The Dead Zone
PART TWO The Laughing Tiger Chapter Ninteen
1.
On a day not long after Chuck's first breakthrough, Johnny Smith stood in the bathroom of the guest house, running his Norelco over his cheeks. Looking at himself closeup in a mirror always gave him a weird feeling these days, as if he were looking at an older brother instead of himself. Deep horizontal lines had grooved themselves across his forehead. Two more bracketed his mouth. Strangest of all, there was that streak of white, and the rest of his hair was beginning to go gray. It seemed to have started almost overnight.
He snapped off the razor and went out into the combination kitchen-living room. Lap of luxury, he thought, and smiled a little. Smiling was starting to feel natural again. He turned on the TV, got a Pepsi out of the fridge, and settled down to watch the news. Roger Chatsworth was due back later in the evening, and tomorrow Johnny would have the distinct pleasure of telling him that his son was beginning to make real progress.
Johnny had been up to see his own father every two weeks or so. He was pleased with Johnny's new job and listened with keen interest as Johnny told him about the Chatsworths, the house in the pleasant college town of Durham, and Chuck's problems. Johnny, in turn, listened as his father told him about the gratis work he was doing at Charlene MacKenzie's house in neighboring New Gloucester.
'Her husband was a helluva doctor but not much of a handyman,' Herb said. Charlene and Vera had been friends before Vera's deepening involvement in the stranger offshoots of fundamentalism. That had separated them. Her husband, a GP, had died of a heart attack in 1973. 'Place was practically falling down around that woman's ears,' Herb said. 'Least I could do. I go up on Saturdays and she gives me a dinner before I come back home. I have to tell the truth, Johnny, she cooks better than you do.'
'Looks better, too,' Johnny said blandly.
'Sure, she's a fine-looking woman, but it's nothing like that, Johnny. Your mother not even in her grave a year...
But Johnny suspected that maybe it was something like that, and secretly couldn't have been more pleased. He didn't fancy the idea of his father growing old alone.
On the television, Walter Cronkite was serving up the evening's political news. Now, with the primary season over and the conventions only weeks away, it appeared that Jimmy Carter had the Democratic nomination sewed up. It was Ford who was in a scrap for his political life with Ronald Reagan, the ex-governor of California and ex-host of 'GE Theater'. It was close enough to have the reporters counting individual delegates, and in one of her infrequent letters Sarah Hazlett had written: 'Walt's got his fingers (and toes!) crossed that Ford gets in. As a candidate for state senate up here, he's already thinking about coattails. And he says that, in Maine at least, Reagan hasn't any.'
While he was shortorder cooking in Kittery, Johnny had gotten into the habit of going down to Dover or Portsmouth or any number of smaller towns in New Hampshire a couple of times a week. All of the candidates for president were in and out, and it was a unique opportunity to see those who were running closeup and without the nearly regal trappings bf authority that might later surround any one of them. It became something of a hobby, although of necessity a short-lived one; when New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary was over, the candidates would move on to Florida without a glance back. And of course a few of their number would bury their political ambitions somewhere between Portsmouth and Keene. Never a political creature before -except during the Vietnam era - Johnny became an avid politician-watcher in the healing aftermath of the Castle Rock business - and his own particular talent, affliction, whatever it was, played a part in that, too.
He shook hands with Morris Udall and Henry Jackson. Fred Harris clapped him on the back. Ronald Reagan gave him a quick and practiced politico's double-pump and said, 'Get out to the polls and help us if you can.' Johnny had nodded agreeably enough, seeing no point in disabusing Mr. Reagan of his notion that he was a bona fide New Hampshire voter.
He had chatted with Sarge Shriver just inside the main entrance to the monstrous Newington Mall for nearly fifteen minutes. Shriver, his hair freshly cut and smelling of after-shave and perhaps desperation, was accompanied by a single aide with his pockets stuffed full of leaflets, and a Secret Service man who kept scratching furtively at his acne. Shriver had seemed inordinately pleased to be recognized. A minute or two before Johnny said goodbye, a candidate in search of some local office had approached Shriver and asked him to sign his nominating papers. Shriver had smiled gently.
Johnny had sensed things about all of them, but little of a specific nature. It was as if they had made the act of touching such a ritual that their true selves were buried beneath a layer of tough, clear lucite. Although he saw most of them - with the exception of President Ford -Johnny had felt only once that sudden, electrifying snap of knowledge that he associated with Eileen Magown -and, in an entirely different way, with Frank Dodd.
It was a quarter of seven in the morning. Johnny had driven down to Manchester in his old Plymouth. He had worked from ten the evening before until six this morning. He was tired, but the quiet winter dawn had been too good to sleep through. And he liked Manchester, Manchester with its narrow streets and timeworn brick buildings, the gothic textile mills strung along the river like mid-Victorian beads. He had not been consciously politician-hunting that morning; he thought he would cruise the streets for a while, until they began to get crowded, until the cold and silent spell of February was broken, then go back to Kittery and catch some sacktime.
He turned a corner and there had been three nondescript sedans pulled up in front of a shoe factory in a no-parking zone. Standing by the gate in the cyclone fencing was Jimmy Carter, shaking hands with the men and women going on shift. They were carrying lunch buckets or paper sacks, breathing out white clouds, bundled into heavy coats, their faces still asleep. Carter had a word for each of them. His grin, then not so publicized as it became later, was tireless and fresh. His nose was red with the cold.
Johnny parked half a block down and walked toward the factory gate, his shoes crunching and squeaking on the packed snow. The Secret Service agent with Carter sized him up quickly and then dismissed him or seemed to.
'I'll vote for anyone who's interested in cutting taxes,' a man in an old ski parka was saying. The parka had a constellation of what looked like battery-acid burns in one sleeve. 'The goddam taxes are killing me, I kid you not.'
'Well, we're gonna see about that,' Carter said. 'Lookin over the tax situation is gonna be one of our first priori-ties when I get into the White House.' There was a serene self-confidence in his voice that struck Johnny and made him a little uneasy.
Carter's eyes, bright and almost amazingly blue, shifted to Johnny. 'Hi there,' he said.
'Hello, Mr. Carter,' Johnny said. 'I don't work here. I was driving by and saw you.'
'Well I'm glad you stopped. I'm running for President.'
'I know.'
Carter put his hand out. Johnny shook it.
Carter began: 'I hope you'll...' And broke off.
The flash came, a sudden, powerful zap that was like sticking his finger in an electric socket. Carter's eyes sharpened. He and Johnny looked at each other for what seemed a very long time.
