Primary Storm

by Brendan DuBois

  And being on that car bumper, wiping my face with a soiled handkerchief, is how I came to miss the attempted assassination of Jackson Hale, senator from Georgia and probable next president of the United States. The first sign that something was wrong was when a low "oooh" or "aaahh" came from the crowd inside the conference room, audible even out in my part of the parking lot, followed by loud yells and screams, which I could make out from the open door that I had just exited. More yells. More screams. I looked over and people were running out of the main entrance and the side entrance, holding on to one another, tripping, falling, and picking themselves up and running some more. There faces were white with fear or anger or terror, and many glanced behind them, as if they were being chased by some evil force.

  There were a couple of camera crews already out in the parking lot, and the crew members started shooting footage, no doubt not knowing what the hell they were recording, just knowing it was something important, something to be kept and interpreted later. I stood up, tried to get a better look at what was happening. Then the sounds of sirens cut through the cold air, and from the rear of the hotel a New Hampshire State Police cruiser roared out, followed by a black limousine with tinted windows and two dark blue Chevrolet Suburbans with flashing blue lights in their radiator grilles.

  When the second Suburban hit the road, I saw that the rear hatchback window was wide open, and two Secret Service agents were sitting back there, leaning out, both holding Uzi submachine guns in their hands. War wagon, a memory came to me, that's what the heavily armed Suburbans were called. War wagons. Full of weapons, from sub machine guns to Stinger antiaircraft missiles and everything in between, all to protect a president or would-be president.

  A weeping young woman came by and I said to her, "What happened in there? What's going on?"

  "Somebody ... somebody shot the senator. The fucker. They killed him! They killed him!"

  Jesus, I thought, not here, not now.

  I thought of Dallas, I thought of Memphis, I thought of Los Angeles, I thought of all the places marked by so much history and death and shootings and assassinations and broken dreams and not here, not in my hometown, and I thought of Annie and Barbara and ---

  More people came out, and somebody was yelling, "He's okay! I just got a text message from one of his aides! Nobody got hurt! They missed! They missed!"

  I wiped at my face again, legs quivering. More and more people were streaming out. They were now being intercepted by members of the fourth estate, whipping into action, and I suppose if I were a better magazine writer, I would have been doing the same thing. But I wasn't. I got up and started going through the crowd, looking for Annie, to see her and hold her hand and find out if she knew anything else.

  But after long minutes when I thought I might get sick again at any moment on the feet or legs of the people near me, I still couldn't find her. I wanted to go back into the conference center, but the doors were blocked by state police officers, backed by serious-looking men and women in suits with half-hidden earpieces, and I gave up. I slowly walked back to my Explorer, dodging some of the traffic streaming out of the parking lot, and got in and started the engine and put my head down on the steering wheel for a moment.

  I raised my head, saw that there was finally a break in the traffic trundling by. I got out onto the road and drove home. Along the way, from some of the homes on this stretch of road leading out from the conference center, residents were standing in their driveways, looking out at the traffic, no doubt knowing they were viewing some sort of historical event, and no doubt not knowing what in hell it was. Well, it wasn't my place to tell them, and like the rest of the world, they would learn what had happened back there soon enough. Halfway back to Tyler Beach, I caught a bulletin on WBZ-AM radio out of Boston, which announced that the Secret Service and New Hampshire State Police were investigating the attempted assassination of Senator Jackson Hale, who was fine and was being protected at an undisclosed location somewhere in New Hampshire. After the bulletin was a series of live reports from shaky-voiced reporters at the scene in Tyler and at Hale campaign headquarters in Manchester and down south, in Atlanta. What followed were several minutes of prediction, analysis, and the ever-sorrowful what-does-this-attempted-assassination-mean-for-us-as-a-people.

