What It Takes (59 page)

“I’m just not sure ... this is the right time ...” she’d say between puffs, pounding up the street in the half-light. “... We just ... can’t be away ... that much ... right now ...”

What she would have said, with more breath, was that none of their three kids was out of the house yet. Why did it have to be now? Katie was only eight years old, Chrissie was eleven. Matt was sixteen, still in high school, a rough time for him. They needed Dick. How could he push them into a whole new league, blow up every routine they had, and then take himself off to Iowa, New Hampshire, every week? It wasn’t fair—what about her? She needed Dick, too. What about what she’d have to do? She’d always helped with his campaigns—door-to-door—she liked door-to-door ... but this was different, this was speeches, and TV, people writing about what dress she wore—could she do that? Did she want that? Did it matter what she wanted? That wasn’t the way she said it, though.

“... Suppose Matt needs you? ...

“You’re the one ... he’s close to ...”

So often it came down to Matt: ever since he’d gotten so sick as a baby—cancer at one and a half years old, their firstborn; he was the one they worried for. And now, when he so much wanted Dick to be there. ... Jane didn’t worry so much for the girls. Chrissie would have a ball on the campaign, watching the people. Chrissie and Dick would get going on people—she noticed the tiniest details—and they’d never stop laughing. Katie would be fine, too: she’d motor right through it, organize her way through it. (Katie was only eight, yet she was the one who got her sister off to school. “Okay, here’s your lunch, here’s your backpack. Bye!”) Matt was the tender one ... so
angry
now. ...

“It’ll be fine,” Dick said. “It might be good, meet a lot of people, it could give him something, you know, a focus, outside himself ...”

(Dick could talk while he ran—never puffed or paused. In St. Louis, he used to run in Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt. He’d finish his run in Tower Grove Park and walk right into a bakery for donuts, start saying hi, shaking hands. Dick was such a white guy, he’d never even sweat.)

“It could give him confidence,” Dick said. He always saw the positives. That’s how he worked on Jane:

“It’ll be great. We’ll all be in Iowa together ...

“Sundays home, that’s for sure ... Wednesday nights, too, at
least
...

“Won’t have to run back and forth to St. Louis ...”

Jane knew he was working on her. And she knew herself. She could get through a campaign, if she had to, one day at a time ... she could do anything—for a while—she’d learned that, when Matt got sick, she learned what she could do ... but what if Dick
won
? Four
years
!
Eight years
? ...

“If we win, we could sell this house, you know, and there’s the college money, right there ...”

Dick was so full of good hopes. That’s what made it so hard for Jane. By the time they started to talk about it, he was so
into
the thing, he was on that weird white tractor beam, that focus he got, that made everything else small ... and she knew she wouldn’t stop him. How could she? Holding him back, saying no to him—that would be terrible for her. And she knew he’d haul them all into it ... carry them into his zone of zombie will. She knew she’d fold, but ... couldn’t they talk?

So Dick would say, “Well, let’s make a time when we can really sit down, you know, decide ...” And they’d set a date: July Fourth ... and then Labor Day, and then Thanksgiving—Thanksgiving for sure ... but it was hard to get the time carved out, you know, with everything else. ...

Meanwhile, Matt would lash out ... to Jane: “I don’t want him to do this. It’s just wrong ...” She was driving Matt to a tennis lesson. Old Dominion Lane, on the way to McLean.

“It’s just ...
selfish
. He isn’t even
thinking
about us. Just for him. Why does
he want
to do it?”

And Jane would say softly, “Matt, don’t tell me this. You have to tell your dad this ...”

But Matt would not tell his father: he would not be weak, he would not disappoint. To Dick, he’d say, “Whatever you want, Dad.” And then he’d scream at his mother, with an edge of tears near the top of his throat: “I don’t wanna be looked at. I don’t want to be ... I don’t want them LOOKING AT ME.”

And Jane would tell Dick, who’d try to have a talk, some night, when he was home for dinner ... and Katie, on his right, would make a face: “Aw, Daaad. Stupid conversation ... again?” But Matt would listen, eyes down, while his father tried to emphasize the good things.

“Think of the people you could meet ...

“This’ll help you get into a really good college ...

