I never did work for The Governor. That is, I never was on his payroll, or the state's. While I was in journalism school at LSU, I did an interview with him for the school newspaper, and when I finished, he asked me if I had a car. Then he sent me to deliver a ham to a black family about 30 miles down river from Baton Rouge. "I don't expect you to do it for nothing," he told me. For the next two years, until I graduated, I got a call at the dormitory at least once a month to run an errand for The Governor. The dollar he gave me for gas that first day was the sum total of my pay while in the service of the Governor of Louisiana. I suspect that he knew he was giving me a priceless look inside Louisiana politics that would be of lasting value in the news business. But I still don't know why he picked me to babysit State Senator E. Andrew Bohannon the night before the bill to give local policemen and firemen supplemental pay from the state was coming up for final passage in the senate. Senator Bohannon, at age 82, was the senior member of the legislature, both in age and time of service. He was also that body's most notorious bon vivant as they say in South Louisiana. The Governor just called him "a' old tom cat."

He pursued the ladies with the vigor of a 20-year-old. If there was an end result to the happy pursuit, he was too much of a gentleman to talk about it--but he was hell when he was in pursuit.

In his latter years (75 to 90), his ardor for a particular lady was usually short-lived and easily transferable, but while it was focused on her, the attention she received was courtly, enthusiastic and unrelenting. Miss Wilda, the governor's 64-year-old spinster-and-happy-that-way secretary, managed to abide his vigorous and inventive wooing for almost a month, but when he followed her to the golf course and gallantly retrieved every ball she hit, she took time off from the job until his fancy found a new direction.

The Senator lived with a widowed middle-aged daughter, who was sternly, vocally critical of any kind of tarryhooting and philandering. Other legislators claimed he kept an elegant wardrobe at a small hotel in his hometown in North Louisiana's Bible Belt, and, when he went tom-catting, would leave home in drably proper "old man's clothes," then change to his fancy duds at the hotel before descending on some place where pretty ladies served good whiskey and guitars and fiddles made happy music.

(State Representative Dick Bartran used to say the Senator had a few toddies too many one night, went home in his fancy clothes, and his dog bit him.)

I tell you all this so you'll know the nature of the man that I, at 20 years of age, was assigned by the governor of Louisiana to look after and keep safe from the wiles of the loyal opposition.

"I want you to stick to the Senator like glue until he is in his chair in the senate tomorrow," The Governor told me.

"But Governor, I've never even met Senator Bohannon."

"Don't matter. You get next to him and see that he don't have any contact with Senator Bourque's bunch. He's staying at the Capitol House Hotel, and if he goes downstairs to that Hunt Room Bar, they'll get him to drinkin' and convince him to vote against my supplemental pay bill for firemen and policemen. If we lose his vote, the bill's dead. And if they can get to him while he's tom-catting, they can sway him."

"Governor, I can't control this man. He's a state senator and I'm a college kid."

"Don't matter. You stay with him until tomorrow morning and keep him out of that Hunt Room Bar."

"Governor, he's 82 years old and I'm 20. He's not going to listen to me."

"Don't matter. Son, you'll be doing something good for every fireman and policeman and all their wives and children if you keep him out of Bourque's hands until tomorrow morning."

"I can't just go into his hotel room and tell him I'm spending the night there. He doesn't know who the hell I am." "That's taken care of. I told him you're my cousin's nephew, and your granddaddy just died and you're feeling lonesome and depressed. That his wisdom and understanding would help you forget your misfortune. I told him I didn't want you to be alone in that dormitory room tonight."

"I have three roommates."

"And my grandfather is very much alive."

"Not tonight. Tomorrow morning, there'll be a glorious resurrection, but tonight he's resting in the bosom of Abraham. Now you get on over to the hotel. The Senator's waiting to take you out to supper and distract you from your grieving."

I went. the Senator was waiting in the lobby, and I knew if we ate in the hotel restaurant, the opposition would corner him. So I came up with a pretty good story. I told him my late grandfather was Italian, and that I wanted to go somewhere for a pizza in his honor. My grandfather, George Ira Kelly, wouldn't have touched a pizza with a hoe handle, but the Senator bought it and we left the hotel in a taxi. I'll have to admit it was one of the most enjoyable evenings of my life. I was enthralled by the warm, joyful spirit of the remarkable old man, as was everyone else in the restaurant. He conversed with everyone around, told me wonderful story after wonderful story, and charmed the waitresses completely. He approached everything with a marvelous gusto...the wine, the food, the conversation, the pinching of the waitresses...everything.

