Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress Page 31

  Assigned to the upstairs “annex,” Kiran, Zachary, Lee, and I worked together in a space clearly designed to store brooms. Amid a jumble of file cabinets, desks, and computer wires, the four of us easily violated the fire code every day in our service to democracy.

  Back in college, it had once occurred to me that my love affair with the sound of my own voice might make me an excellent lawyer. And so, for several summers, I’d worked as an intern for the New York State attorney general. The offices were located high up in the World Trade Center. The building was a gargantuan beehive of activity, and it was simply impossible to work there without coming into intimate contact with at least three million people whose tax dollars paid for my stipend each week. Xerox repairmen, corporate lawyers, secretaries, janitors, stockbrokers, dishwashers, mail carriers, travel agents—everyone piled into the elevators together to ride to the “Sky Lobby” on the forty-fourth floor, and you had no choice but to breathe in other people’s armpits, choke on their overzealous cologne, and overhear dozens of enlightening conversations like:

  So, did you fuck her?

  What? Are you kidding me? Of course I fucked her, motherfucker. Who the fuck do you think I am? Richard fucking Simmons, you fucking motherfucker?

  And:

  You hear from your kid yet?

  Yeah, and if he hits me up for money one more time, I swear, his mother and I are going to take a contract out on him.

  And:

  So then she tells me I can’t exchange the dress if I don’t have a receipt. So I go, “Look, bitch. The tags are still on it. You think I went to my own daughter’s wedding with the tags on my dress?” And she goes, “Well, why the hell not? That’s how I went to mine.”

  It might not have been Shakespeare, and it might not have been pretty, but it was the language of real life. And unfortunately, it was nothing we ever heard working on Capitol Hill. For a place that is ostensibly of the people, by the people, and for the people, the Capitol is about as open and accessible as a cryogenic freezer. Kiran, Lee, Zachary, and I might have felt cut off from civilization in our office, but the truth was, we were no more removed than anyone else on the Hill.

  The Capitol complex seems to have been designed by gerbils: situated on a mound above the rest of Washington, all the buildings are connected to each other by underground tunnels. Inside this subterranean complex, members have their own cafeterias, credit unions, post office, parking facilities, barber shop (which explains a lot about politicians’ hair, actually), and yes, their own elevators to ride, off-limits even to staffers. It is physically possible to work in the Capitol for years and never once come into contact with either direct sunlight or actual constituents.

  Of course, constituents do visit all the time, eager to meet their representatives, buy gift soaps emblazoned with the congressional seal, and get a tour of the Capitol. But except for a whining child or two, they are always, always on their absolute best behavior, awed and cowed by the majesty of the place. Trundling through the corridors with their camcorders and fanny packs—or dressed poignantly in their Eagle Scout uniforms and military medals—they speak in hushed tones as they beamingly present their representatives with handcrafted commemorative plaques and pennants from their local basketball team. “Now, Skylar, now, Tiffany,” they prompt their children. “What do you say when you shake the congressman’s hand?” All this civility is fine and good, but it only contributes to the artificiality of the atmosphere. After all, if everybody behaved in real life the way they do when they visit the Capitol, we wouldn’t need a Congress in the first place.

  My second day on the job, Vicki called a staff meeting while Minnie was away “in committee.” Vicki was a sallow, no-nonsense woman with about as much warmth and charisma as a metronome.

  Ushering me into a chair before the rest of the staff, she said, “I want to discuss your attitude. It seems some people in the office have a problem with it.”

  I had been on the job exactly one day.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Vicki said, frowning. “Now some people—I don’t want to say who—have complained that you think you’re better than they are.”

  As a newcomer, I’d spent most of the previous day filling out paperwork, figuring out the code for the Xerox machine, and struggling to log on to the computer network. Later in the afternoon, I’d dribbled Diet Pepsi down the front of my blouse and sopped it up ineffectively with paper napkins. How this qualified as diva behavior was beyond me.

  When I said as much to Vicki, she replied, “See, there’s that attitude again. If you’re going to be on this staff, you’re going to have to become a team player.”

  Then she turned to the guys, who all seemed to be absorbed in staring at their shoelaces. “I don’t want any of you helping her out. Don’t give her briefings. Don’t show her the library. Don’t share any information with her. Understand? Let her find her own way around Congress.”

  Kiran raised his hand. “I’m sorry, but if we can’t work with her, how is she supposed to become a ‘team player’?”

  Vicki gave him a look that could fuse metal. “Don’t you start, either,” she said.

  When the four of us were back upstairs, I said, “Was she kidding?”

  “Afraid not,” said Zachary.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But exactly what fucking ‘attitude problem’ do I have?”

  Zachary shook his head. “You don’t. It’s Vicki,” he said. “Vicki has a problem with you.”

  “After one day?”

  “‘Vicki has a problem with everyone,” Lee sighed.

  “What about Edna?” I asked. As the deputy chief of staff, Edna was the person we were supposed to go to if we had problems with Vicki.

  “Edna has a problem with everyone, too,” said Lee.

