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"Uh-oh," said the woman.

And Stanton did something really dangerous then: he didn't indulge her humor. "Uh-oh is right," he said. "And anyone who gets up here and says he can do it for you isn't leveling with you. So I'm not gonna insult you by doing that. I'm going to tell you this: This whole country is gonna have to go back to school. We're gonna have to get smarter, learn new skills. And I will work overtime figuring out ways to help you get the skills you need. I'll make you this deal: I will work for you. I'll wake up every morning thinking about you. I'll fight and worry and sweat and bleed to get the money to make education a lifetime thing in this country, to give you the support you need to move on up. But you've got to do the heavy lifting your own selves. I can't do it for you, and I know it's not gonna be easy." He stopped, paused. There were no smartass remarks now.

"Y'know, I've taken some hits in this campaign. It hasn't been easy for me, or my family. It hasn't been fair, but it hasn't been anything compared to the hits a lot of you take every day. Takes a lot more courage to keep your family together, to keep on moving through a tough time, where you don't know what's comin' next, whether the paycheck's gonna be there next week, who's gonna pay the doctor bill, the mortgage--all the worries you have.

"So I've taken a few shots, but I can live with it. I'll get by. Hell, I'm lucky--I got my picture on the cover of a national newspaper. Maybe not the one I would've planned on. . ." There was some laughter, but this had become as intensely serious as I'd ever seen a political gathering. "And you know what? My picture there means that someone--maybe some group of people--thinks I'm worth taking a shot at. And you've got to ask yourselves: Why? Why is Jack Stanton worth the ton of garbage they're dumpin' on his head? It may be becaus
e t
hat's the way things are in this country now-if the garbage is there, or can be made to seem like it's there, you dump it.

"Or it may be that there are two kinds of politicians-the ones who tell you what you want to hear and the ones who don't bother tellin' you anything at all. And maybe some folks aren't very interested in there being a third kind. You should think about that when you cast that vote next Tuesday."

And silence. As if they were thinking too hard to applaud.

"Henry?" Daisy said. "Why do I always come to your mom?" "It's neater?"

"No, seriously."

"Seriously? Hey, it's three in the morning."

"No, turn over," she said. "Look at me."

I looked at her. Her hair was tousled, and over her eyes; the tortoiseshell barrettes she used to pin it back were on the night table. She was cute. She was not beautiful. She was, more to the point, right there-in my face. The allure of Daisy was also the difficulty: she caught everything. She let nothing pass. "I know you care," she said. What to say.

"Henry"

I brushed her hair back with my hand; I did it twice.

"What I mean is, I would like to experience you in a noncampaign environment," she said.

"You may get that chance soon enough," I said.

"What I mean is . . . is exactly that. Next week. If we're in a non-campaign environment next week, I would like to experience you in that. Okay? Henry?" She looked at me. She went on. "I've got lots of miles. Miles and miles of miles. We could go to the Caribbean. I've got to many miles on American, we could take the space shuttle. We could lay on a beach. We could lay on a bed. We could really get laid-it'd be lahk pahradahse, we could have a wet bar in our room, room service, y'knowhattamean?" she said. "We could lick our wounds. We could lick each other. We could drink rum drinks-ylnow with little turquoise parachutes."

"Parasols."

"So you're on?" She giggled. "Gotcha. Nailed ya."

I pulled her close, kissed her hair. "What if we're not in a noncampaign environment?" I said. "What if we're still alive?"

"Well," she said. "For us to actually be alive-I mean, alive alive, not just Jack and Susan being stubborn and ridiculous. For us to actually be alive would take a run-and probably a Harris fuckup-that would be so spectacular, such a rush, that it would probably be even better than noncampaign sex with you. So that would be okay too."

"How do you know how noncampaign sex with use would be?" "Extrapolation. But, Henry, surely you-rational, sensible, dark-hearted you-surely you don't think we'll be alive a week from now. I know it was a hundred years ago-yesterday-but remember Newsweek?"

