Capitol Punishment. Andrew Welsh-Huggins
edge of the Statehouse lawn.
“What is this place?”
“Top of the Cupola,” Hershey said. “What the original architects went for instead of a dome. It was all about Greek Revival in those days. This is the highest point in the building.”
“Impressive.”
“Thought you’d think so. A little thank you for helping me out.”
I moved to the next window to the right. I said, “Curious how you got a key to this place. I assume they don’t hand those out to any old reporter.”
“You’d assume correctly.”
“So?”
“A lady friend of mine had a copy. We rendezvoused up here a couple of times.”
“To do what?”
“To ‘commit nuisance,’” Hershey said. “What do you think?”
“Give me a break.”
“What can I say? She had a thing for unusual meeting places.”
I looked at him, trying to see if he was serious. The glance he returned was inscrutable; boyish and teasing. The class clown.
“How’d this friend happen to have a key to the Statehouse Cupola?”
“Connections.”
“Who is it?”
“Next question.”
“OK. Is it a source? Or someone who might be following you?”
“No comment on the first count, doubtful on the second.”
“This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to find out who’s after you if you won’t tell me anything?”
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.”
“Why?”
“Because if I gave you the name of every aggrieved woman I’d slept with, we’d be here all night. I’m sure you can identify. C’mere. Check this out.”
Before I could protest, he turned and played his cell phone flashlight across the room’s whitewashed wall. My eyes widened. I’d missed the sight before me as we’d entered the space. Hundreds of signatures covered the surface, big and small, in blue and red and black pen, some in bold flourishes, some in tiny script, a few with cartoony illustrations, almost all with an accompanying date. Hershey started walking, keeping the light on the names.
“It’s a tradition for visitors to sign when they come up here,” Hershey said. “Dates back well over a hundred years, although these are all relatively new. When they renovated this place in the 1990s, somebody thought it was a good idea to paint over everything up to that point. Can you imagine what was lost? I mean, Lincoln stopped here once, and not just lying in his casket on the way back to Illinois. But we’ll never know if he came up here. These are the only survivors from before.”
I followed his gesture. A low rough-hewn bench encircled the wall, names and dates carved into the planks.
“Here’s the oldest one I’ve found,” Hershey said, up ahead. He shone his light on the name. J. Cook, 1870.
“Any idea who that was?”
“Somebody who liked to commit nuisance, I’m hoping.”
We continued along the wall, looking at more names. I made out the signature of a former governor and a couple of reporters I knew, but few others. As we walked, I reminded myself I was supposed to be a bodyguard, not just a tourist. In that moment I realized how difficult it would be to detect an attacker up here. Because the room circled the curved inner wall of signatures, you couldn’t see very far in either direction. Anyone from an aggrieved woman to a pissed-off source could be lurking just a few feet away without being detected. I straightened up and started casting glances ahead and behind. I wondered if this had been such a good idea.
We made the full circuit and arrived back where we started. I stood and looked around and listened. Finally, convinced we were assassin-free for the moment, I peered at the wall of signatures again.
“Where’s yours?” I said.
“Never signed.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, I’ve never been up here, officially,” he said with a grin. “And second, I’m more the observer type, you know? I like to watch, not be watched.”
“You don’t want to be part of history?” I said, gesturing at the signature of an Ohio State basketball player now in the NBA.
“Kind of like I said before, Woody. I record history. I don’t need to be part of it. So listen. You and Dr. Cooper ever want to spice things up . . .” He showed me the key with arched eyebrows.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
“I bet you will.”
We descended a few minutes later, me leading, easing my way down, feeling the strain on my knees even more than on the way up. Halfway back down to the level where we’d started, Hershey stopped me and led the way through a door into a room filled with desks and metal racks, and then out into a corridor. We climbed down another set of stairs and a minute later found ourselves in an enormous circular hall.
“The Rotunda,” Hershey declared. He pointed up, and I stared into what looked like the inside of a giant bell overhead. “We were just walking around the outside of that,” he explained. “The outer wall of that dome is what all the signatures are written on.”
I nodded, and followed him as he walked slowly around the circumference of the room. On the far side we stopped in front of a marble frieze depicting Confederate generals surrendering to their Union counterparts at the Battle of Vicksburg. At the top, a bust of Lincoln looked out over the room.
I started at the sound of Hershey’s echoing voice, reading the inscription. “‘Care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans,’” he said. He stood there a moment longer before walking to the center of the room. He gestured upward at the salmon-colored interior of the dome.
“I love seeing this at night,” he said. “Gives you a real sense of reverence.”
“Reverence?” I said, skeptically.
“Sure. Can’t you feel it? The aura? The vibe? Our founders’ hopes and dreams, enshrined in a building it took decades to construct in order to last centuries. We’re at ground zero of democracy in Ohio. The home of eight presidents. Count ’em, eight. And as they say, as Ohio goes, so goes the nation.”
“Help me out here. A minute ago you were cracking wise about lunatics and groins. An hour ago you were stage whispering your contempt for almost everyone we met at the Clarmont, except for your Democratic operative pal who you ogled instead. No offense, but am I missing something?”
“Oh, and you’ve never made fun of the things you love?”
“I’m just trying to figure out what I’ve gotten myself into.”
“So I’m a hypocrite—congrats on the big reveal. Among other things, it probably puts me in good company with all the people I write about. Satisfied?”
“Not really.”
“Open your eyes, then. I mean, look at it.” He gazed around the Rotunda, gesturing at the walls. “To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, ‘You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.’ But it’s my hive, and yours too, and the people’s of Ohio. It’s all we’ve got and it’s actually something. And I’ll be damned if I let the fools who run this place ever forget that.”
I followed his gaze, and stared up into the dome again. I lowered my eyes and thought about what he’d said. After a minute I had to admit I saw