Primary Colors by Joe Klein

training was over. He trusted me no w t o see things the way he would, to get things ready for the show. I understood the motivation but still suffered staffer pangs: Where he was was where it was. I wanted to be there.
    Mammoth Falls didn't help. It drifted along in black and white, and I--neither and both--had trouble with the vibes and assumptions as I wandered about. The vibes were quieter, more civil, but, in a way, clearer than those I was accustomed to up north. One night I had a burger at a fern bar in a mall on the white side of town. The cineplex there was the only place in the area you could see a foreign film, inevitably broad French or Italian comedies (it was Cinema Paradiso that night, I think--not bad), never anything heavy or dark or deep or significant. Anyway, the waitress gave me a look and asked, "Are you from around here?" Meaning: You mustn't be, because if you were, you wouldn't be here. Normally, that sort of thing wouldn't bother me. It is barely worth remembering. But I was alone, in a strange--very out of the way--place, a place where I got The Washington Post by fax each day (and the thin, unsatisfying national edition of the Times). I was constantly, acutely aware of my skin, and both ways: the way others saw it and the way it experienced the physical world. I was more conscious of everything. Humidity made me sluggish and mushy. Air conditioning hurt. So I pretty much kept to the campaign, and to myself. I ran every evening, three miles, down one side of the river and back the other. I lived in a sterile apartment very much like that first one we'd rented, and discarded, in Manchester. I read novels, early Doris Lessing (she was, I imagine, very sexy in Africa). I had muffin fantasies.
    "Wonder what he's sayin' up there," Richard said, as we trailed the governor and young Ozio in the Bronco.
    "Nothing Jimmy can take to the bank."
    Richard laughed, "He's a peach. No question."
    "You ever had one so good?" I asked.
    "Dunno how good he is yet," Richard said. "What's more, he don't know how good he is yet."
    "He's got a suspicion."
    "She's got a suspicion."
    I imagined the governor singing one of his favorites: " 'We cain't go on together, with suspicious mi-finds . . "
    Fat Willie's was a trailer with a long plastic awning and picnic tables spread out around it. It reeked of smoke and carcinogens. Fat Willie was . . . as advertised: a big, sweaty black man--former all-state tackle for Mammoth Falls Central High--wrapped in a long white, sauce-daubed apron. He brightened immediately when he saw Stanton. "Hey, Gov! . . . Hey, Amalee, the Gov's here," he said to his wife, who was not insubstantial herself. Stanton, oblivious to the sauce, wrapped Willie in a full frontal, then wheeled to throw an arm over Amalee. He stood there between them, grinning his "aw-shucks, proud to be a country boy" grin; it was pure joy. There was an easy familiarity to this: it happened every time we came. Once, several months earlier, I'd sat--awestruck--as the governor spent an hour sitting at one of the back tables, consoling Willie over the death of his mother. "How's business, Will?" he said now, squeezing the big man. "You got your mojo workin' tonight?"
    "Ain't no end to it, Gov," Willie turned his head. "Hey, honey, where's Loretta? Hey, Lo--Gov's here!"
    Loretta was their daughter, the sort of girl who was destined for obesity--you could see it coming in her upper arms, her thighs--but, for the moment, deeply, adolescently luscious. She flashed Stanton a look, then tried to hide it. Susan gave her a hug, "Hi, honey, how's it goin'? School okay? We've missed you--but I guess your mom and dad keep you busy here, not much time for sitting."
    "Yes'm," Loretta said dully.
    The governor--a stone Pavlovian when it came to pork--negotiated the meal with Willie. "Now, I want you to fix all these folks up right, y'hear? And send me a double."
    We moved out to a back table, away from the sharp halogens Willie used to