Primary Colors (2 page)

"He got his head fu-- ah, mess up.
T
hem post-dramati
c t
hings, right?"

"Nope," Stanton said, very calmly. "It was just that, well . . . He couldn't read."

Heads snapped, someone said What?, someone whistled, someone said, "No shit."

"He couldn't read, and he was embarrassed, and he didn't want to tell anyone," Stanton said. "He had the courage to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, but he didn't have the strength to do what each of you has done, what--each--of--you--is doing--right
-
here. He didn't have the courage to admit he needed help, and to find it. So I want you to know that I understand, I appreciate what you are doing here, I honor your commitment. And when people ask me, 'Jack Stanton, why are you always spending so much money and so much time and so much effort on adult literacy programs?' I tell them: Because it gives me a chance to see real courage. It inspires me to be stronger. I am so grateful you've let me visit with you today." I have seen better speakers and heard better speeches, but I don't think I'd ever heard--at least, not till that moment--a speaker who measured his audience so well and connected so precisely. It was a
n i
mpressive bit of politics. And they were all over him then, clapping his back, shaking his hand, hugging him. He didn't back off, keep his space, the way most pols would; he leaned into them, and seemed to get as much satisfaction from touching them, draping his big arm over their shoulders, as they got from him. He had this beatific, slightly goofy look on. And then Dewayne said, "Wait a minute." The room fell silent. "What about Charlie?"

"Well, it took a while," Stanton said, more conversationally. They were all friends now. "He started hanging 'round the high school when I got up there. He, uh--" Stanton was embarrassed. He was making a decision. He went ahead with it--"Well, I was the manager of the varsity baseball team and Charlie liked to sit with me on the bench, helping out--and that grew into helping out around the gymnasium, and finally they offered hint a job when Mr. Krause died." "Who Mr. Krause? What job he got?"

"Oh, he was the school janitor."

"No shit."

He stayed with them for a time, answering questions, signing autographs. The library lady pitched Stanton about the need for more money--there was a long waiting list of people who wanted to get into that program but had to be turned away. Then they all followed him back downstairs, and out to the car. Howard Ferguson and I trailed the crowd. Howard squeezed my arm gently, just above the elbow, kind of chuckled--a strangled guffaw--and shrugged, as if to say: What can I say? "How do you know hint?" I asked, having to ask something. "Oh, a long time," he said.

The governor was down on the sidewalk now, chugging through another round of meaningful handshakes. Ferguson and I stood over by the car. "So what do you think?" Howard asked.

I said something enthusiastic, but I really was wondering: Is he expecting me to say something like "Where do I sign up?" Didn't they want to sit down and say, Here's what we're doing and here's what we'd like you to do and what do you think about this issue, or that person, and how do you think someone should run for president of the United States these days?

Stanton came over. Looked at me. So? "Well, that was something," I said.

"I can't believe we can't rustle up enough dough to make this available to anyone who wants it," he said. (What was this going to be--a policy discussion?) "Why didn't you guys fund it better?" Because my former boss was a weenie. But do you just say that straight off? If you badmouth the old boss, what does that tell the prospective new boss about your loyalty? "Well, it was late, we got trapped in a formula fight," I said and gobbledygooked on about rules and amendments and assorted horseshit, but he didn't listen very long. In fact, he turned away halfway through a sentence--no pretense about just shutting me down--and asked Ferguson, "Where?" "Times editorial board," Howard said laconically. "You're only about a half hour late right now."

Stanton suddenly was red in the face--and I mean the mood had changed with blinding speed: from sunshine to tornado in a blink. "You call them?" he demanded, eyes squinting down. If the answer was no, I was afraid Stanton would deck hint.

"Of course," Howard said. "Told them traffic."

Stanton lightened as suddenly as he'd darkened. Clouds scudding on a windy day. "I love New York," he said, back to aw-shucks-rmjust-a-poor-country-governor. "Easiest place in the world to be late." "But we better roll."

Stanton ducked into the car. Was that it? Weren't they forgetting something? Howard cracked his window, "Can you meet us in our suite up at the Regency, 'bout eleven tonight?"

"Eleven?"

