Always (16 page)

In the final days of the campaign, Griggs, who was an old-school cut-and-gut dirty-tricks campaigner, started getting negative in his attacks. With a week left, he went on a campaign swing from the Panhandle of Florida to the Keys, holding airport press conferences where he would blatantly lie about my record in Congress. Once he said I cheated on my law school entrance exam, and another time he hinted that I had been arrested in Little Havana for solicitation. Although his tactics were crooked at best and slanderous at worst, the ink was in the water, and the negative ads worked. We were told by our pollster that our opponent was pulling closer even in my home district.

So on the Monday before the election we decided to take a chance and not play it safe. Griggs was holding a press conference in Fort Myers, and we conveniently set it up so that Leslie would be flying out of Fort Myers to meet me in Panama City for a rally. Just as we had planned, she and Penelope just
happened
to be on the tarmac as Griggs was in the midst of making up another half-truth, and Leslie just stood there with her overnight bag over her shoulder. On the news you could see the look in Griggs's eyes when he saw her for the first time. It's easy to lie about someone with his or her back turned, but another thing to do it face-to-face with a camera and thirty reports looking at you, examining not only the words you say, but also the words you leave out. Griggs then took a chance I don't know if I would have. But then, he did not know the Yvette side to my Leslie.

“Well, well,” he said, “it seems we have been
infiltrated
by the Davis campaign.”

Leslie stood quietly without expression.

“It appears that while the congressman is off doing
whatever
it may be he is doing today, he sent the little lady to defend him.”

Leslie remained silent and continued to hold the garment bag just as rehearsed.

“I think that speaks volumes about Mr. Davis.” The next thing Florida saw on
The News at Six
was Leslie walking toward Senator Griggs. When she did so, you could hear the oohs and ahs in the background.

“Sir, my husband did not send me here, nor do I believe he even knows you are here. I am simply flying out of this airport to meet him for a rally. But let me say that my husband and I are saddened by what you have become in the last few days of this election. You, sir, have served the people of this state with dignity for twelve years. Now you have stooped to outright lies and slander, and we have decided to stick to the record. You knew we could not respond to the outrageous statements in the last seventy-two hours of the campaign, so you have resorted to the oldest trick in the book.”

I watched on TV while Griggs looked at his assistant, and when he looked at Leslie with the cameras all pointing her way, I know he knew he was in trouble.

“Sir,” she continued, “we refuse to allow ourselves to sink to your moral and ethical level. Win, lose, or draw, we will not hang our heads due to anything we have done in this campaign. We only hope that you can do the same.”

Griggs stammered, trying to get the attention of the reporters with a snide retort, but most of them continued to focus on Leslie as she looked at her watch, then walked quietly through the crowd and headed for her plane, refusing to take any questions, but taking half the reporters with her.

Needless to say, the ploy worked. The next day, election day, from coast to coast the image of this gray-headed white man debating my wife was on every newspaper in Florida.
He came off looking scared and a part of the establishment in Florida. Leslie looked like a wife defending her husband's morals and dedicated to changing the face of politics.

When I think back to the early nineties, what I think most changed my life was sort of unusual. Rodney King hurt, don't get me wrong. I know the brother made mistakes and may still make more, but I don't think there is a black man in America who didn't see himself, under the lights, getting lynched by the public servants when it was shown over and over on TV. The ending of affirmative action in many states stands out, because I took it as a slap in the face to all of the leaders who had fought and died for the cause. But when a reporter asked me what event in the nineties impacted my life more than any other, it was a day in '91. Actually, the date was November 7, 1991, when Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive.

I admit it. Like the ad goes, “I love that game.” I watch as many of the Heat and Wizard games as I can when I am in town, but I don't have an obsession with it like some of my friends. I once heard Bob Costas say the game of baseball was
proof
that there was a God, because no man could create a game so beautiful. I would not say the game of basketball is such proof. But Magic was.

