What It Takes (184 page)

“We really gotta get moving,” Jack Steel was warning.

God! It was true! November already!

George Bush tore a strip of paper off the bottom of a letter, and with his pen in his left hand, leaned his forearms flush against a wall, and wrote:

“We count our special blessings.

“We are grateful for our friends.

“We give thanks to God.”

“Don’t lose that!” Bar commanded Steely. “That’s our only copy.”

True enough, but soon to be replicated, for
so many thousands
... the first written order of the Age of Bush: the message for the annual Christmas Card.

That day, Michael Dukakis had a press conference in Boston. He looked weary, punch-rumpled, hard-cheese-beat-up—but in no way shaken. Michael knew what he had to do. “I spent the morning,” he announced, “in my State House office, getting reacclimated and going back to work on my job as Governor of the Commonwealth. ...” In fact, he’d marched into his office before 9:00
A.M.
—“Good morning. Good morning, good morning,” he said briskly, then put his coffee cup on his desk, stripped off his jacket, and sat down on his hard-backed chair—to
govern
. This was the life! ... In the autumn of the campaign, when he was sure the detested press could not overhear, he’d murmur to one or two Boston friends, “At least I’ve got something I love to go back to.” Here was Michael’s real life renewed.

In the last twenty-four hours, since he’d flown, for the last time, all night again, across the country again, and landed in Boston, there were friends who tried to cheer him, or comfort him, who told him he’d done “a terrific job,” done “great things,” made them “proud.” Michael would shake his head, look away, mumble, “No, no. I blew it.” He’d take the blame. He insisted on the blame. In Michael’s view, he’d made one critical error—he let George Bush and a hateful herd of press depict him as a weak-kneed, possibly unstable, pastel-patriotic, ineffectual technocratic tinkerer who had no business on the national stage ...
while he refused to hit back
.

That was all true, in a mechanical way ... but this was more than technical analysis to Michael. If loss was visited upon him because
he would not stoop
to that sorta, that branda
cheap politics
... then Dukakis did not have to change his view of himself, at all. If Michael had simply
failed to show the kinda guy he was
... the campaign was about exactly what he said it was—he was correct all along!

And if—here was the crucial cam on this pumping engine—Michael had redressed these failings at the end of his campaign (alas, a tad too late) ... if he had, in those last two or three weeks, hit back at Bush, shown the public the kinda guy Mike Dukakis was, made his case for the kinda values, the kinda ideals, the kinda
positive public service
that his Party and his career and his life had been about ... well, it was true, then, he’d been surging (he just ran out of time!), he’d been climbing in the polls (once they really got a look at him, they loved him!), he’d been making ... on the grandest stage, before the eyes of the world ...
a comeback!

That was the object of all the pumping, his fondest, most familiar conceit—the comeback: he amazed them, the way he got off the canvas, like he always did, he would amaze them, he would ... but that was a secret, still. That was his delicious secret—Kitty had only just started to mention it, the possibility ... that his greatest comeback
was just beginning
, here and now ... no, that was not the kind of thing the Duke would talk about, nor even admit to himself, that bud of an idea, that glimmer of light, that small ironic smile that played for an instant on Michael’s mien as he took his first question, November 9, 1988 ...

Governor, what are your plans for 1992
—
are you running?

There were scattered groans from the press, but not at the head of the room; Michael ruled out nothing. “At this point, my job is here. I’m going to be the very best Governor of this Commonwealth that I can be. I have lots to do. ... What happens in the future remains to be seen.”

Oh, but he would
make
them see. Michael was the most optimistic of men. Now he believed (as he had in every comeback) that in his own Commonwealth, from his own corner office, he would make them see what they’d
missed
—and what injustice had been done to Michael Dukakis. How? ... He would govern! He would institute those splendid programs he proposed for the nation in the last month of the campaign. He would lead the way on health care,
of course
. And on economic development—that went without saying. But now he had ideas on education, too—and tuition finance. He would shelter the destitute; he would make home ownership possible for people of modest means. In his beloved State House, he would resume the mastery he’d missed in his campaign. He would make of his Commonwealth a model for what might have been ... or what might be still. How much greater now was his experience in the nation’s states, and his appreciation of his home. The
opportunities
he saw were ... just terrific. And here was the joy, the stomach-soothing peace: he could
do it
in his home, his own orbit, that perfect ellipse—all he had to do was what he loved. He knew there were problems—the numbers from Revenue were deplorable. He’d have woes with his budget, sure. But solving the problems was his reason for being. Dr. Dukakis was keeping office hours again!

