“Were?” O’Rourke deadpanned.
“Oops,” said McGuire covering her mouth. Then she began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“That picture of Rockefeller,” said McGuire.
Stuck in the middle of his wall was the famous picture of Nelson Rockefeller, vice president of the United States of America, giving the finger to some student demonstrators in 1976. “That’s the picture that best describes politics in America in the last quarter of the twentieth century,” said O’Rourke. “Fuckyouism.”
“You knew Rockefeller?”
“Only over the phone,” said O’Rourke. “He called me up once when he was trying to get Roy Goodman elected mayor. Goodman was the Ex-Lax heir,” said O’Rourke, laughing at the thought, “one of those ersatz Republican liberals. ‘Hiya fella,’ Rocky said to me. ‘Wouldya like to help Goodman?’ I told the governor in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t piss on Goodman if he was on fire.”
“Oh,” said McGuire, laughing, “you didn’t!”
“I did,” continued O’Rourke, “and Rocky said to me, ‘Okay, fella, I can’t stand the little shit either!’ Nelson was a mixed bag. Great state university system; terrible, stupid drug laws. ‘Every law not based on wisdom—’”
“—is a menace to the State,” finished McGuire.
“Who said that?”
“I don’t know,” replied McGuire. “I found it on the New York State Appellate Courthouse on East 25th and Madison.”
“Me too,” said O’Rourke. He was piqued that they both, apparently, thought alike.
She looked at a photo of O’Rourke and a woman standing by a bus in the Connemara countryside. “How’s President Robinson?”
“You know the former president of Ireland?” he said, truly astonished.
“Sure,” said McGuire, “I do have an M.A. in political science from Columbia, you know.”
“Sam,” said O’Rourke, “I’ve had people in here with Ph.D.s who didn’t know who the fucking president of the United States was.”
McGuire laughed. “So how did you meet President Robinson?”
“We’re old friends going back to the early 1970s. When she decided to run for president on the Labour Party ticket in 1990, I asked if I could help.”
“Well,” asked McGuire, “did you?”
“See that sound truck?” O’Rourke asked, pointing to the van in the photo. “It played nothing but ‘Mrs. Robinson’ by Simon and Garfunkel. When she started, out nobody knew who she was. By the time that truck waded its way from Connemara to the Ring of Kerry and up to Dublin, everyone knew who Mary Robinson was. A great candidate, and a great woman.”
“Why were you in Dublin in the ’70s?” asked McGuire.
“Had to flee this country,” said O’Rourke.
“Flee?”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “went AWOL for six months and the U.S. Navy was not amused.”
McGuire looked at O’Rourke’s wall again and saw a photograph of O’Rourke’s Marine platoon. Underneath it were three framed medals. “Deserters don’t usually win Purple Hearts.”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “I’m the hero deserter. Purple Heart, Navy Cross, and Bronze Star with Combat Ribbon. All that got me was a one way ticket to Dublin in 1971 and that’s how I met Mary Robinson.”
“Why Dublin?”
“They were about to pack my ass back to Vietnam for another tour, and I had had enough. I was supposed to be finished. Then they pulled the ‘stop-loss’ shit on me.”
“Stop-loss?”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “stop-loss. That’s what the military calls it today. It allows them to keep you in. They were almost out of corpsmen, so they extended me by six months. I was steaming. I was at Kennedy Airport, waiting to head back to ’Nam and I said ‘fuck this.’ I’m an Irish citizen, born there. So I went from American Airlines to Aer Lingus and found my ass in Dublin for six months. Happiest six months of my life.”
“Wow,” was all Sam McGuire could say.
