The Porkchoppers (20 page)

Imber nodded. “Me, too.”

“What?” Guyan said.

“It's company money,” Imber said.

Cubbin nodded. “It must be.”

“But you're not sure,” Imber said.

“What do you mean I'm not sure?” Cubbin said. “I'm damned sure.”

“No, as far as you're concerned, it's money from friends.” He looked at Guyan. “You don't care where the money comes from, do you?”

Guyan shrugged. “I just spend it, but I don't want Walter Penry or that kneejerk Nazi of his telling me how to spend it.”

“You got Peter all wrong,” Cubbin said in a mild tone. “He's really quite a liberal guy.”

“I'm not going to argue with you, Don,” Guyan said. “I'm just going to tell you right now that I'm not going to take any orders from either Penry or Majury.”

“But you will take money from them?” Imber said.

Guyan shrugged again.

“What about suggestions and ideas, but not orders?” Kelly said to Guyan.

“If it's a good idea or suggestion, I don't care where it comes from,” Guyan said.

“Well,” Kelly said, “from what I heard and saw during my first meeting with that bunch, you're going to be getting quite a few suggestions and ideas.” He turned to his father. “You'd better play them that tape, chief.”

Cubbin nodded. “I guess I'd better. After you hear this tape you're going to understand not just why we can use Walter Penry, but why we need him. Why we need him bad. Play it for them, Kelly.”

Kelly Cubbin walked over to the small Sony recorder that had arrived by cab shortly after he and his father had returned from the Hilton. He pressed a button and the sound of the mimeograph machine began.

Cubbin watched the grim expressions that appeared on the faces of Guyan and Imber as the voices on the tape began. I don't guess they've ever played this rough before, he thought. It's going to get rougher, a lot rougher because Sammy's out to win and for him that's everything. Christ, when's the last time you wanted something so bad that it made you hurt the way Sammy must be hurting? Well, yeah, there was that time then when you wanted to get on that bus to L.A. You wanted that all right, but since then you haven't wanted much of anything, at least not anything that wasn't easy enough to get. You want to be reelected this last time, but it won't kill you if you're not. You'd probably be better off, you and Sadie. You've got to do something about Sadie. Maybe explain to her how after the election's over it's going to be okay again. Christ, Cubbin, you can really fuck things up.

When the tape ended, the grim expressions on the faces of Guyan and Imber remained. Imber looked at Cubbin who was wearing a cynical smile. “Surprised?” Cubbin said.

Imber nodded. “What're you going to do about it?”

“I'm seeing Barnett Tuesday.”

“What're you going to say?”

“You mean after I stuff that tape down his throat?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know,” Cubbin said, “but whatever it is, I'm going to have a damned good time saying it.”

Imber turned to Guyan. “You'd better tell him about it now.”

“Tell me what?” Cubbin said.

“The wire services have been after me for your answer to Sammy.”

“What's Sammy saying?”

“He held a press conference in Washington this afternoon.”

“And?”

“He demanded that you resign.”

Cubbin snorted. “Christ,” he said, “I thought he might have said something important.”

19

The auditorium of the Calumet City high school was packed with 2,711 local union members, including wives and girl friends, who had paid a dollar for ten chances on a shiny new fiber-glass Chris-Craft cruiser that retailed for $6,499. The cruiser now rested on a trailer that was parked on stage next to the blue and white state flag that was correctly displayed on the audience's right.

Donald Cubbin arrived at the high school in Fred Mure's black Oldsmobile. He sat in front with Mure and in back were Oscar Imber, Charles Guyan, and Kelly Cubbin. A phone call from Fred Mure had produced a Chicago squad car that used its flashing top light to shepherd Cubbin's car from the Sheraton-Blackstone to Calumet City. A block from the high school the squad car switched on its siren, thus enabling Cubbin to make something of an entrance.

While the officials of the local union were welcoming Cubbin, Fred Mure walked over to the squad car. He held out his hand to the cop behind the wheel and said, “Thanks, you guys.”

