Amerikan Eagle

And speaking of sons of bitches, there were a handful here he needed to keep an eye on, like Senator Huey Long from Louisiana, the Kingfish himself. Just last week Long grabbed control of the state’s banking system—even though, as a U.S. senator, he had no authority to do so. But the governor there, a weak character named Oscar Allen, did what the Kingfish told him to do—and Long still ran that state as his own private kingdom. Long had campaigned hard for Roosevelt, but he still didn’t trust the man, not for a second. And there was Al Smith from New York, the former governor who believed he should have been the nominee last year. Keeping his enemies and friends in line was going to take a lot of a work, a lot of work, indeed. Certainly not one term; two terms, at least. And in the future, well, why not a third term? There was a tradition of only serving two terms, but the depth of the crisis—banks closing across the country, county judges lynched to prevent farm foreclosures, desperate streams of refugees going from state to state looking for work, looking for a new life, looking for hope—would surely allow for tradition be tossed aside.

He was now sitting on the rear seat of his halted green Buick convertible, helped up by Gus Gennerich, head of his Secret Service detail, his legs with their ten-pound leg braces dangling uselessly before him. Yet another secret, his paralysis of nearly twelve years, a secret he was determined to keep from those who didn’t need to know. This was a time to be alive, but the millions of people who had voted for him might have hesitated had they known just how crippled he was.

The mayor of Miami introduced him, to thunderous cheers and applause. As the microphone was handed down to him, though he had no prepared speech, he would say a few words that would make everyone happy.

The crowd calmed as he talked about how many times he had visited Florida on his old houseboat, the Larooco, and how he’d had a wonderful time fishing. But he wouldn’t bore them with fishing stories, he told them, and after a few more words and some laughter from the people, he was done. He passed the microphone back to the mayor, and the crowd surged some more, and now there was a familiar man joining him in the convertible, breathing hard, face subdued. Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago and one of Al Smith’s fellows. Cermak was here to kiss and make up—the poor man had twenty thousand schoolteachers who couldn’t be paid—and he was also here, hat in hand, to seek federal aid. Politics was politics, and there was always a price to be paid, but he wouldn’t let those teachers suffer because their mayor had backed the wrong horse at the Chicago convention last year.

Times had changed. Times were changing. The problems of a town or city or a state could no longer be settled by the locals. It was time for the federal government to take control, to improve things, to change the economy and rescue capitalism from its corrupt overseers, to give those poor children out there the flickering hope that things would improve, that something new would come, yes, that was it, the New Deal he had announced last year at the convention, a New Deal for the American people, the New Deal that would—

Noises.

Shouts.

Firecrackers?

God, his chest hurt.

He looked down, touched his white shirt. His hand came back bloody. Not firecrackers. Gunshots. Fired at him! More screams, and he felt the Buick begin to move, heard the shouting voice of Gus Gennerich telling the driver to move, move, move!

Now he was in the seat, on his side, his shoulders gripped by someone… Tony Cermak, it seemed like, telling him it would be all right, that he had to live, that he couldn’t leave them, not now, that this was wrong, so wrong, and the pain in his chest flared, and as the darkness grew, he tried to fight back because… it was wrong! There was so much to do, so much…

The darkness descended upon him. The voices grew distant. Even the pain seemed to subside.

Oh, there was so much to do.

PART ONE