The iCongressman (5 page)

MICHAEL

Directly across the Potomac River from the Lincoln
Memorial, and adjacent to the Pentagon, is one of the most beautiful and
powerful spaces in the United States. Arlington National Cemetery is six
hundred twenty-four acres of rolling green hills where veterans of the nation's
conflicts, beginning with the American Civil War, have been laid to rest.

Established during the Civil War on Robert E. Lee’s wife’s
family estate known as Arlington House, the cemetery is one of the most popular
tourist sites in the Washington, D.C., area. Sadly, it’s also one of the most
powerfully solemn places to visit since full military honors are rendered
during funerals an average of twenty-seven times each workday.

The grounds of the cemetery are meant to honor those men and
women who courageously served the nation by providing a final resting place of
peace and serenity. Section Sixty, the burial location for those who gave their
lives since the beginning of the Global War on Terror, has been called the
“saddest acre in America.” It certainly is for me.

“Hey, Leroy,” I whisper to the white marble headstone as I
squat down beside it. “It’s been a long time.”

I place a deck of cards as a memento on the headstone. That
man loved playing Spades, and as Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan, much
of our downtime was spent in our hooch playing that simple card game with
whoever dared to challenge us. Of course, finding fresh opponents was difficult
once word of our prowess spread. Our win-loss record in the strategy game was
the talk of all the NATO forces stationed throughout that hellhole.

“Wherever you are my friend, I hope you’re looking after me.
You’d be one of the few who are these days,” I say, a tear breaking loose from
the corner of my eye. We promised each other that should the worst ever happen,
we would spend the afterlife watching over the one who survived. I drew the
short straw. “I miss you, buddy.”

I stand up, still staring at the Leroy Charleston, New York,
SFC, Afghanistan, and the dates of his birth and death etched into his grave
marker. He was a good man, brave soldier, and reliable friend. Everything the
man behind me isn’t.

“You going to just stand there like a dope or are you going
to say something?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just thought I would wait
until …” the voice behind me says, trailing off either in deference or fear of
saying something stupid. “Did you serve with him?”

“He was my brother.”

“I uh … I didn’t think you had a brother,” Blake stammers in
obvious confusion.

“Look around you. Every man and woman buried here were my
brothers and sisters.” He is cowed at my response, which wasn’t my intention. I
let him off the hook. “Yes, Blake, I did serve with him. He was killed by small
arms fire during our last mission over there.”

“The one you were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross
on?”

“Yeah, that one,” I say remorsefully.

Blake finally summons the courage to walk over and stand
beside me. We remain quiet for a few long moments, enjoying the peaceful calm
of the air and surroundings shrouded in the early Friday morning fog.

“I’m not going to
lie
, Congressman,
meeting you here feels a little like something out of a Tom Clancy novel.
Congress adjourned for the weekend and everyone headed home. Is there a reason
you chose to meet at Arlington?”

“Yeah.
Out of all the places around
Washington, this is where I’m most comfortable. Take a look at this garden of
stone, Blake. The men and women buried in this section gave ‘the last full
measure of devotion’ to their country, as Lincoln put it. Many of the veterans
who survived the wars they fought in believed deeply in the ideals of freedom
and liberty. They are the only ones inside the Beltway who do. I doubt you
understand, though.”

“My father was a vet,” Blake says, surprising me. I honestly
didn’t know that. “He died from the effects of Gulf War Syndrome.”

“Is that why you wear that Second Armored pin?” I ask,
pointing to the lapel on his coat. I may be dressed in jeans and a windbreaker,
but dressed in a
suit,
Blake looks like he’s the one
who serves in Congress. At least I’m comfortable.

“It was given to me by a Vietnam vet over near the Lincoln
Memorial not long before your debate with Beaumont. I was out for a walk,
questioning the worth to my former boss and Roger and my loyalty to them. It
was that night I was reminded of some things I had long forgotten. To keep
reminding myself, I wear this in my father’s memory.” Blake pauses a long time
before continuing. “You remind me a lot of him.”
 

“Is he here?”

“No, he wanted his ashes spread in the Rockies.” I nod, not
wanting to continue to get any more sentimental with a guy who I’d just as soon
choke the life out for what he did a year and a half ago.

“Why did you want to meet with me, Blake?”

“To tell you there’s still time to get your head out of your
ass.” He really didn’t just say that to me, did he?

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, sir. Do you know how many independents have
ever been elected to the House?”

“Not many, but who really gives a damn? One reason is
because independents don’t mix with the GOP and Dem Party elites.” I spare him
the lecture about how our country adopted the two party political system and
how they’ve worked to preserve it ever since.

“No, independents mix fine.
You
don’t mix because you’re not like them. A lot of them don’t
believe in the Constitution, and certainly can’t quote it from memory like you
can. Congressmen don’t come here because they decry the values the people
buried here died for.”

“Okay, since you’re on a roll, tell me something I don’t
already know.”

“Gladly.
The people don’t want you
to try to be one of them. They are waiting for Michael Bennit to be the man
they elected, and everyone around you is waiting for you to realize that. How
much longer do you plan to disappointment them?”

“You think you have any understanding of the people around
me?” I ask, getting more annoyed with every word that comes out of the pompous
fool’s mouth. Blake has a selfish reason for every angle he exploits, and I
want to find this one.

“I think they’re frustrated that you’re playing their game,
not yours,” he says, pointing off in the direction toward the Capitol that sits
in the far distance.

 
“What are you talking
about?” I ask, incredulous at his ignorance. Does he not know that my
disciplinary rap sheet is the talk of both chambers?

“You could never have beaten Beaumont in a traditional
campaign. Not in a million years. So you did the next best thing—changed the
rules to something he couldn’t compete with. You need to do the same thing
here.”

 
“It’s not that
simple,” I reply with a derisive snort. “I tried, but some rules you just can’t
change.”

“Are you serious? Will you listen to what you’re saying?
You’re going to stand there and tell me that the man who broke every
conceivable rule as a candidate is willing to play by any of them as a
congressman?”

“Forget it, Blake. I don’t belong here. I can’t do the job I
was elected to. It’s over.”

“So you’re quitting?”

“No, I’m not quitting. I am going to run again in the fall,
get my ass beat, and go find a teaching job somewhere.”

“Okay, you’re not quitting, you’re just too weak to do what
must be done. I would never have thought the great Michael Bennit is nothing
more than a coward.”

That was the last straw. Maybe it was being called a coward,
or the emotion of this place in front of the burial site of one of my closest
friends, but I felt the surge of anger through my body translate into a
physical act that was a long time coming.

I think back to all the pain he’s caused. How he hurt
Chelsea, did the dirty work for Beaumont, and only came clean about it all when
it was too late to help. I think about the past year and all the frustration
I’ve felt. How I’ve been ignored and rendered ineffective. Right now, in this
instant, I have a convenient target to take it out on. I channel that anger into
my fist before I let it fly.

Before Blake could even register what was happening, the
hardest right hook I have probably ever thrown connects with his left cheek. He
pirouettes, stumbles over the grave marker and hits the ground with an audible
thud. He
writhes
in pain for a moment before rolling
awkwardly onto his side and climbing to his feet.

“You’ve wanted to do that for a long time, haven’t you,
Congressman?” Blake asks, still shaking the cobwebs out. “I’m sure I deserved
it.”

He doesn’t see the next one coming either. Not as hard a
swing as my first, the second punch connects with his jaw and knocks him right
back down to the ground.

“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.”

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.