The Secret Service guy didn't like it. He moved toward Carter, and suddenly he was unbuttoning his coat. Some-where behind them, a million miles behind them, the shoe factory's seven o'clock whistle blew its single note into the crisp blue morning.
Johnny let go of Carter's hand, but still the two of them looked at each other.
'What the hell was that?' Carter asked, very softly.
'You've probably got someplace to go, don't you?' the Secret Service guy said suddenly. He put a hand on Johnny's shoulder. It was a very big hand. 'Sure you do.'
'It's all right,' Carter said.
'You're going to be president,' Johnny said.
The agent's hand was still on Johnny's shoulder, more lightly now but still there, and he was getting something from him, too. The Secret Service guy
(eyes)
didn't like his eyes. He thought they were
(assassin's eyes, psycho's eyes)
cold and strange, and if this guy put so much as one hand in his coat pocket. if he even looked as if he might be going in that direction, he was going to put him on the sidewalk. Behind the Secret Service guy's second-to-second evaluation of the situation there ran a simple, maddening litany of thought:
(laurel maryland laurel maryland laurel maryland laurel)
'Yes,' Carter said.
'It's going to be closer than anyone thinks ... closer than you think, but you'll win. He'll beat himself. Poland. Poland will beat him.'
Carter only looked at him. half-smiling.
'You've got a daughter. She's going to go to a public school in Washington. She's going to go to...' But it was in the dead zone. 'I think ... it's a school named after a freed slave.'
'Fellow, I want you to move on,' the agent said.
Carter looked at him and the agent subsided.
'It's been a pleasure meeting you,' Carter said. 'A little disconcerting, but a pleasure.'
Suddenly, Johnny was himself again. It had passed. He was aware that his ears were cold and that he had to go to the bathroom. 'Have a good morning,' he said lamely.
'Yes. You too, now.'
He had gone back to his car, aware of the Secret Service guy's eyes still on him. He drove away, bemused. Shortly after, Carter had put away the competition in New Hampshire and went on to Florida.
2.
Walter Cronkite finished with the politicians and went on to the civil war in Lebanon. Johnny got up and freshened his glass of Pepsi. He tipped the glass at the TV. Your good health, Walt. To the three Ds - death, destruction, and destiny. Where would we be without them.
There was a light tap at the door. 'Come in,' Johnny called, expecting Chuck, probably with an invitation to the drive-in over in Somersworth. But it wasn't Chuck. It was Chuck's father.
'Hi, Johnny,' he said. He was wearing wash4aded jeans and an old cotton sports shirt, the tails out. 'May I come in?'
'Sure. I thought you weren't due back until late.'
'Well, Shelley gave me a call.' Shelley was his wife. Roger came in and shut the door. 'Chuck came to see her. Burst into tears, just like a little kid. He told her you were doing it, Johnny. He said he thought he was going to be all right.'
Johnny put his glass down. 'We've got a ways to go,' he said.
'Chuck met me at the airport. I haven't seen him looking like he did since he was ... what? Ten? Eleven? When I gave him the .22 he'd been waiting for for five years. He read me a story out of the newspaper. The improvement is ... almost eerie. I came over to thank you.'
'Thank Chuck,' Johnny said. 'He's an adaptable boy.
A lot of what's happening to him is positive reinforcement. He's psyched himself into believing he can do it and now he's tripping on it. That's the best way I can put it.'
Roger sat down. 'He says you're teaching him to switch-hit.'
Johnny smiled. 'Yeah, I guess so.'
'Is he going to be able to take the SATs?'
'I don't know. And I'd hate to see him gamble and lose. The SATs are a heavy pressure situation. If he gets in that lecture hall with an answer sheet in front of him and an IBM pencil in his hand and then freezes up, it's going to be a real setback for him. Have you thought about a good prep school for a year? A place like Pittsfield Academy?'
'We've kicked the idea around, but frankly I always thought of it as just postponing the inevitable.'
'That's one of the things that's been giving Chuck trouble. This feeling that he's in a make-or-break situation.'
'I've never pressured Chuck.'
'Not on purpose, I know that. So does he. On the other hand, you're a rich, successful man who graduated from college sum ma cum laude. I think Chuck feels a little bit like he's batting after Hank Aaron.'
'There's nothing I can do about that, Johnny.'
'I think a year at a prep school, away from home, after his senior year might put things in perspective for him. And he wants to go to work in one of your mills next summer. If he were my kid and if they were my mills, I'd let him.'
'Chuck wants to do that? How come he never told me?'
'Because he didn't want you to think he was ass-kissing,' Johnny said.
'He told you that?'
'Yes. He wants to do it because he thinks the practical experience will be helpful to him later on. The kid wants to follow in your footsteps, Mr. Chatsworth. You've left some big ones behind you. That's what a lot of the reading block has been about. He's having buck fever.'
In a sense, he had lied. Chuck had hinted around these things, and even mentioned some of them obliquely, but he had not been as frank as Johnny had led Roger Chats-worth to believe. Not verbally, at least. But Johnny had touched him from time to time, and he had gotten signals that way. He had looked through the pictures Chuck kept in his wallet and knew how Chuck felt about his dad. There were things he could never tell this pleasant but rather distant man sitting across from him. Chuck idolized the ground his father walked on. Beneath his easy-come easy-go exterior (an exterior that was very similar to Roger's), the boy was eaten up by the secret conviction that he could never measure up. His father had built a ten percent interest in a failing woolen mill into a New England textile empire. He believed that the issue of his father's love hung on his own ability to move similar mountains. To play sports. To get into a good college. To read.
'How sure are you about all of this?' Roger asked.
'I'm pretty sure. But I'd appreciate it if you never mentioned to Chuck that we talked this way. They're his secrets I'm telling.' And that's truer than you'll ever know.
'All right. And Chuck and his mother and I will talk over the prep school idea. In the meantime, this is yours. He took out a plain white business envelope from his back pocket and passed it to Johnny.
'What is it?'
'Open it and see.'
Johnny opened it. Inside the envelope was a cashier's check for five hundred dollars.
'Oh, hey... ! I can't take this.'
'You can, and you will. I promised you a bonus if you could perform, and I keep my promises. There'll be an-other when you leave.'
'Really, Mr. Chatsworth, I just...'
'Shh. I'll tell you something, Johnny.' He leaned forward. He was smiling a peculiar little smile, and Johnny suddenly felt he could see beneath the pleasant exterior to the man who had made all of this happen - the house, the grounds, the pool, the mills. And, of course, his son's reading phobia, which could probably be classified a hysterical neurosis.
