What It Takes (53 page)

Not that he grew up with money of his own: Joseph was born in Baltimore. His dad worked there, for American Oil ... which sounded great, but actually, his father started out delivering oil to homes, in a wagon. Still, Joseph grew up with a consciousness of his lineage: the Robinettes, his mother’s kin, traced their path in this country from a tract of land near Media, Pennsylvania, which was an original grant from William Penn. And even in Joseph’s time, that side of the family flourished. His mother’s sister married a man named Bill Sheen, a two-fisted Irish business baron, who held the patent on a substance called asphalt-gravalt, a hard mineral pitch used for sealing coffins. Bill Sheen sold tons of this stuff, and made a fortune, which he quickly converted to estates in the horse country outside Baltimore, and then a baronial manor in Connecticut ... and a boat, or two, and then an airplane ... and lots of cars, some for him, some for his son, Bill, Jr. ... Junior was a young man who used up cars like tubes of toothpaste.

Yes, the Sheens knew how to live, and how to take care of family, too. And Bill Sheen, Jr., had a favorite cousin, who was just his age ... and that was Joseph Biden. So Joseph spent every summer with the Sheens, and he went to their parties, and played their golf course, and he used up their cars, and he rode to their hounds ... and you can believe that handsome Biden lad cut a fine figure in his riding pinks. He was a young man with all the graces ... save one: he could never pick up the check.

But what did that matter, really, when he was just like another son to the baron, Bill Sheen? And Joseph took to the life so naturally, as a child of that age will absorb a foreign language, and speak like a native, forever after. It became him, that style—everyone said so—and went with his good looks, his slender grace, his dignified walk, the seersucker suits, white bucks, and straw boaters that he favored, in the summertime. ... He was, in sum, a lad of preternatural polish.

So, of course, he did stick out ... when his father (something of a drinker was his dad) was exiled by Amoco to the outback, to the boonies of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton was a football town, a shot-and-a-beer town, and here was Joseph, come to finish high school, just for a year or so, who talked about golf, shooting skeet, jumping horses, and racing cars that no one had ever seen. He got an earful in return from his schoolmates, not least from the Finnegan boys ... but all that guff was well worthwhile, when he went to their house for dinner, and met their sister, Jean.

Jean Finnegan was the homecoming queen, the object of a hundred boys’ dreams. But all those dreams were dashed the minute Joseph Biden walked through her door, in his perfect suit, with his brilliant smile, his shining fingernails, his manners—so soft! ... She was a goner. Yes, he wooed her, and brought her flowers, and took her riding, and told her about the glowing life that was his ... well, almost his.

They married young. Time was a-wasting, as Joseph was swept into the empire of the Sheens ... and now, Jean with him ... whirled along in a dizzying twister of money, pleasure, power. The Sheen family business had evolved, with the times, to supply a type of armor plate, chiefly for the merchant ships that plied the dangerous Atlantic. Old man Sheen had smelled war in the wind, and money—which descended in truckloads upon him, when Congress passed a law
requiring
his armor on every U.S. ship in the North Atlantic trade. Bill Sheen, Sr., ran the New York operation. He sent Bill, Jr., south to run Norfolk. And Joseph Biden, five years out of high school, was general manager, and maximum boss, of the Sheen Armor Company’s Boston division.

God, it was a wonderful war! They drove up to Boston in Joseph’s four-hole Buick convertible. (Bill Sheen always sent the chauffeur out to buy cars four at a time—three Cadillacs and four-hole Buick. Sheen, Mrs. Sheen, and Sheen, Jr., got the Cadillacs; cousin Joseph got the Buick roadster.) Joseph and Jean moved into a beautiful Dutch colonial house, outside Boston: four bedrooms, three baths, for the two of them. (They were planning on a family, after all.) As a defense contractor, Joseph Biden held a triple-A priority with the nation’s airlines. That meant he could bump a general, if Jean fancied a weekend in Scranton. Joseph, too, did his share of flying, on the airlines, and in the company planes, which he piloted like a fighter-jock. (He and Bill, Jr., ditched one plane in New York harbor—that was a show!) So, weekends, if he could spare the time, he’d fly out with Junior, off to hunt pheasant, and then fly back to Boston, or New York, where they’d march, in their hunting togs, into the Barclay, and directly to the kitchen, with a brace of birds, which they’d present to the chef for preparation.