  By then I was home at my very disclosed location, probably feeling no better or no worse than poor Senator Hale. I parked in my shed and trudged through the snow to my front door, and before going inside, doubled over again in another bout of vomiting, this time just bringing up some harsh bile. I kicked some snow over the mess I made and went inside, straight to my telephone. I placed a call to Annie Wynn. Her cell phone dumped me into her voice mail and I said, "Hi, it's me. I was there at the rally... couldn't find you .. hope you're okay... call me or come back here I'm coming down with something and I'm going to lie down "

  Which is what I did, stretching out on the couch and resisting the urge to turn on the television, knowing that everything I saw now would be repeated later, and so I just stayed there, comforter up to my neck

  And despite everything that had just happened, I was feeling so lousy that I did fall asleep. I woke to the sound of the door being unlocked and I sat up, as Annie came in, face red, eyes red. She dropped her bag and came right at me. I sat up on the couch and she sat there, now in my arms, and I held her tight as she choked and cried some and then cried some more. She then pulled back and rubbed at her eyes, and I said, "Get you something? Drink? Something to eat?"

  She opened her purse, took out a tissue, blew her nose. "How about a new day? Can you do that for me?"

  "If I could, I would."

  She managed a wan smile, crumpled up the tissue in her hand. "Oh, Lewis, I never want to go through anything like that ever again."

  "Tell me where you were. Tell me what you saw."

  She took a deep breath, clasped her hands around her purse so tightly I could see her knuckles whiten. "I... I was backstage, with some of the campaign people. You see, most of us, the volunteers, what little compensation we get is the ability to be behind the scenes, to say hi to the senator and his people. A couple of times, though, I snuck a peek out to the crowd, tried to spot you."

  I said, "I was near the press section. I couldn't see you. And I guess I'm lucky... I mean, I didn't see what happened. I got sick, had to get out of the building. Went out to the parking lot, dumped my guts on the ground, and then people started running out."

  She closed her eyes for a moment, like she was trying to see again what had happened back at the conference center. "He came in... right on time .. Hale time, you know? He's always on time. But he had to wait backstage. That dimwit county chair, she had to go on and on, practically introducing candidates for dogcatcher... but then he went out with his wife, and started his talk... "

  "Yes," I said, now holding my hand over her two hands on the purse. "I was there for that."

  She said, "You know, I've read his damn stump speech, and I've seen bits of it on TV, so it wasn't any surprise... but you know, seeing him in person, it was wonderful. It's a damn cliché and all, but he held me. He's a great speaker, Lewis, he really is ... and about halfway through it there was a gunshot, and then another."

  "Just two, then?"

  "Yeah. Two too fucking many, if you'll excuse my language. The first time, I think we all froze, thinking maybe it was a balloon, but the Secret Service jumped ugly real quick, heading to the senator and his wife, and there was another shot, and people started screaming and running."

  "Did anybody see who did it?"

  "Nope. You saw how crowded that place was... Jesus, what a mess. There were two shots and then people started running, and the senator and his missus were practically carried out the rear... and that was that."

  "Annie, I'm sorry it happened. Even more sorry you were there to see it."

  She smiled, squeezed my hand back. "Sounds crazy, but there's no place I'd rather be ... I had to be there, Lewis, and I'm damn glad I was."r />
  "Any idea who or why?"

  "Why? Take your pick... every position the senator holds, there's sure to be some sort of nut who opposes him. And who... no idea who the shooter was, but I heard a rumor that the cops and the Secret Service caught themselves a break."

  "How so?"

  "After most everybody bailed out, they found a gun on the floor of the conference center. There you go. Some of the cops tried to keep people from running away after the shooting, so they could be interviewed, but you saw what the crowd was like. Lucky nobody was trampled to death."

  I squeezed her hand again. "That's a big break. It could mean a lot in tracing who in hell was involved. Look. You must be tired, must be hungry, why don't you ---"

  She shook her head. "No. Sorry. You're being a dear and all that, and any other day, I'd love to sit here in front of the fire and veg out, but not today, not after what happened."

  "You're going back to Manchester."