Newsweek had buried us with a derisive piece called "The Anatomy of a Flameout." Someone inside-Sporken was my guess-had given some classic distressed-mood-of-the-staff quotes. We were assumed toast. It was time for the consultants to start peeling off, cutting their losses, feeding the scorps obituary matter in order to fertilize the soil for their next campaigns. I was waiting, and dreading, the first sign that Richard had folded his hand. And here was Daisy, trying to act the classic professional, trying to distance herself, getting ready to go. "You see Nyhan in the Globe today," she went on:" 'A synthetic candidate meets his polyester epiphany?' Jeez."

"The Boston scorps all love Charlie Martin," I said. "He's hip. He's funny. He's almost Irish. Only trouble is, actual human-being folks don't get his act. They don't think running for president is performance art." I went up on one elbow. "Daisy, you should have seen Jack tonight-with the shipyard folks. Totally focused, disciplined, daring, just a great fucking candidate. He absolutely locked in. He bull's-eyed." "It's garbage time-no one's playing defense," she said. "When you ain't got nothin' there ain't nothin' to lose."

"I don't know," I said. "A week is a long time."

"Not when you're dead." She sighed.

"Daisy, do me a favor," I said softer, but harder. "Don't do the hardened professional number, okay? Don't play hired gun. I still care about them-lack and Susan. And I think you do too."

"Not as much as . . . you do," she said. "And: Shit-not as much as I do about you. Look. Henry. Okay. I'll admit it: I'm freaked. I'm pretty sure I fucked up my situation with Arlen these past couple of weeks. He seems cool enough, but he probably thinks-on some level-that I angled my way into the Stantons' hearts. No white boy from Mississippi, even a progressive one, likes to be upstaged by his junior partner. So I don't know what kind of future I have there. I also don't know what's going on with you." She didn't give me a chance to say anything-since she knew, perfectly well, that nothing I could say would meet her expectations. But she wanted the expectations out on the table, figuring that I was a decent enough guy not to slam-dunk her gratuitously, and so she hurried on. "I do suspect I got a commitment from you on the parasol drinks. I believe I tricked you into a quasi-commitment by forcing you, Mr. Pluperfection, to correct me when I said parachute instead of parasol. I believe that if I'm clever enough to do that, I deserve a whirl."

"Daise," I said, feeling-1 don't know. Feeling something. "You deserve more than a whirl. But you gotta believe we may not need to count frequent-flier miles for a couple more weeks. If for no other reason than to humor me."

"Okay, I believe. Sort of "

An interesting thing happened the next day. People began to show up. Patsy McKinney, the blowsy wiseacre from the Portsmouth shipyard meeting was waiting for us in the lobby of the Hampton Inn at 6:00 A
. M
. "So where do I sign up-where you want me to work?" she asked. We sent her over to Brad Lieberman. By midday, three busloads had arrived after a long two-day trip, from Grace Junction-elementary school classmates of the governor's, the high school principal, half the faculty-and Beauregard Bryant Hastings, the Stanton family doctor, a fabulous-looking fellow, thin almost to the point of consumption, and tilted somehow, sort of like the Tower of Pisa, wearing a cape and a hat and small round glasses, like James Joyce, but with a long, wild mane of white hair: "Johnny," he said to the governor (it sounded like "Jattdmeh," as if a cotton boll had lodged in his throat, or perhaps it was just that his vocal chords had been sanded down by
a l
ifetime of bourbon). "We ahre gon' to educate these Yawhnkehs 'bout the intrahcahcehs of inspahred governahnce, y'heah?"

College classmates drifted in; Susan's law students from the state university, and people we'd met and connected with along the way: Ms. Baum, the lady who ran the library literacy program in Harlem; Russ Delson, the state treasurer of Tennessee; Minnie Houston, a community activist from Cleveland--dozens like that, ready to do anything, lick envelopes, go door to door. The Hampton Inn was full, as was every room in Manchester, so Lieberman bought out whole motels in cities and towns around the state and dispatched groups to Nashua, Portsmouth, Lebanon, Keene. He did this so smoothly it was almost as if he had anticipated the throng. Our whole operation, so totally dispirited just days before, was running effortlessly, in high gear. On Thursday, Bill Johnson, the deputy attorney general of Alabama, was in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, waiting for us as we came in from a lunchtime swing. "Billy, what on earth? You up here for a ski vacation? President's Day weekend or somethin'?" Stanton asked. "I figured you needed another black face up here to sell these skinflint Yankees."

