Primary Colors (30 page)

"Oh, he was just glorious," she said, sitting down at the gray Formica table with chronic legs. "You know the story, right?"

I'd heard the story, but I wanted to hear it from her. "You met at the USO?" I asked.

"Yes sirree," she said. "He was a friend of Charlie's. I was up, visiting Charlie-he was about to ship out. Kansas City was the place back then, don't ask me why. But it was just swarmin' with fellas. And so there I was, and Charlie introduced me to Will Stanton-and he asked me to dance. It was a Glen Miller, "Gettin' Sentimental Over You"-or was that Dorsey? Anyway, it just clicked, and I mean clicked, like a lock tumblin'. You only get a few moments of magic in a life, I suspect, and that was mine. He knew it. I knew it. We didn't wait for the formalities, if you know what I mean. But we did get ourselves hitched before he went. Charlie was best man. We had a couple of weeks, long enough for Jackie to get planted."

She paused. "Was that when you worked at Harry Truman's haberdashery?" I asked.

"Oh shit, who told you that? Jackie? Gawd, Henry-let me tell you somethin': kids'll believe anything. Truman's was well bankrupt by the time this girl hit town. I mean, he was vice president of the United States by then, fixin' to move on up. People'd point out where his store had been, but it was long gone. I guess I told that to Jackie just to tell him something. He always wanted to know everything ther
e w
as to know 'bout his daddy, but there wasn't all that much to know. I had hint for two weeks, and I can't remember two better weeks in my entire life-and then he left, and he died at Iwo. And he's buried somewhere out there. And his son is going to be president of the United States someday."

"And Uncle Charlie, did he win the Congressional Medal of Honor?"

"He won some sort of thing, came home a mess. He lay on that damn couch in the living room, shakin' like a leaf and screamin' in the night. But I think it was Jackie pulled him out-he was devoted to Jackie, like he was his own." She paused. "Y'know, Uncle Charlie isn't really Uncle Charlie. He's not my brother-not by blood, least-ways. Montilla and Pops inherited him from Daddy's best friend, Junior Treadwell-tree fell on Junior, he was a lumberjack, back when they were lumberin' these woods; then Junior's wife, Johnetta, got womb cancer and died. My folks took hint in-I was a little girl. So Charlie's real name is Treadwell, not Malone. But we was raised brother and sister, and my folks did adopt him."

"Tough life," I said.

"Yeah, it was real," Momma said. "Not like now Up in New Hampshire, I saw all those folks goin' around in goose-down jackets-and I was thinkin' to myself, we didn't have nothin' like that at all. We didn't have any insulation, y'know? It was just us and life. 'Accentuate the positive, e-liminate the negative, and don't mess with Mr. In-between.' People seem to do more things but take less chances nowadays. You mind if I light up?"

"Not at all. You were fabulous up there, in New Hampshire," I said. "You really lifted everyone's spirits-and, believe me, that was some heavy lifting."

"Awww, I was just runnin' my mouth. You know, Henry," she said, lowering her voice, "we used to have separate drinking fountains here in Grace Junction. A lot of us weren't too proud of that, but we didn't say nothin'-till Jackie started eatin' over at the Florida."

"The Florida?"

"Yeah, no kidding. That was Mabel Brockett's place, over in Black Town, before she got big and moved it downtown. That was Jackie's doing, if you want to know the truth. He started eatin' there when h
e w
as in high school. Y'know, they were havin' the sit-ins 'bout that time over in Nashville, and Jackie wanted to do something, so he sat in at Mabel's, though no one noticed it or gave two shits, a white boy sitting-in in Black Town. Can you imagine? But he knew what he was doing. Mabel was the best damn cook in the piney woods, and Jackie began talkin' her up-in school, you know. He started doin' takeout, takin' orders from his classmates, 'cause none of them had the guts to go on over to Black Town. Anyways, Jackie got this notion: he wants Mabel to cater the Senior Prom. And it became this big deal. They had an election over it-and that election came to be how Grace Junction argued it out over integration."

The phone rang. "Yeah, yeah, we're comin," Momma said. "Henry's been talkin' my ear off." She hung up the phone. "C'mon, son, you ever ride shotgun with a blind ol' lady behind the wheel?"

