May We Be Forgiven Part 33

"The farthest-back hole?"

"Yes," she says, exasperated and embarra.s.sed.

"It's okay, I'm sure it's happened to lots of other people. You can't be the only person who's made this mistake. Are you sitting or standing?"

"I'm just standing here."

"Okay, well, squat down. Can you feel it now?"

"Yes, but I still can't grab it," she says, her frustration evident.

"We're going to get it," I say. "Don't worry. So, while you're squatting down, I want you to push, like you're trying really hard to go to the bathroom, and see if you can get it out at the same time as you're pushing."

"Oh my G.o.d, that's so gross," she says. And the phone drops.

"What happened? Did you get it?"

"I p.o.o.ped on the floor," she says. "It's disgusting."

"Did you get the Tampax?"

"Yes," she says. "Oh G.o.d, how am I going to clean this up?"

"Pretend it's a Tessie p.o.o.p; use a plastic bag and carry it down the hall to the bathroom."

"I gotta go," she says, hanging up.

I am left shaken, but, oddly, I feel like a rock star, like I am a NASA engineer having given the directions that saved the s.p.a.ce lab from an uncertain end.

In the evening, when the phone rings again, I answer ahead of the machine.

"It's Julie," she says, reminding me of another Julie, Amtrak Julie: "Hi, I'm Julie, Amtrak's automated agent. Let's see if I can help you. Are you calling about a reservation? I think you said that you'd like to speak with someone; one moment and I'll connect you."

"Are you there?" she asks. "Can you hear me okay? I'm on a mobile."

"Loud and clear," I say.

"Good. I've arranged for you to view the materials. Thursday at ten a.m. at the firm of Herzog, Henderson and March." She gives me the address and closes by saying, "Ask for Wanda, she'll take care of you."

"Is there anything in particular you want me to be looking at or looking for?"

"I'm sure you have questions, but at this point the less said the better. Take a good look, and then we'll talk further. And just so we're clear, this is not an invitation for ongoing access, it's a first step; if it goes well, we'll take it from there." She pauses. "By the way, do you know anyone at Random House?"

"No one comes to mind," I say.

"At one point an editor named Joe Fox asked my father if he had an interest in writing fiction. Does that name ring a bell?"

"He's gone on," I say.

"To another company?"

"Dead, collapsed at his desk," I say, wondering how it is I know this. "He was Truman Capote's editor."

"That explains it," she says. "My father kept the letter but jotted 'Never in a million' in the margin. He hated Capote, loathed him, said he was among the worst of them."

"Them?"

"h.o.m.os.e.xuals. Daddy did not like h.o.m.os.e.xuals." She pauses. "Thursday at ten, Wanda will show you the way."

"Thank you," I say. "I am intrigued."

"As it should be," she says.

At 6 a.m. on Thursday morning, I am showered, wearing one of George's suits fresh from the dry-cleaning bag, and online looking up "cheapparking.com" to find an inexpensive garage near the law office. I pack one of George's old briefcases with legal pads and pens and set off.

I park half a block from Claire's office; did I not know that, or did I know and choose to forget? The streets are teeming with well-dressed men and women. I feel like an out-of-towner, like everything about me is all wrong. Overcome with deja vu, I know that I have been here before, under other circ.u.mstances; it is as though I now live in an alternate reality and I can't help but worry there might have been more damage from the stroke than I realized.

My excitement turns to anger.

In the lobby of the building a guard asks me for my identification. I put my hand in my pocket: I find two twenties and a fifty rolled together-funny money-and realize that when I put on George's suit I forgot to "repack" my pockets. Anxious, I begin to sweat; I confess to the guard that I have no identification.

He throws me a bone, offering to phone upstairs and ask Wanda to come down and collect me.

Wanda is tall, black, efficient. She handles me like I am a specimen-the confused professor.

"Apologies for making you come all the way down," I say in the elevator.

"Not a problem," she says as the elevator door opens on the twenty-seventh floor. "The firm is located on this floor and the one above."

