Always

by Timmothy B. Mccann

  “Penelope, are you saying that there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to the reports that Mrs. Davis was missing from her hotel room earlier tonight?”

  “That is exactly what I am saying, Butch. Tonight’s race has come down to one state. One state will decide the fate of this country for the next four years. Why or how these made-up stories get started and spread by the media to divert this country’s attention is beyond me.”

  “Interesting. Well, Mrs. Butler-Richardson, I would like to ask you about the photograph. There is a story now that the man who took the as-yet-unpublished photos of Mrs. Davis and Mr. Wolinski in Rome was paid one hundred thousand dollars by you or your office out of campaign funds, and he reportedly sold the negatives anyway for a half million dollars to the National Reporter. Can you confirm or deny that story?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Fountainebleau Hotel

  Suite 1701

  Picking up the phone on the first ring, Henry, who was looking for a fresh shirt to put on, said, “Hello!”

  “Teddy, it’s me.” Leslie was gasping for breath on the phone. “I can’t get in. The kitchen entrance is closed and it’s a madhouse down here.”

  “Is Myles driving the car?”

  “No. We’re parked on the north side of the building. If you look out the window, you’ll see the car.”

  Henry ran to the window as Herbert shouted, “No! Henry, stay away from the window!” Henry ignored him as he flung it open, but only saw the bright lights of the numerous news trucks below.

  “Leslie! Listen to me and listen to me good, okay? I’m coming down there to get you. Get inside the building the best you can and keep your cell phone with you.”

  “Henry, don’t come down here! This place is crazy. Send Herbert or Marcus,” Leslie yelled over the background noise. “Henry, people are reacting to the news or something from the television,” she continued. “I think the election is over, I think they announced the winner in Califor—California. From the sound of the reaction I think we—”

  “Fuck the election. Meet me at the north entrance of the hotel, and whatever you do, hold on to that phone,” Henry replied, and allowed the curtains to close. He put on his shoes and, wearing only a white tank top T-shirt and suit pants, bolted for the door with his cell phone in his sweaty palm.

  “Henry?” Herbert said softly as his brother exited the room. He then jumped to his feet and followed him. “Henry! Where are you going?” he asked as his brother made his way through the crowd of supporters reacting to the California results.

  “Move out of the goddamn way!” Henry yelled as the Secret Service agent moved aside, allowing him entrance into the hallway.

  As he ran down the corridor, members of the press were shocked to see him and began snapping photos as they followed. Some even asked “How does it feel . . .” questions to get the first postelection interview, but he brushed them aside. Knowing the elevator would be too slow, he entered the stairwell with Herbert on his heels and the growing press corps in tow.

  His cell phone rang. “Leslie! Where are you?”

  “I’m in the building,” Leslie said as she was immediately identified and slowed by the attendees on the first floor. “I’m trying to get to you, Teddy. They’re surrounding me and I can hardly—”

  “Don’t worry, baby!” Henry said, descending three steps at a time down the stairwell. “I’m coming down the north stairs. Just do the best you can and I’ll be there.”

  “Okay.” And before she hung up she said, “Henry!”

  “What?”

  “Baby, I love you. I love you so much.”

  “Love you too. I love you too, Les.” Henry continued his rush down the stairs and dropped his phone through the gap in the rail. As he continued to run, he heard the phone disintegrate as it hit the cement floor of the basement. Henry kept running, disregarding his safety, because it was all he could think to do.

  As he headed toward the door of the first floor, a security guard held up his hand, but it fell quickly as Henry shouted slowly, “Move . . . the fuck . . . out . . . the way!”

  When the door opened, he looked for a mob near the entrance of the hotel, knowing his wife would be at its center. After spotting the mob, he shouted, “Leslie! Leslie, I’m coming,” but to no avail. As he entered the ballroom laced with orange balloons ready to be dropped, and followed by a barrage of microphones and photographers, a crowd gathered around him, but he wove through the people like a salmon swimming upstream. “Leslie!” he shouted again while waving his arms, but knew she would never hear him.

