Primary Colors (54 page)

What was this? I had the sense it was some sort of valedictory. I wondered if Stanton was picking it up--undoubtedly he was. But I couldn't see his eyes, only the side of his face. He had the big ears on, that was clear from the intensity of the silences; he was pulling the story out of Freddy Picker, who had his knees back up on the coffee table now and his hands clasped around them.

"Could I have said no when Martha Harris asked me?" Picker continued. "I guess I could have: But I saw how vulnerable you were--and it was very tempting. I could see the whole scenario laying out, just perfect, for me. Though I guess, on some unconsciou
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evel, I still wasn't perfectly secure that what was past was past-and that's probably why I did the blood thing."

"It was great politics," Stanton offered.

Picker laughed. "Amazing, wasn't it? I just blurted it out. I really hadn't planned it. And it worked for me on a lot of different levels. I figured, Okay, if I'm gonna do politics seriously again, this time I've got to give something, instead of just getting that rush from them. But there was that other level, too, the one I wasn't quite aware of-but I found out soon enough."

He unclasped his hands, pulled down his knees, leaned forward. "In fact, I was jolted by it-by reality, I guess-as soon as they put the needle in my arm. It's amazing, the tricks your mind can play. All those years out of the business, I'd watch as politicians made fools of themselves-Gary Hart, John Tower, you-and I'd wonder: What ever could they have been thinking about? And then, there I was." He shook his head. "There / was. I hadn't really 'blocked' the past. I'd just refused to consider it. The things I did . . ." He paused, he shook his head again-in amazement, it seemed. "The things that would be considered 'scandalous' if the press got hold of them, those things were so far in the past, so distant-not quite real anymore, just barely remembered-and they had so little to do with who I'd become. It was, like, silly that I could be . . . destroyed by them. They weren't me anymore. They'd only been a moment. And that moment was less important, less a part of my memory, than-what? Than the years I spent on the board of the North Florida Art Institute. But this was potentially lethal. And so humiliating-everything I . . . And when they put that needle in my arm, it was like an electric shock: Why am I doing this?, I thought. This is nuts. And then I began to obsess about the blood. I added up the years since Renzo. Fourteen years. That's a long time, right? I searched my mind: hadn't my blood been tested a dozen times since then? Wouldn't they test for that? But maybe they didn't do it if you didn't ask them to-maybe it was a privacy issue, given gay rights and all. Was it possible that I'd never actually been tested for AIDS?"

The word had an impact. He let it hang in the room. He got up, got himself another Orangina, brought us Diet Cokes. "I tried to push it aside," he said. "I smiled for the cameras. They took tha
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tupid picture of me giving blood. But I couldn't push it aside. I guess it symbolized a whole bunch of things--I mean, what right did I have to be running for president, anyway? What had / ever done to earn a seat at the table?" He stared at the ceiling; he shrugged up at heaven, then looked at his hands. "Then again, what did anyone else have going for them? Unknown politicians catch fire all the time. Who was Jimmy Carter? Who was Michael Dukakis? Who were you three months ago? Why not me? I did seem to be pretty good at it." Picker shook his head and frowned. He sat back down again and leaned forward, anxious to explain himself--and almost relieved, it seemed, that he was finally getting the chance. "But the blood thing kept eating at me," he said softly. "I assumed they'd test all donations. Even"--he laughed--"from presidential candidates. But how long did it take to get results? And what if I did test 'positive' and some orderly decided to get rich by selling the scoop to the tabloids? Can you imagine? Yeah, I guess you can. But I was around the bend. I was sort of like Lady Macbeth--obsessed by the blood. I had to find out. But how? You couldn't just call up and say, 'Hi, this is Fred Picker. Gave a pint the other day. Could you check and see if I've got AIDS?' It wasn't anything you could really ask staff to do, either. I knew I was being nutty. I knew I wasn't being reasonable. And it kept building: Just before the rally in New Haven, I really freaked out, a total anxiety attack. I mean, I hadn't had one of those since--since the day Reggie Duboise saved my ass in Coral Gables. But there I was, shaking, hyperventilating, in the car heading over to the Yale Bowl. I was three-quarters convinced I had AIDS . . . and the other quarter was furious I was acting like such a weakling."

