Catch As Catch Can Page 17

  4

  Nearby in the White House, the president was just finishing up his packing on the final day of final decision.

  “Aren’t you going to dress?”

  George Bush said no to his friend as he completed his last preparations before departing officially. “That’s another one of the great retirement benefits of being just plain George,” he stated jauntily. He was attired casually in khaki chino trousers, a box-plaid flannel shirt of red and black, and a sleeveless shooting jacket with game pouches, into which he had set carefully a number of the citations and awards he’d been packing. He gazed quizzically at another one of the paper emblems of office he was on the verge of folding away. “Say, Charlie,” he inquired pensively, “what do you know about heavy water?”

  “Nothing. Why? It’s got something to do with nuclear reactions, doesn’t it?”

  “We’ve got a guy who’s producing it, an American. A chaplain, no less. A retired chaplain from the old army air force back in World War II.”

  “Make him stop. What’s the problem?”

  “He can’t stop. He’s producing it sort of, if you know what I mean, biologically.”

  “Biologically? No, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “That’s what it says in this memo, code name Tap Water. He eats and drinks like the rest of us, but what comes out of him is, I guess, heavy water.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. That so?”

  “That’s what they tell me is so. It seems he was researched and developed by Milo Minderbinder of the Double-M E&A company, who claims to have an option on him.”

  “I know about Milo Minderbinder. I’ve known about Milo Minderbinder for a long time.”

  “And our intelligence agencies tell us this chaplain was in close contact with another M&M man named Yossarian before we took him into custody. Another former air-corps man, a captain.”

  “Yossarian?”

  “Yes, he talks to the chaplain’s wife regularly. Nothing dirty between them yet. He talks to a registered nurse too, and she may also be involved. There may be a Belgian connection. ‘The Belgian is swallowing,’ she said to Yossarian the last time they spoke.”

  “Yossarian?” repeated Charlie Stubbs. “You’re saying Yossarian?”

  “You know him? You want his first name?”

  “How many Yossarians could there be? I knew about Yossarian when I was back in Pianosa during the war, before they transferred me to the Pacific. He was a bombardier, right? He was a little bit crazy then.”

  “Crazy?”

  “That’s what everybody thought. I remember saying to someone during a very bad time there that I thought that crazy son of a gun Yossarian was the only sane one of us left.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Not normally. Where’ve you got this chaplain? I may know him too.”

  “In a cellar. With lead-lined walls.”

  “What can you do about him?”

  “Oh, any one of our counterterrorist intelligence units can kill him easily, if it ever comes to that. But he may be valuable. We’re having a problem with our heavy water, you know. And with our tritium too.”

  “What’s tritium?”

  “The gas we get from it, it says here. And we need that for our nuclear warheads. We might want a lot more like him, if he can teach others to pass heavy water too. We don’t know what to do. We’ve got Yossarian under round-the-clock surveillance forty-eight hours a day now, it says here. I suppose that means by two men twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Or four men twelve hours a day.”

  “Yes, that could be true, too. Would that be round-the-clock?”

  “No, George.”

  “He and the chaplain’s wife talk in code on the phone and pretend they don’t know much about it.”

  “How about a public-opinion poll?”

  “That would be the intelligent way to decide. The problem, though, is that we still want to keep him secret, in case we do have to disappear him.”

  “Are you sure you want to take that report with you as a citation, George? It sounds like a complicated problem. Why not let your successor cope with it?”

  “Quayle? Of course. He’s just the one.”

  THE DAY BUSH LEFT*

  “Politics, they’re saying, stops at the water’s edge.”

  “What’s it mean, George?”

  “I’m not sure I know. Charlie?”

  “Maybe it has something to do with our borders, that we try to pretend we are unified in outlook and won’t tolerate disagreement when it comes to foreign affairs.”

  “That’s a funny thought,” said the President, who was persisting to the end in his determination to resign. “But why water? Our borders north and south aren’t water, are they? You see, Charlie, I’ve been learning my history.”

  “That’s geography, George.”

  The three men sat flopped comfortably about the White House office, each looking and feeling looser than at any time since Election Eve. There were the President himself, his Secretary of State, and his trusted friend Charlie Stubbs.

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter now that I’m leaving. Right? How many are there waiting to see me?”

  “About a dozen. The leaders from both political parties in the House and the Senate, the chairmen and a few others from both national committees.”

  “My goodness, I didn’t realize they all liked me that much,” said President Bush.

  “They don’t like you at all, George. It’s the idea of Quayle that appalls them. We think you should see them.”

  “Aaaaw, shoot. Jim, you talk to them first and prepare them for disappointment. Well, Charlie, what do you think?” George Bush asked when alone with Stubbs. “I have to stick to my decision, don’t I?”

  “Only if you’re sick of the job and truly want to leave it. You’ve proved your point. You made it to the top and you are your own man. You’re not much of a man, we know, but at least you’re your own. So go ahead and resign if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s the only advice I’ve been given since I took office that seems to add up.”

