Always Read online

  Dedication

  Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:

  for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

  HEBREWS 13:2

  In Memory of Dr. Charlene W. Armstrong

  1969–2000

  Your essence will forever redefine For Always.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Timmothy B. McCann

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Washington, D.C.

  November 7, 2000

  NBS News Studio

  7:00 P.M. EST

  “Good evening, America. This is Franklin Dunlop reporting from our NBS studios in Washington. Tonight we will elect the next American president, and the first president of the new millennium.

  “Not since the election of 1960 has a race looked as close and compelling coming down to the last day as this one. The results of our NBS/New York Times poll completed last night show only a five percent margin between the leader in the race, Democratic senator Henry Louis Davis the Second of Florida, and Vice President Ronald R. Steiner. Trailing is third-party candidate Republican governor Thomas Baldwin of Arizona, but he is running close in enough states to make things very interesting.

  “Davis is the candidate who has had an almost meteoric rise within his party, while Steiner is representative of the compassionate conservative wing of the Republican party. Staunch conservative Governor Baldwin lost the GOP nomination and is running on the Reform party ticket. He has strategically focused his time and money on several key states and is the wild card who could have a significant impact on this election.

  “We have much to get into and we have reporters standing by in Atlanta, New York, Miami, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Chicago. When we return, we will take you to a couple of those spots for an up-to-the-minute report.

  “Prepare yourself America, for when this night is over, we will walk into history. We will elect either our first African-American president, our first female vice president or the first true third-party candidate in the history of the country. Whoever wins tonight will lead this nation into the third millennium, so stay with NBS election-night coverage. Now to your local station.”

  Miami, Florida

  Fontainebleau Hotel

  Presidential Suite

  Henry rubbed the crystal of his watch while he gazed at the newscast he had waited for his entire life. As he sat alone in the bedroom of his suite beside a two-olive dry martini, he listened to a dark-haired reporter who compared him once again to an African-American JFK. With his legs crossed at the ankle and still wearing the wrinkled shirt and slacks from the last day of the campaign, Henry could hear his inner circle of supporters in the living room of the suite cheer every time his name was announced. Every positive comment from the television would ignite the chant “We want Hen-ry. We want Hen-ry!”

  The first time he had heard the cry, he’d been running for Congress and it had sent tingles down his spine. He had rushed to the phone that night and called his mother, then held the phone in the air so she could enjoy the moment with him. Given the enormity of what was happening on this occasion, the chants had no effect. He knew from reviewing the numbers taken by his pollsters that he was in for a long night. He also knew he carried the hopes and dreams of the staffers waiting for the results in the next room, as well as millions across the country and around the world. As the chants subsided, Henry closed his eyes, cracked his knuckles, and attempted to hold his raw emotions close. Placing the remote on the end table beside him, he said the first of what would be many prayers on a night in which he hoped the last words Franklin Dunlop would say before signing off would be, “Tonight, America, you have elected your forty-third and first African-American president of these United States. President-elect Henry Louis Davis the Second.”

  HENRY

  Hello. My name is Henry Davis, or as my people like me to say, Henry Louis Davis II. I’m forty-seven years old, a member of Alpha Phi Kappa, and a tad under six feet three. I weigh around two-thirty, wear contact lenses instead of glasses and I have a cleft chin. I would like to wear a mustache like my father and brother, but polls say it gives a politician an untrustworthy look, therefore I have not worn facial hair since the Nixon administration.

  My eyebrows are expressive—I find myself sometimes making a conscious attempt to keep them straight when I’m hit with a question by surprise—and our brain trust never approves an official campaign photo unless my dimples are clearly evident.

  I collect the artwork of Paul Goodnight, my wife and I own a few rare imports in our wine celler and I enjoy the work of Richard Wright so much I hear music when I read his words.

  I enjoy playing basketball. I’d rather hang out with Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter than Tiger Woods, but Tiger has a higher Q rating, so guess who made it into the final thirty-minute television commercial. I have nothing against Tiger whatsoever, but for me basketball is a release, although my people have been on me for the last eight years to play more golf.

  As I said before, my name is Henry Louis Davis the Second, and yeah, I know it sounds pretentious, but sometimes in my profession being a little ostentatious is not necessarily a bad thing.

  I have an older brother by the name of Herbert. Why was he not given my father’s name? When Herbert was born, our parents were not married. That was an act that could have you ostracized in and of itself in the forties. My father wanted to give his son his name, but my maternal grandfather would not allow it. He was ashamed because my father would not marry my mom until he was able to do so financially.

  Although my dad was unable to serve in the military he did desire to go to college but could not afford it. As a result, my grandfather would not allow them to see each other until my mom was eighteen and Herbert was seventeen months old.

  I know Herbert has made up several stories to explain why he is not named after our father, none of them close to the truth, and although he has never mentioned it, I don’t think he has ever forgiven me for having the name Henry Louis Davis.