  “Henry!”

  “Leslie! Leslie!” he shouted, hearing her voice for the first time.

  And then Herbert, who had finally joined him, shouted over the sounds of the ballroom attendees and clicking photographers, “I see her, Henry. She’s over there!”

  Then the air was pierced with a woman’s scream and a man yelling, “Gun! Gun!” Henry looked toward the sound of the scream as five shots clicked off in the lobby of the Fountainebleau. Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang! And then hysteria broke out.

  Epilogue

  Inauguration Day, January 21, 2001

  Carol City

  CHERYL

  Today we watched the inauguration. I have watched each one of these since 1969 when Henry and I flicked spitballs through a straw at Spiro Agnew during Nixon’s inauguration. Now I was watching with Brandon and Sarah.

  Let me first say that Brandon and I had a heart-to-heart talk the morning after the election. I told him there was no way I was going to let him out of my life. Period. I think that was what he needed to hear, because as I said those words, I literally saw him relax. He loves me and I know that. There’s an old saying that a man’s love is a privilege and should never be taken for granted. I took Brandon’s love for granted in search of perceived happiness. No matter how silly it may sound, I always felt in the bottom of my heart that I was just one smile, one phone call, one “I love you” from making all my dreams come true. But those dreams died on election night, and I realized that I could continue to live in the past with the memory of Henry Louis Davis the Second or enjoy the rest of my life with Brandon. With my newfound (and much welcomed) closure, it was an easy choice.

  Brandon is slated for another promotion, and I am so proud of him. He worked hard to get promoted several times when opportunities arose and he was passed over. But he never gave up. He worked as hard as he could to break from the crowd, and in two weeks he will be given his captain bars. I guess Brandon never gives up on anything he really and truly wants, and that’s just another reason why I love him more and more each day.

  I guess the biggest news of all is, believe it or not, I’m pregnant. Yes I’m forty-seven, yes it’s a miracle, and no, I could not be happier. We’d always used protection, but after the election we had make-up sex and, well, suffice it to say we were uncovered for a while, and when I missed my monthly visit two weeks ago, I knew. I didn’t know what to expect from Brandon, because he always said he didn’t want any kids. So I made him a romantic dinner and sat in his lap last night, and said, “Honey, I got some news for you.” After I told him, our foreheads kissed and we both sat there looking at my belly for an eternity.

  One could say things didn’t work out for me and Henry, but I would disagree. There were times it was tough. I would lie awake at night crying silently because of what I thought I had missed out on. I often wondered what would have happened if I’d never met Darius. Where would I be? Henry took me places in my mind I would have never conceived of if I had not met him. But regardless of the outcome, the reason I know he was the best thing that ever happened to me is that he taught me how to dream, how to achieve, how to laugh, how to cry. Most important, he taught me how to love beyond the surface. He taught me how to love a man like Captain Brandon Royce Allen. I guess God’s greatest gift to me was the prayer he chose not to answer, and a love that truly is for always.

  Inauguration Day, January 21, 2001
/>   The Davis Residence

  YVETTE LESLIE DAVIS

  We made a number of magazines after Henry announced his bid for the presidency, but that was nothing compared to the coverage after the shots in the Fountainebleau. If there were a periodical called Klansman Today, we would have been on its cover.

  The most interesting thing to me about that night was how this man was able to get so close to us in the first place. The man who fired the shots in the hotel was named Abraham Smalls, and he and his accomplice were right in the room with Henry and Herbert. He was a drifter, like most potential assassins, and had fallen into one cult after another. And then after the Oklahoma City bombing, he met this guy from Wyoming named Calvin Arthur. Arthur fed him and clothed him and eventually gave him a new family. This Arthur guy was apparently delusional and felt if he or one of his people could kill the president, he could somehow overthrow the government. It seems there was an internal power struggle and one of his disciples decided to do away with him. Arthur’s dream was to kill the president. The man who followed Henry across the country, Abraham Smalls, wanted not only to kill the president, but to assassinate anyone with a possibility of attaining the White House in one gory night. It sounds far-fetched, but he had a well-thought-out plan that the FBI later seized in a one-thousand-page journal.

