The Senator and the Priest

by Andrew M. Greeley

  Dolly interrupted the questions.

  “That’s the end for now. The Senator needs to rest.”

  “When will you continue your campaign, Senator?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  My wife helped me to a couch in the lobby. Cops and Reliables formed a ring around us, my staff sat in chairs next to the couch.

  “Where are the kids?” I asked Mary Margaret,

  “Home, binding up their wounds.”

  “I feel awful, Mary Margaret.”

  “The trouble with you, Tommy Moran, is that you always look great even when you’re feeling awful.”

  We both laughed. I discovered that my chest hurt when I laughed.

  “What’s the plan, Senator?” Joe McDermott began our conference.

  “Full steam ahead!”

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?” Dolly wondered.

  “No, I’m not up to it, not now. But I’ll be all right in a day or two. What’s on for tomorrow?”

  “Rockford in the morning, Sangamon County Fair Grounds in the afternoon, East Saint Louis in the evening. The next day there are rallies at three malls where you sign copies of your books, then a Hispanic Community Center in DuPage. Not the one at the Catholic Church we used the last time. The local pastor banned us.”

  “OK. We’ll take it one day at a time. This is the way we will do it. If I’m dizzy, confused, have a headache or otherwise not my sterling self my good wife will read my talk. Well, actually, she won’t have to read it because she can give it from memory, but it will look better if she brings a paper to the podium. The people will like looking at her better than they like looking at me. I’ll sign books until I can’t see the page any more and then she can sign them for me … OK, Mary Margaret? Maybe I should have asked you first?”

  My good wife was laughing so hard that she couldn’t reply. I felt better.

  “Whatever you say, Boss man!” she said finally.

  “The security will be very tight, Tommy,” Mike Casey informed me. “We don’t have any choice. City, county, state police, and my guys everywhere. We hear that the priest down in Tennessee who organized the protest yesterday is backing off, especially because Cook County has issued a warrant for his arrest. Still there may be local imitators …”

  “Let me guess. The priest is on the list of Bobby Bill’s charities.”

  “It would seem so … I hear on the street that the feds are very interested in Bobby Bill.”

  “However belatedly … Wife of my youth are you going to drive me home from this violent city to the safety of River Forest?”

  I had never been seriously sick in all my life. I figured an act of will power was all that was needed to continue full speed on the campaign. I had figured wrong. The first two weeks of the campaign were a waste as far as my input. The headaches faded only in October. So my wife became the candidate. I would introduce her and warn the people that they should not try to write in her name as a candidate because that would split the Democratic votes. I admitted that in every respect she would make a better Senator than I would. Much laughter and then much applause afterwards. She would always add a few sentences in Spanish.

  “It’s not fair,” I would say. “Mary Margaret ‘took’ elocution in grammar school and I didn’t. Remember when you look at the ballot that my name is spelled t-h-o-m-a-s!”

  The crowds were larger and more boisterous than the last time. They easily drowned out the hecklers. On the weekends the kids all showed up, along with the random O’Malley cousins to do the mariachi and “Irish Eyes.” Also “My Wild Irish Rose” and “Mary, It’s a Grand Old Name.”

  “We have the big mo, Senator,” Dolly assured me. “The real polls showed you ten points ahead and solid.”

  “I’m not sure about the momentum,” I said. “They’ve still got something up their sleeves.”

  Lee Schlenk weighed in again.

  TOMMY CHICKENS OUT

  Cute little Tommy Moran seems to be chickening out of the Senatorial race in Illinois. Never one to display a profile in courage, Tommy is using the excuse that he was too badly injured in the South Chicago Protest to deliver his canned campaign speech. So his wife, Mary Margaret O’Malley, stumbles through it, almost incoherently. She is, readers may remember, the daughter of “Ambassador” Charlie O’Malley, the well-known pornographer.

  That segment from “Under the Dome” pushed Ambassador O’Malley beyond the breaking point. His lawyers promptly sued the Examiner for twenty million dollars. I was not mentioned again in Schlenk’s column.