We took the scenic route into town. She showed me all her friends' houses, the Baptist church where they used to go, the Methodist church where she had her AA meetings, the Assembly of God she went to now "I'm a Christian, sort of," she said. "I don't drink no more, smoke only a little-when I'm nervous, or I feel like I'm gonna be nervous. But I asked the Lord to forgive my gambling, and my Lord is a forgivin' fellah. He'll let me cheat on everythin' but the drinkin'." We parked in front of Presley's Drugs, down the block from the Florida. "You hear of Sherman Presley?" Momma said. "That was his daddy's pharmacy. Al Presley was the leading seg in town."

"He still run it?" I asked.

"No, he took a heart attack and died," Momma said. "Sherm was long gone, too damn smart to get stuck down here-like Jackie, only mean. So Ruth Ann, Al's daughter, inherited the store. Her husband, Ralph Winter, runs it."

"And how did the Florida move downtown?"

"Well, this wasn't exactly prime real estate after Wal-Mart's come in, and Mabel had this built-in clientele, all the kids who'd started in on her chicken and ribs in high school-so she took the leap. If you can believe it, it was the one time Jackie and Sherman Presley ever worked together on somethin'. They both backed her-Sherm, I think, 'cause he wanted to step away from his daddy's seg ways in people's minds. Jackie, 'cause he's Jackie."

It wasn't quite noon, but the Florida was nearly full-and the governor was holding court at a round table in the front corner, next to the window. There was a sign on the wall above the table: JACK STAN-TON'S TABLE. There was a big, strange hand-painted photo of the governor on the wall, which made him look like a corpse, and smaller photos-of Jack and Susan eating there, of Jack and Momma and Uncle Charlie, of Jack and a wraithlike black woman who had to be Mabel Brockett.

"Is Mabel still around?" I asked Momma as we walked in.

"Naw, her daughter Peetsy-Mae, runnin' it now. HEY, honey, howya doin' sweetie-pie, what'sup, killer?" Momma was working her way down toward Jack's table, shaking hands and blowing kisses to all comers. The crowd was a mix of courthouse and feed-store types. She knew everyone, of course. "Lunch's ON THE HOUSE!" she shouted. "Jack's buyin'. Only kiddin'! Only kiddin'! Y'alls oughta buy Jack his meal, given the tourist business gonna be comin' through here when he's president of the United States."

"Sit down, Momma," Jack said, standing up. "Half these folks ain't even gonna vote for me."

"I'll swallow my pride and vote for ya," said a middle-aged man who had the looks of an insurance or farm-equipment salesman-he wore a short-sleeved white shirt with a pocket protector-"if it means more business."

"C'mon, Joe Bob," Jack said. "You ain't voted Democrat since Roosevelt. And it's always meant more business, 'spite what the Republicans say."

There was laughter and applause, and we sat down. Doc Hastings was there, but not Charlie. "Where's your uncle?" Momma asked. "Losin' his fifty dollars back to Jerry and the boys," the governor said. "We'll pick him up on the way out. Doc and me just talkin' 'bout what comes next. Doc thinks we breeze. I'm not so sure." "You're the class of the field, son," Doc Hastings said. "Name the man that can beat you."

"I dunno," the governor said. "They don't know me. They don't know who I am, and I don't know how to get it across."

Doc Hastings shook his white mane, put his hand on the governor's forearm. "You always figger out a way to get it across, son." Suddenly, he had tears in his eyes. He stuck a long, slim finger behind his small, round glasses, digging out the moisture. The governor wrapped an arm around the old man's shoulders. " 'Scuse me," Doc Hastings said, to me. "I've known this boy too long."

Momma was looking away. "Hey, Peetsy," she shouted. "Cain's we get any service over here, or we second-class customers?"

The Mansion was smelling of popcorn that night when I arrived for the meeting. I went to the kitchen, where Susan and young Jackie were emptying one bag and sticking another in the microwave. Susan was wearing a Yale sweatshirt and jeans; she had her Coke-bottle glasses on. She looked sort of rabbity and tired but not bad, considering all she'd been through. "No inure doughnuts," she said, carrying a bowl of bleached white popcorn over to the counter. "This is now the official snack food of this campaign. Henry, you eat this stuff-you lose weight. It has negative calories." She put her hand on my forearm, kissed my cheek. "Have a taste." *

It smelled like popcorn but tasted like chewed-over paper. "You think he'll go for this?" I asked.

"He'll go for anything," she said, "if you provide it in sufficient quantity."

