Leon Uris (44 page)

“Vice president is on the phone.”

“Thank God,” Thornton said. “Where the hell did you set down, Matthew?”

“I’m in Tulsa.”

“Bring me up to date.”

“I have canvassed twenty-five of our largest Coalition churches. It’s a very mixed reading, Mr. President. It seems that O’Connell has made very significant inroads into our solid front. The women don’t seem to want guns, many of the men idolize O’Connell as a great hero, school prayer a non sequitur, and uh, right of choice…”

“What!”

“Well, they’ve always been taking the goddamned pill and visiting abortion clinics. They just feel it shouldn’t be covered up any longer. You’ve got to make a move. All we are doing is reaching now. We have to put men on the street and go on the offensive.”

“I was hoping I could hold up the process until afternoon,” Thornton said. “It crosses a thin line for reelection.”

“It’s very dangerous,” the vice president insisted.

“How do you stand personally in this!” Thornton demanded.

“We are speaking of a very disturbing image of America creeping in. Stop them now!”

Thornton slammed the receiver, then picked up another phone. “Find me Lucas de Forest,” he ordered.

It was four-thirty in the morning, a few hours left before the curse of darkness turned into the curse of daylight. He noticed the devastated Darnell Jefferson, an old slave in sorrow. Couple of good shakes and Darnell would be back on board.

“Hello!”

“Mr. President, this is Lucas de Forest.”

“Where the hell are you, Lucas?”

“At FBI headquarters. I’m cleaning out my office.”

“What! I did not fire you.”

“I resigned. I left an envelope for you on your secretary’s desk.”

“Well, I don’t accept the resignation,” Thornton said, alarmed that such news would all but seal his doom. “I’m declaring a national emergency…and you must stay.”

Lucas de Forest throbbed, head, heart, joints, eyes. “Are you ready to order Joy Streets into motion?”

“Tomorrow at…say, ten o’clock.”

“Mr. President,” wheezed Lucas, “you are a schmuck.”

“Don’t hang up…don’t hang up…all right, Lucas, what do you have in mind?”

“Joy Streets immediately. Phase One and Phase Two simultaneously. Yea or nay, sir?”

Darnell had uncrumpled himself, went over and took the phone from Thornton’s hand.

The two men locked onto one another with a ferocity never known before. He handed the phone back to the President.

“I agree,” Tomtree said. He hung up and continued his venomous glare. “All I needed was a few more hours to make this work right.”

“Sure, boss,” Darnell said. “So, you’ve gotta know when to hold and know when to fold. I’m picking up my chips, Thornton.”

“What? Oh, you mean our heated little discussion? Forget it, pal. We’ve got a pile of work to do to get the story out straight…Darnell, are you listening…Darnell, are you really going to leave me? You won’t be so godawful righteous without those humongous T3 checks coming in!” Thornton cried.

“Doesn’t make any difference, man. I’ve given most of the money away, anyhow. Got a spin for you, free. Why don’t you blame Lucas de Forest for the late start on Joy Streets. Overriding your FBI head shows real balls.”

“Do you think we can use it?” Thornton asked earnestly.

“Jesus, I’m all dry,” Darnell said. “Not enough to wad up a good spit in your face.”

What would the photograph of
Kristallnacht
portray?

American hate? American decency.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light?

“I’ve never seen anyone with the will to equal Siobhan’s,” the doctor said.

“Five more days,” Quinn begged.

“I don’t see how. She sinks to a near comatose state then forces herself awake, in unbearable pain and saturated with drugs. She will fight until she has a half hour, an hour of clarity. On one of these slumbers, she is bound to go.”

Quinn sat at the bedside holding her fragile hand. The sun always crossed this room lovely in January. The big mountain outside became diffused and, as the sun inched along, it made a montage of colors, then dipped below the horizon.

Her books were varied, a generations old Bible in both Gaelic and English. They read to her now, Thoreau and
Leaves of Grass.
She’d nod that she understood and one could not help but feeling their content fortified her.

Siobhan’s eyes fluttered open, scared at first, until Quinn came into focus. “Son.”

“Can you understand me all right, Mom?”

“Yes.”

“Rita and I have to leave tomorrow. We are already two days late. But they’re planning a party for you. Rae and Duncan and Ellie and the baby—
Dan Wong O’Connell, named after our dads—will all be here.”

“They should be with you.”

“I’ll have Rita and Mal, and my brother Ben.”

“How gracious you all are….” Her eyes rolled back and she winced, gripping his hand with what poor, little power she had.

“Bad, Mom?”

“I wouldn’t wish it on Hitler.”

Her pain passed through. “Four generations of O’Connells,” she said. “Now, that is a family…that is a…family.” Siobhan rallied for she knew she’d go under again soon. “Dan’s Chinese great-grandson. Quinn,” she cried, “what of you?”

“God willing, we are beyond middle-age inquisitions in our Congress. Clinton had to stand naked before the world and take more humiliation than any human being ever had. In the end, it was he and his wife who came through it with courage and dignity. Are you okay, Mom?”

