Interface (92 page)

Cy Ogle preferred the old definition of the word. No other
word could possibly have described the situation in the auditorium after he strolled on to the stage and made his announcement. There
was no doubt in his mind that if not for the presence of witnesses,
the campaign staffs of the President, Tip McLane, the panel of
journalists, and the organizers of the debate would drag him outside
and hang him from a stately tree on the Columbia campus. Outside
of an actual lynching, never had so much hostility been directed
against one man by so many people for so many reasons.
Consequently he could scarcely prevent himself from grinning
through the whole thing.

There was an initial phase during which people merely screamed
at him, then ran off into the wings to spread the news to other
people, who ran out to scream at him some more. This probably
would have gone on for quite some time if not for the fact that air
time was rapidly approaching. So it got compressed into a very
intense couple of minutes. A tone of emotional restraint was
imposed by the technical types, who had a show to put on.

"Well, I can't give you Cozzano in person," Ogle said, "and I'm
deeply sorry for that. But to make amends, we did blow quite a
bindle buying some satellite time. Be can bring you Cozzano live
from his home in Tuscola."

This announcement brought of Pandemonium into a state of
stunned silence. Cozzano could participate via TV? And Ogle was paying for the satellite time? We can live with that.

"Only thing is," Ogle said, after they had bit on that, "that we
will need to make one small change in the format. Cozzano has an
important announcement to make. A very, very important
announcement. And with your forbearance, we would like to have a minute or two at the beginning of this program for him to make
that announcement."

Absolute silence reigned on the stage.

Pandemonium had relocated downstairs, into the press room,
where a couple of hundred reporters were screaming into their
telephones. Most of them were screaming the same thing:
Cozzano
is withdrawing from the race!

They managed to launch the program on time. The moderator
took these last-minute changes calmly, made a few changes to his
notes, and sat down in his throne, unruffled. McLane and the
President met in the middle of the stage and shook hands (this
encounter had been choreographed during an hour-long summit
conference between their campaign staffs) and Cozzano's lectern
remained unoccupied.

Out in the parking lot behind the auditorium, several semitrailer
rigs were parked in parallel slots. There were some satellite uplink
trucks, one GODS container on a flatbed rig, and a mobile studio
from one of the networks, which was the nerve center of the whole
debate: this was where the pool feed originated. Feeds from all of the cameras on the stage converged on this vehicle and showed up
on small monitors. A director sat in front of them and decided
which camera was going on the air. Now, the director had a new
feed patched into his system, which came directly from a satellite
downlink. This feed originated in Tuscola, Illinois.

When he had learned about the business with Cozzano, the
director had been expecting just a simple, live, one-camera feed, probably Cozzano sitting in his living room by the fire, or some
thing. It would be there all night long, and whenever Cozzano's
turn came up, he would push the appropriate button and the image
of Cozzano would go out.

Naturally, it turned out to be a lot more complicated than that.
The feed from Tuscola, when he first saw it, consisted of a long shot
of Cozzano's house as seen from the street. Obviously, Cozzano's
house wasn't going to participate in the debate. They would have
to have at least one more camera, inside the house. Which meant
that somewhere in Tuscola there was another director who was
sitting in another studio like this one - a director who worked for
Cy Ogle and William A. Cozzano. That director was managing
feeds from at least two cameras, deciding which one was going to
be fed up to the satellite.

The director, in his trailer behind the auditorium, was the first
person in the United States to figure out that Ogle had taken them
for a ride. The choreography of this debate, which had been
hammered out through many hours of negotiations, over a period of weeks, had just been torn to shreds and replaced by something totally new, entirely Ogle's.

The moderator began the debate with a few introductory remarks.
On TV, you always had to explain the obvious, over and over
again: "In four days, Americans go to the polls to select the man
who will be their next president. This is a profoundly significant
choice
..."

". . . this debate was originally intended to include all three major
candidates. Tonight, we have two of them. The President of the
United States. And Representative Tip McLane of California."

As the moderator introduced the two men, the directory, outside
in the trailer, caused their faces to appear on air. Neither one of
them seemed to be ready for it. Ever since Ogle's announcement, no one had really known what the hell was going on, what would
happen when, who would be introduced in what order. McLane
and the President had both spent a lot of time in front of television
cameras in the last few days, in the privacy of their campaign
headquarters, practicing what they would do at the moment they
were introduced; now, neither one of them did the right thing.
They looked agitated, sweaty, shifty-eyed, and when they realized
they were on TV, they both looked surprised.

"The third candidate, William A. Cozzano, Governor of Illinois,
announced a few minutes ago that he could not participate."

The director cut to a camera that had been set up to show all
three of the candidates' lecterns in a single shot. McLane and the President looked stiff and self-conscious. The empty lectern made
both of them look foolish.

"Instead, he will be addressing us from his home in Tuscola,
Illinois."