"Billy--"

"Shut up, Jack," Johnson said, hugging him. "Just put me to work." "Billy--I'm probably gonna get my ass kicked."

"That's why I'm here," Billy said. "See: I don't believe that for a second. I figure you're gonna pull this out somehow, and I want to see it personally, for myself, and tell the grandkids. I want to see how you handle this, case I ever find myself runnin' statewide."

"You won't be in a hole this deep."

'Jack, don't go tellin' no nigger about the depth of holes in Alabama. Just put me to work."

"Henry, tell Brad to put the attorney general here in charge of something, somethin' we can monitor, see if he's gotten any better at politickin' over the years."

And so it went, each time we walked into or out of the palm and plastic lobby of the hotel. It seemed a slow-motion version of This Is Your life, and it caused great buggy *effusions from Jack Stanton. We were all, in fact, on the edge of tears, anger--exhaustion. But the candidate seemed to feed on it. He used the exhaustion and emotion t
o b
ecome a still more extravagant version of himself; he campaigned wonderfully. He was running on sheer willpower now; he was not entirely sensate, and the ceremonies of the stump--meeting, greeting, talking, walking--were performed reflexively, relentlessly, but brilliantly. He could not make strategic decisions, he could not deal with staff, but he could lock in on any crowd, answer any question. He was getting sick again; his face was flushed and he was coughing--and he had to be aware of the pounding he was getting from the scorps. It had reached the point of disgust. They didn't understand why he wouldn't just quit. Didn't he know he was history? Everyone had written it. An entire industry existed to analyze such things, a universe of scorps, talking heads, pollsters, consultants, free-range wisemen and gurus--and they had all taken up residence in Manchester now They filled the lobbies and saloons, rented all the cars--there were crowds everywhere, at all hours. It was instinctive, habitual; a quadrennial homing ritual. There was a liturgy; there were myths, patterns and ceremonial offerings. Jack Stanton had now been designated a ceremonial offering. It was a familiar role, reassuring to the tribe--he was George Romney, Ed Muskie, Gary Hart, the favorite who turns out to be Humpty-Dumpty. His fall would be an occasion for portentous false humility among pundits, for ruminations on the hubris of conventional wisdom prematurely arrived at; he would become a cautionary tale, remembered in years to come, and chuckled over. What was her name again? Cashmere McLeod! There would be ritual pleasure in watching him fall; there would be analysis of the quality of the splatter. If only he'd just get on with it.

The late-night saloon chat at the Wayfarer, Richard reported Friday morning, had drifted into the next phase: speculation about who might rejoin the campaign when Stanton dropped out. Ozio, Larkin (yes, there was talk about my old boss, I was amazed and disheartened to learn), some other hero. "It's wounded pride, y'knowhattamean?" Richard said. "They told the world he's dead, they want him to fuckin' die already."

"So what do you tell them?" I asked. We were sitting in the bedroom of Brad Lieberman's suite, waiting to do debate-strategy prep; in the outer room, muffins were husding the phones. It sounded like a real, live campaign.

"I tell 'em we stopped sinkin'. I tell 'em we're still in second. I tell 'em Lawrence Harris is a favorite son. We'll clean his clock down south." Richard eyed me. "Don't worry, Henri. I'm still on board. I'm even about one quarter believin' the motherfucker'll figure some way out of this box. In fact, put me down as believin' that all this door-to-door retail shit he's been doin' might be clickin' on some half-conscious level. Shit, no one else's goin' anywhere. And I have never seen anybody work this hard. Yesterday, you shoulda seen him. He's standing in a mall in Nashua, midafternoon, just standin' there, y'knowhattamean? Standin' there, patient, answering the stupidest fucking questions from civilians that I have ever heard. Answering questions like, How can we get a stop sign over at the corner of Forest Lane? And, Can you help get my tax assessment lowered? Stone selfish, stupid people. And he's just patient as can be, explainin' this and that, the answer man. Hey, we blow this, we can open a string of Friendly Government Centers, servicing mall-rodent idiots. 'For a small fee, Governor Stanton will solve your problem.' "