I developed an immediate fondness for the senator. But the glow of the evening was dampened by the certain knowledge that it would not end when the meal did. I knew that chances were excellent he would want a nightcap in the Hunt Room. How could I stop him? How in hell could anybody stop him from doing anything he wanted to? Well, that took care of itself. What I had not realized was that he had taken his charge from The Governor as seriously as I had taken mine. He was determined to keep my mind off my terrible loss.

He put his hand on my shoulder while we were waiting for a cab in front of the restaurant. "Son," he said, "I know you're hurting, but you got to fill up that hole inside you with something joyful. That's what your granddaddy would want. I'm gonna buy you some poontang." I was stunned. "What, sir?" "I'm gonna take you to Miss Georgie DeWitt's whorehouse over on Thirteenth Street and buy you some nookie." "Uh, sir...I don't...I mean, I can't...". "Don't worry about it, son. I'm a GREAT granddaddy myself, and I know your dear departed granddaddy would want you to have that joy in your life to ease your sorrowfulness." "If my grandfather finds out," I thought, "he'll ease my sorrowfulness with a razor strap, but, what the hell, it'll keep him out of the Hunt Room." The Senator told the cabby he was taking me to a whorehouse because my grandfather had died. The cabby looked at me understandingly and told me it would do me good.

He explained to Miss Georgie DeWitt and everyone else in the cat house that he had brought be me there to alleviate my sorrow. Then he paid the tab and I picked out a woman who looked to be in her forties and had a very kind face. When we got upstairs I explained to her that I had just come to humor my eccentric grandfather, and that if it was all right with her, I'd just stand out on the stairwell and watch him instead of going in the bedroom. She patted me on the head and went on in the room for a short nap.

I could see the Senator plainly from the stairwell. He was seated in a plush easy chair, holding court as usual. The girls were gathered around him, thoroughly enjoying his comments and stories. I waited a reasonable period of time, and was about to go downstairs and express my appreciation when a guy entered who looked like trouble. He was unshaven, dressed in greasy coveralls, and obviously tipsy. I saw Miss Georgie signal the bouncer to keep an eye on him, and then move close to the telephone. He stumbled over to where the girls were gathered around the Senator's chair and pushed his way through to stand in front of the old man. He stood weaving over the Senator with a sneer on his face. "Why y'all hanging around this old bastard?" he asked the girls. "His old pecker probably ain't stood up in 40 years." The Senator dropped him with one pop from his cane. He didn't even stand up. When he did stand up to pop him again, the girls grabbed his arm and the bouncer gently relieved him of the cane. Miss Georgie had dialed the police as soon as the action started, and the prowl car must have been cruising nearby, because there were two police officers there in a New York Second. The got the drunk on his feet, checked him out to be sure there were no serious injuries, then handcuffed him and one of them took him out. The other turned to the Senator.

"Sir," he said, "I'll have to take you in, too." The Senator looked at him in absolute amazement. "You'll have to do what?" he asked. "I'll have to take you to the police station, sir." "Do you know who I am?" the Senator demanded. "Yessir, I do, sir. I'm sorry, but I have to take you in. And I have to put these handcuffs on you, sir." The Senator was deadly quiet as his wrists were manacled, then he said softly, "When I get through with that bill for state supplemental pay for firemen and policemen tomorrow, you're gonna wish you'd a'locked these things to your tallywhacker and left them there." He left quietly.

"Oh my god," I thought, "there goes the governor's bill."

It was eleven o'clock and I knew The Governor had probably been asleep for a couple of hours, but I had to call him.

"Dadburn and hell," he said after I explained what happened. "Dadburn and hell and damnation. You get your butt to the police station and straighten this out. I'm sending Trooper Breaux for you right now. Y'all get down there and cool Senator Bohannon off, you hear me?"

"Governor, I don't know anything I can do. He's mad at every policeman in the world. There's no way he'll vote for the bill now."

"You get down there and change his mind, you hear me?

"Governor, I'm just an errand boy. I don't know what to do. I don't know how."

"Don't matter. Trooper Breaux will pick you up and you get down there and do it. And when you finish doing it, you're fired. You hear me?"

"I don't work for you, Governor."

Trooper Breaux picked me up in a few minutes, and I told him the whole story on the way to the police station. The Senator was at the desk signing something when we walked in. He turned and looked at us and his angry expression changed to one of genuine concern.

