The Means Read online

  He stands and drops his chin to his chest to think and to try to remain standing. Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, he thinks. We’re at a Marriott. Bag call time is 4:30 a.m. He remembers more from last night.

  “Time to get up,” Randy says.

  The sheets behind him move and are noisy. He remembers how rough they were, like brown wrapping paper. “What?” Twenty-three-year-old vocal cords strained by liquor, sex, and lack of sleep. She sounds gravelly and sexy.

  He doesn’t repeat the remark. He walks into the bathroom and into the shower without turning on the lights. His breathing is heavy, not from physical exertion but from the exertion to stay awake. He puts the ridge of his eyebrows into the blast of the showerhead, slaps the liquid hotel soap around his neck and his armpits, and he pees into the drain without the aid of his hands, the way a horse does.

  Randy is thirty-five and a columnist for Newsweek magazine, and he has promised himself and his wife that this will be the last time he travels with a campaign. In four years he wants to be covering things from a bureau, maybe running it.

  He’s about average size and average-looking and is now a veteran reporter with Newsweek and that status is currency he can trade for youth and hotness when choosing someone to sleep with. He’s been sleeping with Tara Altman every night for the last week.

  Randy comes out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth and no towel. The room is still dark except for the glow of the TV Tara turned on and she is standing by the bed in a white spaghetti-strap tank top and a black thong. Her face is in her hands and she looks unsteady.

  “Gotta have your bag in the hall in fifteen minutes.”

  She nods and says through her palms, “I know. When is pool call time?”

  “Five fifteen.”

  “Okay,” she says, and drops her hands. She looks amazing, he thinks. Lack of sleep can make people under thirty look sexier. People over thirty just look like crap. Her young body is immune to the road lifestyle. He can still pinch only skin on her waist and her ass is hard. “I’m going.” She pulls on the sweatpants that she had worn over the night before. No one dresses up for anyone at night on the campaign. A girl like her looks just as good in sweatpants and a tank top anyway. She walks to leave and pushes down the handle of the heavy door. “See you at pool call.” There’s no touch or eye contact. It’s all anyone can do to stay awake.

  “Okay.” With a few more hours’ sleep he’d feel aroused by her, but not now. Tara is a blogger for a conservative website with a mandate of getting out the youth vote. Young conservatives are far better sex partners than young liberals. One of life’s ironies, and a generalization that holds.

  Randy uses an army-green duffel bag. Most people use a hard rectangular bag with wheels but he likes the feel of throwing a bag over his shoulder. It makes him feel younger. He drops the bag on the floor outside his hotel room and walks the hall to the elevator. It won’t be light outside for a couple hours. There aren’t windows but it somehow feels like nighttime in the hall.

  He steps into the lobby that looks like every other goddamn lobby he’s been in. False light with hard floors and walls that are too white with the kind of odd lobby art that happens when someone tries to be fancy on too small a budget. He gets a banana, a muffin, coffee, and water, which is what he has every morning.

  The campaign takes care of everything. They divvy it all up and send a monthly bill back to the media companies that have embedded reporters, but Randy never has to plan his hotel or food or anything. He just needs to work his ass off and get his stories in.

  The lobby elevator door starts to open and close with a rhythm now and the buffet table of breakfast food and coffee gets crowded. He sees Tara come in and now he wants to find a way to sleep with her somewhere today. Maybe she’ll be up for something in the bathroom on the plane ride to Palm Beach.

  Randy always wears khaki pants, button-down shirt, and a blazer. Most of the journalists dress business casual and the campaign staff does too. The cameramen, sound guys, and other techs wear jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. As people pour into the lobby, it’s easy to tell who does what.

  He’s not feeling ready for more conversation until he’s had more coffee but he circulates the group to nod hellos and he comes around to squeeze Tara’s ass. He should keep it more private since he’s married but he doubts anyone notices or cares much. Other people do it too. She lifts one side of her butt to give him a better angle for a squeeze. It’s as close to real affection as can happen this close to election day and on this little sleep.

  The group starts to move outside in a listless way like zombies that received an unspoken command. A caravan is waiting for them. In front are three black Suburbans. Governor Pauley will go in one of them, along with senior staff and some Secret Service. Behind the Suburbans are four vans for the rest of the staff and the press pool and behind the vans are three tour buses that look like Greyhounds but are covered in Pauley logos. Every vehicle will have at least one Secret Service agent and everyone will be frisked before getting in.

  The press pool in the van stays close to the candidate. They go everywhere when the rest of the media cannot, and they have to share all their coverage with the rest of the group. The journalists and techs in the pool rotate each day. Randy does pool again tomorrow. Today he’s back in one of the tour buses.

  A few of the media stand around the outside of the tour buses and vans waiting to see Pauley come from the hotel. Maybe they’ll get a decent photo or he’ll say a few words in his stride that are worthy of print. Probably not. Randy’s been at it too many days to loiter hoping for that. He carries his coffee with him to be frisked then gets on the bus.