Plenty ... and more than plenty ... and Joseph Biden was not small with wealth. He took care of friends—plenty of them. He bought an interest in a furniture store—a whole city block—and put a friend in charge ... (but the friend took off with the money, and Joseph lost that store). He knew how to take care of family, too, triple-A-flying sundry Finnegans up to visit in Boston, or sending lavish gifts down to Scranton. When Frank, his brother, came back from the war, shell-shocked—problems with his vision and balance—Joseph took him in as manager of the works in Boston. Frankie screwed that up to a fare-thee-well (actually, spent most of the time getting snockered on the yacht with Bill Sheen, Jr.), but Joseph swept up behind him, and never said an unkind word. Nothing was too good for a Biden. That was the same way he treated his son, Joseph R., Jr., born 1942. The Biden home movies from the forties show Joey in his perfect little sailor’s suit ... Joey on his brand new pony ... Joey with his gorgeous toy car ...

And why not? It was all still up and up. Sure, the war was ending, but business was business. There’d be something else, Joe, Sr., told Jean. ... But less and less did she believe. She was a Finnegan, after all, and stubborn like that breed. She loved his great gestures, his magnificent style ... all his Biden ways: she knew what it meant to be a Biden; she took that to heart till she was more fierce than he. But she could not really approve of the life, the high times ... the expense! “We’re just on their train ...” she told him. “It’s Bill’s money ... Bill’s plane ... Bill’s company ...”

“Yeah,” Joseph said, “but he’s a
pal
.” Surely she knew what that meant to a Biden. ...

But less and less could she see it as he did. Bill, Jr., she decided, was a lush and a liar, who made promises he forgot on that yacht, with a glass in his hand. After the war, when the armor business folded, Bill, Jr., dreamed up a scheme to buy a country airport, on Long Island: they’d run it together, him and cousin Joseph. And Jean was against it. But Joe, Sr., wouldn’t duck out on a pal. He’d already agreed ...
his word as a Biden
. So they bought into the airport, and got a couple of crop-dusting planes—Sheen, Sr., helped put up the money—and they were in business.

Well, sort of ... the crop-dusting contracts were few, and difficult. It was Biden who humped all over the Island, drumming the farmers for jobs. Bill, Jr., wasn’t around much—still on the yacht, drinking the company dry. In the Biden home, things were dry, indeed. Two children now: Joey’s sister, Val, was born just at the close of the war ... and nothing but debts in the household budget. Jean Biden was in a boil: the Irish was up in her now. “Joe Biden, I’m not going to do it! I’m not going to have dinner with that lush! He did not do what he said. ...” Jean had no tolerance for people who fudged, or did less than they vowed.

But Joseph was still swept up in his Sheen-dreams. It would turn around, he said. Bill would be back ... and he’d bring the money, like he promised ... he’s a pal!

But Bill did not come back ... and finally, Jean left. She went back to Scranton, in 1948. It wasn’t long after, that Sheen, Sr., smelled failure ... and pulled the plug. He yanked the line of credit. Probably good for Junior, he figured—teach him a lesson. But it was more than a lesson to cousin Joseph. It was the end of his dreams ... and a plunge into ignominy.

Joseph Biden had no choice—he went back to Scranton, too. He drove in, and the next day, Sheen’s chauffeur showed up to take back the Buick. ... And that was the end. Joseph and Jean and their children moved in with the Finnegans, in the modest yellow house, at 2446 North Washington.

And that’s where Joey did his growing up, in that packed house, with his parents, and Val, and soon, another brother, Jimmy ... and all the Bidens in two bedrooms now—kids in the garret.

Mom and Pop Finnegan still had their room, of course, although since Pop’s stroke, he mostly sat in silence, in his overstuffed chair, in the living room, day and night.

And the top floor, front, that was Aunt Gertie’s room—Gertrude Blewitt, Mom Finnegan’s unmarried sister—she never left the property. Gertie was usually at the kitchen window, the one near the sink, that looked out over the back, where she’d watch Joey and his friends. She doted on Joey—always cooked his favorites, spaghetti and meatballs (Genie made meatballs the size of your fist), and apple pie, still warm, just the way he liked it. Gertie was odd—with the hairs on her chin, the way she wrote on the walls in the kitchen: phone numbers, recipes, anything else she thought of ... but a five-year-old doesn’t know what’s odd: she was a fixture in Joey’s life, and she always watched out for him. (Once, Joey and his pals were throwing snowballs, and when the Kelleher Coal truck happened by, that was the biggest, best target they’d seen. So, they let loose, and a snowball shot right through the window, right in the guy’s kisser! The driver ground metal-on-metal to a stop, and chased the fleeing boys up the Finnegan driveway. But then, Aunt Gertie burst out of the house, with her apron on, a broom in her hand ... and chased that coal man down past the curb, all the way back to his truck: “Get outta here, you sonofabitch!” It was the only time anyone ever saw her feet hit the pavement past the Finnegan yard.)

