Waking the Dead (50 page)

“I know,” he said. “I talked them into putting it there right before I came here.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows. There were dull purple-black sacks beneath his eyes. He looked as if he’d lost ten pounds since I’d last seen him. His golden hair was dirty, as were his pink shirt, his charcoal jacket.

“Sit down, Congressman,” said Caroline. A place was waiting for me between Mom and Dad.

I sat. I leaned over and kissed Mom on the cheek and then patted Dad’s arm. “How’s it going?” I asked Danny.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” said Danny, with one of those wan, existential smiles that were his specialty: he had known how to act brave and condemned even when he was ten years old.

“How are the boys?” I asked Caroline.

“Fantastic. Unbearable. Lovely. Grotesque. Moronic. And saintly. They are having an incredible time touring Africa
with
Eric. Sometimes I forget what a good father he is.”

“Well then you’ll just have to be a better mother,” said Dad.

“It’s not a contest,” said Caroline. “I thank God Eric’s a wonderful father.”

“You don’t want to end up losing those kids,” said Dad.

“The prices in this place are
obscene
,” Mom suddenly declared, closing the menu as if it were filled with smutty snapshots. “A family of ten could eat in India for a month for the price of one dinner here.”

“Don’t worry,” said Danny, “this is a Willow Books party.”

“Expense account money is still money,” said Mom. “And anyhow I don’t like being treated as if I was a sucker.”

“I’ll convince you to do a book for us,” Danny said to me. “Like keep a journal of your days in Congress. Something like that.”

“You know what?” said Dad. “That’s not such a crazy idea.”

“I’m not in business to have crazy ideas, Father,” said Danny, without a trace of humor.

“My family,” said Caroline, clasping her hands and batting her eyelashes. “I think I’ll kill them.”

“Caroline’s right,” said Mom. “We can’t go off in a hundred different directions. Let’s just concentrate on being happy for Fielding.”

“And then after that we can go back to trashing each other,” said Danny.

Our waiter came to the table. He asked if we wanted something to drink before ordering our dinner and Danny took over. “We’ll have a Lillet with a slice of orange,” he said, “a Canadian Club and water, a Johnny Walker Red, a Wild Turkey on the rocks, and a glass of—make that a large glass of club soda with lime.” As he gave the order he pointed to Caroline, Dad, Mom, himself, and me.

“You know what,” Dad said, leaning back in his chair, glancing up at the ceiling, “sometimes we
are
sort of rough on each other.”

“Oh-oh,” said Caroline.

“No, I mean it,” said Dad. “I didn’t mean to really say that Danny had crazy ideas. But we like to give each other the needle.”

“Notice there’s no remorse about saying I should be a better mother,” announced Caroline.

“OK, OK, that’s baby stuff, Caroline,” said Dad.

“Love has no pride,” she said with a shrug.

“I think what Dad’s trying to say,” Mom said, “is this family has got a lot to be proud of. And whatever we’ve been doing—I mean Eddie and me—well, it seems to have had a pretty nice result.”

“I feel sorry for those parents who can’t even stand to
think
of their kids,” Dad added. “I mean, Jesus Christ, do you know what tomorrow means? Fielding’s going to be sworn into the U.S. Congress. It’s like a dream. And it gives meaning to everything we’ve all been doing.”

“I didn’t realize it lacked meaning before,” said Danny, winking at Caroline.

“Well, this is the dream come true, the dream we all had,” said Dad, oblivious. “I’m not saying you haven’t done well for yourself, Danny. But it’s not as if running a book company was what you wanted and we wanted from the time you were a kid. You see the difference, don’t you?The whole publishing company thing just sort of happened. You and Caroline just sort of took life as it came, and that’s OK. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s different from having a plan and seeing it through.”

“Now you tell me,” said Caroline. “I was always trying to figure out what you wanted from me, what you would have called success in my life. And now it seems all I had to do was make a plan and carry it through.”

“You know, Caroline,” said Mom, “when you’re sarcastic like that, he doesn’t even hear it. You just annoy yourself.”

“How’s Kim?” I asked Danny.

“We don’t talk about that,” said Danny.

“But is she OK?”

