Fluke Read online

  Fluke

  Martin Blinder

  For Tracey Washington and Barbara Braun:

  there through thick and thin.

  the first president to be loved by his

  “bitterest enemies” is dead

  the only man woman or child who wrote

  a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical

  errors “is dead”

  beautiful Warren Gamaliel Harding

  “is” dead

  — e. e. cummings

  I may not be the smartest President to ever sit in the

  White House but by God I’ll be the best loved.

  —Warren Gamaliel Harding,

  President of the United States

  1921–1923

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  Part Two

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  Part Three

  19.

  20.

  Part Four

  21.

  22.

  23.

  Part Five

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  Part Six

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  40.

  41.

  42.

  43.

  44.

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  San Francisco, August 24th, 1923.

  Beneath a pewter sky on a misty afternoon, a presidential funeral procession inches down Market Street. The broad boulevard is lined twenty or more deep with bereaved of every age — hats in hand, tears, heads bowed, a flutter of damp handkerchiefs. Wordlessly they watch as the coffin of Warren Gamaliel Harding, draped in black crepe and resting in an uncovered carriage, rolls slowly past them pulled by four horses. Following are a half-dozen gargantuan, open limousines — Packards, La Salles, and Pierce-Arrows — bearing dignitaries and family, for whom the President’s voice, rich, warm and resonant — like fine bourbon — has been forever stilled.

  With so much left to say:

  Being dead has its good points. The pain ends. No more insoluble problems. No more betrayals. You’re well out of the turmoil, the futile struggle. Now it’s all in someone else’s hands. Well good riddance. To the whole damn lot. ‘Cept for my sweet Nan — I sure wasn’t ready to give her up. Not in this lifetime.

  He sighs.

  Nor the next.

  A light breeze rustles the crepe covering the coffin.

  Yup, that’s me in the box. Or I suppose, what used to be me. Warren G. Harding, your twenty-ninth President. Till a few nights ago.

  The procession creeps forward past mist-heavy flags hanging lifelessly at half-mast. Drowsing in the Packard phaeton just behind the presidential caisson is a gaunt, dour sixty-three-year-old man in a black coat and top hat.

  That there’s the new fellow. Calvin Coolidge. God help America. Old Pickle-Face can fall asleep any time, anywhere.

  Coolidge yawns.

  Sorry if we disturbed your rest, Calvin. You get to nap in the White House all you want now.

  Staring straight ahead, the late President’s wife, Florence, sits stiffly alongside Coolidge. There is no discernible human connection between them — they could be at opposite ends of the earth. A veil obscures Florence’s deeply lined face but can do little to soften a jutting iron jaw.

  And of course, my missus. Stuck next to Pickle-Face, poor dear. Talk about a determined woman. Fact is, she would have made one heck of a stronger president than I ever was. Loved you, Duchess. The best I could. Lord knows you deserved better. Hmmph, hope she doesn’t spot Nan. Where is that child anyway?

  As the cortege lumbers past, one, then others amongst the mourners point, or tug on a neighbor’s sleeve, as they recognize the smug face of Harry Daugherty, a bluff, bald, middle-aged man sitting opposite Coolidge.

  Now there’s the man of the hour. Harry’s a famous fellow these days in his own right. Naturally, elbowed his way into the first car.

  From time to time, Daugherty responds to his newfound celebrity with a nod, or tip of the hat.

  An old and devoted friend, too, Harry Daugherty. More than anyone, it was Harry who got me to Washington. Then all through my presidency he labors quietly by my side. Your model selfless, anonymous public servant. Today that crooked puss of his is on the front page of every goddamn newspaper in the country! Jeez, was I ever blind! “Half-step Harry” they’re calling him now — barely a half-step ahead of the law. Turns out the sonofabitch had his hands in every till. God Almighty, who can a man trust?

  And where the hell’s Nan?

  Desolate young people are everywhere along Market Street, though apparently, none of them Nan. The procession crosses the intersection at New Montgomery. Two weeping pubescent girls toss handfuls of rose petals on the readjust ahead of the caisson’s wheels. Nearby, an inconsolable, elderly black man blows his nose. A small boy in a sailor suit salutes.

  Will you look at all these good people! You’d think some great personage had passed on. They know so little about the mess I left. Tell ya — I had no business in that job. None. Awful place, the White House. Killed a lot tougher men than me.

  And there’s another weasel who sure didn’t help matters.

  Chewing on a plug of tobacco, a lanky, ruddy, mustachioed man in his sixties dominates the second car in line, an elephantine Pierce-Arrow.

  Tuh! Albert Fall. Ever loyal. Salt of the earth. “Just call me Al.” Always ready to lend a hand. Sure. The bastard might as well have put a gun to my head. Lemme tell ya, in Washington if you want a friend, get your self a dog.

  Fall puckers, fires a squirt of tobacco juice over the side of the car, then readjusts his derby.

