The Last Debate (5 page)

Right now he really saw it, too. Right now while listening to Greene make a speech at a campaign rally in a football stadium in Rapid City, South Dakota. Greene stumbled over simple policy-concern words like “deficit” and “Mubarak,” raised his voice when he should have whispered, whispered when he should have shouted, mispronounced the
names of half the people on the stage with him, and generally lived up to his growing reputation as the single worst major-party candidate for president in the history of the game.

The conventional wisdom among everyone Henry talked to in the traveling press corps was simply that Greene was probably a good man, a sound and honest human being, who would probably make a pretty fair president. But he was not capable of getting elected under any circumstances, much less against a flawless performer like David Donald Meredith, the magic new man of American politics who had swept in from national popularity as a radio/TV political guru to get the Republican nomination.

“How did Greene ever get elected governor of Nebraska is the question, is the question, is the question, is the question, is the question,” Henry said to Jones of UPI under his breath. They were sitting side by side on bleachers in the press section off to the right of the stage.

“He retailed it,” said Jones. “There are only 1.6 million people in Nebraska and he sought out each one of them, kissed them on a cheek of their choice, shook a hand of their choice, and talked them into voting for him much like a guy talks somebody into buying a used Chevy pickup. He’s great retail, lousy wholesale.”

“The Democrats have no sense,” said Henry.

“They also have a death wish,” said Jones. “I understand the new
Wall Street Journal
poll is going to show that creep Meredith ahead. It’s hard to believe. Until you see this guy Greene.”

“I think I’ll run next time,” Henry said. “If Greene can do it, anybody can do it, I can do it. Even if I am just a poor little brown-skinned Mescan from Falfurrias. The first child of illegal immigrants to make it to the very top of the American dream.”

“There’s nothing worse than a reporter who thinks he should be president.…”

“Henry, this came in for you from the communications center,” said one of the campaign press aides who appeared from behind the bleachers. He handed Henry a note.

Henry immediately returned the call to Nancy Dewey on his company-owned cellular phone, which he wore in a holster on his belt as if it
were a 9mm pistol. This is Henry Ramirez of Continental Radio News! Stick ’em up!

A sudden feeling of light-headedness swept over him as he listened to Nancy Dewey identify herself and then deliver the invitation to join three colleagues on the Williamsburg panel. He was unable to catch his breath for a second. And then he said: “I knew it was going to be you. I knew it. I really knew. I accept, I accept. I will do it. I will do it. Do you believe in spirits?”

“The kind you drink, yes,” Nancy Dewey replied. “What about the kind who move in mysterious ways?” “Not really.”

“I do. I really do. They made you call me. They did it. They got this done. They heard me dreaming and they got it done. They got me done.”

Nancy Dewey was very concerned when she hung up the phone that evening. She told Chuck Hammond that Henry Ramirez sounded as if he might be slightly off the wall, and if she was right they and the rest of America could have a very long evening in Williamsburg.

Henry, after causing a small scene in the press bleachers, immediately made two telephone calls on his cellular phone. One was to his mother in Falfurrias, Texas. The other was to his boss in Washington.

Henry told his mother that her son was going to be the first child of illegal immigrants ever to be a panelist in a presidential debate.

“
You
should be president,” she said. “They should ask
you
questions, not you ask them. You listen to me about this.”

That was what she always said and it was what he always did. She told him to listen and he listened. It was his mother’s energy and drive that got Henry out of the apple and peach orchards of the Rio Grande Valley to college, to another life. Listening to her was one of the natural things of his life.

“You ask that awful talk-man Meredith why he wants to keep our people out of this country. You ask him why we are not as good Americans as his people, gringo people. You ask him why he wants a wall and soldiers around America.

“You ask them both about the immigration law already here. You ask
them. You ask them why they are already treating us like we are not real Americans. You ask them why I have to prove I am American because I am brown, but nobody who are other colors have to prove anything. Those people with the shiny black skin who kill each other on the streets and shoot drugs on the streets and who make their babies have more babies don’t have to. Tell me why they look more American than I do. Tell me, you say to them. You ask those two men, those two famous men, that Meredith talk-man of hate and that Greene fool, what they are going to do about this. If you do not ask them, then I will not talk to you for two weeks afterward. I will talk to you only on the day after two weeks have gone by. That will be your punishment. Unless you do not want to be punished like that, you ask those people what I say to ask them.”

Henry had placed the call, so that meant his mother, Mama Luisa to the people who came to her café in Falfurrias, would feel free to talk endlessly. It was only when she initiated the call, which was seldom, that she was careful about the time.

“I am afraid people would think I was talking like a special interest if I did that, Mama,” Henry said. “I must ask big-league, general questions about war and peace and NATO and other big things so they won’t think I am only a special interest.”

“We are not special interest. We are not NATOs. We are Americans.”

“I must go now, Mama.”

“You ask my question or I will not talk to you until the day after two weeks go by.”

“Oh, come on now. You won’t tell me right afterward how proud you were of me? You won’t tell me how proud you are that it is your son who was the first son of illegal immigrants to be a panelist on a debate for president of the United States? I cannot believe you will wait two weeks and one day to tell me that.”

“OK, OK. I will tell you that right after, but that is all I will tell you.”

“That is all I want to hear, Mama.”

“I will tell you you were the best.”

“How do you know I will be?”

“I know because I am your mama.”