  The Secret Service guys look different from regular military. Military guys have a spine like a spike and their back muscles have formed to hold it straight whether sitting or standing. Their ears line up in a plane over their shoulder blades and their hair is so short you can’t tell what color it is. Secret Service guys have to blend in. They wear business suits, their hair is neat but normal and there’s no surface tension in their stance. But you come to notice after a moment that their eyes are always moving and they never face the candidate. They always look out and around him.

  The bus is a quarter full and Randy takes a seat by a window facing the hotel entrance. Dan Cullen walks out with an aide just behind his left elbow who’s walking in steps that are quicker and shorter than those of his boss. Dan’s hair is perfect at 5:45 a.m. It must know where to go all by itself. Everyone knows he’s slept with all the girls, except Tara as far as Randy knows.

  Twenty minutes later the point man of Pauley’s detail comes through the door. Tom has six agents around him and he emerges like a kickoff returner behind the wedge. The body guy comes out last, just outside the human perimeter of security. Pauley smiles and waves to everyone. He says a few things that Randy can’t hear through the glass but it’s probably about what a great day they’re all going to have. He likes to say what a great day it is for the human race and he says it in his Southern accent. The guy can’t help being friendly.

  Pauley gets into the second Suburban. The lead car is the dummy today. The caravan is flanked by a squad car in front and four motorcycle cops, then two more motorcycle cops in back. They hit the sirens and the campaign moves out.

  Heads turn and civilian cars clear off the roads and the massive convoy speeds on, bringing the sound of a terrible fire alarm. The local cops love it. They gun their bikes up the sides of the buses, then fall back again, circling the campaign like small fighter planes defending the Death Star. Randy has done this a hundred times and it’s still fucking cool.

  Pauley has a sunrise rally scheduled at the gym of the Haverford School which is a ten-minute drive from the hotel.

  They pull into the campus of the all-boys’ school. The sirens stop and Randy’s shoulders drop an inch, no longer resisting the weight of the sound.
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  An advance team of campaign workers and Secret Service is already in the gym setting the podium and getting the area prepared. Randy sees a paper sign taped to a tree and the sign says Press File and has an arrow. He follows the direction of the arrow to another sign with another arrow, and again and again until he gets to the school cafeteria where the press file is set up.

  The cafeteria tables are covered with white plastic sheets. Power cords trace the tables and are taped to the floor. A whiteboard rests on an easel. It says “Sunday, October 1, Haverford, Pennsylvania.” By the end of the day, with fatigue and a third or fourth city, these posts are useful when filing stories.

  Randy keeps a soft leather briefcase with a laptop, a notebook, chargers for all his devices, and a power strip. He needs to get his story filed before the eight a.m. rally. He swings the bag onto the table and takes out his laptop. Only a few other press people have come into the cafeteria.

  Randy powers up. The story is mostly written but he wants it as perfect as it can be to stave off his editor’s paw prints. He’s reading and polishing and notices his battery power indicator move to low. It’s an old battery and when this light comes on he has about five minutes more. “Fuck.”

  He reaches in his bag but the power strip is gone. “Fuck.”

  He looks around. There are about twenty people in the room, either on their laptops or fumbling for another coffee and bagel. “Anyone have a Dell power strip I can borrow for ten minutes?” He says this loud enough to carry but not to startle.

  Nobody moves to react. He can tell that some move deeper into whatever else they were doing. This is a combination of sleepiness, not giving a shit about a fellow reporter, and the fact that power strips are gold on the road.

  Randy has about four minutes left. Theatrics might get him to a yes so he steps on the bench seat then to the top of the table so his head is about nine feet off the ground. He raises his hands to make a trumpet and yells, “I fucking need a fucking power strip for ten fucking minutes! Who’s going to fucking give me one? Fuck!”

  He lowers his hands expecting someone to laugh and toss him one and he sees Tom Pauley standing at the cafeteria entrance staring at him.

  “Governor,” says Randy, trying to strike a balance that is funny but not smart-ass.

  “Too much coffee, Randy?”

  Son of a bitch, he remembers my name. Randy had been press pool for a bowling event the week before and that was the only time they formally met. “No, sir. I think maybe not enough.”

  “Well, I don’t have a power strip for you, but allow me. Black?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pauley pours a cup and walks it to Randy, who is still standing on the table top and not composed enough to step down.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You folks are all working hard. Just wanted to step in and see that you’re all doing okay.”

  Randy gets down and bows but only from the neck up. “Doing great, thank you, sir.” Randy clears his throat. Love this guy, he thinks. I may just vote for him.

  43

  Tom hangs up his phone. “Asshole,” he says to himself. Peter Brand is seated next to him in the car.

  “Okay, Governor. The plane’s loaded up,” says Peter. The day had started with a sunrise rally at the Haverford School outside Philadelphia, then a short flight to Pittsburgh for a one p.m. lunchtime rally. Now they’re at a small private airfield outside Pittsburgh to get a flight to Palm Beach for an evening fund-raiser at the Breakers, after which they’ll drive in a similar-looking convoy of vehicles across the state to Tampa, where they’ll spend the night and be ready at eight a.m. for a sunrise rally on the Gulf side of Florida. The schedule takes a toll, but like drinking, a person can build a tolerance. Also like drinking, if a person does it too long, the body breaks. “What did he want?”