  “Calling me Charlie is the worst insult of all,” the Ambassador complained. “I am not a Charlie. I am a Chucky.”

  The lawyers at the Examiner did not laugh, however. They had warned the editor often that they were in grave danger of losing a suit. The Examiner’s tone moderated, though their editorial endorsement of “Senator Crispjin” over “Tommy” was in the same tone as Schlenk’s columns and their polls were generally dismissed as rigged.

  Most of the other polls showed that I had a “commanding” lead, though some downstate surveys reported that the tide was beginning to shift towards Senator Crispjin. I was still convinced that the other side had one final dirty trick up its sleeve.

  We avoided the media mobs, save in the small cities downstate. My answers were always the same. No I didn’t think that Senator Crispjin was behind the attack in South Chicago. I would not comment on his response after the violence. I had no idea who was funding the various attacks on me and my family. No, I was not embarrassed by the endorsement of the gay and lesbian alliance.

  No questions on the issues. No, of course not.

  The crowds were friendlier this time around, the African-Americans and Latinos especially. The people on the commuter platforms and in the malls were very nice. They praised Mary Margaret’s taste in clothes and told us how wonderfully brave our daughters were. Priests showed up and thanked me for our efforts on behalf of Catholic schools.

  “They like us, Tommy,” my bride insisted. “They really like us.”

  The Cardinal, who was also from the West Side, stopped in our campaign headquarters along with the ever present and ever insightful Bishop Blackie Ryan. They both accepted an invitation for a snack at Petersen’s.

  “They’ve got an ace up their sleeve,” I said to the little bishop who was on his second malt. “They’ll play it just before the election.”

  He sighed loudly.

  “Arguably. Yet I suspect that you will have a trump.”

  A few days later, we were offered a trump.

  Joe and Dolly took Mary Margaret and me back into the corner where we had our private conversations.

  Joe began.

  “The feds will indict Bobby Bill the week after the election, Senator. They’re going to throw the book at him. He has spent a hundred million dollars on Crispjin’s campaigns. He organized the assassination attempts, the attack on Mary Rose, and the demonstration at Gately Stadium. He pays a fee of a hundred thousand dollars a year to Leander Schlenk. He cheats on his income tax. They have enough to indict Rodge Crispjin too and will do so if he loses. Moreover the Daily News has the story and will run it.”

  “After the election, I presume?”

  “Naturally.”

  “However,” Dolly continued, “the writer at the News who did the story is willing to leak it to us.”

  “Leak it or sell it?” I asked. “Not that it matters.”

  “Sell it.”

  “We don’t want it,” I said firmly. “I’m not going to break my promises now.”

  Joe sighed.

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “It’s a dirty game,” Dolly added. “Thank God you won’t play it that way.”

  “They will,” I said, “and we will have to be ready for them.”

  “When?” Dolly asked.

  “Friday afternoon late. We need everyone here to plot our response.”

  When they left, Mary Margaret hugged me.
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br />   “I’m so proud of you, Tommy. You are my gallant night of the Holy Grail.”

  “Or maybe the Holy Sepulcher.”

  As the election approached, some African-American congregations were singing “Irish Eyes” and “It’s a Grand Old Name.” The Latinos followed suit. I began to think that maybe they really did like us. I still feared the final blow on the final Friday evening.

  Henry Honeywell of the Daily News stopped me on the Brown Line L platform the Wednesday before the election. He handed me a copy proof of their editorial endorsement.

  “We’re going to run it on Friday.”

  I glanced at it quickly.

  “Very nice, Henry,” I gave it back to him. “Dolly McCormick wouldn’t have been more generous.”

  “I’m not sure our endorsements make any difference.”

  “With some folks, I think they do.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Henry,” I said, “you folks over at the Daily News talk a lot about the people’s right to know.”

  “That’s part of our prime directive,” he said with a thin smile at his illusion to Star Trek.