O’Rourke didn’t go into it, but there was more to his sojourn. He had arrived back in Dublin just as internment without trial was introduced in Northern Ireland and with his radical, Irish Republican contacts it wasn’t long before he was running fugitives from the North into New York using phony American passports that friends from the States had conveniently “lost” while they were on holiday in Ireland. It was a time of healing for O’Rourke as his soul slowly recovered from his Vietnam ordeal. He had met the likes of Mary Robinson and Fergus T. Caife and had gotten his life together. One day he was on the top of double-decker bus when it went by the American Embassy in Ballsbridge and he saw his old buddy from Vietnam, Kevin Griffin, one tough Bronx Marine, doing embassy duty. He got off the bus and walked up to Griff. “Hey, Kevin,” he said to the stunned Griffin, “how does an old corpsman get home?” The Navy and the Marines knew their men. O’Rourke returned to New York under his own authority, was arrested, and thrown into the brig at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They could have court-martialed him and sent him to Leavenworth, but they were not vindictive. Three months later he was released with an honorable discharge.
“Why didn’t you just go to Canada?” asked McGuire.
“Because I didn’t want to freeze my ass off,” said O’Rourke, who then paused before continuing. “But that really isn’t it.”
“So?”
“I had to go, morally wise.”
“Morally?”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “I couldn’t allow someone else to go, some other hapless soul from Brooklyn taking my place. I had an obligation to that fellow, whoever he was.”
“So, your obligation wasn’t necessarily to your country?”
McGuire had caught him. “Not necessarily,” he replied softly.
“You’re a moralist?” she asked, laughing. “Last thing I thought I’d ever find in this business.”
With a thunderous knock, the office door opened and Tommy Boyle burst in. He took one look at McGuire, said “Sorry,” turned and slammed the door behind him.
“Tommy!” O’Rourke called out.
Tommy, in response, burst back into the office. “Sorry,” he yelled again, just high enough for Sam to realize that Tommy Boyle was not normal.
“What is it, lad?”
“The papers,” said Tommy.
“What papers?” asked O’Rourke.
“The Irish papers,” said Tommy as he again began to turn and retreat.
“Tommy,” said O’Rourke, “come here.”
“Irish Times,” said Tommy in a voice that could be heard in the basement.
“Just a minute,” said O’Rourke as he rummaged in the pile of newspapers behind his desk. He came up with a week’s worth of Irish Times and gave them to Tommy.
“Thank you,” said Tommy as he rushed to leave.
“Tommy!”
“Yes.”
“Say hello to Sam McGuire.”
“Hello, Sam McGuire,” Tommy said, his fair skin turning a sunburnt red in embarrassment.
“What’s wrong, Tommy?” asked O’Rourke.
“Sam,” he replied, “that’s a boy’s name.”
“You’re right,” said McGuire, standing and taking Tommy’s reluctant hand to shake. “My real name is Simone McGuire, but my little brother had trouble pronouncing Simone so he turned it into Sam.”
“Okay!” said Tommy. “Doc, I gotta go.”
“Doc?” said McGuire.
“They call him ‘Doc,’” said Tommy, “because he was a hero in Vietnam.”
“They call me ‘Doc,’” said O’Rourke, “because I was a navy corpsman.”
“That’s like a medic,” said Tommy to McGuire.
“I see,” said Sam.
“I gotta go,” repeated Tommy and he disappeared like a spirit in the night.
“That was Tommy Boyle,” said O’Rourke. “He’s shy around girls.”
“I see,” said McGuire. “Is he special?”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, smiling because McGuire had used the very same Dublin term his mother often did, “he is. He’s a good lad. We’re in this program with the archdiocese that supplies jobs to the mentally handicapped. He’s been with us since we opened this joint. He’s our janitor, handyman, painter, whatever. Likes to look at the Irish Times because his parents are from Leitrim and they go back in the summers for holidays.”
“He your idea?”
“Yep,” said O’Rourke quietly, “I have several cousins back in Dublin who have Down’s Syndrome. Geraldine and Ross. I just wish God would pay more attention sometimes. I think it’s His way of pricking human hubris. Trying to make us pay attention to the least among us. It breaks my heart the way they’re treated sometimes. You know, I once went with Bobby Kennedy to visit his retarded sister. . . . ” O’Rourke’s voice trailed off and he went quiet.
