Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

Mal scanned the polls. “We’re behind in every Southern state—well, you’ve got a small lead in Oklahoma, but they’re a sister state to Colorado.”

Quinn did not speak. He seemed to be drifting off again in some kind of narcoleptic state with an inner concentration that shut out external noises.

“If I were a gambler,” Mal said, “I’d say, go ahead, make your doom-and-gloom population-control speech. This isn’t a gamble. You’re going to lay an egg.”

“So we’re going down either way! What can I do but gamble?”

“Play it safe,” Greer said. “And let’s get out of here with our ass intact and go crazy in the big Midwestern states. That’s only a week away .. . and then California.”

Duncan arrived with a late bulletin. “Dad, Denver reports we picked up over three hundred thousand this week.”

“Good, we won’t have to hitchhike out of here,” Quinn said.

Otherwise, Quinn was stubbornly silent and the rest, gnash ingly frustrated, wanted to shake him.

“Fuck it!” Greer screamed.

“You’ve grown awfully hardheaded,” Mal said. “Your state senate office in Colorado was a place of conciliation and compromise.”

“Because,” Quinn answered drudgingly “whether Democrat or Republican we were all hard-core Coloradans. Maybe we’ve treated these people down here like country bumpkins for too long. There are issues besides the Second Amendment that I have to save for Thornton Tomtree. We have to hold our fire until we see him in the crosshairs. Hey, guys, love you all. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“And the next president of the United States, Quinn Patrick O’Connell!”

“.. . one thing in this campaign has really bugged me, and that is my challengers trying to put across the idea that I come from a strange place to a place where I have no business. They go further. They say, “What can a governor from a small mountain and prairie state possibly know about Southern history and tradition and politics? If, God forbid, a Coloradan gets to the White House, what will happen to us?” I resent the past isolation of the South, and I resent the Chad Humboldts who want to keep this isolation going.

“I resent it when I am told, do not make a doom-and-gloom speech in Mississippi. Do not bring up overpowering moral issues because the Mississippi electorate can’t get it. They want honey on their hush puppies.

“I believe an informed electorate, an informed American electorate, North, East, South, or West, should be aware of the concerns of our leaders. I am deeply worried about a lot of things which can no longer be shoved into the closet.

“So, muffle the drums. We are gutting this planet close to the point of no return.”

Greer closed her eyes, but the thumping of her heart could almost be heard. Duncan took his mother’s hand. Both hands were wet. Maldonado felt a hard stab, and wanted to stand up and scream for Quinn to stop.

“... In a word, we are taking more out of the planet than the planet has to give in order to sustain life.

“All over we see ominous signs of a lessening quality of life, bald

spots for shopping malls ripped out of the evergreen forests of New

Zealand .. . Indians fighting off elephants coming right to the village

edge to get at the leaves in the tall trees .. . wood bearers having to

go miles to find firewood that used to be on the edge of their fields

.. . dead fish who can’t get over the dam, crushed by generator blades

.. . green slime we spill back into our waters that takes the oxygen

away from millions of shellfish .. . the shark, the most ancient and perfect fighting machine, now facing extinction. Sixteen lanes of blacktop running the length of Florida, covering forever destroyed rich pastures. Deep plowing that has eroded our great prairie farmlands and blown away irreplaceable topsoil.

“Yes, I believe that the people of Mississippi understand this. And I know you understand when I say that fifty thousand people die of starvation and malnutrition every bloody day of the year. Sixteen million deaths from hunger a year—a child dies every six seconds.

“The planet, with all its great agricultural innovations, cannot feed our present world population of four billion people. How in the name of God is it going to feed eight billion, the number that will inhabit the earth this century.

“We must chart an intelligent course through these mine fields. I know that population control offends my church and many of your beliefs. I know that from the beginning of time poor men have counted their riches in the number of children they could produce. It is a luxury we can no longer afford, and it’s going to happen to your children and grandchildren unless we recognize what’s going on and do something about it!”

“Tell me, and I’m listening, how we are going to survive to see the next century without population control? .. .”

“Oh, Jesus, he did it!”

Florida: Humboldt 64% O’Connell 35% Hawaii: Humboldt 21% O’Connell 79%

Louisiana: Humboldt 53% O’Connell 47% Mississippi: Humboldt 50%

O’Connell 48% Oklahoma: Humboldt 40% O’Connell Oregon: Humboldt 33% O’Connell 62% Tennessee: Humboldt 45% O’Connell

46% Texas: Humboldt 51% O’Connell 44%

Thornton Tomtree took two top White House people and moved them to his election campaign. Hugh Mendenhall, a hefty, bubbly wizard of the polls, and Dr. Jacob Turnquist, the analyst. They were close enough to T3 not to be overcome with fear in his presence. Like any great executive, Thornton allowed those close to him to take him on and speak their minds.

The nation had undergone the first anniversary of the Four Corners Massacre. Thornton had flown over Six Shooter Canyon in a helicopter and afterward laid the cornerstone of the permanent memorial.

He had done just enough on his unopposed Republican reelection campaign to keep his name high, and took the convention by acclamation.

But so had Governor Quinn Patrick O’Connell in a boisterous, bombastic Democratic convention in Detroit.

On Thornton’s return to Washington, he called in Hugh Mendenhall and Dr. Jacob Turnquist and repaired with them and Darnell to Camp David.

“Ahhh!” said the President.

“Ahhh!” Turnquist and Mendenhall agreed.

“Ahhh!” said Darnell, and poured from the large pitchers of Bloody Marys. The President’s steward adjusted the awnings to keep the sun off the patio.

Darnell Jefferson lay back in a chaise longue chair as a listener. The time was here to start blazing away at the Democratic opponent. The weekend was to detail strategic warfare. There was the sound of celery stalks being crunched.

“Our jingle-jangle rope-a-dope cowboy is going to be a handful,” the President said.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mendenhall bubbled. “O’Connell talking birth control in Mississippi. He’s got to trip and fall; he’s too disorganized and reckless.”

Jacob Turnquist always had his authoritative, sincere, goa teed, think-tank expression. “Or,” he suggested, “are we dealing with a political genius? He knows, like a bird riding the wind, just how far he can ride any issue. He is developing quasi fanatic followers .. . and keep in mind, all he has done so far is to present himself with a soft-shoe dance. He has only touched on significant issues superficially. He has given the Second Amendment wide berth. Why? Until he got control of the party—now he can take dead aim at you. Up to the day he won the convention, he took wild gambles to gain attention ... for example, financing through populist means .. . we are now facing close to two million voters who have invested in him, who will show up at the polls.”