Withal, Dottie brought something new to the religion: a certain refinement, a polish, the product of one more generation under the buffer of good society. In Dottie’s house there was all the Walker competition, but none of the loudness about it. She did not abide bragging. Her boys were not to come crashing into the dining room, to announce: “I mopped up the court with Gerry.” God forbid! They could not even announce: “I won.” In the Bush household, young people were expected not only to win, but to be good winners. The proper way was to wait, to be asked:
“Didn’t you have a match today?”
“Uh huh, with Gerry.”
“Oh, lovely! How’d you do?”
And then, the proper answer was to offer some excuse for Gerry, avoiding the first-person pronoun altogether, or at most, to say, quietly: “I was lucky.”
It was all right if a brother or sister did a bit of bragging for you: “Oh, Poppy was great! He had three hits ...”
But if one of the Bush boys was asked about his game, and he blurted: “I had a home run!” Dottie’s voice would take on a hint of edge: “That’s lovely, dear. How’d the team do?” Sometimes, that edge could cut to the bone. When Poppy, age twelve, was asked about his tennis match and alibied, “I was off my game,” his mother snapped: “You don’t have a game! Get out and work harder and maybe, someday, you will.”
Of course, he worked harder. He was always sensitive to the ethic around him. And he so much wanted her cooing praise. There was something special between the two of them, the way he’d make her giggle, even in church. Pres would turn and stare down the pew severely, but Dottie couldn’t stop. Poppy was too much fun! And he adored her, admired her. He wrote, in 1985, in a Mother’s Day tribute in The Greenwich Times:
“Physically she is a small woman, but she is made of mighty stuff. Nine months into her first pregnancy, she played baseball. Her last time up, she hit a home run, and without missing a base, continued right off the field to the hospital, to deliver Pres.”
Yes, Pressie was the first—Prescott, Jr.—but he was different, a big boy, jovial and generous, not quite in the Walker mold. Pressie was a bruiser, a good football player, a lineman who loved to hit. But from birth, he had a problem with one eye that lent him, unjustly, the appearance of slowness. Then, playing football, he blew out a knee, and he was not so good at games anymore. It was her second boy, the one she named with her own father’s names, George Herbert Walker, who had her gifts—the slender, supple form, the quickness, the charm. And she showed him in a thousand ways: he was The One. He was meant to win.
If she saved for him the bulk of that old Walker religion, he took it all, he grabbed for it. On Court One, again age twelve, with the family in attendance upon him, he played for the children’s championship of the River Club. Early in the match, he turned to glower at the grandstand, and ordered his Aunt Mary, Uncle Herbie’s wife, out of the stands. She was talking while he tried to play! That’s how he got the nickname, in confirmation of the hope that had given him his name: George Herbert Walker Bush—Poppy—just like Pops.
By the time he played first base for Andover, no one else was in the running for captain. Poppy Bush was The One. Not that he was squawking for it: he was never loud, not the rah-rah sort. When you thought about it, he never seemed to mention himself. Maybe there were better ball players: better hitters probably, and Ed Machaj was a heck of a pitcher. But Ed came out of nowhere; everybody knew Poppy, he was a friend, always looking out for the other guy. One year, there was a Jewish kid named Ovie who left school when he didn’t get tapped for the Greek societies. When they talked him into coming back, Poppy took him under his wing: brought him out for the ball team. One day a fly ball bounced off Ovie’s head, into the left fielder’s glove, and Poppy ran all the way out from first, to congratulate Ovie on the assist.
But it was more than kindness, more than friends. Elly Vose, another starting pitcher, had almost as many friends, he was good-looking like Poppy, won as many class elections. But there was something about Bush: no one could really explain it. Part of it had to be the way he dealt with the coach, Follansbee, a strange little guy, and severe, sort of a stick: never spoke like a coach at all, but like a biology teacher, which he was. They said he’d been a pretty good catcher for Princeton, in his day, but something happened to his legs: they were horribly twisted and bowed, with some kind of paralytic disease that never got talked about in those days. They called him Flop Follansbee behind his back, and some of the players never could get on with him. But Poppy was perfect, like he was with all the teachers. He wouldn’t brownnose, or as they called it then, “suck,” like some guys who had “drag” with the faculty. Poppy just fit in with them, like he belonged.
