American Rhapsody Read Free

there. “He was telling me about the show,”
Arkansas Democrat
columnist Phillip Martin said. “He was telling me about Joe Cocker’s band. He said ‘Man, they were bad; they were just a kick-ass band, man!’ You know, he really wanted to play with Joe Cocker rather than going out there and playing ‘Summertime’ on his sax. But he was afraid to ask. He was really in awe.” And when Stephen Stills asked Roger up onstage once, he said, “I was so excited, I thought I would pee my pants.”
    He was one of us, it became apparent, in another special way, too, the classic sixties child in love with, addicted to, the pleasures provided him by his penis, which he called “Willard.” There was even a cartoon flyer circulated around Arkansas early in his political career that showed Bill Clinton looking down and saying, “Dick, you kept me from being the President of the United States.”
    He was a
southern
rock and roller, a hillbilly cat like Elvis and Jerry Lee, growing up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a neon-lit haven of gamblers and whores, once patronized by Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, and Lucky Luciano. Bill Clinton may have been born in Hope, but he grew up in Sin City, with a mama who painted her eyebrows, pasted on false eyelashes, loved the racetrack, and helled around in her convertible, drink in hand, from the Vapors to the Pines to the Southern Club, with or without her husband. A ripe peach of a woman, there to be tasted.
    He developed a lifelong yen for those ripe peaches, for rock and roll, and for convertibles. It all came together in August 1977, the perfectly realized, transcendent Bill Clinton rock and roll moment, when he was already a married man, the attorney general of Arkansas. Dolly Kyle, a ripe-peach girlfriend he hadn’t seen for a while, now also married, came to see him in his office. He introduced her around the office as an old and good friend and then walked her out to her car and he . . . just flipped out! It was a brand-spanking-new turquoise Cadillac El Dorado convertible, 500-horsepower, nineteen feet long, eight-track tape player, AM/FM radio. It was the ultimate hepcat thing, a chrome-plated, poke-your-eye-out, southern gothic Elvismobile, hotter even than the Caddy convertible Chance Wayne (and Paul Newman) drove in
Sweet Bird of Youth
.
    He asked if he could drive it, and Dolly said sure, so Bill Clinton got behind the wheel and took her out on the freeway and juiced her up over a hundred, veering, skidding a little, laughing like a kid. He took his foot off the pedal then and let her drift, just gliding along, grinning. Elvis was singing on the eight-track and he sang along . . . “Treat me right, treat me good, treat me like you really should.”
    Bill Clinton pulled off into a field, with no houses nearby, and got out and popped the hood open and looked at her motor. Then he looked into her trunk and found some blankets and got back in the front seat and started kissing Dolly. He put the blanket over the front seat and pulled the convertible’s top down and told Dolly to take her dress off. He took off every stitch of his clothing, including his cuff links, and put his clothes neatly into the backseat. The sun was shining . . . it was a radiant, warm day . . . the Cadillac was gleaming . . . and they got it on. He put his finger into the sweat inside her belly button and he licked his finger. He reached into the backseat, put his pants back on, and walked back to the trunk for some water. He drank, offered her some, and took his pants off again. He moved her hand to Willard and said, “Touch it.” They got it on again. They got dressed and started driving back to his office. He put the Elvis eight-track back on and he started humming along to the song.
    â€œToday’s my wedding anniversary,” she told him.
    â€œAre you happy?” he asked.
    â€œAre you?”