What It Takes (74 page)

And the room got quiet, though it was late and there’d been too much talk. Joe was into the speech now, where he knew just how the words should dance on the ear.

“For a
decade
, ladies and gentlemen, the
cry
of the Reagan years has been: ‘Got
mine
! Go get
yours
!’ ...” Joe’s voice was harsh with flat and wheedling greed, as his gaze shifted, almost accusing, to another table. “ ‘What’s in it for
me
?’ ...” And they saw, he didn’t have any notes, he didn’t have to read this, or stop to think it out. He was just talking to them.

“Ladies and gentlemen ... something is
wrong
.”

And he told them what he thought was wrong, and how they were going to fix it—not by a fifteen-point program diddled through Congress, and signed at a Rose Garden media-op by a President smiling for the cameras ... no! It rested with them ... in this room. It was about waking up the whole damn country!

“Folks ...” Joe said, and he stopped. He stopped for a full two beats. “Let’s not kid each other.
You
have the same problem I have. You walk into your meetings, and your folks look at you and say, ‘
What the hell do you know?
’ ...”

Now they’re nodding, there’s knowing laughter from the well of the hall.

“So you have the same problem—leadership—that faces us in government. ... But I believe (I am absolutely convinced of this) that our citizens and our workers offer untapped resources ... the country is not as afraid as we are. The people are willing to take chances; they’re willing to take their shots. They’re not looking to be coddled. They’re looking to have a chance to fight.

“And, folks, this vision is not just some pipe dream. ... It is nothing
less
than the
legacy
of
our generation
. ... When I was seventeen years old ...”

And Joe was off on his life again. The amazing thing was, no one moved, made a sound ... Joe talked for an hour and twenty minutes, and nobody left that room. And when he got to the end, the heroes and the dreamers ... and the quote: “
He will lift you up on eagles’ wings
...” and he finished, there was silence for a moment, two beats, three beats—ten seconds of hush—and they started to clap, and Joe could see people looking over at Gifford and the state nabobs ... everybody knew, see, what Chuck wanted. But some stood up, they were cheering, and then there were maybe fifty men and women on their feet, and then the others, table by table—you could almost see them say to themselves, “Aw, fuck Gifford!”—they stood up, too, and the whole crowd was on its feet, cheering ... and when it ended, there must have been seventy-five who lined up to shake Joe’s hand.

Of course, Joe was pumped up, too, and his friends, the union men from Delaware, had found folks they knew, and they told him about the hospitality suites, upstairs in the beautiful Best Western, where the real talk went down. So Joe went upstairs to meet those folks, and they were stunned when he walked in—amazed he’d take the time. But he wanted so much for them to know him—they felt that—and Christ, he stayed till after eleven.

And it was after midnight, when his rented jet was in the air again, that Joe even started to wind down. And everyone in the plane said he’d done a hell of a job. Maybe he’d even turn Gifford around! Or his wife! Who knows? It was off the scale. One goddam thing was sure, though. There were Biden people in that union now.

Ridley was next to him and he asked Joe:

“How do you
do
that?”

Joe shrugged, and told Tim how he talked to one table, and then another, and when he had them, he moved on. ...

But that was technique, and not what Ridley meant.

In fact, Joe didn’t know exactly how it happened, or what the connect
was
. What always occurred to
him
... what he felt when it happened in a room ... was a tingle of fear. He hoped to
God
that what they understood was what he was trying to say, because he could feel their need coming back at him, and their willingness to be led—he just had to pray they got it right! If they didn’t ... well, God only knew what someone could do with them. ... That’s what always scared Joe:
If I can do this to these folks, what happens if someone comes along who can really SING?

But Joe didn’t say that to Ridley. What he told was what he saw—when he knew he had the room. There was a couple, husband and wife, way in the back, in the dark, and Joe was working on them when he got to the end, the dream and the dreamers (“Just because our heroes were murdered ...”)—and Joe saw the guy’s arm go around his wife’s shoulders ... and he knew then.

Then, too, Joe said he’d known how it would be, all along.

