“Okay,” Stuart said, scribbling. “Now-”
Jerry held up a hand. “Can we hold the rest for tonight or tomorrow? Then I’ll know what’s what. Right now I’d just be building castles in the air, okay?”
“Well, sure.” E. A. Stuart smiled crookedly. “But that’s half the fun.”
“Maybe for you.” Jerry turned into his own walk. A man’s home was his castle, and reporters and other barbarians could damn well wait outside.
The polls closed at seven. Jerry and Betsy were at his campaign headquarters-a storefront three doors down from the Bijou-at five past. Radios turned to CBS, RCA, and Mutual stations blared returns. Some people had trouble straining information out of election-night chaos. Not Jerry. He could pick the East Coast nuggets from all the random chatter.
And all the nuggets seemed pure gold. Democrat after Democrat was losing or “trailing significantly,” as the pundits liked to say. Republican after Republican claimed victory. Excitement made Jerry’s fingertips tingle. It had been so long, so very long.
“And now we have the first returns from Indiana,” one of the radio announcers said. Everybody at campaign headquarters yelled for everybody else to shut up. While people were yelling, the announcer read off the returns. In spite of Jerry’s ear, he couldn’t make them out.
“Downstate,” someone said. “We’re leading three to two.”
“Is that all?” Someone else sounded disappointed. Downstate Indiana, down by the Ohio River, was as solidly Republican as anywhere in the country. Still, three to two wasn’t half bad, not by any standards. And most of the votes might have come from some local Democratic stronghold. Till you knew provenance, you had to be careful about what the raw numbers meant.
“In the suburbs of Indianapolis,” the announcer went on, “incumbent Jerry Duncan leads his Democratic challenger. The totals are 1,872 to 1,391 in what are still preliminary results.”
Cheers erupted. So did a few four-letter words aimed at the man on the radio. People from Anderson and Muncie didn’t like to hear their towns called suburbs of Indianapolis. When you got right down to it, they were, but folks didn’t like to hear it or think about it.
“What were the numbers like two years ago? I don’t remember exactly,” Betsy said.
“Not as good as they are now. I was only up by maybe a hundred votes at this stage of things.” Like most politicos, Jerry had total recall for all the returns in every election he’d ever contested. But he was also cautious: “Can’t tell too much yet. Besides, who knows where these votes come from?”
“Okay,” Betsy said. “But I sure like it a lot better than I would if you were behind by that much.”
He laughed. “Well, when you put it like that, so do I.”
The air got thick with cigarette smoke and the odd pipe and cigar. Then it got thicker. Jerry was puffing away like everybody else, but he didn’t like it when his eyes started to sting and water. That took a good thing too far.
More good news kept blaring out of the radio. “This does look like a repudiation of Harry Truman’s domestic and foreign policy,” a broadcaster said. “Unless things out West dramatically change the situation, the Republican Party stands to gain control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the Hoover administration.”
More cheers. Jerry shouted along with everybody else. But he couldn’t help wishing the guy on the radio hadn’t mentioned Hoover. If ever there was a jinx…
But not even the ghost of Hoover and the Depression could jinx the GOP tonight. Around half past ten, when Jerry’s lead had swelled to over 5,000 votes, one of the telephones at campaign headquarters jangled. The staffer who answered it waved to try to cut the hubbub in the room. Not having much luck, he bellowed, “It’s Douglas Catledge, Congressman!”
Jerry jumped to his feet and hurried over to the phone. The campaign workers yelled and clapped and stamped their feet. But when Jerry waved for quiet, he got it. He grabbed the handset, saying, “Thanks, Irv.” He talked into the telephone: “This is Jerry Duncan.”
“Hello, Congressman. Doug Catledge here.” The young Democrat sounded tired and sad but determined: about the way Jerry would have sounded in his shoes.
“Thank you very much, Doug. That’s mighty gracious of you,” Jerry said. “You ran a strong campaign. I was worried right up till the polls closed.” He hadn’t been; he’d thought things looked pretty good. But if the other fellow was gracious you had to follow suit.
“Kind of you to say so,” Catledge replied. “If you don’t mind my two cents’ worth now, I do hope you’ll soft- pedal the pullout foolishness you spouted the past few weeks.”
Jerry frowned. Douglas Catledge had lost not least because he backed Truman’s policies, and he was telling Jerry what to do?
But no. Just because the other guy couldn’t mind his manners didn’t mean Jerry had to imitate him. What he did say was, “The fight over there costs more men and more cash than we can afford. Our dollar is falling against the Swiss franc and the Canadian dollar and even the Mexican peso. It would be falling against the pound, but England’s stuck in this flypaper, too.”
“If we run away from Germany, either the Russians grab all of it or the Nazis come back in and start getting ready for World War III,” Catledge said. “I don’t think either one helps the United States.”
“I don’t think either one is anything we’ve got to worry about, not as long as we have the atom bomb,” Jerry answered. “Good night, Mr. Catledge.” He wasn’t about to argue, not tonight.
“Good night,” Douglas Catledge said sadly. “I still think you’re making a bad mistake.”
“I know you do. But the voters don’t.” Jerry said “Good night” once more and hung up. He’d got the last word. So had the voters: the only word that mattered in an election. Jerry stood up and held up his hands. Everybody in the crowded room looked his way. “My opponent has just generously conceded,” he told the campaign workers. “I want to thank him, and I want to thank all of you for making my victory possible. I’m the one who’s going back to Washington, but I couldn’t possibly do it alone. Thanks again to every one of you from the bottom of my heart.”
He got another round of applause. He went over and kissed Betsy. Then somebody stuck a lighted cigar in his mouth. He didn’t usually smoke them, but he took a few puffs with it held at a jaunty angle while the photographers snapped away. It was like a victory lap at the Indianapolis 500. As soon as the photographers were done, he stuck the cheroot in an ashtray and forgot about it.
Diana McGraw walked into the campaign headquarters about fifteen minutes later. The campaign workers gave her a hand, too. Jerry joined in. His wife, he noticed, didn’t. No, Betsy never came out and said anything about Diana, but she didn’t need words to make her feelings plain.
“Congratulations,” Diana said. “When the radio said Catledge had conceded, I figured I could come over without causing too much distraction.”
“We’re going to have another term,” Jerry said. Betsy’s smile might have been painted on.
“Another term,” Diana agreed. “How long do you think it will take to get the bonehead in the White House to bring our men home?”
“Good question. If Truman’s shown one thing, it’s that he’s at least as stubborn as FDR ever was,” Jerry answered.
“But Congress holds the purse strings,” Diana said. “If you don’t give him the money to keep troops in Germany-”
“Have to see what things look like, what the lineup is after they count all the votes,” Jerry said. He’d been trying to make that calculation himself. Knowing the numbers of Republicans and Democrats in the upcoming Eightieth Congress would help only so much. Some Democrats would steer clear of Truman for fear of losing the next time around, while some Republicans would stick with him because they were scared of Stalin-or just because the people in their districts thought occupying Germany was still a good idea.
Diana, of course, had her sights set on one thing and one thing only. “The sooner the boys come home, the
