The Means Read online

  “Mitchell, you should be in a good mood today. Enjoy it.” They had agreed Ron Stark would address his boss as Mitchell if just the two of them and Secret Service were in the room. “This evening you’ll be sitting in the White House with approval numbers at seventy-nine percent.” Stark is struggling to tie a Windsor knot around someone else’s neck. He’s nose to nose with Mason and he restraightens the two ends of the tie to start again.

  “Incredible after the savagery of that campaign. I was a monster to almost half the country four months ago.”

  “The Republicans’ fault. They told twice as many lies as we did.”

  “Probably even, but damn it, they told the first one. Twisting everything I ever said and going back thirty years. I was right out of college for God’s sake.”

  “As they say, welcome to the national stage.” Stark and Mason had been classmates at Yale. Stark went directly from college to an internship on Capitol Hill. He was an Obama staffer just prior to joining Mason as chief of staff for his run for governor in New York. “It’s not the only thing you’ll find different from Albany. For now, just revel in seventy-nine percent approval. It won’t last.”

  “People are an amazing thing.” Mason pauses. “Where the fuck is Roberts?”

  Stark finishes the knot. “I’ll go look into it.” He knows his boss wants loyalty and action with only small doses of friendship. “Relax for a few minutes. I’ll take care of it.”

  Mason had seen the gaffe in 2008 when Chief Justice John Roberts presided over Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. He wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again today. He knows he comes across as a diva but he doesn’t care. Some people come from nothing and through wild circumstances manage to succeed in politics. For these people, once they’ve made it, the common background turns into an advantage because people think they can relate. This worked for presidents like Truman and Clinton. Other people get into politics with a leg up. Yale and Harvard, a senator for a father, and an eighty-million-dollar net worth. Then they spend their whole career apologizing for the advantages while trying to make the world think they’re just regular people. Damn it, a leader doesn’t need to be a regular person. He shouldn’t be. A leader needs to be a fucking leader. Mason thinks, Kennedy didn’t apologize for advantage and I won’t either.

  Stark and Roberts return to the room. Roberts is already dressed in the robes of Chief Justice and he looks the same as when he was nominated by Bush. Like Dick Clark, he has a period of decades when nothing seems to age. Maybe his bald spot is a little bigger, thinks Mason, making a mental note to circle behind Roberts at some point to have a look.

  “Good morning, sir,” says Roberts, extending his right hand.

  “John,” says Mason, taking the hand. Mason notices only that the face looking at him is neutral. Polite, respectful, but there’s no way to tell if he likes or dislikes what he sees. Figures, thinks Mason. Probably practices in the damn mirror, has some clerk hold up a picture of Giselle then Rosie O’Donnell and sees if he can hold the line.

  “How would you like to do this, sir?”

  “Have you got a Bible on you?”

  “No.”

  Stark walks to a shelf behind the sofa and picks up a book without looking at it. He hands it to Mason.

  “For Whom the Bell Tolls? A bit secular for this, isn’t it, Ron?”

  Stark shrugs. “It’s a dry run.”

  Roberts takes the book and hands it back to Stark. “Your wife will hold it like this. You put your hand on top like this. Then you repeat after me. I, Mitchell Connors Mason.”

  Mason repeats.

  “Do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States.”

  Mason repeats.

  “And will to the best of my ability.”

  Mason repeats.

  “Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

  “Okay, got it.” He smiles. “You sure you got it, John?” Mason loves the ribbing and Roberts is still neutral, though Stark can tell he’s angry and thinks the president is petty and a jerk. Stark knows that the president usually comes across this way and has never minded it much because he knows that the president, except when it comes to his own marriage, is a force for good. Knowing the man is decent beneath the exterior is like being in on a secret. Stark has always admired those who don’t mind appearing like a jerk and are actually good people. It’s the reverse sort of person that he loathes. He senses that the worst parts of Mason are known to his friends.

  Stark also knew Mason’s father and knows he was a domineering man who needed to prove he was better than everyone else, a behavior than can normally be laughed at once identified. But when it’s directed with particular vigor toward a young son, it’s in its most perverse form and stamps indelible insecurities. The way the abused can become an abuser, Mason suffers from this same flaw though he has more self-awareness of it than his father had and he can sometimes control it.

  “Are we done here?” asks Roberts.

  “We’re done.”

  “See you in a couple hours, sir,” says Roberts.

  “I’ll walk you out, Mr. Chief Justice,” says Stark.

  21

  Mason helps his three daughters into a separate car outside Blair House. Alexandra is twenty-two. She went to Harvard and is now at NYU Law School. Price is nineteen and at Harvard. Madison is sixteen and will remain in boarding school at St. George’s in Rhode Island rather than move to DC. “You girls follow behind and we’ll see you at the ceremony.” The three girls are close friends and almost never fight over clothes or the bathroom or anything at all. They know they’re in the same foxhole together for life and they’re the only three who can ever be in it and at a young age they understand how important that is.

