The iCongressman, page 5
part #2 of The Michael Bennit Series Series
“Go ahead, get up. I dare you,” I threaten through clenched teeth. Blake surprises me with a little laugh. Is he seriously taunting me?
“Why? Are you going to kick my ass? Leave me here in a bloody heap for the groundskeepers to find? Go ahead, but I’m going to say my piece.”
Blake gets up, his clothes now soaked from the heavy dew clinging to the emerald green grass. He brushes himself off and draws closer, tenderly checking the gash on his now puffy, red cheek and gash in his bloody lower lip.
“Hit me again if you want, but I learned the consequences of not speaking up. I could have fought against spreading the rumor about you and Chelsea during the election, but I didn’t. I stayed quiet, and have paid the price ever since.”
As a teacher, I always wanted my students to learn lessons from their mistakes. It was a message I explained to them after the man standing defiantly in front of me released embarrassing information about some of Vince, Peyton, and Brian’s transgressions. Blake may be a little older, but isn’t that lesson a universal one?
“All right, finish what you came here to say,” still ready to hit him again if I feel the need.
“You could play by every rule the House has and it would still change nothing about the situation we’re all in. Americans have had it with the government. Whether it’s a president acting more like a king, or partisans in Congress playing games at the expense of the citizens who put them there, we’ve reached the tipping point. Enough is enough. We have not been this divided, and this discontented, since the Civil War. It scares me what could happen next.
“You have a once in a generation opportunity. You may not have asked for it, or even wanted it, but America needs you to serve them once again. Not with a rifle in a distant land, but with a voice right here at home. To speak for them, and seize the chance to effect some positive change. I hope you don’t waste the moment, because the expiration date on this opportunity is fast approaching.”
I hate being lectured, especially when someone is trying to duplicitously appeal to my sense of duty. The feeling is doubly intense when the man doing it is Blake Peoni. But even through my unmitigated anger, I realize he may have a point.
“Please think about what I’ve said,” Blake adds, starting his walk back toward the road heading out of Section Sixty. “For all our sakes.”
-EIGHT-
CHELSEA
The congressman returns to the office a full three hours after we thought he would. The only plausible explanation is he shunned the Metro and opted for a long, leisurely stroll across the bridge over the Potomac River and up the National Mall. That’s his prerogative, but it left us bored.
“It’s not enough that I get censured on a monthly basis? Now you have me contributing to the delinquency of minors?” the congressman asks Kylie when he enters, sans any real shock or annoyance in his voice.
Not relishing the idea of hanging out in the office on a Friday morning when the House is not in session, Kylie had made a pit stop and brought back some adult beverages. Mister Bennit is greeted with the sight of us all holding bottles of Sam Adams. It wouldn’t be a big deal if anyone else in the room other than Kylie was over the age of twenty-one.
“You guys realize it’s eleven in the morning?” Okay, I suppose that makes it a big deal too.
“We know,” is all Kylie bothers to answer.
“It’s been a rough week,” Vince adds.
“And it’s five o’clock somewhere,” Vanessa chimes in for good measure, uttering one of the most overused clichés ever. I don’t bother saying anything.
“All right, since all of you here can’t be a good sign, I might need this,” the congressman says while selecting a bottle out of the six-pack. He pops the top off using the opener and takes a long swig. He knows an intervention when he sees one. “Okay, who gets to take the first swing?”
“Don’t get all defensive already, honey,” Kylie warns. “You’re going to hear what we have to say now or you can regret it tonight.” She has a way with him. Kylie may be the only person on this planet I’ve met who can be more stubborn than Mister Bennit is.
The implication of Kylie’s comment is not lost on the congressman, and he relents quickly. No couple is perfect, but they are as close to a perfect match as I have ever seen. I thought he and his former fiancée went well together, but not until I spent more time with my mentor did the ugly truth of their relationship start to show.
With Kylie, it is much different. She moved to Washington not long after last year’s special election, and since they were inseparable anyway, Mister Bennit moving in with her was a no-brainer. Between his condominium in Millfield and her apartment only a few blocks away, their living situation was covered.
Together, they are a force of nature—strong, unyielding, and undeterred. They have a love for each other I haven’t seen since I was a kid. My mom and dad had a great marriage before she died. Even with all the congressman’s troubles since he came to Washington, Kylie has been unflinching in her support of him. It’s inspiring, in more ways than one.
Kylie Roberts is the polar opposite of Mister Bennit’s ex-fiancée, Jessica Slater. Miss Slater was fashion model beautiful, with, long, blonde hair, impeccable fashion sense, and curves in the all the right places. Kylie has more of a girl next door beauty, with dark hair, and a petite, yet powerful build. I asked Vince to compare them once, and he said Jessica was the girl you want to sleep with while Kylie was the one you wanted to marry. Pretty astute analysis, I think.
“What do you guys want to know?”
“What did Blake have to say?” I ask, surely the most curious since I was the one initially approached to set up the meeting.
“Before or after I laid him out with a right hook?”
