The Incumbent

by Brian McGrory

  Hutchins seemed to understand the reason for my golfing collapse, and he was reveling in it. There are two types of golfers, best as I could ever tell: those who just care about the score, the final outcome, whether the eight-foot putt hits dead center or skims by left, and those who luxuriate in the human element, the give and take, the frazzled nerves standing over that same eight-foot putt. The former usually are athletes, the latter are sportsmen, and I'd count Hutchins in the sportsmen's category, all toothy, even giddy, as the witness to my collapse, extending the occasional needle about being in need of a compass and a thermos as I made my way into the woods in search of an errant drive.

  He, meanwhile, began hitting fairways off the tee with what I gathered was an unprecedented regularity. He began clicking his five iron off the fairway as pure as silk, his ball attracted to the green like a magnet. I heard one advance man suggest into his handheld radio that they might want to allow a network crew out onto the eighteenth hole for a candid look at the president at play, hitting soaring woods and deadly irons. I heard yet another aide use the word miracle on one particularly accurate approach shot, a seven iron from 140 yards that came within a club's length of the hole. Hutchins heard him, too, and shot him a look that would bring a Russian leader to his knees.

  On the sixteenth hole, I skimmed four balls along the fairway and ended up inside a cavernous sand trap in front of the green, my ball pancaked hard into the grain. Hutchins, on the other hand, hit two beautiful shots, but caught a bad break and wound up in the same trap. It was as if we had stepped into a parallel universe.

  "Here we are, Jack, together at last," he said, stepping onto the sand, so happy with life he hardly seemed able to contain himself.

  Skeeter stepped into the trap as well and began giving us a few tips, looking, actually, far more at the president than at me: weight on your toes, club face open, come down hard into the sand an inch behind the ball and make sure you follow through. He demonstrated one shot and hit it within a few feet of the pin. Hutchins shrieked in delight. In my mind, I told him to go fuck himself-Davis, not Hutchins.

  What happened next is the subject of considerable debate, a few moments in history that were to be picked over by news reporters, defense lawyers, federal prosecutors, and FBI agents for weeks to come. But before they all trampled my thoughts, making the rapid-fire events melt and twist around into each other, here are my recollections, virgin as an overnight snow:

  I gave Hutchins a nod, indicating, You should hit first. He addressed his ball, and I stood about six feet behind him. As he finished what I thought would be his last practice swing, there was a dull crack.

  Water began shooting every which way.

  "Fuck," Hutchins yelled. "Fuck." Two aides raced toward him with golf umbrellas and dry towels. On the other side of the fairway, I saw the Secret Service swat team leap from their carts and take aim at sites unknown with their automatic rifles. The four agents around us all pulled their guns and surrounded the president, serving as a human shield.

  One of the agents, speaking furiously into his wrist, soon nodded and holstered his gun.

  "The sprinkler system was mistakenly activated," he called out loudly.

  "It should be off in a minute."

  Then I saw a golf cart carrying two maintenance workers race up the fairway toward a small shed in the shallow woods. One of the guys leaped out, and within a few seconds, the spouting water retreated into a light spray, and then to nothing, as the sprinkler heads ducked back into the ground. Several aides helped dry Hutchins off. The Secret Service agents walked away, the sense of impending doom having been replaced by a rainbow that hung in the air over the green. Hutchins returned to his ball and took one of those foolish half swings, eager to return to his game.

  And then, much louder this time, crack. It was jarring not just for the sheer volume, which was immense, but for how out of place it seemed on this magnificent day, in this beautiful setting.

  And then, again, crack.

  I saw Hutchins fall hard into the sand. I saw the quick spray of blood. I heard Davis scream, though it was more like a wail, like something I had never heard before. I felt a strange sensation in my lower chest, as if someone had pressed a hot iron against me, then tried to dig the sharp end of that iron into my burning flesh. And I remember falling down hard in the sand myself.

