ReUNION: What if the Civil War had never happened? (44 page)

The congregation, of course, had seen everything. Fortunately, it had
understood nothing. And it had no trouble accepting Hurbuckle’s next words,
which were uttered smoothly and with truly admirable self-control: “Boy told me
his stomach was bothering him something fierce,” he said, grinning now for all
he was worth. “I guess his lunch was about to make a second appearance.” This
got a little chuckle from the audience.

“Anyhow,” Hurbuckle continued, determined not to think about what had just
happened and why, at least not yet. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine—and mightily
annoyed with himself for missing this historic speech. But I’ll apologize to
you on his behalf for the little interruption. And now, ladies and gentlemen,
it is my great pleasure to introduce to you someone whom I am honored to call
my friend, President Buddy Bourque!”

The congregation reprised its applause for the second time, with somewhat less
enthusiasm, and Buddy Bourque took his place at the podium, grinning, waving
and pointing to friends in the audience real and imagined, ignoring the
tentative nature of the applause. He reached into a pocket and spread his
speech notes out on the lectern.

At the same time, Rev. Hurbuckle sat down and looked anxiously into the wings,
to where he’d last seen his son. One of the Secret Service men gave him a
thumbs up, which was reassuring although not particularly informative.

Bourque cleared his throat. “Mornin’ everyone,” he said. He peered out into
the sanctuary, trying to see the congregants, but the sun backlit them all, and
turned the faces into featureless blobs. He shaded his eyes, with no useful
result.

He looked back over his shoulder. “Hey, Harlan,” he said, “how do you turn the
houselights on?”

“It’s the button on the left,” Hurbuckle whispered.

“Thanks,” Bourque said, pressing the button. The lights came up in the
sanctuary. “There,” Bourque said, pleased with himself, “now I can see who I’m
talking to. Or is it ‘whom’? Never been sure about that one.” He grinned and
slowly scanned the crowd, stopping frequently to make eye contact.

Just behind the podium, stage right, Delphine and Pickett exchanged glances, as
if to ask each other the same question: “Do you know what he’s doing?” to which
they both responded with puzzled shrugs.

“Okay,” Bourque said. He looked down at the podium and pawed through his notes,
then he looked up. “This is my speech,” he said. He shuffled the papers. “Pages
out of order,” he explained, still shuffling. “Well,” he said at last, “no
matter.” He picked up his notes and tossed them over his shoulder, the whole
bunch of them, to the absolute astonishment of just about everyone in the room.

Pickett scrambled to pick up the papers and Delphine got down on her knees to
help, but Bourque didn’t notice. In fact, no one noticed. Every eye was on the
President, wondering what he was going to do or say next.

“I guess y’all are getting the idea I’m not going to give the speech y’all
expected,” Bourque said. “Well, it wasn’t the right speech. I was going to tell
you the way things were gonna be and ask you to applaud. But that won’t do.”
The governors were one thing, he thought. He could bully and cajole those guys
and get them to do what he wanted. The people—the nation—well, that was a very
different story.

He looked out into the audience.. He could see them all now, quite plainly, the
young families with a herd of kids, desperate, grandma and grandpa, hoping he
could save them, the young men and their girls, doubting the present, unable to
even consider the future.

Of course, millions more were watching on television, but he knew the sanctuary
audience reflected them pretty accurately—their hopes and fears, their beliefs
and attitudes. If he won over the people he could see, he thought, he would
also win over those he could not.

“I know y’all don’t know what to make of my meetings with President Callaway
and all the reunification rumors y’all have been hearing. Y’all don’t know
what’s gonna happen and y’all don’t know how—or whether—it’s gonna affect your
lives.”

Bourque paused and surveyed the audience. His eyes fell on a big woman in a
brightly flowered dress, sitting in the tenth row, left. She was staring at him
intently. He nodded and panned on a little further and found himself meeting
the eyes of a thin, grey-haired man in coveralls, arms tightly folded over his
chest. He nodded again.

“I know you have questions and I’m gonna answer them, plain and direct, no
fancy talk. And if you more questions after that, I’m gonna answer those too,
until you know as much about this whole thing as I do. I’m gonna tell y’all
what’s on my mind, and I’m gonna ask y’all what’s on your minds.”

