Irving Wallace - The Man

“Fairview Farm.”

“Yes, that’s right. Tell him I’d like to drive out and have breakfast with him tomorrow morning, ham and eggs and a little talk, the two of us, an ex-President and one about to join his club, and nobody else. Tell him I won’t need much of his time, maybe an hour, before I head back to Washington.”

For quiet seconds Douglass Dilman listlessly watched the business section, the stores and offices and nightclubs of Cocoa Beach, flash by. Then, still staring outside the window, he said, “Funny how, the moment everything collapsed around me ten minutes ago, my mind went back to my father. Funny, because I never really knew my old man, except from some pictures and what my mother used to tell me. He died when I was just a child. My mind went to him, I guess, because I felt like a helpless kid they’re after, and I wanted someone old enough and strong enough to stand in front of me, between them and me. But then, I knew I had no father. So I had to adopt one, someone who was tough and sure and unafraid, someone who was-was old enough for me to respect and talk to. So automatically, in my head, I kind of adopted The Judge. Crazy, because he hardly knows me and I hardly know him either. But he’s as irascible and durable as an Assyrian goat. You know, Tim, my first morning as President he called me from his farm, and after he finished lecturing me, he said, ‘Young fellow, you listen and remember, if you ever need my advice or a helping hand, both of which are untaxable and both of which we got plenty of, you come out here and visit the Missus and me, and we’ll have a good farm breakfast and set you straight.’ That’s what he said, Tim.”

Dilman turned away from the window and met Flannery’s eyes. “I’d have no way of knowing, but I guess that’s the way a father would talk… Now, what in the devil’s keeping you, Tim? We haven’t got all day. Get on the phone there and start making those long-distance calls, charged to the White House, while I can still spend the government’s money.”

It was a luminous, pure, autumn-crisp Iowa morning.

Overhead, the disc of sun was too fresh to the new day to have yet warmed the air or the soil, so that the air still livened the flesh and entered the lungs with the bracing coolness of a natural spring, and the patches of grass and springy earth underfoot were damp with the night dew. There was a strange, tangy, life-giving smell all around, a mingling of rural odors of livestock and poultry, of corn and wheat, of red barn paint and crackling skillet.

They made their way back from their hike, in step, without haste, strolling leisurely, the President of the United States and the ex-President of the United States, both holding to their own ruminations as they crossed the barnyard toward the sprawling gray-and-red farm house.

The Judge held his gnarled Irish shillelagh aloft, to greet the arriving farmhand clad in patched blue overalls, and then he brandished the walking stick at an indignant rooster. “Guess you’ve got yourself an appetite at last, eh, young man?” he said to Dilman.

“Yes, Judge, I’m about ready.”

Dilman had been too impatient for a hike when it had begun, and had gone along only out of courtesy to his aged host. Now he was grateful for the tonic of the walk, and his respect for the ex-President’s instinctive folk wisdom was reinforced.

Upon his arrival at Fairview Farm, ten miles outside Sioux City, Dilman had been abashed by The Judge’s unceremonious welcome as they shook hands on the wooden porch.

The Judge had snorted, expectorated, and rasped out, “So, they crucified you up on the Hill yesterday, eh, my friend? Hell and tarnations, I’ve known them for muddleheads and blockheads half my life, and firsthand, but I sure didn’t expect them to take leave of their senses, insulting our office of President, making our Party into a white demagogue’s party, slapping the Negro vote in the face. Couldn’t have done better if they wore white hoods when they indicted you, the blasted fools.”

“I’m glad we’re of one mind,” Dilman had said, his hand still gripped in The Judge’s hand, as they remained in sight of Flannery, the Secret Service agents, the state police.

The Judge had let go of the handshake. “Young man, I hold a strictly zoological view of our legislative branch. Taken as a whole, Congress reminds me of nothing more than a dinosaur-the Stegosaurus, to be specific-a giant body with a peewee head and a collective brain the size of a walnut. Taken individually, the members are either dodoes or dingoes-understand?-the dodo bird pretending to be a bird, yet unable to fly, and heading for extinction because of self-importance, pretension, unadaptability-the dingo dog of Australia, half domestic pet, faithful and serving, other half wild beast, roving in packs and killing sheep. Congress!” He had glared off. “Who in the hell is invading our serenity?”

Three sedans, crammed to overflowing, had come bumping up the rutted main road into Fairview Farm.

“The press,” Dilman had said.

“Let them stew,” The Judge had growled. He had considered Dilman, eyes narrowing. “Young man, you’re not fit to enjoy our food, not yet. Come on, let’s you and me take a brisk half hour’s hike over the farm-show you how the middle of America lives-you’ll find it good for your juices-cleanse out all the spite from your gut before breakfast.”

They had fled from the press into the inner hall and parlor, and emerged through the back door, and gone on their hike. The Judge, entwining a knitted scarf around shoulders and neck, taking up his walking stick, had led Dilman to the towering silo, where green corn and feed were already stored and ripening for the winter, and past the windmill, and through the sheds where the gleaming four-row cultivators, plows, harvesters were parked. They had paused at the hogpen, where the pigs lined the troughs, jostling, squealing, eating their swill.

They had gone inside the vast red barn to watch the milking machines attached to the udders of cows, and to observe the buckets of milk being taken to cream separators. The Judge had pointed out the haymow on the upper floor of the barn, proudly announcing that he labored up there three times a week, pitching hay down to the mangers.

They had rested briefly before a second farmhouse, smaller and newer than The Judge’s own, where his niece and her young son and daughter lived. “Kids are in school now, or I’d show the tykes off to you,” The Judge had said with pleasure. “Smartest ones you ever seen. Good having them all here with me, makes me young again, but too bad it had to be. She was married to my younger brother’s boy, and he got himself sniped at and killed some years ago in Vietnam. So I took them in. She does my typing, letter answering, editing of my books for her board and keep.” Then he growled, “ ’Course, if she knew the truth, I’d pay her just to have those young ones around.”

After that, they had cut across a soft field, freshly plowed and planted with winter wheat, and then entered a wooded area, stopping only when they had arrived at the gurgling, swift-running creek. “Better than the Potomac,” The Judge had said. “I spend every hour of the summer I can spare just lazing on the bank over there, fishing with live bait, chewing my cud, and catching stray memories. I don’t know a better way of living. Too bad it’s going out of our giddyup life.” He had dug his stick into the soil in several places near the creek. “Sometimes you can kick up an old Indian arrowhead. Can you imagine that? Let’s head back to the chow line before the Missus has my scalp for starving a guest.”

As they returned to the main house, The Judge spoke several times, in his nasal fashion, of his book reading. He had pride, like most largely self-educated persons, in his thorough knowledge of several subjects. His collection of volumes on American history, one of the most extensive private collections in the nation, now reposed in the Presidential Library that bore his name. He could quote at length from almost any book in that library. He had read deeply, if not selectively, in the works of philosophers, and he would remember an anecdote about Diogenes as readily as a passage from Thoreau. Once, encompassing all of his feudal domain with a swing of his stick, he said, “I love this because it inspires meditation. ‘Life is a ticklish business. I have resolved to spend it in reflecting upon it.’ Know who said that? Dutchman named Arthur Schopenhauer. Don’t subscribe to some of his ideas, but like that one. Trouble with a job like the Presidency is it’s a job where you should do more thinking than anyone in the world, and yet you have less time to think than a shoe clerk.”