'It's been my experience that ninety-five percent of the people who walk the earth are simply inert, Johnny. One percent are saints, and one percent are assholes. The other three percent are the people who do what they say they can do. I'm in that three percent, and so are you. You earned that money. I've got people in the mills that take home eleven thousand dollars a year for doing little more than playing with their dicks. But I'm not bitching. I'm a man of the world, and all that means is I under-stand what powers the world. The fuel mix is one part high-octane to nine parts pure bull-shit. You're no bullshitter. So you put that money in your wallet and next time try to value yourself a little higher.
'All right,' Johnny said. 'I can put it to good use, I won't lie to you about that.
'Doctor bills?'
Johnny looked up at Roger Chatsworth, his eyes narrowed.
'I know all about you,' Roger said. 'Did you think I wouldn't check back on the guy I hired to tutor my son?'
'You know about...'
'You're supposed to be a psychic of some kind. You helped to solve a murder case in Maine. At least, that's what the papers say. You had a teaching job lined up for last January, but they dropped you like a hot potato when your name got in the papers.'
'You knew? For how long?'
'I knew before you moved in.'
'And you still hired me?'
'I wanted a tutor, didn't I? You looked like you might be able to pull it off. I think I showed excellent judgment in engaging your services.'
'Well, thanks,' Johnny said. His voice was hoarse.
'I told you you didn't have to say that.'
As they talked, Walter Cronkite had finished up with the real news of the day and had gone on to the man bites dog stories that sometimes turn up near the end of a newscast. He was saying, ... . voters in western New Hampshire have an independent running in the third district this year.
'Well, the cash will come in handy,' Johnny said. 'That's . - -'
'Shh. I want to hear this.'
Chatsworth was leaning forward, hands dangling between his knees, a pleasant smile of expectation on his face. Johnny turned to look at the TV.
... . Stillson,' Cronkite said. 'This forty-three-year-old insurance and real estate agent is surely running one of the most eccentric races of Campaign '76, but both the third-district Republican candidate, Harrison Fisher, and his Democratic opponent, David Bowes, are running scared, because the polls have Greg Stillson running comfortably ahead. George Herman has the story.'
'Who's Stillson?' Johnny asked.
Chatsworth laughed. 'Oh, you gotta see this guy, Johnny. He's as crazy as a rat in a drainpipe. But I do believe the sober-sided electorate of the third district is going to send him to Washington this November. Unless he actually falls down and starts frothing at the mouth. And I wouldn't completely rule that out.'
Now the TV showed a picture of a handsome young man in a white open-throated shirt. He was speaking to a small crowd from a bunting-hung platform in a supermarket parking lot. The young man was exhorting the crowd. The crowd looked less than thrilled. George Herman voiced over: 'This is David Bowes, the Democratic candidate - sacrificial offering, some would say - for the third-district seat in New Hampshire. Bowes expected an uphill fight because New Hampshire's third district has never gone Democratic, not even in the great LBJ blitz of 1964. But he expected his competition to come from this man.'
Now the TV showed a man of about sixty-five. He was speaking to a plushy fund-raising dinner. The crowd had that plump, righteous, and slightly constipated look that seems the exclusive province of businessmen who belong to the GOP. The speaker bore a remarkable resemblance to Edward Gurney of Florida, although he did not have Gurney's slim, tough build.
'This is Harrison Fisher,' Herman said. 'The voters of the third district have been sending him to Washington every two years since 1960. He is a powerful figure in the house, sitting on five committees and chairing the House Committee on Parks and Waterways. It had been expected that he would beat young David Bowes handily. But neither Fisher nor Bowes counted on a wild card in the deck. This wild card.
The picture switched.
'Holy God!' Johnny said.
Beside him, Chatsworth roared laughter and slapped his thighs. 'Can you believe that guy?'
No lackadaisical supermarket parking-lot crowd here. No comfy fund raiser in the Granite State Room of the Portsmouth Hilton, either. Greg Stillson was standing on a platform outside in Ridgeway, his home town. Be-hind him there loomed the statue of a Union soldier with his rifle in his hand and his kepi tilted down over his eyes. The street was blocked off and crowded with wildly cheering people, predominantly young people. Stillson was wearing faded jeans and a two-pocket Army fatigue shirt with the words GIVE PEACE A CHANCE embroidered on one pocket and MOM'S APPLE PIE on the other. There was a hi-impact construction worker's helmet cocked at an arrogant, rakish angle on his head, and plastered to the front of it was a green American flag ecology sticker. Beside him was a stainless steel cart of some kind. From the twin loudspeakers came the sound of John Denver singing 'Thank God I'm a Country Boy.'
'What's that cart?' Johnny asked.
'You'll see,' Roger said, still grinning hugely.
Herman said: 'The wild card is Gregory Ammas Stillson, forty-three, ex-salesman for the Truthway Bible Company of America, ex-housepainter, and, in Oklahoma, where he grew up, one-time rainmaker.'
'Rainmaker,' said Johnny, bemused.
'Oh, that's one of his planks,' Roger said. 'If he's elected, we'll have rain whenever we need it.'
George Herman went on: Stillson's platform is ... well, refreshing.'
John Denver finished singing with a yell that brought answering cheers from the crowd. Then Stillson started talking, his voice booming at peak amplification. His PA system at least was sophisticated; there was hardly any distortion. His voice made Johnny vaguely uneasy. The man had the high, hard, pumping delivery of a revival preacher. You could see a fine spray of spittle from his lips as he talked.
'What are we gonna do in Washington? Why do we want to go to Washington?' Stillson roared. 'What's our platform? Our platform got five boards, my friends n neighbors, five old boards! And what are they? I'll tell you up front! First board: THROW THE BUMS OUT!'
A tremendous roar of approval ripped out of the crowd. Someone threw double handfuls of confetti into the air and someone else yelled, 'Yaaaah-HOO!' Stillson leaned over his podium.
'You wanna know why I'm wearing this helmet, friends n neighbors? I'll tell you why. I'm wearin it because when you send me up to Washington, I'm gonna go through them like you-know-what through a canebrake! Gonna go through em just like this!'
And before Johnny's wondering eyes, Stillson put his head down and began to charge up and down the podium stage like a bull, uttering a high, yipping Rebel yell as he did so. Roger Chatsworth simply dissolved in his chair, laughing helplessly. The crowd went wild. Stillson charged back to the podium, took off his construction helmet, and spun it into the crowd. A minor riot over possession of it immediately ensued.
'Second board!' Stillson yelled into the mike. 'We're gonna throw out anyone in the government, from the highest to the lowest, who is spending time in bed with some gal who ain't his wife! If they wanna sleep around, they ain't gonna do it on the public tit!'
'What did he say?' Johnny asked, blinking.
