by Jason Heller
Power corrupts, goes the aphorism. But Taft tasted power—tremendous power—and instead of being seduced by it, he was repulsed by it.
What kind of character does such a man possess? This question consumed me when I began studying history in earnest. And the more I learned about him, the more I wished I’d had the chance to meet this man. Just once. Just to say, The country may not have appreciated you. History may not have vindicated you. And since you disappeared on your first day as a free man, you never had the chance to prove them wrong, to find your true calling, to find happiness. But I understand you. I admire you. I know how you feel—because I feel the same way.
And then, of course, the impossible happened, and I did meet him. His portraits didn’t do him justice. Sturdy, solid, protective without being patronizing, manly without being boorish. And with that distinguished mustache—the last mustache a U.S. president would ever wear. I sometimes suspect Taft was the reason later presidents stopped wearing facial hair. Anything to set themselves apart from the president who had become a cipher at best, a punch line at worst.
If they only knew.
FROM THE DESK OF REP. RACHEL TAFT (Ind.–OH)
To-do list—Tues. 22nd—Things to discuss with Grandpa
—Won’t do any political appearances while we’re home. But maybe we can take just one picture with the Cincinnati Little League?
—Thanksgiving dinner. Please invite Agent Kowalczyk to join us at the table.
—Please remember next time someone recognizes you that we all have cameras in our phones now. Phone waving is not a ritual greeting.
—Gay people. General catching up about all that.
—Your great-great-granddaughter is biracial. Please please oh god please don’t be weird about it. If you are, we’ll all deal. But please don’t. Oh hell.
EIGHT
First it had been the young man behind the bar at the airport restaurant. Now a whole crowd, albeit a small one, had gathered around Taft. Some were old. Some were young. Some were black. Some were white. Some had accents. Others didn’t. But they all had one thing in common: they wanted his autograph.
Apparently his twenty-first-century informal look only went so far.
“Yes, you there, my good fellow. Pass that newspaper over, and I’ll give it a good endorsing.” Rachel, bless her heart, had tried to keep them away at first, ordering Kowalczyk and his six-man Secret Service detail to form a barrier around Taft and walk him straight to the gate where his airplane was boarding. At first, that seemed sensible. But as the trickle of hangers-on became a small but swift current, he remembered his promise to Rachel. No more hiding out. No more running away.
He wished Susan hadn’t chosen to stay behind. The thought of her alone for Thanksgiving made his stomach somersault. As did the thought of the holiday itself. He had no idea what Thanksgiving dinners were like in this day and age, but he hoped that a big, fresh, juicy turkey remained the tradition. Hell, he’d eat Twinkies in place of pumpkin pie if he could just have a sizeable platter of gravy-drenched turkey.
“There you go, little girl. And you, ma’am, what would you like me to sign?” An alarmingly comely young woman pulled down the collar of her blouse—exceedingly thin and skimpy, as seemed to be the fashion in this shameless new century—as if to indicate her bosom.
“Ah, thank you, no. Might you have a piece of paper?” He signed an envelope she was holding and moved on to the next person, walking slowly along as he did.
The next person—a young man with a particularly puckish look on his face—offered Taft a small, flat, shiny box to sign. Upon it were the words President Kane. Before he could get a good look at it, Kowlaczyk snatched it out of the man’s hand and had one of the other agents hustle him away.
“What was that?”
Kowalczyk traded glances with Rachel. Was that a grimace of conspiracy on their faces? No, it couldn’t be. He was being, as Nellie used to say, far too sensitive.
“Just a DVD, sir. A movie. Nothing you need to be bothered with.”
“A moving picture? In a little box? Why, that sounds exactly like something I need to be bothered with.”
Rachel put her face near his ear. “Are you doing okay?” she whispered. If Taft didn’t know better, he’d say she was changing the subject. “Really, I’d have no problem with Kowalczyk moving these people back. They’re like vultures.”
He laughed. “And when has the public ever not? Besides, I’m honestly a bit terrified about this traveling through the air business.”
“It’ll be fine. We just need to get to the damn plane already. At least it’s a private jet. If we were flying commercial, we’d be screwed right about now.”
Taft moved on to the next outstretched piece of paper in his path. “All I know is this: if Teddy Roosevelt could go up in an airplane, so can I.” He remembered that day in October 1910 when he was sitting in the Oval Office and got the telephone call from Teddy. “Bill! You’ll never believe what I did today. The Wright Brothers themselves gave me a ride in one of their biplanes! Glorious! You should see what the earth looks like from such a height. The reporters are on their way now. I just wanted to share this magnificent moment with you.”
That was Teddy. He always had to look down on you. It had become obvious to Taft, mere weeks after his election in 1908, that Roosevelt already chafed at seeing someone else in his White House. Even as a civilian, he had to blow his horn louder and make a bigger spectacle than the president himself. It was a petulant way to draw attention, but hadn’t that always been Teddy’s way? Taft was steady, deliberate, grounded. Teddy climbed into winged contraptions and laughed as they hurtled through the sky. It was hard for Taft to believe that it wasn’t all part of Teddy’s plan—to undermine Taft’s presidency, to constantly remind the American people that, mere months earlier, they’d had a virile and heroic commander-in-chief. Oh, and trim, too.