The most frightening thing was, he didn’t know why it disappeared ... the magic. He knew he felt bad—that’s all he knew—and he looked scared. It was the morning after the big ski trip, and Joe had a hell of a day on his plate, even before it got so screwed up.

He had a big speech at the Nashua Country Club, where all the city’s movers and shakers gathered for their monthly Rotary luncheon. Joe was going to preview his arms control speech. Then there was another address on Constitutional issues at a law school that night ... and in between, he was supposed to announce his New Hampshire campaign committee, and Valerie, his sister, his Campaign Manager, was supposed to fly up for that ... but it was getting on to lunchtime and where was Val? ... Meanwhile, CBS still had him miked for
West 57th Street
, and Paul Taylor, the new big-foot for
The Washington Post
, had come to listen to the speeches, maybe talk with Joe, and Boston TV was choppering in for the country club speech at noon ... and Marianne Baker, his personal keeper in the Senate office, tracked him down in Nashua to tell him there might be a cloture vote on contra aid—Joe might have to fly back, they’d have to charter a plane ... so they were trying to find Larry Tribe, Harvard’s reigning Constitutional scholar, to fill in for Joe at the law school speech—if it came to that, if the vote was late—but no one could find Tribe to get a commitment ... and Joe had to go on at the Rotary,
now
, and do the press conference on the committee, after ... and where the hell was Val? ... Did anyone get Tribe?

And Joe was off. You could feel it the minute he got to the podium. His voice was flat, his face was drawn, and the TV lights only made him paler, thinner, less substantial ...

“But I do congratulate you for coming out to hear me speak ... because I
am
one of the most important men in America ...”

No!
BZZZZT!
Wrong!

It was an old joke with Joe, but today it didn’t sound self-effacing, ironic.

He tried to tell another joke, a long story wherein he’s mistaken for the baseball commissioner, Ueberroth ... but he never got through it.

“Uhnnn ...” Joe said, and he stopped, like he couldn’t think. “Something I ate ...”

His face was flushing as he stopped to draw breath, he looked confused, out of place. He was turning an awful color in the lights—almost purple.

“... is, uh, really giving me difficulty, and uh, I mean that sincerely ...”

He had to get out of there. The pain in his head! Like boiling water up the back of his head. Like it would blow off the top of his skull. He was nauseated. He couldn’t focus on the words of his speech.

“Could I go downstairs? ... And come back? ...”

There was a bathroom downstairs. He didn’t say more, he just walked out.

In the press gaggle, there were a couple of jokes about Rotary food—chicken surprise, heh heh. ... A Rotary member went to the mike and told racist jokes about his travels in India and Africa. The TV guys flicked their lights off, looked at their watches. ... Joe’s staff was trying to cook the schedule. If Joe took fifteen minutes here, he wouldn’t get to the press conference till two—he’d have to cut right out to Washington: How many seats in the plane? Would Val go back? Any seats for press? ... Paul Taylor was holding court in the country club lounge. Some editor-lady had called from New York—wanted him to do a book—inside the campaign ... you know, with the
Post
. The
Post
is a player ... Taylor thought it would be interesting: this was the time of
his
coming of age, along with his generation, accepting the responsibilities of the big time, just as he, Paul, was inheriting the mantle of leadership from David Broder ...

And Joe was dying. At least he felt like he was. In the bathroom downstairs, the pain had hold of him and he couldn’t think. He had to think ...
what was this?
He couldn’t remember pain like this. Nauseous pain. He should puke. He tried to puke, down on his knees, grunting and heaving. He couldn’t breathe. He’d call out—for what—a doctor? Val? Where was Val? He hadn’t air. He had to have air. He threw open the window—basement window, ground outside, and snow ... and he laid his head onto the snow, tried to breathe. It was cold. The air ... didn’t help. Was there anything like this? He couldn’t remember pain like this. Sweet Jesus God—he had to think—was this what it felt like when you had a heart attack? ...

He didn’t know how long he was there. He was alone ... how much time? He had to get back up there—there were people, his speech ... the cameras. How would he look? He smoothed his tie ... holy shit! He had a mike on—CBS!—those noises, puking, groaning! Holy shit! He had to pull himself
together. This could not come apart!