'Oh, he's just getting warmed up,' Roger said. He wiped his streaming eyes and went off into another gale of laughter. Johnny wished it seemed that funny to him.
'Third board!' Stillson roared. 'We're gonna send all the pollution right into outer space! Gonna put it in Hefty bags! Gonna put it in Glad bags! Gonna send it to Mars, to Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn! We're gonna have clean air and we're gonna have clean water and we're gonna have it in SIX MONTHS!'
The crowd was in paroxysms of joy. Johnny saw many people in the crowd who were almost killing themselves laughing, as Roger Chatsworth was presently doing.
'Fourth board! We're gonna have all the gas and oil we need! We're gonna stop playing games with these Arabs and get down to brass tacks! Ain't gonna be no old people in New Hampshire turned into Popsicles this coming winter like there was last winter!'
This brought a solid roar of approval. The winter before an old woman in Portsmouth had been found frozen to death in her third-floor apartment, apparently following a turn-off by the gas company for nonpayment.
'We got the muscle, friends n neighbors, we can do it! Anybody out there think we can't do it?'
'NO!' The crowd bellowed back.
'Last board,' Stillson said, and approached the metal cart. He threw back the hinged lid and a cloud of steam puffed out. 'HOT DOGS!!'
He began to grab double handfuls of hot dogs from the cart, which Johnny now recognized as a portable steam table. He threw them into the crowd and went back for more. Hot dogs flew everywhere. 'Hot dogs for every man, woman, and child in America! And when you put Greg Stillson in the House of Representatives, you gonna say HOT DOG! SOMEONE GIVES A RIP AT LAST!'
The picture changed. The podium was being dismantled by a crew of long-haired young men who looked like rock band roadies. Three more of them were cleaning up the litter the crowd had left behind. George Herman resumed: 'Democratic candidate David Bowes calls Still-son a practical joker who is trying to throw a monkey-wrench into the workings of the democratic process. Harrison Fisher is stronger in his criticism. He calls Stillson a cynical carnival pitchman who is playing the whole idea of the free election as a burlesque-house joke. In speeches, he refers to independent candidate Stilison as the only member of the American Hot Dog party. But the fact is this: the latest CBS poll in New Hampshire's third district showed David Bowes with twenty percent of the vote, Harrison Fisher with twenty-six - and maverick Greg Stillson with a whopping forty-two percent. Of course election day is still quite a way down the road, and things may change. But for now, Greg Stillson has captured the hearts - if not the minds - of New Hampshire's third-district voters.'
The TV showed a shot of Herman from the waist up. Both hands had been out of sight. Now he raised one of them. and in it was a hot dog. He took a big bite.
'This is George Herman, CBS News, in Ridgeway, New Hampshire.'
Walter Cronkite came back on in the CBS newsroom, chuckling. 'Hot dogs,' he said, and chuckled again. 'And that's the way it is - . -,
Johnny got up and snapped off the set. 'I just can't believe that,' he said. 'That guy's really a candidate? It's not a joke?'
'Whether it's a joke or not is a matter of personal interpretation,' Roger said, grinning, 'but he really is running. I'm a Republican myself, born and bred, but I must admit I get a kick out of that guy Stillson. You know he hired half a dozen ex-motorcycle outlaws as bodyguards?
Real iron horsemen. Not Hell's Angels or anything like that, but I guess they were pretty rough customers. He seems to have reformed them.'
Motorcycle freaks as security. Johnny didn't like the sound of that very much. The motorcycle freaks had been in charge of security when the Rolling Stones gave their free concert at Altamont Speedway in California. It hadn't worked out so well.
'People put up with a ... a motorcycle goon squad?'
'No, it really isn't like that. They're quite cleancut. And Stillson has a helluva reputation around Ridgeway for reforming kids in trouble.
Johnny grunted doubtfully.
'You saw him,' Roger said, gesturing at the TV set. 'The man is a clown. He goes charging around the speaking platform, like that at every rally. Throws his helmet into the crowd - I'd guess he's gone through a hundred of them by now - and gives out hot dogs. He's a clown, so what? Maybe people need a little comic relief from time to time. We're runningout of oil, the inflation is slowly but surely getting out of control, the average guy's tax load has never been heavier, and we're apparently getting ready to elect a fuzzy-minded Georgia cracker president of the United States. So people want a giggle or two. Even more, they want to thumb their noses at a political establishment that doesn't seem able to solve anything. Stillson's harmless.'
'He's in orbit,' Johnny said, and they both laughed.
'We have plenty of crazy politicians around,' Roger said. 'In New Hampshire we've got Stillson, who wants to hot dog his way into the House of Representatives, so what? Out in California they've got Hayakawa. Or take our own governor, Meldrim Thomson. Last year he wanted to arm the New Hampshire National Guard with tactical nuclear weapons. I'd call that big-time crazy.
'Are you saying it's okay for those people in the third district to elect the village fool to represent them in Washington?'
'You don't get it,' Chatsworth said patiently. 'Take a voter's-eye-view, Johnny. Those third-district people are mostly all blue-collars and shopkeepers. The most rural parts of the district are just starting to develop some recreational potential. Those people look at David Bowes and they see a hungry young kid who's trying to get elected on the basis of some slick talk and a passing resemblance to Dustin Hoffman. They're supposed to think he's a man of the people because he wears blue jeans.
'Then take Fisher. My man, at least nominally. I've organized fund raisers for him and the other Republican candidates around this part of New Hampshire. He's been on the Hill so long he probably thinks the Capitol dome would split in two pieces if he wasn't around to give it moral support. He's never had an original thought in his life, he never went against the party line in his life. There's no stigma attached to his name because he's too stupid to be very crooked, although he'll probably wind up with some mud on him from this Koreagate thing. His speeches have all the excitement of the copy of the National Plumbers Wholesale Catalogue. People don't know all those things, but they can sense them sometimes. The idea that Harrison Fisher is doing anything for his constituency is just plain ridiculous.'
'So the answer is to elect a loony?'
Chatsworth smiled indulgently. 'Sometimes these loonies turn out doing a pretty good job. Look at Bella Abzug. There's a damn fine set of brains under those crazy hats. But even if Stillson turns out to be as crazy in Washington as he is down in Ridgeway, he's only renting the seat for two years. They'll turn him out in '78 and put in someone who understands the lesson.'
'The lesson?'
Roger stood up. 'Don't fuck the people over for too long,' he said. 'That's the lesson. Adam Clayton Powell found out. Agnew and Nixon did, too. Just... don't fuck the people for too long.' He glanced at his watch. 'Come on over to the big house and have a drink, Johnny.
Shelley and I are going out later on, but we've got time for a short one.'
