I ignored him.
“Is it because you might get to see Davis?”
I walked out of the room and down the hallway toward the garage door in the kitchen.
“Cheryl!” he yelled.
I spun around, and said, “What’s my problem? What’s your problem? For once I am doing something I enjoy, and you make a big deal out of it. You should grow up! And stop acting like an overgrown child. I told you I gave her my word, and I’m sorry, that means something to me. Now, if you must know, I am dressed up today because USA Today will be in the headquarters taking photos, and Mariah asked us to all look presentable. Satisfied?” I said with my hand on my hip. “Damn!”
Brandon stood speechless. And then he walked toward me with an apology in his eyes, but I just nodded my head as if I were disgusted, picked up my pager, put my purse under my arm, and stormed through the door.
As I drove out of our subdivision, my breathing was labored. I was conflicted as to how I truly felt. Once I assumed that time and maturation would end the longing. Then I thought if I saw for myself just how much he cared for his wife, I could leave the thought of him behind. Now I was working in his campaign headquarters to bring a sense of closure to what we had had, to break the bond he held on me. But it seemed everything I did to free myself only drew me closer.
One of the AM talk radio stations changed its format after Henry announced his run for the presidency. They advertised as “The only station in America where you can get all Davis, nothing but Davis, twenty-four hours a Davis,” and my radio was set to pick up all the news. By this time Henry was holding off the other Democrats for the nomination. The only one who had a chance of defeating him was the senator from California, Chuck Clayburn. It seemed that Henry and Senator Clayburn were both on the same side of most issues, and the California senator could not point out any good reason why Democrats should nominate him to run in the general election. So he started to get personal in his campaign. When all else failed, he would talk about Henry’s business ventures or the snafu Henry had made years earlier on Meet the Press. Once he went so low as to question why Leslie had made a major speech regarding Henry’s foreign policy agenda. After he made that comment, his polling numbers moved up a little, and so he would mention Leslie in nearly every speech. The country never approved of Leslie in polls. She was intelligent, articulate, and unafraid to take positions that were less than popular. So as I was driving that day, I heard the reporter ask, “Senator Davis, are you offended that Senator Clayburn has begun to attack your wife in the last couple of weeks?”
“No,” Henry replied. “I am not offended. I think that when you run for public office, many people want to know all the facts. But will I attack his wife? No, I will not. But you know”—and then I heard a smile in Henry’s voice—“sometimes it seems as if Senator Clayburn has given up running for president and has decided to run for first lady.” I burst out laughing.
When I arrived at campaign headquarters, which was dubbed the “Southern War Room,” the activity was bustling. My favorite radio station was heard from the speakers in the ceiling, and everyone moved with a little extra vigor due to the big rally later that night. The Davis campaign had initially rented a vacant store, but as Henry’s numbers improved, they welcomed more and more volunteers wanting to be a part of history, so they moved the campaign across town to a building that was four times larger. The walls were plastered with Davis/Gallagher posters and assorted bumper stickers. There were mayonnaise jars all around filled with sprinkles, because each time Henry scored a major point on the radio or other positive Davis news came over the air, the inside joke was “Can I get a sprinkle for that one?”
There were college kids all around with red, blue, and purple hair stuffing envelopes and making phone calls for donations. Some of the kids had been pierced in places I didn’t realize could be pierced, and many of them wore red shirts with either “Henry’s Kids” or “Leslie’s Kids” on the back of them.
The Southern War Room manager was an overweight woman named Mariah who had long black hair and who I never, as long as I worked there, saw sit down. As soon as she walked through the door, she would kick her shoes into a corner and march around the room talking to the people in charge of each department. The lieutenant who ran our department was Etta, a twenty-something former Gonzaga coed who dropped out to help in the campaign.
I worked in the correspondence room. Our job was to go through all the mail and see if a donation was included. We would then return the letter with a picture of Henry and one of twenty form letters with Henry’s signature rubber stamped at the bottom. What amazed me was the type of letters he would get. Yes, there were a few which used the “N” word as if it were the only noun they knew, but most of the people seemed to adore him. So many hoped that he could in fact change the world. And there were letters that came with the most popular gift, which was teddy bears. They came from all over the world, in all shapes and colors. He also received his fair share of other little extras, such as panties. Some clean . . . others less then new. There were also a number of nude photos, and when Henry said he supported gays in the military, several au naturel male photos came in with notes attached. One of these read: “I have a completely open chamber, Mr. Senator. How about you?”
As I put my purse in an open cubicle, Etta ran in with a stack of papers and plopped them down on the oak conference table, which had everything from a TV and fax machine to a laptop and a cooler on top of it. Etta’s close-cropped hair was dyed blond and she had a tattoo of her infant son on one C-cup breast. “Did you hear the news?”
“You mean about Clayburn running for first lady? Yeah, that was—”
“Naw, naw, he made that comment yesterday. Henry’s in town, and Mariah just told me he called and said he’ll be dropping by since this will be the last weekend he will be in town for a couple of months.” She looked me up and down, and said, “Good thing you dressed. I wanted to go home and change, but Mariah is guarding the door, saying we have too much work to get done.”