  Last year I was invited to work on a book about the twentieth century that went into a time capsule. The author of the book asked me what year I felt was the most important in the previous one hundred years. Although it was a knee-jerk response, I answered 1968.

  I felt that was when the country came out of its pubescence in the areas of technology, medicine, and social issues and was thrust headfirst into adulthood with the realities of what lay ahead.

  On a personal note, the first day of that year is etched in my mind forever. I will never forget it for the strangest reason. That was the day I smoked my first joint, although when I was asked about it by Ed Bradley before the presidential debate, I categorically denied it. I gave him the impression that I had never touched, inhaled, or even seen a joint. The only way I would ever admit it would be if someone had produced a videotape. After all, the only witnesses that day were my cousins Percy and Johnny, so I felt confident the truth would never get out.

  Did I feel uncomfortable telling a bald-faced lie to millions of people and doing what so many people expected of me as a politician? Even though it was my first and last taste of marijuana, the answer is no. Why? Because sometimes I’m convinced that America would like for you to lie to her. A lie gives us the illusion of moral indignation, and I am sure other countries are perplexed by our system of governing. Was it wrong for me to skim the truth? Possibly, but I was just playing by the rules given to all politicians.<
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  Nineteen sixty-eight was also the year I decided I would one day be president of the United States of America.

  It felt good saying the words, “I’m going to be the president of the United States of America.” I even knew what year I would be elected. I wanted to be the first president of the third millennium.

  At fifteen I formed my first presidential campaign slogan: “New ideas for a new millennium.” I liked the word millennium.

  Why did I set upon a course that would alter the rest of my life? I was in Sears Roebuck, and while Herbert and my mother were looking for sneakers, I was in the television department. My dad was never big on having TVs in the house. He thought watching a movie would stymie the creativity we would get from reading a novel, so we only had a ten-inch television in the living room and walls of books.

  I was watching Truth or Consequences when she walked into the department store. As I close my eyes I can still see her in that red miniskirt, black go-go boots, and her hair cut in a short bob. Her skin glowed and I can still hear her laughter. It was a high-pitched infectious laugh that made her eyes close and nose wrinkle. She was with friends, and as the group of girls wandered around the stereos, I got my first opportunity to see her up close.

  The thing that took my breath away was the playful, almost mischievous look in her eyes. There was such depth in them. When she looked my way, my breath froze in my chest and refused to melt. I had never seen a person as dark as she was with hazel eyes. Then she smiled at me and walked away.

  By the time the girls left the media department of Sears Roebuck, I was strung out. It seemed that even the air itself had changed color.

  I followed her around the store like a stray who had received its first pat on the head. The more I followed them, the more I tried to plan what I would say and the more nothing seemed right.

  As I staggered behind the group of giggling females, one of her friends noticed me and tapped her on the shoulder as she pointed in my direction.

  I panicked. I was standing next to women’s undergarments, and asked the sales clerk how much a boxed set of cotton bloomers was. Although I did not actually see the girls’ faces, I think everyone in the store heard them laughing.

  I was embarrassed, but as I coyly looked in their direction I noticed that she didn’t laugh. She smiled, but she was not laughing, and that was all the encouragement my teenaged heart needed.

  Our tour of the store led us through hardware and jewelry down an aisle of white Kenmore washers and back to the television department. In my head I figured out exactly what I wanted to say to her when I noticed a young black man in a burgundy Nehru jacket turning the televisions to NBS. I stopped my pursuit because for some reason Vincent Winslet was on and the six-o’clock news had gone off.

  “Hey, bah, turn that ta’vision back!” a white man with a red neck said. The brother never looked his way.

  A crowd gathered as the youthful forlorn face of Vincent filled the screen. I felt a tug on my sleeve as I watched him clear his throat nervously. “What’s going on?” asked the African rose with a gleam of interest in her eyes. As she stood in front of me to get a better view of the television, I think I said something clever like, “Aba, aba, aba,” if my memory serves me correctly. And then both of our hearts fell to the floor of the department store as we heard him say:

  “We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this late-breaking news story. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who championed nonviolence and brotherhood between the races, was gunned down on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. The lone assailant raced away in a white Ford and is presently being sought. After the thirty-nine-year-old Nobel prizewinner was shot, we are told a curfew was imposed in the city of fifty-five thousand people, forty percent of whom are Negro. There has been a smattering of gunshots and bottles thrown at police officers by disgruntled Negroes, and we are told that the National Guard may be called in to restore order if and when needed. Once again, if you are just joining us, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot in Memphis, Tennessee. As of this time the extent of his wounds are unknown. We will give you more details as they come to us up until the eleven-o’clock news hour.”

  The sheer magnitude of the words seemed to push her into my chest. Our leader, our savior, our King, had been gunned down?

  I remember when Malcolm was shot, and although it got to me, the pill was not as bitter as this one. Why? Because it had been ingrained in my brother and me at an early age that Malcolm and the Muslims were evil. So it never cut as close to the bone as this did.