Johnny smiled and got up. 'Okay,' he said. 'You twisted my arm.
On a day not long after Chuck's first breakthrough, Johnny Smith stood in the bathroom of the guest house, running his Norelco over his cheeks. Looking at himself closeup in a mirror always gave him a weird feeling these days, as if he were looking at an older brother instead of himself. Deep horizontal lines had grooved themselves across his forehead. Two more bracketed his mouth. Strangest of all, there was that streak of white, and the rest of his hair was beginning to go gray. It seemed to have started almost overnight.
He snapped off the razor and went out into the combination kitchen-living room. Lap of luxury, he thought, and smiled a little. Smiling was starting to feel natural again. He turned on the TV, got a Pepsi out of the fridge, and settled down to watch the news. Roger Chatsworth was due back later in the evening, and tomorrow Johnny would have the distinct pleasure of telling him that his son was beginning to make real progress.
Johnny had been up to see his own father every two weeks or so. He was pleased with Johnny's new job and listened with keen interest as Johnny told him about the Chatsworths, the house in the pleasant college town of Durham, and Chuck's problems. Johnny, in turn, listened as his father told him about the gratis work he was doing at Charlene MacKenzie's house in neighboring New Gloucester.
'Her husband was a helluva doctor but not much of a handyman,' Herb said. Charlene and Vera had been friends before Vera's deepening involvement in the stranger offshoots of fundamentalism. That had separated them. Her husband, a GP, had died of a heart attack in 1973. 'Place was practically falling down around that woman's ears,' Herb said. 'Least I could do. I go up on Saturdays and she gives me a dinner before I come back home. I have to tell the truth, Johnny, she cooks better than you do.'
'Looks better, too,' Johnny said blandly.
'Sure, she's a fine-looking woman, but it's nothing like that, Johnny. Your mother not even in her grave a year...
But Johnny suspected that maybe it was something like that, and secretly couldn't have been more pleased. He didn't fancy the idea of his father growing old alone.
On the television, Walter Cronkite was serving up the evening's political news. Now, with the primary season over and the conventions only weeks away, it appeared that Jimmy Carter had the Democratic nomination sewed up. It was Ford who was in a scrap for his political life with Ronald Reagan, the ex-governor of California and ex-host of 'GE Theater'. It was close enough to have the reporters counting individual delegates, and in one of her infrequent letters Sarah Hazlett had written: 'Walt's got his fingers (and toes!) crossed that Ford gets in. As a candidate for state senate up here, he's already thinking about coattails. And he says that, in Maine at least, Reagan hasn't any.'
While he was shortorder cooking in Kittery, Johnny had gotten into the habit of going down to Dover or Portsmouth or any number of smaller towns in New Hampshire a couple of times a week. All of the candidates for president were in and out, and it was a unique opportunity to see those who were running closeup and without the nearly regal trappings bf authority that might later surround any one of them. It became something of a hobby, although of necessity a short-lived one; when New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary was over, the candidates would move on to Florida without a glance back. And of course a few of their number would bury their political ambitions somewhere between Portsmouth and Keene. Never a political creature before -except during the Vietnam era - Johnny became an avid politician-watcher in the healing aftermath of the Castle Rock business - and his own particular talent, affliction, whatever it was, played a part in that, too.
He shook hands with Morris Udall and Henry Jackson. Fred Harris clapped him on the back. Ronald Reagan gave him a quick and practiced politico's double-pump and said, 'Get out to the polls and help us if you can.' Johnny had nodded agreeably enough, seeing no point in disabusing Mr. Reagan of his notion that he was a bona fide New Hampshire voter.
He had chatted with Sarge Shriver just inside the main entrance to the monstrous Newington Mall for nearly fifteen minutes. Shriver, his hair freshly cut and smelling of after-shave and perhaps desperation, was accompanied by a single aide with his pockets stuffed full of leaflets, and a Secret Service man who kept scratching furtively at his acne. Shriver had seemed inordinately pleased to be recognized. A minute or two before Johnny said goodbye, a candidate in search of some local office had approached Shriver and asked him to sign his nominating papers. Shriver had smiled gently.
Johnny had sensed things about all of them, but little of a specific nature. It was as if they had made the act of touching such a ritual that their true selves were buried beneath a layer of tough, clear lucite. Although he saw most of them - with the exception of President Ford -Johnny had felt only once that sudden, electrifying snap of knowledge that he associated with Eileen Magown -and, in an entirely different way, with Frank Dodd.
It was a quarter of seven in the morning. Johnny had driven down to Manchester in his old Plymouth. He had worked from ten the evening before until six this morning. He was tired, but the quiet winter dawn had been too good to sleep through. And he liked Manchester, Manchester with its narrow streets and timeworn brick buildings, the gothic textile mills strung along the river like mid-Victorian beads. He had not been consciously politician-hunting that morning; he thought he would cruise the streets for a while, until they began to get crowded, until the cold and silent spell of February was broken, then go back to Kittery and catch some sacktime.
He turned a corner and there had been three nondescript sedans pulled up in front of a shoe factory in a no-parking zone. Standing by the gate in the cyclone fencing was Jimmy Carter, shaking hands with the men and women going on shift. They were carrying lunch buckets or paper sacks, breathing out white clouds, bundled into heavy coats, their faces still asleep. Carter had a word for each of them. His grin, then not so publicized as it became later, was tireless and fresh. His nose was red with the cold.
Johnny parked half a block down and walked toward the factory gate, his shoes crunching and squeaking on the packed snow. The Secret Service agent with Carter sized him up quickly and then dismissed him or seemed to.
'I'll vote for anyone who's interested in cutting taxes,' a man in an old ski parka was saying. The parka had a constellation of what looked like battery-acid burns in one sleeve. 'The goddam taxes are killing me, I kid you not.'
'Well, we're gonna see about that,' Carter said. 'Lookin over the tax situation is gonna be one of our first priori-ties when I get into the White House.' There was a serene self-confidence in his voice that struck Johnny and made him a little uneasy.
Carter's eyes, bright and almost amazingly blue, shifted to Johnny. 'Hi there,' he said.
'Hello, Mr. Carter,' Johnny said. 'I don't work here. I was driving by and saw you.'
'Well I'm glad you stopped. I'm running for President.'
'I know.'
Carter put his hand out. Johnny shook it.
Carter began: 'I hope you'll...' And broke off.
The flash came, a sudden, powerful zap that was like sticking his finger in an electric socket. Carter's eyes sharpened. He and Johnny looked at each other for what seemed a very long time.
The Secret Service guy didn't like it. He moved toward Carter, and suddenly he was unbuttoning his coat. Some-where behind them, a million miles behind them, the shoe factory's seven o'clock whistle blew its single note into the crisp blue morning.
