Edge of Eternity

  A few opponents in the hall heckled him, but Walli and Beep did not join in. There was no need. Bobby was killing himself without assistance.

  During a quiet moment, a baby cried. Out of the corner of his eye, Walli saw a woman get up and move toward the exit. Bobby stopped in midsentence and said: "Please don't leave, ma'am!"

  The audience tittered. The woman turned in the aisle and looked at Bobby up on the stage.

  He said: "I'm used to the sound of babies crying."

  They laughed at that: everyone knew he had ten children.

  "Besides," he added, "if you go the newspapers will say that I ruthlessly threw a mother and baby out of the hall."

  They cheered at that: many young people hated the press for its biased coverage of demonstrations.

  The woman smiled and returned to her seat.

  Bobby looked down at his notes. For a moment he had come across as a warm human being. At that point he might have turned the crowd. But he would lose them again by returning to his prepared speech. Walli thought he had missed his opportunity.

  Then Bobby seemed to realize the same thing. He looked up again and said: "I'm cold in here. Are you cold?"

  They roared their agreement.

  "Clap," he said. "Come on, that'll warm us up." He began to clap his hands, and the audience did the same, laughing.

  After a minute he stopped and said: "I feel better now. Do you?" And they shouted their assent again.

  "I want to talk about decency," he said. He was back to his speech, but now he was not referring to his notes. "Some people think that long hair is indecent, and bare feet, and smooching in the park. I'll tell you what I think." He raised his voice. "Poverty is indecent!" The crowd shouted approval. "Illiteracy is indecent!" They applauded again. "And I say, right here in California, that it is indecent for a man to work in the fields with his back and his hands without ever having hope of sending his son to college."

  No one in the room could doubt that Bobby believed what he was saying. He had put away his file cards. He became passionate, waving his arms, pointing, banging the lectern with a fist; and the listeners responded to the strength of his emotion, acclaiming every fervent phrase. Walli looked at their faces and recognized the expressions he saw when he himself was up onstage: young men and women staring in rapture, eyes wide, mouths open, faces shining with adoration.

  No one ever looked at Gene McCarthy that way.

  At some point, Walli realized, he and Beep had quietly dropped their TRAITOR banner to the floor.

  Bobby was speaking about poverty. "In the Mississippi Delta I have seen children with distended stomachs and facial sores from starvation." He raised his voice. "I don't think that's acceptable!

  "Indians living on their bare and meager reservations have so little hope for the future that the greatest cause of death among teenagers is suicide. I believe we can do better!

  "The people of the black ghettoes listen to ever greater promises of equality and justice as they sit in the same decaying schools and huddle in the same filthy rooms warding off the rats. I am convinced that America can do better than that!"

  He was building up to the climax, Walli saw. "I come here today to ask for your help over the next few months," Bobby said. "If you, too, believe that poverty is indecent, give me your support."

  They yelled that they would.

  "If you, too, think it is unacceptable that children starve in our country, work for my campaign."

  They hurrahed again.

  "Do you believe, as I do, that America can do better?"

  They roared their agreement.

  "Then join me--and America will do better!"

  He stepped back from the lectern, and the crowd went wild.

  Walli looked at Beep. He could tell that she felt the way he did. "He's going to win, isn't he?" said Walli.

  "Yes," said Beep. "He's going all the way to the White House."

  *

  Bobby's ten-day tour took him to thirteen states. At the end of the last day, he and his entourage boarded a plane in Phoenix to fly to New York. By then George Jakes was sure Bobby was going to be president.

  The public response had been overwhelming. Thousands mobbed Bobby at airports. They crowded the streets to watch his motorcade go by, Bobby always standing on the backseat of a convertible, with George and others sitting on the floor holding his legs so that the people could not pull him out of the car. Gangs of children ran alongside shouting: "Bobby!" Whenever the car stopped, people flung themselves at him. They ripped off his cuff links and his tie pins and the buttons on his suits.

