Ed Gorman: Blindside

‘That’s right.’

‘Jeff’s father has a lot of faith in you. I hope you can help us.’ His eyes weren’t quite focused. And then he stopped talking. I wondered if he was physically sick. His face gleamed with sweat. ‘What was I saying, Kathy?’

‘The right-wing contributions for Burkhart.’

‘Oh, yes, right.’ His attempt at a smile was embarrassing. Around the table the eyes studied him with silent alarm. He settled back in his chair, as if he was relaxed now. In control of himself again. But when he began to speak it was obvious he’d either forgotten or chose not to talk about the right-wing group Kathy had talked about.

I wondered if he’d had a stroke. His behavior certainly suggested that. I wasn’t alone. The three staffers looked at each other anxiously.

He reached for a silver pitcher of water to fill the glass in front of him. His hand was trembling so badly he dropped the pitcher almost as soon as he started to raise it. It landed hard. Though it was in no danger of spilling, the staffers automatically started to rise in their chairs to grab it.

‘Oh, God,’ Lucy half whispered. ‘David, are you-?’

‘What was I saying?’ Nolan said as if he was unaware of his strange behavior. ‘Oh — right. Well, I contacted this group of investors who frankly think it’s time to do a little business with our side. They know everything’s up for grabs in this election but they still think it’s time to have a sit-down with somebody we know in the administration. They’re willing to spend thirty million dollars on making and airing some generic commercials that favor us. They won’t spend it all on our district; they want to make it as national as possible.’ He stopped talking. An engine that had run down.

‘What makes this so interesting,’ Kathy said quickly, ‘aside from the money is that three of the products they want some federal funding for — they need further research — are very eco-friendly. That means the other party doesn’t want anything to do with them. Unfortunately, a lot of our senators and reps are on the same payroll and will vote against us. But I think we’ve still got enough votes. And David thinks so, too, don’t you?’

The smile that was a grimace again. Was he in pain? ‘Right.’ His eyes brightened. There was strength in his voice now. ‘I’m hoping we get at least four million. We can put a lot of that into radio and some extra TV.’

Lucy and Waters did the power fist.

‘I’ll bet Jeff was happy when he heard about it,’ Lucy said.

Nolan’s jaw clenched. He said nothing.

‘We haven’t had a chance to tell him yet. But he’ll be happy as hell. You can bet on it.’ Kathy touched Nolan’s arm and said, ‘Good work, David.’ She was a nurse talking to a very sick patient.

‘Excellent work,’ Lucy said in the same way.

The accolades didn’t free him from whatever mental prison he was in. The smile was a little less pensive at their words but something troubled him so much that he was barely present.

‘Well,’ he said, pushing back from the table. ‘Guess I should get back to work.’

Which made no sense. Wasn’t this, what he was doing at the moment, work?

He next did a sight gag, getting his foot tangled in the legs of the chair as he stood up and tried to walk. He almost fell down, righting himself then muttering more to himself than us, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Then he glanced at me. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Dev. We need you to help with the debate. It’s make or break for us.’

‘Is he all right?’ Lucy asked Kathy when he was gone.

‘I think so.’ She didn’t sound sure. ‘I think maybe the hours he puts in are finally catching up with him. I think he should take two days off and do nothing but rest and go for walks. He loves to walk.’

‘He’s usually the one who keeps all of us up and excited,’ Lucy said to me. ‘Maybe he really is just tired out.’

But she knew better than that and so did I.

Kathy glanced at me and frowned. ‘This wasn’t a very good introduction to our team here, Mr Conrad. I hope the rest of the day goes a lot smoother than this.’

‘No sense hiding it, Kathy,’ Waters said. ‘We’ve had a lot of ups and downs lately. That’s just the way it is.’

The two women looked uncomfortable but they said nothing.

I wondered if one of these three was the spy feeding information to Burkhart.

‘ He just looks so presidential,’ one older woman said to another standing under the poster of Congressman Jeff Ward leaning back to throw a football a la John Kennedy.

They seemed to be in their Sunday best, right down to small white gloves. They were the kind of women you always saw at weekday Mass. Decent people who’d worked hard for very little all their lives and whose grandparents and parents had indoctrinated them to vote for our party. There was something endearing about them, their old-fashioned coats and dresses and makeup and sweet perfume. They were out of their time and I liked that without quite knowing why. These are the kind of supporters who will bake cookies for fund drives and make arrangements for voters who need rides to the polls. They’re invaluable.

Since high school had ended at least an hour ago, the headquarters was also packed with teenagers receiving instructions about getting out posters, signs, pamphlets, and door-to-door reminders about the elections coming up. For all of TV’s vaunted powers — and those powers are primary — you still need a ground attack, and that means volunteers who want to win as badly as the candidate does. And if you’re sixteen or seventeen and male it means working on a campaign can get you in close proximity to girls — and I suspect it just might work the other way for girls — you might not otherwise meet. Romance was always in the air during campaigns.

The people working the ground floor were as efficient and functional as the people on the second floor seemed not to be. Middle-aged women and men of both blue collar and white sending the kids off to war with repeated orders and smiles.

I drifted back to where three coffeepots burbled. A white-haired woman in a small flowery apron was just setting out a tray of homemade cookies decorated with the word ‘Ward’ in red. ‘Help yourself.’

‘Thank you. I think I will.’

‘That is, if you’re planning to vote for Congressman Ward.’

‘I would if he was in my district but I vote in Chicago.’

‘Well, I guess that entitles you to a cookie, anyway. My name’s Joan Rosenberg. I run the kitchen back there.’

‘You’re obviously doing a great job.’

‘They’ll be gone in less than twenty minutes. And that’ll make me very happy.’ A wry smile. ‘On one campaign I worked on a long time ago back in the sixties, the only people who’d eat my cookies were the ones who smoked marijuana. I think the older people were thinking I put some pot in my cookies. My husband’s a rabbi. He sure didn’t want people to think his wife was making illegal cookies.’ She laughed. ‘I’d be on America’s Most Wanted.’

It was nice to bask in her goodwill and intelligence. Not to mention her lack of cunning. A gentle, sweet woman of the kind who always turns out for campaigns. They have ideals and support them with hard work. And none of the cynicism of the professionals rubs off on them.

I followed her eyes to the door that led to the back. Jim Waters was making his way toward us.

‘Hi, Jim. They’re just out of the oven.’ She pointed to the cookies.

By now I’d had my first bite. I held it up as if I was in a commercial. ‘This is terrific.’

I noticed that she put her hand on Waters’ shoulder as he bent to whisk a cookie from the plate. I also noticed that the merriment in her brown eyes changed to concern. She looked maternal watching him, patting him a few times as he straightened up.