Was he still dwelling on the election? Curse it all. A hundred years had slipped by. He’d have to learn to get over it.
Suddenly Taft realized his procession had slowed from a crawl to a halt. What was it now? Blast it. Thinking of Teddy always had a way of stirring up his nerves.
“Mr. President. May I have a word with you? It’s about our correspondence.”
A woman, perhaps in early middle age, stood before him. She wore a cap and glasses tinted so dark he couldn’t see her eyes.
“Excuse me? I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m quite sure I’ve not made your acquaintance.”
She stepped forward, bumped against the formidable barricade of Kowalczyk’s outstretched arm, and lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose. “President Taft, it’s me. Pauline Craig. From TV.”
And so it was. Even behind the glasses and beneath the ridiculous hat, she was striking. Hard-faced, composed, controlled, with an almost chiseled beauty—in person she reminded Taft uncannily of Nellie.
“Ah, why, yes, Mrs. Craig—”
“Ms. Craig.”
“Yes, Ms. Craig. How caddish of me. Did you receive my reply to your invitation? I had so many missives to answer this week before preparing for the holiday.”
“I did. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.” She shifted her bag under her arm. “Can you spare a moment?”
“No, he can’t.” It was Kowalczyk. Taft suddenly hated his new friend with a passion. “Get your autograph or move along, please.”
“I just wanted to ask you, Mr. Taft, why you refuse to appear on my show. Your reply didn’t give much of an explanation.”
Taft bristled. “Look here, madam. I used to get in far too much trouble by accepting invitations from every muckraker who happened along. I do sincerely appreciate your invitation, and perhaps in the future—”
“Mr. Taft,” she said, taking off her glasses. Her icy blue eyes lanced him to the quick. “It is the future. And the future needs you. You can’t dodge your destiny, sir.”
“And what destiny would that be?”
“Polit
ics, of course. You’re advising your great-granddaughter, aren’t you? What are you planning? Is there a new dynasty in the making here? Taft 2012, perhaps? The public has a right to know, Mr. Taft!”
At that point, Kowalczyk had had enough. “Okay, lady, you’ve had your chat, and we have a plane to catch.”
The agent’s coterie fell into phalanx formation and pointed Taft on down the walkway. Pauline Craig was swept away in a swarm of bodies and chaos, but not before yelling, “Taft 2012! Is that what this is all about? Mr. Taft! Congresswoman! The nation is waiting for answers!”
Her voice trailed off as the Secret Service herded them in opposite directions. Again, the void in Taft’s gut felt as though it threatened to consume him. Again, his life was quickly spiraling out of his control.
CLASSIFIED
Secret Service Incidence Report
BBO20111124.015
Agent Ira Kowalczyk
At 1059, touched down at Cincinnati. Advance team confirms Grand Girl’s residence and Big Boy’s requested detour to Patterson both secure. No crowds in the airport on this end; possibly it’s just the D.C. populace that’s grown inured to the incognito approach.
cincinnati craigslist > personals > missed connections
Re: DID WM HOWARD TAFT TRIM HIS STACHE? (Airport)
Date: 2011-11-24 11:36 AM EST
Because I think I just saw him in Concourse B.
I didn’t want to bother the guy, though—it’s a holiday.
• Location: Airport
NINE
Cincinnati wasn’t anything like he remembered. And it was exactly like he remembered.
What differed was the skyline. The buildings—so many more of them!—seemed like sad hulks pitted against the cosmos, crumbling guardians infested from within and taken for granted by their wards. In his day, Cincinnati was a city on its way up. New architecture, new commerce, new industry. It was clear, without having to consult any history book, that things had changed.
At the same time, the encroaching winter smelled and felt the same in his lungs and on his skin as it ever did. Rolling down the window of the automobile that carried them from the airport, he savored that familiar bouquet of frost and steam and industry, although, he had to admit, the air seemed cleaner than it had in his day. It stung his nose, but, more than that, it stung his memory.
“Rachel!” he said suddenly, rummaging around in one of his bags. “I’d completely forgotten. I know you must be in a rush to get home to your husband, as I am to meet him. But is there a chance we might make a stop along the way?” He produced an opened envelope from his luggage and handed it to her. “Can you please pass this up to the driver? The address is on it.”
“What is this?” she said, turning it over.
“Just an almost acquaintance, one whose actual making is long overdue.”
Rachel, thankfully, didn’t pester or question him the way Susan would have. She nodded and spoke to the driver, who pulled the car off the busy thoroughfare and was soon cutting through a series of slushy side streets. It had started snowing, and a light dusting of tiny flakes drifted through the air like angels.
Within minutes, they’d arrived. Taft asked for the envelope back from the driver, and he double-checked the address with the one on the building. This was it. Patterson Senior Village.
“Kowalczyk, do you mind waiting?” he said as he opened the door and stepped into the snow. “I assure you, there’s no one of dangerous intent in there.”