They were all watching him now, with that mixture of hope and despair, looking
at him like he was their daddy and they were his children and there wasn’t a
problem he couldn’t solve. He felt the weight of it, and it was quite heavy.

“First of all, you’re askin’, Buddy, why in God’s name did you go north and sit
down with that nigra President? It’s a good question. I’d be askin’ it if I
wasn’t up here, talkin’ to y’all.”

He kept his eyes on the audience, stopping first at one congregant, then another,
and then another, trying to make them all feel he was talking to each of them,
as individuals, not part of a crowd, trying to make them forget a huge
television audience also watching, sitting at home, with exactly the same
concerns.

“Okay, here’s why I went north. I went north intending to ask for hep.
Financial help, that was my first thought. I don’t have to tell y’all why. Our
economy is failin’.
Has
failed. We are bankrupt. I could go
into the reasons, but ‘c
uses are like backsides.
Everybody’s got one and they all stink
.”

A mild titter swept through the sanctuary,
and Bourque found that encouraging.

“The plain truth is we just can’t pay our bills anymore, and I mean includin’
Social Security and medical care. I’m gonna be honest with y’all. We haven’t
been able to pay our bills for a couple of years now. We’ve been livin’ on
borrowed money and we just can’t borrow any more. No one’ll give us any. The
cupboard is bare. I’m not talking about tomorrow or next week or next month.
I’m talking about right now.”

Bourque looked out at the congregation, taking stock. Every eye was on him. The
room was dead silent. He knew he was scaring them, but they had to face
reality, and he knew of no better way to make that happen. He took a breath and
continued.

“But money wasn’t the only reason I went north, lookin’ for hep. We have
another problem and it’s just as bad as the first. I’m taking about Mexico and
our great good friend
El Presidente
. We all know he’s itching to attack
us, invade us, and annex us, just like he did Texas. He’s the second reason I
went north looking for hep.”

Bourque studied his audience. He was seeing nods of understanding, even
approval. Well,
El Presidente
was Satan, as far as the Confederacy was
concerned, so getting the audience to side with him against Garcia wasn’t
evidence of much.

“Now there’s something else I gotta tell y’all,” he continued. “When I got to
Washington, I got a pretty rude surprise. I was given in-contro-vertible
proof—hard evidence, photographic pictures I mean—from people with no ax to
grind one way or t’other—that Garcia is getting’ a huge invasion fleet together
right now
, and he could ambush us at any moment. I’m tellin’ you, I’ve
seen the photographs of his ships, and they are as evil as the man himself.”

President Bourque paused once more. He could see the fear in their eyes and he
hated himself for putting it there. He was the President. He was supposed to
shield them from things like this, even from knowing about them. But now they
had to know. If they didn’t, they’d never accept the next step.

“So now y’all are asking another question. Y’all want to know what happens if
Mexico invades. Could we beat ‘em off by ourselves? I don’t know. No one knows.
What I do know is this: Mexico is mostly Catholic. We’re mostly Baptist.
Mexico speaks Spanish. We speak English. And that’s all right, I don’t mind
them being different. But I’ll tell you this, I don’t want to wind up bowin’ to
the Pope and sayin’ muchas gracias ‘stead of thank y’all. I don’t think none of
y’all want to do that. Do you?”

Bourque scanned the audience, looking into faces, the faces of day laborers and
accountants, housewives and hairdressers, fifth graders with bowl-cuts, and
little girls in gingham. He knew what their lives would be like if Garcia
annexed the Confederacy and he could not let that happen.

“That’s why I went north. That’s why I asked for hep. That’s why I was willing
to talk about reunion. Now I know your next question. Y’all want to know how
reunion can solve our problems. Well, I’m gonna tell y’all. First, our
money worries. In reunion, those of you on Social Security or Medicare won’t
need to anymore. The system will be solvent and your payments will be
higher. The paralyzing foreign debt? Gone forever. Money to repair our
roads, fix up our old schools, pay our fire fighters and our cops.”

He could see them nodding, a few of them, or whispering to their spouses. He’d
moved them a little, but only a little.

“Now lemme talk about the military threat, the threat from Mexico. He tried
once, y’know.
El Presidente
, I mean. At New Orleans. I’ve still got the
scars to show for it, gonna carry them with me til the day I die. We beat him
off, just barely. And it cost us. Not just men and money, but Texas.”