The firm is silent; telephones don't ring, they blink, and people glide soundlessly across the carpet. The only noise is the shussshing of their clothing. Wanda leads me down a corridor, unlocks a door, and ushers me into a conference room filled with innocuous, if expensive, furniture. In the middle of the table sits something that looks like a UFO, a telephone pod for conference calls. On the far end of the table are two battered cardboard boxes with "R.M.N." written in block letters on the side. My heart races.

"You'll have to leave your backpack with me," Wanda says.

"My backpack?"

"Your bag." She points to what I am carrying in my right hand.

"George's briefcase?"

"Yes."

"It's for taking notes"-I pat the briefcase-"paper and pens."

"No outside materials," she says. "We have supplies"-pointing to legal pads and pencils on the table. "And, please, no quoting more than seven words in a sequence."

I nod and hand her my briefcase. She hands me a three-page confidentiality agreement. I sign the doc.u.ment without reading it.

"How much time have I got?" I ask.

"I'm here until five."

"Thanks."

She moves to leave and turns back. "You're under constant surveillance; that means no funny business."

"Am I allowed to unpack the boxes?"

"Yes," she says.

"And handle the material?"

"There are gloves on the table. You're not allergic to latex, are you?"

"Latex is fine," I say. "Perfect."

I put the gloves on, imagining myself as a physician and RMN as my patient. With enormous excitement, I open the old box. The sight of Nixon's handwriting makes me blush. My cheeks are warm, my palms sweating inside the gloves. I'm glad to be alone, because, frankly, I'm a little overexcited, like a twelve-year-old with his first girlie magazine.

I am touching the paper that he touched-this is not a reproduction, this is 100 percent real. The legal pads are embossed with Nixon's rich blue cursive, with cross-outs and fresh starts, numbers, underlines-often a page has several headings, things numbered 1, 2, 3, 4.

He quite literally breathed on these pages; these are his thoughts, his ideas. "Eat less salt. Try pepper instead" is scribbled in the margins. "Or cinnamon. I hate cinnamon," he writes in response to himself. "It's like dirt."

Holding these well-used legal pads, I am overwhelmed with pleasure. I hear Julie's voice in my head, "Take a look, and then we can talk." I think of Julie marrying David Eisenhower, grandson of the general and former President, in December 1968, only weeks after Nixon won the presidency, the ceremony officiated by none other than the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale-Mr. Power of Positive Thinking.

Pondering the high hopes, the promise, the great aspiration of RMN, I start thinking of myself. I trip over a psychic speed b.u.mp, tumble down, and am deep into my own family history. The irony is that, though my parents expected George and me to grow up and be president, they didn't believe we were actually even capable of crossing the street on our own. It was the mixed message, simultaneous extremes of expectation and reminders that we weren't worth c.r.a.p, that in retrospect seems abusive. I am sure it was "unintentional" and was born from their own deprivation and the sense that we should be lucky for anything we got. I always had the feeling that my family was somehow "defective" and that it was those well-matched flaws-the ability to love and loathe all at once-that kept my parents together. Basically, they were lousy with bitterness. We were supposed to become president ruling from the children's table while never daring to dream of going beyond where our parents had been; never transcending.

My heart sinks-here I am with these legal pads, the literal hand of my subject in mine, and I'm losing time, digressing.

I begin again, staying focused on Nixon and his contemporaries and a period of enormous change in this country-the bridge between our prewar Depression-era culture and the postwar prosperous-American-dream America.

FROM R.M.N. BOX 345 LEGAL PAD #4 NOTES MARKED; GOOD AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Wilson Grady is a man alone. Each morning Grady wakes with pride swelling in the center of his chest-he is filled with possibility, the hope that each day will be better than the last. He is a lucky fella, a fella of good fortune, crossing the plains, mile for mile, trailing a cloud of dust, his holey m.u.f.fler so loud people think it's a crop duster flying low. He sees folks in the distance looking on as he's coming in-he jokes about it when he gets out of the car. "No surprises here," he says. "She may be loud, but she's what got me to you folks and I'm countin' on her to get me back home at the end of the week."