“Don’t you think it’d give you a special, uh, identity at school?”

Matt’s answers were short, conclusive—mostly said to his plate.

“People’ll look at me funny ...

“I don’t wanna go with Secret Service ...

“I’m gonna get into college on my own.”

And sometimes, all the kids would start piling on:

“
Am I gonna get to go to my same school?”

“
We’ll never see you
!”

Dick would say, “No, it’ll be greeaat ... we’ll be together in the White House.”

“
It won’t be the same
...”

“
We gonna go out and shoot baskets on the garage
?”

“
You’ll have people around you all the time
!”

They knew he was different when there were people around. No more tickle wars on the floor. No more wrestling and cackling, no nicknames in front of the Secret Service. They knew ... but they also knew they would not stop him—it would only hurt to try. So they tried instead to have a good attitude. They were Gephardt’s kids, after all.

And one day—it was a Sunday, Dick was home—they went to a movie. It was
Rocky IV
. And coming out of the mall, Matt said to Dick:

“That’s you, Dad. You’re like Rocky. You have to do this. ...Don’t worry. I know that. You just go ahead.”

Her first son, Don—sometimes Loreen thought he was Lou all over again: the same sharp features, the musical ability, the long silences she’d hear when they’d visit the farm in Missouri. Don was neat, organized, persistent. He wouldn’t go to sleep with something out of place in his half of the boys’ room.

And Dick was just like her—she knew it the minute she saw him born. He had her smile, her curiosity ... before he could walk, he’d crawl across the floor to visitors in the living room: “Whuzzat? ...” he’d say, and he’d point. He wanted to know everything. He wanted to hear what everybody had to say. And she bred this in him, praised it steadily, took such joy in him, and pride. ...

She loved both her sons: fine boys. But so different from one another, it was ... a miracle, the way God worked. She knew it was God’s hand, His plan manifest on Earth. A strong faith was Loreen’s, and this, too, she bred into the boys—with faith, they could do anything in the world. That’s what they heard, too, each Sunday, at Third Baptist, a large and imposing church, all the way downtown, where during the war, when the boys were young, fifteen hundred worshipers would pack the place, four deep in the balconies ... and while the flags of the church and the nation were marched down the center aisle, the great and stentorian pastor, Dr. C.O. Johnson, would boom out: “All those who will pray for our military men, until the lights come back on, STAND WITH ME NOW ...” And the place would leap up with a roar.

That was a new church for the Gephardts, when Dick was born. So many things changed when Dick came along: they moved to the house on Reber Place, a two-story brick bungalow, with a wooden front porch behind a low white railing. On the first floor, there was a living room, dining room, kitchen ... and behind, a tiny backyard, and then the alley. Upstairs, the boys shared the front bedroom; then there was a bathroom, with Lou and Loreen’s room behind. It was a modest house, by any standard, but a wonderful place for the boys. Reber Place was a dead end, with lots of kids—perfect for ball games in the street. There was the Mason School, where both boys went, only three blocks from their own back alley (and just a block past Hill’s and Bill’s, the corner store, with penny candy, and bubble gum). The backyard was just the right size for one red-haired kid (in his red Cardinals’ ballcap) to throw a baseball against the wall, and catch it, and throw it again ... calling the play-by-play of his game, like Harry Caray did for the Cardinals. In the basement, there was just space enough for Loreen to host the Cub Scouts and the den mothers ... most of the basement was taken up by the furnace and the big coal bin, where Don had to shovel. Of course, just as Dick came of age for shoveling—wouldn’t you know it?—the Gephardts made the switch to oil heat.

