by Joe Klein
Libby had tears in her eyes now
"It was a long time ago," Stanton said gently.
"Libby, you said it yourself," Susan said coolly. "We were young. We didn't know how the world worked. Now we know. We know that if we don't move on this Picker situation, two things will happen. The first is, we're dead. Everything we've worked for since Miami twenty years ago dies. And fast. It will die tomorrow The second thing that happens is, someday--someday soon--when the bloom is off the romance, when they've gotten sick of Freddy Picker's quiet, righteous act, when they want to pull his wings off, some enterprising journalist will stumble onto this. And if he doesn't, the Republicans will lead him to it, on their timetable, next fall. It'll be another Eagleton--only it'll be our fault this time, for letting it happen. Your fault, Libby."
This was, I thought, a pretty strong argument. Libby didn't. "Honey," she said, "you may be right, but it just ain't who we're supposed to be."
"Maybe," Stanton said, "we could leak part of it, the Sunshine stuff--we know the Republicans have that."
"Oh Christ, Jack," Susan said, angry that he was softening. "You don't think they're gonna have the rest soon enough? You don't think Eddie Reyes is gonna do a wh000ps with someone else--you don't think he's gonna spill it all? I mean"--she riffled through Libby's file--"Libby, he did call Picker a maricon cokehead, didn't he?" Libby and I exchanged a glance: yes, he had. We'd just dismissed it as another stray expletive at the time.
"So, you'd even give up the Renzo angle?" Libby asked. "What flicking difference does orientation make?"
"It'll mean something to the National Flash," Susan said. "Ohhh, Susie," Libby moaned. "You, of all people."
Libby caught my surprise. "Oh come on, Henry--you, of all people. Remember what Eddie Reyes said: you should always assume everyone did everything back then. And, Henry, surely you are familiar with Mrs. Stanton's need for physical solace in times of spousal despair."
Now it was Jack Stanton's turn to be shocked. He shot a furious look at Libby, who smiled; then at Susan, who was blushing; then at me, too stunned to blush. We had all betrayed him--and he, of course, us. Evidently, everyone still did everything.
"Children, children," Libby said, shaking her head, surveying the room. "Ain't we got fun."
"This has gone far enough," Stanton said. "We have to decide." "What's to decide?" Susan asked.
"Keee-RECT," Libby said. "There is NOTHING to decide. A decision has been made, by me and Henri. This dies here."
"I don't think so," Susan said.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Libby said, "but it does. And here's why." She dived down into her satchel again and pulled out another manila file, which looked very much like the first. "I won't distribute this one. . . . I didn't want to make copies," she said--nervously, I thought. "But I'll tell you what it is, and Jackie here can vouch for its accuracy. Silence, Governor, will signify assent."
Susan glanced at Jack--a what's-this? look. "I guess life is still simple in the small towns of America," Libby began, quietly. "A doctor's office isn't very hard to get into after hours. And, Susan, when you told me I was on the McCollister case, and when I heard that Jack had had his blood taken, I figured I had no choice but to investigate the matter fully."
Stanton paled; his right hand came up, he didn't know what to do with it, so he put it flat on top of his head. "Doc Hastings kept very detailed notes about your case over the years," Libby said. "I guess he had . . . a rooting interest. I mean, he was a full-service family practitioner, wasn't he? OH! I never thought to ask: Does Susan know?" Stanton nodded yes. "Well, then, it's only Henry--and he knows everything else, so why not this?" She turned to me. "Doc Hastings is Governor Stanton's natural father. Momma used that Kansas City nonsense as a cover, and it worked real good, since Will Stanton never came back from Iwo to say otherwise. Momma told Jack about it--when? Doc's records say that you and he had your heart-to-heart after you graduated college. And being thoughtful folks, ack and Momma kept it quiet--out of respect for Doc's wife and his two other boys. And also out of respect for Momma's reputation." Stanton stared at his lap. Susan stared at me. I stared into space. This was . . . Dogpatch. Libby read my mind. "Yeah, Henry: this is who we are, Jackie and me. Piney-woods pigpokers--right, Jack? Rule Number One: If it moves, shoot it. . . . Or fuck it, 'specially if it's family! It's a wonder Momma wasn't Doc Hastings' cousin."
"Libby!" Susan said. "You're out of control."