“You okay?”
“No, I’m not,” said O’Rourke as he got up and turned his back on McGuire. He went to the window and watched the traffic going west down Christopher Street.
McGuire could hardly believe that this was the same man who had thrown the cell phone at the account executive just minutes before. She got up and went to him, putting her hand on his arm.
“Did you just feel that God was in this room?” said O’Rourke in a whisper.
McGuire, stunned by O’Rourke’s statement, looked at O’Rourke, a tear running down his cheek. “Yes,” she said, her breath almost taken away by O’Rourke’s outburst, “yes, I think maybe you’re right.”
“Who will speak for them?” O’Rourke asked rhetorically. “No one cares anymore. No one gives a shit about people anymore. It’s all about sound bites and how important I am.” O’Rourke returned to his desk and McGuire to her chair. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“My display of middle-age crisis.”
If O’Rourke was a moralist, right now he was a very angry moralist. He had always believed in the system, that the system was the way to change things. Just as his hero, Bobby Kennedy, had always maintained. Now, in his fifty-third year, he had begun to realize that everything he believed in was a sham. And as someone who helped elect frauds to Congress, he was part of that sham. In a way, the greatest thing that had ever happened to O’Rourke was getting drafted. It had defined his life. He had done his duty for his country, and he was proud of it. It had also made him wary of politicians who wanted to send other people’s sons to fight in America’s wars while their sons hid out with a deferment. He referred to it as the “Dick Cheney Factor.” While others were getting their asses shot off in Vietnam, Little Dick Cheney was hiding out in the Yale Divinity School. He was another of those rightwingers like Pat Buchanan and George Will who, when they had a chance to kill Communists—which they urged every American to do—took a safe pass. O’Rourke despised them, and now he despised himself for being part of the same corrupt system.
“God forgive me,” said O’Rourke. “I should be ashamed of myself for representing these bums, nothing but spoiled, selfish little shits looking for attention and someplace to spend their trust funds.”
“They pay well.”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “that may be the problem. Money. I can’t believe some of the guys I represent. Miserable human beings. The only thing they have in common is that they’re Democrats, and they’re millionaires. It would be nice to have a truck driver in Congress. He might have a clue about what’s going on in the country.”
The conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in,” said O’Rourke.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Winthrop Pepoon, “I didn’t know you were busy.”
“I’m only doing what you ordered me to do,” said the now composed O’Rourke.
“What?”
“You told me to hire an assistant. This is Sam McGuire. We’re talking about the job.”
“Oh.”
“Well, what’s the problem?” asked O’Rourke.
“It’s the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ campaign,” said Pepoon.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not coming along. Could you sit in at the meeting?”
“Oh, stop,” said O’Rourke. “You and your fucking meetings.”
“I’m only asking,” protested Pepoon. “I’m sorry.”
“I got it!” said O’Rourke.
“Got what?”
“Your campaign,” said O’Rourke and Pepoon had a sinking feeling in his heart.
“What?”
“Last Tango in Paris.”
“Last Tango in Paris? What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Remember that old Brando movie in the early ’70s with that bigtitted slut, what’s her name?”
“Maria Schneider,” interrupted Sam McGuire.
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke with appreciation, “Maria Schneider.”
“What about it?”
“Remember the butter scene?”
“Butter scene?” said Pepoon. “What butter scene?”
“I do,” said McGuire, covering a giggle with her hand.
“Well,” said O’Rourke, “how can I put this judiciously? They need lubrication for a certain sexual act.”
“What does this have to do with the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ campaign?” asked a clearly exasperated Pepoon.
“Well,” said O’Rourke, “we get a clip of the film, and when he takes out the butter to lube Maria’s ass, we can dub and have Schneider say: ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter!’”
McGuire laughed harder, but Pepoon looked perplexed.
“It’s genius!” said O’Rourke.
“Thank you,” said Pepoon, exiting. “Nice meeting you Miss McGuire.” With that he closed the door.
“You’re insane,” said McGuire.