Johnny let go of Carter's hand, but still the two of them looked at each other.
'What the hell was that?' Carter asked, very softly.
'You've probably got someplace to go, don't you?' the Secret Service guy said suddenly. He put a hand on Johnny's shoulder. It was a very big hand. 'Sure you do.'
'It's all right,' Carter said.
'You're going to be president,' Johnny said.
The agent's hand was still on Johnny's shoulder, more lightly now but still there, and he was getting something from him, too. The Secret Service guy
(eyes)
didn't like his eyes. He thought they were
(assassin's eyes, psycho's eyes)
cold and strange, and if this guy put so much as one hand in his coat pocket. if he even looked as if he might be going in that direction, he was going to put him on the sidewalk. Behind the Secret Service guy's second-to-second evaluation of the situation there ran a simple, maddening litany of thought:
(laurel maryland laurel maryland laurel maryland laurel)
'Yes,' Carter said.
'It's going to be closer than anyone thinks ... closer than you think, but you'll win. He'll beat himself. Poland. Poland will beat him.'
Carter only looked at him. half-smiling.
'You've got a daughter. She's going to go to a public school in Washington. She's going to go to...' But it was in the dead zone. 'I think ... it's a school named after a freed slave.'
'Fellow, I want you to move on,' the agent said.
Carter looked at him and the agent subsided.
'It's been a pleasure meeting you,' Carter said. 'A little disconcerting, but a pleasure.'
Suddenly, Johnny was himself again. It had passed. He was aware that his ears were cold and that he had to go to the bathroom. 'Have a good morning,' he said lamely.
'Yes. You too, now.'
He had gone back to his car, aware of the Secret Service guy's eyes still on him. He drove away, bemused. Shortly after, Carter had put away the competition in New Hampshire and went on to Florida.
2.
Walter Cronkite finished with the politicians and went on to the civil war in Lebanon. Johnny got up and freshened his glass of Pepsi. He tipped the glass at the TV. Your good health, Walt. To the three Ds - death, destruction, and destiny. Where would we be without them.
There was a light tap at the door. 'Come in,' Johnny called, expecting Chuck, probably with an invitation to the drive-in over in Somersworth. But it wasn't Chuck. It was Chuck's father.
'Hi, Johnny,' he said. He was wearing wash4aded jeans and an old cotton sports shirt, the tails out. 'May I come in?'
'Sure. I thought you weren't due back until late.'
'Well, Shelley gave me a call.' Shelley was his wife. Roger came in and shut the door. 'Chuck came to see her. Burst into tears, just like a little kid. He told her you were doing it, Johnny. He said he thought he was going to be all right.'
Johnny put his glass down. 'We've got a ways to go,' he said.
'Chuck met me at the airport. I haven't seen him looking like he did since he was ... what? Ten? Eleven? When I gave him the .22 he'd been waiting for for five years. He read me a story out of the newspaper. The improvement is ... almost eerie. I came over to thank you.'
'Thank Chuck,' Johnny said. 'He's an adaptable boy.
A lot of what's happening to him is positive reinforcement. He's psyched himself into believing he can do it and now he's tripping on it. That's the best way I can put it.'
Roger sat down. 'He says you're teaching him to switch-hit.'
Johnny smiled. 'Yeah, I guess so.'
'Is he going to be able to take the SATs?'
'I don't know. And I'd hate to see him gamble and lose. The SATs are a heavy pressure situation. If he gets in that lecture hall with an answer sheet in front of him and an IBM pencil in his hand and then freezes up, it's going to be a real setback for him. Have you thought about a good prep school for a year? A place like Pittsfield Academy?'
'We've kicked the idea around, but frankly I always thought of it as just postponing the inevitable.'
'That's one of the things that's been giving Chuck trouble. This feeling that he's in a make-or-break situation.'
'I've never pressured Chuck.'
'Not on purpose, I know that. So does he. On the other hand, you're a rich, successful man who graduated from college sum ma cum laude. I think Chuck feels a little bit like he's batting after Hank Aaron.'
'There's nothing I can do about that, Johnny.'
'I think a year at a prep school, away from home, after his senior year might put things in perspective for him. And he wants to go to work in one of your mills next summer. If he were my kid and if they were my mills, I'd let him.'
'Chuck wants to do that? How come he never told me?'
'Because he didn't want you to think he was ass-kissing,' Johnny said.
'He told you that?'
'Yes. He wants to do it because he thinks the practical experience will be helpful to him later on. The kid wants to follow in your footsteps, Mr. Chatsworth. You've left some big ones behind you. That's what a lot of the reading block has been about. He's having buck fever.'
In a sense, he had lied. Chuck had hinted around these things, and even mentioned some of them obliquely, but he had not been as frank as Johnny had led Roger Chats-worth to believe. Not verbally, at least. But Johnny had touched him from time to time, and he had gotten signals that way. He had looked through the pictures Chuck kept in his wallet and knew how Chuck felt about his dad. There were things he could never tell this pleasant but rather distant man sitting across from him. Chuck idolized the ground his father walked on. Beneath his easy-come easy-go exterior (an exterior that was very similar to Roger's), the boy was eaten up by the secret conviction that he could never measure up. His father had built a ten percent interest in a failing woolen mill into a New England textile empire. He believed that the issue of his father's love hung on his own ability to move similar mountains. To play sports. To get into a good college. To read.
'How sure are you about all of this?' Roger asked.
'I'm pretty sure. But I'd appreciate it if you never mentioned to Chuck that we talked this way. They're his secrets I'm telling.' And that's truer than you'll ever know.
'All right. And Chuck and his mother and I will talk over the prep school idea. In the meantime, this is yours. He took out a plain white business envelope from his back pocket and passed it to Johnny.
'What is it?'
'Open it and see.'
Johnny opened it. Inside the envelope was a cashier's check for five hundred dollars.
'Oh, hey... ! I can't take this.'
'You can, and you will. I promised you a bonus if you could perform, and I keep my promises. There'll be an-other when you leave.'
'Really, Mr. Chatsworth, I just...'
'Shh. I'll tell you something, Johnny.' He leaned forward. He was smiling a peculiar little smile, and Johnny suddenly felt he could see beneath the pleasant exterior to the man who had made all of this happen - the house, the grounds, the pool, the mills. And, of course, his son's reading phobia, which could probably be classified a hysterical neurosis.