Still, there was something more, and this was about the way he played: it wasn’t thought, or forethought—nothing studied. Just the reverse: it was release, almost the absence of self, in the focus on the game. He wanted so hard to be the best. They could see it before every game.
Infield practice was the last bit of business before a game, and old Flop Follansbee, he could run infield. Some coaches, who couldn’t handle a bat, would just squib off grounders anywhere, weak rollers, or high-bouncing, too-easy chops off the hard dirt in front of the plate. But Flop, with his professorial scowl and his poor twisted legs, was a fine hand with a bat and ball. He could hit with different hops and different speeds, make an infielder go to his left or right, just to the edge of his range: Flop could bring out the best in an infield. And he loved to get the best from Poppy Bush. Poppy had fine, soft hands, quick moves, and Flop loved trying to hit one by him. So the last bit of infield went like this: Flop would rap a grounder down to third, and the third baseman would throw home to the catcher. The catcher would fire back to third, where the third sacker went back to cover. Then the third baseman fired the ball home again, and ran for the bench. Then, onto the shortstop, who threw home ... and the second baseman ... if they had a sub, they’d always give him a chance, too. But finally, there was Poppy alone, crouched on the balls of his feet at first base. And all the fellows, whatever they were doing: fiddling with a mitt, tying spikes ... everybody stopped, to watch this thing between Poppy and Flop. It was so ... intimate; just between them, really. But it was also a touchstone for the game to come—a check of the hands that day. Flop would hit a grounder down to first, and Poppy would throw home. The catcher would throw back to first, and Poppy would fire back to the plate. But he wouldn’t run to the bench. He’d charge the plate, right down the baseline, streaking in. And Flop would try to rap one by him. Never too hard, he made it fair. But you could see in the jawline of that crippled old coach: he was trying to beat the kid’s beautiful hands. And what they remembered most was the way Poppy came at him—flying down the line with the air and the strain pulling his face taut—laughing with the pure joy of contest.
That’s why he was The One for captain. It was the glint of Walker steel they saw. They wanted their team to be like that.
That was the privilege of being Poppy—just playing the game, being a friend, being like he was, and having it come out right, without thinking too much. Having other people do the talking about him, friends who’d take up for him, praise him, so he never had to be out for himself. They always wrote about his “life of privilege ...” like it was some snotty thing, where the family was better—thought they were better—than someone else. Wasn’t like that. Never ... wouldn’t do that. That was a matter of the personal code. It was just ... well, he just did, and people saw something in him.
That’s what he couldn’t understand now, why they couldn’t see it anymore. Why, forty-five years later, all the guys he hired wanted him to go out and beat his own chest, to thump the tub for himself like he’d never done anything. Trying to tell him how to act. Like he had to act. ... Goddammit, he’d played the game! And won. He wasn’t gonna change the way he was now.
Sometimes it almost made him laugh, sometimes he and Bar would laugh, the way they worried about him,
like he wouldn’t be able to do anything—all these guys ... straphangers, he called them, guys hangin’ on for the ride. That wasn’t really fair. They were all friends. But all these kids, down in the hole with him now, what were they doing? Keeping quiet because he wasn’t talking. Worrying. He could feel their tension, like he’d never thrown a ball.
They were all just trying to do a job for him. He knew that. Hell, they were right about the vest. That’s why he had them call from the plane this afternoon, patched it through the White House switchboard, called ahead to meet him at the hotel, with a ball and a mitt, so he could throw a few. Wasn’t easy, with this damn thing on. But he had to go along. The Service ... they were trying to do a job, too ...
“We’ve known him for years here in Houston ...”
The Lead Advance brushed by the VP to climb out to the field, give the high sign to the dugout, to Alan Ashby, the Astros’ catcher.
In the Catfish Hole, George Bush snapped to focus on the field, the photographers ... that’s Fred! He’s a friend! He raised a hand ... his blazer caught on the vest where it bulged ... he straightened himself.