“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough.”

“I believe in the decency of the American people,” Quinn said.

Siobhan made the tiniest of smiles and indicated he should read her to sleep from one of the books on the bedside table. Quinn knew his mother was starting her journey, fighting to understand the words he spoke, hearing his voice last, as she desired.

“From
Generations
,” Quinn said, “Ralph Waldo Emerson.” He opened the volume to where it was marked, then closed it and recited. “‘Man is a god in ruins,’” he said. “‘When men are innocent, life shall be longer and pass into the immortal as gently as we awake from dreams.’”

Siobhan nodded.

“‘Now, the world would be insane and rabid,’” he went on, “‘if those disorganizations should last
for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by…by…’”

“Death,” she said.

“‘It is kept in check by death and infancy. Infancy,’ our Daniel Wong O’Connell, ‘Infancy is the perpetual Messiah when it comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.’ Mom, I feel great love from the American people and they know I will brook no evil.”

Siobhan’s voice fell so low he had to lay his ear to her lips. “Can I say it, just once?”

“Sure.”

“Mr. President,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

The authors of the Constitution overlooked a January inaugural, too damp and cold for the great American street carnival.

A thousand miles of bunting decorated Washington as icing on a big cake. The National Mall ballooned with science tents and food tents and history tents and technology and discovery and art tents.

And in all the auditoriums came the sounds of America singing, singing gospel and Mormon hymns and rock and samba and, of course, bluegrass. Bagpipes and the horns of Dixieland. There was a dance tent where Irish step dancers followed a Mexican folk dancing group and children’s choruses. There was a gay men’s chorus and drummers from Korea and Hawaii and India.

And in the Kennedy Center the National Symphony played lofty, patriotic music of the great plains and seacoasts and mountains and cities reaching up as fingers to God. On they disgorged from Dulles and Reagan Air-ports
and the Union Station until the great statues smiled from their pedestals.

There would be thirty something inaugural balls and the faithful would wait breathlessly for the five minute appearance of the President and First Lady.

As the mood of the great party filtered over the land, a king would grumble with envy of it.

January 19, 2009

Quinn had disciplined himself to be able to sleep anytime, anyplace, for however long he was allowed. Without this, few politicians could survive.

Quinn reached over the bed for Rita.
Where am I? Oh, that’s right. Blair House.
He flopped back on his pillow, then propped up on an elbow as he caught sight of Rita penning something at the desk. She sat before the window, curtains open, snowflakes falling outside. He watched until she finished.

Rita folded the sheet of paper and wrote
Quinn
on it. She found the suit she had laid out for him and slipped it in his pocket. She drew the curtains and they cuddled in and lay thus until morning…each now so aware of the moment they could not speak.

By dawn the snow had stopped. Branches swayed and fluffed off their patches of white.

“The sun is trying to break through,” Rita said, as steam rose on the lawn. “Are you sure you don’t want me at the prayer breakfast?”

“It will be understood.”

“I’ll pray here for Siobhan. You pray for the country.” Rita disappeared into the dressing room to begin her countdown.

Rita had commissioned Stetson to make them a pair of matching Western hats, not too cowboy, not too in your face, but a sort of Clark Gable riverboat
gambler hat. Quinn felt very Colorado for the moment.

After the prayer breakfast he would meet the congressional leaders and Rita would join him for traditional tea with the outgoing president.

Pucky, at her most gracious, was as gracious as they came. She schooled Rita to take over the enterprise of operating the White House. During these frosty days, Thornton Tomtree scarcely left his study. No songs to cheer him, no ladies to endear him. There was the bittersweet moment Darnell Jefferson returned. They were destined to crash on a Noah’s Rock, together. Tom’s BULLDOG held no answers.

“I had control of the greatest single invention in the history of mankind. I thought we’d hit the ground running,” Thornton said. “What the fuck happened?”

“I could sure go for a Bloody Mary,” Darnell said.

“Go ahead. You don’t have to be on the reviewing stand. What the fuck happened?”

The first sip was good, the second sip delicious.

“Well?” Thornton pressed.

“You know, Thornton, people are driven by this machine, our personalities. We obey it even when we don’t know what we are doing. Our personality always tells us we are right. We cannot understand clashing with someone else’s personality who tells us we are wrong. That’s how you became a president. But, hell, your engine took you exactly where you wanted to go.”

“Then why am I so overjoyed?” Thornton snarled.

“That personality drove you to earning twenty-five billion dollars, the American presidency, and for a fleeting moment you nearly gained control of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.”

“I had it right here,” he said, showing his fist. Darnell turned his eyes away. “Didn’t I?”

“The people didn’t think so, Thornton. Greed is endemic but when the time came to have the Lincoln Memorial sponsored by Nathan’s hot dogs, they shamed.”

Thornton tried to understand.

“We name our children after our father and mother, or an aunt or a hero. We bury our dead in green lawns and bring fresh flowers to keep their sainted memory. We weep on bad days of remembrance of our family. We toil for them. We are tender to our aged. And we fight them tooth and nail.”

