Harry Turtledove (Editor): Alternate Generals II

When he has regained a measure of calm, Stevenson descends to the lobby, where a boy chats idly with the girl behind the desk. He looks to be perhaps seventeen or eighteen. His hair is greased and swept back in the new style favored by the youngsters and he wears his pants low on his hips. They look as if they will slide off at any moment. Stevenson resists the impulse to order the pants pulled up. Instead, he takes him aside and gives him a cartwheel and a name. The boy grins. "Rootie-tootie," he says and walks off with a sassy, hip-rolling gait. Stevenson wonders what the younger generation is coming to. Then he shrugs and sets out for a walk.

The heat beats upon him. Cicadas chicker like boys running sticks across every picket fence in the world. The sound swells and crests and diminishes in waves, but it never entirely dies away. It is not the best weather for a stroll. Eggs would fry on the sidewalks. The locals know this and stay indoors. Stevenson fancies his progress marked from behind every shaded parlor window he passes. The heat pours up from the pavement through the soles of his shoes.

Stepping inside the barber shop at last is like entering a cave. As his eyes grow slowly adjusted to the dimmer light, he sees a row of older men seated along the wall. They bear the attitude of those whose conversation has but lately fallen silent. The barber stands with his implements poised over a customer's head. Stevenson's words congest in his throat and he must cough to loosen them. "A bottle of hair tonic," he says, putting as much rural Illinois into his twang as he is able, and pulls another cartwheel from his pocket. "The kind Fosdick uses." He fights the urge to mop his brow. His fedora remains firmly in place. He holds the silver dollar so that Walking Liberty is upright from the barber's point of view.

That worthy glances at the coin and regards Stevenson a moment longer. Then he puts his clippers down and takes a bottle of tonic off his shelf. He gives it to Stevenson, but says, "Keep the dollar, boy. I won't take another man's liberty." The Greek chorus breaks silence in a mutter of affirmations.

When he returns to the hotel lobby, Stevenson finds the errand boy waiting. The lad hands him a bottle of bourbon. "Here you go, mistuh," he says with a conspiratorial leer. Stevenson takes the bottle and stares at it stupidly, until he remembers that anyone might have seen him send the boy on an errand and the bottle will explain things nicely. "Thank you," he says, handing him a nickel tip. "It's my favorite brand." In truth, he does not recognize the label. It might be more hair tonic for all he knows.

Settled once more in his room, he places the bourbon on the sideboard and lies down on the bed to rest. He wonders if he should signal at the window again, but decides not to press matters. All that remains now is to wait.

It is not a long wait. When Stevenson answers the knock, Governor Sparkman steps past him and heads directly for the liquor bottle, where he pours himself three fingers of bourbon, neat. Only after he has gotten himself outside two of those fingers does he turn and face the senator from Illinois. "How was the drive down, Adlai?"

Stevenson sits on the bed. "Tolerable, John. It was a US Highway all the way; as straight as God and local politics would allow." Sparkman's lips twitch-the US Highways were paved with more pork than asphalt-then he introduces his two companions.

Tallulah Bankhead, in her late forties, is niece and granddaughter of U.S. Senators and daughter of the late Speaker of the House. She has recently left the stage to take up her family's political mantle. Rumor has it that Sparkman is grooming her to be the next governor. (Stevenson doubts an actor can be a governor, but the Democrats could run a yellow dog in this state and still win.) He turns expectant eyes on the third member of the delegation.

He is an intense man in his early thirties, with broad lips that press close together in a look of permanent disapproval. Dark-haired and dark-complexioned, he appears brooding. Sparkman names him George Corley Wallace, state attorney general. His grip is firm but brief. "No trouble with the Hun?" he asks as he, too, seeks liquid solace. Bankhead, like Stevenson, has taken no drink, but she sits in the desk chair and eyes Stevenson with frank interest.

Stevenson tells Wallace that he has had no trouble and the young attorney general grunts. "You were lucky then. Some local fellow says the Hun out the US Highway threatened to blow his baby's head off this afternoon."

Stevenson's eyebrows rise. "Red pickup truck about five years old? I saw that. The boy was likkered up and the gendarme talked him into letting his wife drive him home. That's all. Probably saved them all from a bad accident."

Wallace frowns. "That's not the way he tells it."

Sparkman, standing by the window, interrupts. "Look at them out there, goose-stepping down the street like they God-damn own it." He finishes the last finger, looks at the glass as if its emptiness were an affront before he sets it down carefully. "Tastes like hair tonic," he says. "Okay, Adlai, what's the word from the central committee?"

Stevenson considers how to present things. Southern pride is a touchy thing and though he has been rehearsing his little speech all the way down from Peoria, he knows it will not play well. "Hugo isn't standing for reelection," he says bluntly.

Sparkman is unsurprised. "Yeah, I figgered that. The Situation's not his fault-the God-damned League shoved it down his throat-but the people will never forgive him."

"The same goes for the veep-"

" 'Cept who cares what that sumbitch wants?" Sparkman snorts. "Ol' Hugo was a-gonna shitcan Curley anyway. How many vice presidents you know who serve time in jail?"

It's a rhetorical question. "What I mean," Stevenson presses on, "is that no one connected with the administration has a Chinaman's chance. We need an outsider if we're going to run a respectable campaign."

Sparkman stands a little taller. "Any names in that hat, Adlai?" His tone suggests he has a name in mind, but Stevenson quashes that thought right away.

"Party can't run a Southern man this time, John. Especially not the governor of Alabama-"

Sparkman swells like a banty rooster. "Now, hold on there-"

"— because folks up north blame all of you for the Situation. They way you treated the coloreds-the lynchings and all-that's what brought the League in."

Sparkman strikes the dresser with the flat of his hand. "Adlai, that was just white trash troublemakers, not the quality folks. Not the Sparkmans or the Bankheads." His glance touches his attorney general, but he does not include the Wallaces among the quality. If Wallace notices, he gives no sign. "Most folks down here," Sparkman insists, "they might not care to associate with the coloreds, but they never wanted to see them hung or burned out. Live and let live-"

"Separate," says Wallace, "but equal."

Stevenson doesn't think separate can ever be equal. One or the other would get shortchanged, and he doesn't think it would be the whites. The point is moot now, anyway. "That doesn't matter, John," he tells them. "Up north, John Q. Citizen isn't making any distinctions between the trash and the quality. The city machines don't think they can deliver for a Southern ticket, and you and I both know Boss Daley can deliver votes if he has to dig up the graveyard with his own two hands and drag the corpses into the polling booth. No, it's time the party put a northern man up."

"Party hasn't put up a northern man since Franklin," Tallulah points out. "And there was less there than met the eye. He sure enough brought the Glorious Twenties to a roaring halt."

Stevenson shrugs. "That was just bad luck, the market crashing when it did. After eight good years with McAdoo, Franklin expected the good times to-"