  “And it’s the only thing you’ve done that seems to make sense.”

  The President laughed like the good sport he was widely acknowledged to be. “I still have all this packing to finish. Give me a hand with some of these trophies and citations. Golly, there’s a mess of them.”

  “You’re taking them all?”

  “I wouldn’t want to leave a dirty White House.”

  “You didn’t mind conducting a dirty campaign, did you?”

  “Wasn’t that a beauty, Charlie?”

  “Certainly the filthiest presidential campaign in my recollection, George.”

  “I doubt it will ever be surpassed. I think history will celebrate that as my highest achievement.”

  “What confounds me still, George, is that you could be the standard-bearer of the vilest, dirtiest, most ugly presidential campaign in modern history and still come out of it looking so squeaky clean. How can it be, George, that people still think you’re basically decent, kind, and gentle?”

  “I have a thousand points of light.”

  “And you did such a magical job between the day you were elected and the day you took office.”

  “I was good then, wasn’t I?”

  “You’ve never been better. Between the election and your inauguration you were dazzling, inspiring, charismatic, irreproachable. Your approval rating hit the top before you even took the oath.”

  “I should never have taken the oath.”

  “You’d be remembered as the most popular President in history if you’d never become one.”

  “I have to admit that’s true,” George Bush admitted. “Charlie, it’s hard work, and tedious too. All that posing around for photographers every day. There are thousands of people who can do the job as well as I can. As far as I can tell, there’s not much to it.”

  “But Dan Quayle isn’t one of the
m. George, there’s just no way in the world you’re going to get anyone sensible to like him, not even if he turns into Willie Mays.”

  “It’s funny you should say that,” George Bush said and laughed. “Because for a time we were thinking of picking Willie Mays as my running mate.”

  “I can guess why you didn’t.” Stubbs nodded sagely. “It would have been hard to run that antiblack hate campaign if you had Willie Mays on the ticket.”

  “We didn’t really run an antiblack hate campaign, Charlie,” the President protested. “All we set out to do was reach those white people in the country who hate blacks. We figured if we could get our message to voters who are antiblack, we would get close to a hundred percent of the white vote. Willie Horton is the one we decided to concentrate on, not Willie Mays.”

  “And that’s what dumbfounds me, George, how you were able to be up to your eyeballs in that cesspool of a campaign and still come out of it smelling like a rose. No one held you to blame.”

  “That was neat, wasn’t it? It was rather low, yes?”

  “The lowest. You were spineless and shameless and you still are. You’re a perfect hypocrite, George.”

  “Thank you, Charlie. I know you wouldn’t say that just to flatter me.”

  “It comes from the heart.”

  “That’s why I treasure it. It’s easy to explain, Charlie. The American people love a winner.”

  “The press too?”

  “Oh, they’re the easiest. They don’t really mind, even when they criticize. They love to be invited to anything official, even press conferences. Owners never get angry. They’re very rich and can’t afford to.”

  “Your managers must love you. You never say no to them, do you?”

  “Only when they tell me to.”

  “I was amazed when—”

  “I know. When even Willie Horton conceded on Election Night and sent me that telegram of congratulation.”

  “That was a nice gesture you made, George, granting him a presidential pardon.”

  “I felt I owed him that much. Especially since he hated that photograph we used. The way we designed it, Charlie, was to give the public the impression that other people in the background were making those dirty campaign decisions and I was just an innocent wimp doing and saying whatever they ordered me to, like some kind of dumb dodo.”

  “But isn’t that pretty much the way it happened?”

  “The Willie Horton thing was my idea.”

  “To focus on him?”

  “To pardon him, and then to take him into the State Department as an Under Secretary for Latin American affairs. That’s a very good post for a person who doesn’t mind crime, Charlie. Latin America is just about the best place left where we can still get away with murder. You see, I’ve learned my geography too.”

  “That’s history, George. George, what is there about you that convinces people you’re not actually as bad and mean as the person who says and does all those bad and mean things you continually say and do? At times you’re as bad as the worst, and you’re always transparent.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. I think it’s that daffy preppy style I have. And of course, there’s my background at Yale.”

  “William Buckley has that.”

  “And I play dumb. That’s where I’m smart. That’s pretty easy for me.”

  “I didn’t think it would be hard. So tell me, George. Now that we’re nearing the end and you can speak freely.” Stubbs paused.

  “Why did you pick him?”

  “Don’t ask me that again!” cried President George Bush, with a terrible wince that would have wrung with remorse the heart of a weaker man than his close friend Charlie Stubbs. “If I hear that question one more time I think I’ll scream!”

  “You are screaming,” answered Charlie Stubbs. “George, today is your last full day in office, and God dammit, I want to know. You barely knew him. You didn’t even know he’d been dodging the draft. What was the gimmick? Where was the catch?”

  “There was none, darn it. There was no gimmick, no need for any kind of deal. How can I make you believe me?”