“She’s fine.”

“Who’s Kim?” asked Dad.

“A Korean massage parlor attendant,” said Danny, “and a real swell gal.”

“Is he kidding?” Dad asked me.

“Of course he is,” said Caroline. “God.”

The waiter came with our drinks, calling each one of them off as he set them in front of us.

“I’ll make the toast,” I said, raising my glass. “First of all, to Caroline, for coming to Chicago and helping me get through the campaign. For Caroline—well, you know, service above and beyond the call of duty. And to Mom and Dad, for doing whatever it is they had to do to get me this far.” I stopped. I had a sudden convulsive desire to simply stand up and walk away from the table, but I forced myself to let it pass.

“Ah, look at the destiny in those eyes,” said Danny. “You lucky dog. You’ve got a career that you think is a cause. And now you can do anything—
anything
—for yourself and kid yourself into believing that it isn’t really for you, that it’s for what you stand for.”

Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned in my seat and there was a stocky black man with a handlebar mustache and a graying Afro. He had deep furrows in his brow, a wide gap between his front teeth.

“Hello, Fielding Pierce,” he said. “I noticed you coming in and I just wanted to say hello.” He had a deep voice, a slight stammer. “I’m Buddy Preston.” He waited for me to recognize his name and then stepped back a little. “From the Seventh Congressional District?”

“Oh yes, yes,” I said. “Hello.” He was a Chicago congressman, in his fifth term. He was good at winning elections, though I couldn’t remember what else he had done with his career. Isaac had once mentioned that Buddy Preston had the richest war chest of any of the Chicago politicians, with contributions coming in from milk companies, cement manufacturers, meat packers, the National Rifle Association—a crazy quilt of unrelated interest groups that he somehow stitched together with his own perseverance and charm.

“I don’t want to bother you folks,” he said. “I just wanted to welcome Fielding here to our delegation.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you, Mr. Preston,” said my father.

“You all set for tomorrow?” he asked me.

“What happens in one of these?” Mom asked.

“Oh, it’s no big thing, but it’s nice,” Preston said. “All the Democrats from the Illinois delegation walk up with him to the Speaker’s chair and he’s sworn in. You know. No big thing.”

“I can see where that would be something to see, though,” said Mom. There was something suddenly docile in her voice as she spoke to him, as if he were a cop, or someone who might be able to do her an important favor. Chances were, Preston was so used to that tone of voice, he couldn’t hear it.

“Well, the Illinois delegation is just about the friendliest in the Congress,” Preston said. “We really try to help each other out. And that’s a good thing. We even try to socialize a little. The important thing is to keep talking and work together.”

Preston chatted amiably for a few moments and then, his obligation fulfilled, went on. I watched him make his way toward his table, where a thin, exotic-looking woman with scores of bracelets on her bare arms sat waiting for him.

“You didn’t even introduce us, Fielding,” my father said, as soon as Preston was out of earshot. “What kind of way is that?”

“There’s something I think I should tell you. Everyone.” I picked up my glass of club soda; it felt as if it were made of stone. I heard droning, nightmarish music, melting voices, and then dimly realized it was a record piped in through the restaurant’s speakers. I took a deep breath but it seemed to stop at the back of my throat. I placed the glass down again but not flatly and it tipped over: the carbonated water hissed and trembled on the white tablecloth. No one moved to sop it up. “I’m not feeling very well,” I said. “I haven’t been for some time now. I’m … I’m just not feeling very well.”

“We can see that, Fielding,” said my mother softly. She glanced at Dad, cueing him to say something.

