Leon Uris by A God in Ruins Page A

2008
    Quinn, I told myself, keep it simple. Literature is not appreciated these days. Say your piece and get off the stage. What is this! Only 2:14 A.M.
    What would Rita and I and the kids do after the election? If we were defeated on the campaign issues, we’d suck it up and go on with life. To have come within touching distance of the White House and have the door slammed in your face, rejected, is another matter. I could take some solace in the fact that it was Alexander Horowitz who was defeated and not Quinn O’Connell. Reality says this will go with us to our graves and largely dictate the lives of our children.
    I scan the speech. Well, it needs some more touching up, but not now.
    I feel a glow. Rita is near. I’d know her presence from a half mile away. Driving up to the ranch house, I can tell by the feel of it if she is home or not.
    She floated in from the bedroom without me hearing, but I knew she was there, behind me. Her fingers are at my temples. Nobody groans like I groan.
    “How does it look?” she asked.
    “No matter how I put it to the American people tomorrow, it doesn’t sound real. Winning the Democratic nomination didn’t seem real, either. But this, it’s unabashed madness. Want to wake up Greer,honey? She’s got to set up the press conference.”
    “Greer is in la-la land. I turned it over to Kohlmeyer before I hit the bed.”
    Quinn phoned out.
    “Kohlmeyer speaking.”
    “Pete, it’s Quinn. How are we looking for tomorrow?”
    “The saints are marching into Troublesome Mesa, boss. They’re buzzing around like sunset gnats hunting for a piece of dead skin. Quinn, if I can push this into the noon spot in Denver, we’ll break at eleven on the coast right before their noon news and at three in the afternoon on the East Coast, giving us a flying start on the evening news.”
    “It will make no difference this time, Pete,” Quinn said.
    Peter Kohlmeyer, as everyone else on the staff, wanted to know what Quinn was up to. Pete held his tongue with a gnarl between his teeth.
    “Pete, this is largely in the hands of President Tomtree. His reaction could change the entire election.”
    “Sonofabitch is too smart to shoot himself now,” Pete said.
    Give up, Quinn. Surrender to Rita. She offers everything to comfort you. Lord, I no sooner hit the pillow than I’m streaking through space. Rita knows what is lovely to me. I feel the warmth of protection, and relief in knowing I’ll still have her when all of this is over.
    Christ, I can’t sleep, but at least the atmosphere is comfortable.
    The details of my birth have eluded me all my life and never fail to grate on me.
    I try to remember back, some tiny connection with my infant life, but everything I recall began in Troublesome Mesa.
    Dan and Siobhan had gone through a half dozen winters of discontent when I came onto the scene.
    TROUBLESOME MESA, 1953
    Dan was a Marine, the most tender and loving of men but faced with the most sorrowful of circumtances. Siobhan, equally comfortable in jeans or behind the controls of the Cessna, found Dan’s faith and understanding giving them the power of many.
    In the springtime the snowpack in the high mountains melted and let go its cargo, the journey turning it into great, gushing rivers. The roar of it created quivers in the ranch house.
    As water poured into the valley, it left little lakes and tiny beaches filled with hungry but wise mountain trout in the high country.
    The ranchers read the winds, predicted the rains, knew the value of crop by touch.
    In came the hummingbirds, skinny and exhausted from their flight north. Consuelo put up several pieces of red glass to attract them and tell them they had a free handout at the O’Connell ranch. Feeders of sugar water and red dye were set out, and by twilight hundreds of hummers had arrived. A bully, the rufous, larger than the “ruby throats,” spent hours near the feeder chasing off the little ones. They went into WWII dogfights and battled