'It's been my experience that ninety-five percent of the people who walk the earth are simply inert, Johnny. One percent are saints, and one percent are assholes. The other three percent are the people who do what they say they can do. I'm in that three percent, and so are you. You earned that money. I've got people in the mills that take home eleven thousand dollars a year for doing little more than playing with their dicks. But I'm not bitching. I'm a man of the world, and all that means is I under-stand what powers the world. The fuel mix is one part high-octane to nine parts pure bull-shit. You're no bullshitter. So you put that money in your wallet and next time try to value yourself a little higher.
'All right,' Johnny said. 'I can put it to good use, I won't lie to you about that.
'Doctor bills?'
Johnny looked up at Roger Chatsworth, his eyes narrowed.
'I know all about you,' Roger said. 'Did you think I wouldn't check back on the guy I hired to tutor my son?'
'You know about...'
'You're supposed to be a psychic of some kind. You helped to solve a murder case in Maine. At least, that's what the papers say. You had a teaching job lined up for last January, but they dropped you like a hot potato when your name got in the papers.'
'You knew? For how long?'
'I knew before you moved in.'
'And you still hired me?'
'I wanted a tutor, didn't I? You looked like you might be able to pull it off. I think I showed excellent judgment in engaging your services.'
'Well, thanks,' Johnny said. His voice was hoarse.
'I told you you didn't have to say that.'
As they talked, Walter Cronkite had finished up with the real news of the day and had gone on to the man bites dog stories that sometimes turn up near the end of a newscast. He was saying, ... . voters in western New Hampshire have an independent running in the third district this year.
'Well, the cash will come in handy,' Johnny said. 'That's . - -'
'Shh. I want to hear this.'
Chatsworth was leaning forward, hands dangling between his knees, a pleasant smile of expectation on his face. Johnny turned to look at the TV.
... . Stillson,' Cronkite said. 'This forty-three-year-old insurance and real estate agent is surely running one of the most eccentric races of Campaign '76, but both the third-district Republican candidate, Harrison Fisher, and his Democratic opponent, David Bowes, are running scared, because the polls have Greg Stillson running comfortably ahead. George Herman has the story.'
'Who's Stillson?' Johnny asked.
Chatsworth laughed. 'Oh, you gotta see this guy, Johnny. He's as crazy as a rat in a drainpipe. But I do believe the sober-sided electorate of the third district is going to send him to Washington this November. Unless he actually falls down and starts frothing at the mouth. And I wouldn't completely rule that out.'
Now the TV showed a picture of a handsome young man in a white open-throated shirt. He was speaking to a small crowd from a bunting-hung platform in a supermarket parking lot. The young man was exhorting the crowd. The crowd looked less than thrilled. George Herman voiced over: 'This is David Bowes, the Democratic candidate - sacrificial offering, some would say - for the third-district seat in New Hampshire. Bowes expected an uphill fight because New Hampshire's third district has never gone Democratic, not even in the great LBJ blitz of 1964. But he expected his competition to come from this man.'
Now the TV showed a man of about sixty-five. He was speaking to a plushy fund-raising dinner. The crowd had that plump, righteous, and slightly constipated look that seems the exclusive province of businessmen who belong to the GOP. The speaker bore a remarkable resemblance to Edward Gurney of Florida, although he did not have Gurney's slim, tough build.
'This is Harrison Fisher,' Herman said. 'The voters of the third district have been sending him to Washington every two years since 1960. He is a powerful figure in the house, sitting on five committees and chairing the House Committee on Parks and Waterways. It had been expected that he would beat young David Bowes handily. But neither Fisher nor Bowes counted on a wild card in the deck. This wild card.
The picture switched.
'Holy God!' Johnny said.
Beside him, Chatsworth roared laughter and slapped his thighs. 'Can you believe that guy?'
No lackadaisical supermarket parking-lot crowd here. No comfy fund raiser in the Granite State Room of the Portsmouth Hilton, either. Greg Stillson was standing on a platform outside in Ridgeway, his home town. Be-hind him there loomed the statue of a Union soldier with his rifle in his hand and his kepi tilted down over his eyes. The street was blocked off and crowded with wildly cheering people, predominantly young people. Stillson was wearing faded jeans and a two-pocket Army fatigue shirt with the words GIVE PEACE A CHANCE embroidered on one pocket and MOM'S APPLE PIE on the other. There was a hi-impact construction worker's helmet cocked at an arrogant, rakish angle on his head, and plastered to the front of it was a green American flag ecology sticker. Beside him was a stainless steel cart of some kind. From the twin loudspeakers came the sound of John Denver singing 'Thank God I'm a Country Boy.'
'What's that cart?' Johnny asked.
'You'll see,' Roger said, still grinning hugely.
Herman said: 'The wild card is Gregory Ammas Stillson, forty-three, ex-salesman for the Truthway Bible Company of America, ex-housepainter, and, in Oklahoma, where he grew up, one-time rainmaker.'
'Rainmaker,' said Johnny, bemused.
'Oh, that's one of his planks,' Roger said. 'If he's elected, we'll have rain whenever we need it.'
George Herman went on: Stillson's platform is ... well, refreshing.'
John Denver finished singing with a yell that brought answering cheers from the crowd. Then Stillson started talking, his voice booming at peak amplification. His PA system at least was sophisticated; there was hardly any distortion. His voice made Johnny vaguely uneasy. The man had the high, hard, pumping delivery of a revival preacher. You could see a fine spray of spittle from his lips as he talked.
'What are we gonna do in Washington? Why do we want to go to Washington?' Stillson roared. 'What's our platform? Our platform got five boards, my friends n neighbors, five old boards! And what are they? I'll tell you up front! First board: THROW THE BUMS OUT!'
A tremendous roar of approval ripped out of the crowd. Someone threw double handfuls of confetti into the air and someone else yelled, 'Yaaaah-HOO!' Stillson leaned over his podium.
'You wanna know why I'm wearing this helmet, friends n neighbors? I'll tell you why. I'm wearin it because when you send me up to Washington, I'm gonna go through them like you-know-what through a canebrake! Gonna go through em just like this!'
And before Johnny's wondering eyes, Stillson put his head down and began to charge up and down the podium stage like a bull, uttering a high, yipping Rebel yell as he did so. Roger Chatsworth simply dissolved in his chair, laughing helplessly. The crowd went wild. Stillson charged back to the podium, took off his construction helmet, and spun it into the crowd. A minor riot over possession of it immediately ensued.
'Second board!' Stillson yelled into the mike. 'We're gonna throw out anyone in the government, from the highest to the lowest, who is spending time in bed with some gal who ain't his wife! If they wanna sleep around, they ain't gonna do it on the public tit!'
'What did he say?' Johnny asked, blinking.
'Oh, he's just getting warmed up,' Roger said. He wiped his streaming eyes and went off into another gale of laughter. Johnny wished it seemed that funny to him.