“You hit him?” a couple of us cry out simultaneously.
“Twice, actually.”
“Bet that felt good,” Vanessa deadpans. “I’ve had dreams about doing that.” She glances at me and I reward her with a smirk of agreement. I have dreamt about it too, even after having smacked him that night at Briar Point. We tip our bottles at each other and take a sip.
“Let’s go with what caused you to go all Rocky Balboa on him,” Kylie remarks to give the conversation a nudge forward.
“He called me a coward.” Oops, that was a mistake.
“He set a meeting with you just to challenge your honor?” Vince queries, somewhat baffled at Blake’s behavior while equally admiring his ballsiness. It’s the last thing any of us would dream of saying to him, regardless of how pissed off we are.
“No, he set the meeting to tell me to stop trying to play their game.”
“He wants you to play Candyland,” I add, a direct reference to the strategy that got us here.
Knowing we could not beat Winston Beaumont in a traditional campaign, we decided to change the rules and force him to play our game. Mister Bennit likened it to beating a chess master by forcing him to play Candyland. We used our involvement as students, social media, and mainstream media coverage of both to do precisely that.
“Yeah, Chels, and he told me to get my head out of my ass in the process.”
Vince chokes on his beer as the comment caught him mid-swallow. “He said that?” Vince’s admiration level of Blake just went up another notch. Congressman Bennit nods in response as Vince wipes his chin.
“Well, he’s right,” Kylie offers, getting everyone to turn their attention to her. I guess she is going to lead this charge.
“Oh, not you too?”
“Look, just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t make it untrue. I’ve been covering politics my entire adult life and you want to know what I’ve learned? People don’t want to give a damn.”
“I already figured that out, Kylie. I ran on that basis the first time, remember?”
“That’s not what I mean. People elect others to run the government and make decisions for them so they don’t have to. Hell, most of them wouldn’t even want to if given the chance. Americans have their own problems and don’t want to worry about things that don’t directly affect them or that they can’t easily do something about. The only reason they get excited about anything political is when it’s about an issue they like, a law they don’t, or a person they believe in actually runs for office.”
“And you’re that man, Congressman,” I say, finally getting a chance to chime in on Kylie’s monologue. It’s one of the few contributions I get to make around here. “Vince, Vanessa, me, and all the others joined your campaign for that reason. People voted for you for that reason. Now we are all just waiting for you to be the leader you need to be.”
“Honey, all I’m saying is millions of Americans lost faith in the system a long time ago,” Kylie continues after my contribution to the argument. “The pettiness, the partisan politics, the corruption … they all contributed to a collective national blindness for what goes on here in Oz.”
“And you want me to pull back the curtain?”
“No, we can’t settle for that. Not anymore. We need you to kill the Wicked Witch and set Oz free.”
“Oh, that’s it? So now I’m Dorothy? I suppose you guys are going to be handing me the buckets of water.”
“Damn straight we will be,” Vanessa adds, the serious look on her face letting everyone know that the chica is itching for a fight.
“How? We don’t have the weapons we once did. I have all of one ally in the House, and I’m pretty sure he’s spent too much time in the Texas sun. The media has turned on me, I have no clout or influence thanks to the political parties, and our social media following is dwindling. Even you can’t help with that anymore, sweetie, because you can’t influence what is reported like you did in the campaign,” the congressman accurately points out.
“Since when do we care what the media thinks?” Vince challenges. It’s an honest question coming from the press secretary. “We didn’t during the campaign. They hated on us for ignoring them, and chastised us for not talking about issues. It didn’t bother us then, so why now?”
“It shouldn’t. We need go back to breaking all the rules and not caring what the media or anyone else here says,” Vanessa implores.
“And use the social media machine we built up to get our side of the story to the only group who matters—the voters back home,” I add, taking up the argument. Damn, you’d think we rehearsed this. I guess we are all so passionate about it, we didn’t have to.
“Social media doesn’t work for us anymore. People have tuned us out,” the congressman offers. He’s not one to make excuses, so hearing one come out of his mouth is a little shocking.
“How do you know? When was the last time you even logged onto Facebook or sent a tweet?” Kylie demands, probably knowing the answer as sure as we do.
“You think the people back home care? You’ve seen our polling. What does the Marist poll have us down by? Twenty? Thirty? I’m beginning to feel like Dick Johnson.” In our defense, our numbers are much higher than the eight percent of the vote Johnson won in the fall election, but I see his point.
“Yeah, they care,” Vince counters. “People elected you to come here because they believe in you. They’re down on you now because you stopped engaging them like you used to. They’ll hear you out though, especially if we show them the people who run the system are using it to prevent you from accomplishing what you came here to do.”
“So, what you all are saying is instead of legislating and representing the people of our district who sent me here, you want me to enlist their support to start a revolution that fundamentally alters how the U.S. House of Representatives operates?”
“If that’s what it takes, yeah, that’s exactly what we want you to do,” Vince states, outlining clearly where we all stand on the matter.
