move. Tell these folks the dealio and how the people of color in general, and the
black
man
specifically
, will triumph over the autocratical opinions of the oppressor and take the place in this society which is rightfully his!” The crowd laughed and booed as he sauntered to his seat, dragging one leg behind and clutching himself. I wasn't embarrassed for the brother. Was he out of order in his approach? In a way. But he was being out of order . . . in Harvard. Again I answered his question without making waves or creating controversial sound bites.

And then a young man who looked just like an extra from the movie
Mississippi Burning
, with his slick, greasy, black hair and pocket protector, stood up to the microphone. He did not give his name, nor did he show any emotion as he spoke in a monotone, without taking a breath. “Mr. Davis, do you consider yourself to be an African-American and if so why or why not?”

I'd expected this question to come up in the campaign due to a speech Leslie had made at the Million Woman March. I just did not expect it in that gathering. I leaned into the bright lights and said, “Yes, yes, I am an African-American. Because I am proud to be of African descent and proud to be an American. See, I feel—”

“But why not just call yourself an American?” he shouted as a couple of boos mixed in with the cheers I got for the answer. “Is calling yourself simply an American not
good
enough, sir? Not
good
enough for the man wishing to run this country?”

“You know, I have followed politics in this country, and throughout the world, I might add, for the past thirty-plus
years,” I said, walking away from the podium and up the stairs with the hand-held microphone toward the student. As I did so, there was a collective gasp in the room. “I have probably watched more tapes of debates, with all due respect, than anyone in this room. So I am surprised,” I said, standing about ten feet away from the student, “that people are somehow
offended
when I express my pride in my ethnic heritage. When Ronald Rea—”

“Sir! This has
nothing
to do with Mr. Reagan. Black folks in this country have bent over backward to separate themselves! You want to be given the same rights, yet you subscribe to the tenets of separatism. You got black colleges, a black Miss America contest, black television networks. How can you say all you want is to be a part of the mainstream when
you
keep building walls between us!”

By the time he finished his diatribe, I'd returned to the podium. He was making arguments I'd debated in college thirty years earlier at Georgetown, so I decided to allow the crowd, which was booing and throwing paper balls at him, to handle the situation. I was very proud of the way I'd handled the question because I'd resisted the bait to indignify myself. I wondered how it would be played out in the national media.

The next day I expected to see a videotape of the event on the news, anxious about what spin they would put on it. However, as I clicked from one station to another, it was nowhere to be found, which was curious since by this time in the campaign at least three cameras were usually around to photograph everything I did, short of taking a leak. The next day I got up early for my flight to Baton Rouge and a charity basketball game, and read the paper in the limo on the way to the airport. There was just a small corner article about the debate, which said I made an appearance and spoke to the students, accompanied by a snapshot of myself at the podium. I called Ed immediately to find out what happened, and he said it got buried by a couple of larger stories.

For the next several months Marcus had me booked on any and every talk show we could get on. We noticed that the crowds were starting to grow larger and younger, and the press were there in droves, but the downside to this was that any slipup was seen around the world.

One Monday afternoon we had over four thousand people show up at a rally at the University of Minnesota, and it was the first time I saw one of the dirty tricks we suspected the Republican party was responsible for.

Our rallies were always carefully orchestrated events. There were three roped-off sections. Up front about one thousand people who had either worked in the campaign or had given donations were allowed to stand. In the next section there were a thousand individuals who were affiliated with the Democratic party. And behind that section stood everyone else. This was done because when hecklers or other disrupters were in attendance, they were so far out of view they never made the news. But on this particular Thursday out of the corner of my eye I saw a young man who must have brought his costume in a brown bag. How he had infiltrated us, I never found out, but as I spoke, he changed into King Henry garb and held up a sign that read:

And the back of the sign read:

Because thirty-four times last year he voted to raise your taxes!

Needless to say, he was booed and even punched by a few of my supporters, but then I noticed the King Henrys would show up at almost every rally. Then I noticed signs with my face painted with the body of a chicken attached. There was always a caricature of Leslie with the words henpecked on the bottom. This culminated into an incident that occurred when I was doing a press conference on the tarmac of LAX. A guy put on a King Henry hat, and when everyone looked his way, someone threw a pie in my direction that missed badly but caught Marcus flush in the face. I had
tried to overlook the stunts in the past, but Herbert ended up pressing charges this time, and that was the last of the King Henrys and the henpecked signs.

