The Man

by Irving Wallace

  Dilman took a few steps toward The Judge. “At first I braved it through, Judge, because I couldn’t believe the House would even consider their phony case. Now I see how wrong I was. I misunderstood their consuming need to believe the charges against me, I miscalculated the degree of their hatred of me, and the public’s hatred. I was stubbornly optimistic, and the vote yesterday proved me a fool. Since yesterday I’ve been faced with one last decision-”

  The Judge tugged his chair around, directly toward Dilman. His eyes were hard. “What decision?” he demanded.

  “Whether or not to undergo this excruciating trial before the Senate and the world, to go through the personal agony of it, permit my poor dead wife’s miserable history of alcoholism to be paraded before all eyes, permit my one son, with all his emotional problems, to be tortured for his alleged and fictional affiliation with anti-white terrorists, to let the one woman I love in the world, a decent, innocent woman, be marked for life as no better than a prostitute-to decide if it is right and humane to undergo all of this myself, to let all of this happen to the ones I hold dear, out of selfish anger and vanity, knowing all the while that inevitably I’ll be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and thrown out of the White House and into the street. I’ve got to decide whether to do that or accept the one alternative that Eaton and Miller and their gang offered me, and that is to give in, meekly quit my post, resign, save myself the indignity of defeat, spare those dear to me the scandal, protect my country from a trial that can only, ultimately, intensify racial hatred. Shall I turn the Presidency back to the white majority who want it for their exclusive club? That’s the decision I must make today.”

  The Judge filled his corncob with a practiced hand. His eyes stayed on Dilman. “Okay. How say you?”

  “Judge,” said Dilman, “I intend to resign from the Presidency.”

  The Judge’s pipe was halfway to his mouth, but now it hung in midair. “Resign?” he said. “You’re going to quit?”

  “I have no choice.”

  “The hell you haven’t!” the old man roared. His corncob clattered to the table, and so quickly and vehemently did he jump to his feet that Dilman backed against the wall. The Judge was upon him like an angry, pecking rooster, waving his finger under Dilman’s nose. “You resign, you slink out of that greatest office in the world, you give up the best opportunity a President and a minority citizen ever had to improve this country, and I swear-Dilman-I swear on the Missus, and on my niece and her kids, you’ll never set foot in my presence again. I’ll receive and respect any race of man on earth-black, white, yellow, purple-but I won’t receive and respect a puling, wailing coward.”

  “Wait a minute-”

  “You shut up!” shouted The Judge, vibrating from head to toe. He glared at Dilman, hands on his hips. “You came here for advice, and goddamit to hell, you’re going to get it, like it or not. I’m through coddling your self-pity. I’m through exchanging intellectual statistics with you. What you need is a good boot in the behind, and I got seniority in that Oval Office, so I got the right to give it. Young fellow, you hear me out. I don’t care if they were putting you before a firing squad tomorrow unless you resigned, you still couldn’t resign. No President of the United States who’s marched into that Oval Office either by popular acclaim or by accident ever quit under pressure. You’re not going to degrade the office, be derelict in your duty, thumb your nose at the Constitution, by being the first. No sir, young fellow, no sir! Resigning from the Presidency is the real high crime, not being tried for a pack of partisan lies. Resigning from your opportunity to show a Negro can lead would be the real crime, not being found guilty of adultery and incompetence. If you quit because you’re a Negro President who’s scared stiff, if you go down that way, it’s not only your race that loses, it’s the Missus and me and every decent white person in this democracy that loses, because it shows us and the world we got a country where a Negro is afraid to perform as a man, act as a man, live as a man, because he’s scared we won’t let him do it. Well, goddamit, Dilman, if you know it or not, in the eyes of the Lord and our Saviour and the Constitution, you are a man, not a Negro, not a Baptist, not a Rotarian, not a war veteran, but a human mammal who is a man under God in heaven before he is anything else. You can be a bald man, or a long-nosed man, or a crippled man, or a colored man, or a dago man, or a kike man, but first,last, and always, you are a oneheaded, two-legged man, whose complexion happens to be black and whose Social Security file says he is President of the United States.”