"Yeah, yeahyeah," she agreed, taking a deep breath, calming herself. "I'm sorry. Where was I?" She moved forward and squatted directly in front of Stanton's wing chair. "So, Doc Hastings did have a rooting interest, didn't he? And root he did. Lord, Jackie! The machinations he went through to keep you out of the draft! But the part I like best is the most recent stuff: having Uncle Charlie take that blood test for you. I mean, would you actually have gone through with it--letting Uncle Charlie take the fall as the daddy? You think that would have been CREDIBLE? What kind of shit is that?"
Stanton moved his right hand from the top of his head to his brow, shading his eyes. He was embarrassed. I'd never seen hint like this before. He was always so unabashed, so aggressively in the world, dominating every conversation, every room, even when he was just listening. But Libby had punctured that. She was in control here; the governor was in full retreat. He appeared to squirrel down deeper into his chair, trapped--with Libby in hot pursuit, down on her knees in front of him, peering up, trying to make eye contact. "What kind of shit is that, ack?" she chided him gently, but with an edge of impatience. "Oh, excuse me--I forgot: it's the same old shit. There's always been a Doc Hastings or a Senator LaMott Dawson--or Uncle Charlie, or Susan--ready to fix your tickets whenever you flicked up. You have never paid the bill. Never. And no one ever calls you on it. Because you're so completelyficking SPECIAL. Everyone was always so PROUD of you. And me too. Me the worst."
She pushed him back, deeper into the chair, his knees jutting out. She leaned forward, rested her arms on top of his knees, rested her head on top of her arms. She perched at the edge of his lap, staring up at him, torturing him. "It just makes it a whole lot easier for me," she sighed. "I mean, it's totally depressing--What have I been doing this for, my whole pathetic fucking life?" She seemed to wait for him to say something. "Well," she said softly. "A situation like this does clear the sinuses now, doesn't it?"
And Stanton finally looked up, looked at her--pleading silently, but Libby wasn't buying. "So, here's the deal," she said. "You move on Picker, I move on you."
"You wouldn't," said Susan, whose eyes were red.
"Try me," Libby said, turning toward her, breaking off her pursuit of Jack Stanton.
"You would end his political career?" Susan asked.
"I bust dust," Libby said, getting to her feet now, moving toward her satchel, getting ready to leave. "My job is to prevent people from hurting you--including you. To my mind, you would hurt yourselves grievously if you acted to destroy Freddy Picker, who--I think we all agree--is a flawed but decent man." She hesitated, wiped her eyes--once, then again--but the tears were flowing now "And so, yes," Libby concluded, "I will destroy this village in order to save it." And she dashed out of that room, faster than it seemed possible for a big woman to move.
I raced after her. People were gathering outside now for the last meeting of the Stanton campaign--Brad Lieberman, Dwayne Forrest, Laurene, Leon, Howard and Lucille. Libby pushed past them, teary, hair flying through the smoke from Fat Willie's barbecue, toward her Jeep Cherokee.
"You drive," she said, tossing the keys over her shoulder toward me, never having looked back--knowing I'd be there. She rode shotgun, sobbing quietly, tears streaming. "Drive yourself home."
I did. I parked next to the river.
"So, how'd I do?" She smiled thinly through the tears.
"Just fine," I said. "More controlled than with Randy Culligan, more nuanced."
"But the gun was just as big." She smiled and sniffled. "Henry, you are outta he
re, right?"
"Not much left to stay here for, is there?"
"Look up there," she said. A pale full moon had appeared in the still-light sky. "That's me," she said. "Beautiful, huh? Very impressive to the earthlings. But Henry, honey, it's only reflected light. It needs the sun. And I lived my life drawing light and warmth from the Stantons--and, God, they were so good and glowing, I could go for years without remembering I wasn't producing any warmth myself, any light of my own. But the day does come when you look in the mirror and all you see is a dead rock. You know what I'm saying, right?" "Hoo-HAH!" I said--a sorry, third-rate attempt at a Libby impersonation. "You a dead rock? You a lackey? HOO-FUCKING-HAH! I'm a lackey. You're the French Foreign Legion."