I met Earvin and Cookie when they were in D.C. doing a promotion for Pepsi with Earl Graves. I think he and his wife are genuinely nice people. When I heard the news, I was in my office and my AA barged in and said, “You know Magic has AIDS?” I said yeah, I'm sure he does after all that kissing on Isaiah Thomas. And she said, “No. I'm serious. It was on CNN when I was home for lunch.” As soon as she said the letters “CN,” I was reaching for my remote. By this time the news conference had gone off, so I turned to ESPN, saw Magic's face in a blue suit and designer tie, and I knew it was true.

I guess the reason it affected me so much is that for the first time, HIV had a face. I'd voted on bills regarding funding for AIDS research, but honestly, I'd done it because I'd felt it was a way to help people who were gay or drug
users. But now HIV was not black or white, gay or straight, young or old. HIV was my friend, HIV was my hero. HIV was Magic. It was someone I knew, and it brought the issue home to me.

I remember Earvin at Michigan State playing against Bird, as well as his first few years in the pros. In fact, before Magic, I was a die-hard Atlanta Hawks fan. Don't ask me why. But I became a Magic fan. Not Orlando, Johnson. He played with so much passion and love for the game. He played with the same intensity I had in my run for the presidency. A single-minded determination that nothing and no one would ever stop him. He fought the disease with the same fire in his belly. Although people laughed when he said he'd beaten it . . . no one is laughing now. I sent him a telegram as soon as I heard about his condition, and the four of us have remained friends ever since.

I look at Cookie and I see the type of love Leslie and I shared. I can honestly say if it were not for Leslie, I would not be where I am at this time. She was much more than my most intelligent and trusted adviser. She was my friend, my lover, and simply my life when my dream squeezed everything out of me and left me dry. There was one particular time around '93 when the dream was too heavy to bear and I sunk to my lowest point, which I don't like to talk about. But she was there, and she never left my side.

One night I flew to New York to be on
Meet the Press
. It was my first appearance on the show, so I was a little nervous. To make a long story short, I stunk up the place. I don't know if I had an anxiety attack or if the angst of what was on the horizon suddenly came to light or what, but none of my thoughts came easily and I screwed up a number of important facts which normally I could have spouted off easily if someone had awakened me in the midst of my sleep. Although I know he would never admit it, Tim Russert must have thought I had more than coffee in my U.S. Senate coffee mug. Since the show was live, there was no way to edit out my snafus, so when I heard “It's a wrap” and the lights went out, I felt like a clown, minus the big red nose and floppy shoes.

When I came off the set, Herbert looked at me as he would as a child when he knew I had screwed up and was going to get a beating. After accepting a couple of insincere congratulatory phone calls from friends around the country, I got out of the NBC studio and Manhattan as fast as I could.

As fate would have it, there was a mechanical problem with the plane we were boarding in Atlanta and we were forced to wait for another connecting flight. I have always enjoyed Atlanta, so Herbert and I, as well as my advisers Marcus and Wayne, took off for the Underground. I thought getting away for a while would do me good.

When I got out of the limo, we decided that we'd find a sporting goods store and waste time in a restaurant until Herbert got the page that the plane was ready. We' walked through the mall and a few people noticed me. This was one time I did not care to be recognized after what had just been televised. But as we were walking, I saw her. This woman who was moving through the crowd toward us was the spitting image of Cheryl. Same complexion and height; even the smile she shared when our eyes met was similar. Marcus noticed her immediately and nudged my forearm as she appeared to be headed our way. When she got closer, everyone in the group, including Herbert, was almost panting for air. Of course, it wasn't Cheryl, but the woman looked exquisite in her leopard scarf, matching gloves, cream vest and skirt, and sling-back four-inch leopard pumps.

“Senator Davis? Right?” she asked, standing in front of me.

“Yes. And you are?”

