What It Takes (94 page)

But that was only the start: then,
everyone
would board the special train, which would carry them back to Washington, where Joe would repeat the announcement in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building, with more press and more VIPs, after which the show would board a chartered airplane, which would transport all supporting Senators, Congressmen, Governors, notable pols, political press, distinguished Delawareans, Joe’s brain trust, support staff, assorted hangers-on, and the Bidens, and the Bidens’ friends ... onward to Des Moines, then Cedar Rapids ... thence to Boston ... and New Hampshire ... and, finally, to Atlanta, where the troupe would be met by Jimmy Carter. The logistics were something like a space probe to Venus.

The payoff was, at every stop, Biden would give The Speech.

But there was no speech.

Pat was working on the speech, but when he flew in from California, what he had was a forty-five-page exegesis of the nation’s ills: the raveling of America’s moral fabric, the cancer in the body politic ... that kind of thing. So Gitenstein and another able writer, Ron Klain, started whacking through the kudzu, but Pat was there in valiant defense, and there was only one man to fight with Pat.

But Joe was busy. That was the weekend of Beau’s high school graduation: that’s the way Joe planned it, see ... family first, the Biden way.

It was always Joe at the center of the family Biden—Joe and Neilia, from ’68, when they got back from law school: they were the ones who knew where they were going. They could have stayed in Syracuse. Neilia would have liked that. But she was willing to move for Joe. She became a Biden, and was devoted to Joe’s dreams. They lived first in a farmhouse, off Marsh Road, north of Wilmington, but then Neilia got pregnant with Beau, so Joe did a deal with this guy who had a swim club. The pool had a tenant house—a cottage, really, but cute, stuck off in the woods—and Joe didn’t have two bucks in his pocket, so he told the guy he and Neilia would live in the bungalow (free, of course) and watch the pool.

Actually, Neilia would watch the pool. Joe had to make his way in the world. He passed his bar exam as an intern at a blue-blood firm in Wilmington, but that didn’t last ... he switched over to a firm with connections to the state’s Democratic pols. He wasn’t much for slaving over a legal brief, but he was hell on wheels in front of a jury—Biden for the defense!

The next year, he started his own firm. He was the only young lawyer in Wilmington to set out on his own, certainly the only one to guarantee salaries for two
other
lawyers. His first move was to purchase an enormous Queen Anne desk—the finest—he knew it was his the moment he saw it. His partners thought he was nuts. He’s living in a tenant house, he’s got a law firm with three lawyers, no clients, and Joe drops a couple of thousand on this desk. It was huge! He put it in his office—he had to walk in sideways to sit down. Then he insisted on a blue leather couch, all tufted with blue leather buttons, for the front room—another fortune. Joe
had
to have it. “Look,” he told his partners, “we’re trying to act like an establishment law firm. People don’t want to sit on
wicker chairs
.” If he’d had the money, he would have paneled the whole place. “You know how important image is.”

See, his major client was always Joe Biden. He had to spread himself around, get to know the players, make his name—in a hurry. Just months after he started his firm, in 1970, he was running for County Council. That would give him exposure for the big statewide race he’d always planned. And New Castle County was the power in the state. If he could win there, he could win it all. So, right away, he started with night meetings, too. Sometimes Neilia would drop off the baby with Mom-Mom, and go with Joe. He was better that way.

Sometimes, it seemed Joe was in such a hurry that he had to make you like him ...
now
. But Neilia could slow him down; she made him easier, as she made him believe he could do it, Joe always knew what he wanted from people. But Neilia knew what
they
wanted.

One time, when her friend Bobbie called, Neilia said she couldn’t stop to talk. “I’ve got to go over to Mrs. Baldicelli’s—she’s going to teach me to make spaghetti sauce.”

“Spaghetti! Neilia, come on!” (Spaghetti was just about all Joe ate. Neilia would cook spaghetti ten, twelve days in a row, just to see how long it would take him to notice.) Bobbie said: “
You know
how to make sauce.”

“I know,” Neilia said. “But Mrs. Baldicelli really wants to teach me.”

What she lent to Joe was the grace of effortlessness. Neilia never showed ambition. It was like she already had hers—whatever it was, a bungalow or a mansion. Of course, she knew Joe would go for the mansion—he did the wanting for two. But she understood what it was—the Biden way—the striving and the stretch required, for family, for friends, for the public. “You have to understand,” she told a guest one day, when Joe was running late, running crazy, trying to do ten things ... “Joe wants to be
so much
for people.”