  Then there was bedlam. Three more shots, to the best of my count, though my hearing might have failed me, and the dull thump I heard as my body hit the ground may have meshed with the shots and shouts. Huge men rocketed across the fairway and into the sand trap, diving over the president, then squatting low and carrying him between their hulking bodies to an ambulance that had suddenly appeared beside the green.

  Paramedics were racing all around. I remember this because one of them kicked sand in my face as he ran toward Hutchins, and I wondered, Is this how I'm going to go, surrounded by rescue workers, choking on sand, bleeding to death on the nicest golf course I'll ever play?

  Finally, three rescue workers slammed a stretcher down beside me and picked me up. In the distance there were screams, though they seemed to melt away as air rushed into my ears while the men ran me toward the ambulance. When I got there, they were loading Hutchins inside, and he was still conscious. I heard him, livid, tell one of the Secret Service agents: "This was going to be the best fucking round of my entire fucking life."

  It's odd to say this, but the next thing I recall is my father standing over me-odd because my father is dead. He was with Gus Fitzpatrick, his fellow worker in the press room, who pulled a sheet across my chest, smoothed it out, and told me I was going to be fine. Then I heard a phone ringing-a loud, cutting ring that must have jarred me out of a deep sleep. You hear a phone, no matter where you are, no matter what has happened, and the reaction is always the same. Barely awake, I remember reaching for it, and as I lifted my arm, I saw, with horror, that needles, tubes, and wires extended up my forearm to my biceps, and there were ominous, blinking machines all around me. Still I reached, reflexively, and as I got my hand to the phone, a middle-aged nurse, breathless, appeared at the end of my bed, muttering, "Who could be calling this line?"

  When I had the receiver in my hand, I found I couldn't speak, my throat still thick with the remnants of a long sleep. On the other end, there was the proper, crystal-clear voice of what sounded like an elderly gentleman, but not someone even remotely frail.

  "Mr. Flynn, is that you?" he said.

  I couldn't speak. I struggled to clear my voice and summoned the energy to mumble a rather warped "Yes."

  "Mr. Flynn, I want you to listen carefully to me," he said. "Nothing is as it seems. Do not believe anything that they tell you. There are strange, complex motives involved in this shooting. I will call you again soon."

  He hung up without my saying another word. The nurse, oddly exasperated with me, snatched the phone from my hand and slammed it down, then yanked the cord out of the wall. More gently, she pushed my head back against the pillows and stuck some sort of paper thermometer into my mouth. I had never been in a hospital before, but from watching television, it seems that they are always doing that, taking your temperature, health care workers as pollsters. I remember her departing, distant steps, the soft squeak of her rubber-soled shoes on the hard floor. Then I remember floating on a raft in a bobbing sea, very much alone, finally asleep.

  two

  Somebody was poking me in the shoulder. As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw Peter Martin, Washington bureau chief of the Boston Record, quickly backing up from my bedside.

  "You're awake," he said, in a tone that pretended to be matter-of-fact, but knowing him as I do, I knew to be anything but. "You all right?"

  I didn't know. I didn't even know where I was. On the bedside table to my right, a laptop computer sat open and all fired up. Beside it was a large bouquet of yellow and red flowers, and beside that was an oddly shaped plastic cup with a handle that, it occurred to me even in my groggy state, I might s
oon be expected to urinate in. Outside the big window, it was dark, so I assumed it was night. Can't get anything by me.

  I'm a reporter, so I figured I'd ask the questions, beginning with the obvious. "Where am I?"

  "Oh boy," Martin said, shaking his head, then looking toward the door nervously, like maybe he should summon help. "You're at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. You know what you're doing here?"

  I said, "Just help me out for a minute. I've been shot, right? Tell me what happened. Is Hutchins dead?"

  Martin's never really been one to trot around the issues, and just because I was in a hospital, strapped to blinking machines that seemed to be sending all sorts of fluids coursing through my body, he wasn't about to start now.

