“Have you ever been married?” a reporter asked.
“Not yet. I’m looking. If you know anyone who wants to live in a nice white house and be surrounded by Secret Service agents night and day, let me know.”
“Are you, or have you ever been, gay?”
“Next question.”
“Have you had homosexual encounters?”
“Next question.”
“Have you used mind-altering drugs of any kind?”
“Next question.”
“Can you name three of your closest friends so that we can approach them for more detailed biographical information?”
Jesus named eight people—five Americans, two Nepalese yoga masters, and a farmer in Argentina. It would turn out that the Americans were easy to find: a banker in Montgomery, Alabama, a cardiac nurse in Saint Louis, a musician in Tampa, a coal miner in eastern Kentucky, and Anna Songsparrow Endish, his vice presidential choice, who would be on the stage with him in ten minutes, and who, he added, “happens to be my mother in this lifetime.”
Hearing this astonishing piece of news, reporters began shouting questions from all directions, most of them about Anna Songsparrow: What were her qualifications? How old was she? Why hadn’t we heard of her before? Would she participate in the vice presidential debate? Jesus waved one arm to his right, “Yes to everyone on that side,” and one to his left, “and no, never, not under any circumstances to everyone on that side,” and left the podium to a hundred smiles.
An hour later, when we arrived on the stage after sampling various treatments at various booths promoting various organic spas (Ezzie convinced Wales to have his ears irrigated with distilled water and sea salt) we noticed a small woman standing there with her hands folded in front of her. She wore traditional Indian dress—mocassins, skins, beads—and turned out to be Anna Songsparrow Endish, a Navajo who had been born and raised outside of Flagstaff, Arizona, moved to New Mexico to live on the reservation, and came, we were told, from a long line of famous Navajo mystics. Her father had served in the United States Army in Europe during World War II. Her grandfather had been Chief Prancing Stallion, one of the most revered Native American leaders at the turn of the century. There was an obvious resemblance to the candidate.
Jesus wrapped his mother in a big hug, and held her hand aloft with his. He referred to her as “this great woman,” and “one of the real spiritual queens of our era,” and she took this in with a tiny Buddha-like smile on her pinched brown features. He asked her to say a few words, and she addressed the assembled in English, then Spanish, and then briefly in her native Navajo, saying, among other things, “I am honored to have been chosen for this important work. Respect for one’s mother is a central tenet of Native American life, and it pleases me deeply that my son has remembered this, even as he stands at the center of the biggest American stage. Much hard work lies ahead of us. Our country is in desperate need of spiritual guidance, a guidance that is based on the principle of inclusion, not exclusion.” And so on. It was a solid, if not particularly exciting performance, in keeping with that famous first rule for vice presidential nominees: don’t outshine your running mate.
The rally went well—cheers, signs, no troublemakers of any kind. Afterward, Anna joined us on the jet, and proved to be a likable, if extremely quiet, member of the team. She and Jesus would sometimes touch each other when they passed in the aisle; once in a while he’d get up and bring her a glass of water, or lean down and whisper something in her ear. But they rarely seemed to feel the need for long conversation, and, as I noted in the journal I was keeping: “If you looked at it without knowing him, or who he was, you’d think Jesus had a love relationship with every woman on the staff, as well as every woman in the audience at the rallies. He reminds me of a rock star in that weird way—he’s not flirting, but there is a real body-to-body energy there, something different in the way he looks at women and the way they look at him. You never got a sense of this from the Bible.”
In any case, Anna was a welcome addition to the group, and her name on the ticket only increased Jesus’s popularity. By the time we finished our broiling hot July tour through New Mexico, Arizona, and southern Utah, and landed in Palm Springs, California, we were, in spite of the NRA and Hurry Linneament, five or six points ahead of Maplewith, and ten or eleven ahead of Alowich, in all the polls that mattered.