  On the plane, Bobby sat down and emptied his pockets. Out came a snowstorm of paper like confetti. George picked up some of the scraps from the carpet. They were notes, dozens of them, neatly written and carefully folded small and thrust into Bobby's pockets. They begged him to attend college graduations or visit sick children in city hospitals, and they told him that prayers were being said for him in suburban homes, and candles lit in country churches.

  Bobby took off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves, as was his habit. That was when George noticed his arms. Bobby had hairy forearms, but that was not what struck George. His hands were swollen and his skin was webbed with angry red scratches. It happened when the crowds were touching him, George realized. They did not want to injure him, but they adored him so much that they drew blood.

  The people had found the hero they needed--but Bobby, too, had found himself. That was why George and the other aides called it the Free at Last tour. Bobby had struck a style that was all his own. He had a new version of the Kennedy charisma. His brother had been charming but contained, self-possessed, private--the right manner for 1963. Bobby was more open. At his best, he gave the audience the feeling that he was laying bare his own soul, confessing himself to be a flawed human being who wanted to do the right thing but was not always certain what it was. The catchphrase of 1968 was: "Let it all hang out." Bobby felt comfortable doing that, and they loved him for it.

  Half the people on the plane flying back to New York were newsmen. For ten days they had been photographing and filming the ecstatic crowds, and filing reports on how the new, reborn Bobby Kennedy was winning voters' hearts. The power brokers of the Democratic Party might not like Bobby's youthful liberalism, but they would not be able to ignore the phenomenon of his popularity. How could they blandly select Lyndon Johnson to run a second time when the American people were clamoring for Bobby? And if they ran an alternative pro-war candidate--Vice President Hubert Humphrey, say, or Senator Muskie--he would take votes from Johnson without denting Bobby's support. George did not see how Bobby could fail to get the nomination.

  And Bobby would beat the Republican. It would almost certainly be "Tricky" Dick Nixon, a has-been who had been beaten by a Kennedy once already.

  The road to the White House seemed clear of obstacles.

  As the plane approached John F. Kennedy airport in New York, George wondered what Bobby's opponents would do to try to stop him. President Johnson had been scheduled to make a national television broadcast this evening while the plane was in the air. George looked forward to finding out what Johnson had said. He could not think of anything that would make a difference.

  "It must be quite something," one of the journalists said to Bobby, "to land at an airport named for your brother."

  It was an unkind, intrusive question from a reporter hoping to spark an intemperate response that would make a story. But Bobby was used to this. All he said was: "I wish it was still called Idlewild."

  The plane taxied to the gate. Before the seat belt sign was switched off, a familiar figure came on board and ran down the aisle to Bobby. It was the New York State chairman of the Democratic Party. Before he reached Bobby he shouted: "The president is not going to run! The president is not going to run!"

  Bobby said: "Say that again."

  "The president is not going to run!"

  "You must be kidding."

  George
was stunned. Lyndon Johnson, who hated the Kennedys, had realized that he could not win the Democratic nomination, doubtless for all the reasons that had occurred to George. But he hoped that another pro-war Democrat could beat Bobby. Johnson had figured, then, that the only way he could sabotage Bobby's run for the presidency was to withdraw from the race himself.

  And now all bets were off.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Dave Williams knew that his sister was up to something.

  He was making the pilot of Dave Williams and Friends, his own television show. When first it was proposed he had taken the idea lightly: it seemed a superfluous augmentation of the tidal wave of Plum Nellie's success. Now the group had split and Dave needed the show. It was the beginning of his solo career. It had to be good.

  The producer had suggested inviting Dave's movie-star sister to appear as a guest. Evie was hotter than ever. Her latest film, a comedy about a snobby girl who hired a black lawyer, was a huge hit.

  Evie proposed to sing a duet with her costar in the movie, Percy Marquand. The producer, Charlie Lacklow, loved the idea but worried about the choice of song. Charlie was a small, belligerent man with a grating voice. "It has to be a comedy song," he said. "They can't sing 'True Love' or 'Baby, It's Cold Outside.'"

  "Easier said than done," said Dave. "Most duets are romantic."

  Charlie had shaken his head. "Forget it. This is television. We can't even hint at sex between a white woman and a black man."

  "They could sing 'Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.' That's comic."