Stanton rolled down his window. "Whatsa matter, Henry," he asked, slyly, conspiratorially, "--you got some action going?"

"No," I said. Boy, did I feel slow. Was he looking for something clever, something sexual? He kept coming at me from places I didn't expect.

"See you, then," Ferguson said as the car rolled away.

Eleven o'clock? Well, it was late. It implied that we were skipping ahead, past the usual formalities. It assumed an intimacy that did not exist, in my mind, yet--but it was flattering, too. It also assumed I was a professional and would understand the rhythms of a campaign, even a larval one. Politicians work--they do their public work, that is--when civilians don't: mealtimes, evenings, weekends. The rest of th
e t
ime, down time, is spent indoors, in hotel suites, worrying the phones, dialing for dollars, fighting over the next moves, living outside time; there are no weekdays or weekends; there is sleep but not much rest. Sometimes, and always at the oddest hours, you may break free: an afternoon movie, a midnight dinner. And there are those other, fleeting moments when your mind drifts from him, from the podium, and you fix on the father and son tossing a ball out past the back of the crowd, out in the park, and you suddenly realize, Hey, it's Saturday; or you glance out a hotel window and spot an elderly couple walking hand in hand, still alive in each other's mind (as opposed to merely sharing space, waiting it out). The campaign--with all its talk of destiny, crisis and mission--falls away and you remember: Other people just have lives. Their normality can seem a reproach. It hurts your eyes, like walking out of a matinee into bright sunlight. Then it passes. He screws up a line, it's Q&A time, it's time to move.

The suite at the Regency brought all that back. It was generic; it existed outside time. I was, at once, vaguely depressed and entirely comfortable. There was a handful of pols in shirtsleeves, working the phones, hammering laptops, nibbling off platters of fruit and cheese, chugging Diet Cokes. No smoke, no booze anymore. But a haze of ill health all the same; sycophancy frays the nerves, clogs the arteries. I didn't know most of them. There were a couple of bodyguard, trooper types. There were a couple of Nandi Wipes with wispy mustaches--statehouse sorts about to be paved over.

And there was Arlen Sporken, a Washington media consultant I knew only by reputation, which was mixed. He was hot right then, as hot as he would ever be, having just won a special election down in the Carolinas with a pro-choice ad that sold the Crackers on the notion that the Founding Fathers fought and died for the right to a d&c. Sporken had a great, fresh effusion of golden farmboy hair, after which it was all downhill, his body dissolving into a shocking wallow of fat. Pols tend toward fat, except for the joggers and jigglers, who burn down like fuses in a campaign. Sporken had a kind face, a pleasant drawl. He was from Mississippi and reeked of the un-ironic liberal fervor common to Southern Baptists who'd had conversion experiences during th
e c
ivil rights years. He was a booster, an enthusiast--and another toucher, a flagrant one. "Henry Burton, as I live and breathe!" he announced, yanking my hand, then crushing tile in a kill body hug that culminated in actual backslapping and rib-chucking. "So you're on board."

"Well, I--"

"He thinks you're great. Great! Just great." This was more than your standard white-boy overcompensation in overdrive. "We're gonna win this thing," he was saying now. "Don't you think?"

Since this couldn't possibly be the beginning of a serious conversation about the campaign, I said something harmless like "Well, who else is in?"

"Henry, you really have been away. Harris, definitely. Martin, maybe. Luther Charles--well, you know Brother Luther." I did know Luther, mostly as a distant childhood memory; I hadn't seen him in years. But Sporken couldn't possibly have known that: he was assuming that since Luther was a brother, I'd have tribal vibes about his political intentions. So I sent him a quasi-disdainful look that said, We don't share vibes on the first date with persons outside the pigment. Arlen--a good liberal--retreated, respecting my racial space. "Uh, the big question is Ozio, of course," he concluded. "You think he's got the cojones to run?" A mortal dork, this guy. I considered the door. But I wanted to see Stanton again, I guess. "Ozio . . . Don't know him personally," I said. It was one of those conversations you have--usually with civilians--where life imitates the McLaughlin Group, where you say the safe, expected things. Political chat. But I strayed a little then, got too close to something real. "If Ozio did go, and put it all together," I asked. "Would you take the two spot?"