  The Judge was livid, gasping for breath, punching the air with his right hand. Frightened, Dilman held to the wall, watching him advance, nostrils dilated, nose quivering with indignation.

  “For a half minute there, while you were working in the White House,” the ex-President went on in his nasal rasp, “I thought, ‘Maybe that fellow’s going to find out what he is.’ That was when you had the guts to veto that foul-smelling Minorities Rehabilitation Program Bill. I thought you were standing up for your principles as a man equal to any other man, and more, as a leader who wanted good for his people. Now I see I was bamboozled. You vetoed it as a single act of spite, and out of vanity, to show the ones kicking you around that they better let up once in a while, just once in a while. But that was all it meant, ’cause now I see you’re so afraid of being kicked around some more, and kicked out, that you’re ready to get down on all fours and crawl away voluntarily. Hell and tarnations, fellow, stop crawling. Stand up on your two hind legs like a man, and when somebody kicks you, boot them right back in the ass. You believe in the Republic. You’ve got ideas for this country. You’ve got the most important desk in the nation, full up with unfinished business. Don’t let any man force you to walk out because you think he is a man and you know he thinks you’re not. You’ve got too much to do. Like President Lyndon Johnson said back a time, ‘Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skin, Emancipation will be a Proclamation but not a fact.’ That’s one piece of your unfinished business, Dilman-to make it a fact, and to make it a fact not as a Negro who is President but as an American man who is President. And that’s only the beginning of what you’ve got to do. Don’t tell me they won’t let you, won’t give you a chance. If they obstruct you, you knock them aside. If they charge you with crime and misdemeanor, you answer them and you charge them with ignorance and medievalism, and you battle them as their equal, knowing you’re a human being, and as their superior, knowing you’re still the legal holder of the highest-ranking office in the land. The way President Kennedy wrote in that fine book of his on courage-it’s the most admirable of human virtues, courage is-he knew, ’cause he owned enough of it for ten men-and the way he said-compromise is okay in its place, but only compromising on issues, not your principles-but nowhere did I read in that book of his any praise or defense of quitting, turning tail and running, under any circumstances. You came for my advice and-”

  The Judge suddenly stopped, bent his head sideways, listening. The front doorbell was ringing insistently.

  The Judge cursed under his breath, glared once more at Dilman, and said curtly, “A grown man’s got to decide for himself.”

  He strode from the dining room into the parlor, and Dilman slowly followed him. The Judge had opened the door, and the Missus appeared. “You locked me out,” she said crossly, then peered over his shoulder at Dilman. “Mr. President, there’s somebody important to see you, and Mr. Flannery says you have to see him.”

  Dilman had come forward. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know-somebody just flown in from Washington.” She had turned around to beckon to the person. “Right in here, sir, the President will see you.”

  He came through the open doorway, a diffident, embarrassed, well-built gentleman in his late forties, his fingers playing nervously across the brim of the hat he held in his hand. “Mr.-Mr. President,” he said, “I don’t know if you remember me-Harold L.
Greene from-”

  That moment, Dilman recognized him. “Of course, Mr. Greene, I couldn’t make you out for a minute-so far from the Hill. You’re the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate.”

  “Yes, sir.” He wriggled in his ill-fitting overcoat. “I was sent here by plane from Washington on official Senate business. I’m supposed to serve you with this”-he reached inside his bulky coat and pulled out a document that resembled a folded legal brief-“summons. It’s an order for you to stand trial, sir, a week from today, before the Senate constituted as a court of impeachment. It’s all in here, sir. I’m sorry to have to do this, but-” He shrugged unhappily and held out the summons.

  Dilman stepped forward, reached out and accepted the summons. “Thank you, Mr. Greene, for going to this trouble. I suppose I shouldn’t send you back to Washington empty-handed.”

  The Sergeant at Arms appeared as puzzled as The Judge, who stood beside him.