TWENTY-SIX
I have to say that, on a personal level, I found Jesus to be peculiar and somehat unpredictable. This troubled me. It also made me think about how we had all come to form an image of him in our minds. If we’d been exposed to the Bible, it was usually only to pieces of the Bible, a few parables, a few key quotes. Added to those pieces were scraps of things we’d heard, paintings by people who had never seen him, and scenes from films. And added to that, I guess, were elements of our own psychology: we wanted Jesus to be a certain way—a savior, a martyr, a pacifist, a radical political figure, a quiet and gentle man of peace, a drinker of wine, a good friend, a guy who could be comfortable around women—because those things made us feel good about him and maybe about ourselves.
But in real life he defied any kind of label. Sitting up there on the bull, he had looked like nothing more than a good ole boy Texan, shoulder muscles bulging, a steely glint in his eye. At other times, he’d move gracefully down the aisle of the jet like a ballet star, or step out of his hotel room in a suit so stylishly tailored that even Wales’s wardrobe paled in comparison. Talking to a university crowd he’d use words like segue and ramification, and then, out in the country someplace, he’d be having biscuits and gravy at a diner, looking like the kind of guy who’d tell an off-color joke at the VFW bar or come over the hill riding an ATV and howling the rebel yell.
In another politician, this would have felt like phoniness. In Jesus, somehow it all seemed part of one parcel. The press kept trying to squeeze him into a box: he’d talk about prohibiting assault rifles or sentencing nonviolent drug offenders to counseling instead of jail, and they’d brand him a bleeding-heart liberal who would probably raise taxes; the next week he’d be going on about real threats to American security in the coming years, and the necessity of people doing things for themselves rather than looking for handouts, and all of a sudden he was a right-wing, hard-hearted, so-and-so. What was particularly interesting was that, the more the political analysts tried to push him into one corner or another, the more ordinary voters, the ones who counted, seemed to appreciate that he actually spoke from his heart, without any calculation.
He could be gruff, but most of the time what you saw was a bedrock kindness. This came out most obviously in the way he talked to my brother—as if Stab’s mental capabilities were the equal of any Einstein on earth—but also in the way he’d sometimes pick up little Dukey when the kid was throwing a tantrum and his mother looked like she was at her wit’s end. Jesus would lift him up and whirl him around in circles. He’d play chess with Amelia Simmelton, a quiet, brilliant girl who Zelda and I believed was actually a grown woman in disguise. When there were children in the crowds at our rallies, they would inevitably try to touch him. Lots of politicians make a fuss over kids, it’s not a new idea in the I-want-your-mommy-and-daddy’s-vote category, but Jesus did it with such obvious joy that he seemed almost like a child himself. He had a sweet tooth and was always asking the bus or limo driver to pull over “for just a second” when we drove past doughnut shops. He had an incredible physical vitality and would go out for a jog in the early-morning darkness, or do difficult yoga poses on the back lawn of the motel, facts which made his late-sleeping security chief very uncomfortable. He did not pay attention to money (we were all well paid, however, automatic deposit, every two weeks), to what people wore, or to whether they were handsome or ugly. I would realize, as the campaign went on, that he slept only an hour or two at night, and woke in the early morning hours to sit in meditation for long stretches. Despite our crazy schedule, he found ways to have alone time with each of us, going for a w
alk with Ada when she was particularly stressed, shooting pool with Stab or Dukey, meeting with Wales and Ezzie and Zelda to go over the day’s events, chatting with the Simmeltons—avid readers—about the great books. When time allowed, he’d call me into his room to watch the local news with him, and he liked it when I pointed out tricks that reporters use—moving their heads to keep the image from being too static, pronouncing words at different volume and pace.
What was strange, to me at least, and I know to Zelda also, was that Jesus never went anywhere near the subject of religion. We expected more miracles. We expected him to talk to church groups, to court key religious figures, or to toss words like faith, God, and morality into his speeches. The press wondered about this, too. Along with their exhaustive—and futile—attempts to find evidence that would discount the two big early miracles, they wondered in column after column, talk show after talk show, why he didn’t do more magic. I mean, if he really was Jesus, why didn’t he, say, go to the rescue of some western Pennsylvania coal miners who were trapped by an explosion and eventually declared lost? Or tour a military hospital and vacuum the trauma out of the brains of soldiers who had fought in the Endless War?