“And he’s flown in tonight to be with us ...”
The Lead Advance was looking back toward the Hole, where the Vice President was straightening his blazer. The blazer! Why the hell was Bush wearing the jacket? On top of the vest! Christ! Why’d he have to wear the stupid vest? He couldn’t move like that. At the hotel, he put on the vest—half his throws never got there!
Why didn’t he just tell the Service to stick it!
“Ladies and gentlemen, a real friend ...”
But George Bush couldn’t tell the Service to stick it. Wouldn’t be like that. ... Alas, that was the price of being Poppy.
And now, to throw out the first pitch, to get the 1986 National League Championship Series under way, the Vice President of the United States ...
In the broadcast booth, Keith Jackson segued smoothly out of a commercial for the ABC viewers.
George Bush! ... Calls Houston home! And you know what? He knows what he’s doin’. He was the captain of the 1948 Yale team ...
He’s out of the hole, and they’re cheering! The noise from the crowd is washing down on him from the walls of the Dome—it’s like a canyon, six decks! It’s huge. This is not even noise. It’s another sensation, more like touch, a feeling around the whole head, like hot air pushing in. You can feel it in your hair.
They’re on their feet! Standing O ...
Another man might have turned to wave, or raised a hand ... another politician, surely. But George Bush lowered his head, like he was embarrassed, or he had to watch his black lace-up shoes on the turf, the dirt around the plate. The cheers rained down on the back of his neck. Oh, he heard them, or felt them, really. By the time he passed the umpires meeting at the plate, his game face had changed to a broad grin of pleasure.
You could see he loved it. Up close, you could feel the fun in him, and the force—he did look terrific. Hell, sixty-two, six-foot-two, and not a spare inch on him. Still quick on a tennis court. Only doubles now, but not too shabby. That’s about the only game he had time for. Golf was too slow. Anyway, his putting was shot to hell. But tennis he kept after. Two sets last weekend. Got some sun. Did his running. Up close, you could see he was an athlete. Just a gleam of silver in his hair. Good bones, good tone in his face. Of course, if you saw that grin, you knew he was pumped up. ... This was great! Part of it was just gettin’ moving. Never liked hangin’ around waiting, just alone, to think ... always happier doing. And walking onto the field: “We love this kind of stuff. ...” Jeez, it was great! ... But, of course, the crowd in the Dome couldn’t see that.
What did they see?
First, they didn’t see him at all, couldn’t tell which one was him, the way all the suits came out of the Hole together. And by the time the guys from the Service had peeled away, to stand in front of the photographers, massed on the first- and third-base lines, Bush had his head down, marching to the mound like a man to his doom. In fact, he looked small, all at once alone on the green expanse, overmatched by the huge arc of the Dome, the vast hall it enclosed, the noise from the high canyon. There was a cameraman from the Astrodome, with a Minicam balanced on a shoulder, walking behind him, relaying an image straight to the Diamond Vision screen in center field, but all he got, all the fans in the Dome got, was a fifty-foot shot of the bent back of the Vice Presidential neck. Of course, George Bush never looked up to see that.
That was the price. ... There was no other politician, certainly no other Presidential contender, who would not give one thought, one quick glance, to a Diamond Vision screen, with a picture of him, looming fifty feet high, right in front of his face. Not Bush: he couldn’t think about it that way, couldn’t see himself as he must look to others, couldn’t do “that image thing” ... “all that me, me, me stuff.”
You’d think he would have learned from Reagan, watching him for six years. You watch Reagan do something public, anything, like walk across the lawn to his chopper: every movement is perfect. There he goes ... with his big western walk, shoulders back, hands swinging easy at his sides, the grin raised to perfect angle, then one hand aloft in a long wave ... and every instant is a perfect picture. It doesn’t even matter if they’re screaming questions at him. At any one millisecond, as the shutter clicks, the President is perfect: relaxed, balanced, smiling, smooth.