“I know,” the agent said. “I’ll come into the building anyway. But don’t worry, I’ll leave you to your private conversation. Oh, that reminds me—” He handed Taft one of those small, miraculous telephones everyone seemed to have permanently attached to their ears. “My number’s on speed dial. Here, let me show you. Just hit the number one if you ever need to call me, two for Susan, and three for Rachel. Sound good?”
Taft held the tiny device in his hand then slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat. It was thoughtful of Kowalczyk, but he certainly wouldn’t be needing it here. This telephone was a marvel of the future. He was here to speak to the past.
THE HALLS SMELLED like some sort of sickening mixture of medicine and candy. Come to think of it, the walls also imagined the color of such a mingling. Taft had had no problem getting past the front desk; he knew he’d already been added to the list of potential visitors, a fat, hopeful clipboard full of unchecked names that the clerk at the desk had referenced before calling an orderly to escort him to the room.
He passed open doorways that added a mild tang of urine and disinfectant to the already cloying odor. Taft felt a twinge somewhere in his midsection and wished suddenly that he hadn’t been nauseous on the aircraft.
Finally, they arrived at the door: Room 128. As the orderly knocked, announced the visitor, and turned the doorknob, Taft wondered at the notion of having one’s environment, one’s entire existence, reduced and restricted to one building, one room. He realized sadly that, during his time in office, he’d known that feeling all too well.
The door swung open. The air, thankfully, become sweeter, bearing a heady bouquet of rosewater. “Well, are you gonna stand out there all day?” The voice was ragged around the edges, but the woman to whom it belonged couldn’t have looked less so.
Ms. Irene O’Malley—or rather, Irene Kaye, as the widow had retained her long-departed husband’s last name—sat on the edge of the bed, all 100 pounds and 105 years of her. A quilt fit for a bee lay in a state of construction across her lap. Her long, silver hair was done up in a simple braid. In her bony fingers flashed a needle. She didn’t stop stitching or even glance up as Taft walked into the room. The orderly left the two alone.
“Sit down, please,” said Irene, indicating a chair next to her bed piled high with newspapers. Taft picked up the heavy stack and grunted as he placed it on the floor next to an even larger stack.
“I never had much use for the newspapers while I was in office,” he grumbled as he eased his bulk into the seat. He looked at Irene, whose eyes sparkled deeply in their nests of pink wrinkles. Still, her skin almost glowed. She seemed preternaturally hale, healthy, and alert for one so old. Taft wondered briefly at the status of medicine in America. These days, it must be a veritable marvel of equity and efficiency.
“Thank you for writing me, Mrs. Kaye,” he began.
“Oh, call me Irene,” she said. “Just Irene. That’s who I was the first time I wrote to you. When I was six.”
“I wish I had answered you at the time,” Taft said. “What good is a president if he can’t take the time out to reply to a child, to help inspire the future?”
Irene shrugged extravagantly. “Well, the future is here. I survived regardless. And I must say, you now look young enough to be my grandson.”
“What has your life been like, Irene? That is, if you don’t mind my asking. These people who are watching over me now, they … they don’t understand. They weren’t alive back then. It seems like such a different world in so many ways. How did you make it to the twenty-first century without going mad?”
“Well, I suppose I did it the same way you made it from the nineteenth to the twentieth. It was gradual. You go along with things. And when you can’t, you let things flow on past you and try not to obstruct them.”
“That’s a sensible way of looking at it.”
“Sensibility may be the only good quality I have left.” She chuckled. “Half my eyesight is gone. My youngest son passed away over ten years ago. I still have my mind, though. And my memories.”
“Tell me of them, please. What was the rest of the twentieth century like? What have I missed?”
She seemed taken aback. “Haven’t your government people been telling you?”
He sighed. “Even if they were my age, they should be a century too young to offer the perspective I need.”
“Well,” said Irene, “I’d be happy to tell you what I know. But it would take a while, and you have friends waiting.”
“I know the perfect solution. Irene, would you like to have Thanksgiving dinner with me and my family? I could have a car sent tomorrow.”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose. There’s also this small matter.” She lifted her arm, displaying a tangled trail of tubes that led from a machine next to her bed and into her body. “They’ve got me all trussed up here. But I tell you what: If you happen to have any leftovers you’d like to bring me, I’d be happy to take care of them for you.”
He took her hand. “Of course. But only if you promise me that you’ll tell me more about yourself. I thirst for conversation with someone who remembers ragtime and Bob Bescher and the day the Titanic didn’t come home.”
“Bob Bescher! Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.”
He laughed. “How are the Reds doing in this day and age, by the by?”
“Oh, dear. You don’t want to know.”
Taft looked away, lost abruptly in thought. “Baseball! I know, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a trivial pastime. But for some reason the notion that baseball is still an institution in this nation … it makes me think things haven’t changed all that much, despite everything I’ve learned to the contrary.” He put down her hand and picked up his hat and coat. “Did you know, Irene, that I’m the only president to have ever thrown the first pitch of the baseball season? In 1910, Senators versus Athletics. It was a big to-do! And my pitching arm isn’t half bad, if I do say so myself. Ah, what a grand day.”