Primary Colors (55 page)

Picker stood too, now "Jack"--he smiled--"you may want to reconsider dropping out tomorrow."

"Yeah, well . . ." Stanton paused, blushed. "I've been thinking 'bout that."

"Truth is," Picker said, leaning against the door, hands scrunched in the pockets of his jeans, "this wouldn't have lasted much longer even--even ill hadn't been carrying around all this extra luggage. I'd pretty much run out of things to say. I didn't know what else to tell them." He laughed. "I'll bet that never happens to you."

"Freddy, you know what I was thinking, watching you that night in New Haven?" Stanton said then. "I was thinking: That's what I should have been about. That's the campaign I should have run. But / didn't have the courage." He paused, then, needing some physical punctuation, put his arm straight out on Freddy Picker's shoulder and looked him hard in the eye. "See, it doesn't really matter why you did what you did: you raised the game a notch. You created a standard--of, yeah, candor--the rest of us are going to have to deal with now. That's a real good thing for the country."

"I appreciate that, Jack," Picker said. "Even if it is unadulterated bullshit."

They hugged in the doorway. "Bullshit'll grease a lot of doors," Stanton said. "The real test is what you do when you walk through 'em. . . . Anything I can do to help you through this, Freddy. Anything. Right?"

"I know, ack," Picker said. "I'll remember that."

The governor whistled a sad country tune as we walked down the gravel path to the station wagon. He didn't say anything as we drove to the airport--but as soon as we his the tarmac he asked, "So, Henry, you still want to have that meeting?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Ten o'clock at the Mansion tomorrow"

He whistled his sad song again as we walked toward the plane, drifting through the voluptuous north Florida night. And then--in his effortless, understated way--he sang the chorus:

"I can still feel the soft southern breez
e i
n the live oak tree

And those Williams boys, they still mean a lot to me-Hank and Tennessee .. .

I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be So what do you do with good ol' boys like me?"

"You know why I love that song?" he asked.

"Probably the line about the Williams boys," I said.

"Not bad, Henri," he said, tossing a big arm across my shoulders, gathering me in. "Not bad at all. See, the rednecks'll always pretend otherwise, but everyone who comes up from around here knows: It's never just Hank. The picture ain't ever complete without ol' Tennessee."

I was awakened by the smell of coffee. Daisy was bustling about the place, at ease--at home. She saw me stretch and came over to the bed. "I don't want this taken as a precedent," she said. "You're gonna have to make coffee, too. Whoever is up first, okay? But I guess you had a rough night."

"An amazing night." And I told her.

"So Stanton lives for the umpteen-fortieth time to fight another day," she said. "You think the term dumb luck might apply here?" "He probably sees it as perseverance," I said. "But Libby was so completely right: he never has to pay the bill. Even when he wants to. He was ready last night. He was gonna quit the campaign--and Picker just wouldn't let him."

"You think this is what people mean when they talk about destiny?" she said, and laughed. "Pretty pathetic stuff. You sort of want destiny to be something grander." She poured me a mug of coffee and brought it over to the bed. "So what are you going to do?"

"I'm packing for . . . where? Jamaica?" I asked. "Wherever destiny ain't."

"You sure?" She asked. "Henry, don't do it for me. It's okay if you want to see it through."

"Naww," I said. "Too much water under too many bridges. It could never be the way it used to be."

"Maybe that's all to the good," she said. "Maybe you'll be better at this if you don't do it so worshipful."

"You want me to do it?"

"I want you," she said. "I don't care what you do. But it would be nice if we had some politics to talk about, in between all the mushy stuff."

"There's all kinds of politics," I said. "I might be better off spending my time helping Bill Johnson run for attorney general over in Alabama."

"I could help, too," she said. "I could do some killer positives for him."

"I love you, Daisy," I said.

"Love me," she said, "love my ads."