Then, too, still living at home, there was Uncle Edward Blewitt Finnegan, Jean Biden’s unmarried brother. They called him Boo-Boo. He stuttered, hard, and that was what came out when he tried to say his name,
B-b-buh-buh-buh-Blewitt
. He had a room on the second floor, but he was a presence everywhere. For instance, the garage: Boo-Boo collected things, and he must have had eighty bicycles tossed into the garage, all twisted in one massive sculpture, all inextricable and perfectly useless. He also made his mark on the backyard, or his dogs did, Lobo and Diablo: they were a total pain in the ass.

Actually, the backyard was kind of a problem, once Lobo and Diablo did in the grass. The Finnegan-Blewitt-Biden clan liked to spend time out there—they’d barbecue—things were so tight indoors. But once the grass was gone, the back turned to swamp in the rain. So Joseph Biden determined to build a backyard patio, with red concrete tile. And he did a good job—got strings up, and levels, the whole deal. It wasn’t the sort of work he was cut out for ... but there he was, in his wing tips, him and his brother, Frank, who came to help out. That’s when Boo-Boo came back to the house, and there was a huge fight. You could see Joe, Sr.’s, point in the thing—he was trying to do something good for the place ... he was there every night, after work. Boo-Boo was a salesman—away all week peddling mattresses. But you had to see Boo-Boo’s point of view, too. He was a Finnegan. He was the son. It was supposed to be
his
house ... not some goddam fancy-pants Biden who’d been lording it over them for years, sending airline tickets and fancy shit from Boston ... like Scranton was some starving African country!
Where’s all that f-f-f-fancy shit now, Lord J-Juh-Joseph?

God, it was terrible. Boo-Boo went nuts. Joe, Sr., just got quiet. When you got down to it, it wasn’t his house. He was quiet more and more in those days, although it wasn’t something a kid would notice. Joey’s friends just knew Mr. Biden worked a lot. When he’d get home from his job at the Nu-Car company, he just seemed to accept whatever he found. Of course, the Biden kids knew more. Dad didn’t talk much about the old days, but there were the pictures—Dad with his plane. Dad with his horse—in Mom’s photo album ... not out front, like she was making a point, but they were in there, the pictures. And then, in the back of the closet, where kids always look, there were the riding boots, and the beautiful red jacket. ... It was something those kids knew without words: life was not now as it had been ... their father had come from better things.

It was left to Jean to make the message explicit, which she did in her own fierce Finnegan way. She told those kids, every day, over and over, that they were Bidens. And there was
nobody
better than a Biden.
Nobody was better bred
. In fact, Jean Biden had a set of lessons for those kids—all interlocking, all important.

The most important was: tell the truth, and do what you promised. “Whatever you do,” she’d say, “if you tell us, we’ll do anything we can to help. But if you ever tell me
one lie
, I’ll never trust you completely again.” And the most solemn thing you could say was, “I give you my Biden word.”

Whenever a Biden kid needed help, all Biden kids had to drop what they were doing. Jean told them, again and again: “There is nothing in life but family. ... There is no one on earth closer than brother and sister. They’re the same blood! Even closer than parent and child. It’s the same blood!”

And they must take care of themselves. They didn’t have to put up with guff. They were Bidens, and Bidens did not have to take
anything
. If someone in school was bothering her child, Jean would counsel: “Well ... punch ’em in the nose!” Or sometimes, to Frankie, or Jimmy, she’d advise: “Why don’t you take your brother Joe along? He’ll show you how to throw a punch.” ... One time she
paid
Jimmy two bucks to give another boy on the block a bloody nose. That kid was
impossible
! ... When a nun at school got it into her head that Jean’s daughter
ought
to be named Valeria (which she pronounced Val-er-ee-ah), Jean told Val not to stand up if that nun could not learn her proper name. “You have to respect the habit,” Jean said. “But not necessarily the person in it.” And the next day, Valerie, trembling for her mortal soul, refused to stand in class. She was scared to death of what the nun would do ... but she was more afraid of coming home and telling Mom that she’d knuckled under.