Cut to the shot of Cozzano's house with the sun setting behind
it. It looked inviting and refreshing compared to the stale tense
atmosphere of the auditorium.

"Now, the format of this debate has been established in advance,
by consensus between campaign staffs and the sponsoring organiza
tions, and I intend to adhere strictly to that format. But there is one
deviation that needs to be made, and we will do that right away
now and get it out of the way. I understand that Governor Cozzano
has an important announcement that he needs to make, and that he
is going to make it now. So I will offer the floor to him at this time.
Governor Cozzano, are you there?"

"Here goes nothing," said the director, out in his trailer, and cut
from the image of the moderator back to the feed from Tuscola.

The feed remained steady on the image of the house for a
minute. Lights were coming on inside as the sun set spectacularly
behind it. It looked cheery and welcoming and it broke the rigid,
lockstep schedule of the debate. Then the Tuscola feed cut to a shot
of William A. Cozzano. But it was not the expected picture of
Cozzano in a suit, sitting by the fire reading a book and smoking a
pipe.
It was totally different. For a few moments, it was difficult to
make out. Cozzano appeared to be lying on his back in a cramped
space, staring upward, reaching up above him with one arm.
"Good evening," he said, "I'll be with you momentarily."

Cut to another angle of the same thing. Whatever Cozzano was
doing, and wherever he was, they had at least two cameras on him.

This angle was a closeup of Cozzano's hand. It was dirty and greasy and flecked with a small drop of blood where he had torn
one of his knuckles. He was spinning some small metal object
around between his fingers. Then he yanked his hand away and a
stream of black fluid shot out of an opening and into a metal tray
beneath.

Cut to yet another angle, this one showing Cozzano's legs
sticking out from beneath a car. He was lying on the floor of his
garage.

Actually, he was lying on a mechanic's creeper. He slid out from
underneath the car, sat up, and rose lightly to his feet. He picked
up an old rag and began to wipe oil from his hands, addressing the
cameras. "My apologies. I wanted to participate in tonight's debate,
but I've been very busy lately. A few days ago I stopped flying
around the country for the first time in a couple of months and
came back here to my home, the house that my father bought back
during the Depression to impress a young woman named Francesca
Dominica, who became his wife, and my mother.

"And, you know, I decided that I liked it here. And looking
around the place I saw that there was a lot to do here that I had
left undone." Cozzano nodded at his car. "For example, changing
the oil in my car. I just took it for a quick drive through the
cornfields, out to the old family home farm and back, to warm up
the engine so that the oil would flow out. It was a nice drive. Some
people think that the landscape here is boring, but I think it's
beautiful."

Cozzano had begun to walk toward the camera, which backed
away from him. It backed out of the garage door and into
Cozzano's yard. Nearby was a large garden.

"This garden was in disgraceful shape. Hadn't been weeded in
quite some time, and the weeds were bigger than the vegetables. So
I took care of that. You can see it looks a little better now."
Cozzano plucked a red ripe tomato from a vine and bit into it like
an apple. Juice ran down his chin and he wiped it with the sleeve
of his mechanic's overall. "Of course, home is more than just doing
chores. Home means being with your family too."

Cozzano had now reached a patio, which was illuminated. A
picnic table had been spread with a nice tablecloth and set with
fresh vegetables from the garden and a platter of hamburgers.
Sitting at the table was Mary Catherine Cozzano, pouring iced tea
from a pitcher into three glasses. At the end of the table, James was
manning a sizzling barbecue, flipping burger patties and hot dogs.

"This is my daughter, Mary Catherine. You may have heard of
her recently, as media manipulators hired by my opponents have
made strenuous efforts to assassinate her character. She has been
nothing short of noble in the face of this mudslinging." Mary
Catherine smiled and nodded at the camera.

"And this young man at the barbecue is my son, James, who has
been working his tail off all year long, writing a book about this
year's presidential campaign. He has just signed a deal with a major
publisher in New York, and that book is going to be published on
Inauguration Day."

Mary Catherine stood up, threw one arm around her brother's
shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek.

In the auditorium, the audience went, "Ahhhh."

Tip McLane did not. He stepped away from the lectern and
began to shout at the moderator: "I demand that this be stopped! This is no announcement! This is a free campaign commercial!"

The moderator looked at Cy Ogle, who was standing in the
wings. "I have to agree. Mr. Ogle? I'm going to have to pull the plug."

"This ain't no campaign commercial," Ogle said, "because there
ain't no campaign."

On the giant TV screen above their heads, Cozzano was
beaming delightedly at his daughter and son. He turned back
toward the camera. "When I came back here a few days ago, my
intention was to prepare for the debate. But the home and family
that I rediscovered here delighted me so much that I could not
bring myself to look at the huge briefing books and the endless
position papers that my campaign staff had prepared for me. I found
that I would rather dig potatoes in the garden or sit on the front porch swing reading Mark Twain.