When I returned home from the swing through California, the tension between Leslie and me was at an all-time high. My poll numbers after Clayburn finally bowed out went through the roof, yet I could not get a decent night's sleep when I lay in my own bed. I couldn't remember the last time my wife and I had shared a real kiss or a hug or even danced. On a plane to Columbus, Ohio, I asked myself, was it really worth it to win the presidency and lose my wife? As we flew, I thought about the man who had answered her phone that morning in Europe, and I knew the answer was obvious. Frightening, yet obvious.

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles Convention Center

Democratic National Convention, August 2000

LESLIE

I was asked by Jane Pauley what the most memorable moment of the campaign was for me. It was an easy question to answer. It was in Los Angeles at the Democratic Convention. We'd clinched the nomination about a month earlier and had decided to take a few weeks off to both prepare for the general election and relax, and if we could somehow fit falling back in love in the equation, that would be an added benefit.

We took a vacation to Martha's Vineyard, and the first day we were there, Teddy did nothing but work. He and Ed set up interviews and wrote position papers and talked to the chairwoman of the party about a plank or who would speak and in what order. These were things he could have assigned to others, but it seemed as we got closer to achieving our goal, the more difficult he found it to delegate.

I wanted my husband back. I'd shared so much of him for so long, and I knew if we won the election, I wouldn't see him for another eight years. In Rio a diplomat once quietly asked me through an interpreter if Henry could possibly be as good in bed as he looked like he could be when he walked. She even had the nerve to say, “I bet he can really drill you, no?” She meant that as a compliment, but the sister-girl almost came out in me for a split second.

Women often told me just how fortunate I was to have Henry as a husband. I would nod my head in agreement while thinking,
If only you knew how much I wished I had a husband like yours
. A husband who could take you out from time to time to a blues club or who would work on the lawn and shoot hoops with your son. Just a simple everyday Fred-type husband who came home at the same time every evening and who fell asleep with you every night. I know I am fortunate to have Teddy for a husband, but there are nights I wish I were not so fortunate.

The five of us had a meeting to officially select a vice presidential running mate at the convention. The names of twenty-five congressmen, mayors, and governors were written on the chalkboard, and Herbert asked us to choose the top three candidates we wanted on the ticket and the three we didn't want considered.

While no one name appeared on all of our lists in the “would like to have” group, one name appeared on all five “would not consider” lists. It was that name which eventually got the nod.

Richard Albert “Dirk” Gallagher was southern just like us, which did not bring much to the ticket. But he was from the Lone Star State, and no matter how we looked at the numbers, with its diverse racial population, it was the keystone to any victory scenario. We knew if we could lock up Florida and Texas it would be hard to defeat us. He was seen as a moderate, which would help in the heartland, and he was a Purple Heart recipient twenty years older than Henry, so he would give the ticket a few needed gray hairs. The reason we did not like him was that it was thought that
he was racist and sexist, but for the sake of the campaign, we decided to put our personal feelings aside.

A few party leaders wanted to block Henry's nomination on the convention floor because he was not the traditional Democrat. He was pro-ecology, yet he was for increases in military spending. He was pro-choice, yet he was against the capital gains tax. When asked if they would vote for him in the fall his polling numbers with white male votes were a little less than 40 percent, yet he polled well over 60 percent of white female and more than 90 percent of African-American and Hispanic voters.

When Henry met with Dirk Gallagher, the air crackled with tension. Governor Tom Baldwin was being viewed as a possible third-party contender, so we wanted to split the all-important white male vote. We figured Gallagher could deliver much of the southwest and possibly help us in California. Dirk had made it clear that he was running in 2004 if we lost and did not want to be a part of the campaign if we did not make an all-out push for victory. He didn't want to be branded as being on a losing campaign. So Henry didn't get into a pissing contest with him. Instead he left and allowed Herbert and Marcus to discuss how we felt we could win in the general election against either Steiner or Governor Tom.