“And…?”

“I haven’t cried for a dead computer,” Darnell said. “Men like us, who were there at the beginning, should have taught computers their proper place, before they gained control over the morals of half the human race.”

“Hasn’t that always been the game?” Thornton asked. “The irresistible personality in man driving us to wars. So, what do we do, Darnell?”

“We may think we’re hot stuff now, but we’ve a lot of catching up to become as great as we have been in our past. Fortunately, there is a lot to draw on.”

Thornton Tomtree paled. “And Quinn O’Connell personifies our past greatness…and…the way to the future. That son of a bitch. You said I had no control over the drive of my personality.”

“That’s right, Thornton.”

Pucky entered. “The O’Connells are arriving. We should meet them at the front door.”

“This tea is a pretty shitty tradition, if you ask me,” Thornton said, creaking out of his seat. “What the hell do we talk about?”

“Oh, the Denver Broncos,” Darnell said, “O’Connell is a Bronco junky.”

*  *  *

“I, Quinn Patrick O’Connell do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

In all the heavens we know of and all the heavens we know nothing of, can there be a more almighty event to befall a single, lone person?

The thousands arrayed before him in chilled air did not budge.

“I have come to you for about a year to listen to your aspirations and to present you with my vision of the future. You have told me, resoundingly, that now is time for America to travel the high road. The high road requires of every citizen to lend their energy to one gigantic swell for progress and decency….”

Quinn reviewed the things he wanted to bring to America, always with reference to the most generous and decent people in the world.

And, in a few moments, because it was very cold, he concluded on his lofty theme, knowing he will be fought all the way, but daring those who would turn him back or those whose robber hearts who would take the planet down.

“The human race,” Quinn said, “has functioned from its first day on the proposition that some people are superior to others and thus empowered to rule and exploit those people of lesser stuff. Humanity is often mistaken as civility. Humans have always been somewhat less than human. Well then, how do we score this game? Every so often a MORAL IMPERATIVE demands that we must alter our sense of humanity or fade into the stardust of the universe.

“Slavery and our Civil War were just such a MORAL IMPERATIVE. After the Holocaust we
believed, did we not, that no such event could happen again in the family of man. But genocide by the human race to the human race has happened over and over.

“In the beginning of the last century we awakened to the invention of electric light and airplanes and the X ray and the automobile and film. And, also, the machine gun, a weapon that killed twenty thousand men at the Somme River in a single day.

“We kick the door open now and march into this twenty-first century with more promise that the human race can solve the enormous tasks before of feeding and giving a decent life and preserve this planet.

“When the sums are added, the meaning of the past century was a rising of people to liberate themselves from their masters. It was the century of Mandela.

“Yet the seeds of hatred are within us all. Along with unrivaled progress in our way of life, we must face the demand of a MORAL IMPERATIVE with the goal of eradicating racism. Racism from person to person, tribe to tribe, and nation to nation is the greatest blight on the people of this land, of this world.

“No, we can never defeat it entirely. But we must know to recognize it, confront it, and destroy it wherever it surfaces.

“And, in this matter, we have a richness of different communities and our basic decency to say, who better than America can lead the way.”

There was a long, long moment of silence as Quinn stepped away. Then from this side of the Mall and that side and from the stands a single word was chanted and swelled till the old town shook.

“QUINN!” they cried, “QUINN! QUINN! QUINN!”

*  *  *

Ah, it was a good thing Rita remembered to slip in a couple of pairs of après-ski boots in the presidential limo for the street was slushy. They walked to the White House as hands reached out begging for a touch, crying the chant.

Quinn saw an awed little fellow of about twelve whose clothing told him he was poor. Quinn halted for a moment, took off his new Stetson, and put it on the lad.

A few moments later they took their places in the reviewing stand and up Pennsylvania Avenue came the Marine Corps band. It stopped before Gunner Quinn and, behind the trumpet and drum roll, played “Hail to the Chief.”

And on came America.

Chinese dragon dancers.

And a man on stilts dressed as Uncle Sam.

And floats with coal miners and mules from Virginia and a lobster boat from Maine.

And up the street marched the Mount St. Joseph High School band of Bloemer, New Mexico, who traveled to the capital on money earned picking crops.

And the replica of the Statue of Liberty.

And the United States Army Band.

And prairie schooners.

And a flyover nudging the sound barrier.

And minutemen.

And the fiercest posse in the West.

And the United States Navy Band.

And mountains and plains and rivers and streams and timber and paddlewheel boats and alligators and floats bulging with the bounty of the nation.

The last division of marchers were led by the United States Air Force Band just as the sun began to lose its zest.

*  *  *

It would be another hour before the some thirty inaugural balls would require their visit. Already the night was punctured by ten thousand fireworks.

Quinn realized he was quite out of the world this moment, but the sight of Rita dressing brought the biggest smile of the day.
Better get a move on
, he told himself as he patted his pants and jacket pockets before emptying them. He withdrew the note that Rita had written the night before.