Jesus refused to talk about these things, with us and in public.
But once we’d settled into our Palm Springs lodging, a ritzy golf resort (this was another of his tricks: he’d instruct us to stay in moldy fleabag no-tell motels some nights, and then set us up in the lap of luxury on others), he passed word that we were to be on the bus at ten the next morning for what he called “an unofficial side trip.”
By midmorning in early August it’s scorching hot in Palm Springs. We had been working hard in similarly hot places, for weeks, and would have preferred to lounge by the pool for a couple of hours before his appearance that evening, or to lie in the air-conditioned rooms and read a good book, or watch Rachael Ray on the tube.
But, faithful workers that we were, at ten a.m. we went out and climbed onto the bus. Anna Songsparrow did not join us: my mother said she had seen her wandering away in the direction of the nearest mountains. It was strange, she said; no one seemed to recognize her, and none of the press people followed her.
When Jesus appeared, he was all turned out in a pair of shorts, sandals, and a collared jersey with PALM SPRINGS INN AND CLUB stitched on the arm.
Twenty or thirty print journalists and photographers pressed toward him as he walked out of the hotel. The bus door was open and I could hear them calling out, “Jesus, Jesus!” and “Lord, Lord!” and “Candidate Christ!” “People are wondering why you won’t participate in the last big debate?” “What is your position on the strikes in Argentina?” “Can we get a bio on Ms. Endish?” “Have you seen the latest polls?” “What do you think of Dreaf’s He’s Not My God ads?”
Jesus smiled and nodded and answered none of the questions. At the door of the bus he stopped and turned toward the reporters, sweating and pushing, photographers jockeying for the best shot. “I would like to ask a favor of you,” he said in his calm way. “My staff and I are going into the countryside for a strategy session, and I would appreciate it if none of you follow us. If we can have this privacy, I promise that when I get back we will have a thoroughgoing, informal press conference up in my suite. A separate half hour for the Spanish-language press, as well. Why don’t we say three to five thirty, cameras allowed. Anyone who follows us will not be allowed into the conference. Agreed?”
Sure, they all said, absolutely. “You’ll let us into heaven this afternoon if we don’t sin this morning, right?” one of them joked, and it got a hearty laugh from the group.
But, once we were on the road, despite their promises, a few of them jumped into their cars and followed at a discreet distance. We headed out into the desert on State Highway 94, a two-lane asphalt road running between oceans of sand. I went to the back of the bus and watched, but soon most of the cheaters decided it was too obvious, what they were doing. They didn’t want to risk their two hours of full access at the press conference. Most of them dropped away, but one group—tabloid photographers and reporters, I think they were—stayed with us. I could see their tan SUV turn when we turned, and speed up when we speeded up. We were really out in the desert by then, heat shimmering off the sand, and the gray mountains standing in the distance like a mirage. A plume of steam rose suddenly from the SUV, as if a hose had burst. I thought: there are some people you should not lie to.
Jesus was sitting up front with my brother. As if he knew where he was heading, he told the driver to turn here, turn there, guiding us, it seemed to me, deeper and deeper into the wilderness. I hoped we’d started with a full tank of gas.
And then, at last, ninety minutes after we’d set out, Jesus had the driver pull off the road into a sort of picnic area. It was run by a conservation group, the sign said. One by one, we piled out of the air-conditioned bus into the terrible heat. The driver unloaded a few coolers with cold drinks and sandwiches in them. Jesus asked us to take something to eat and drink and then seat ourselves at the tables, but he drank nothing and paced back and forth in the blistering sun with his hands behind his back. After he’d given us a moment to arrange ourselves he stopped pacing and turned to face us.
