A Knife Fight in a Phonne Booth

A Knife Fight in a Phone Booth
          “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
          -Matthew 11:19

         The first date I had been on in several years did not end well. It was nothing less of a miracle that the date even occurred in the first place – rather, it was a miracle that I conjured-up the courage to ask a woman on a date. Her name was Katherine; we met at the party of a jazz-musician / real estate agent. The party was filled with a mix of musicians, local music groupies, and young families that had just closed on a first home. Like me, Katherine was attending the party with a friend and like me, was somewhat out-of-place. We had a nice chat over some top-shelf booze and I learned that she was working on her Ph.D. in some “ology” field, I of course, a college drop-out.
I arrive at the restaurant early and head straight for the bar. I order a drink from a middle-aged waitress, who in her youth was no doubt a beauty queen, but a life of hardship, usury, and chain smoking has transformed her face into worn leather, with a voice and teeth to match. I down my first vodka tonic in a fruitless attempt to calm my nerves, wishing I had a rouge valium at the bottom of my pocket - something to take the edge off. Over dinner I was my usual charming self – my way of compensating for my less than stellar looks. Over pasta and bread, we engage in the usual dull and dreaded, small-talk. We discuss our families (though I omit various details as to not inject too much crazy into the conversation), we touch-on religion, and I regale her in stories of my political escapades. Feeling more comfortable - with four drinks under my belt - I decide to open-up and entertain her with political war-stories – stories about attacking candidates, the shocking, sometimes disgusting information private investigators find, and about a particular political operation I once dubbed, “Operation Mongoose”. As the former beauty queen collects my credit card and the bill - her blonde hair, the only reminisce of what once was, stands out like the golden yellow rind of the worn-out lemon at the bottom of my empty cocktail. Katherine looks up from her half-empty wine glass and says, “Carver, I’m going to call it a night, after sitting through your stories I’ve concluded that you’re not someone I want to associate with – you obviously don’t have a moral code.”
         As she walked-out, I sat there, alone, attempting to look like the date was still going well. I could feel the gaze of other diners penetrate me; perhaps they were also on dates, dates that were actually going well. I felt their judgmental gaze like a laser, watching as my first foray into the dating realm in several years slowly sank into dark oblivion, probably thinking, that pathetic bastard. I said a silent prayer, hoping they thought she was in the bathroom, or perhaps she ran out for a quick smoke. I calmly sat, studying the receipt- not really reading it, just looking at it. I looked at my phone, and I checked my watch - wondering what the right amount of time would be before I could leave without looking too pitiful. Sitting there alone I thought, “Am I a void of a moral code?” “Am I really someone who’s not to be associated with?”
           My first high profile political gig was working for the re-election of President George W. Bush, or Dubya as we all came to refer to him. When I received the call from the White House political office, the voice on the other end said, “Carver, your president needs your help, now, more than ever.” I learned later that these types of blanket platitudes were used by those face-less souls that toiled Inside the Beltway. So, for the next year, I found myself working in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Strip. Sin City. God’s blind spot.


         Soon after arriving, I learned that Presidential politics – referred to as, Prime Time by certain operatives – was much different than what I was used to. I had been working in the office for a rural, somewhat red-neck congressman. There I helped little old ladies collect Medicaid benefits, regularly attended Farm Bureau meetings, and attended my fair share of cocktail parties. In Las Vegas, I quickly learned that getting what I wanted was now more important than the consideration of people’s feelings and so-called proper decorum - I certainly wasn’t there to be righteous – after all, my president was counting on me.
A campaign of this magnitude required me to drink the Kool-Aid and become a true believer, and it was my job to ensure that others did the same. I spent significant time considering consequences for those local officials that failed to comply with our whim – we called it, rat-fucking them. I rat-fucked local officials who refused to drink the Kool-Aid by withholding funds I had previously promised, denying them access to our campaign volunteers, or by simply prohibiting them from attending POTUS events. We were the big boys on the block, and they were going to respect our authority!

         Driving from the restaurant, reeling from what Katherine told me – futilely convincing myself that she’s just a bitch, crazy as a shit-house rat. I slowly approach a red-light at a busy intersection, pushing the brake and slowing to a stop – my mind remains trapped in a haze, working over-tine to comprehend what just happened. My iPod blasts the holy music of Frank and his pack as I continue to reflect, “We’re drinking my friend, to the end, of a brief episode.” I silently wonder if it would’ve benefited my cause to explain that I was leaving politics – that I was fed-up with the backstabbing, hateful, and intolerant lifestyle. Should I have explained that I was returning to school and traded-in my three-hundred dollar, hand stitched leather briefcase for a more fitting, nylon backpack that I picked-out of a sales bin at Wal-Mart? As the light turns green, my glowing iPod acts as a bully-pulpit for Frank’s words, his coolness slowly oozing from my speakers. I may stop somewhere for a cigarette at some point – maybe pretend to be a part of the Pack, if not for just a brief moment - I could lament about my life of supposed immorality and mediocrity - the angry villagers were due at any time.