So, briskly, he took ten more questions and dismissed them. There’d be no looking forward to ’92. There’d be no looking back (no farther than those last three weeks, “the surge,” that “terrific comeback”). Michael’s gaze was blinkered to all but his home and his State House. (He thought he’d take maybe one weekend off, and then, you know, dig in.)

After that press conference, Michael went home to Perry Street—he took John Sasso along—and on his driveway, behind the police barricades, Michael signed the paper releasing himself from the care and protection of the Secret Service. “You’ve been terrific,” he told the agents. “Good luck.” And that was that. Michael and John sat at the kitchen table. They talked—not too deeply. They never had recaptured entirely the brotherly candor they enjoyed before Sasso’s exile. So no one at the table acknowledged that the “terrific comeback” was a fabrication—wish fulfillment for the wise guys and a press corps that needed a story.

It was John who’d made the comeback, after Michael panicked in September. Michael’s fear-of-bad-story was overwhelmed by a
great new fear
—a poll showed he might
lose Massachusetts
, his real life!—and he called Sasso back from exile. If Dukakis looked better in those last few weeks, it was because that huge and overweening fear—he could lose
everything
, he could look
ridiculous
—made him stop trying to prove he was right. He started begging for help! At last!

But what was the point of rehashing? After an hour at the kitchen table, Michael walked John out to the curb. They parted, as they’d ever parted—neither would say they shared no more business between them.

“Call me,” Michael said.

“You be in the office?”

“Yeah, call.”

“Okay.” ... And then they saw, both at once ... it was what they didn’t see. The barricades were gone. And the agents. And the cop cars, the van, the
people
—that block had been wall-to-wall demonstrations; Jesse Jackson made a
speech
there; crowds spilled off the sidewalks; there were TV trucks with satellite masts; newsmen doing stand-ups, with lights blazing down and microphones at their mouths—the photographers, the tourist cars ... all gone. Less than twenty-four hours after the polls closed, there was not one person on Perry Street, not a neighbor, nor a mailman, not a sound, save for ... birds.

“Nobody,” Michael said.

“Yeah.” And Sasso bestowed that smile that was a gift.

Michael said, “It’s just like it was ...” and he paused, just an instant, to figure, “... twenty months ago.” Then he turned and, with a light step, walked up the driveway toward his half-a-house.

The next morning, with no limo attending, Michael happily set out on foot for the trolley. Kitty Dukakis saw him off, then went to the liquor cabinet in the dining room, measured out four ounces of booze, drank it down, and went back to bed, to pass out.

Kitty’s campaign had been a splendid procession ... the last few months, since that night in July, that stage in Atlanta, after Michael finished the speech of his life and she ran into his arms, embraced him, and the nation could read his lips—“I love you.” She was in glory. And this was not reflected light from Michael. She was no pale moon. The radiance was hers, and triumph—every day.

Every day, she would wake in nervy excitement for what she had to do. Her schedule was packed. Her speeches were packed. She’d talk about Michael, but she’d talk about herself, too—about her issues, her drugs, her growing up, her growing sense of self. She was Kitty Dukakis—that’s all she had to say! She could get anyone in the country on the phone: “This is Kitty Dukakis ...” She could raise money for causes, bring powerful people together, have ten reporters waiting at her next stop, or ten organizers. She didn’t even have to make the call, she had staff. She stated, several times, she had the biggest and most professional campaign staff that any spouse ever assembled, which was likely true: they were the best in the business, and devoted to her; she just had to
mention
something she might want, and it was
done
—a room was waiting, a meal, a masseuse, a hairdresser ... a plane. Her plane!

