Howard Waldrop - Ike At The Mike

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IKE AT THE MIKE

By Howard Waldrop

Ambassador Pratt leaned over toward Senator Presley. "My mother's ancestors

don't like to admit it," he said, "but they all came to the island from the

Carpathians two centuries ago. Their name then was something like Karloff." He

laughed through his silver mustache.

"Hell," said Presley, with the tinge of the drawl that came to his

speech when he was excited, as he was tonight. "My folks been dirt farmers all

the way back to Adam. They don't even remember coming from anywhere. But that

don't mean they ain't wonderful folks. Good people all the same."

"Of course not," said Pratt. "My father was a shopkeeper. He worked to

send all my older brothers into the Foreign Service. But when my time came, I

thought I had another choice. I wanted to run off to Canada or Australia,

perhaps try my hand at acting. I was in several local dramatic clubs, you

know. My father took me aside before my service exams. The day

before-I remember quite distinctly-he said, `William' he was the only member

of the family who used my full name-`William,' he said, `actors do not get

paid the last workday of each and every month.' Well, I thought about it

awhile, and next day passed my exams with absolute top grades."

Pratt smiled his ingratiating smile once more. There was something a little

scary about it, Presley thought, sort of like Raymond Massey's smile in

Arsenic and Old Lace. But the smile had seen Pratt through sixty years of

government service. It had been a smile that made the leaders of small

countries smile back as King Georges, number after number, took yet more of

their lands. It was a good smile; it made everyone remember his grandfather.

Even Presley.

"Folks is funny," said Presley. "God knows, I used to get up at barn dances

and sing myself silly. I was just a kid then, playing around."

"My childhood is so far behind me," said Ambassador Pratt. "I hardly remember

it. I was small. Then I had the talk with my father, and went to service

school, then found myself in Turkey, which at that time owned a large portion

of the globe. The Sick Man of Europe, it was called. You know I met Lawrence

of Arabia, don't you? Before the Great War. He was an archaeologist then. Came

to us to get the Ottomans to give him permission to dig up Petra. They thought

him to be a fool. Wanted the standard ninety percent share of everything, just

the same."

"You've seen a lot of the world change," said Senator E. Aaron Presley. He

took a sip of wine. "I've had trouble enough keeping up with it since I was

elected congressman six years ago. I almost lost touch during my senatorial

campaign, and I'll be damned if everything hadn't changed again by the time I

got back here."

Pratt laughed. He was eighty years old, far past retirement age, but still

bouncing around like a man of sixty. He had alternately quit and had every

British P.M. since Churchill call him out of retirement to patch up relations

with this or that nation.

Presley was thirty-three, the youngest senator in the country for a long time.

The United States was in bad shape, and he was one of the symbols of the new

hope. There was talk of revolution, several cities had been burned, there was

a war on in South America (again). Social change, life-style readjustment,

call it what they would. The people of Mississippi had elected Presley senator

after he had served five years as a representative. It was a sign of renewed

hope. At the same time they had passed a tough new wiretap act and had turned

out for massive Christian revivalist meetings.

1968 looked to be the toughest year yet for America.

But there were still things that made it all worth living. Nights like

tonight. A huge appreciation dinner, with the absolute cream of Washington

society turned out in its gaudiness. Most of Congress, President Kennedy, Vice

President Shriver. Plus the usual hangers-on.

Presley watched them. Old Dick Nixon, once a senator from California. He came

back to Washington to be near the action, though he'd lost his last election

in Fifty-eight.

The President was there, of course, looking as young as he had when he was

reelected in 1964, the first two term president since Huey "Kingfish" Long,

blessed of Southern memory. Say whatever else you could of Joe Kennedy, Jr.,

Presley thought, he was a hell of a good man in his Yankee way. His three

young brothers were in the audience somewhere, representatives from two

states.

Waiters hustled in and out of the huge banquet room. Presley watched the

sequined gowns and the feathers on the women; the spectacular pumpkin-blaze of

a neon orange suit of some hotshot Washington lawyer. The lady across the

table had engaged Pratt in conversation about Wales. The ambassador was

explaining that he had seen Wales once, back in 1923 on holiday, but that he

didn't think it had changed much since then.

E. Aaron studied the table where the guests of honor sat-the President and

First Lady, the Veep and his wife, and Armstrong and Eisenhower, with their

spouses.

Armstrong and Eisenhower. Two of the finest citizens in the land. Armstrong,

the younger, in his sixty-eighth year, getting a little jowly. Born with the

century, Presley thought. Symbol of his race and of his time. A man deserving

of honor and respect.

But Eisenhower was Presley's man. The senator had read all the biographies,

re-read all the old newspaper files, listened to him every chance he got.

If Presley had an ideal, it was Eisenhower. As both a leader and a person. A

little too liberal, perhaps, in his personal opinions, but that was the only

fault the man had. When it came time for action, Eisenhower, the "Ike" of the

popular press, came through.

Senator Presley tried to catch his eye. He was only three tables away and

could see Ike through the hazy pall of smoke from after dinner cigarettes and

pipes. It was no use, though. Ike was busy.

Eisenhower looked worried, distracted. He wasn't used to testimonials. He'd

come out of semiretirement to attend, only because Armstrong had persuaded him

to do it. They were both getting presidential medals.

But it wasn't for the awards that all the other people were here, or the

speeches that would follow; it . . .

Pratt turned to him.

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