  Not only did they find shell casings across the street from our suite at the Fountainebleau, they discovered gunmen in D.C. at different posts, all connected to the militia group Waco 2000. They had orders to assassinate the president, the secretary of state, and the Speaker of the House, among others. After Arthur was killed, his followers buried him yet continued to send out death threats with his name on them, causing the FBI to look for a man who had been dead for several weeks. Abraham Smalls followed Henry, and his accomplice followed Steiner. They killed two FBI agents and assumed their identity to infiltrate the hotels and let in their people. We found out later that night that Smalls had at least five of his militia members in the Fountainebleau Hotel, and the plan was to open gunfire on the campaign workers if they could not get to Henry. Fortunately, when they finally got Henry in their crosshairs, they did not worry about the rest of the attendees.

  In a news report on Smalls’s life, we found out that he and Henry were the exact same age. He had attended Georgetown the same time Henry and I were there, and he and Henry were both willing to die for what they believed.

  When I was a child, my mom told me something I would hear over and over again as an adult. But it never rang truer to me than on election night in Miami. She would say, “No matter what the circumstances, no matter how dark it gets, there is always a silver lining for everything in life.” That night when I sat in the ICU waiting area, I looked for that silver lining. I looked at what had happened to Teddy, and I couldn’t see it. And then it occurred to me. The silver lining in all of this was that Henry Louis Davis the Second had died. He died there on the floor of the Fountainebleau. And with his death, the man I fell in love with was returned to me.

  Inauguration Day, January 21, 2001

  The Davis Residence

  SENATOR HENRY LOUIS DAVIS II

  Today was not as painful as I had expected. In fact, today was rather enjoyable. In accordance with tradition, I was invited to D.C. to sit on the podium as the chief justice of the Supreme Court swore in the next president of the United States, but I took a pass. Yes, we had lost the election by less than a 5 percent margin in California. Actually, across the country more people voted for us than for Steiner, but with the electoral college system, that was neither here nor there. After losing the election, in a way I was relieved. It had been a long journey toward the White House, and I was very proud of the campaign we’d waged. But I don’t know if emotionally I had enough to carry me for another four or eight years.

  Ronald Steiner recovered enough to take the oath of office. He was brought to the stage in a wheelchair and walked with the aid of his wife and Vice President Sydney Ackerman to the podium. When he did that, I doubt there was a dry eye in America.

  Believe it or not, I speak to Dirk Gallagher at least once a week now. Even on conservative talk radio, his sabotaging in the final days was noted. But I hold no animus for him. He’s invited me to his ranch in West Texas, and we may take him up on it one day. He’s apologized profusely to me in private for his conduct during the election, and I’m told he may even do so on BET and before the NAACP national convention. He would obviously like my support and assistance in 2004, and who knows, I may just be there for him. I don’t do grudges.

  Herbert was wounded trying to save my life. When the lady screamed, “Gun,” he turned and saw the perpetrator. His first instinct was to shield me, which he did, and was subsequently shot in the abdomen. And then it seemed everything moved at quarter speed. My brother was falling to the ground, the crowd divided like the Red Sea, I noticed the gunman was no more than five feet away from me, and then he swung the chrome metal toward my face. I looked down the barrel and into his eyes and saw only rage, but in that split second all the unresolved aspects in my life became clear. In the frenzied atmosphere someone pushed his arm and I instinctively dove toward him and grabbed his wrist. We struggled as the gun fired off two rounds, fortunately hitting no one. Then from nowhere my chief of security, Joey Wood, leaped out, grabbed him around the waist, twisted him around, and the nine-millimeter went spinning like a bottle across the emptying ballroom floor.