Now watch Bush make for his chopper: hey, he knows that agent!—not part of his detail, but he met him on the last trip to Houston, got a kid who wants to go to West Point, wrote a letter for him. So Bush twists around and waves to the agent—lets him know he’s seen him, bends his head back to Bar to tell her, that’s Keith, the agent, remember? “MR. VICE PRESIDENT! MR. VICE PRESIDENT!” a photographer is yelling, and it’s Fred, the Life guy, who was on the trip to Cleveland last week, so while he’s talking to Bar, and pointing at the agent, he makes a face to Fred, to let him know he doesn’t have to shout. He knows him, see. Fred’s a friend! And there’s Steely waiting at the chopper stairs. Jack Steel! Known him for—God! Twenty-five years? And so he’s got to goose Steely, let him know he’s glad to see him, and he’s making a face at Bar about the way the photographers are shouting, and he twists around to see if the agent’s seen him, oughta ask him, but the engine’s so loud, and the wind’s whipping his hair in his face, which he’s screwing up to yell, as he pauses—gotta ask him—trying to balance, crouching in the engine wind, one foot up on the stairs: “Hey! How’s your son? ... YOUR SON? ...”
And at any one moment, as the shutter clicks, Bush looks like a dork.
So now, he gets to the mound and turns, and stands center stage in the great canyon, stands full frame on the nation’s TV screens, stands alone before the forty-four thousand, and the fifty million. And yet there is not one instant when Bush is at rest, smooth, balanced, his hands easy at his sides. Hell, he can’t drop his hands to his sides: they’ve got him bundled up like a kid in a snowsuit!
He’s got his blue blazer, and a silver tie, and the blue shirt stuffed with him and the vest, and gray flannel slacks, and a brown belt that doesn’t match the lace-up shoes, which he’s now inching backward at the crest of the mound, feeling tentatively for the rubber, as he balances with baby steps on the slippery dirt. And at last, he looks up ... and there’s the grin!
But, alas, no one gets to see the grin. Because as Bush looks up, what he sees is a person, Alan Ashby, the catcher, right there in front of his face, albeit sixty-and-a-half feet away. So Poppy’s got to have a thing with him—gonna be a friend, see. So he lifts up his right hand in front of his face, palm up, and with his wrist limp, flaps his fingers up together, as if he wants Ashby to come closer. A joke, see, just between Al and Poppy. But Ashby doesn’t know him, and he thinks it’s serious, so then Bush has to raise both hands, quick, palms out, with the ball flashing white in his left hand, to keep Ashby where he is, at the plate. By this time, there’s fifty million people who don’t know
what’s going on with Bush, why he’s flapping his hands in front of his face.
By this time, ABC has cut to the center-field camera, and the nation has a view of the Vice Presidential back and backside. In this cruel shot, there is none of the athlete a fan might have seen up close, on the field. There is just the squarish silhouette of an aging white man, thick through the middle like any guy at sixty-something, looking every bit the interloper, like any guy in a jacket and tie who walks onto a ball field. Just a pol muscling in on a game that isn’t his—Hey, watch this ... think he can throw?
This is it: the moment, the glorious nexus. Poppy is winding up—well, sort of. He can’t really get his arms above his head, so they end up together in front of his face, and he sort of swivels to his left, and his left arm flies back—but it won’t go back, so he gets it back even with his shoulder, and starts forward, while his right lace-up feels for the dirt on the downslope, and he can tell it’s short while the throw is still in his hand, and he’s trying to get that little extra with his hand, which ends up, fingers splayed, almost waving, as he lands on his right foot, and lists to his left, toward the first-base line, with the vent of his blazer aflap to show his gray flannel backside, with his eyes still following the feckless parabola of his toss, which is not gonna ... oh, God! ... not gonna even make the dirt in front of the plate, but bounce off the turf, one dying hop to the ... oh, God!
And as he skitters off the mound toward the first-base line, and the ball on the downcurve of its bounce settles, soundless, into Ashby’s glove, then George Bush does what any old player might do in his shame ... what any man might do who knows he can throw, and knows he’s just thrown like a girl in her first Softball game ... what any man might do—but no other politician, no politician who is falling off the mound toward the massed news cameras of the nation, what no politician would do in his nightmares, in front of fifty million coast-to-coast, prime-time votes:
What It Takes Page 5