“I’m the best!” replied O’Rourke and McGuire didn’t doubt it for a moment. “Where were we?”
“You were telling me how much you hate the business of politics.”
“Yes,” said O’Rourke, “it’s lost its magic.”
“Well,” said McGuire cutting him no slack, “why did you get into politics, if it’s such a hideous business?”
“Because politics used to be fun,” replied O’Rourke. “Not only were you changing the world for the better—you hoped—but you were having fun doing it.”
“Such as?”
“Well,” recalled O’Rourke with a smile, “you ever hear of Dick Tuck?”
“No.”
“What do they teach you up at Columbia?” O’Rourke asked as he punched the air in defiance. “Dick Tuck used to work for Jack Kennedy. Bobby, too. Dick taught me a lot. He hated Nixon and used to drive him crazy.”
“How?”
“Well, there’s the famous stunt he pulled in 1962. Nixon was running for governor of California, and JFK sent Tuck out there to make sure Nixon didn’t get a head of steam for 1964. Nixon’s giving a speech from the back of a train, and who shows up but Tuck, dressed like a railroad worker.” O’Rourke stopped to laugh and savor the moment before continuing. “Anyway, Tuck waits until Nixon starts his speech, then starts waving his railroad lantern. The train pulls out right in the middle of Nixon’s speech,” said O’Rourke, laughing out loud.
“You’re kidding!”
“He was something,”continued O’Rourke. “At the 1968 Republican Convention, he hired pregnant black women to parade in front of the convention center with NIXON’S THE ONE signs.” McGuire howled. “He ran for state senate in California once on the slogan, ‘The job needs Tuck, and Tuck needs the job.’ He got killed. So on election night, he comes out to give his concession speech and says: ‘The people have spoken—the bastards!’ It was another time.”
“It’s brutal today,” McGuire said.
“Brutal is not the word,” agreed O’Rourke. He turned around to his wall and pointed out a photo. “Look at that. Nineteen-sixty-nine. Norman Mailer, Jimmy Breslin,
Joe Flaherty, and me.”
“The 51st State.”
“Right you are, McGuire,” said O’Rourke brightening. “Now, that campaign was fun. It was just before I went in the navy, and, boy, did we cause havoc that spring. We knew we weren’t going to win, but we had ideas, and we drove the establishment crazy. Flaherty ran a great campaign. Mailer was bombed most of the time, but he was great. Someone asked him how he’d remove the snow from Queens and he said—”
“I’d piss on it,” interrupted McGuire.
“You know!” said O’Rourke, “God, I wish politicians talked like that today.”
“Well, why don’t you make them?”
“That’s not my job,” said O’Rourke.
“Maybe you should make it your job,” returned McGuire, nudging O’Rourke’s conscience.
“How do you know about the 51st State?”
“I read Flaherty’s book Managing Mailer,” said McGuire, further impressing O’Rourke. “It’s a textbook to a very important time in the history of the city of New York.”
“You know,” said O’Rourke quietly, “Joe was a very close friend of mine.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “I loved the guy. Everybody loved him. Funniest man who ever lived and also a superb writer. I cherish his memory every day.” O’Rourke was silent for a second. “Back then we had all these dreary old farts like Mayor Wagner,” continued O’Rourke, “a liver-spotted Dalmatian of a politician. Then there was Mario Procaccino, the eventual Democratic nominee for mayor.”
“He was preposterous,” replied McGuire, echoing Flaherty’s opinion.
“Well, Mario was something,” said O’Rourke laughing. “He once introduced somebody by saying, ‘He grows on you—like cancer!’”
McGuire could see that O’Rourke was warming to the memories of his youth. “Then there was Herman Badillo, the great Puerto Rico liberal. Flaherty called him ‘a Puerto Rican Robert Goulet.’ Nothing more devastating than that has ever been said about a politician. I think it was Doug Ireland who said that Badillo campaign literature was bilingual—English and Yiddish!
Our Lady Of Greenwich Village Page 9