  “That goddamn nigga. Serves ’em right,” a skinny pale man with a protruding Adam’s apple said. “Raising all that Cain round here. Where da say da get him at?”

  “In Memphis!” a woman exclaimed, with excitement in her voice. “I knew he couldn’t get away with that mess in Memphis. I’m from Tennessee and them ole boys up there don’t play. Don’t fool ya’self.”

  “Well, ew they tell me they were gonna run dat . . .” A fat Hawaiian-shirt-wearing man looked around, taking a colored-to-white ratio scan, and noticing it was only me, the girl, and an elderly black lady, finished, “coon for vice President if Bobby gets the nomination.”

  “You shitting me, right?” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

  “I ew wish I were shitting. That’s what this ‘ere world is coming to. You know how them Kennedys are and how much the nigras love ‘urn. That’s who put ‘urn in office, ya know. And now ‘days a nigra can even vote in ew Miss’sippi. Well,” he laughed, “at least try, so it would be a perfect match. The Kennedy-Coon ticket!” he laughed.

  “Well, from wud we just saw on the ta’vision there, that won’t be mush of a problem in a coupl’a of hours,” a ruddy-complexioned man said with a chuckle, as he wiped his tobacco-stained lips with a yellowed handkerchief and wobbled away.

  It was at that precise moment, with the girl who I later learned was named Cheryl in front of me, that I decided no matter what it took, I would one day become president.

  As I watched the reporters give us the update from Tennessee, I wanted to be president because of the comments I heard around me. My father used to tell Herbert and me that people were racist because they did not know any better. To me at that age, it meant if they knew a black person who achieved a position of power, then they might just look at all black people a little differently. So in my fifteen-year-old heart, I felt that if I was elected president of the United States, I could single-handedly end racism. A lofty goal, but I felt it was totally within my grasp. Einstein had his theory of relativity, Fleming his penicillin, and I would eradicate a problem that had infected mankind since Cain and Abel were just a gleam in Adam’s eye.

  It was in the spring of 1968. I met the girl of my dreams and fell asleep that night watching the cities of Detroit, Chicago, and Boston being burned to ashes by the fire of racial divide. It was a day in which I fell in love and had my heart broken and even now, when I think about it, I get emotional.

  Washington, D.C.

  November 7, 2000

  NBS News Studio

  7:20 P.M. EST

  “Now for the latest from the Davis campaign, we take you to a rain-soaked Miami and Butch Harper. Butch, what’s the word from Miami?”

  “In a word, Franklin, it is wet. Actually one might even say it’s monsoonal. We’ve received almost eight inches of rain within the last ten hours here in south Florida, and we are told it has had a dramatic effect on voter turnout. The National Weather Service has informed us that the storm clouds will be over this region until two A.M. But it has not deterred the almost jovial atmosphere tonight here in the ballroom of the Fontainebleau.

  “In spite of the campaign loss of seven to ten points in the last three months, mere’s a sense of real anticipation in the air. The campaign supporters are wearing buttons that read, ‘Tonight We Changed the World,’ and they sincerely believe that they’ll be a party to history. Pop icons Eric Clapton and
Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds have both flown into town and will be onstage at some point tonight to sing a song they had on the charts a couple of years ago, ‘If I Could Change the World.’ That tune has been the unofficial theme song of this campaign in the last few weeks as it has been played at every campaign stop.

  “So although it’s a dead heat for the presidency according to our latest polls, hope is very much alive here in Miami. This is Butch Harper reporting from the Davis campaign headquarters in the grand ballroom of the Fontainebleau Hotel.”

  Miami, Florida

  Fontainebleau Hotel

  Suite 1717

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” Leslie whispered, and touched her fingers to her forehead, her chest, her left, then right shoulder.

  The wife of the candidate stood slowly, rubbed her knee, and sat on the corner of the king-sized bed. With the black lacquer television remote in hand, she flicked through several channels until she found CNN and a familiar face. She’d liked Bernard Shaw, who was a friend of the family, even when he was at CBS, and on this night she needed him to hold her hand until it was all over.

  As she leaned back on her pillows and ignored the wrinkles forming in her designer dress, she kicked off her shoes and dug her toes into the thick paisley comforter. It felt good to relax for a moment.

  The bedroom of the jasmine-scented suite was completely dark except for the blue light emanating from the television, and she could hear the supporters in the living room erupt as soon as the H in her husband’s name was heard. Her administrative assistant had left the suite to meet with her press secretary, so Leslie took a half Valium with a glass of red wine to soothe her mind. She never allowed anyone to see her take medication. Not even an aspirin. No one, except her husband and a physician friend of the family, knew about the Valium, because they remembered ’88 and what Kitty Dukakis had gone through. If Henry were to lose, history would point to her as the reason, and she did not want to bring any additional harm to this campaign.

  LESLIE

  My name is Yvette Leslie Shaw-Davis. I am forty-seven years old, five feet six and a half, a member of Delta Alpha Rho incorporated, Ooop Skiii. I attend mass twice a week, and I am a graduate of Georgetown Law.