The cop felt the folded bills and grinned at Mure. “Anytime, Mr. Mure.” He glanced down and saw that Mure had slipped him two twenties. “We'll be glad to stick around a little while, if you think you might need us.”

“No, we can find our way back all right,” Mure said and patted the sill of the car door.

“Well, thanks a lot,” the cop said.

“Sure thing,” Mure said and turned away, reaching for his notebook. He went back to his own car and used its interior light to write down, “Chicago Police Escort, $75.” Then he moved over to join Cubbin and the local union's welcoming committee.

“Well, you're sure looking good, Don,” the local union president was telling Cubbin for the fourth time.

“Feeling fine, Harry, really fine. You got a pretty good crowd?”

“Packed,” Harry said. “Right up to the roof.”

“What's the schedule?”

“Well, you're the big attraction, just like I told you you'd be. No other speakers except me when I introduce you and I'm gonna make that sweet, but short. Of course we're gonna pledge allegiance to the flag and then we got some fella who used to sing with Fred Waring who's gonna lead us in ‘The Star-Spangled Banner' and then after I introduce you well, you're on.”

“When did he sing with Waring?” Cubbin said.

“I think back in forty or forty-one.”

“Huh,” Cubbin said. “What's he do now?”

“He teaches music here in the high school and sings around at funerals and weddings and stuff like that. I guess he's over sixty now but he can still carry a tune pretty good.”

They led Donald Cubbin through a side door to the high school and down a corridor to the backstage entrance of the auditorium. The group made its way down the corridor, with the local union officials jockeying for advantageous positions close to either Cubbin's right or left elbows.

Inside the auditorium Charles Guyan found that all three networks had already set up their cameras, lights, and sound equipment. The three newsmen were standing together near the stage. Guyan went over to them and said, “Welcome to Calumet City, gentlemen.”

“We're all atremble,” the CBS man said and shook hands with Guyan who then shook hands with the two men from ABC and NBC.

“I thought you were down in Guatemala or some such place,” Guyan said to the ABC man.

“I was in some such and now I'm being punished. You got a copy of his speech?”

“Here,” Guyan said and gave each of them two copies. “The more brilliant passages are noted in the margin in case you don't want to read the whole thing.”

“Who's writing his stuff now?” the NBC man asked.

“Don still writes his own,” Guyan said. “He stays up all night and writes on parchment with a quill pen. I thought you knew that.”

“I forgot,” the NBC man said as he scanned the speech. “Where's he reply to Sammy?”

“It's not in the speech,” Guyan said. “He'll probably say something about it in the beginning.”

“He say anything else?” the CBS man said.

“He makes a passing reference to what a wonderful job he's done for the union,” Guyan said.

“Anything nasty about Sammy?” the ABC man said.

“Page five,” Guyan said. “I think he calls him a man with a ‘chronic case of the can'ts.'”

Guyan moved off toward the cafeteria table that had been set up in the space just beyond the stage for five men whose professionally bored expressions told Guyan that they were gentlemen of the press. Nobody else in the world, he thought, can look quite that bored.

Backstage in a small dressing room Donald Cubbin was combing his long silver hair. He wore a dark blue suit, a blue and white polka dot tie, and a white shirt. He had slept for two hours that afternoon and after that he had gone down to the hotel barbershop for a shave and a massage. Now he looked rested, pink, and sober, which he almost was. He turned from the mirror and asked his son and Fred Mure, “Do I look okay?”

“Fine,” Mure said. “You look great, Don.”

“Kelly?”

“Great.”

“Where's my speech?”

“Here,” Kelly said, handing him the ten-page speech that had been typed on a special machine in twenty-four-point capital letters. Cubbin glanced at the first page and then flipped quickly through the rest of it. He glanced up at the ceiling and moved his lips silently. Then he nodded to himself and looked at Fred Mure.

“Well, shit, Fred, I guess I'll have one for the road,” Cubbin said and glanced at his son as if to see how Kelly would take the news. Kelly grinned at his father. “You don't have to check with me.”