Stanton was upstairs in the Mansion, a sanctum I'd rarely penetrated. He had a small office up there--a desk, a television, pictures of Susan and Jackie, a picture of himself taking the oath of office, a bookcase filled with the classics of Southern politics--V. 0. Key, W. J. Cash, C. Vann Woodward, T Harry Williams on Huey Long, many others. There was a gray loveseat just off to the side of the desk, facing the television. Susan was sitting there, and I joined her.

"Thanks for last night, Henry," the governor said. He was dressed for success, wearing a blindingly white shirt and his red-and-blueand-gold striped tie; his navy pin-striped suit jacket hung on a doorknob. Susan was ready for prime time, too, in a blue cotton suit with a beige crepe blouse. "Meant a lot to me, your being there. Pretty incredible, huh? Freddy called me this morning. He said he talked to his boys after we left--batted .500. Older one seemed okay, younger one took it pretty rough, slammed the door on him. But I'll bet you anything they smooth it over. He'll be on the air soon," he said, glancing at the television--CNN, muted. "So what's on your mind?"

"I'm resigning from the campaign," I said.

"I don't accept your resignation."

"Look, I just don't feel comfortable about this anymore." "About whut?"

I couldn't quite say.

"I spoke to Richard," he said. "He's back on board. And I'm putting him in charge: campaign manager. He'll be right here, in this office, within the hour. Howard's goin' back to being consigliere. I'l
l k
eep Adler around--peripherally. He has his uses, but he'll answer to Richard. And look, we can bring Daisy back if you want, too." "That's not what this is about," I said.

"Then what is it?"

"Libby--Libby's test," I said, searching for some concise way to tell him it had all been just too much. Even after all the time we'd spent together, I still found it difficult to just cut loose, speak my mind. My chest was tight, my throat constricted. "You flunked it."

"Oh, for Chrissake, Henry," he said. "This ain't the Boy Scouts. This is-- Wait a minute, here he comes."

Picker had gone to Tallahassee. He didn't look too good, but his body language was determined, proud. He stood there alone. His boys weren't with him. He was wearing a dark suit, a blue button-down shirt with narrow stripes that didn't work too well for television, a muted tie. He took a yellow piece of legal paper out of his pocket, but didn't read from it.

"All right," he said. "Today, I am ending my surrogate campaign for the presidency." There were groans. People were shouting, "Why, why?" Susan got up from the loveseat and moved around behind her husband, an arm across his shoulders, her cheek resting atop his head. Picker tried to smile. "I know sonic of you are thinking this is deja vu. We've been this way before. And we have. And I was right the first time--back in 1978: I'm not cut out for this work. I'm not qualified to even pretend to run for the presidency." Someone jostled the CNN camera; there was mayhem, people seemed to be rushing everywhere. "When Martha Harris asked me to continue her husband's campaign, I was so honored--I didn't stop to think about the consequences. That was thoughtless of me. I'd like to apologize--"

"Why aren't you qualified?" Someone shouted.

"Because I knowingly broke the law when I was governor." He sighed, and plunged ahead. "At a time when a lot of people were experimenting with drugs, I did too. Actually, it was more than experimentation--if I'd just been messing around, that might have been forgivable. But I lost control of myself. I--"

"What sort of drugs?"

"Cocaine," Picker said. "That was the real reason I quit in 1978. That's what caused the problems in my marriage. But I cleaned myself up. I put it behind me. I put it so far behind me that I almost forgot it ever happened. But it did happen, and it seems obvious that it would be wrong for me to continue this campaign. I was a fool to think I could ever . . ."

There was a fleeting, barely discernible patch of silence. The reporters were nonplussed, disarmed by his apparent candor once again. Picker sensed it and seemed to gain confidence. He moved to fill the dead air: "So anyway, I don't think there's much more to say. I'm pretty embarrassed," he said--but he didn't sects embarrassed. He was back performing his old parlor trick, more alive on television than off it. The pack would be after him soon enough; they'd muck around the Picker scandal and pull every last morsel off the bones of his candidacy. But he wouldn't be humiliated on camera, and that represented no small triumph. "God," Stanton said, "it's frightening how good he could have been."