The lady of the house steps off the front porch and comes towards him-a woman home alone will never invite him in-that's understood.

"Wilson Grady," he says, extending his hand. "Thank you in advance for your time."

If she likes him at all, she'll offer him a cup of coffee.

"That would be nice," he says, whether or not he had another cup two miles down the road.

"How do you take it?" she asks and then before he can answer she adds, "We're low on milk."

"Black with sugar would be fine."

He waits while she goes back inside. You can tell a lot about folks from their porch-Is it painted? Are there chairs, flowers? Curtains in the windows? Crocheted doilies under the lamps in the parlor? He has made himself a kind of a mental checklist.

The coffee is hot-the thick ceramic cup nearly burning Grady's hands.

"You mentioned your children; how old are they?"

"William, the oldest, is eleven, Robert is nine, Caroline is eight, and Raymond is six."

"One of the things I've got with me is an encyclopedia set, packed full of information, history, maps, things each and every one of us should know." He leads the woman towards his car-carefully opening the trunk, which is outfitted like a traveling five-and-dime. "What I can tell you about these books is that every night when I have my supper I myself sit down with another letter of the alphabet-there is so much to learn. I'm on the letter 'H' right now-and getting a good education."

"How much is it?"

"I'll be honest with you," he says. "It's not cheap. The 26 letters of the alphabet are combined into 13 volumes and it comes along with an atlas of the world. Makes a heck of a Christmas gift and it's something all the kids can use-even the little fella will be reading soon."

"Do you have children, mister?"

"Not yet-but someday. I've got my eye on the girl I want to marry, she just doesn't know it yet."

The woman smiles.

"I could let you have the full set for forty dollars."

She nods. "That's quite a lot."

"It is," he says. "It's an investment, a lifetime of knowledge."

"Do you by chance have an iron?"

"I do"-taking a moment to find it. "Steam electric," he says, carefully taking it out of the box to show her. "I got one of these for my mother and she says it does a beautiful job."

"How much does that go for?"

"Six dollars and forty-nine cents."

"And what about penny candy?" she asks shyly.

He laughs. "Don't think you're the first person this week who's asked-I have peppermint b.a.l.l.s, lemon drops, red and black licorice, and, if you're looking for something fancy, I've got a couple of boxes of See's chocolates."

"I had one of those once," she says, "it was heaven on earth."

"Chocolatiers to the stars," he says.

She laughs and reaches into her dress pocket. "How about I take the iron and fifty cents' worth of candy."

Grady works door to door 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. If the husband is home, Grady makes it a point to seem interested in whatever it is the fella wants to show him-it's always something-a project he's got going in the barn out back or in his bas.e.m.e.nt workshop. Grady finds it sad-all the fellas want is a pat on the back and someone to tell them they're doing fine. He listens, lets the man go on longer than he ought to, and then, before starting his pitch, he sobers the fella up with the story of how he never saw his father in a suit until the day he died. And then he goes for the sale-anything less than fifty bucks he considers a failure. It's a success if he can get them to buy the encyclopedia for the kids and a box of candy for the wife-and near the holidays he also keeps a supply of toy trucks with working headlights, and dolls whose eyes open and close for the girls.

For Wilson Grady, a good day ends in a diner. With the exception of his mother's pies, he's had the best meals of his life tucked into a window booth under the glow of the neon sign and with a letter from his encyclopedia as good company.

"I'll start with a cup of the chowder and then I'll have the special."

His plate, with two thick slices of meat loaf, well-cooked green beans, a warm biscuit, and a scoop of mashed potatoes mounded like hills with a well of brown gravy in the center, is so perfect it almost makes him cry-he loves America.

At night a wind sweeps across and the temperature drops down. Even though it's been a good day, Wilson Grady is achingly cold. He keeps a couple of old wool blankets in the car, along with a pillow that belonged to his brother as a young boy. He parks on a side street and hunkers down for the night-most of the time no one notices him, and if they do he apologizes and drives off into the night, thinking of the waitress with her ap.r.o.n tied neatly around her waist like a chast.i.ty belt, as he vanishes down a darkened road.