  "Yes," she said, a bit of steel showing in her voice. "I've talked to others in the campaign. I'm going back to Manchester and make the phone calls and stuff the envelopes and crunch the numbers, and I and the rest of the crew are going to work twice as hard, after some asshole tried to take our candidate away. Our next president, Lewis. He can make it, he really can, and I'm not going to sit on my butt and be intimidated."

  "And such a lovely butt it is."

  On any other occasion, that would have brought a smile, but this wasn't any other occasion. She stood up, put her coat back on, and bent down and kissed me quickly on the forehead. “I’ll call you, okay? Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

  "All right. Be safe."

  And in a few seconds, she was out the door, and I was alone.

  I coughed some more and rolled myself up in the comforter, and thought again about turning on the television, but decided I needed sleep more than news. So sleep is what I got.

  The phone ringing got me up, and I sat up, nose runny, throat raspy, my stomach still doing slow rolls. I answered the phone and there was nobody on the other end, and then there was a click and a bored female voice said, "Sir, good day, I'm conducting a survey of the presidential candidates, and I want to ask you a few questions if I may."

  "I don't ---"

  "Sir, would your vote in the New Hampshire primary be different if you knew that Senator Nash Pomeroy accepted PAC money from gun manufacturers, even though he comes from a state that saw two of its favorite sons cut down by assassin's bullets?"

  "Good try," I said.

  "Excuse me?" came the female voice.

  "I said, good try. This isn't a survey. It's a push poll. You're trying to drive up the negative poll numbers for Senator Pomeroy by asking crap questions like this. Who's paying the freight? Which campaign or PAC?"

  Click The mystery caller had hung up.

  The constant joys of living in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Annoying phone call after annoying phone call.

  I stumbled into the kitchen, washed my face, took a big swallow of orange juice that almost made me cough as the acidy juice slid down my throat, and then I started the stove to make a cup of tea.

  Another ring of the phone. Another brief delay as the automated computer connected me to a live person, a woman again.

  "Sir, I'm calling from Alliance Opinion Surveys, gauging the mood of the electorate. On a scale of one to ten, with one being strongly disagree and ten being strongly agree, how would you rate orbital space-based weapons as a campaign issue this year?"

  "Orbital space-based weapons?" I asked, looking for a clean tea mug and accompanying tea bag.

  "Yes, sir," she said. "On a scale of one to ten, with one being ---"

  "How long?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "How long is this survey?"

  "Sir, it's only fifty questions, and we find that most callers complete the survey in ---"

  Click. Now it was my time to hang up.

  I usually find these types of surveys oddly amusing, but I guess that's just me. Being from Massachusetts, my dear Annie never receives such phone calls, and Diane Woods of the Tyler Police Department says she hardly gets any at all, since she has an unlisted number. Paula Quinn of the Chronicle follows the three-second rule, meaning that if nobody on the other end speaks up in three seconds, she hangs up before the computer can switch her over to a live operator.

  All of us in this state have different strategies, but I guess I like Felix's best. He politely listens to the opening remarks, and then says he has one question of his own: Does the caller have any suggestions for cleaning fresh bloodstains out of clothing? "Usually, they hang right up," he told me once. "And it really has cut down on the follow-up calls."

  Now the water was boiling and I was about to pour it in my tea mug, when the phone rang again, and by now I was tired of all the attention. I picked up the phone and said, "I swear to God, if this is another survey, I'm going to trace this number and hunt you down and rip your phone out of the wall."

  The woman on the other end laughed. "Can't do that, Lewis. I'm on my cell phone, right in downtown Manchester."

  "Oh."

  Annie said, "I feel bad about something and I need to tell you that."

  "Okay, go ahead." I poured the water into the mug, liking the sensation of the steam rising up to my face. "Still upset about the shooting, I'm sure."

  "No, it's not that."

  "It's not?"