Although I told Brandon I was only dressing for USA Today, in my heart I knew he would come by. We still had a way of communicating telepathically after all those years. Lieutenant Etta put her headphones back on as she pulled out a box of mail and gave it to me and a guy she dated named Frank.
I started to open letters and scan each one to see what kind of form letter to send. If they asked where he would be in the next few weeks, they got form letter five. If the writer was a bimbo who included a lock of hair, a nude photo, or a phone number, it was form letter twelve. A request for a position paper received a number one letter. But then there were always some that fell outside of the norm.
One was from a kid who started by saying how he prayed for Henry each night and knew God would answer his prayers. I noticed that taped to the back of the letter was a rolled-up five-dollar bill. As I took the money off and put it with the checks we’d received, I continued to read.
My name is Melvin Gilman and I am eight years old and I have Sick Cell. I got it from my mom side of the family and every time I get sick she cries for a long-long time. I hate getting sick because I get real stiff and everything on my whole body aches. Even my face hurt. Even my eye balls hurt. Doctors use to tell my grand me-maw that I would never live three years. Then it was five years. Then seven. Now I’m eight and a half. But this time my red blood cells are almost all attacked by the sick cells and they saying I will not make it to nine. For the first time they might be right. I know you will win. I just want to be alive for one day while you are president. I just want to be able to call you President Davis.
The rest of the letter spoke of his hobbies and what he wanted to be if he survived. And that was when it hit home for me why it was so vitally important for this man to be elected president. So many people were hurting in so many ways, and I felt the country needed Henry to begin the process of healing. I looked for Etta and Frank, but neither of them was in the room, so I retrieved the five
-dollar bill, retaped it to the letter, and put it in my purse. I would write a letter to him that night and have Etta rubber-stamp Henry’s signature on it. And I decided that for the rest of the campaign I would try to block Henry out of the picture and focus my energies totally on the election of Senator Henry Louis Davis the Second.
“Turn to seven! Turn to channel seven!” yelled someone running down the corridor. You could almost hear the TVs in the offices turn simultaneously. As Frank ran in the room to turn on our television, we saw the well-tanned face of Senator Clayburn. All I heard him say was, “After talking to my wife, friends, and staff, we feel the time is now to—” The next thing I knew, the office was having a massive confetti moment. It was rumored for weeks that his campaign had run out of money, but he was gaining momentum, so this move was unexpected.
As Etta and Frank hugged, I picked up the phone and called home.
“Hello?”
“Brandon, I just wanted to—”
“Yeah, I’m watching NBS now,” he said in a somber tone. “I can’t believe he dropped out.”
“No, I’m not talking about that,” I said as I put the tip of my thumb in my ear so I could hear. “I just wanted to apologize for this morning. I’m only functioning on a couple of hours of sleep, but that’s no excuse. Sorry.”
“Thanks, baby. Listen, if you like, I can bring you something to eat.”
“That’s okay. Domino’s and Pizza Hut handle that, and a couple of soul-food restaurants will be bringing some oxtails and yellow rice down later on. You know how I am about some soul food.”
“Umm. Well . . . I’m just sitting here doing nothing. Would you like me to—”
“One second,” I said, cutting him off before he could finish the sentence. Thinking fast, I said, loud enough for him to hear me, “I’ll be right there, Mariah,” and then winked at Etta, who was still cradled in Frank’s arms. “Baby, can I call you back later? I really gotta go!”
“Okay, but—”
“Thanks, love you, ‘bye!”
As I hung up the phone, I felt bad, but in the event Henry did come down to the office, dealing with Brandon’s feelings was not something I could handle.
After I finished an early lunch at my desk, Mariah peeked her head into the office. “Cheryl? Your name Cheryl Allan, right?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to be able to help us out on Monday?”
“I’ll be on call, just like today, but more than likely I can help out. Why?”
“Would you mind picking up Jesse Jackson Jr. and Congressman Harold Ford from the airport?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” And then she wobbled down the hallway, barking orders to another volunteer. As she walked away I could not believe that a year ago I didn’t even know who my congressman was. Now I was transporting some of the most powerful men in the country around in my car. As my pager went off, I heard someone say in another room, “Say, what time will he and Leslie be here?”
“About five,” Marcus, who never noticed me, said. “They’re at his office now and will make a few stops before heading our way.”
As I picked up the phone to call the hospital, I looked at my watch. I had two hours before Henry’s arrival.
“Front desk,” the husky voice of Brett Shuttlesworth blurted.
“Brett, I just got paged.”
“Need you to come in. Alice isn’t feeling well.”
“So?” I said, trying to think of any way to stall or delay her. “Have you called—”
“Everybody, Cheryl. I’ve called everyone and I’m off in a half hour and I’m not pulling another double.”
I held the phone without saying anything when another cheer went up in the background.
“You down at the headquarters?”
“Yeah,” I said, hoping she would show some sympathy.
Then I heard her sigh. “Let me see if Tilton can come in. But I can’t promise you anything.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate this.”
As I hung up the phone I wanted to turn the pager off in the event Tilton could not fill in, but I returned it securely under the waistband of my skirt so I could feel the vibration and returned to opening the senator’s mail.
