“Goodmorninghaveaniceday. Goodmorninghaveaniceday.
Goodmorninghaveaniceday.” The old man stood at the subway station every day, a stack
of free news papers by his side, his calls greeting the suburb dwellers as they rushed from
the air conditioned comfort of the parking garage, trying to make the 7:35 on time, their
suits already sweaty from the brief moments in the Silver Spring morning humidity.
“Goodmorninghaveaniceday. Goodmorninghaveaniceday.
Goodmorninghaveaniceday,” his words blurred together, bumping into each other and
tumbling along, like the morning commuters that jostled past him every day.
Chris was late, he stepped off the bus and rushed to the subway steps, the sounds
of the morning rush not important enough to permeate through the panic which was now
pounding in his ear drums. Time was precious, and he had none of it. Swiping his quick
trip, he climbed onto the subway and moved towards DC, standing so close, yet so far
away from all those around him.
Union station was a mile, give or take, from his office building. Chris paused,
heading out the doors, to light a cigarette, a brief respite from his hectic morning. A man
was playing the blues on the corner, his case open in front of him spoke to the bargain he
had made with the general public. It was the same bargain made by street musicians and
bums all across America. If you paid the tolls, you didn’t have to think about where he
would sleep that night. The price was not for the art, but for the inner knowledge that you
had made a difference, and that really, there was nothing more you could do. When you
supported the arts you could go home with your head held high, maybe in a different life
you would be the one playing the sax,
Chris was not an artist. He’s a student, a kid really. An intern working in the
office of congressman Harten. He reads Kafka but he doesn’t enjoy it. Smoking
cigarettes helps him restore an otherwise elusive bit of normalcy. The smoke goes down,
it burns, you breath out. Simple stuff. He drops a dollar into the mans case, not looking at
him, and starts the twenty minute walk to work, the smoke hanging over him, not a black
cloud exactly, but not something entirely unlike one.
***
“Are you drunk?” Cindy was not amused. “This is the third time this month
you’ve been late, and I don’t even want to talk about what you smell like.” Chris
managed only a weary smile for his fellow intern, and went back to deleting the faxes.
Every day the office received hundreds, and they had to be gone through, whether he was
hung over or not. Faxes came from everywhere and about everything. You sorted them
into three catagories, the ones that came from organizations, the ones that came from
constituents, and the crap. A fax from the NRA, printed and thrown into one pile. A fax
from a Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham in Schenectady, NY printed out and put into another
pile. A fax from Mr. Steven Tung in Raleigh, NC, deleted. The ones from organizations
would be sorted and forwarded to the staffer that dealt with that issue. The ones from
constituents would be sorted by issue and sent form letters in response, the ones from
people who didn’t know how congress worked would be deleted. It was serious work.
Michael Brugglio cared about immigration. He cared so much about it that he had chosen
to tell Chris about it thirty eight times, all with the same form lettered fax. Chris deleted
37 of them, and printed out one copy to forward to the staffer who dealt with that issue.
Three hundred and ninety three faxes to go. Every day they came, and no matter how fast
you worked they would write again tomorrow. It’s the little things that give life meaning.
Chris zoned out and imagined what Cindy would look like with his dick in her mouth. He
smiled and moved on to the faxes that were concerned about “birth tourism.”
Office life was punctuated by the phone. Serious people worked in this office, and
there was nothing more embarrassing to the Congressman then having his phone ring
more than twice, or so Chris had been told. When the phone rang, a Pavlovian reaction
went through all the interns, as they scrambled to make sure the bell would not toll the
dreaded third time. “Good Morning, Congressman Harten’s office, how can I help you?”
Chris said into the receiver. “I’m sorry, the staffer who deals with that issue is
unavailable, can I have your name and address so I can take down a message?... No, sir,
I’m sorry, as I said the staffer who deals with that issue isn’t available....No I can’t tell
you their name... Can I please just take down your name and add....” The click of the
receiver told him the caller was no longer with him. He shrugged and continued doing
faxes. Sometimes it was like that. Chris didn’t actually blame them for hanging up. His
main job was basically to pass block. The staffer who dealt with that issue was available.
He could see her at her desk drinking a coffee, but she couldn’t take every call from
every constituent who thought they knew something about global warming. That’s what
the form letters were for.
Every caller thought they knew something the Congressman didn’t. Every caller
thought they had the solution, and for the most part, they were completely wrong. Just
last week some man in Amsterdam, NY had talked to him for twenty minutes about how
the British should be forced to send soldiers down to the gulf of mexico to clean up the
BP oil spill, after all, they were a British company. Chris couldn’t tell the man he was a
fucking moron, just like he couldn’t tell the lady who called Friday that the Congressman
could do the exact same thing she could about the New York State budget deficit; vote
for someone else. That just wasn’t his job.