  "No, and if you let me talk, I'll tell you all about it. Look I came in and dumped all over you, and you gave me a shoulder and a few hugs and all that good stuff. But you told me you were sick, that you threw up in the conference center's parking lot, and I found you all wrapped up on the couch when I came to see you. I should have asked you how you were doing. I should have offered to help you. But I didn't. I'm sorry."

  "No apologies necessary," I said. "You've had a tough day. Don't worry about it."

  "Well, I did worry about it, and I wanted to let you know. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Good. I'm in front of the campaign headquarters now. I'll call you tomorrow. Hope you feel better. Bye."

  "Bye right back," I said, and sure enough, even before I had the cup of tea, I was feeling better.

  Dinner was a couple of scrambled eggs and toast, and maybe my aggressive nap schedule was working in my favor, for I felt more human as the day dragged on. I caught a bit of the news at six-thirty and saw some of the shooting coverage, but missed the actual first footage of the shooting and what it looked like from inside the building. Still, most of the coverage was similar, with all channels showing a graphic of the interior of the Tyler Conference Center --- I'm sure the management couldn't buy advertising like this, and I wasn't sure what they thought of this particular good fortune ---- and there were interviews with a cheerful Senator Hale, who did his best to shrug off the attempt on his life. Plus the usual and customary interviews with a variety of eyewitnesses, none of whom actually saw a damn thing, but heard plenty, or thought he did. This was followed by the typical stories of our violent society, and how we were all to blame for what had happened in Tyler this day.

  When that coverage was over, I decided that I'd had my fill of politics for the day, so I channel-surfed for a while, and almost cheered my luck when I saw a two-hour documentary on one of the cable channels on the history of U -boat operations in the North Atlantic. I settled back on the couch, fire in the fireplace, comforter wrapped around me, and cherished a time when the conflicts were so clear, so finely drawn. The next morning when the phone rang, I was washing my breakfast dishes, feeling much better, and I was surprised at the woman's voice on the other end of the phone: not my Annie Wynn, but my good friend Detective Sergeant Diane Woods. It sounded like she was on a cell phone.

  "Hey," she said. "How are you doing?"

  "Doing all right," I said. "How are you?"

  'Well, got my fingers in a bit on this Senator Hale incident," she said.

  "You do, do you? I thought the state
police and the Secret Service would be all over this and pushing poor little you aside."

  "I'm not poor, and I'm not little."

  "All right. Point noted. And what part of the investigation has your fingers in it?"

  She sighed. "You."

  I folded up the dish towel I had been using. "Mind saying that again? I had the oddest idea that you just said 'you.' Meaning me."

  "That's right."

  "Why?"

  Another big sigh. "I don't know, Lewis. All I know is that the Secret Service wants to talk to you about the shooting. They came to me, asked me if I knew you. When I said yes... well, here's the deal... "

  I took the folded towel, wiped down an already clean kitchen counter. "They asked you to bring me in. Right?"

  "Right."

  "All right. What's the deal? You want me to meet you at the police station?"

  "Urn, no ... "

  Then I got it. "Where are you? Up the hill, at the parking lot?"

  “Yeah.''

  "Okay. I'll be up there in a minute."

  I hung up the phone, thought about making a phone call, but to whom? Annie? Her law firm? Felix?

  No, nobody, not now.

  I went out of the kitchen to the entranceway and grabbed a coat, and then went out the door and trudged my way up to the Lafayette House's parking lot.

  There Diane was waiting for me, standing next to an unmarked Tyler police cruiser, a dark blue Ford LTD with a whip antenna, engine burbling in the cold morning air. She was bundled up in a short leather coat with a cloth collar and dark slacks. I stood there and she said, "Sorry."

  "No, it's okay. If I'm being brought in, would rather it be done by a friend."

  She got in the front seat and I walked around and joined her.

  As in all cop cars, the upholstery was heavy-duty plastic and there was a police radio slung under the dashboard. She picked up the microphone and said, "Dispatch, D-one, coming in."