We met in the study. The last time I'd been in that room-and it seemed several years earlier-had been the Sunday night before we went to Los Angeles, the night we found out we were cratering in New Hampshire. The mood was different this time, and so was the room-the furniture had been arranged in a circle, with the governor's armchair in front of the fireplace. This room, like the rest of the Mansion, had an unlived-in, Ethan Allen showroom feel to it-quiet but undis- tinguished furniture and colors, very pale yellow walls and baby blue carpeting, dark wood breakfront and end tables, a square, lime-green sofa, leather chairs, bran lamps with dark green shades. Richard was already there, Lucille and Howard Ferguson came in together, Dwayne Forrest-the governor's agribusiness pal-was there, Brad Lieberman, Arlen Sporken, Leon Birnbaum, Laurene Robinson, Ken Spiegelman. "Okay," said the governor, still wearing the yellow shirt and jeans he'd worn to Grace Junction. "Let's do it. I have a few announcements, and then I'll turn this thing over to Howard. Actually, that's the first announcement-Howard's now, officially, our campaign manager; Henry Burton will be his deputy." That was news to me. "We're in a new phase of this thing now. We need to rethink and retool and reorganize a little bit. Dwayne Forrest will be our campaign chairman, which means he'll watch out for the money. And Ken Spiegelman-you all know Ken, right?-has somehow convinced the neocons up at University of Chicago to give him a leave of absence to run issues for us. Okay, Howard."

"All right," Howard said. "First things first. How we hangin', Dwayne?"

Dwayne Forrest was a tall, thin man except for an explosively large stomach. He had a graying crew cut, sharp blue eyes and a beard. He was wearing a tweed jacket, aquamarine chamois shirt (no tie), khakis and Timberland boots. He had the look of a man who dressed, and did, as he pleased. "Well, we're bone-dry now-but we got some stuff cookin'. Now that the campaign's come down home, we'll be doin' a series of twenty-five-dollar cocktail parties and fifty-dollar-a-platers: you'll be eatin' chicken and peas most nights the next month, Governor. We got somethin' set for every state capital in the region. A fivehundred-dollar-a-plater in Atlanta, another in Houston, another here in Mammoth Falls. We're workin' on several big hits in New York, for when that comes around. Meantime, we got some interim cash-flow problems-but nothin' we can't handle. Our friends at Briggs County Bank'll smooth out the bumps."

"Okay," Howard said. "Brad?"

"Dorsey Maxwell's got us a deal on a plane, a seven-twentyseven-old Southern Airways thing, configured for first class, front and rear," Brad Lieberman said. "Big logistical question now is, you want the Service?"

My mind wandered as they discussed pros and cons of adding Secret Service protection. That stuff, the schedule and the money-I couldn't care less about. In fact, that night it was an effort for me to concentrate on the things I liked thinking about-what came next tactically and strategically, the mad out from New Hampshire. I was wiped; played out. As I looked around the circle, the people who'd been most involved in New Hampshire all seemed in similar shape-lying back, staring at th
e c
eiling, doodling, yawning. Except for Howard Ferguson, who seemed cool, untired, unreadable, immutable. I wondered if he dreaded the next day's business-the visit to Fat Willie's-as much as I did. I wondered how he'd handle it. I'd known him for six months and didn't know him at all. I found myself wishing I could talk to Daisy about it, ask her advice. I knew she'd be appalled. / was appalled. I found myself wishing-for the first time since I'd signed on with Jack Stanton-that I could be someplace else: off in the Caribbean somewhere, with Daisy.

Then, finally, the governor cut off the techie talk. "Richard, we learn anything useful today?"

"Hotline says ol' Natural Forces is shoppin' for a guru. May go with Strunk and Wilson, may go with David Adler. In any case, I guess this ain't no 'classroom exercise' anymore."

"David Adler, huh?" the governor said. "He still in the business?" "He'll work one or two a cycle-no straight party stuff, just guys he likes, moderates. This might be his sort of gig, high-profile and quirky. But look, either way, this ain't New Hampshire. We are now free to batter the shit out of Harris, hang him with his own words-Arlen and Daisy're already workin' on some spots."

"Governor, this is not rocket science," Arlen Sporken said. "The man has proposed some crazy stuff."

"Basic rule of politics," Richard said. "There are some issues that are so complicated, you never talk about 'em-'cause your opponents can distort your position too easy. I suspect Lawrence Harris has raised nearly every last one of those issues. His head is on a platter."