  "No. People will think it's a comment on civil rights."

  Charlie Lacklow was smart, but Dave did not like him. Nobody did. He was a bad-tempered bully, and his occasional attempts to be ingratiatingly nice only made it worse.

  Dave tried: "How about 'Mockingbird'?"

  Charlie thought for a minute. "'If that mockingbird don't sing, he's gonna buy me a diamond ring,'" he sang. He reverted to speech. "I guess we can get away with that."

  "Sure we can," Dave said. "The original recording was by a brother-and-sister duo, Inez and Charlie Foxx. No one thought it suggested incest."

  "Okay."

  Dave discussed the sensitivities of the American television audience with Evie, and explained the choice of song, and she agreed--except that she had a gleam in her eye that Dave knew too well. It meant trouble. It was how she had looked just before the school production of Hamlet, when she had played Ophelia in the nude.

  They also discussed his breakup with Beep. "Everybody reacts as if it was just a typical teenage romance that didn't last," Dave complained. "But I stopped having teenage romances long before I stopped being a teenager, and I never much liked screwing around. I was serious about Beep. I wanted kids."

  "You grew up faster than Beep," Evie said. "And I grew up faster than Hank Remington. Hank has settled down with Anna Murray--I hear he doesn't screw around anymore. Maybe Beep will do the same."

  "And it will be too late for me, just as it was for you," Dave said bitterly.

  Now the orchestra was tuning up, Evie was in makeup, and Percy was putting on his costume. Meanwhile the director, Tony Peterson, asked Dave to record his introduction.

  The show was in color, and Dave was dressed in a burgundy velvet suit. He looked into the camera, imagined Beep walking back into his life with her arms reaching out to embrace him, and smiled warmly. "Now, fans, a special kick. We have both stars of the hit movie My Client and I: Percy Marquand, and my very own sister, Evie Williams!" He clapped his hands. The studio was quiet, but the sound of an audience applauding would be dubbed onto the soundtrack before the show was broadcast.

  "I love the smile, Dave," said Tony. "Do it again."

  Dave did it three times, and Tony pronounced himself satisfied.

  At that point Charlie came in with a gray-suited man in his forties. Dave saw immediately that Charlie was in obsequious mode. "Dave, I want you to meet our sponsor," he said. "This is Albert Wharton, the top man at National Soap and one of the leading businessmen in America. He's flown here all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, to meet you, isn't that great of him?"

  "It sure is," said Dave. People flew halfway around the world to see him every time he did a concert, but he always acted pleased.

  Wharton said: "I have two teenage children, a boy and a girl. They're going to be envious that I met you."

  Dave was trying to concentrate on making a great show, and the last thing he needed was to talk to a laundry detergent magnate; but he realized he had to be polite to this man. "I should sign a couple of autographs for your kids," he said.

  "That would give them a thrill."

  Charlie snapped his fingers at Miss Pritchard, his secretary, who was following behind him. "Jenny, sweetie," he said, even though she was a prim forty-year-old. "Get a couple of Dave's photos from the office."

  Wharton looked like a typical conservative businessman with short hair and boring clothes. That prompted Dave to say: "What made you decide to sponsor my show, Mr. Wharton?"

  "Our leading product is a detergent called Foam," Wharton began.

  "I've seen the ads," Dave said with a smile. "'Foam washes cleaner than white!'"

  Wharton nodded. Probably everyone he met quoted his advertising to him. "Foam is well known and trusted, and has been for many years," he said. "For that reason, it's also a bit fuddy-duddy. Young housewives tend to say: 'Foam, yes, my mother always used it.' Which is nice, but it has its dangers."

  Dave was amused to hear him talk about the character of a box of detergent as if it were a person. But Wharton spoke with no hint of humor or irony, and Dave suppressed the impulse to take it lightly. He said: "So I'm here to let them know that Foam is young and groovy."

  "Exactly," said Wharton. Then he smiled at last. "And, at the same time, to bring some popular music and wholesome humor into American homes."

  Dave grinned. "It's a good thing I'm not in the Rolling Stones!"

