All the Presidents' Pets (17 page)

29

In Which Everything Ends Happily for Everyone Except the Several Dozen Casualties in Chapter 28

 

Needless to say, the carnage at the Hilton was replayed ad nauseam. In the end, everyone won out.

CNN and MSNBC both saw big spikes in their ratings. More important, their reporters were reenergized after learning all they'd been missing. They stood together and forced the administration to become much more open—no more background briefings, no more ignoring reporters' phone calls, no more dropping bad news on Friday in the hopes it wouldn't get coverage, no more threats against Barney.

President Bush, it turned out, was unharmed. Seconds after the melee had begun, he'd been whisked off to a bunker in Nebraska. Later, when he heard about Barney speaking, he was genuinely surprised. “All those times I heard that voice, I thought it was Jesus talkin' to me.” He vowed to make both himself and Barney available for regular press conferences—so long as they could appear jointly and he be allowed to continue using stupid nicknames for reporters.

The secret note in the press secretary's vest, it turned out, had the message “Muzzle him” written on it, presumably in reference to the First Pet—fairly uninspired in comparison with everything else that had gone on. Scott was only too happy to be rid of Gephardt the Albino. “He kind of freaked me out,” he admitted.

Eric Sorenson got promoted to NBC's executive offices and immediately offered me my own show. I demurred, choosing to take some time out to recover from the wound left by a salad fork driven into my side. (After a quick rehab and a few simple skin grafts, Joe Scarborough took the slot.)

One interesting byproduct: Ashleigh Banfield got rehired by NBC. The network was now severely understaffed so her timing had been perfect.

Fox News, already the cable news ratings leader, saw the biggest boost in their numbers. Laurie's display of telekinetic pyrotechnic terror was all caught on tape and repeated more than the Howard Dean scream speech. Suddenly the coveted young male viewers who'd mysteriously stopped watching television the season before returned en masse to Fox News. “She's hot and she kills people,” explained one teen.

At great expense the network chose to rebuild Laurie. It was worth every penny. In the meantime they used a sample of her cyborg DNA to clone a more modestly lipped duplicate, code name Paige Hopkins.

As for Helen, her fears of going to jail for the murder of Zachary Taylor proved unfounded. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, another Hilton massacre survivor, informed her that the statute of limitations on the murder of that President had already passed.

Helen was a free woman and the toast of the town. She received a Peabody, a Polk, a People's Choice, and she got to host
TRL.

But the greatest honor was the one bestowed by the Turkey Vulture Society. We arrived at their awards ceremony in the new stretch Prius. I held Helen's claw as her name was called. When Helen made her way onto the stage, she was overwhelmed.

“This moment is so much bigger than me. This is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and the California condor,” she said, waving her statuette. “A door has been opened!”

She was the most sought after interview—or “get”—of the season. Every one of broadcast television's biggest names went after Helen with an appalling relentlessness.

The most extravagant offer was made by CBS, a division of Viacom. The package included a sit-down with
60 Minutes
's Ed Bradley, a guest spot on
CSI: Miami,
a sitcom pilot on UPN, a roast on Comedy Central, a Jacob watch from BET, a book deal from Simon & Schuster, and a suitcase packed with five million dollars in unmarked bills (through CBS's entertainment division, of course). The offer was tempting but the added perk of an MTV concert in her hometown featuring the rock group the Cranberries was just insulting.

“They think I'm a turkey!” said Helen, disgusted.

ABC's Diane Sawyer made the same mistake: She sent Helen three bags of grain and an offer to do an interview on Plimouth Plantation. Helen accepted this offer, though.

“Diane used to leak me all sorts of information during the Nixon administration. I've got a soft spot for her,” she explained.

Helen insisted I go with her for the interview. Diane, Helen, and I nestled together on an L-shaped haystack. But Diane, outfitted in overalls, only wanted to talk about Helen's relationship with Millard Fillmore.

“Here you were, a turkey buzzard no older than fifty and in
love
with the vice president,” Diane said with extra breathiness.