  Mason walks forward to another limousine, helps his wife, Evelyn, inside then sits beside her so they are in the rearmost seats facing forward. The car starts the short and ceremonious drive to pick up the outgoing president and First Lady at the White House.

  As Mason’s political career has advanced, Evelyn has also grown. Mason’s not sure how, but she already seems like a First Lady now, as if she has a unique power source that doesn’t rely on his office. She seems more independent than she used to.

  “John and Betty have been so gracious through the transition. It will be nice to spend some time with them this afternoon,” says Evelyn.

  Mason grunts.

  “And they make such a handsome couple.”

  “I’m not going to let this job age me the way it did him. You’ve seen his skin up close. Looks like he’s made out of wax.”

  “Mitchell, dear, please.” He and Evelyn have been romantically distant for years, but they’re good partners. Evelyn is satisfied with what she gets out of the arrangement. While Mason isn’t in love with her, he likes her just fine and has convinced himself that the duration of this fondness is something close enough to love.

  He puts a hand on her knee to be playful. The curmudgeon who’s really soft at heart, which is the best reality of him that she can hope for and the one she’s decided for herself is true. “Well, it does look a bit that way,” he says.

  In addition to the two family limousines, six other cars flank them. They drive through the gates and around to a stop at the front of the house, a route almost never used on other occasions. Mitchell and Evelyn Mason step out of the limo and start up the steps of the White House.

  John Hammermill opens the door as the Masons approach and he and Betty step outside so the warm greeting can be on view for the world. Mason looks over Hammermill’s shoulder and through the open doorway. Later in the day the house will be his.

  Mason thinks of this father and how much his father wanted this for himself. Mason makes a long inhale through his nose and lifts his chin. He is happy and what makes him happy is not that
his father would have been proud of him but that his father would have been jealous of him.

  There are people in DC whose profession is White House transition. These people find other work during the term, but with every new president, they manage the changeover. The Masons’ furniture and personal effects are already arranged and waiting to be moved inside today.

  Taking a page from Bush 43, Mason asked his wife to design the rug for the Oval Office that each new president brings. She chose a pattern of swirling red, white, and blue that is inspired by a Calder tapestry she had bought years before. Mason can’t stand it but says nothing.

  “Evelyn, Mitchell, it’s wonderful to see you both,” says Hammermill from a few steps away, again taking the initiative of the moment. Mason is still smarting from feeling like the junior man in the room with Hammermill the night before.

  Mason’s eyes move from the interior of the house to Hammermill. “Good to see you, John. Betty.” The couples exchange handshakes and kisses on the cheeks.

  “Mitchell, I can’t tell you how happy I am to hand over the keys.” Hammermill means it. Eight years was enough. “You’ll make a fine president.” This is imperceptibly less sincere.

  “Thank you, John.”

  “Of course, feel free to call on me at any time.”

  “I’m certain I’ll want to do that.” Some urgent matters in Tierra del Fuego.

  “Evelyn,” says Betty, “if you ever have any questions, or just want to talk, I’m always here.”

  The wives start a conversation of their own and Mason say to Hammermill, “You did it with class, John.”

  This is something Hammermill has thought about before and he offers his conclusion. “Mitchell, for most leaders, leaders of any kind, success is the real measure. Every elite coach in sports is a known prick. Steve Jobs was not only a prick, he was a nut. If you’re not in public service, all of that stuff is considered part of your genius. Only politicians are expected to succeed with class. The other stuff creates a scandal you need to deal with. It’s an inappropriate standard for a political leader to have to do more than just succeed. It’s shame you’ll have to deal with it.”

  Mason thinks, He’s calling me a prick. Or a nut.

  Hammermill goes on. “The public requires a certain amount of class for their consumption. All that really means is that you need to avoid the big scandals and to be an effective leader.” Hammermill smiles. “My feeling is that even if you are a prick, we need you on that wall, but the public won’t get behind that. So you need to be careful.”

  “I see you’re less careful about that now.”

  Hammermill appreciates that his point has gotten across. “Ex-­presidents have all the fun.”

  The conversation is out of the earshot of media and the four of them know this is just an exchange for show. They could lip-sync or recite Shakespeare to the same effect. In unison they determine when enough is enough and as if hearing a silent whistle announcing halftime, they disengage conversation and make a synchronized turn to the car.

  The women do the talking during the drive with politely timed laughter from the men. They take twelve minutes for the three-minute drive to the Capitol. The route is lined with gates and onlookers.

  Since Reagan in 1981, the ceremony is typically held on the West Front of the Capitol. This location offers more of a stadium effect and looks over the Mall, rather than the East Portico where it used to be held, which overlooks a parking lot.

  Mason looks at the crowd from the platform. Hundreds of thousands of people. He doesn’t see faces, just a mash of colors and dots like the kind of pictures that if you stare at them long enough are supposed to take the shape of something in your mind. He knows the roofs are lined with snipers and the crowd is mixed with agents undercover. Thousands are on the ground to protect him but he doesn’t think about security. Terrorism has been on the wane and the country seems happy and behind him.