  “Look,” Zachary said, “we didn’t want to tell you this right away, because you just got here. But you know that Vicki and Edna are Minnie’s best friends, right?”

  This I knew. I’d met both women during Minnie’s congressional campaign. The three of us seemed to have gotten along well, in fact; Edna and I had even made several important donut runs together.

  “And you know that Vicki and Edna are also lovers?” Zachary said.

  This I also knew. It was no secret to anyone that they were essentially an old married couple. They even dressed alike. On the campaign, they’d seemed to have a penchant for Bermuda shorts and gum-soled boat shoes. No one could ever accuse them of being slick Washington operatives.

  “Usually, you have a chief of staff and a deputy so that if employees have a problem with one, they can go to the other,” said Zachary. “But we can’t do that here, because the chief of staff and the deputy are live-in girlfriends. And we can’t complain to Minnie about them either, because they’re her best friends.”

  “And they don’t trust any of us, and they don’t like any of us,” said Kiran. “Even me. And I’m adorable.”

  “Every day, the whole stuff will meet with Minnie and agree to sponsor some piece of legislation, or create some sort of filing system or whatever,” said Lee. “But then Vicki and Edna go home, talk it over, and decide alone between themselves and Minnie to do things completely differently.”

  “Then they yell at us for not following orders properly,” said Kiran.

  “We have no power in this office. We’re treated like suspects,” said Zachary. “All of us are fucking miserable. Every evening, when we appear to be working late? We’re printing out our rÉsumÉs.”

  “Yep. This office is totally fucked,” Kiran declared, almost proudly.

  I sat down, stunned. “But Minnie seems so great,” I said.

  “Minnie is great. Minnie is amazing,” said Zachary. “Minnie is the only reason any of us stick around.”

  “But Minnie is almost never here,” said Lee. “She’s always running back to the district to stay connected to the voters.”

  “So we get left
with the two evil stepmothers downstairs,” said Zachary.

  “Sorry we had to tell you this so soon,” said Kiran. “But it seems that Vicki already has a problem with you. And no offense, but after one day, that’s kind of a record in this office.”

  That night, my mother called again. “So? How’d your second day go?”

  “Well, the chief of staff informed me she doesn’t like my attitude. Her girlfriend is the deputy chief of staff, so I have no one else to go to, and I found out all my colleagues are miserable and looking for other jobs,” I said. “Other than that, I guess it went fine.”

  On the Hill, it seems, every politician carries with them the circumstances of their election. It haunts them like a trauma, like a childhood of abuse. Even if they’re not conscious of it, they remember where every campaign check and endorsement came from, and they never forget their enemies. While they have one eye on their reelection, they inevitably have the other on their back.

  When Minnie ran for Congress as the self-made wife of a factory worker, she had few established players in her corner. A lot of politicians have a vast army of power brokers backing them: big businesses, alumni associations, interest groups, trade associations: more than a few candidates actually run for office with a sense of entitlement.

  By contrast, when Minnie declared she was running for Congress, even though she was ahead in the polls, the head of the Democratic Party in her own district tried to bully her out of running.

  “The unions here don’t want a skirt representing them,” he told her bluntly. “Go to Washington, and mark my words: you’ll get no support from us, and your husband will leave you.”

  Until the fund-raising group Emily’s List stepped in, most of the support Minnie received was grassroots: a coffee klatch here, a PTA there. Meanwhile, opponents from her own party literally went through her trash, looking for anything personal she might have scribbled on statehouse letterhead so they could claim she abused the privileges of her public office.

  As Minnie’s campaign struggled to kick into high gear, Vicki and Edna were moving to the Sunbelt. When Minnie called them in tears one evening at their motel, they literally turned their U-Haul around and returned to the Midwest. After that, they pretty much lived at campaign headquarters, straightening out Minnie’s budget, running to the printers for extra bumper stickers, organizing chicken dinner fund-raisers. During Minnie’s moments of exhaustion and insecurity at two o’clock in the morning, it was Vicki and Edna who sent out for pizza, held her hand, and told her bad jokes. Their loyalty was bulletproof.

  So it was no surprise to me that Minnie wanted them beside her in the foxholes of Washington. Managerially, it was a terrible decision, of course. But as I sat in the Hawk ‘n’ Dove after work, watching boyish Hill staffers in suspenders smoke cigars and slap each other on the back shouting, “Dude, that Contract with America is awesome!” I knew I’d probably have done the same thing.

  And Minnie was hardly alone. I quickly learned of two other freshman members who’d hired their best friends, too. In the viper pit of Washington—where your enemies pay good money to “negative research firms” to dig up dirt on you, where any misstep can land you before a phalanx of television cameras, and where your own young, ambitious staffers are often using their jobs as springboards to higher places—hiring trusted friends doesn’t strike some people as unethical but as a sheer necessity if they ever want to get a good night’s sleep.

