Page 368 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

In October, on a plane to Nashville, Dave Williams sat next to a Nixon supporter.

Dave was going to Nashville to make a record. His own studio in Napa, Daisy Farm, was still under construction. Besides, some of the best musicians in the business were in Nashville. Dave felt that rock music was becoming too cerebral, with psychedelic sounds and twenty-minute guitar solos, so he planned an album of classic two-minute pop songs, "The Girl of My Best Friend" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Woolly Bully." Besides, he knew that Walli was making a solo album in London and he did not want to be left behind.

And he had another reason. Little Lulu Small, who had flirted with him on the All-Star Touring Beat Revue, now lived in Nashville and worked as a backing singer. He needed someone to help him forget Beep.

On the front page of his newspaper was a photograph from the Olympic Games in Mexico City. It was of the medal ceremony for the two hundred meters race. The gold medal winner was Tommie Smith, a black American, who had broken the world record. A white Australian took silver, and another black American bronze. All three men wore human rights badges on their Olympic jackets. While "The Star-Spangled Banner" was being played, the two American athletes had bowed their heads and raised their fists in the Black Power salute, and that was the photo in all the papers.

"Disgraceful," said the man sitting next to Dave in first class.

He looked about forty, and was dressed in a business suit with a white shirt and a tie. He had taken from his briefcase a thick typed document and was annotating it with a ballpoint pen.

Dave normally avoided talking to people on planes. The conversation usually turned into an interview about what it was really like to be a pop star, and that was boring. But this guy did not appear to know who Dave was. And Dave was curious to know what went on in the head of such a man.

His neighbor went on: "I see that the president of the International Olympic Committee has thrown them out of the games. Damn right."

"The president's name is Avery Brundage," Dave said. "It says in my paper that back in 1936, when the games were held in Berlin, he defended the right of the Germans to give the Nazi salute."

"I don't agree with that either," said the businessman. "The games are nonpolitical. Our athletes compete as Americans."

"They're Americans when they win races, and when they get conscripted into the army," Dave said. "But they're Negroes when they want to buy the house next door to yours."

"Well, I'm for equality, but slow change is usually better than fast."

"Maybe we should have an all-white army in Vietnam, just until we're sure American society is ready for complete equality."

"I'm against the war, too," the man said. "If the Vietnamese are dumb enough to want to be Communists, let them. It's Communists in America we should be worried about."

He was from a distant planet, Dave felt. "What line of business are you in?"

"I sell advertising for radio stations." He offered his hand to shake. "Ron Jones."

"Dave Williams. I'm in the music business. If you don't mind my asking, who will you vote for in November?"

"Nixon," said Jones without hesitation.

"But you're against the war, and you favor civil rights for Negroes, albeit not too soon; so you agree with Humphrey on the issues."

"To hell with the issues. I have a wife and three kids, a mortgage and a car loan; they're my issues. I've fought my way up to regional sales manager and I have a shot at national sales director in a few years' time. I've worked my socks off for this and no one's going to take it away from me: not rioting Negroes, not drug-taking hippies, not Communists working for Moscow, and certainly not a softhearted liberal like Hubert Humphrey. I don't care what you say about Nixon, he stands for people like me."

At that moment Dave felt, with an overwhelming sense of impending doom, that Nixon was going to win.

*

George Jakes put on a suit and a white shirt and a tie, for the first time in months, and went for lunch with Maria Summers at the Jockey Club. It was her invitation.

He could guess what was going to happen. Maria had been talking to his mother. Jacky had told Maria that George spent all day moping in his apartment doing nothing. Maria was going to tell him to pull himself together.

He could not see the point. His life was wrecked. Bobby was dead and the next president would be either Humphrey or Nixon. Nothing could be done, now, to end the war or to bring equality for blacks or even to stop the police beating up anyone they took a dislike to.

All the same he agreed to have lunch with Maria. They went back a long way.

Maria was looking attractive in a mature way. She wore a black dress with a matching jacket and a row of pearls. She projected confidence and authority. She looked like what she was, a successful midlevel bureaucrat at the Department of Justice. She refused a cocktail and they ordered lunch.

When the waiter had gone, she said to George: "You never get over it."

He understood that she was comparing his grief for Bobby to her own bereavement over Jack.

"There's a hole in your heart, and it doesn't go away," she said.

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