Henry’s second call, to Jim Weaver, the president of Continental Radio News, followed a similar theme. Weaver talked like he was not
only Henry’s mama, but also his daddy and his God. At least, according to Henry he did.

“You had no authority to accept the invitation without consulting us first,” Henry later said Weaver said.

“How come?”

“Because you work for us.”

“I am not your illegal migrant worker. I am not your picker.”

“You were asked because you work for Continental Radio. That is it. Whether you go on that panel is our call, not yours,” Henry claims Weaver said.

“I am the one they called. I am the one who makes the call,” Henry responded.

“They only asked you because they needed a brown face.”

“It’s
my
brown face.”

“It’s
our
brown face.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“I am the one who signs your paychecks.”

“You should be proud of me.”

“If you go out there and screw it up in front of all of the world?”

“Screw it up?”

“You’re a kid, Henry. You aren’t ready for the big leagues right now. It’s that simple. I’m going to call the commission and tell them we will send somebody else from our shop. You’re not our only minority, you know. Mathis is black. He’s been around. We have Chan in L.A. So has he. We can even give them a woman. Maggie Tobin. She’s been around for years.”

“They want my kind of minority.”

“Well, they ain’t getting you.”

Henry Ramirez did not see himself as a kid. He was twenty-eight years old, a graduate of Texas A&I in Kingsville, just up the road from Falfurrias, with a B.A. in journalism. He had worked for three years as a radio reporter for KFVL in Harlingen and KMAC in McAllen before being hired as the city-hall reporter for KTRH in Houston, where he won many awards and much attention for his stories on the hard-nosed Houston police. The attention got him the job in the Washington bureau of Continental. In his six months with Continental, he had already made it to
be the primary substitute for the two regular reporters covering the Meredith and Greene campaigns. He was in no mind to take seriously “You’re a kid, Henry” from anybody.

“You can’t stop me from doing this,” he said to Weaver.

“Goddamn it, Henry, you work for me!”

“You can’t stop me from doing this.”

“I am going to hang up now and call the commission,” said Weaver. “I am going to tell them I am calling on your behalf and that you have decided you are unable to accept the invitation. I will offer them one of our more experienced reporters of any color or sex they wish.”

“You cannot do this! I just talked to my mama!”

“You should have thought about that sooner. Henry, believe me, I am doing you a favor. Someday your day will come. But not now. It’s way, way too early. OK?”

Henry did not answer immediately. Henry knew that he had come to what his mama called “a river with no bridge.” He reminded himself about himself. He was the real and spiritual child of two people who had the guts and the courage and the bravery to wade through the shallow waters of the Rio Grande River to find a better life. Not just once but, for his father, twelve times. Twelve times he came across illegally. Eleven times he was caught by the border patrol and returned to Mexico. His mother did it seven times before they both became legal through the 1987 amnesty law. They would not be proud of a son who folded forever the first time some immigration cop—like person put the cuffs on.

Henry, trying to imagine he was on the radio, went to the steadiest and deepest voice that was in him. He said: “Jim Weaver, I think you should think about what it would sound like if I told people what you have just said to me and what you have just said you are now going to do to me. It would not be good for you or for the network.”

“You can’t blackmail me, Henry!”

“I am not blackmailing you, Jim Weaver. I am telling you something. I am telling you this would not look or sound good. If you do not want to look or sound good, then you go right ahead. If you have the convictions of what you believe, then you go right ahead. But when you do, you should know what might happen.”

“I forbid you to talk about this to anyone inside or outside our shop!”

“You can forbid nothing. I know the Constitution of my country.”

“You’re fired!”

“Add that to what this would look and sound like, Jim Weaver.”

“You bastard! You kid bastard!”

“You are wrong about that, too. My mother and father had been married in a church for three years when I was born.”

Henry’s cellular phone went dead. He assumed it was because Jim Weaver had hung up on him.

Jim Weaver, in writing through a lawyer, denied most of Henry’s account.

But as a practical matter, the blackmail worked. Nobody—not Chuck Hammond, Nancy Dewey, or anyone else—at the commission ever received a call from Jim Weaver or anyone else at Continental Radio about the Ramirez selection.

And Henry Ramirez, with a spirit and bravado that would have made any set of any kind of parents proud, went on with his daily job in the Washington bureau of Continental Radio and his plans to go to Williamsburg as if nothing had happened.

It had not been a happy twenty-six minutes and forty-two seconds for Joan Naylor in the Saturday night
CNS Evening News
anchor chair. A tape operator had missed the roll cue on a piece from Berlin about where all of the Cold War prostitutes had gone, and the TelePrompTer got stuck in the middle of a nine-second intro to a soft closer about the relationship between crime and being a second child.

She also felt that makeup never got her hair quite right tonight and she hated herself for even caring.

Now here she was alone in the office of Carol Reynolds, the Washington bureau chief. Carol had closed the door behind them, something she rarely did.

“You’re going to be getting a call in a few minutes from Nancy Dewey at the debate commission,” said Carol Reynolds.

“Hey, hey, it happened!” Joan said. She threw her hands up in the air
and then came a feeling of well-being warmth that started in her stomach and shot right up through her body to her eyes, which immediately filled with tears.

“Well, not exactly,” said Carol Reynolds. “They want you on the panel only—”

“I thought I was going to moderate!”

“Well, we lost that one. Mike Howley’s going to do that.”

“Lost it with whom?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“Did you-all push me?”

“Sure.”

“Beard. You went for Don Beard.”