Lieutenant Etta marched in and pulled up a chair to watch television. I turned around to see what was on and saw Leslie’s face. “Talk about a lucky woman,” I heard Etta say to no one in particular. “I’ve often wondered how it would be to have a man like that. Don’t get me wrong, Frank’s my sweetie but, I mean, the first time I heard him speak was on my campus,” she said, and narrowed her eyes as she reminisced. “I knew I had to do whatever it took to get him elected. My mom and dad had Kennedy. They had Bobby and Martin. But who have we had since? How many of them were true heroes? Nixon? Carter? Bush? We don’t even remember them on a first-name basis. Now we got Henry. Unlike that narcissistic Stanton or chauvinist Governor Baldwin, Henry cares. Not like he’s doing it because of personal gain or ego. His plans are so original and he seems to want to do this because he would like to leave the world a much better place than when he first encountered it.” And then she looked at me and said, “Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly as my pager hummed. “She’s pretty lucky.” As soon as I looked down at it and saw *911 I knew Charlotte would not fill in and I would miss yet another opportunity to see Henry.
That night in 1999 I returned home and as the water from the sprinkler splashed against the passenger side of my car, I remembered the letter in my purse from the little boy with the sick cells. I retrieved it and read it again, thinking it would take my mind off Henry so I could focus on reality. But then I refolded it and wondered again, why couldn’t I let him go? And for the first time I knew the answer to that question as Brandon opened the house door with a smile on his face and walked toward the car. It was because sometimes holding on to absolutely nothing . . . is holding on to something, if it means something to you.
Chapter 7
Cambridge, Masschusetts
Harvard University
Saint Patrick’s Day, March 2000
HENRY
Although we were invited to participate, I didn’t feel comfortable being a part of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Boston. I couldn’t even imagine a few of those drunk, green-beer-drinking politicians joining me in Atlanta on Martin Luther King Day. But I was invited to address a convention, so I did a book signing at a bookstore in Brockton called Cultural Plus and then I swung through Boston for a photo op.
Of all my visits during the campaign, the one that stands out the most was my invitation to speak at Harvard, probably because I had come very close to attending Harvard Law. I spent an hour or so with a photographer from UPI and about ten or so Rhodes scholars in the JFK School of Government. I have always been enamored of youthful intelligence. College students have been the moral conscience of nearly every industrialized country in this century. From the acts of civil disobedience viewed by the world at Kent State to the lone student staring down the barrel of the armored tank in Tiananmen Square, not only have students asked the rest of society why? they’ve stated categorically why not?
After leaving the School of Government, a couple of assistants and I attended a general assembly which was going to be broadcast on the campus television network and possibly picked up by C-SPAN. Backstage, I prepared my notes to make sure I was ready for anything these young, bright minds could dish out.
I thought about Malcolm here as well as people such as George Wallace, Lenny Bruce, and even Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Now the name of Henry Louis Davis the Second would be added to that list.
I was not nervous, because I was in debate form. Every Sunday Leslie, Herbert, Ed, Penelope, and I would go through at least two hours of mock debates, whether I was on the road or not. If I was away, it was done via conference call or an Internet chat room. It was simply crucial. We would review the important issues from the week, the other c
andidates’ views, and we practiced over and over again not just my response but the perfect response. We even practiced what the other candidates would say. Herbert used to carry around this sign that read, “Character, Clarity, Correctness,” and would put it in a visible place as we rehearsed. In other words, I was graded on each answer based on how well I had done in each of those areas.
As I took my trademark half-jog onto the stage, there were a couple of boos from the back of the audience, but by and large the greeting was warm and enthusiastic. We were warned beforehand that the school had a very large and growing conservative contingent that was possibly planning to disrupt the gathering, but I was ready for that as well. There were a couple of well-thought-out questions regarding America’s foreign policy with India and my plans to ensure that Social Security was around when the younger generations needed it. One asked if I suspected the CIA or some other government-backed agency had anything to do with creating AIDS, and how could a satellite read an automotive tag from outer space yet be unable to detect poppy fields in Columbia. “With all due respect, sir, I think that is irrefutable evidence that the U.S. government both created the AIDS virus to get rid of the undesirables as well as assisted South American drug lords for the exact same reason.”
After I gave him a very noncontroversial answer, another student asked a very good question in a very bad manner.
“Yo, Senator Davis. My name is Tron and I am from the boogy down round bouts Yankee Stadium. It’s crazy-go-bananas back there but I’m sure you know the area. My question is this, Money. In his book Black and White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal, white Professor Andrew Hacker of Queens College says there’s a gulf between people of color and the white oppressive majority which may not be closed unless the black man makes a move. Tell these folks the dealio and how the people of color in general, and the black man specifically, will triumph over the autocratical opinions of the oppressor and take the place in this society which is rightfully his!” The crowd laughed and booed as he sauntered to his seat, dragging one leg behind and clutching himself. I wasn’t embarrassed for the brother. Was he out of order in his approach? In a way. But he was being out of order . . . in Harvard. Again I answered his question without making waves or creating controversial sound bites.
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