***
He had meant to go to bed early. Board the red line and go home, maybe have a
gin and tonic before watching the mets game and heading to bed. The things Chris meant
to do, however, often had very little influence on the things Chris actually did. His phone
rang 5 minutes after he left the office, telling him about the party at the Georgetown
campus, and almost before he knew what he was doing, he was on his way.
When you grow up in suburbia there’s always this idea that you have it made.
Right parents, right grades, right SAT scores. Get you into the right college and the right
internship. Have the right job and marry the right woman. Have kids grow old. The
whole process would begin itself again. Chris often thought of something his aunt said to
him when he was 18, heading off to his first year in college. You will be amazed by the
new and inventive ways people will find to fuck up their lives. Standing in the corner,
nursing a beer, he wondered what his aunt would think of him.
The air around him pulsated with music and sex. Stick 40 college kids in a room,
add alcohol, and it doesn’t matter if they went to Harvard or tech school, you’d get the
same result. Chris found himself talking to a girl with strawberry blonde hair, skirt hiked
up mid thigh, blouse undone till it showed lace.
There was a definite pecking order to Washington life, reinforced whenever
possible. There was a delicate balance. You had to dress nice, but if you looked better
than the staffers you were likely to be stuck hand-folding constituency letters every day,
or asked to work through lunch while the other inters got an hour. Staffers got green
security clearance, interns got red. Some interns didn’t seem to recognize this difference
and insisted on displaying their credentials all over town, thinking it made them look
important. Really, it just made them seem foolish. Chris smirked as he saw the red badge
of courage prominently displayed on her hip. So this was sexy office chic.
She was talking about something a constituent had said the earlier. He wasn’t
really listening. He could barely hear her over the sound of the music. She drifted in and
out of his attention. “I mean yeah they’re totally so stupid. They don’t even know who
my Congressman is. They just call and...” He stopped listening. Chris Scanned the room,
hoping to catch a glimpse of Cindy. He hadn’t seen her at a party yet, but that didn’t
mean he had to stop hoping. She drifted in again “...And I wasn’t even sure what a cage
was. Like, they told me to go work the machine in the cage and I was like...Um...What
does that mean. But everyone was so friendly. It was great they ordered pizza for...” and
she was out again. He looked at the beer in his hand and wondered why he was even
here. He looked at the girl in front of him again. She was still going. “I’m not sure why
they...”
“Do you ever wonder where the men on the corner sleep at night?” Chris said.
“What?”
“I said do you want to dance.” There was no point in having conversations with
people sometimes.
“Oh sure,” she laughed. “I thought you weren’t going to ask.”
He moved her closer to the music, the speakers pounding in his ears. His hands on
he hips, they pushed their bodies together to the music. Alcohol spurred him on and he
kissed her right there, and she kissed him back. It was weird, Chris thought, that the only
time we could actually get close to one another is when we‘re drunk.
They went back to her dorm that night, and explored each other under the sheets.
Chris felt his heart rate rising to the occasion, their mouths met again and again. The
music from the party was still pumping in his head. Low guttural bass beats that shook
him on the inside. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding. She was on her back and he was
above her, his hands holding her tightly around the waist, They continued the dance and
the beat propelled them. She gasped and moaned the name he’d told her. He gritted his
teeth and exhaled. The music stopped. They collapsed together, for a moment he felt as if
they were actually touching.
Later on, when the alarm clock on her desk read three am he slipped out of the
bed, and dessed. Opening the door he went out into the night, and felt the breeze upon his
skin. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a cigarette, he lights it with a match, and
walks down the street with his arm extended, hoping to catch a cabbie that hasn’t yet
called it quits. So much for an early night.
) 4 steaks, well done. $77, paid $80, "Keep the change, mama. You were great." Yeah, my ass.
4 top, newlyweds and hubby's parents. The new wife orders the filet mignon, medium-well. I ask her if she would like steak sauce. Food comes, and she looks at it like it's the most disgusting thing on the planet. I ask if she would like to cut into to it to make sure the temp is good for her. She says to me, with the bitchiest bitch face, "This isn't fish." Suddenly, I'm confused. That was not the response I was expecting. I am honestly flabberghasted. I don't know how to respond. She repeats herself. Finally, I say, "Yes ma'am. It's a steak." She says, "I wanted the fish." I am fucking speechless. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO SAY. So, I say, "Of course. Let me get a menu for you and I'll make sure you get exactly what you want." Fish?! I bring the menu, she points to the item she ordered, on the page with the giant letters at the top that says "Steaks" and the huge picture of slabs of cow on a fire grill. I say, "Yes ma'am, that's a filet mignon, it's a particularly tender cut of steak." I turn the page for her, to the seafood section, "These are all the fish items that we offer. I'd be happy to get anything you like, free of charge. (We had a certain amount we could give away each night.) End of the meal, hubby complains to the manager that I made his wife feel stupid. ............ Full comp. No tip.