  Pretty jaunty for a guy hit last week with a six-count federal indictment, dont’cha think? The nerve of him — showing up here. Guess that’s a problem with funerals — the fella it’s all about no longer has any say. You can bet Henry wouldn’t have been invited either, had I been consulted. Ya see him — that prissy dwarf?

  Perched next to Fall is venerable Henry Cabot Lodge, an impassive, elegantly goateed, elfin man, all but engulfed by the cavernous phaeton around him.

  The most bloodless, joyless, constipated fellow you’d ever want to meet. The moment Henry walks into a room it feels emptier. I’ll wager he’s savoring every minute of this, the skunk, though you really can’t be sure — with Henry it’d be hard to distinguish grief from ecstasy. No regrets if I never see his face again.

  But where in blazes is my precious Nan? Gal would be late to her own funeral, but you’d think she’d at least be on time for — hey, there she is.

  More desolate faces as the coffin rumbles by, at last drawing parallel to a golden-haired woman at the curb, twenty-seven-year-old Nan Britton. Tears spill from her startling green eyes.

  Now take a gander at that. Ever in your life see a lovelier little lady?

  Nan is indeed lovely — and a
bout five months pregnant.

  Yeah, that’s my bun in the oven. My very first, and — evidently — my last.

  Harding’s coffin passes no more than three feet in front of her — just a small step forward and Nan could touch it. Harding’s voice thickens.

  Ah dearest, dearest Nan Britton — the one blessing in this whole benighted world I’m really gonna miss.

  Tentatively, Nan reaches out, then pulls her hand back. She gives her President a sad little wave goodbye.

  President Warren Harding is remembered — if at all — as having presided over the most corrupt administration in the history of the White House.

  He died in office just as the first scandals were breaking, never having had the chance to tell his side.

  I know most of what went on, I think, and what he would have had to say about it, had he lived.

  I loved him — and only him — almost all my life.

  My name is Nan Britton, and I was his mistress.

  Let me start back in a happier time, a far simpler time . . .

  Part One

  1.

  Though of course, my birth certificate would maintain otherwise, so far as I am concerned, my life truly began on July 4th, 1912. Nothing in my then fifteen years on this earth could have prepared me for this crashing coming of age on that brilliant, red, white and blue morning, nor for the remarkable man who was to be its instrument.

  A teenage girl’s petite waving hand is but one of many sprouting from a festive, sun-drenched crowd jamming Main Street of a small, mid-American town, gathered to watch Marion, Ohio’s Independence Day parade. Like last July and the several before that, the procession is led by the town’s robust alderman, forty-six-year-old Warren Gamaliel Harding, astride a white stallion sashaying just ahead of a sparkling brass marching-band of uncertain pitch.

  The musicians are followed by a troop of ancient, bemedaled Civil War veterans in faded Union blue, some dependent upon canes, a few pushed along in wooden wheelchairs. Next come unsmiling militants of the Anti-Saloon League, trailed by no less grim contingents of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and finally, in contrast, ebullient delegations from the Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Grange, and the Marion Boosters Club, for all of whom next year will always be an even better one. Each troupe flourishes its own particular banners, pennants and flags as they strut along, creating a gleaming, undulating satin river of purple, gold, maroon and green. Dogs dart in and out, barking patriotically.

  Alderman Harding is a boundlessly contented, classically handsome man, easily six feet, with a head you might expect on a Roman coin. He waves broadly at his townsfolk, tipping a Panama hat right and left, reveling in the heartfelt approval and affection that rises up to him all along the way.

  A young man in the crowd gives Harding a mock salute. “Hullo, Alderman. Band just don’t sound the same without you tootin’ on that old tuba.”

  Harding smiles down at him. “Hey there, Greg — you back in Marion?”

  “Just for the holiday. Here to see my mom.”

  “You tell your mom Warren Harding sends his best.”

  “I sure will. Warren — that’ll make her real pleased.”

  A ruddy-faced man in overalls and a plaid shirt calls out to him. “How yadoin’, Warren?”

  “Doin’ well, Petey. Good to see ya. Corn in yet?”

  “First ears just this morning. I’ll bring some by while they got all their sugar.”

  “Why I sure do appreciate that. Thanks, Petey.”

  Two young women costumed as “Miss Liberty” toss bouquets up at him. He snares them both and beams as each girl blows him a kiss. Warren Harding’s contentment may be easy, but it runs the length and breadth of his soul.

  The parade draws close to the fluttering teenage hand, belonging to diminutive, delicate Nan Britton, on tiptoes between her parents, bobbing up and down for a better view. Indicia of her later staggering beauty are already evident.

  As a young girl I had wished desperately to grow up to be a great saint — like Joan of Arc. I would pray every night to Jesus, begging him to afflict me with some horrible disease I could suffer ecstatically, until the Pope recognized my beatific selflessness. This piety greatly alarmed my parents, neither of whom were Catholic, and most particularly, my father, who did not even believe in God. Or very much else.