  “You can take this message back with you,” said Dilman. While he faced the Sergeant at Arms, his gaze had shifted to The Judge. “Tell the Senate of the United States that the President of the United States looks forward-looks forward to seeing them in court!”

  The second that the Sergeant at Arms had gone, The Judge let out a whoop. Beaming from ear to ear, he descended upon Dilman and gave him a wrestling hug. “Mr. President, spoken like a man!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “I knew you wouldn’t quit, knew you’d fight, felt it in my bones.”

  Smiling, Dilman pocketed the summons. “I guess I came here, Judge, knowing that too. Only I needed somebody wiser and tougher than I am to give me a kick in the pants, so I’d get mad enough to remember I was right, and do some kicking myself.”

  The Judge pounded Dilman’s back affectionately, then held him off. “Mr. President, no matter what comes of this, when you come to be my age, you’ll look back and won’t regret it, never for a minute.”

  Dilman nodded gravely. “I hope so,” he said softly, “because I’m going to take an awful licking.”

  “No matter what,” said The Judge. “Ever hear of an ancient Roman philosopher by name of Seneca? Ever read what he wrote about a company of Romans trapped and decimated in an ambush? He wrote, ‘The three hundred Fabiae were not defeated, they were only killed.’ Remember that when it gets real bad. It’s enough to make it worth while. Now go, and God bless you.”

  Dilman returned The Judge’s powerful handshake, and then he was surprised to find the Missus, holding his coat and hat on her pudgy arm, waiting at the door. Dilman allowed her to assist him with his overcoat. When he took his hat, and began to thank her, he could see that her eyes were brimming. Impulsively she went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Be brave, Douglass,” she said. “There’s lots of us who need you.”

  Too choked by emotion to reply, Dilman fumbled for the door-knob. As he opened the door, he heard the immediate chorus of shouts from the photographers beyond the porch, but louder than the rest was The Judge’s admonition behind him.

  “Braveness is good,” The Judge had called out, “but a smart lawyer is better. Get one, and get one fast, the best there is, Mr. President!”

  From over his shoulder, Dilman forced himself to smile at The Judge. “I’ll try,” he said. “I know the best attorney there is-but he wants to be a farmer like yourself, so it’s hard to say if he’ll be able to take time off from his harvesting. I’ll try, you bet. That’s all a man can do.”

  Behind the closed doors of their bedroom on the sixth floor of the Mayflower Hotel, Nat Abrahams finally hung up the telephone receiver and remained standing over the instrument, lost in thought.

  At last, mechanical as an automaton, he wandered past the double bed to the window. He stared down into darkened Connecticut Avenue, his mind still on the call he had taken, hardly aware of the early evening foot and vehicular dinner traffic in the street below.

  The glow from a neon light across the way caught the glaze of the window, and its angled illumination intensified the reflection of himself in the glass. He realized then that he was attired in his best suit, dressed for a festive night out, and with a start he remembered that Gorden Oliver and Sue were still waiting for him in the living room of the suite. His activity in the ten or fifteen minutes before the telephone had interrupted him was instantly revived.

  Gorden Oliver, professionally hale and hearty, his ruddy New England features aglow, his brandy cane in one hand, an impressive manila envelope in the other, had arrived precisely on time. With the air of one Caesar conferring a laurel wreath upon another Caesar, he had handed the long-delayed final draft of the Eagles Industries employment contract to Abrahams. While Sue, bubbling and pretty in her rose sheath dress, had mixed the high-balls, Abrahams had sunk into a corner of the sofa to review one last time the legal language of a contract he had almost committed to memory during these past months.

  As he read on, Nat Abrahams had tried to shut his ears to the cheery conversation between Sue and Oliver, to the lobbyist’s political gossip and anecdotes and Sue’s merry, appreciative responses. Only once, when he had covered the paragraphs announcing his astronomical salary, bonuses, deferments, stock options, had he been forced to look up. Oliver had been patting his narrow-shouldered, tight-fitting, tailor-made suit coat importantly, and telling Sue that nothing was too good for the spouse of Eagles Industries’ soon-to-be-number-one barrister, and therefore it was only befitting to cap the occasion with a regal dinner at Billy Martin’s Carriage House in Georgetown, the swank restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue so renowned for its cuisine. Sue Abrahams had squealed with delight, and Nat had enjoyed seeing her so happy, and then returned to the contract.