“Well, I don't like to drink in front of you like this,” Cubbin said as he reached for the half-pint of Ancient Age that Mure held out to him.

“I'm not my father's keeper,” Kelly said.

“Yeah, well, by God, I'm beginning to think he needs one,” Cubbin said as he handed the bottle back.

There was a knock at the door and Fred Mure answered it after slipping the half-pint into his coat pocket. It was the local union president, a little nervous, but trying to conceal it.

“I guess we're ready if you are, Don.”

“Okay, let's go,” Cubbin said.

“Well, you get in here behind me in the middle and then we'll go out and sit down on the stage.”

There were twelve men standing around outside the dressing room in dark suits and white shirts and ties, all of which seemed to have too much red in them. They were the officers and board members of the local union.

“Here, you mean?” Cubbin said, indicating a space between two men.

“No, just up there ahead of Dick.”

“Here, you mean?”

“Yeah that's fine.”

The local union president looked around and decided that they were in as much of a line as they would ever be. “Okay,” he said, “let's move on out.” The twelve local union officials and their international president, all wearing expressions that were grim enough for such a solemn occasion, expressions that indeed would have been appropriate for a hanging, moved out onto the stage to scattered applause and took their seats in folding chairs that were placed against the green backdrop that bore a large white paper sign that read “
WELCOME, PRES. CUBBIN
.”

“You coming out front?” Kelly asked Fred Mure.

“No, I'll stay back here in case Don needs me.”

Kelly nodded and left. By the time he reached his seat in the front row of the auditorium between Guyan and Imber, the young Methodist preacher had finished his prayer for the general welfare of everyone assembled there that night, and especially for their national leaders, and the local union's secretary-treasurer was introducing his twelve-year-old niece who was going to have the privilege of leading the audience in the pledge of allegiance.

After the pledge of allegiance the music teacher who had once sung with Fred Waring was introduced and he led the audience in the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” accompanied by his wife on the piano. Cubbin thought that for an old guy, the music teacher did pretty well on the high notes.

Cubbin got a nice hand as he strode to the podium after his introduction. As the applause died Cubbin stood there, his head bowed, not looking at the audience.

“You ever see him make a speech like this?” Imber whispered to Guyan.

“Not like this,” Guyan said.

“He knows what he's doing.”

Cubbin stood there for all of a minute, the spotlight gleaming on the silver hair of his bowed head. Slowly he raised his head and looked at the audience, raking it with his eyes until the auditorium was perfectly still.

When he spoke he made it sound like a whisper, but one that reached all the way to the back rows. He put a great deal of feeling into his tone, a mixture of contempt and bitter scorn:

“They say that I should quit my job and run.”

He paused and then repeated the line stronger, louder, and with even more scorn:

“They say that I should quit my job and run.”

Another dramatic beat, and then the blast:

“Quit, hell! I've just begun to fight!”

It brought some of them to their feet cheering and whistling, and those who didn't rise pounded their hands together as much in anticipation of a good show as in appreciation for Cubbin's declaration.

“I'll be damned,” Guyan said. “What is it? Does he do it every time?”

“You tell him, Kelly,” Imber said.

“It's a combination,” Kelly said. “I don't think he knows he's doing it really. He just knows that it works. Did you get those first two lines?”

Guyan glanced down at some notes he'd made. “Yeah. It's really not much of a line when you read it: ‘They say that I should quit my job and run.'”

“‘Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane,'” Kelly said.

“Jesus.”

“Five feet to the line, iambic pentameter,” Kelly said. “But he doesn't only steal the beat from Shakespeare, he also borrows from the blues. The first line of all real blues songs is usually repeated and if you think about it, they're also iambic pentameter, or try to be.”

“Does he do it consciously?” Guyan said.

Kelly shrugged. “He's been doing it as long as I can remember. I tried to analyze it for him one time, but he wasn't interested. He said he just kept thinking up lines until he got one that felt right.”