Leon Uris - A God in Ruins

A God In Ruins

TROUBLESOME MESA, COLORADO

AUTUMN, 2008

ACatholic orphan of sixty years is not apt to forget the day he firstlearned that he was born Jewish. It would not have been thatbombastic an event, except that I am running for the presidency of theUnited States. The 2008 election is less than a week away.

Earlierin the day, my in-close staff looked at one another around theconference table. We digested the numbers. Not only were wegoing to win, there was no way we were going to lose. Thank God,none of the staff prematurely uttered the words Mr. President.

This morning was ten thousand years ago.

ImQuinn Patrick OConnell, governor of Colorado and the Democraticcandidate for president. The voters know I was adopted throughthe Catholic bureaucracy by the ranchers Dan and Siobhan OConnell.

Mydad and I were Irish enough, at each others throats. Thanks tomy mom, we all had peace and a large measure of love before he was setdown in his grave.

All things beingequal, it appeared that I would be the second Roman Catholic presidentin American history. Unknown to me until earlier this day, Iwould be the first Jewish president as well.

Nothingcompares to the constant melancholy thirst of the orphan to find hisbirth parents. It is the apparatus that forms us and rules us.

Aye, there was always someone out there, a faceless king and queen in a chilled haze, taunting.

Ben Horowitz, my half brother, had been searching for me, haunted, for over a half century. Today he found me.

Tomorrowat one oclock Rocky Mountain time I must share my fate with theAmerican people. You havent heard of Rocky time? Some ofthe networks havent, either. Lot of space but small market.

Thesecond half of the last century held the years that the Jews became oneof the prime forces in American life. Politically, there had beena mess of Jewish congressmen, senators, mayors, and governors ofenormous popularity and power. None had won the bigenchilada. I suppose the buck stops here.

HadI been elected governor as Alexander Horowitz, Id have been just asgood for my state. However, the discovery of my birth parents aweek before the presidential election could well set off a series oftragic events from the darkness where those who will hate me lay inwait.

How do I bring this to you,folks? In the last few hours I have written, my fellowAmericans twenty-six times, a funny thing happened to me on the wayto Washington twenty-one times, and the American people have theright to know three dozen times. My wastebasket overfloweth.

Dont cry, little Susie, there will be a Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

No, the White House kitchen will not be kosher. My love of Carnegie tongue and pastrami is not of a religious nature.

By presidential decree, the wearing of a yarmulke is optional.

Israel will not become our fifty-first state.

Totell the truth, my countrymen, I simply do not know what this means inmy future. OConnell was a hell of a good governor, but we are inuncharted waters.

Im getting a littlefuzzy. I can see into the bedroom, where Rita is sprawled in thedeep part of a power nap. Rita and our bedroom and her attire areall blended with Colorado hush tones, so soft and light intexture. At the ranch Rita liked to wear those full and colorfulskirts like a Mexican woman at fiesta. As she lays there a bitrumpled, I can see up her thighs. Id give my horse and saddle tobe able to crawl alongside her. But then, Id never finish myWashingtons farewell to the troops speech.

On the other hand, Rita and I have made the wildest gung ho love when we were under the deepest stress.

Write your speech, son, youve got to face the nation tomorrow, Rocky Mountain time.

Straightnarrative, no intertwining B.S. or politicizing. Explain theOConnell ne Horowitz phenomenon. Truth, baby, truth. Atleast truth will not come back to haunt you.

Strange,I should be thinking of Greer at this moment. Rita is the mostsensual soul mate one could pray for. We have loved one anotherwithout compromise for nearly thirty years. Yet, is it possiblethat Greer is really the love of my life?

Idhave never come this far in the campaign without Greer Littlesgenius. I would have been tossed into the boneyard of candidatesnever heard from again. She organized, she raised money, she knewthe political operatives, and she masterminded my miracle campaign.

Iwas struck by the realization that Greer would leave soon, and I feltthe same kind of agony as when we broke up years before. I hadneeded to see Greer on some business, and knocked and entered herroom. She had been on the bed with Rita, passed-out drunk. Rita had held her and soothed her as though she were a little girl, andRita had put her finger to her lips to tell me to be quiet.

Well, there was life without Greer, but there could be no life without Rita. Yet it still hurts.

Iwatch the hours flow in the passageway behind me like the tick of asuppressed bomb about to be released. I am through with adraft. I write another.

As thehours to dawn tick off, it all seems to come down to the same basicquestions. Am I telling the truth? Do the American peoplehave the civility and the decency to take the truth and rise with it?

Whyme, Lord? Havent I had enough of your pranks? Isntslamming the White House door in my face just a little much, even forYour Holiness? Im at the landing over the reception foyer of theWhite House. The Marine band drums up Hail to the Chief and themajor of the guard proclaims, The president of the United States andMrs. Horowitz. Oh, come on now, Lord. Arent you carryingthis a little too far?

Well, all thestories of the good Irish lives are best passed on around the oldcampfire from schanachie to schanachie, and Ill not spare you mine.

Inactual fact, my own beginnings began at the end of World War II, whenmy future adopted father, Daniel Timothy OConnell, returned from thePacific with a couple of rows of ribbons and a decided limp.

BROOKLYN, AUTUMN 1945

Thewar to end all wars had ended. The Military Air Transport DC-3groaned as the cables stretched in a turn, and a piece of the planesskin flapped against the pilots window. The tail swung. Aqueasy contingent of soldiers, sailors, and a few Marines were losingthe battle with their equilibrium.

Staff Sergeant Daniel Timothy OConnell tried to suck oxygen from the

wilted air as beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. The sergeant

mumbledinto his beard that he had come all the way from San Diego withoutpuking and damned if he was going to puke in front of a planeload ofswab jockeys and dog faces.

Inthe cockpit a pair of MATS women flew the craft, adding to hisdiscomfort. Guadalcanal, he continued mumbling, Tarawa,Saipan, Okinawa, only to crash ten miles from home!

Crossingthe United States was no simple matter. There was no commercialair service to and from San Diego. MATS, which took as manydischarged veterans as it could, had hundreds on their waiting list.

OConnellhad caught a train from San Diego to L.A. From there, two differentairlines making nine stops over a twelve hour period landed him atWright-Patterson Field outside Dayton.

Therewas a delay of several hours before another MATS plane could get him tothe East Coast. He checked in and segued into a bar just outsidethe gates and sashayed in with a sailor he had teamed up with namedGross. Marines seldom used first names, so Gross was Gross.

They entered the Blue Lady lounge to see a half dozen women lined up at one end of the bar.

Could be a B-joint, OConnell said. Got your dough safe?

Money belt.

Yousee, OConnell went on, they know a lot of GIs are coming throughWright-Patterson Field loaded with back pay and that we have to be outof town soon.