"Well, idiot boy," she said, shaking her head. "How the fuck do you think I earned placement in that booby hatch? It wasn't an up thing, y'know? It was a down thing. You know what I'm saying, right? I look in the mirror and see the dead rock. Without them, I'm dark and black and cold and dead and empty and airless for eternity. And they don't flicking need me at all, all they need is to glow. Drove me nuts. was so bummed, so deep, deep down. I got trapped in the bathroom. On the floor, just below the mirror where I saw the moonrock. I couldn't get up off the floor. For several days, apparently. Susan found me. She put me--can you imagine?--into an asylum for lunatics. Moon people. What a hoot! All these unplugged folks and me, with a busted solar heater. So I figured, it must be okay now: You are now an official lunatic. Go for it! Turns out, though, that act--howling at the moon--has a limited shelf life. It's also kind of schizy if you're a moonrock yourself. You caught the best part of the show, Henri. But it's over; I quit."
There was nothing I could say to that. I put a hand on her shoulder; it was an awkward gesture. "Henry," she said, not looking at me, but staring straight ahead, mesmerized by the dashboard. "I can't bear the thought of going deep, deep down again. You look straight up, and there's a tiny point of light, way up there, and that's where the world is, and you don't have the energy to start moving toward the light, you don't even have the energy to assimilate Brahms, or chew your food. I don't ever want to be there again. I just won't risk that." She stopped, shook her head. "They didn't even fucking hesitate just now--you saw that. Not a lick of humanity, not a thought about Freddy Picker. Fucking glowworms."
She put out her hand for the keys. I gave them to her. What an idiot I was.
"See," she said, weeping again, streaks down both sides of her face, "the deal is, Henry: don't let it happen to you. You still have something of an atmosphere. Don't worry about light. Think about oxygen depletion. Find yourself a life. Okay?"
She leaned over and kissed my cheek, and I threw my arms around her--and we stayed there for a while, both of us snuffling and hanging on for dear life.
Finally, she pulled back and put her big hands on my shoulders: "Now, get gone. Go find Daisy."
"And what about you?" I asked, opening the door, moving out. She slid into the driver's seat.
"When you're in limbo," she said, pulling away. "There are only two ways you can go. 'Bye, sweetie."
Chapter IX
What an idiot I was.
They found her body the next day. They found her on a dirt road, deep in the piney woods, southwest of Mammoth Falls. Two hunters poaching deer out of season found her. She had taken a director's chair out of the Cherokee, taken her leather satchel, taken the gun out of the satchel and shot herself--not in the head, which would have been too obvious and messy for Libby, but neatly through the heart. She had done this, apparently, after making a small fire; the remains of a manila folder were found there.
Stanton called several times, left messages on my machine; Susan called once. This seemed an appropriately halfhearted effort on their part. If they'd really wanted me, they would have sent someone over or come themselves, as the governor had the day we'd gone to Grace Junction so Uncle Charlie could get his blood pulled--or as the police did that Monday evening. I was the last person to have seen Libby alive. They asked me why I thought she had done this. They asked whether she had seemed distraught. They asked if I believed there was any possibility of foul play. They did not press too hard. Jack Stanton was still governor, the Stanton campaign had come upon depressing times, and Libby was a well-known, and certifiable, lunatic. "I know," I told them, "that the normal thing for me to say would be, 'I wish I had known. I wish could have done something to stop her.' But with Libby you never knew, and when she decided to do something, there was nothing you could do to stop her." And then, unexpectedly, I experienced a flood of intense, disorderly images of Libby in action--her charts of Loretta McCollister's classes; Randy Culligan's head between her breasts, her gun in his crotch; her gray hair flying out from under her Australian bush hat; that ridiculous satchel--and I began to cry. "She was," I told the police, "a very close friend of mine."
Libby's death nude headlines, of course. It made the front page of The New York Times, lower-right-hand corner, two paragraphs jumping to Section B, : STANTON AIDE TAKES LIFE. My reflexive reaction was to go to work, to do spin--not from the campaign headquarters but from Libby's little white frame house, where Jennifer Rogers and the rest of the Dustbusting staff had barricaded themselves. I spent the next thirty-six hours answering their door, shooing reporters away. I spent the night with Jennifer--chastely; we didn't even talk much--lying atop the bed she shared with Libby, with our clothes on and our arms around each other.
Libby, who rarely spoke anything but the truth, had been totally full of shit that last night. It was sort of shocking to see her so deluded. It was probably the only time I'd ever actually seen her crazy. And I'd been full of shit when I told the police you never knew with Libby. You always knew with Libby.