“I wanted,” he said and then paused and looked up into the white-hot sky as if he were asking his divine father and mother for inspiration. “I wanted to change the surroundings, get us out of hotel rooms and into the good fresh air.” He paused again, and it almost seemed he was expecting us to voice complaints about the heat, or about the interruption of our promised half day of rest. No one said a word. “I myself have always liked hot weather, for one thing. And, for another, I wanted to ask your opinion, in private, as it were, on why we are doing so poorly.”
There were stunned seconds of silence, and then Wales said, “Poorly? We’re up eight points in today’s poll. Given the big head start the other two had, the money gap, the bigger staffs, I think we should all be pleased as can be.”
Jesus looked at him as if he’d just said north was south. He was standing with his sandaled feet apart, hands in the pockets of his shorts, his eyes slightly hooded against the brightness (unlike the other adults, he never wore sunglasses). “Everybody should be voting for me,” he said. “Stab thinks so, and I agree.”
My brother pushed out his lower jaw and smiled.
But Wales looked worried. “Everybody? Nobody gets everybody’s vote. Except in Uruguay or someplace. Uzbekistan.”
“I am not an ordinary candidate.”
“Agreed, of course,” Wales said. He had taken off his sunglasses now to show that, for once, he was making eye contact. He seemed to me, as the campaign manager, more than a little defensive.
“Have I done something wrong?” Jesus asked him.
“No. A couple of strategic missteps. The remark about assault weapons didn’t play well in Wyoming, that type of thing.”
“Then why isn’t everybody for me?”
“Some of them are Jewish,” my dad piped up. I think he meant this as a joke, but at times his sense of humor was lost on everyone but himself. This was one of those times. Jesus didn’t smile. My father’s chuckle drooped like a sunflower at midnight. “I mean, I guess I mean that some people are not predispositioned to accepting you. Your name is kind of … loaded. It divides people.”
My mother jabbed him with an elbow.
“They expect you to do miracles,” I said, partly, I think, because I was feeling bad for my father. “More miracles, I mean.”
“I am not going to.”
“Why not?” Ada Montpelier asked. “You did a big one for us. Why don’t you do the same thing for somebody else?” She was a nice woman, really. Not the sharpest mind in the world, but she doted on Dukey Junior and treated Dukey Senior with more kindness than some of us believed he merited, and she was always the first to get to work when it came time to clean up the pizza boxes and used chopsticks.
“I’ll second that,” the normally reserved N
orman Simmelton said.
“It would be too easy,” Jesus told them. “People would vote for me because of the miracles, just as, in the old days, some of them believed in me only because of the miracles. I want them to vote for me because of my ideas, because of my mother’s experience — as a mother, a woman, a household leader—don’t those things count for anything anymore?” He looked at all of us but did not seem to expect an answer. “I want them to vote for me because I would make the best president, not because I can cure a blind woman in a Montana church or something.”
“Then there’s going to be doubt,” my dad said.
“You are speaking for yourself, Arnie.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I admit it. You know how I feel about you, I just draw the line at the God stuff. Look, people are made different. Two people can go to the same movie and one likes it and one doesn’t. That’s why we have Republicans and Democrats, Jews and Christians.”
“Wrong and right,” my mother added, with a note of sarcasm that was unusual for her. It seemed clear to me that working on the campaign had increased the stress in their marriage.
“Part of the problem is you haven’t appeared on any of the big interview shows,” Zelda said, trying to diffuse things.
“For example?” Jesus asked her.
“Popopoffolous.”
Jesus put his hands up near his head as if he were making fun of Roger Popopoffolous’s hair, which tended to look like he’d climbed out of bed three minutes before his show started.
“Or Spritzer,” Zel suggested.
“Spritzer is a character,” Jesus blurted out. “Loves drama.”
“What about Meet the Media?” Ezzie asked.
“Bobby Biggs? Biggs, I would do, if you think it would make a difference.”
“I think you should do them all,” Zelda said. “I’ve been saying that right along. All of the above plus NPR, public television, Fox, Linneament.”
American Savior Page 17