She reached in her purse and pulled out a card that read:

Alicia Simmons

President, Ole' Dirty South Records

“I'm a political junkie,” she said. “I watched you on NBC this morning and I thought you did a wonderful job.” At this point I knew she was a BS artist beyond compare. She continued, “You may not have heard of my label, but we
produce Chill E and So-So Dangerous, as well as a female group by the name of BWP, which stands for—”

“Bitches With Problems,” Marcus, who is Asian, interrupted, and then looked at us a little embarrassed that he'd supplied the name. “My son. He's really into the
rap
thing.”

“That's great,” she said, looking at him and then right back at me.

“Well, ahh, Alicia, right?” Herbert said, with a gentle tug on my elbow. “We need to finish up a little shopping before we head back to Miami. It was nice—”

Pulling away, I said, “It was nice meeting you, Alicia, and thanks for the card.” Herbert was good at his job for the most part, but he had a tendency to be a little overprotective with me and women. There were several incidents in Florida when women had made advances, and he would always cut them off at the pass. But there was a fine line between sheltering and being obnioxious.

Alicia noticed my defiant gesture toward Herbert and continued to talk, although we were walking away from her. She shared with me how she'd started the company and how many acts she wanted to have and how hard it was to get any publicity when you were from the South when most major rap labels were based in New York City. As she spoke, I could not get over her uncanny resemblance to Cheryl, and wondered how she and Darius were doing. I had made plans to attend our class reunion in '91. Although I was receiving national attention, I always wanted to stay close to my friends in south Florida. Unfortunately I and several other members of the Congressional Black Caucus were asked to accompany the president on a trip to Israel, so I was forced to cancel. David, who was living in Oklahoma at the time, went to the reunion and told me that Cheryl had come alone and looked as good as ever.

“. . . and that's how we came up with the name of the company,” was all I heard from Alicia.

“Well . . . that's very interesting,” I said, trying to be polite. “It's always nice to, ahh, see people take chances and live out their dream.”

We headed into the sporting goods store as Alicia continued
to talk, and Herbert would not get rid of her because of the way I'd pulled away from him previously. Then I heard her say, “And I also want to thank you, Senator Davis, for your vote on SB-91-1037.” As she quoted the numbers, we all stopped in our tracks.

“You remember the number for the HIV bill?”

“Like I said,” she replied. “I'm a political junkie.” And then she lowered her voice to say, “and also, my mom died of AIDS two years ago.” As she spoke the words, her body slumped.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I replied.

“It's okay,” she added, and then looked at my shoes and then back into my eyes. “For the first time, I didn't say my mom died of AIDS but she
wasn't
gay.” As she stood before me, she reached in her purse for something to blow her nose on when Marcus handed me his handkerchief. After giving it to her, I asked Marcus, our bodyguard, and Herbert to go in and do their shopping while I went with Alicia to a corner of the eatery for a cup of coffee.

As we sat there, from time to time people would come up and ask me if I was that-senator-you-know-what's-his-face, but for the most part we were able to talk in peace. She told me of how she'd dropped out of college to take care of her mother and was there when she took her final breath. As she spoke, I was moved, because this was not a doctor testifying before Congress with sterile charts on a tripod behind him. This was a person who had watched the shame of HIV turn into the realization of the disease transfiguring itself into the abhorrent face of AIDS and take someone from her whom she loved. As she spoke, she started to tear up a little more and brought the handkerchief to her nose. At some point I reached across the table to console her by holding her hand. When I did, I saw her open her eyes and look at me differently than before. I immediately returned my consoling hands to my side of the table and leaned back in my seat. I wanted to hug her because she was in so much pain, but sending the wrong message
to her was something I could not deal with at this point in my life, personally or professionally.

“Sorry for babbling on and on like that, Senator Davis.” I noticed that she kept saying my entire name and title with a look in her eyes that said she wanted me to say, no, just call me Henry. But I'd been down this road before. “So . . . Senator Davis, how's Leslie?”

I paused. The conversation was getting more eerie by the minute. I just could not put my finger on what was bothering me as I answered, “Fine. She's fine. Listen,” I said, standing up. “I need to catch up with the guys. Thanks again for sharing that story with me. It really meant a lot. And I will keep an ear out for your—”