         While in Vegas, I would be assigned menial tasks, tasks that were designed to keep the crazy, so-called activists at bay – which amounts to making them feel important when in reality; they’re usually more of a pain-in-the-ass, and more trouble than they’re worth. One of the more onerous tasks was delivering campaign presentations to the Las Vegas big hat ladies – a conservative women’s organization. They were older, wealthy women that dressed in bright red outfits, over-sized red hats, and sported big pieces of tacky jewelry – these women were epic. They were wealthy women by marriage, and were all married to deranged, Las Vegas millionaires. They spent their free time, between botox injections and yoga, sitting in the upper-scale, private tea rooms of the Bellagio and Paris Hotels. There they would pontificate on their half-assed musings about, the Mexican problem, or the Arabs, and of course, the seemingly large increase of fags in the city. They all spoke with highly-exaggerated southern accents, though none of them were from the south. 
I cut my political-teeth while living in Vegas – we lived by the mantra, “An ounce of negative was worth a pound of positive,” we were relentless. 


         When I wasn’t spending hours on conference calls with my supervisors in D.C, I was usually lost in spread-sheet hell – filling out unrelenting excel sheets with meaningless numbers, numbers that would make their way to the East Coast where they would inevitably become the catalyst for an unholy crusade – with me as the target. The never-ending interrogations that I would be forced to endure, week after week slowly became the building blocks for my own personal hell.
A faceless voice would begin my bi-weekly interrogation, “What are the door-knock numbers for this week in Nevada, Carver?”
“It was a tough week here - the temperatures maxed-out at one hundred-ten degrees, I called off the door-to-door activities,” I said.
“What do you mean you called it off? That’s not your call. Do I need to fly down to find out what the hell is going on in Nevada?”
         The individuals that usually work on political campaigns are a true collection of malcontents, mad-geniuses, and miscreants ever collected in one place. Some of my associates were true-believers in the cause – as I once was, and some are there to pad a resume, while others are there to draw a pay check. The reality about living within the inescapable bubble of the political world is that friends are far and few between – like the Roman Senate, the next stabbing could be around the next corner – similarly, assassins usually approach under the guise of friendship..
Jason McDonald was a mix of all three, but his predisposition made him both feared and hated in the business. He’s a long-time political consultant, college drop-out, and recovering alcoholic – his life was falling apart while he worked to destroy others. His resume was impressive – by volume – but he hadn’t been successful in actually winning an actual election. Jason is the type that would claim to be a close friend, but would stab anyone in the back if it suited his greed and ego. Jason was painfully thin, pale, and spoke with a high-pitched, nasally voice.
Marty Honeycutt worshipped the ground Jason walked-on and was usually clinging-on to Jason for dear life – a rabid dog, feasting on the scraps that Jason would throw his way.  Marty was a half-assed, so called computer expert that never met a buffet he didn’t like, and was proof that within the realm of politics, people need to be neither smart, nor useful. Marty played the role of side kick to Jason and would take any demining or menial job that was offered to him as he would desperately work to remain in Jason’s good graces.
My immediate supervisor in Vegas was Joe Carlson; a graduate of a back-woods junior college turned four-year university located somewhere in the deep-south. His southern accent was as ever-present as the blackberry that remained securely fastened to his belt. At nearly mid-life, he had been working the same three jobs for the past ten years, bouncing back and forth, year after year – living in perpetual, professional limbo. Joe liked to play the nice guy, working hard to never offend anyone, but was a rabid gossip – he was a great source for the latest. His political skills amounted to more of a wedding planner, or party host than those of a political operative. For the most part, Joe was a very likable guy -  he did what he was told, always went with the status quo, and never had an original thought of his own – a perfect pawn for DC operatives looking to advance their-own careers. For Joe, as long as his check cleared, and he could watch football, while indulging in his favorite cheap beer - he was happy.




         As the big day approached that fall, the platitudes, lies, and daily ration of shit from D.C began to eat at me more and more – It was like being on a perpetual acid-trip, and I wanted out. My paranoia got worse as rumors and tempers began to flare, and the political work eventually amounted to nothing more than pissing matches and territorial arguments with the heads of other departments - this campaign had finally lost its allure. I learned that not too long after you’re asked to drink the Kool-Aid, those same people start to say things like, “take one for the team,” and “Don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of” -  these usually follow a request for me to do something that I didn’t want to do.
Waking-up one morning in late October, I just couldn’t bring myself to make the trek to the office. Overnight, while I slept, a barrage of e-mails from DC flooded my Blackberry. As I watched the red notification light blink and more e-mail continued to collect in my inbox, a sense of calmness came over me - that’s the day I left that campaign. It had been a long year, my money was on the dresser, and I was ready to get the fuck out. 

         In the years following that election, I worked on one political campaign after another, and eventually, opened my own boutique consulting firm. This was going to be my opportunity to pick and choose the clients I wanted to represent, and run things the way I thought they should be ran. I worked hard to find good candidates - candidates that broke the old-stereotypes of old, bigoted, angry white guys - running for office on their internet-assembled philosophies. This was going to be my time to atone for my sins and work toward my personal salvation. I have no desire to spend my days spinning out propaganda about issues, and for people that I don’t give a damn about. I no longer wish to operate in the “gray area” of ethical and moral existence in which political consultants, used car salesmen, and those sadistic assholes at credit card collection agencies thrive.