  "Jack, I hate to do this, but it's deadline. It's Thursday night, eight o'clock. The national desk up in Boston is screaming. You were a witness to an assassination attempt on the president of the United States in the middle of a cutthroat campaign, and we all thought it might be kind of nice to put this into a story."

  Attempt. He said "attempt," so Hutchins wasn't dead, which was good.

  Neither was I, which, for me, was even better.

  "Look, Peter, I'll do what I can. But before I do anything, fill me in. What am I doing here? What the fuck happened? Is Hutchins all right? Am I all right?"

  Martin seemed to like that I was getting angry, evidenced by the look of relief that spilled all over his face. "Good, good," he said, as if to himself. "This is going to work out fine. Here's what I know, which isn't much. I'm counting on you to tell me more.

  "You were out playing golf with the president early this morning. By the way, Appleton"-the editor in chief of the paper-"is curious as to exactly why you were doing that. So am I. Anyway, you're on the sixteenth hole. Evidently, the two of you were in a sand trap getting some little clinic from this pro golfer, I don't know his name. All of a sudden, you're shot.

  "The FBI is saying that it was some militia member, disguised as a maintenance worker at the course, who pulled out a Colt.45 and shot you from the other side of the fairway. He wasn't a very good aim, luckily. The first bullet hit your club, ricocheted off, then grazed Hutchins's shoulder. A second shot struck you in the ribs. I think it broke your rib bone, or severely bruised it, but I'm no doctor. One of these typical situations when an inch either way and you're dead now.

  All I know is, the diagnosis is good, and you're expected to be out of here within a couple of days."

  With that, Martin looked nervously at the door again, lowered his voice a bit, and said, "They really don't even want me in here now, so we should try to be as quick as possible."

  "How is Hutchins?" I asked.

  "He's fine. A slight shoulder injury, and now the guy's a national hero. A local paramedic told a network television crew that as they were loading him into the ambulance, he looked at them with a wide grin and said, "What kind of jerk would shoot me right in the middle of the best round of golf of my life?" He's been slipping in the public polls for days, but now analysts are saying this shooting could win him the election. The guy's being talked about like a battlefield hero."

  More and more, the scene was coming back to me-the loud cracks, Hutchins falling in a heap on a brilliant morning, the frenzy of activity, the piercing scream. "Jesus, how's Skeeter Davis, the golfer?" I asked, assuming he was the one who screamed. "He dead?"

  "Dead? God no. I think he turned an ankle running for cover. He wasn't even hit."

  "What happened to the shooter?" I asked, again, remembering another scream and late shots.

  "Dead. Secret Service says he pointed a gun at one of their agents, and they mowed him down. Six bullets, I think, all of them in the head. This is a no-shit crew."

  Martin was getting increasingly nervous, looking at the door, at the computer, at his watch, and at me, like some sort of caged animal.

  He's anxious by nature, but usually it's on his turf. Slightly bookish, with the soft, pasty look of someone whose father was a dermatologist constantly preaching the evils of the sun, he knows Capitol Hill front and back. He knows things about the budget process that cabinet secretaries don't know. He knows the ages of all nine Supreme Court justices and the years they were appointed. He can cite election statistics dating back to Eisenhower's first term. In a city where most bureau chiefs survive on brass and television appearances, Martin is the opposite. He survives on his brains and his willingness to work. But this was an assassination attempt, a glorified police story, and Martin really didn't have a clue.

  "If you're well enough," he started, looking tentatively toward the door again, "we'd like a first-person account of what happened out there. It's a blockbuster. Biggest event in the world, and no one else will have what we have."

  As Martin talked, a self-important young man in a navy blue suit strode through the door and abruptly asked, "Is your telephone not hooked up?"

  I was fortunate enough to be born with a virtually bottomless reservoir of aggravation, which I dipped inffto shoot him a look that should have stopped him dead in his tracks, though perhaps I shouldn't have been thinking in those terms on that specific day. He ignored it and quickly came around the bed to the phone, where he held up the disconnected telephone cord in the air, glanced angrily at me as if I had crossed him in some way, and plugged it back into the wall. Almost immediately, it rang.