"Fuck a duck," said a familiar voice just behind me. "I'll take what I can get."

Stanton had cracked open the door to the bedroom behind me; he was buttoning his shirt over a hairless, pink chest; he was the color of a medium-rare steak just off the grill, steaming a little. I had heard about this. He opened the door wider. "You remember Ms. Baum," he said. The librarian. I hope I didn't gasp. She was . . . arranging herself. She seemed a bit dazed. She whacked her shoulder on the bedroom door, trying to squeeze past him. "Ow," she yipped. He leaned into her, put his arm on her. "You all right, darlin'?" She stiffened, desperately attempting to maintain the appearance of propriety. He was--well, he was entirely unembarrassed, as if he'd just sneezed, or scratched himself, or yawned, or done any of those semiprivate physical things normal people are willing to do in front of strangers.

"Well, Governor," she said, "it was good to have . . . this . . ."

He saved her, or tried to. "Henry," he said, turning to me. "Don't you think Ms. Baum runs just a great program?"

I said something.

"Thanks so much," she said, moving toward the door. "For . . ." "You're going to give my best to Iry Gelber, right?"

"Of course, we'll--"

"Take this up with your board. Tell Iry I'll even extend him the privilege of whupping my butt on the golf course." He had moved toward the door, following her. He put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. He whispered something in her ear. She inhaled, then darted out the door.

"'Bye now," he said, closing the door, chuckling a little. He moved over toward the bar. There were piles of sandwiches, fruit and cheese. He prowled the food; he worried over it. He reached for a sandwich, restrained himself; chose an apple--a perfect red Delicious, like the poisoned one in Snow White, and made it disappear. "Ms. Baum is on the regional board of the teachers union," he explained, still chewing.

"I was wondering why you chose that particular library," I said, "in Harlem--"

Arlen Sporken was immediately in my face. "The governor always visits adult literacy programs, wherever he goes."

Stanton didn't seem too eager to acknowledge the politics of it, either. That part was obvious. It wasn't something you had to talk about. He made it clear, through the slightest of winces, a raised hand, a turn away--something--that this was an invasion of his innocence, a squall line threatening his uncloudy day.

"Well, it was a pretty amazing experience," I tried. What an idiot. And nobody said anything; nobody helped me out.

Stanton peered at me in a kindly way, as if he hoped that I'd know where to take the conversation from there. But I was stuck, clueless
,
and beginning to sweat. And then, for the first of what would be many, many times, she saved me.

The phone. "The missus," a trooper said.

He snagged a sandwich on the way. The receiver seemed tiny in his hand. I noticed his long, graceful fingers. He caressed the phone; it was clear he knew how to work it. "Hi, darlin'," he said. And then she leveled him--the sharp, distant bark was audible where I stood. His eyes narrowed, his brow fiirrowed. "Oh, listen, honey, I know, I know . . . I'm sorry . . . We got stuck here. But great news. Real progress with the teachers--" His eyes narrowed again. "Tonight? Are you sure? . . . I'm sorry . . . I had no idea--" Then, to one of the statehouse guys: "Charlie, did you know we were supposed to meet the guy from the Portsmouth Democratic Committee tonight?" Charlie shrugged; smiled. He was a thin, taut little man, a jockey. "Goddammit, Charlie--" He shrugged, smiled at Charlie. Then back on the phone, "Tell bins I'll come by first thing tomorrow . . . No, no, Susan . . . Please . . . C'mon ... No, I want to, I want to . . . We'll get right up there. We'll leave now If you'd just quit poppin' my eardrum, we'd . . . Okay, I'm . . . No, please don't go . . . Stay there. Stay right there . . . Susan?"

He hung up. Shrugged. "We better go," he said. "Where's the plane?"

"Teterboro," one of the troopers said.

"Shit. All the way out there? C'mon. C'mon. We gotta get out of here." There was all sorts of movement now. Papers gathered up. The jockey was in the bedroom, then out, with a suitcase. Stanton snagged another apple. He put his arm around Sporken, "You're doin' what we talked about?"