“We didn’t think it was our part to say anything,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I want to be honest about this. Something has happened to me. And it won’t stop. It keeps coming on and coming on.” I made a terrible, broken laugh. “This is very embarrassing, but you may as well hear it. Something inside me has jumped track. I’m very confused. I’m not sleeping right and I’m not thinking right and I really don’t want you to think I’m complaining here or asking for help, because there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s just something that’s happened and that’s all there is to it. But I don’t know what I’m going to say from one minute to the next and I don’t even really know what I’m going to do.” My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see their faces. I didn’t want to. “And I think the best thing—I don’t know. Maybe the only hope I’ve got right now. I know it’s coming at a bad time. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just very tired and I don’t see things the way I’m used to seeing them. Everything is very strange and it all seems out of control. I feel very … I don’t know. Frightened. But I don’t think
you
should be frightened. It’s not as if I was going to
hurt
anyone. Jesus. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that I know I’m not normal now and the best thing for me, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a little help … what I think is, I better see someone. A doctor. I know I’m spoiling everything, but if I don’t say it now, I may never say it. Tomorrow, it might be too late, because it’s going very, very, very fast. And tomorrow I may be too crazy to even know how crazy I am. I think the best thing is for me to go to a hospital tonight. And get some help. Some treatment. Because something happened to me and I’m very lost and it won’t get better. I just get worse and worse and there is nothing that can stop it.”

T
HE MORNING IN
Congress was taken with the tail end of a debate over farm subsidies. I sat in the rotunda and listened to the congressman from South Dakota drone on and on, with barely an inflection in his voice. He was just putting it on the record; there weren’t ten people in that chamber listening to him.

At one point, the Speaker of the House came in and took his place. He was massive, eternal; his hair was as white as fresh Irish linen and his skin looked as if it had been scrubbed with a brush. He sat down and rested his face in his hands for a moment, looking at the congressman from South Dakota with what seemed like enormous pity; then the Speaker looked at some papers, glanced at his watch, and suddenly rapped his gavel against the table. He asked the congressman if he was near the end of his presentation and whether or not the matter could be brought to a vote. The congressman said he needed just ten more minutes to complete his statement and the Speaker nodded gratefully. A few pages left the chamber and in every office and in the corridors lights went on, informing the Congress that it was time to cast their votes. As the fellow from South Dakota continued to read his remarks into the Congressional Record, hundreds of representatives filed in through the doors, laughing, coughing, talking, taking their spots on either side of the great center aisle.

Buddy Preston took the seat next to mine. All twenty-four of the Illinois congressmen were here for the vote, fourteen of them on the Democratic side of the aisle. Sitting next to me a guy just a few years older than me, smelling as if he’d just splashed a half bottle of Brut on before coming to vote. He was Emil Z. Nichols from the Third District. He had gotten his power directly from Mayor Daley, but now with a new administration he was vulnerable and word was that the pressure of a possible defeat next election was making him unpredictable, like a man who’s just been diagnosed with an incurable disease. The Third was a tough district to keep: half suburban, half urban, with some blacks and plenty of Poles, Germans, Swedes, and Lithuanians who had moved to get away from blacks. It was one of those places where people went as a way of proclaiming they were leaving the working class and then were besieged by lack of money, lack of decent housing, lack of safety—all of the things they had insisted would never happen to them again. It was a resentful district and Nichols had gotten three terms out of it only because the mayor had twisted enough arms.

“Hello, Fielding,” he said, in an unusually slippery, dishonest voice, reaching over and shaking my hand. “Emil Nichols. Welcome to the zoo.”

Buddy Preston put his hand lightly on my shoulder, as if warning me away from an evil influence. “We’ll be bringing you up for the swearing in right after this vote,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Nichols, “you’re lucky you don’t have to vote. It’s a ball breaker—especially for someone like you.”

“How do you mean that?” I said.

Nichols laughed through his teeth, as if my question was a there tactic. “Yeah, right,” he said. “As if the governor didn’t have you in his pocket. But try voting with the farmers and see what happens to you when you go back to your district.”

Further into the aisle sat an old, loose-limbed, bald man wearing a brown suit and a red and white bow tie. It was Paul Germain, an old newspaperman turned politician whom I’d met at Isaac’s a couple of years back. Germain was from East St. Louis—a burnt, scarred, smoking place, at once abandoned and frantic with the half-life of crime that reigns after the neutron of commerce dies. Germain was one of the few downstate Democrats; he had known Truman, Stevenson; he had a shattered leg from a parachute jump into Cologne in 1944. As he leaned forward, the light from the upper windows exploded in his glasses and his skin was so thin you could almost see the skull beneath it. “We’ll talk,” he said, and then leaned back, his narrow profile disappearing behind the human hedge.