The thrill of being owned by her fated man went through Sara as he goosed her off-camera.
“Well, congratulations, mah chillun,” Luke said. “Sara, maybe you can keep this schmuck off the streets, give him some of dat ole time religion, good for old Jack Barron, and good for the SJC.”
Sara saw a flicker of annoyance cross Jack’s face, wondered why as Jack said, “I get the ugly feeling that that plug for Baby Bolsheviks, Inc is what the nitty-gritty of this call’s about, Luke. Or are you just using the tax money of the good people of Mississippi to make long-distance vidphone calls strictly for kicks? What’s going on in that twisted excuse for a mind of yours?”
“It’s your head that seems to be going through changes,” said Luke. “You’re back with Sara… and after tonight it looks mighty like you’re back with us. Welcome back to the human race, Jack.”
“Uh… what race you say that was?” Jack said archly. “Rat race, you say, Lothar? Race from nowhere straight to oblivion? Race, shit—you don’t even catch me near that track.”
“Cut the crap, you shade mother you,” Luke said, “you’re not bullshitting with Bennie Howards now. You got the bug, Claude, knew you would. Could taste it, couldn’t you, and when you got on the air with Bennie, you just couldn’t help it… Well, you made your point, Jack. You made it with me, and with a whole lot of others, including those fat-cat Republican dinosaurs.”
“What in hell are you babbling about?” Jack asked and Sara sensed he meant it, was as confused about what Luke was saying as she was about Jack, and wondered if he too felt the shadow of something big and important about to come on.
“I’m talking about the show you just did, what else?” Luke said. “I never saw any vip that cut up; Bennie must be leaving a trail of blood from here to his digs in Colorado. Shit, man, you know what I’m talking about, you said it all, and you said it perfect. Something for everyone. Morris flipped over the economic angle; it’s a tie-in to their whole damn Adam Smith Platform—fat cats who want a piece of the Freezer action for themselves are ready to shell out big. Oh, man, like I always said, a man that’s got the instinct for politics just can’t shake it! You let Bennie off a little too easy at the end maybe, but you know, I begin to think that was the right come-on too. Like Morris says, we gotta develop your position slow and easy before you come out into the open next year.”
“In words of one syllable for us ignorant shades, please,” Sara heard Jack say, still feigning confusion. But, you are faking it now, aren’t you, Jack? she thought. Putting on Luke… Wow, what’s going on? And she felt as she did when she was eleven, peeking in between wooden shack slits and watching naked boy-flesh shapes doing exciting dirty-little-boy things. Like the old Jack in bed beside her, talking big-world phone-talk over her quiet listening-flesh with Luke, and how good, oh how good to be Sara Barron again, watching my man doing his man-things…
“How’s yes for a word of one syllable?” Luke said. “I just got off the phone with Morris, and, baby, the word is yes. You pulled it off, you made up all the points with the Republican vips you lost by bad-mouthing Morris. After the way you stomped Howards tonight—and they loved the way you linked him with Hennering—they are like hot for your living-color bod. You know what a tight little cabal that bunch is, so when Greg Morris says he can personally guarantee you the nomination if I can deliver the SJC, you know that means that all their vips have spoken. And with that word in old Luke’s hip pocket, don’t you worry, we’re home free with the SJC Council.
“You know what this means, Clive? You dig? We’re gonna do it! We’re really gonna do it, not another Berkeley pipe dream, not a little piece of the action like I have here, but the whole schmear, Jack, all the way, an SJC National Administration, just like you told us in that dirty old attic. It took one hell of a long time for you to remember who you were, but, Claude, it was worth the wait ’cause when you returned to the fold, prodigal baby, you brought more than the bacon back, you brought the whole fucking hog.”
“For crissakes, Jack, tell me!” Sara said excitedly. “What’s this all about?”
Jack grimaced, handed her the vidphone. “Go ahead, Machiavelli,” he said with a peculiar weariness. “You do it, at least you’ll be able to keep a straight face. Tell the little lady what it’s all about.”
“You mean you haven’t told…?” Luke said incredulously. “Sara, us movers and shapers gonna make this cretin you’re balling the next President of the United States, is all.”
Jack snatched back the vidphone before she could answer, before she could do anything but gape at him as if he were some mystical avatar suddenly revealed in his full glory by a flash of psychedelic light. Yes! Yes! she thought, where in the world is there a bigger man than Jack, and who can stand against him if he stands naked, the whole total Berkeley-knight-in-soft-flesh-armor JACK BARRON in front of those hundred million people? They’ve got to want him; all he’s gotta do is show the world Jack.
“I got a one-syllable word for you too, Luke, and it’s even shorter,” Jack said. “The word is no. If nominated, I shall not run, if elected, I shall not serve, and all that Sherman jazz. Okay, let’s say you can get me a Republican and SJC nomination. Let’s say the Pretender gets himself killed, like Hennering, and I end up running against some obvious Howards’ stooge and everyone is stoned on Election Day, so I win. What then? I don’t know shit from shinola about being President and what’s more I’ve got no eyes to learn. It’s just not my bag.”
No sweat,” Luke said smoothly. “You’ll have plenty of political geniuses like yours truly to run things for—”
“Look Svengali, I’m nobody’s front-man, not even yours, and I never will be, and don’t you forget it! Think I’m so stupid I don’t know where it’s at? You and Morris want an image-candidate, an Eisenhower, a Reagan, a fucking-mindless-celebrity mouthpiece, is all, someone you can package and sell like soap. And the answer is no. You so buddy-buddy with Morris, why don’t you run yourself?”
“This is a vidphone, isn’t it?” Luke said bitterly. “Take a good look at the color of my face and say that again, shade.”
“Sorry, Luke, I’m really sorry,” Jack said with that instant belly-radar reflex-reaction that always seemed to tell him when he had drawn blood, intentional or otherwise, with that inner vulnerable little-boy empathy Sara had always loved behind the kick-’em-in-the-ass exterior, drawing immediately back.
“You know me, man,” Jack said earnestly. “I really don’t notice your color until it smacks me in the face. I’m not giving you some bullshit come-on. Anyway, I really meant it—you’re the man should be President, not me. It’s your bag, not mine. You’ve worked all these years in that direction even though you knew… what you were up against, and I’ve been off in an entirely different bag, the show biz scene… Which is yet another good reason for my saying no. Who am I to waltz on to your turf and make like top dog? You try and get yourself a phone-in show, and I’ll be out to stomp you dead. Let’s be friends, but let’s each of us stick to his own line of evil.”
Sara caught a glimpse of poor wounded Luke (hung up over it even in Berkeley days, she thought. Number one type cat always number two, being black and too hip not to know it was where it would always be at), smiling it away (how brave to be black and still be a man she remembered how contained, hard-edged he had been, even in bed), and saying real cool like Luke-cooclass="underline"