So came the day before announcement, Monday, June 8, and it got to be late in the day ... and Pat was in his muscle-guy sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, still stalking Joe’s stately home, ready to go toe-to-toe on this speech, which was
very important
. And there were typists upstairs, waiting, and gurus present for consultations, and Joe’s parents were over, just to help out, and Val, of course, and one of Jimmy’s kids, and Joe’s kids, in and out, and Tommy Lewis, Joe’s old friend, who manned a stool in the kitchen, next to the three phones, because there were a hundred media calls and a million staff and volunteer calls and VIP arrangements—train passes and hotel rooms, Wilmington cops and state cops and Amtrak cops, the height of the podium (wrong, of course), money bigs with suggestions, food for the staff, people at the airport, people who called and said, “Is Joe there?”—and Val’s kid, who wanted to know if Mom said it was okay to go to Billy’s house, and friends who had to call (they were coming to the announcement, or they weren’t coming—who gave a shit?) ... somebody had to talk to them.

And Joe was going to have a nap, then do it with Pat—their duel, their dance—but Joe had just got ready to lie down upstairs when the TVs showed up: three satellite trucks in the driveway for three Philadelphia live-at-fives. So Joe went out on the lawn, from camera to camera, and, between takes, yelled back into the house, for Tommy: “SPIKE! How ’bout some Cokes for the fellas! It’s hot!” So they were serving sodas to the TV crews while Joe should have been asleep—he didn’t get upstairs for an hour ... and then the phone rang and it was Tommy Bell and Charlie Roth and Larry Orr,
from Scranton ...
they’re in town! ... They brought three gallons of spaghetti sauce ...
from Preno’s!

“Joe’s favorite!”

“Hey, uh, great ...” Spike said to the phone.

“We’re comin’ out with the sauce!”

“Oh ... yeah. Where you at?”

“Right here.”

“What do you mean, ‘right here’? ”

“On the car phone. In your fuckin’ driveway!”

So the guys from Scranton came in with the sauce. Spike put them on the side porch, and he still wanted Joe to sleep, but Joe came right down. “How’re things in Scranton, boys?”

So they talked old times, but the boys were nervous, what with Joe going to be President ... which made Joe extra-eager to set them at ease, so they had Cokes, talked more, and Ashley came out to say good night—it was her birthday, so they all wished her happy birthday—and Beau and Hunt came out, and Joe talked about the car he’d got for Beau, for graduation. It was family, then, like it always was, so they relaxed, they
really
talked old times ... couple of hours. Caddell kept coming onto the porch, saying: “Excuse me, uh, Senator? ...” Ten minutes later, he’d come back: “Senator, they’re ready for you upstairs ...” He came back four or five times.

The guys didn’t like Caddell, and they were glad to see Joe wouldn’t even look at him. “Yeah, okay,” Joe would say, “I’ll be right there ...” They could tell he was pissed at Caddell. Joe was tired, anyway. He was getting to sleep at four, up again at six—that’s what he said. But he was glad to see them—guys who knew him, from before all this—and it was dark when they left.

Only then did Joe get down to the speech, and the fight with Pat ... but it was late, Joe was tired to his bones, his head ached—his head always hurt in those days, he was gulping Tylenol like candy,
never
took so many pills—and he still had to pack, get some sleep ... tomorrow was
game day
. So they never quite fought it through. The speech just ballooned to hold both speeches: one line of apocalypse from Caddell, then a line of sanguine hope in the goodness and strength of the nation—that was Joe.

By the wee hours of announcement day, the speech was set to run an hour and a half—maybe twice too long,
three times
too long—but Joe didn’t have time to make it short. As it was, the typing would go on all night, for the press copies, the podium typescript ... and Joe figured he’d see it clearer in the morning—sure, he’d take another look in the morning—
game day
... after he got the family squared away. It was understood, always, without a word said, that Joe would take care, take charge of the family, at times like this, events like this. ... If he could just get some
sleep
... but Jill was upstairs, and they talked till late ... it was a big move coming, and Joe was revved up.

