hurts and we feel it as much as if our head aches or our heart aches. Instantly now do we feel the pain in Montevideo, in Juddah, in Bandung. And yes, my friends in Winslow, we feel the pains from our own, internal third world—from Harlem, from Watts, from our reservations of Native Americans …”
Fletch said: “Wow.”
Freddie was giving him sideways looks.
“… There is no First World, or Second World, or Third World. This planet earth is becoming integrated before our very eyes!”
“He’s not going to …”
“He’s not going to what?” she asked.
“… You and I know there is no theology, no ideology causing this new, sudden, total integration of the world. Christianity has had two thousand years to tie this world together … and it has not done so. Islam has had six hundred years to tie this world together … and it has not done so. American democracy has had two hundred years to tie this world together … and it has not done so. Communism has had nearly one hundred years to tie this world together… and it has not done so.”
“He’s doing it.”
“He’s doing something all right,” she said.
Fletch’s eyes studied the faces in the crowd. He was seeing faces blue with cold, noses red. He was seeing eyes fixated on The Man Who might become the most powerful person on earth, have some control over their taxes and their spending, their health care, their education, how they spent their days and their nights, their youths, working years, and old age, their lives and their deaths. For the most part, in the cold, their ears were covered with scarves and mufflers.
The congressperson was working with as much speed as possible through the thick crowd to the platform. She was still allowing her hand to be shook, still mouthing a responsive sentence here and there, but her face was stony. With all apparent graciousness, Barry Hines and Flash Grasselli were still turning her around to face the bulk of her constituency.
“… You and I know what is tying this world together, better than any band of missionaries, however large, ever have or ever could; better than any marching armies ever have or ever could …”
“What is he saying?” Freddie demanded. She checked the sound level of the tape recorder on her hip.
Fletch said, “Gee, I dunno.”
“Today,” The Man Who continued, “satellites permit us to see every stalk of wheat as it grows in Russia, every grain of rice as it grows in China. We can see every soldier as he is trained in Lesotho or Karachi. We can fly to Riyadh or Luzon between one meal and another. Every economic fact regarding Algeria can be assimilated and interpreted within hours. It is possible to poll the entire population of India regarding their deepest political and other convictions within seconds….”
Freddie said: “Wow. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”
Walsh Wheeler, who had been walking slowly, unobtrusively through the crowd, began to move much more quickly toward the campaign bus. The congressperson had struggled her way through the crowd and was almost at the steps to the platform.
“I dunno.”
“… You and I, my friends, know that technology is tying this world together, is integrating this world in a way no theology, no ideology ever could. Technology is forming a nervous system beneath the skin of Mother Earth. And you and I know that to avoid the pain, the body politic had better start responding to this nervous system immediately! If we ignore that which hurts in any part of this body earth, we shall suffer years more, generations more of the pain and misery of spreading disease. If we knowingly allow wounds to fester in any particular place, the strength, the energies of the whole world will be sapped!”
The crowd of photographers on the steps to the platform was blocking the congressperson’s ascent. She could not get their attention, to let her up.
“… American politics must grow up to the new realities of life on this planet! Technology brings us closer together than any Biblical brothers! Technology makes us more interdependent than any scheme of capital and labor! Technology is integrating the people of this earth where love and legislation have failed! This is the new reality! We must seize this understanding! Seize it for peace! For the health of planet earth! For the health of every citizen of this planet! For prosperity! My friends, for the very continuation of life on earth!”
There was a long moment before anyone realized The Man Who was done speaking. Then there was applause muffled by gloved and mittened hands, a few yells: “Go to it, Caxton! We’re with you all the way!” The band began to play “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”
At the edge of the platform, The Man Who shook hands with the congressperson as if he had never seen her before, keeping his arm long, making it seem, for the public, for the photographers, he was greeting just another well-wisher. He waved at the crowd and passed the congressperson in the mob on the steps.
At the front of the bus, Walsh Wheeler, Paul Dobson, and Phil Nolting were in heavy consultation.
“Wow,” said Fletch, still in the press area. “I never knew it was so easy to be a wizard.”
Freddie said, “You know something about all this I don’t know. You going to tell me?”
“No.”
Freddie Arbuthnot frowned.
She turned back toward the platform. The grandmotherly congress-person was shouting into a ringing amplification system. She was not at all heard over the band.
“But what does it mean?” Freddie asked.
“It means,” Fletch answered, “he’s made the nightly national news.”
15
Approaching him, Governor Caxton Wheeler grinned at Fletch. “How do you feel?”
“Like Adam’s grandfather.”
At the foot of the campaign bus’s steps, the governor was still grinning when he turned to his son. Walsh and Phil Nolting and Paul Dobson looked like a wall that had come tumbling down at the blast of a single trumpet. Each face had the same expression of stressed shock.
“How’d I do?” the governor asked.
Walsh’s eyes darted around, seeing if any of the press were within earshot. Outside their little circle was a group of thirty to forty retarded adults who had been brought from their institution to meet the presidential candidate.
“You’ve got to tell us when you’re going to do something like that, Dad.”
“I told you I had an idea.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t mention you were going to drop a bomb—a whole new departure.”
“A new speech.” Phil Nolting’s eyes were slits.
“Sorry,” the governor said. “Guess I was really thinking about it while that congressperson was babbling on about the waterway.”
“The question always is—” Paul Dobson said in the manner of a bright teacher. “You see, we’ve got to be prepared to defend everything you say before you say it.”
“You can’t defend the truth, anyway?” the governor asked simply. “I can.”
“Hi, Governor,” one of the retarded persons, a man about thirty-five, said. “My name is John.”
“Hi, John,” the governor said.
“It might have been a great speech, Dad, I don’t know. We all just feel sort of punched out by your not telling us you were going to do it.”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to do it.” The governor smiled. “It just came out.”
“We’ll get a transcript as fast as we can,” Dobson said. “See what we can do about it.”
The governor shrugged. “It felt right.” He put out his hand to one of the retarded persons, a woman about thirty. “Hi,” he said. “Are you a friend of John’s?”
Aboard the campaign bus, coordinator of volunteers Lee Allen Parke was connecting a small tape recorder to a headset. A typist was at her little desk, ready to work.
“Lee Allen,” Fletch said. Parke didn’t answer. “Just a simple question.”