"Lordamercy," Stanton said. He had to say something.

"I stood up there in New Haven," Picker said quietly, "and I didn't know what to do. Did you see it that night?" Stanton nodded yes. "You know what I was thinking about, standing up there? I was thinking about you. Well, sort of. I was thinking: They're gonna find me out. Even if I don't have AIDS I'm fucked. They're gonna find me out--and then they're gonna do to me what they're doing to Jack Stanton." Picker wiped his brow with the back of his hand. The room was gently air-conditioned--it wasn't the usual arctic Southern overcompensation--and he was beginning to perspire. "It suddenl
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eemed so cruel, what they were doing to you. I mean, I haven't been a great person in this life. I've done a lot of stupid, selfish things, and running for president may have been one of them--but I didn't think I'd done anything that might remotely merit the humiliation, the viciousness . . ." His voice trailed off, his eyes clouded over. "It was like some sort of pagan ritual, the way they were ripping you apart. And I'd been kind of getting off on it, feeding it even. At least, until that moment in New Haven, and that's when I realized: Stanton probably doesn't deserve it either."

Well, I thought--he deserved it some.

Stanton glanced over at me quickly, sensing that I was betraying him. I may have been, but Picker wasn't in any shape to notice. He was staring off into space, running a nervous hand through his hair. He was still back in New Haven, lost in his story: "I didn't know what to do. It was unimaginable--all those people waving posters with drops of blood. I mean, can you imagine? Drops of blood? I wanted some room, some time to think. So I tried to calm them down. And, of course, the exact opposite happened: Every last thing that came out of my mouth got them even more worked up. It was an order of power I'd never even imagined. It was like some stupid fairy-tale sort of curse, a King Midas thing. Everything I tried to shut it down only made it bigger, and I didn't have the courage to really shut it down. They were so . . . easily led. I began to think that even if I was okay, even if my blood was clean-I wasn't sure I really wanted to do this. I could never live up to their expections. I could never give them what they needed."

He lowered his head and wiped an eye. I had come to expect that any politician I admired would be like Jack Stanton--larger than life, as formidable in the flesh as he appeared on television. But Freddy Picker wasn't. He was, resolutely, life-size--in every respect but one. He had a parlor trick; he could perform--brilliantly, instinctively--for the cameras. He didn't seem to have any higher purpose than that; he didn't seem to know much about politics. What Picker realized in New Haven--about the desperation of the crowd--Stanton had known from the womb. Jack Stanton also understood, intuitively, that the real challenge was far more difficult than simply meeting their expectations. It was about exceeding their expectations. It was about inspiring them. If you couldn't do that, you were Millard Fillmore. It was a very tough game. There were only two or three winners per century, and a fair number of the losers were burned at the stake. Or disappeared from memory--and the Picker phenomenon was evaporating before my eyes. "So I called the hospital the next day," he was saying now. "I told them I'd been anemic in the past, and was feeling a little tired, and I just . . . I just waisted to see if the blood had been tested, y'know? They put me on hold." He laughed. "As if I were a normal human being. You know how it is, jack: when you're governor, they never put you on hold. But I waited--and waited, and it was awful. Finally, the nurse came back on and said that, yes, they'd checked it and, no, there was nothing unusual about my blood, everything was fine."

I think I exhaled.

"But everything wasn't fine," he said. The words were coming faster, just cascading out of him now "In fact, it got worse. I felt even more trapped. I began to obsess about the drugs. I drove myself crazy, making a list, trying to think of all the parties I'd been to down in Dade--parties just crawling with jerks who might give me up. And then there was Renzo. Who was Renzo, anyway? Had he told anyone? Would he tell someone now? Would he tell the National Flash? I got up every day wondering if this would be the day they found me out. It crowded out everything. You saw how much trouble I had keeping up with you during that Geraldo debate, right? It became impossible to think seriously about what I was doing--I was running for president, and all I could think about was my imminent national embarrassment."

"Tell me about it," Stanton said.