  “The son of a bitch wanted to offer me a job at Google. If I lose. I’m in the middle of working my ass off to win. I’m not interested in discussing consolation prizes.”

  “Shit, I should have vetted that better before letting them in. They’ve been good to the campaign and they’ve been asking for a short call for weeks.”

  “In the future, tell them to pound sand.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “They’re launching a cable news network. They’ve actually got the resources and the brand appeal. Probably one of the only companies out there that can pull it off. They want me to join up as a founding partner with equity because they think I’ll add gravitas and connections and all that crap. Not expressing much confidence in me winning this election though.”

  “Put it out of your mind. We have other things to focus on. Like the White House.”

  “He said my deal would be worth two hundred million in year one.”

  “You’ll be needing an assistant, I assume.” They laugh. “Flight plan is booked. We have a few hours in the air.”

  “Good,” says Tom. “I want to close my eyes for an hour or so. Try to keep people off me.”

  Peter nods. In the Suburban with them are Dan Cullen, chief of advance, Darren Slater, a law school friend of Tom’s who has taken a leave of absence from his firm to travel with Tom, and two Secret Service agents.

  The last of the press are at the top of the mobile staircase stepping into the Boeing 757 that has “Pauley” painted down the sides of the fuselage.

  Pauley pulls his trench coat tight. It’s a cold day for early October in Pittsburgh. The trench coat was given to him that morning by his body guy who had looked up the weather. Tom has no idea where the coat came from. He never has to think about clothes, meals, or cars. At airports he never touches a bag or sees a TSA agent. Nor do any of the journalists or techs traveling with the campaign. They move in a government-­sponsored bubble. The vehicles pull up to within yards of a gassed-up 757. Everyone steps out and climbs stairs to the plane and they’re cleared for takeoff. Pauley is the last on the plane. They can be in the air five minutes from stepping out of the Suburban. When he lands in the new weather of Palm Beach, the body guy will give him a new set of clothes.

  It’s a tiny, private field. Pauley doesn’t know the name but it must have a runway long enough for the 757. He takes the steps and tries to look full of energy. He’s watched and photographed at all times, but at the top stair he stops and takes a moment just for himself. Only a Secret Service agent is behind Tom and the agent stops three steps back while Tom looks across the strips of concrete that divide the grass and a backdrop of deciduous trees turning color. He pays attention to his breath because that always relaxes him. He counts five deep inhales which is about thirty seconds and he feels the muscles of his chest unclench and his posture returns to something sustainable.

  Tom steps inside thinking he can never get any sleep inside this madhouse. These flights aren’t like anything he’d seen before. The plane is refitted for the campaign. There is an extended amount of first-class seating in the two-by-two configuration where twenty-five campaign staffers sit then about a dozen Secret Service who act as a buffer between the campaign and the media. Backing up to the Secret Service is a stocked wet bar. The reporters feel it’s part of the tradition to be a little drunk in the daylight and the techs are just happy to be drunk anytime. Also there’s something in the human spirit that compels the ingestion of free things.

  Behind the bar the configuration changes to coach class with three-by-three seating for about forty reporters and forty techs.

  Tom scans the back of the plane and sees Randy Newhope with a cute young girl sitting in his lap. He’s sure they’ll sit like that all through the takeoff without a lap belt. It’s part of traveling in the government bubble that no rules apply, and people like to flaunt their new liberties. Nobody will bother to power down their cell phones either. That safety request is actually just a lot of bullshit.

  Tom sits in the first row starboard side by th
e window and his law school friend Darren Slater takes the aisle seat next to him. Normally Tom would sit back a row so more people can circle in front of him for a conversation but he doesn’t want to talk much now and this helps to prevent it. The seat next to him is the one people want and Darren had to cut off Peter Brand to get it. That will hold until Brand gets frustrated enough to tell Darren to move, like cutting in on a dance partner.

  “You’re doing great, buddy, you’re doing great.” Darren slaps Tom’s knee. Tom could overrule any of the seating arrangements, but now he just wants a rest. Short of sleeping he chooses a conversation with Darren over others. It’s relaxing to talk about sports teams and their old law school professors.

  “Thanks, Darren.”

  “You tired?”

  “I’m okay. The hard part is having to be up, then come down, then be up again. It’s hard to fire up the adrenaline more than once in a day.”

  “I want to talk to you about that, Tom.” The jet engines strain and send vibrations through everyone as the plane accelerates down the runway and pushes the passengers into their chairs. Tom reclines his all the way. A few people are still standing by the bar pouring drinks and they widen their stance for balance. “These events shouldn’t take up energy, they should give you energy. If you’re being yourself. The only reason you would even have to build up to something is if you’re putting on something that you’re not. Don’t get overcoached.”

  Tom would much rather talk about the Tar Heel basketball recruiting class. “I don’t know, Darren.”

  “I do. I saw you speak in law school. That wasn’t exhausting, it was fun.”

  “This is a lot different.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. You’re making points and persuading people. It’s just more people.”

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Darren, but I’d like to see you do this for a few days and tell me it’s the same thing.”