  “Yet the people of the State of Illinois don’t have a right to know what’s happening down in Oklahoma before they vote next week?”

  He stiffened.

  “You know about that?” he said, frowning.

  “A lot of people know about it.”

  “You’ve got the story?”

  “No. And I don’t want it … If I were to use it now it would violate my prime directive. But if you don’t use it you’re violating your prime directive, are you not?”

  “We didn’t want to exercise undue influence on the election.”

  “Neither did the prosecutors in Oklahoma … When the story comes out, how will you explain your silence on a matter to which the people of Illinois have the right to know—no matter who wins next Tuesday.”

  “You’re way ahead, Tommy. You don’t need this to win.”

  “Maybe we do, Henry, and maybe we don’t. That’s not the point is it?”

  “We stand by our decision, Tommy,” he said averting his eyes.

  “I’ll be interested next week to see how you explain it.”

  I turned and walked away from him.

  I realized I shouldn’t have said what I did. However, I was fed up with media and their hypocrisy.

  We continued our reckless and feckless campaign. Everyone said we were going to win big. I was waiting for Friday afternoon.

  We gathered together at campaign headquarters on Chicago Avenue at four forty-five to wait for the five o’clock news and the axe to fall.

  Everyone, even the good Mary Margaret, thought I was wrong.

  Then, right on schedule, the axe fell.

  CHAPTER 34

  CHANNEL 3 CHICAGO

  ANCHOR: We have a breaking news story which will have a tremendous impact on next week’s national election. Amanda Crawford, a former staffer for Illinois Senator Thomas Moran, has filed a paternity suit against the Senator. She contends that her three-year-old son, also Thomas, was conceived in the Senator’s office in the Senate four years ago during the August recess. We take you to Tamar Montcrief in Washington.

  MONTCRIEF: That’s right Luci. Twenty-four-year-old Mandy Crawford brought her son with her when she and her lawyers entered the Federal Court House in the District of Columbia. She was obviously a very distraught young woman.

  CRAWFORD (a pale, pretty blond in jeans and sweatshirt. In tears. She is surrounded by lawyers, security, and public relations): He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t return my phone calls. He wouldn’t answer my letters. I had to think of my poor Tommy here.

  (Her handsome son with dark red hair stares at the camera)

  See, doesn’t he look like the Senator? Isn’t he cute? The Senator told me that he wasn’t happy in his marriage because his wife wouldn’t make love with him and that he would divorce her and marry me. He was very nice to me at first but then when the August recess was over, he seemed to lose interest. I still love him, but he’s let me down.

  REPORTER: Did you consent to sex, Ms. Crawford?

  CRAWFORD: Not at first, no.

  REPORTER: Where did you have sex with him?

  CRAWFORD: Usually in the closet in his office.

  REPORTER: When?

  CRAWFORD: At the end of the day when everyone else went home.

  REPORTER: Why did you wait till the week before the election to reveal your affair with the Senator?

  CRAWFORD: I wrote him last week and told him I would sue him before the election unless he talked to me about poor little Tommy.

  (The baby begins to cry)

  PUBLIC RELATIONS PERSON: I think that’s enough questions for now. Mandy finds this all very painful.

  MONTCRIEF: This sensational news is likely to have a profound impact on next Tuesday’s election, especially since her little Tommy was born in District General Hospital exactly nine months after Ms. Crawford’s affair with Senator Moran. We now go to our Congressional correspondent Marty Gordon. Marty?

  GORDON: That’s right, Tamar. Most senators are not in Washington on the Friday before an election. However, we do have Senator Winston Evergreen available for comment … What do you think of this shocking scandal, Senator?

  EVERGREEN (ROTUND AND ALMOST CLERICAL): I’ve been in the United States Senate for a long time and I’ve heard just about everything. Yet as a devout Christian man, I am shocked by adultery. Senator Moran was a young man on the make, a typical new Democrat who wants to run the country. He was hoping to continue his mischievous role as a member of the Democrat leadership. Now it looks like lust has destroyed him. I for one won’t miss him.