"But, ack, the difference was: I was in over my head," Picker said. "You'd been preparing for this forever--least that's what I read. I just jumped in. It was more than a lark--but it wasn't quite serious either, if you know what I mean. I hadn't prepared. I didn't really know the issues. But most important, I hadn't thought about--all this stuff. And after New Haven, it became the only thing I could think about. So when we won New York, I made the announcement that I was going to come home and consider what was 'best for the country.' Hah! I was trying to come up with a way to get out before they found m
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ut. And, ack, I'd like to thank you for coming here tonight the--the honorable way you did." He turned to me--"Henry, I'm not even angry you went snooping around my past. Better you than most anyone else. . . . Anyway, you've given me the excuse to finally do what I'd been trying to get up the courage to--"

"Whut?" Stanton asked--impatient, finally.

"I'm dropping out," Picker said.

"Jesus," Stanton said, not surprised. "Are you . . ."

"Sure?" Picker laughed. "Yeah. You know how I said that all the things they'd hang me for--all my sins--were so far in the past that it seemed they'd happened to a different person? Well, I've come to believe that my political ambition is part of that, too. Something dangerous that should have been left in the past, like cocaine and the rest. The idea that I could be invincible, that anything I wanted to do was okay--that's an adolescent thing, right? I look at my boys and they . ."

He stopped. The thought of his boys seemed to stop him cold. "I figure the press'll still find me out. They'll be all over this story, right? But maybe I can preempt them a little, give them part of it--and they won't go find the rest. I really don't want them to find out about Renzo. But, Jack, the bottom line is still: I'm a national joke, right? I don't see any way to get around that. And I still have to explain it all to my boys." He frowned, then stared down at his hands. They seemed paralyzed, palms up, futile on his thighs. He looked up at Stanton, his dark eyes sharp again. His tone hardened. "No matter what I do, those motherfuckers are still going to find the rest of it, aren't they?"

I couldn't see exactly what Jack Stanton did at that moment, it must have been something with his eyes--a twitch, a wince, a premonition of a tabloid headline, a glimmer of the agony to come. Whatever it was, Picker caught it--and seemed to implode, shriveling on the couch, knees up, shoulders shaking slightly, uncontrollably, arms over his head.

Stanton was up and across the room before I fully realized what had happened. He gathered up Freddy Picker, who curled in, burying his head in Stanton's chest. And he rocked Picker for what seemed a very long time, occasionally kissing him on top of the head--until, slowly
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the former governor of Florida regained his composure. All of this transpired without a word, with barely a sound.

"Governor," Stanton finally said, "I don't know if you're a drinking man--I'm not much of one--but I think we could both use a small jolt of bourbon just about now."

Picker disengaged himself from Stanton's embrace, went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Jack Daniel's and three glasses. There were napkins in the cupboard, and he blew his nose with one. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, his hair was all over his forehead. But, somehow, he hadn't lost his dignity. "Jack," he said, "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you seem so impervious. Not sitting here. Here, you seem like a normal guy. But how do you wake up in the morning--like in the middle of New York, when they were pulverizing you--how do you just get up and face the world, knowing they're gonna tear your lungs out today, make you seem a crook and a fool and a liar, same as yesterday? I'm curious because it's a skill I'll probably be needing."

"I don't rightly know," Stanton said. "There just doesn't seem to be any other option for me--nothin' else I really can do. And yeah, I'm sure a part of it--a big part of it--is ego sickness. You called it an addiction. You're right. But that's not all of it. I do love it--the part you talked about, moving a crowd. And the strategy, too; the game of it. But I don't think I'd be baring my butt for random whipping by that self-righteous, hypocritical pack of shitbirds if I didn't believe that you can, on occasion, make people's lives a little better. I know it sounds corny, but I still get all excited when I come across some program we've done that actually works," he said, with genuine enthusiasm. He stood up, getting ready to go. "I mean, have you ever been to an adult literacy class? Grown-ups trying to learn how to read? You talk about New York. You know what comes to my mind? Not the primary. I already forgot that. What I think about is this little adult literacy program up in Harlem, Henry and I visited once." He turned to me, eyes glistening. "It was the day we met--right, Henri? It was just pure glory. It was like going to church."