'Third board!' Stillson roared. 'We're gonna send all the pollution right into outer space! Gonna put it in Hefty bags! Gonna put it in Glad bags! Gonna send it to Mars, to Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn! We're gonna have clean air and we're gonna have clean water and we're gonna have it in SIX MONTHS!'
The crowd was in paroxysms of joy. Johnny saw many people in the crowd who were almost killing themselves laughing, as Roger Chatsworth was presently doing.
'Fourth board! We're gonna have all the gas and oil we need! We're gonna stop playing games with these Arabs and get down to brass tacks! Ain't gonna be no old people in New Hampshire turned into Popsicles this coming winter like there was last winter!'
This brought a solid roar of approval. The winter before an old woman in Portsmouth had been found frozen to death in her third-floor apartment, apparently following a turn-off by the gas company for nonpayment.
'We got the muscle, friends n neighbors, we can do it! Anybody out there think we can't do it?'
'NO!' The crowd bellowed back.
'Last board,' Stillson said, and approached the metal cart. He threw back the hinged lid and a cloud of steam puffed out. 'HOT DOGS!!'
He began to grab double handfuls of hot dogs from the cart, which Johnny now recognized as a portable steam table. He threw them into the crowd and went back for more. Hot dogs flew everywhere. 'Hot dogs for every man, woman, and child in America! And when you put Greg Stillson in the House of Representatives, you gonna say HOT DOG! SOMEONE GIVES A RIP AT LAST!'
The picture changed. The podium was being dismantled by a crew of long-haired young men who looked like rock band roadies. Three more of them were cleaning up the litter the crowd had left behind. George Herman resumed: 'Democratic candidate David Bowes calls Still-son a practical joker who is trying to throw a monkey-wrench into the workings of the democratic process. Harrison Fisher is stronger in his criticism. He calls Stillson a cynical carnival pitchman who is playing the whole idea of the free election as a burlesque-house joke. In speeches, he refers to independent candidate Stilison as the only member of the American Hot Dog party. But the fact is this: the latest CBS poll in New Hampshire's third district showed David Bowes with twenty percent of the vote, Harrison Fisher with twenty-six - and maverick Greg Stillson with a whopping forty-two percent. Of course election day is still quite a way down the road, and things may change. But for now, Greg Stillson has captured the hearts - if not the minds - of New Hampshire's third-district voters.'
The TV showed a shot of Herman from the waist up. Both hands had been out of sight. Now he raised one of them. and in it was a hot dog. He took a big bite.
'This is George Herman, CBS News, in Ridgeway, New Hampshire.'
Walter Cronkite came back on in the CBS newsroom, chuckling. 'Hot dogs,' he said, and chuckled again. 'And that's the way it is - . -,
Johnny got up and snapped off the set. 'I just can't believe that,' he said. 'That guy's really a candidate? It's not a joke?'
'Whether it's a joke or not is a matter of personal interpretation,' Roger said, grinning, 'but he really is running. I'm a Republican myself, born and bred, but I must admit I get a kick out of that guy Stillson. You know he hired half a dozen ex-motorcycle outlaws as bodyguards?
Real iron horsemen. Not Hell's Angels or anything like that, but I guess they were pretty rough customers. He seems to have reformed them.'
Motorcycle freaks as security. Johnny didn't like the sound of that very much. The motorcycle freaks had been in charge of security when the Rolling Stones gave their free concert at Altamont Speedway in California. It hadn't worked out so well.
'People put up with a ... a motorcycle goon squad?'
'No, it really isn't like that. They're quite cleancut. And Stillson has a helluva reputation around Ridgeway for reforming kids in trouble.
Johnny grunted doubtfully.
'You saw him,' Roger said, gesturing at the TV set. 'The man is a clown. He goes charging around the speaking platform, like that at every rally. Throws his helmet into the crowd - I'd guess he's gone through a hundred of them by now - and gives out hot dogs. He's a clown, so what? Maybe people need a little comic relief from time to time. We're runningout of oil, the inflation is slowly but surely getting out of control, the average guy's tax load has never been heavier, and we're apparently getting ready to elect a fuzzy-minded Georgia cracker president of the United States. So people want a giggle or two. Even more, they want to thumb their noses at a political establishment that doesn't seem able to solve anything. Stillson's harmless.'
'He's in orbit,' Johnny said, and they both laughed.
'We have plenty of crazy politicians around,' Roger said. 'In New Hampshire we've got Stillson, who wants to hot dog his way into the House of Representatives, so what? Out in California they've got Hayakawa. Or take our own governor, Meldrim Thomson. Last year he wanted to arm the New Hampshire National Guard with tactical nuclear weapons. I'd call that big-time crazy.
'Are you saying it's okay for those people in the third district to elect the village fool to represent them in Washington?'
'You don't get it,' Chatsworth said patiently. 'Take a voter's-eye-view, Johnny. Those third-district people are mostly all blue-collars and shopkeepers. The most rural parts of the district are just starting to develop some recreational potential. Those people look at David Bowes and they see a hungry young kid who's trying to get elected on the basis of some slick talk and a passing resemblance to Dustin Hoffman. They're supposed to think he's a man of the people because he wears blue jeans.
'Then take Fisher. My man, at least nominally. I've organized fund raisers for him and the other Republican candidates around this part of New Hampshire. He's been on the Hill so long he probably thinks the Capitol dome would split in two pieces if he wasn't around to give it moral support. He's never had an original thought in his life, he never went against the party line in his life. There's no stigma attached to his name because he's too stupid to be very crooked, although he'll probably wind up with some mud on him from this Koreagate thing. His speeches have all the excitement of the copy of the National Plumbers Wholesale Catalogue. People don't know all those things, but they can sense them sometimes. The idea that Harrison Fisher is doing anything for his constituency is just plain ridiculous.'
'So the answer is to elect a loony?'
Chatsworth smiled indulgently. 'Sometimes these loonies turn out doing a pretty good job. Look at Bella Abzug. There's a damn fine set of brains under those crazy hats. But even if Stillson turns out to be as crazy in Washington as he is down in Ridgeway, he's only renting the seat for two years. They'll turn him out in '78 and put in someone who understands the lesson.'
'The lesson?'
Roger stood up. 'Don't fuck the people over for too long,' he said. 'That's the lesson. Adam Clayton Powell found out. Agnew and Nixon did, too. Just... don't fuck the people for too long.' He glanced at his watch. 'Come on over to the big house and have a drink, Johnny.
Shelley and I are going out later on, but we've got time for a short one.'
Johnny smiled and got up. 'Okay,' he said. 'You twisted my arm.