“It wasn't easy, Diane,” Helen sighed. “I was just so young.” She was better at this than I thought she'd be.

Diane paused meaningfully. “If you had to do it all again, Helen, would you?”

“Every last minute, Diane,” she said, then remembered to add, “well, maybe not the murdering the President part.”

(Helen's sit-down with Charlie Rose was less successful. By the time Charlie finished asking his first question, the hour was up.)

The next big decision involved choosing who would do the authorized television documentary of Helen's life. Because I'd worked with Harry Smith I put in a word for A&E's
Biography.
But Ken Burns made the most impassioned pitch for a 352-hour film about her life. “We won't actually need to interview you. Just give us a few snapshots to pan over and Linda Hunt will lay down the voice-overs.”

Helen rejected both in favor of Truman biographer and PBS host David McCullough. “Talk about a hot piece of ass!” she exclaimed when his name came up.

Helen spent hours touching up her crop before their meeting. David proposed a ten-hour special profile of Helen for PBS's
American Experience.
She said yes to every idea he suggested, not that she heard a word of what he said.

“Helen, you do realize that he's married?”

“Married. Not dead,” she snapped.

Of course not everything panned out. The
Hollywood Reporter
trumpeted the long-awaited return of the variety show after Animal Planet offered one to Helen. They agreed to give her a stage with a giant “HELEN” written out in lights. Helen walked away from the offer, though, when the network insisted she work with a sidekick salamander voiced over by Jerry Van Dyke.

As for the writing of Helen's story, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot, but Ken Auletta beat me to the punch with a 430,000-word piece for
The New Yorker
(still shorter than his profile of Harvey Weinstein). Then Tom Brokaw came out with his own book, at which point Tom Hanks and Bob Dole jumped onto the bandwagon with a proposal for a Presidential Pets Memorial.

The design competition was fierce. In the end Maya Lin's brooding dog bowl sunk into the ground was rejected as too much of a downer. Instead the committee designed their own monument: a 750-foot-tall alabaster bone that completely overshadowed the Washington Monument. (D.C.'s height restriction was waived.) To help defray the cost, Iams, the major sponsor, had its name etched along the side. It was all pretty obscene, but no one wanted to go against the mood. And to be fair, even L'Enfant would've admitted that the observation deck was pretty cool.

The Presidential Pet Memorial, Washington's newest and tallest monument.

Barney ended up not writing his own book. Instead he felt mysteriously compelled to tell all to reporter Bob Woodward. Woodward's book, clunkily titled
All the Presidents' Animals,
was delayed due to the sheer number of other insider pets who'd lined up to confess their every secret to him. Early word had it that the book chronicled a nasty breakdown in communication between Colin Powell's tabby cat and Dick Cheney's cobra.

Mr. Peabody wrote his own book.
Burning Down My Master's Doghouse
was heavily promoted but never broke #2,000 on Amazon's sales ranking. He tried to return to the time machine business but despite Lou Dobbs's best efforts, his job got outsourced.

THAT DECEMBER I ESCORTED
Helen to the White House Christmas party.

I knew that my stock had risen when early in the evening, Kate Snow and Norah O'Donnell, wearing brand-new Pink Ladies jackets, approached me and invited me to take part in their spring-break Cancún house.

“It's going to be a blast!” said Kate.

“Hello-o?” said Norah. “It's going to be a
major
blast.”

“Wow,” I said. “That's really nice of you. I'd love to but I already promised Candy and Jim Angle that I'd go to Atlantic City with them . . . Sorry.” I dreaded the prospect of becoming unpopular again.

But Norah and Kate were still smiling. “If you change your mind, just call,” Norah said.

Just then the United States Marine Band—dubbed “The President's Own” by Jefferson—struck up a medley of Bee Gees songs. The
Washington Post
's Dana Milbank rushed in excitedly. “Helen and Mo, we're waiting!”

Helen and I, happy at last.

It was 1985 again but instead of Princess Diana and John Travolta wowing everyone with their dancing at the Reagan White House, Helen and I were doing a mean hustle in the East Room.