  Secret Service agents in suits stand at the perimeter of the platform. His wife stands on his left, his three daughters on his right. Mason keeps his feet planted and pointed toward the masses and rotates his shoulders to look at the temporary stands built behind him. He sees the Hammermills seated in the front row like parents at a school play while the country’s governing class sits behind them.

  He rotates back around and sees Marine One with motionless propellers, waiting on the lawn to lift Hammermill away to Andrews Air Force Base.

  His eyes come to rest on Roberts, who approaches and places a closed Bible in Evelyn’s hands. Roberts begins the swearing-in and Mason is moved by the moment more than he expected to be. He has never felt like a small thing in the universe. He always feels important within any scale, but at this moment he is distracted by a sense of history, the knowledge that he is a link in a chain connecting history to the future. He thinks of all the lives given in war to deliver this moment and of all the lives he may have to sacrifice to preserve the capacity for this kind of moment.

  In this singularly humbling instance of his life, he has a flash of doubt about his abilities, his compass, his resolve to overcome adversity and be great. A moment of buyer’s remorse, driving off the lot having spent all his money on the fancy sports car.

  “. . . preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,” finishes Mason.

  Roberts nods. He shakes Mason’s hand. “Congratulations, Mr. President,” he says with no smile but not in a rude way either.

  “Thank you, John.”

  Mason steps to the podium and a roaring crowd. He doesn’t want to talk yet. He wants to let the noise come to him. He’s comforted by the breeze of it as though opening the door of an air-conditioned store from a hot day.

  He begins his speech by being gracious to Hammermill, who is enormously popular and of the same party. He needs to set up what will be the major challenges ahead so that it doesn’t appear that his chief aim is not to screw up all the good work that was done before him, but he needs to do this in a way that is not critical of Hammermill. Domestically, he picks education reform where US global standing has continued a decades-long slow decline, and green energy which has been slow in coming for decades. With regard to foreign policy, he stresses a need for a stern but diplomatic approach to bring stability to the Middle East. This will eliminate terrorism by eliminating the breeding grounds for terrorists, in the same way one eliminates mosquitoes by eliminating the standing water of swampy areas.

  The speech is plain but fine and is met with approval because the moment is met with approval. The country seems headed in a good direction and Mason is in the honeymoon of his relationship with the people.

  From his inauguration speech, Mason and his wife are then to attend a luncheon at the Capitol’s Statuary Hall hosted by the Democratic Speaker of the House and the Republican Senate majority leader. From there to the parade which leads them to the reviewing stand to watch the festivities. Mitchell had thought Hammermill was planning to attend both events but Hammermill approaches Mitchell on the platform as things are breaking up to offer his thanks and parting words.

  “Mitchell, good luck to you. I hope to be of good use to your administration, and remember my advice last night.” Hammermill winks, which is a gesture he rarely uses and saves for when he’s feeling his most clever.

  “Thank you, John. I’ll be calling early and often.” Fuck you.

  Hammermill’s detail has clearly known of his plans for some time as his path to Marine One is already charted and secure. The agents assigned to him envelop him and his wife and they start for the helicopter. At the base of the mobile staircase by the side of the helicopter stands a line of about a dozen servicemen from different branches of the military in dress uniform and at attention as Hammermill and his wife pass by and climb the stairs. The crowd cheers him on as he begins his last trip in the equipment of the chief executive.

  At the last stair
he looks back to the platform and Mason. It’s a look that Mason thinks is saying, Communications director.

  “Shit,” mumbles Mason out loud. He thinks that these days if you don’t want a person to know something bad about you, you actually have to be a good person.

  “Dear?”

  He takes her hand and gives a squeeze. “There goes a good man.”

  She gives a squeeze back and places her other arm across his chest in a quarter hug. “Takes one to know one, dear.”

  22

  Mason had started the day on the Lifecycle in his bedroom from 7:00 to 7:45 a.m., which is how he starts every day.

  He’s in the Oval Office, where he’s had a new fifty-two-inch TV screen mounted on the wall and is flipping between cable news channels. He’s on GEAR when Ron Stark walks into the office.

  “Can’t anyone stop GEAR? Those bastards are going to be the death of me.” He turns down the volume on a report about a quarter of robust job growth in India. “CNN is a snore. 24 says all things I agree with which is wonderful but not interesting. Someone besides GEAR needs to do this in a way that is fucking interesting.”

  “Sir, you shouldn’t bother to watch all this stuff.”

  “It’s the pulse of the nation, Ron. I need to be in touch with what the people are watching.”

  “Let someone on staff summarize it for you. We can give you a daily report of cable news, by channel. Or five times daily. Whatever you want, but I think it would be a good idea to pull away from it a little.” The people who see the president in his office are surprised to find that he keeps the news on low volume at all times. Meetings with him are punctuated by his outbursts in response to reporting. This is particularly unsettling to generals who came to discuss military strategy. The channel is turned to GEAR most of the day, which also generates the most outbursts. Stark and other staffers have tried to dissuade the president from cable news.

  “It’s not the same, Ron. You know it’s not. I can’t get it from some report. I need to see what the people are seeing.”