The congressman isn’t buying the argument. He has always had a romantic vision of government that the media and his colleagues constantly derided as naïve over the past year. He would have been perfectly at home at the Constitutional Convention. Unfortunately, there is no facsimile of Madison, Morris, or Sherman serving in the Congress.
“Vince, do you have any idea how many revolutions in world history have failed?” the congressman fires back.
“I know one that didn’t,” Vanessa intercedes. “The American Revolution succeeded against all odds, unless my high school history teacher taught me wrong.” Ouch.
“That brilliant history teacher must also have taught you that the colonists were dead in the water without help. You realize there were more French at Yorktown when the British surrendered than colonists.”
“Darling, if getting help is the only basis you have to debate this with us, then your argument is pretty weak. If you want allies, let’s go out and find them.”
The congressman doesn’t want to add himself to the long list of new representatives who have wanted to rock the boat only to fail. I get it, but sometimes you have to break something to get it to work right. It’s counterintuitive, but true, and although Congressman Bennit is a brilliant debater, he’s out of excuses. Vince recognizes it too. Scoring a victory against him is a rare feat for us. The resigned look on his face mirrors the one he wore on the day he made the bet with us our junior year.
“Viva la revolución!” Vince adds, a wry smile creeping across his face as he tips his beer in salute for the fight yet to come. We all follow suit, but in the end, I don’t know if the congressman has the will to follow.
-NINE-
MICHAEL
Millfield High School hasn’t changed a bit. Not that I expected it to in the year and a half since I left. A lot of time has passed since the last day I worked here, but it still all feels so familiar.
I pull into the parking lot and find a spot reserved for visitor parking near the front door. This is a first for me. In all the time I taught in this building, I never used the front door in an effort to avoid the troll who hides in the main office.
“My, my, the prodigal son returns.” Speak of the Devil. What are the odds of a man who rarely leaves his office happening to be standing at the front door the day I walk in? “I didn’t think I would ever see you back here, Michael,” Robinson Howell sneers.
“Robinson, I think you meant to say Congressman Bennit, not Michael. And it’s good to see you outside your office, now that it’s 2:45 and the students and most of the staff are gone. I’m glad to see your confidence level is improving.”
His face goes beet red in a manner that only I seem to be able to bring out. Good to see I’m not losing my touch. He looks like he’s about to come up with some semblance of a response when Charlene Freeman walks out of the main office.
“I hope you boys are playing nice for once,” she cautions, knowing full well we aren’t.
“Yes, ma’am. Robinson here was just telling me how wonderful it was having me back in the building and how he’d love to have me back to teach here if things don’t work out for my reelection in November.”
“What a very gracious and generous offer,” Charlene says with a big smile.
“I thought so. It would be great to work for such a fine administrator again,” I say, laying it on thick. Before he goes nuclear, she cuts him off.
“Robinson, will you give me a moment with the congressman, please?”
Howell shoots me a look and storms off, leaving me with the superintendent of the Millfield Public School District. Again, very little has changed since I left.
“Love to have you back to teach, eh? Are they putting LSD in the water down in D.C. these days?”
“It was the best I could come up with on short notice.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” she says, glancing in the direction Howell disappeared in, “but I would be lying if I said it wouldn’t be great to have you back in the school district again. What brings you here now?”
“I owe my mentor a visit.”
“I’m sure Chalice is still up in her office, but before you go, I need to apologize.”
“For what, ma’am?”
“Congressman, you don’t work for me anymore. You can drop the ma’am thing.”
“Sorry, it’s a force of habit. And I prefer Michael, not Congressman,” I say, returning her smile.
“We never apologized to you after the truth about the allegations of the affair came out. More importantly, I never reached out to apologize to you. I should have, and I’m sorry.”
I give her a nod, but I’m not sure I can accept the apology. My termination from Millfield was more of a result from the disruption I caused and my insubordination with Howell than anything else. To say I’ve been sore over the past year because my former employer could not be bothered to issue an apology would be an exercise in understatement.
“Are you serious about wanting to return to teaching if you don’t win a second term?” I look off down the hall in the direction Howell sulked off in.
“Charlene, we both know that won’t ever happen, at least not here.” She nods, understanding that my reemployment would never be accepted by the school board. “But please feel free to mention it in passing to Howell. The token consideration of it would make him go postal.”
“You bet. Now, you’d better get up there before Chalice leaves. It was great seeing you again, Congres … Michael.”
* * *
“I apologize, I’m not going to have my lesson plans in on time this week,” I announce as I reach the door.
“Oh my God!” Chalice exclaims, jumping out of her chair and moving around the desk in her cramped office to give me a hug. “You look great! How are you, Congressman?”
“Really, Chalice? Congressman? Cut that crap out. You are the very last person I’ll ever let call me that. But I’m good, thank you, and yourself?”
“Another year under Robinson Howell and another year closer to retirement,” she says with a smile. “Every day I take the bad with the good. Did you run into Jessica while you were wandering the halls?”