The room was spinning in one direction as Helen and I turned in the other. Laura Bush and Barney looked on, beaming. President Bush clapped his hands to the beat, sort of. But when the dance ended, Helen seemed unusually winded.

She whispered in my ear: “I don't feel well.”

30

All the Presidents' Pets

The Next Generation

I didn't see Helen for three weeks. We spoke only occasionally, but she wasn't her chatty self. She sounded so tired and weighed down.

Finally one day she called me with news. “Something has happened. I want you to come over.”

The Army Corps of Engineers had agreed to rebuild Helen's lair after its destruction. Until then Helen was living in a quaint apartment in Woodley Park, just across from the zoo. I rushed over to see her.

A somber Jack Hanna, in a lab coat and stethoscope, answered the door. “Hello, I'm Helen's nurse,” he said.

“Nurse?! I'm here to see Helen,” I said. “Is she okay?” I was led into a small, sunny room. Helen was crouched down in a corner. She looked exhausted.

“Mo,” she said faintly. “You've come.”

“Yes, Helen, how could I stay away? I've been worried sick. Now I see you're receiving medical care. What's wrong?”

Helen said nothing. She simply stood up, revealing two large eggs she'd been sitting on. The eggs were cream-colored, splashed toward the larger end with irregular markings of brown and black, approximately 2 7//8 inches in length.

“Helen! You're going to have babies.”

“Yes, I am,” she smiled wanly. “But I have something else to tell you. I'm not going to be returning to the White House.”

“What?!”

“I'm done for. My days in the press corps are over,” she said stoically. “I'm . . . moving on.”

I was immediately overcome. I threw myself on the floor in front of her, my body racked by sobs. “Helen, you're my true friend. I can't just let you die! Please, Helen, I need you,” I heaved.

“Pull yourself together,” snapped Helen. “I'm sticking around until at least the 2036 election—the smart money's on George P.”

“Oh, Helen,” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes.

Just then a cracking sound was heard from Helen's nest. The eggs were hatching! The babies were miniature Helens, except that their bills were tipped with pale blue and their irises more yellowish, typical for newborn buzzards. Each of them held little steno pads. They were ready for work.

“Salutations!” they chirped in unison.

“Aren't they just adorable?” beamed Helen.

“Adorable? What's ‘adorable'?” they asked in unison. “We're hungry.” Helen lovingly regurgitated some hedgehog carrion and gave her girls their first feeding.

“Yummy! Thank you, Mommy!” they sang, then frowned at Helen. “But you didn't answer the question,” they scowled. “What's ‘adorable'?”

“Oh, here we go,” said Helen. “Listen, Mo, I hate to be rude but I've got my hands full right now. The girls won't be ready for the White House beat till they're full grown.”

“That's seventy to eighty days,” I said.

“Right. Until then I've got lots to teach them. Ugh, I just know I'm never going to be able to see a movie again!”

“I'll get you a subscription to Netflix. Anyway, I'll let you go, Helen.” Most of my friends with newborns were so busy I knew it would be a long time before I'd see her again. “Thanks again for everything, Helen. You've changed my life.”

“Well, you've certainly changed mine,” she responded flatly, with a look toward her chicks.

I had been lucky: It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good reporter. Helen was both.

AFTER I HELPED HER
install her car seats, I left and walked down to the Mall, to the Presidential Pet Memorial. I was in a meditative mood.

Climbing the steps, I thought of the greatness that had shaped our country. The nobility of Washington's horse Nelson. The conviction of Kennedy's dogs Charlie and Pushinka. The courage of Grant's gamecocks. (They're in the sequel.)

As I stepped out on the observation deck I was so high I could see the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay beyond, and ever so faintly in the distance the Atlantic Ocean, upon which Reverend Winthrop once sermonized about “a City upon a Hill.” Damn, this thing is tall.

Perhaps Barney could one day join that pantheon of the great presidential pets who had helped make America a beacon. With the vigilance of me and the rest of the press corps, he stood a chance.