"What is this?" he asked Trooper Breaux. "Why are you bringing this boy in? He had nothing to do with this. This boy is in mourning right now. Whatever he did, I take the responsibility for." The trooper was about to explain the situation when the stroke of genius hit me. I hold the idea that came to me at that moment, out of nowhere, to be the most marvelously brilliant, inventive, spur-of-the-moment idea ever to enter the brain of a frightened college kid. I caught Trooper Breaux by the arm as he was about to speak. "This is him, Officer," I shouted. "This the man I was telling you about. Senator E. Andrew Bohannon. He's leading the fight for the bill giving police officers and firemen supplemental pay from the state. I told you he was a friend of mine." Trooper Breaux picked it up beautifully. "Well, if that's true," he said solemnly, "if this is the man behind our pay bill, and he's a friend of yours, maybe I can overlook what you did." I looked at the Senator pleadingly. His eyes were hard at first, then they softened with understanding. He nodded slightly. "Officer," he said, "this young man is my friend. He is a fine young man, and, like his late grandfather, plans to make his career in law enforcement. He will one day be a fine policeman, and I would hate to see his career marred by some unfortunate record set down here tonight. It is not just for you and all the other fine officers of today that I fight in the halls of the legislature. It is also for young men like this to whom you will some day turn over the badge with confidence that your great work will continue."

Then he drew himself up and delivered one of the most beautiful speeches I've ever heard--a marvelous oration in behalf of state supplemental pay for local police and firemen. It was fantastic. The officers there in the police station were cheering when he finished. The one who had handcuffed him tore up the arrest record and shook his hand reverently.

The next day, the Senator made the same eloquent speech in the senate, and the governor's bill passed by a larger margin than he anticipated.

It was 5:30 the following morning when somebody banged on the door of my room and told me The Governor was on the phone. I stumbled sleepily down the hall and picked up the receiver.

"Trooper Breaux told me what you did. That was good."

"Thank you, Governor. I have to go today and tell Senator Bohannon the truth. He's going to be mad as hell, but I can't let this thing stand. He's too good a man."

"I already told him. Talked to him this morning."

"Furious? Hell, he thought it was good strategy. He was flattered that I'd go to all that trouble."

"What about me. Is he pretty upset with me."

"No. He thinks you're a fine young man, and you ought to get into politics instead of writing for a damned newspaper."

"He wasn't mad?"

"Well, he did say he wouldn't have eat that pizza pie and drunk that Kee-anty wine if he hadn't thought it was in honor of your dear departed Grandpa. By the way, what I said about you being fired--forget about that."

I sighed. "I don't work for you, Governor."

"It don't matter."

Ed Clinton was the only other reporter in the Capitol press room when I came down from the senate finance committee meeting. "I had any calls since you been here?" I asked. "Governor called about ten minutes ago," he answered. "Very important message." "Is he going to give me that interview on the tax bill?" "Nope. Said to tell you to be at the mansion at 4:30 Saturday morning."

"Did he say what for?"

"Said it's time you went to visit your grandma."

"Hokay," I said resignedly. I had planned to take an LSU co-ed I was dating to one of the clubs across the river, but if the Governor said it was time to visit Gramma...it was time to visit Gramma.

I don't like to remember the Governor the way he was in that terrible year of his 1956-60 term of office, when his wonderful mind slipped the track and he embarrassed us all with his bizarre shenanigans. But in 1948, his mind was razor sharp and his political genius was at its zenith. As a young reporter--a year and a half on the capitol beat--I broke the cardinal rule of objective political journalism. I came to genuinely like the man.

Early on, the Governor found out I was a native of his beloved home town of Winnfield and that Mrs. Belle Kelly was my grandmother.

"You go see Miz Belle regular?" he had demanded after a press conference one morning. I still don't know how he learned of my family connections--I never mentioned it--but by then I had already ceased to be astonished at the governor's massive store of information about people.

"I go as often as I can, Governor," I lied, "but I stay pretty busy covering state government and all."

"Horse manure," he proclaimed. "I know what you young bucks in the press corps do with your time. You drink and run with the women. I'm going to Winnfield Saturday. You go with me and visit Miz Belle." He stomped out. Case closed.

That Saturday morning I was at the mansion at 4:30 a.m. with a hell of a hangover. And thereafter, about every six weeks, the governor sent word it was time for me to visit my grandma.