  That had been his only distraction until he had finished his reading of the contract and raised his head to Gorden Oliver. “Okay,” he had said to the lobbyist, “this is it. Now you want my John Hancock?”

  “Sure do!” exclaimed Oliver, uncapping his gold fountain pen. He had handed the pen to Abrahams. “Historic occasion. Sign all copies where they’re x’d and initial in margins where stamped.”

  As Abrahams spread the numerous copies on the coffee table before him, and, with pen in hand, bent over the original, the second distraction of the evening had occurred.

  The telephone had started to ring.

  Sue had leaped to her feet. “I’ll take it,” she had said to her husband. “You go on and get that over with.”

  Yet Abrahams had held the pen poised over the contract, not touching the point to the sheet, waiting to hear whom the call was from.

  Sue had cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Nat,” she had said, “it’s the White House for you.”

  Abrahams had placed the pen on the table and quickly stood up. “I’ll take it in the bedroom,” he had said.

  And then, going into the bedroom, before shutting the door behind him he had heard Gorden Oliver cheerily call out, “Well, that’s the only other corporation I’ll give equal time to-even though Eagles is more solvent.”

  The call had lasted no more than three or four minutes, and Abrahams had mostly listened in the quiet room, his festival mood gradually receding and being replaced by one of serious concern.

  Now, as he stood at the hotel window, the call had become the dominant prodder of his judgment and conscience, and it was difficult to ignore it and resume the business awaiting him on the coffee table in the living room. Yet his wife was there, his new career partner was there, his future was there. With reluctance he left the solitude of the bedroom.

  He could see Sue’s wondering eyes, their gravity contradicting the curved smile of her lips, following him to the sofa.

  He sat on the sofa, fingers interlocked between his long legs, chewing the corner of a lip, looking past the pen and contracts.

  “Well, Nat,” said Gorden Oliver with hearty cheerfulness, “let’s get the formalities over with-and let me have the honor of taking one of the richest attorneys in America out on the town!”

  Abrahams hardly heard him. His gaze had gone
to Sue and fixed upon her. He said, “That was the President on the phone.”

  “Doug Dilman?” she said with surprise. “I thought he was still off in-?”

  “He just flew back,” Abrahams said. “He’s decided to fight them. He’s decided to go on trial in the Senate and defend himself.”

  “Oh, no,” said Sue with a groan. “After that terrible impeachment? He hasn’t a chance, Nat. I hope you didn’t encourage him. I can’t understand it. Why, the rumor around town was that he’d resign rather than-”

  Abrahams’ eyes stayed fixed on his wife. “He’s not quitting, he’s fighting.” He hesitated, inhaled, and then he said, “Sue, he has asked me to take over his legal defense before the United States Senate.”

  “You?” Her hand had gone to her mouth. The fun and frivolity had disappeared from her eyes. “But, Nat, how-? What did you tell him?”

  “He wouldn’t let me give him a yes or no right off. You know Doug. You know how sensitive he is, how reluctant he is to make demands on anyone, or ask a favor, or impose on anyone. It took him all the way from Sioux City to here, and then a couple of hours more, to get up the nerve to-to lift the phone to tell me he would stand trial, and explain his problem. Even then he didn’t ask me right out. He said he desperately needed the best attorney in the country-preferably me, but if it couldn’t be me, then anyone I might suggest. I suspect he must have been awfully scared and-and lonely-after making his decision-to call me at all… No, he wouldn’t let me give him an answer. He asked me to give it some thought, and call him soon as I could, and if my answer was no, he’d understand, because he knows how tied up I’m going to be. So I said I’d get back to him later this evening. That’s the gist of it, Sue. That’s it.”