Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [36]
“WKRP in Cincinnati,” Taft snorted. “Horrendous. Leave it to the twenty-first century to make vaudeville look dignified.”
“The twenty-first century? Bill, that show is, like, thirty years old. I was a little kid when it was first on.”
“Oh? Am I to believe, then, that Cincinnati is even more of a farce today than it was then?” He sighed. “At least this Fever fellow has a grand enough mustache.”
“Uh, yeah. Funny you should mention that.”
Taft looked sharply at the agent, who was pulling several small items out of the white bag. Cardboard packages; a bar of soap; a razor.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry, Bill, but if you’re serious about spending God knows how long, the two of us, wandering from state to state without a larger guard detail, then you’re going to have to let me use every tool at my disposal to keep you safe. That means not Tafting it up every second of the day. And that means, the mustache comes off.”
Number of people attending the Arizona Taft Party rally on Dec. 28:
24,500 (estimated)
FIFTEEN
Chicago was exactly as Taft remembered it: that is to say, unrecognizable. The city had been in such a state of construction and flux during his day—especially following the Great Fire in ’71, when he was but a youngster—that it seemed a completely different yet hauntingly familiar place each time he visited. Today was no different. There were more roads, taller skyscrapers, and a greater profusion of people to be seen as he and Kowalczyk passed the South Side, but that was offset by the pervasive, living spirit of the city.
Not to mention the smell.
“Is that a hot dog vendor my nose detects?” said Taft, his face lapping up the breeze from the open passenger-side window.
“Bill, you look like a dog yourself, hanging your head out of the window like that,” answered Kowlaczyk. His crown full of stubble gleamed in the afternoon sun that slanted through the windshield. Old snow lay scattered in random, filthy heaps along the roadside and the edges of parking lots. “At least we’re lucky we didn’t run into any blizzards. Still, you might want to roll up that window before you catch cold. After all, you have a little less of your winter coat to keep you warm.” He pointed to the place where Taft’s whiskers had previously bristled.
“Go ahead and laugh, Kowalczyk,” Taft said dryly. “Get it all out.” He did indeed feel bald without his mustache, but, in a way, the shave suited him. It was as if a great pressure had been magically hoisted away—the weight of his own image, his own identity. Since he’d shaved it off, no one had given him a second glance, not even when they’d sat in the packed truck-stop diner that morning, breakfasting on French toast and bacon as the television above their heads blared Pauline Craig’s latest tirade concerning Taft.
“I almost wish I were president right now,” Taft had growled, a forkful of greasy lusciousness hovering in front of his lips. “The first thing I’d do is outlaw this absurd custom of mounting televisions in every damned public space. Whatever happened to conversing with one’s fellow man while in a restaurant?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Kowalczyk’s glazed eyes were glued to the screen.
“See? It’s a scandal, I tell you. Why did we ever fight a war for independence if we’d eventually wind up signing our lives over to this … this … idiot machine.”
“Idiot box.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s called an idiot box, Bill. And, rest assured, you aren’t the first grumpy old guy who’s had those thoughts.” But before Taft could protest, Kowalczyk laid a finger over his lips. “Check it out. It’s getting worse. Or better, depending on your warped point of view.”
Sitting in the car with the sights, sounds, and smells of Chicago whizzing by, Taft didn’t want to remember what they’d seen on that truck-stop TV earlier in the day. But he couldn’t push it out of his mind, either; Craig, it now seemed, had fully cast off any reservations and become the most ardent, barking proponent of William Howard Taft that he’d ever remembered having. On her show that morning had been a guest named Marsha McCursky,