Kitty wrote a whole book of remembrance. But her plane was enough—it told the story. It was a Gulfstream jet—taupe carpets and leather, TV, stereo, everything built in so cunningly, like a pricey yacht—a twelve-seater, with two pilots, and a stewardess, Marlene Dunneman, who was lovely, impeccable. She was an artist with food, lavish in her attentions, sweet, correct in all things. Marlene (
Marleyna
, she pronounced it) was German, a fact not lost on Katharine Dukakis, former member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Of course, she was wonderful with Marlene. Why not? “Marlene?” she’d call. “What’s for breakfast?” In answer, Marlene would arrive with the golden flatware, large linen napkins, Scottish smoked salmon, capers, lemon, chopped egg, onion, assorted rolls, toast and bagels, fresh pastries, cinnamon buns and muffins, butter, preserves, cream cheese, and plates already garnished with strawberries cut into the shape of crowns or kiwi sliced so thin you could see the china through the translucent green fruit.

Kitty called her plane Sky Heaven, which drew the contrast she wanted, to Michael’s Sky Pig. She hated to fly with Michael, not just because of the unlovely Aero Swine, but because of its cargo—a-hundred-and-some press and staff, and hangers-on, and Secret Servicemen, and such hubbub and awful food, and waiting to load and unload, and the schedule, she had no control—and once they finally got somewhere, what was she supposed to do? Sit and stare at Michael, with an idiot’s adoring smile, while he gave his speech? ... She would not. She was better than that. She could speak for herself, she could do for herself—better than Michael. She’d proved that. I once told her, she had built for herself “the better bubble.” She loved that—never failed to mention it as a secret between us. But it was no secret. As Michael’s lead blew away in the Bush-wind, there were scores of reporters and hundreds of voters who told Kitty,
she
was the one who should run. She was so warm, so giving, so caring, so dynamic, passionate, sympathetic ... and Michael was a
stiff
. Kitty would defend Michael, she’d say he found it hard to show his feelings, except to her: he was better, with her—which was true ... and an interesting response. Because, day by day, she fought his staffs schemes to bring her along with him. She wouldn’t give up Sky Heaven. She’d tell reporters from Michael’s plane, “You ought to fly with us!” And when they would ... when perhaps, they’d settled into a leather seat, with their first sundowner cocktail ... and Paul Costello, Kitty’s Press Secretary, had hooked his CD player into the Gulf-stream’s stereo and fired up “Les Miz” (one of Kitty’s passions), or Tracy Chapman (so hip—and from Boston), or even the country-western twangers that Kitty’s Service detail favored ... and Marlene had served some savory broiled mushroom caps, to go along with drinks, to tide everyone over till dinner ... then Kitty, mischievous with vodka, queenly in her chair, all eyes upon her, would solicit comment: “We’re taking a survey: Who would
you
rather fly with?”

And it might have gone on like that—triumph and control within her realm—had it not been for the crisis in Michael’s fortunes after that disastrous second debate. How could he
answer like that
when they were talking about
her rape
? She jumped him, in the car, afterward. She was steamed—why wasn’t he
ready
for something like that? But she couldn’t harp, he was so contrite, so upset. She tried not to beat on him, but Kitty wasn’t good at holding things in. The next morning, with Michael still in such a terrible funk, sitting on the bed in their suite, Sasso and Mitropoulos standing beside him, trying to console him, pick him up, while Michael stared at the carpet, muttering, “I blew it, I blew it” ... Kitty wanted to scream. But she couldn’t scream at Michael. She had to figure what
she
would say—everyone was going to ask
her
about it, no one was figuring out what
she
could say ... surely not Nick or John, who had eyes only for Michael, and least of all Michael, who was
hanging his head
: “I blew it, completely.” So she burst into the bedroom and demanded: What about her? Why wasn’t anybody working on what she was supposed to say? What was she going to say? ... Until John Sasso turned on her with a look he seldom employed, and all but screamed at her to
just keep quiet!

After that, she traveled more with Michael. She’d introduce him, she was his passion passport—living evidence that the man was not just a brain in a jar. She’d tell the crowds that this was the man who won her hand twenty-five years before, this was the man who won her heart with his loving attentions to her son, this was the man who was
by her bedside
when they
lost their first child
... “my passionate partner for twenty-five years, Michael Dukakis.” It was a performance that never lost its riveting horror. It was so raw, spoke so bluntly of need—the crowds went nuts for her. Then Michael would step up. Each with one arm around the other, they’d wave a couple of times, wave to the left, wave to the right ... when things got quiet, he’d begin: “I always said, if Kitty were the candidate we’d be twenty points ahead.” Heh heh.