It was almost as if Picker heard hiss. He'd been starting to move away from the microphones, but stopped. "There's one more thing," he said. "I want to thank Jack Stanton for being aware of this situation and not taking advantage of it. I know I'm not in a position to make a recommendation here, but I've gotten to know Governor Stanton a little better these past few weeks--and, maybe, you should try to do the same. He may be the most misunderstood man in American politics. But you can come to your own conclusions about that. And that is all I want to say. Except that I'm sorry. And good-bye."

There were six lines into the phone on Jack Stanton's desk and, instantaneously, every one of them lit up. The intercom--connected to Annie Marie at the statehouse--buzzed. Stanton cupped the phone, spoke to me: "Are you still having doubts about this?"

"Yes," I said.

"Take messages," he said to Annie Marie. Then to me, "I thought you got it, Henry. I thought you understood. This is about the ability to lead. It's not about perfection. Okay, I probably would have leaked the file to someone--and I'da felt real slimy about it, but you know what? The bottom line wouldn't be any different. Picker was going down. It was only a question of when."

"And how," I said. "He might not have been so kind this morning if you'd been the one who pushed him off the cliff."

"Okay. Fair enough. But, Henry, what are we doing here?" he asked sadly, shaking his head. "We're arguing over how many politicians you can fit on the head of a pin. Are you trying to say you've suddenly discovered there's such a thing as hardball, and you don't have the stomach for it--and you're squishing out on me? Come on. I know you too well for that. We've been through too much together."

"Too much," I agreed. I looked over at Susan. She was, for once, leaving the heavy lifting to Jack. She knew it was the only way to close the deal.

"The question you've got to ask is, what are the options?" He said softly, almost warmly, still patient with me, his blue eyes locked into mine. "Only certain kinds of people are cut out for this work--and, yeah, we are not princes, by and large. Henry, you know this better than anyone. You've watched Larkin, you've watched O'Brien, you've watched me do it. Two thirds of what we do is reprehensible. This isn't the way a normal human being acts. We smile, we listen--you could grow calluses on your ears from all the listening we do. We do our pathetic little favors. We fudge when we can't. We tell them what they want to hear--and when we tell them something they don't want to hear, it's usually because we've calculated that's what they really want. We live an eternity of false smiles--and why? Because it's the price you pay to lead. You don't think Abraham Lincoln was a whore before he was a president? He had to tell his little stories and smile his shit-eating, backcounery grin. He did it all just so he'd get the opportunity, one day, to stand in front of the nation and appeal to 'the better angels of our nature.' That's when the bullshit stops. And that's what this is all about. The opportunity to do that, to make the most of it, to do it the right way--because you know as well as I do there are plenty of people in this game who never think about the folks, much less their 'better angels.' They just want to win. They want to be able to say, 'I won the biggest thing you can win.' And they're willing to sell their souls, crawl through sewers, lie to the people, divide them, play to their worst fears--"

"You played to their fears in Florida," I said, trying to stop the torrent.

"You did too," he said. "You never said, `Ohhh, dear, we're not being fair to poor Lawrence Harris.' You never said, 'This is morally repugnan
t t
o me.' You know why? Two reasons. First, your blood was up--like it or not, Henry, you're a warrior and we were at war--and you wanted to kill that pious fucker, just like I did. Only not literally, which shook all of us up--made all of us doubt ourselves a little and gave Picker the impetus for his move. But the second reason is more important: You knew I'd make a better president than Harris. You knew it. You may have had your doubts there, for a few days, about whether I'd be better than Picker--but you sate him last night. A very decent guy, smart, good instincts. But a president? No way. He's just barely a politician. I mean, in the end, Henry, who can do this better than me? You think there's anyone out there who'll do more for the people than I will? Think about all those other wonderful possibilities. Consider Larkin. And Ozio. And ask yourself this: Is there anyone else out there with a chance to actually win this election who'd even think about the folks I care about?" "I care about the McCollisters," I said.