  "It certainly is," said Wharton in deadly earnest.

  Jenny came back with two eight-by-ten color photographs of Dave, and a felt-tipped pen.

  Dave said to Wharton: "What are your children called?"

  "Caroline and Edward."

  Dave dedicated one photo to each child and signed.

  Tony Peterson said: "Ready for the 'Mockingbird' segment."

  A little set had been built for this number. It looked like a corner of a swanky store, with glass cupboards full of glittery luxuries. Percy came on in a dark suit and a silver tie, like a floorwalker. Evie was a wealthy shopper with hat, gloves, and handbag. They took their positions either side of a counter. Dave smiled at the pains Charlie had taken to make sure their relationship was not seen as amorous.

  They rehearsed with the orchestra. The song was upbeat and lighthearted. Percy's baritone and Evie's contralto harmonized nicely. At the appropriate moments, Percy produced from under the counter a caged bird and a tray of rings. "We'll add canned laughter at that point, to let the audience know it's intended to be funny," said Charlie.

  They did it for the cameras. The first take was perfect, but they did it again for safety, as always.

  As they were coming to the end, Dave felt good. This was ideal family entertainment for the American audience. He began to believe that his show would succeed.

  In the last bar of the song, Evie leaned across the counter, stood on tiptoe, and kissed Percy's cheek.

  "Wonderful!" said Tony, walking onto the set. "Thank you, everybody. Set up for Dave's next introduction, please." He had a distinct air of embarrassed haste, and Dave wondered why.

  Evie and Percy stepped off the set.

  Beside Dave, Mr. Wharton said: "We can't broadcast that kiss."

  Before Dave could say anything, Charlie Lacklow said fawningly: "Of course not, don't worry, Mr. Wharton, we can lose it, we'll cut to Dave applauding, probably."

  Dave said mildly: "I thought the kiss was charming and kind of innocent."

  "Did you,"
said Wharton severely.

  Dave wondered apprehensively if this was going to become an issue.

  Charlie said: "Drop it, Dave. We can't show an interracial kiss on American television."

  Dave was surprised. But, thinking about it, he realized that those few black people who appeared on TV were rarely if ever touched by white people. "Is that, like, a policy, or something?" he asked.

  "More of an unwritten rule," Charlie said. "Unwritten, and unbreakable," he added firmly.

  Evie heard the exchange and said challengingly: "Why is that?"

  Dave saw the look on her face and groaned inwardly. Evie was not going to let this pass. She wanted a fight.

  But for a few moments there was silence. No one was sure what to say, especially with Percy right there.

  Eventually Wharton answered Evie's question in his dry accountant's tone. "The audience would disapprove," he said. "Most Americans believe the races should not intermarry."

  Charlie Lacklow added: "Exactly. What happens on television is happening in your home, in your living room, with your kids watching, and your mother-in-law."

  Wharton looked at Percy and remembered that he was married to Babe Lee, a white woman. "I'm sorry if this offends you, Mr. Marquand," he said.

  "I'm used to it," Percy said mildly; not denying that he was offended, but declining to make a big deal of it. Dave thought that was remarkably gracious.

  Evie said indignantly: "Maybe television should work to alter people's prejudices."

  "Don't be naive," Charlie said rudely. "If we show them something they don't like, they'll just change the goddamn channel."

  "Then all the networks should do the same, and portray America as a place where all men are equal."

  "It won't work," said Charlie.

  "Perhaps it won't," said Evie. "But we have to try, don't we? We have a responsibility." She looked around the group: Charlie, Tony, Dave, Percy, and Wharton. Dave felt guilty when he met her eye, for he knew she was right. "All of us," she went on. "We make television programs, which influence how people think."

  Charlie said: "Not necessarily--"

  Dave interrupted him. "Knock it off, Charlie. We influence people. If we didn't, Mr. Wharton would be wasting his money."

  Charlie looked angry, but he had no answer.

  "Now we have a chance, today, to make the world a better place," Evie went on. "Nobody would mind if I kissed Bing Crosby on prime-time television. Let's help people to see that it's no different if the cheek I kiss is a little darker in color."