| I |
knew two things about it. No, maybe a little bit more; but in the end, they were the things to know. I knew that the business of Washington is power; its acquisition, exercise and loss and I knew that there was not one Washington but three.
A tourist city, gleaming white and resplendent with flowers—an elaborate subterfuge hiding the ill intent of the second city and the darkness of the third; a political city of mahogany conference rooms, dimly lit restaurants and hotel suites, where the debauchery of the powerful is made manifest; and a Chocolate City, beautiful in it’s suffering, proud of its improbable ascendance, defiant in its fall.
Washington straddles the North and South, but it is neither. Within its complex divisions, the city has always been segregated. From its infancy there were slave quarters, which persisted even after the city’s early emancipation. By the 1970s and 80s the divisions were so complete that Blacks could go for days without encountering whites unless they wanted to. Most were disinclined.
The millennium brought a resurgence of ancient hostilities. Power continued to concede nothing, as it always has; demands went unheard, as they usually are. In the city, it was a season of ice; it was the eve of war....
| I |
have always hated winter. It reappeared in April that year killing the cherry blossoms before they could bloom. The Daffodils, unfortunate early risers, sported crowns of frost atop their regal trumpets, which made them look in death like ice princesses.
A ghostly gray shroud embraced the city, veils of frozen tears descended in unplowed streets and the world appeared encased in crystal. The revelation was stunning; the configurations of tragedy can be glorious.
I wasn’t vigilant. If I had been paying attention, perhaps I might have realized that the end had already begun, announced by the peculiarities of the day. But I never saw it coming. None of us did.
It was still early when Kelleye’s voice crackled through the intercom. “Jason Diggs, you have a visitor!”
It was 2001 and the dawn of a new millennium but her tone was raw and punishing, like the tough old dames who played telephone operators in black & white movies. She spoke from a pall of hate, making her words feel like shrapnel ripping through me, shutting down my vital organs. Killing me, but not so softly.
I entered the reception area in my shirtsleeves, feeling the chill but shrugging it off. I was obedient to the first rule of politics and the jungle. Show no weakness.
I expected to find one of the lobbyists who roamed the halls of Congress like hyena, in search of some offending legislation or staffer to devour. Instead, it was Valor Abernathy sitting there demurely, her knees delicately touching and her toes pointing in sweetly, like a young girl’s.
Valor’s ferocious reputation as an advocate was well deserved, and if she was there on business I was prepared to back her off with my own array of weaponry. But she instead disarmed me with a smile, which worked for me. It was too early for a fight—I hadn’t had my coffee yet.
“Good morning beautiful,” she said gently removing a yellow Hermes scarf from her neck. I instinctively checked the status of the shine on my Ferragamo shoes. It had taken more than the usual number of passes with a cloth to rescue the gloss from the morning’s slush, but I was satisfied. Women notice shoes.......
(c) Keith Andrew Perry
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