Everything changed just in time for Dick: even Lou, who didn’t do much changing. ... But when Dick got interested in the church, Lou took an interest, too. He became a deacon, and president of the Agoga Bible Class. When Dick became a Boy Scout, Lou joined the club of Scout dads, went on the cookouts, cooked for the camping trips. (Somehow, he never had the time when Don was a Scout.) And in time, with steady application, Dick made Eagle Scout. (Don just missed.) It was strange, the way it always happened for Dick, though he was never loud, never demanding ... like he was the heavy lump of iron, and the magnetic field of the family bent around him. ... When Lou and Loreen would start to scrap—always about attitude—it was Dick who took it to heart. Don would just go up to his room, close the door, and practice his saxophone ... but Dick couldn’t block it out like that. Sometimes, he’d have to jump on his bike and ride away. But then, as he came of age, he could do more: he could deflect trouble, he could talk his dad off a streak (“Dad, isn’t that just like you used to do on the farm?”), he could josh him out of sourness, he could change the subject (“D’you see Musial was four for four?”), he could turn the tide with a joke about Ike. ... Dick himself, in his person, at the dining room table, could be the bridge ... to straddle the poles of the household ... to make the family work.

He was always so good with adults, so respectful, so
interested
... better than he was with kids. When the relatives—uncles, aunts, cousins—came for dinner, and all the kids went outside to play, Dick would stay in the living room, listening to what the grownups said. His aunt, Lucy Cassell, used to call him Hothouse Rose, because he always stayed inside with her. He was great, too, with his uncle, Loreen’s younger brother Bob, who was a commercial artist, had a studio downtown (on a boat, anchored at a river dock—very Bohemian for those days!), and he used to ask Dick to model for him. And Dick would catch a streetcar on Southwest Avenue, and ride downtown—quite a trip for a twelve-year-old—and go to the boat to pose for Bob ... he was terrific at that. Bob would say: “Okay, now look like you’re reading ...” or “Good. Now put the book down and just gaze off, like you’re thinking about it...” And whatever Bob asked, Dick could just
do
it ...
no
problem. It was fun! And, then, too, on that riverboat, apart from Bob, the studio was staffed entirely by women, and they
loved
Dick—he was so cute, with his freckles, that red hair!—they praised everything he did.

It was always praise with Dick. That’s how Loreen ran her home: she meant to fill those boys with confidence. ... If they told her they had an assignment for school, she’d reply: “Oh, I know you’ll do wonderfully. You are
so
good at writing.” When Don would play his clarinet in the school orchestra, she’d tell him how
beautiful
that music sounded. When Dick had the lead in the Mason School play, she stopped him in his costume, as he went out the door, and bent down, with him looking straight into her eyes (she insisted her boys look right
at
her, whenever she talked—that way they’d know she meant what she said), and she told him:

“You know ... I am
so proud
of you ...”

And she was. She knew she was doing God’s work in the building she did: that self-assurance, that will... Loreen always knew that if you were doing God’s will, He would help
you
work
your
will on this Earth. She told her boys, over and over: “Ask and ye shall receive. ...” Except with her, they didn’t have to ask—they had only to do, to shine in the world, to hear her praises flow.

And they did shine. The principal of Mason School, Miss Marie Thole, personally called Loreen to the school office, to tell her: “Mrs. Gephardt, your boys are college material. I would like to see them both go to college. And I would like to see them go
away
to college, because that is an education in itself.”

So by the next week, Loreen had a job—two days a week, at a law firm downtown, to save money for college. The Lord does answer the prayers of the faithful.

And lest a son go, for an afternoon or two, without reminder of his opportunities, and his talents, she brought in a teacher from the Mason School, a lovely younger woman named Helen Baldwin, to stay with the boys on Reber Place, while Loreen was at work. And Helen, too, a woman of faith, reinforced the message.

When Dick graduated from the Mason School, at the end of eighth grade, he had a little autograph book, which he passed around for the signatures of his classmates, as memento. Most of the entries were kids’ block printing, with well-worn rhymes and jokes:

Roses are red, violets are blue,

If skunks had a college, they’d call it PU.

But in the center double page—where the book would open naturally, if Dick ever chose to look in it again—there was a long, tightly written poem about teaching, and molding men. This was from Helen Baldwin, who followed the verse with this reminder:

“This little bit of poetry inspires me, Dick, and reminds me of you. Of all the boys I know (and that’s quite a few), you have the greatest potential for doing great things.”

It’s ten days before announcement now, and Dick is supposed to be rolling, presenting himself to the people—today, it’s New Hampshire, and the morning bids fair: sunshine on white snow, white steam whenever you talk, and Dick and Jane, campaigning together, as promised ... this is how it ought to be, right?