  As I stood, I saw my brother and ran over to hold him in my arms. We were later advised that since the bullet settled just a fraction of an inch from his spine, if he’d tried to stand, he would have been left a paraplegic. Herbert spent about a month and a half in the hospital and walked out to a hero’s welcome. The New York Times, Miami Herald, and Washington Post have done several feature stories on him, and the scoop in the beltway is, if he wanted it, he could win my old House of Representatives seat hands down. Right now he says he is not interested, but something tells me the box we kept in the attic with the Davis for Congress buttons may be reopened.

  Penelope caught a little heat because, for some unknown reason, she used federal matching funds to pay off the photographer instead of the personal funds as she should have. Yet she has proven to be part Teflon and is now negotiating to do segments on 60 Minutes for CBS. It is said that presidential politics is always a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition. Because if you win, you sit in the greatest bastion of power in the world. If you lose, you do a talk show or write a book, which brings me to Ed.

  I’m told Edward Long is negotiating a seven-figure book deal. He’s looking at such a large advance because the book will deal with my personal life and the women who tried to get close to me and my marriage. Marcus told me that Ed originally approached the publisher with a book on the day-to-day events of our campaign from notes he kept in a diary. They were not interested. It hurts a little to find out that he was my Judas, because we trusted this man with intimate details and treated him like family. But this, too, is all a part of the game.

  I never heard from Cheryl again after the election, which I think is for the best. For the first time since I was in my early twenties, I have a chance to think, and I wonder what would have happened if I had shown up at that party at her friend’s house so many years ago. She would never have gotten pregnant. She probably would have gone to Florida A&M with me. Could she have been the wind beneath my wings that I found with Leslie which carried me to the doorstep of the White House? Like I said, I have a lot of time to think nowadays, and sometimes you wonder how one simple act can change your entire life. And in our case, even history.

  Regarding the election, most political talking heads point to my handling of the African-American question in the debate as the pivotal reason I lost the race. The night before the debate, everyone in my inner circle wanted me to answer the question differently. But I made the call and suffered the consequences. Afterward in a Gallup poll it was determined that many African-Americans thought I skirted the issue
and I did not answer the question black enough, while some whites thought I was the reincarnation of Eldridge Cleaver. The most ironic part of all of this was the fact that race was the catalyst that started me on the road toward the White House. As a teenager I thought I could be to racism what Sir Alexander Fleming had been to bacteria. Now those thoughts seem like a million years ago. The sword that was formed to eliminate a problem was used to pierce my political heart.

  The event that changed me more than any other was the electrocution of Juarez Bechuanas. To make a long, sad story short, when the case made national headlines, I called friends of mine in the DA’s office and they shared with me the “mountain” of evidence against him. After hearing that, I reviewed the trial transcripts line by line and I felt in my heart he was guilty without a shadow of a doubt. But my friends in the DA’s office never told me that the DNA that was found was botched because the samples were stored incorrectly that morning. They never told me that Mr. Bechuanas’s wife had had an affair with the neighbor who fingered Juarez as the person wearing the bloody clothes, because that was not allowed into testimony. I never knew that behind the scenes the governor was pushing for a quick conviction because he had his eye on running for my senatorial seat. Well, last year one of the students who had investigated the case uncovered evidence that pointed the finger at the neighbor as the person who committed the crime. Now the neighbor, who was a pastor, is on death row. I don’t think I will ever wash my hands again without looking at the water going down the drain for blood.

  Well, enough of that.

  I may have lost the election, but I won a lot more. I now live every day as if it’s my last day. I had such a fear of death before and I never allowed it to show. The reason I was scared was that there was so much I wanted to do and I had not accomplished any of it. My entire existence was directed toward living for something in the future, and looking back on the experience, I don’t think that was living at all.