  While my office mates complained about their powerlessness in the office, I, as a writer, was pretty much used to it. Editors almost never took my suggestions, and after I wrote the articles they assigned me, they went ahead and cut them up any way they wanted, then waited until the next vernal equinox to pay me. Unlike my office mates, who had dreams of law school, White House jobs, or running for public office themselves, the only reasons I’d taken the job with Minnie were to impress people at cocktail parties, live out some high-minded ideals, and bore the hell out of my progeny. Once Vicki and Edna realized that I was playing for their team exclusively, I figured they’d get off my back. Until then, I just concentrated on my work.

  The first week, Minnie telephoned me from the House floor. “I’m speaking in ten minutes,” she said. “Can you find me a pithy quote about power and responsibility that I can use to spice up my remarks?”

  Since we didn’t have Internet access yet, I flipped open our one quotation book. In no time, I found a brilliant line.

  There was just one small problem.

  It was by Richard Nixon.

  Then I found second great quote.

  This one was by Machiavelli.

  Although Machiavelli has some huge fans on Capitol Hill, I suspected he wasn’t quite the person Minnie wanted to be heard quoting on the House floor.

  The third quote I found was the best yet: a real gem, short, powerful, and eloquent.

  Unfortunately, this one was attributed to Adolf Hitler.

  “So what?” Kiran cried. “Minnie can just say, ‘As a politician once said …’ She doesn’t have to name names. Who’s going to know she’s quoting Hitler?”

  Zachary looked at Kiran in amazement. “Only every fucking Nazi, Klansman, and Aryan Nation yahoo in the entire country, you fucking moron.”

  “Plus,” said Lee diplomatically, “I could see where some Jews and World War Two veterans might recognize it and get a little upset.”

  Minnie called me back. “Did you find anything yet? Whatever you do, make sure it’s nonpartisan.”

  In the end, the best I could find was a quote by Harry Truman, whom even the Republicans seemed enamored with. Even so, we got an irate phone call afterward from a constituent who wanted to know why Minnie had been on C-SPAN quoting “that degenerate fag novelist.” Apparently, the caller had confused President Truman with Truman Capote.

  These were the type of people we were dealing with back in the district. Every day, we got bags full of letters, many of which had all the cheerfulness and penmanship of ransom notes. It seemed that anyone who had enough time to write their congressperson was almost, by definition, someone with way too much free time. We heard disproportionately from retired people, schoolchildren, conspiracy theorists, and the criminally insane. While the schoolchildren’s letters were charming, we rarely answered them since children don’t vote. The others tended to consist of laundry lists of misery. People would write demanding that Minnie do something about the industrial incinerator next door to their property, the potholes in their driveway, their children’s dilapidated schools, the pornography at their local video store, the noise emanating from the airport, the lack of affordable housing, and the high cost of health insurance. They would then conclude their letters by writing, “But above all else, I want you to lower my taxes. The government sucks. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I vote for any of you lying, thieving bastards.”

  We’d have to log these letters in a database and respond with a form letter, thanking them “for sharing your valuable opinion with the congresswoman.”

  Since Minnie had instructed me to “communicate to constituents on their level,” I tried to figure out exactly what this “level” was. While I made sure to slog through the Congressional Record, the Congressional Quarterly, and Roll Call each day in order to understand what was going on in Congress, I spent the remainder of my time boning up on those things that seemed to be of far greater interest to our constituents: namely, soap operas. I then followed up with a healthy dose of Ricki Lake, Geraldo, and Sally Jesse Raphael, then an intensive reading of the National Enquirer, TV Guide, and People magazine, before finally finishing off with a perusal of the Fingerhut catalogue.

  For the first month or two, this strategy seemed to work. I not only figured out the difference between things like mandatory and discretionary spending, but how to explain them to voters in clear, simple, language. (Mandatory spending is a fixed, regular expense—like your rent or car payments. Discretionary spending is what you decide to buy with whatever’s lef
t of your paycheck.) However, the more I began to think like our constituents, the less I cared about House legislation and the more I became invested in what was going on between Alan and Monica Quartermaine on General Hospital. While I still couldn’t name the head of the House Ways and Means Committee or explain how a filibuster worked, I did learn everything there was to know about Kathie Lee Gifford’s new spring sportswear line, the hidden dangers of liposuction, and how a kitten, a vacuum cleaner, and a parakeet could make for one uproariously wacky home video. In less than three months, I went from being a know-nothing to a total moron.

  Ironically, while working on the Hill is never easy, I found that it was particularly difficult working for somebody who’d been elected to Congress largely because of her contempt for it.

  One of the first things Minnie did upon arriving in Washington was to pledge that neither she nor her staff would accept any gifts or perks. At the time, both the House and the Senate were debating a gift ban that limited the freebies Congress could accept from outsiders, but Minnie wasn’t waiting. When the nurses’ union offered to take her to lunch, she declined. When direct mail firms sent her boxes of candy, she mailed them right back. When schoolchildren sent her cookies, she donated them to a local hospital. She was scrupulous. A free junket to Disney World, a round of golf at Pebble Beach, or a steak lunch at the Palm? No thank you. Other members might scarf at the congressional trough, but she was not for sale.