  "For you," he said.

  Through the earpiece, a voice boomed out. "Jack, Jack, that you? For chrissakes, I'm five pars into the best nine holes of my life, and some horse's ass feels the need to take a potshot at us. What the hell is that all about?" Then came the sound of loud, wheezing laughter.

  It was Hutchins. I'll be damned if I'm not the quickest thinker I've ever met, especially under duress. I motioned to Martin for a pen, and he searched furiously through a shoulder bag for a legal pad and a writing instrument, placing them carefully in my lap.

  "I think that was my club pro, Mr. President, ticked off that you were taking me to the cleaners." I had a passing thought that maybe I shouldn't be joking with the president about killing him, not now anyway. No matter. I heard him cough, then laugh into the phone.

  "You all right?" he asked, but didn't pause for an answer. "You ought to see this getup up here. It's a goddamned presidential suite, right here in the hospital. You should come up. My doctors, they think they're my mother. They won't even let me out of bed, and I've got a campaign to wage and an election to win."

  I asked, "Mr. President, have you talked to the press yet?"

  "The hell with that," he said. "Turn on CNN. My doctor's mugging for the cameras right now. He thinks he's Robert fucking Redford. They're showing your picture all over the place. I have Dalton"-Royal Dalton, his press secretary-"issuing a statement from me."

  As I was shaking off the grogginess and moving around my bed, it struck me just how much pain I was in. My ribs felt like they were about to snap, and even normal breathing began to hurt. My arms throbbed from all the needles and heavy tubes sticking in them. My lips were so dry they were flaking, and I was near desperate for a drink of water.

  But journalism is a funny business, and not in a humorous kind of way.

  There is no sympathy, only opportunity, and the fact that I was laid out in a hospital bed in Bethesda, Maryland, with a bullet hole in my chest and an injured rib that probably meant the difference between life and death was seen by my superiors as a major boon for the paper, and probably for me. And lying there, I began to see it that way myself.

  "Mr. President, you mind if I throw a few questions at you for tomorrow's story?"

  "You're in a goddamned hospital bed, and you're writing a story for tomorrow morning's paper?" Hutchins asked, incredulous. "Jesus Christ, you guys just don't give it a rest, do you? But what the hell, we're in this together. Fire away."

  With that pun, he burst out laughing, then quickly calmed himself down.

  I proceeded to ask him a series of about half a dozen questions, and he easily, even poi
gnantly, answered each one as I scribbled notes until I thought my throbbing arm might fall off. I had to give him credit: still lying in a hospital bed, he already had the patter of a reluctant hero. "They can shoot at me every day, until my last day in office, but I'll never bow to these haters and all that they represent."

  I asked him about the likely impact on the election, which was only twelve days away. "Look," he said, "my doctors, my security team, they're telling me I'm going to be confined to the White House. Hear me clear right now. That's not going to happen. I was supposed to be in Baltimore, then St. Louis this afternoon. I'll be back on the stump, if not tomorrow, then Saturday. The American people have a right to see and judge the candidates for president. I'm not going to allow some hater with a gun to deprive our country of our God-given right."

  All the while, Martin was circling my bed at an excitable pace, occasionally pumping his fist in the air as he heard bits and pieces of memorable quotes shouted by Hutchins. I was off the phone one, maybe two seconds when he placed the laptop gently in my lap and told me to tap away. "We'll go with two stories: your interview with Hutchins, which will include some analysis on election impact, and then your own first-person account. No time for art right now. This stuff should write itself. Just hit the keys as fast as you can."

  And I did. I did, that is, until that same middle-aged nurse from earlier in the day walked through the door, a woman who looked remarkably like my Aunt Helda, and you can guess what she's like. She shot a glance at me sitting up in bed, and you could follow the angry progression of her eyes, from the sheaf of notes I now had beside me to the laptop computer to Peter Martin, and I thought she might slug me, but figured I was safe even if she did, given this was a hospital.