  GORDON: Now for a view from the White House, we go to John Kramer at the White House. John, what are they saying over there?

  KRAMER: They’re not saying much on the record, Marty. But off the record they’re pretty pleased. Senator Moran has been a thorn in the side of the administration since he came into the Senate almost six years ago. The White House thinks he’s a slick and dangerous operator and that his now certain defeat in Illinois will signal a return to Republican control in the Congress and here in the White House.

  ANCHOR: Sorry to interrupt, John, but we now have a reporter who is interviewing Senator Bartlett McCoy in Kentucky. Senator McCoy has sponsored several legislative measures with Senator Moran. We take you to Joan Merton in Lexington, Kentucky.

  MERTON (BREATHLESS): Senator McCoy do you have any comment about the scandal involving Senator Thomas P. Moran?

  McCOY: Yes, I do, ma’m.

  MERTON: And what is that comment, Senator.

  McCOY: My comment, ma’am, is that it is all balderdash!

  MERTON (BAFFLED): “Balderdash, Senator”

  McCOY: Yes, ma’am, pure balderdash, not to use a more scatological term. A cheap election trick, in which I am sure the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee is not involved, because I’m a member of it. Tom Moran simply isn’t the kind of man who would engage in that sort of behavior. He is a true gentleman …

  MERTON (CUTS HIM OFF): Back to you, Luci.

  ANCHOR: Now we turn to our chief political correspondent, Arthur Kincaid in Washington. Arthur, what’s this scandal going to mean for the Democratic party next Tuesday?

  KINCAID: I’m afraid it will mean defeat, Luci. Senator Moran, one of the most promising younger Democrats in the Senate, faced a tough election challenge from former Senator H. Rodgers Crispjin. Now he will certainly lose by a large margin, thus threatening the Democrats’ paper-thin advantage in the Senate. A more serious question for those who see this election as a Democratic revival is whether Senator Moran’s negative coattails will drag down their presidential candidate in Illinois which has always been a swing state in presidential elections. I suspect that the Democrats are thanking heaven that Tom Moran didn’t accept the vice presidential nomination.

  ANCHOR: We have just learned that the Chicago Daily News, which
had endorsed Senator Moran in today’s edition, will withdraw its endorsement in the Sunday edition. We have also learned that Senator Moran will hold a press conference tomorrow afternoon. It is expected that he will withdraw from the race … Now for weather and sports.

  CHAPTER 35

  NEWS CONFERENCE

  PLACE: Senator Moran’s reelection headquarters TIME: 3:30 Saturday afternoon.

  (The Senator stands in front of the room. His family and staff are behind a long table on which there are many stacks of paper)

  SENATOR (solemnly and grimly): It is rather late in the day to fight off the feeding frenzy which has enveloped me and my family in the last twenty-two hours. I have already been judged and executed without a chance at self-defense. I will begin by saying that there has been only one woman in my life and that I have been faithful to her since we were married. All allegations to the contrary are crudely crafted lies. I will now endeavor to demonstrate that they are lies.

  First, I dismiss as frivolous the allegation that red hair of the unquestionably adorable Tommy Crawford is proof that he is my son. A minute’s thought would suggest that the red-haired genes come from the other side of the family—my wife, my father-in-law, my wife’s grandfather, and several earlier generations of west of Ireland Irish.

  Secondly, my staff did a very careful search of Ms. Crawford’s governmental employment. She was never a member of our staff. I never met her. I do not know her. Nor did she ever work for the staff of another senator. Quite the contrary, at the time of her alleged relationship with me, she was in fact working as a stenographer in the Department of the Interior. I have here on the table evidence of these facts which we have labeled “Exhibit A” in case any of you want to take copies with you.

  Thirdly, young Tommy’s blood type is A as is evident from his birth certificate, copies of which are available as “Exhibit B.” My own blood type is O. It is impossible for someone with my blood type to have a child with the A type. My blood test is here in “Exhibit C.”