  Harding comes abreast of Nan, horse and rider luminous in the warm sunshine. Through the forest of bonnets, straw hats and waving American flags, she catches Harding’s eye. He winks, then blinds her with his smile.

  Suddenly all these aspirations for immortality vanished when, at that fateful moment, an authentic saint, a true knight on a white horse, rode into my life. In a heartbeat I’d found the man who was to forever be the center of my world. Anyone who has not experienced all-consuming devotion may well find it hard to comprehend, but Warren Harding was to touch me so deeply that I would thereafter dedicate myself to melding and blending into him, as he had inexplicably become so much a part of me.

  Nan flushes. She pulls on her mother’s arm and points.

  “Mummy, who’s that?”

  “Oh — that’s Mr. Harding, dear. You know — the Marion Weekly Star? It’s his little newspaper.”

  Nan’s father frowns. “Mindless Republican rag . . .”

  “How come he leads the parade, Mummy?”

  “He’s also everyone’s favorite alderman. A very kind fellow . . .”

  Mr. Britton grumbles loudly. “Political hack. Fawning Republican toady . . .”

  Nan routinely ignores her father, having learned that however bright the sun, it has yet to shine on him. “What’s an alderman, Mummy?”

  “Another two-bit grafter . . .” mumbles her father.

  His wife overrides him. “An alderman is — someone townsfolk vote in to sort of preside over things. Help keep Marion running along.”

  Mr. Britton has thoroughly warmed to the subject. “Help himself to the public trough . . .”

  Nan persists. “Like they vote for the President.”

  “That’s right, dear,” affirms her mother. “’Cept that an alderman is strictly a local official. And just part-time, I believe. Quite different from a President.”

  Nan’s gaze remains fixed on Harding’s receding figure as the parade tramps on by. “Mr. Harding looks exactly like I imagine a President would look.”

  Her father’s had enough. He hits his sibilants hard, sending spittle into space. “For your information, Miss Nan, the President — William Howard Taft — is said to weigh three hundred and seventy-six pounds. The White House had to build special chairs just for him.”

  Nan stands her ground. “Well, Mr. Harding certainly looks much more like a President than that. If ladies could vote, I’d vote for Mr. Harding.”

  Nan’s mother nods in vigorous agreement.

  Her father shakes his head in disgust. “That’s precisely why, praise heaven, ladies will never get the vote.”

  2.

  The editorial policy of the Marion Weekly Star is well tailored to Harding’s particular combination of strengths — a florid way with words, limited curiosity, aversion to change, and indefatigability as town booster and patriot. And reporting, as it did, only those stories which put Marion and its citizens in the best possible light, the paper is everywhere welcome, if not widely read.

  Certainly one would not easily mistake the Star for the Cleveland Post Dispatch, or for that matter, the Marion Morning Tribune. The walls of the one-story wood frame storefront that had been its home since birth fourteen years ago were no longer plumb, if ever they were. The roof sags with fatigue. “Modest” was how Harding himself characterized his newspaper empire, always a bit behind financially and in subscribers, notwithstanding its gold letter bravado on the window:

  The Marion Weekly Star

  Warren G. Harding
/>
  Editor and Publisher

  Paid circulation 8,750

  Yet Harding tremendously enjoyed putting out his little paper, and would never consider anything else. All his life the grass always looked greener right under his feet.

  Nan, in pigtails, a white pinafore and white patent leather shoes, approaches the newspaper’s offices from a park across the street. She reaches the front door, then pauses to gather up her courage.

  Just within, Harding and long-time United States Senator William Foraker chat politics in the front office as they savor leisurely cigars. Soft blue smoke hangs drowsily around them in the still air. The two old friends, Harding tilted back in his well-seasoned wood and leather desk chair, Foraker reclining on a battered loveseat, share in the prestigious company of Presidents McKinley, Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt, whose framed sepia photographs eye each other from opposite walls. Harding’s Airedale, Old Abe, sprawls on a frayed rug by Harding’s chair, tail thumping as Harding scratches him behind the ears.

  As always, Harding is reassuring. “Wouldn’t think you’d have to campaign all that much this time ‘round, would you, Bill? You’ve been down this road so many times . . .”

  “Ya never know what voters will do,” counters Foraker. He jabs his cigar toward Harding. “You remember that when ya make the run for Governor, Warren, my boy.”

  Harding laughs. “Me? I’d sooner throw myself in front of a horse. Invite all that grief . . .”

  “Beware complacency,” Foraker continues, “that’s my motto. Look at old Blaine. Re-elected four times, figures he can rest on his laurels — and a Democrat squeaks right past him. No sir, I’m gonna be out there shaking hands every . . .”

  A bell over the front door jingles as Nan enters. The sunlight streaming through the plate glass behind her ignites the alabaster sheen of her dress, creating a halo around her.

  Harding smiles at his young visitor. “Well, hello there, miss.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Harding,” she replies, shyly.

  Old Abe rises, sniffs Nan’s shoes. No one he knows. He waddles back to his rug.

  “What can we do for you today?” asks Harding.