So there I was again on a Saturday, in the inky blackness before dawn, helping State Police Lieutenant "Pinky" Breaux load farm implements and supplies into the big limousine with the "Louisiana One" license plate on it. After we got it loaded, the Governor climbed in front with Pinky and I squeezed in between two giant sacks of fertilizer and rested my feet on a stack of brand new rakes, hoes, shovels and other farm and garden implements. The governor made his usual inquiries about my grandmother's health on the way out North Boulevard to Scenic Highway. "She getting her nourishment and all the doctoring she needs?" "Gramma's appetite is as good as its ever been, Governor. And I don't know that she's ever seen a doctor or taken any medicine other than a dose of Black Draught Tea once a year." "The Jameses are blessed with good health," he said. "Your great-grandpa, Tom James, lived to be 96, and I drove him to the state fair the year he died. I had a devil of a time keeping up with him. Your whole family is like that. I calculate Miz Belle is close to ninety now." "Yessir," I said, "folks in my family live a long time. And with the advances in medicine, I guess some of us will be around longer than my great grandfather was." "Deed you might," he said. We were at the Mississippi River bridge now, and the governor's eyes twinkled with what we in the media had come to recognize as zestful anticipation of an approaching battle. He grinned at the tall smoke stacks of the plants in the industrial complex along the Mississippi. Suddenly, he leaned across the car, almost in front of Pinky, who managed to twist around him so he could see the road. The Governor cranked down the window on Pinky's side and began shaking his fist vigorously at the smokestacks. "Belch out that black smoke," he shouted. "Belch out them dollars for your Yankee masters. Do all you can, 'cause the legislative session is coming." He rolled Pinkie's window up and settled back with a satisfied smile. "When we get into session," he said, turning to face me across the back of the seat, "I swear before God, them smoke- belching, money-making factories is gonna need ever dollar they can get, because they gonna have a bunch of doctorin' and schoolin' and road-buildin' to pay for. You mark my word, we gonna spread some of that profit out among the poor people of this state when I get my tax bill through the legislature." He turned to Pinkie. "Go by way of Opelousas," he said. "I need to tell Margaret to have some of her best girls down there for the session." "Governor," I asked, "why do you always bring in prostitutes when the legislature is in session?" "Well, for one thing, that bunch of tom cats is gonna chase whatever is around, and if the only thing there is the little girls holding jobs at the state capitol, they'll go after them. Some of them children are just out of high school, and I have a responsibility to their mamas and daddies. If I can keep all them roosters in the legislature satisfied with professional ladies, maybe they'll leave the help alone. "And besides that, I can handle 'em better when they've been ale to take care of their sinning. If they stay down there any period of time without bustin' five or six of the commandments, they get mean as snakes." Pinkie spoke up for the first time. "You been in a feisty mood, Governor. You getting your sinning taken care of?" "Nope. You know I don't run with women, Pinkie. The only vices I subscribe to regular are politics and horse racing. But you're dead right. I'm feeling damn fine and good. Damn fine and good." "What's the secret, Governor?" I asked. "It's one of them advances in modern medicine you was talking about earlier." He turned to Pinkie again. "Lieutenant Pierre Alphonse Pinkie Breaux, do you know...do you know at all...what the greatest miracle of modern medicine is?"

"No, Governor, but if it makes you feel that feisty, I want some of it."

"Just wait," the governor said. "You'll need it soon enough."

He settled back in his seat and whistled happily for a few minutes while we waited for him to explain the miracle. Finally Pinkie could stand it no longer.

"What is it, Governor?" he asked.

"I'll tell you," the governor said confidentially. "It's the prostrate massage."

Having delivered himself of this jewel, he settled back with a satisfied grunt and resumed his whistling. Pinkie and I assumed further elaboration would be forthcoming, and after about ten miles, it was.

"Do you know what the prostrate is, Pinkie?"

"When you reach my age, you will." He whistled for the next mile or so.

"It has to do with a man's plumbing," he said finally. "With peeing, mainly."

"Your prostrate sort of lays back in the gap during a man's youth, you see. Then at about my age, it begins to announce itself. What it does, according to Dr. Feinman, it tends to swell itself up." He looked back at me. "You understand?"

"When it swells up, your water pressure drops. Sort of like somebody stepping on a garden hose. You most likely wouldn't know this, Pinkie, but I have stood on the back porch of the Governor's Mansion for upwards of thirty minutes at a time with my whickerbilly in my hand, and not peed more than a thimbleful."

"Damn," Pinkie said. I could think of nothing to add.