  “I have trouble believing there is even such a person as this J. Danforth Quayle, even one.”

  “I liked the idea. I thought he’d be good. So there.”

  “Why didn’t you ask someone?”

  “I did, by God. Do you think I’m an idiot? I consulted with the best minds around me. They all said no.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “To show those smart alecks I was my own man. By then I was sick and tired of living in Reagan’s shadow.”

  “Don’t take offense, George, but I believe I speak for the majority of mankind when I say you looked better in Reagan’s shadow than you’ve looked since. Should I go?”

  “No, stay. When those Congressmen come traipsing in to beg me to reconsider, I want you right up here beside me. The second you see me waver, speak out and stop me so they will see that I’m not so easily swayed once I’m reminded I shouldn’t be. Bring them on. I feel like kicking some ass again.”

  “Oh, George, for Christ sakes!”

  Stubbs was still wearing the wince of his own when the door was opened by the Secretary of State to admit the gentlemen in the delegation of supplicants from the Congress and from both national political parties, who filed in singly, silently, and somberly. They numbered ten in all. The greeting with which their President welcomed them was cordial.

  “Come in, guys, come on in. Isn’t this gorgeous weather we’re having neat? What are you all looking so glum about? It’s always darkest before the dawn, isn’t it?”

  “George,” Charlie Stubbs admonished cautiously.

  “Sorry, Charlie.”

  “Well, if I may begin,” said the Secretary of State, “these gentlemen all respectfully recognize that your mind is made up, Mr. President, but they’ve come with pages of petitions signed by just about every member of both parties in both houses of Congress begging you to reconsider your decision to leave. And by now, I have received messages, some stained with tears, from leaders in just about every developed nation in the free world and in the communist world, and from most in the Third World too.”

  “Imagine that.” George Bush beamed. “The Soviets too?”

  “Of course. The message from the Soviet ambassador is one of those that is stained with tears. They no sooner want a nuclear war than we do.”

  “Well, fellas,” said George Bush, in his nicest nice-guy mode, “I have to tell you candidly what I have already said in public. What I am doing is right, and while I am still the President, I am still the best person to tell other people what is right. Right? It is right because I have grown to realize—I have grown in office— that being President is something I’m really not cut out for.”

  “You will get no argument on that point, Mr. President,” said a Congressional member from his own party.

  “Call me George, Bob. I’m glad I’ve succeeded in convincing you.”

  “My name is John, George.”

  “My name is Bob,” spoke up a tall man.

  “So is mine,” said a small one.

  “It’s good to get to know you all again,” said George Bush. “I thought you didn’t like what I was doing with my Administration, Bob.”

  “My name is Tom, George.”

  “I’m Bob, George, and I don’t like what you’ve been doing, either. But politics must stop at the water’s edge.”

  “What does that mean, Tom?”

  “It means that in times of great crisis, Mr. President, we lay aside our partisan bickering and forget about the lousy job you’ve been doing while we think, for a change, of the public good.”

  “But why the water’s edge?”

  “I’m not sure. But that doesn’t matter right now, any more than does the question of whether your lousy Administration has been lousier than Reagan’s or not.”

  “Lousier than Reagan’s?” Here the President perked up alertly. “Oh, no, we c
an’t let that one pass. Let me make one thing clear. With me it’s been mainly a matter of reserved presidential style, and you may not have noticed all of the good improvements we’ve been making steadily, along with many of the bad improvements.”

  “George,” Stubbs said.

  “In a minute, Charlie. We’ve been making many of these good and bad changes for the better so gradually that they just as well might not have been made at all for any difference they made, and we would have been much better off just leaving things as they were instead of wasting all that time and money making them. Now my agenda is complete, and the time has come for me to pass the torch and fade away.”

  “George,” Stubbs admonished.

  “Sorry, Charlie.”

  “What about Quayle, Mr. President? Will you tell us once and for all why you picked him?”

  “If you ask him that he’ll scream.”

  “Thank you, Charlie.”

  “You’re leaving all of us in a lurch. What about the S.D.I.?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Star Wars. Should we go ahead or shouldn’t we? By the way, Mr. President, is this room bugged? Are you secretly recording everything for some future book you have in mind?”

  “That suggestion is offensive,” the President replied with asperity. “But let me give you the assurance you want.” With long steps he strode to his desk and buzzed his secretary. “Primrose, please turn off all the recording equipment. And see that everything we’ve got is erased.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” a woman responded immediately. “Does that mean you want it left on?”

  “No, I want it turned off.”

  “Now I understand, sir. But I think I’ve forgotten the code. You want it on?”

  “I want it off. Just ask the sound engineer. Tell him I really want it off.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. But he’s not sure of the code either. He’s filling in.”

  “Oh, Primrose, just forget it, please forget I even asked.” The President turned back with an exaggerated shrug. “And you guys are asking me about the S.D.I.? That thing is all too technical for the White House to decide, and we won’t know what to do until we read the latest public opinion polls.”