I knew that night. But I didn't quite believe it. She was, I figured, just implying the possibility of suicide. It was subtext, part of the role she was playing, part of the number she was running on the Stantons. She had been a great actress. I was furious with her, furious with myself. And bereft.
"It wasn't gonna be a permanent thing with us," Jennifer said at one point, deep in the night. "She knew that. In fact, she told me that. She said, 'I can't say I admire your proclivities, honey, but who am Ito judge?' She said I'd meet a guy after the campaign and fall in love--and maybe she'd get to be a godmother again. 'You'd be amazed the number of godchildren I have,' she said. 'And I am a righteous fucking godmother.' Henry, we all loved her so much--why did she feel she had to do it?"
"I don't know," I said. But I sort of knew--and I wondered why Jack Stanton hadn't yet withdrawn from the presidential race: was it out of respect for Libby, or because he was getting ready to act on what we'd given him?
I accompanied Jennifer Rogers to the funeral, which was held in a prim white clapboard Presbyterian church in North Mammoth Falls. (Libby had been the world's least likely Presbyterian.) We sat in the front row, right-hand side. The Stantons sat in the front row, left. Libby's body, in an enormous walnut coffin, stood between us and the altar. The church was full--and I was distracted, uncomfortable, and angry with myself for not being able to devote all my attention to Libby. But I sensed Daisy was somewhere back there, I knew she had to be there, and during the organ playing and the opening hymn, I would awkwardly half twist my neck and try to scan the audience. I saw Richard but not Daisy. It was driving me nuts. I was thinking that if she actually was there, and took off before I could get to her, I would (a) quickly check the downtown hotels and then (b) go to the airport and try to intercept her. Of course, (a) would probably be a waste of time--the best thing would be to go straight to the airport and wait. I'd have to get someone to take care of Jennifer. I began to scan for an appropriate muffin. Where was Peter Goldsmith, from the dustbusting team?
The windows were open, and the church was filled with late-spring smells, renascent dogwood and azalea--their petals littering the path to the little church--and a clean, dry breeze from the west; there was a distant lawnmower in action, the weekday sound
s of panel trucks, handymen going about their business. And I drifted that way, becalmed by the normality around us--unable to get any closer to Daisy--until Jack Stanton rose to speak.
"Olivia Holden was the older sister I never had," he began, with an ineffable sadness in his voice. "I hope it doesn't sound too presumptuous when I say that she loved me--us, Susan and me--like family, and we her." He chuckled a little. "'Course, any y'all knew Libby, you know that meant a lot of yellin'. She never was satisfied with any of us, she demanded perfection from family. She wanted us to be bigger--" His voice broke here. "But none of us could be as big as she was"--a chuckle--"in any way."
He stopped, searched the audience--and found me. "I feel personally responsible for this," he told me. "I guess I probably shouldn't. I guess I could say--rationally--that I could never live up to Libby's expectations. I live in the world, a pretty rough world, and I play by its rules. But"--he was still looking at me--"she was right. I could have been better. And it seemed that whenever I had a moment of weakness, she was always there. She wouldn't let me get away with anything." And now he looked at the full congregation again. "I guess that's what big sisters are for. Libby didn't leave any burial instructions. Susan and I had to think about what would be appropriate--and the choice seemed obvious: she will be cremated. She would have demanded a final flameout"--the audience laughed--"rather than a slow, sapping diminution in a field of daisies. She did not live a moment of her life at anything less than supersonic speed. She should leave the world as she lived in it--in a blaze of glory, throwing heat, dazzling us with her brilliance, her warmth, the amazing suppleness of her spirit. I feel--" and he stopped here, unable to go on. Tears rolled down his cheeks--different from the first tears I'd seen him shed, that day in the Harlem library, or any other tears since. The corners of his mouth were drawn down, his lower lip was quivering--like a child trying to keep composure, a boy trying to be a man. "I feel," he said, "as if a part of me has died. The bullet that exploded in Libby Holden's heart broke all our hearts." And then he whispered, "I cannot imagine life without that heart." He fled the lecturn, collapsing in the front pew, across from me, head in hands, as the choir rushed into "Amazing Grace" in a vain attempt to exorcise the anguish, to smother pain with glory.