"And when it's swoll up like that, it affects a man's outlook on life. He gets low in spirit and feels mean and cantankerous. But the massage is a miracle of modern medicine. After Dr. Feinman got done, my pressure come back up. Right now, I believe I could put a head of foam on the Mississippi River.

"Stop at a gas station when we get to Krotz Springs."

Mr. Earl's performance in the men's room at the service station was obviously of a satisfying nature. He not only whistled cheerfully for several miles afterward, but even raised his voice in song. Then he stopped suddenly in the middle of "In the Sweet Bye and Bye" and turned toward me in a confidential manner. "I have a theory about it," he said. "About what, Governor?" He ignored me. He was talking to Pinkie again. "Most people, particularly up in the hard Baptist country in North Louisiana, don't realize that the Good Lord has a sense of humor. He lets us men grow up feeling pretty smug about escaping from the curse He put on the womenfolk when Eve got to messing around with the old snake in the Garden. You know the curse I'm talking about?" Pinkie said he didn't think he did. I didn't volunteer a guess, because in those days, we didn't talk much about things like that. The governor was exasperated by our apparent ignorance. "Well, hell's bells," he said. "You know. A woman was cursed with that monthly thing. That...you know." "Her minstrel," Pinkie volunteered. "Yeah, that. But what a man don't realize is that about the time that his woman is relieved of her curse--shut of it completely--the Lord is going to rare back and activate the curse in him that He levied on Old Adam back there in the Garden. You know what that is?"

"The prostrate?" Pinkie and I asked in unison.

"Absolutely," the governor said with immense satisfaction. "Now you know about the Lord's little joke ahead of time. It might not surprise you like it did me."

The road wound on toward Opelousas. The governor did not resume his singing. He sat in deep thought for several miles. His voice was no longer cheerful when he spoke.

"There's probably a jillion old men suffering from prostrate right now in Louisiana, and even if they knew what was making them feel so sorry, they wouldn't be able to do nothing about it. This state is full of folks that can't afford doctoring or medicine. Even if there was a hospital they could afford, most of them ain't got no way to get there. Even if they had the money and somebody to take 'em in a car or wagon, five or six months of the year, the country roads are too bad to be traveled. "It's got to change in Louisiana." His voice was low and intense. It was not the voice the public knew...not The Old Master Stump Speaker howling on the hustings. It was the real voice...the voice of a basically shy, deeply caring man. It was a voice very few of us were ever privileged to hear. "Poor folks got to have medical care same as rich people. And their children got to have schooling and school books, and carry something in their lunch sacks besides a cold sweet potato. "Farmers got to have roads to get their crops to market. Little babies born into poor families got to have a chance same as rich people's children. And folks that work all their lives and never do nothing to hurt nobody got to have something to look forward to in their old age besides sitting and rocking and being cold and hungry. "Them that's got more than they need are going to have to share a little of it with them that ain't never had nothing." Pinkie and I did not speak. We knew the governor was thinking aloud and neither needed nor wanted a response.

"Big industry is going to try to crucify me when I give my tax package to the legislature," he said solemnly, "but by God and Moses, when I'm done, they're going to pay for some shoes and books for little kids, and some decent roads...and some old farmer is going to get himself a hernia operation or a pair or eyeglasses. Or a prostrate massage."

It took a long time for the force of the governor's intensity to wear off. We rode in silence. He had touched me, and I knew Pinkie was feeling it, too. But something else was bothering Pinkie, and about 20 miles further on, it came out.

"Where did he do it?"

"In his office, or course."

"I mean, where on you? What did he massage?"

The governor snorted. "I don't care to discuss the intricacies of the medical procedure at this time," he said. When we got to Winnfield, Gramma wanted to know every word uttered by the governor on the way up, because...well, suffice it to say that her shrine--the top of the old Motorola radio in the living room--was the sacred receptacle of three things: a well- used Bible, a framed copy of the newspaper article on the assassination of Huey Long, and a picture of the Governor.

We talked through lunch and far into the afternoon, and I told her the things she wanted to hear: the Governor's plans for better roads, free lunches and textbooks for the school children and decent health care for the elderly. And about the Governor's concern for her nourishment and medical needs and his recollections of her daddy at the state fair when he was 96. She sat there at the kitchen table, blinking back tears occasionally, and I knew that in this tiny old lady was the political strength of that most unusual man who called whores to the legislature to keep faith with the mamas and daddies of the young girls working at the capitol. I didn't feel called upon to tell Gramma about the greatest miracle of modern medicine.