And he did it. He washed his face. He came out and went up the stairs at a trot. He strode back into the dining room, straight to the mike. He apologized, said it wasn’t their food. He started reading his speech.

“Mr. Reagan intends to continue with his Star Wars program ...”

It was a good speech—an interesting point: a President had twenty minutes now, to react, if missiles were fired into the air. But with Star Wars, Reagan’s crowd would cut that to five minutes: man-the-scientist was going to outrun man-the-negotiator. Well, okay. ... But it seemed, suddenly, academic. The Boston TVs wanted to know: Was this Biden the orator?

Joe couldn’t even hear himself reading—that word, next word ... what the hell was it about? He clamped both hands on the sides of the podium. He never looked up. All he knew was, his head hurt like hell.

In the dining room, all the Rotarians knew was, there wasn’t any magic to this guy—none at all. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.—just a tall, skinny, balding man ... reading a speech.

His gurus used to say there were moments in campaigns—the big debate, the acceptance speech, or just some serendipitous collision of fate with publicity along the trail—moments of decision, maybe even truth, when the halogen lights and the eyes of the nation snapped to shining focus on a campaign and candidate ... and that’s when it counted. If they could just get Joe and his magic, intact, to one of those moments, then millions would see, in a flash, his brilliance, his balls ... and they would make a President.

And Joe believed them. That’s why his effort, his every day and night, was bent to straining, ever, to
make something happen
. Make the magic now—
something
... the feeling, the connect. Who knew? This could be the time. And so, where his instinct drove him to share some bit of his life, he’d strew the gaudiest, shiniest trim that fell to his gaze ... right
now
. “Folks, when I was seventeen years old, I took part in demonstrations to desegregate restaurants ...” Somehow, it was easier to show the tinsel than the tree.

Lost, alas, was the solider stuff: the way he fiercely, doggedly, held his family together through loss; the way everybody he touched that day—every day—felt more like his better self than he did before Joe showed up; the relentless way he drove himself to be
always
the one they could count on. This was the common grit at the bed of his life—family, loyalty, humor, guts—that was ever there.

See, he thought they’d
have
to get that stuff—that’s character, right? ...
One look
at his kids, Jill, his home, his
life
—they’d pick it up, right?

But it’s hard to show the grit underneath the bits of glitter—hard for Joe, took time ... and never hit with the hot splash he craved. Anyway, the big-feet, the pundits—it was not their business: they were writing about politics, not life. Not even the near end of life.

What did they know about bleeding in the skull? ...

What did Joe know, for that matter?

So no one wrote about the moment Joe lost the magic, or the common guts it took to finish the day.

Oh, he did finish—and not just the speech. He did the press conference after, announced his committee, and flew down to Washington, cast his vote against the contras, and decided to fly back. He might still make the dinner in New Hampshire—late, but hell ...

And the plane was small—no room for press—so he only took Paul Taylor, and Joe made sure they had a chance to talk. Taylor was important, see, and Joe wanted Paul to know him. And Joe talked about his life, what it felt like now, with everything in the air at once. And the great thing was, Paul talked about his life, too ... and the most amazing thing—he was talking about ...
their generation
, just like Joe had been saying out there!

Joe didn’t know about the plan for the book, the way Paul was thinking ... but he knew this was important, him and Paul—if Taylor could really know him, his character ... the
real stuff
! And Joe got pumped up—he did feel better. If only he could shake this goddam headache!

He got to the dinner, and Tribe was at the podium ... but Joe got on after him, and did his speech anyway. It was late, but he gave it what he had.

It was after midnight when his plane was in the air again, heading south to Delaware—Joe insisted on getting home. And when they climbed down onto the tarmac at the Wilmington airport, about 2:00
A.M.,
Joe asked Taylor to come home with him, stay with the Bidens for the night.

Taylor looked uneasy. No, he said. He could go to a motel ...

Joe wouldn’t hear of it. “Plenty of room!”