And then, the minute he was dressed, they were after him about the weather. It was a gray day, with low clouds scudding fast across the sky, and the early TV said showers, surely, and Joe had to decide—did he want it indoors?

“Outdoors,” he said with a grin: he’d go with the luck of the Irish on this. (Biden weather—like Election Day ’72, a brilliant day, crisp and shining, a day like a jewel. One hint of rain and Joe would have lost ... but no, weather was nothing, with destiny fueling the wind.) So he said: “Don’t even think about rain.”

Then it started to rain.

So they went round and round—indoors, outdoors—and Joe had to make the call again:
Outdoors!
... And, sure enough, the rain stopped, and the wind was fresh. By that time, limos were in the driveway, Advance were in the foyer, along with Rasky, who was stooped with the weight of two hundred press, wet and waiting in the wind at the station ... and Joe was going to get the family together, but Caddell called him, called them all, to gather downstairs: there was something they
had to hear
.

“Not now, Pat.”

“No! Joe! You’ve
got to hear
this.”

So the Bidens stood in announcement clothes, while Pat, as the majordomo, flicked on the stereo and cranked it up to TEN, till it felt like the speakers were slapping them in the face.

Do you hear the people sing

Lost in the valley of the night?

“LISTEN TO THIS NOW ...” Pat yelled through the music. This was important ... the finale to
Les Misérables ...
and this was HOW THE CAMPAIGN HAD TO BE!

It is the music of a people

Who are climbing to the light ...

“Yeah, that’s great, Pat ...”

Then, it was only minutes till three stretch limos rolled to a stop at the station and Joe leapt out of the last car, onto the sidewalk, about to call to Mom-Mom, to tell her where she had to go, and Jill and the kids ... some family had to go straight to the stage, some inside to a holding room ... Joe knew the drill, he’d take charge. He had his arms up to point, direct ... but then he saw: the sidewalk was aboil with Advance—one to each Biden. They took Mom-Mom away, and Joe, Sr. ... Jimmy, Frankie, Val, the kids, and Jill ... and in a moment, Joe was alone, with the words frozen in his mouth ... he just stared ... alone ... with the strangest, saddest look of resignation ... until his arms dropped to his sides, and he felt a hand on his elbow. A voice said, “This way, Senator.” And they led him off to announce that he meant to be President.

He’d run into town, Saturdays, join his friends at their pizza dive—Pala’s (“The World’s Worst Pizza”)—and they’d be sitting there, talking trash, on their eighth pitcher of beer. Joe would have Cokes, but that didn’t matter. He could bullshit just as surely, just as loud as they. The difference was, now that he was back—in ’68—a lawyer, he wouldn’t hang around: he’d only stay an hour, unless they were talking up some scheme.

Joe’d say: “C’mon, let’s do it.”

“What ... now?”

“Yeah. C’mon. Let’s
do
it.”

Joe was going to make a fortune, see—he didn’t have time to sit around.

One day he called his dentist-pal, Marty Londergan: “You gotta come down here. I got an idea and it’s gonna make millions.”

“Come down where?”

“Newark.”

“What’s the idea?”

“Day care.”

“What? ...” In ’68, Marty didn’t know what day care was.

“Listen. There’s graduate students here. They’re married. They work. They go to school. And there’s no day care! They don’t have any place to take the kids! I got the place all picked out. C’mon. Get down here.”

“Joe, wait a minute.”

“Come
on
! We’ll get the girls in to run it. We can open ’em up all over the state. Marty, this is big.”

“Did you talk to Neilia?”

“She’ll love it.”

In Newark, Joe dragged Marty to a big corner rowhouse, just off campus. “Look at the house!” Joe said. “It’s perfect.” In Joe’s mind, it was already fixed up, filled with playing kids.

“I don’t know, Joe ...”

But you couldn’t tell him no. He was on his way to the courthouse to find out who owned the building ... a man who had a restaurant in Elkton, Maryland.

“C’mon, we’re going to see him ... It’ll
work
. Put on a suit. Come on, we’re going back home. Put on a suit.”

They drove back to Wilmington, and Marty dressed. Joe reappeared in his lawyer pinstripes. He had the briefcase. They drove to Elkton, straight to the restaurant. Joe asked for the owner, then introduced himself. “And this is Dr. Londergan ...” Marty wasn’t even out of dental school. Then Joe started to talk fast.