Timothy Culver - Power Play

Joe said, angrily, “Bradford gave Herbert all the life he ever had!”

“Oh, yes? Bradford Lockridge gives, and Bradford Lockridge takes away? Now he’s God, is that it?”

“He’s been a god in this family!” Joe shouted. “ Yes, he gave me a bigger career than I would have had on my own, and he did the same thing for your goddamn brother Herbert, and he did the same thing for Harrison, and he did the same thing for Sterling downstairs, and for George there, and for Howard and Edward and BJ and—”

“BJ, yes, there’s another one. Poor BJ’s in a mental hospital now, and whose fault is that ? Is that what we can expect now, Bradford Lockridge gave us all everything we’ve got, and now he’s going to take it all back again?”

Eugene White said, “We hope not, Patricia. There’s no need to—”

“You hope not? Well, let me tell you something — and you, too, Wellington, you especially. This con job you worked on my husband yesterday at that meeting up in Boston—”

Eugene White said, “Con job?”

“Just you listen to me. You did a lot of talk there about how everything had to be decided right away at that meeting, it had to be yes or no, there wasn’t time to go home and think it over. Well, let me tell you something, we have community property in the state of California and Harrison’s agreement doesn’t mean one single thing without me ! And I say no ! I say I wouldn’t give one penny for that stupid idea, not this year, not every year, not any year! And do you think I’m the only one in the family feels that way? Let him go into a regular mental hospital just like anybody else. Let him go in with BJ!”

Eugene White said, “You’re upset, Patricia, naturally you’re upset. When you’re calmer—”

Marie Holt said, “I’m calm.” And from the sound of her voice, she was.

It got the effect she’d wanted; everyone shut up and looked at her. When she was sure she had everybody’s undivided attention, she said, “And I agree with Patricia. I think my husband was rushed into a decision he shouldn’t have made by himself. This is an annual expenditure from our household budget, and it isn’t going to be cheap, not from the numbers you people were apparently tossing around at that meeting. George and I have talked it over, and we think it was all done too hastily.” George was now absorbed in a study of the carpet between his feet.

“If you want to have another meeting—” Patricia started.

Wellington said, “The agreement has been made. The money is already being spent.”

“Make one of your famous phone calls,” Patricia told him. “Tell them to stop a minute, there’s been a hitch in the plans.”

Eugene White, still trying to be reasonable, said, “We can’t do that, Patricia. The family agreed—”

“Do you think so? What do you think we ladies talked about in the cars going out to the cemetery and back? Casserole recipes? This family is split right down the middle, and don’t you kid yourself about that.”

“If it is,” Joe Holt said angrily, “you did it, you and your daughter.”

The younger Patricia glared at him. “If we’d done it sooner,” she said, her voice raspy, “my husband would still be alive.”

Her mother said, “Don’t think a lot of us haven’t thought about that. Don’t think a lot of those women downstairs won’t start wondering whose husband is next, all to keep Bradford Lockridge out of the insane asylum he belongs in. I hate to be the kind of person who says ‘what have you done for me lately,’ but when I ask Bradford Lockridge that, the answer I get is, ‘I killed your brother and your son-in-law, I drove my son crazy, I made a mockery out of my sister-in-law’s funeral, and I’m going to cost each and every member of my family twenty percent of its annual income for the rest of my life.’ That’s what he’s done for me lately, and that’s what he’s done for everybody in the family lately, and if you think the Russians would be happy to see an American president in the booby hatch, believe me they won’t be half as happy as the Lockridge family!”

Eugene White said, “Patricia, you can’t do this to the family.”

“I can’t? I can and I will. And my daughter will help me. And Marie will help me. And I know half a dozen others who’ll help me.”

Wellington said, quietly, “No.”

As with Marie’s calm statement, this one drew immediate and total attention. But Patricia wouldn’t allow the enemy a pregnant pause; she snapped, “You don’t scare me, Wellington, with your looks and your silences and your cloak and dagger routine. Some of the more impressionable members of the family use you to scare their children to bed in place of the boogie man — ‘You be good, or Uncle Wellington will get you!’ — but I’m not one of them.”

“I know that,” Wellington said, still quietly, as everyone else looked very embarrassed. “And that’s why,” he said, “I’m going to have to do something just a little melodramatic before saying what I want to say. So I’ll be sure I have your attention.”

“Are you going to dance, Wellington?”

“If you will all go to the windows,” Wellington said, “you will see six automobiles parked in a row across the street.” As they hesitated about moving, he said, “Please go look.”

“A show, Wellington?” Patricia saw the momentum being lost, and didn’t like it.

“A very brief show,” Wellington said. “I promise.”

Reluctantly, the other eight all went over to the three windows and looked out at the street. Wellington, still in the center of the room, said, “The driver of the first car is going to wave to you now. The driver of the second car is going to get out of the car now, and kick the front left tire, and get back into the car. The driver of the third car—”

Meredith Fanshaw had turned from the window. “What the hell are you—”

“Bear with me,” Wellington said. “The driver of the third car will get out, fiddle with the windshield wiper, and get back. What would you like the driver of the fourth car to do?”

No one said anything. They kept looking out the windows.

Wellington said, “Well? What would you like him to do?”

Marie, not turning from the window, said, “Take a bow.”

“Fine,” said Wellington. “He will get out of the car, bow in this direction, and get back in. What about the driver of the fifth car?”

Meredith Fanshaw said, “No. The driver of the sixth car. He should start the engine, back up, and drive around the block.”

Wellington repeated the instructions, and said, “Now, the fifth car.”

Eugene White, in a thoughtful voice, said, “He shouldn’t do a thing.”

“He does nothing,” Wellington agreed.

They all turned to look at him. Patricia, still trying to retain her momentum and mood, said, “All right, it’s cloak and dagger. So what?”

“The men in those six cars,” Wellington said, “were guarding Bradford every inch of the way today.”

Eugene White said, doubtfully, “They’re Secret Service?”

“No. Bradford only has two regularly assigned Secret Service guards. It was thought unnecessary to have them come along today. Unusual, but we wanted to prove a point.”

Meredith Fanshaw said, “What point?”

“That Bradford’s family had the desire, the spirit and the brains to take care of him. Patricia, it all seems simple to you. Bradford is sick, put him in a hospital like any ordinary man. But as several of us keep saying, he isn’t an ordinary man.”

“No,” she said sarcastically, “he’s God. Joe Holt said so.”

“He’s an ex-President,” Wellington said, “which is the fact at issue here. Whether he’s done anything for or to anyone in this room doesn’t matter. He’s an ex-President. And there are offices within the governmental structure which will not permit an ex-President of the United States to publicly enter a mental hospital.”