They were nodding again, he noted.

“Garcia is getting ready to attack us again, and maybe he learned from last time.
Maybe we’re not as strong as we were. Maybe he sees us as low-hanging fruit,
just awaiting to be plucked. Well, ask yourself this: would we look like
low-hanging fruit if we were part of the NAU? The NAU has a modern army,
y’know, and a modern navy, and airplanes and tanks, everything you would expect
of a highly industrialized country. If you were Miguel Garcia, would that be an
invitin’ target? Would you wanna take on the NAU? ‘Cause after reunion,
we’d
be the NAU and the NAU would be us. I don’t know about you, but I’d feel a
hellova lot safer.”

Bourque grinned and glanced around at his audience. Got some more nods, he told
himself, and a few grins too. This was the easy part—appealing to their self
interest, showing them what they had to lose and what they had to gain.

The hard part, the 100 foot hurdle with the razor wire on top, well, that was
still ahead and coming up soon. Somewhere in the upper rows, center, Bourque
saw a hand waving. Perhaps even sooner than I expected, he thought. “Friend?
You have a question? Darrend up and ask it, by all means. Please.”

The man stood. He was a tall fellow in his late 50s, with a weather-beaten face
and pale blue eyes, wearing a threadbare business suit, no doubt the best clothing
he owned. “Your honor,” he began.

Bourque put up a hand in modesty. “Please,” he said, declining the honor.

“Mr. President,” the man said, starting again.

“My friends call me Buddy,” Bourque suggested, smiling.

The man swallowed hard and took another breath. “Buddy,” he said, hesitantly.
“You been sayin’ what reunion is gonna do for us, and it all sounds good, but
the NAU ain’t gonna take us in just outta the goodness of its heart. What do
we
gotta do to get all this hep?” The man sat down.

“Did y’all hear that, folks?” Bourque asked, grinning broadly, as though this
was exactly the question he’d been hoping for. “Lemme repeat it so everyone can
hear. My friend asked, ‘What do
we
gotta do to get all this hlp?’ He
means, what’s it gonna cost us, this reunion deal? And it’s a good question.
It’s the best question he coulda asked and I admire him.”

“So stop pussy-footing around and answer it,” someone shouted from the right
side of the room.

Bourque laughed. “Okay,” he said. “The NAU wants two things from us. First, the
NAU, being a democracy n’ all, has’ta follow democratic procedures if they’re
gonna let us back in. We gotta ask their Congress and their Congress has’ta vote
yes. And no one’s holding a gun to their head—they can do whatever they think
best. But Callaway’s standing right beside us.”

“Get to the point, Buddy!” a woman shouted from the left side of the sanctuary.

Bourque smiled and held up both hands. “I’m getting’ there fast as I can,” he
said. “But I’m not as swift as I used to be.”

That got laughter, which he joined.

“Now here’s what y’all been waitin’ for. The second condition’s gonna be the
hardest for us. It has to do with our way of life. To rejoin the union, each of
our ten states has’ta vote in a new Constitution, one that doesn’t argue with
the NAU Constitution and their laws.”

Bourque stopped for a moment. They were whispering among themselves and he let
them. They had to let off some steam. When they began to wonder why he’d
stopped, he spoke again.

“Yes,” he said, “that means what you think it means. Our two Constitutions are
mighty similar, except for one thing: racial equality. They got it, we don’t,
and we all know that. But if we want to be part of this great new country, if
we want to be accepted by the other states, we’all are goin’ to have to stop
fightin’ that battle.”

Bourque glanced back at Delphine, then at Pickett. Now he up to his eyebrows in
the hard part. He was either gonna win ‘em or lose ‘em right here, right now.
He stepped back from the podium for a moment and folded his arms over his
chest. He was getting tired, but he’d have to rest some other time.

“My friends,” he said, leaning on the lectern and looking out into the
audience, “for more than 150 years, we’all, the citizens of the South, have
indulged ourselves in a
delusion
—even worse, we’ve always known,
somewhere inside of ourselves, that it
is
a delusion. We’ve convinced
ourselves that we’re the better ones, the smarter, the prettier, the more
capable, the more deserving, the more blessed ones.