Chapter Three: Yes, We Can
Available Chapters: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen
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SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY
Obama 55%
Clinton 27%
Edwards 18%
Chicago‘s only resident supermodel and rumored to be a friend of Oprah‘s, the stunning Regina Dean personally returned Caroline’s ring that had been found between the jet’s seats. (My guess is that it slipped out of Reggie’s coat pocket while he lay on his side giving Caroline a hand job.) Whether she was Oprah’s friend or not, Regina was born into a wealthy African American family, had created more wealth for herself and was generally regarded as the city’s most beautiful woman-- as well as one of its most influential people. An early Obama backer, she was also a big fan of his wife Michelle. (I don’t know if she was here on an errand for Oprah or if the jet was her own. Where there is even a possibility that Oprah is involved in a story, we Chicagoans don‘t really want to ferret out the truth. We‘d rather keep her in the script and bask in her presumed closeness which translates into our insider status.) Over six feet tall in heels and wearing a red cashmere sweater and white pants, mink coat casually thrown over one shoulder like a scarf, Regina swept into campaign headquarters, rendering the staff immobilized and slack-jawed. She held the ring aloft.
“Where’s the bride-to-be with the naked ring finger on her left hand?” she called out gaily as if she were announcing we‘d all won the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes. Walking forward, however, Caroline could surely read the lack of joy in her eyes. With sweat beads furiously forming above my upper lip, I saw the cold dead center of Regina’s eyes from where I was standing, a little further away from her than Caroline. “Well, here she is! Come get this ring the cleaning crew found on the jet!” Her eyes narrowed and she said more quietly so that I barely heard her, “I hear you reported it missing to the police.”
“I….I…I” Carolyn tried to speak, but it sounded like her throat kept closing up, producing gurgles between the “I"s. Dressed casually in a white shirt, slim jeans and flats, she looked like a college girl. What could she say? No, Kanesha filed that report. Regina wouldn’t like that. Kanesha--could there be a blacker name? So the white girl who’s playing around with the brother blames the sister for calling the cops? Caroline flashed a quick sideways glance at me, imploring me with this big luminous blue eyes to help. I noticed that she was sweating above her upper lip too. We were speaking again. I sympathized. I really did. But I wasn’t going to throw myself under the bus for her. So Reggie didn‘t steal that ring. But he might have. I wasn‘t going to offer her a defense regarding the police report. “Thank you,” Caroline managed to say in a humble voice, bowing her head as Regina--who surely knew it didn’t belong there-- ceremoniously put the ring back on her finger.
Looking nearly as glamorous as Regina in her black wrap dress and sexy red suede boots, Chloe broke the tension by rushing forward in the general direction of Regina though she veered off at the last minute before hug contact range, wrapped an arm around Caroline‘s shoulder and led her off to the side. Within seconds, Regina was surrounded by chattering campaign staff following in Chloe‘s wake. It was the day before the South Carolina primary and nothing, not even the return of Caroline’s ring, could distract us from politics. (As soon as the exit poll dust settled the next night, however, we were all over this little human interest story, the general consensus being that Caroline‘s shaming by Regina was tantamount to a pilgrim placed in the stocks of a New England town square.)
Hillary had followed her win in New Hampshire by taking a share of the Nevada caucuses though Barack was up in that state by one delegate. She was wearing the cocky smile of the anointed one that even the more strident feminists among us wanted to see melt off her face along with her mascara when the South Carolina results came in. Regina asked about the latest numbers; and a half dozen people bombarded her with statistics. It was a mad scene, the Tower of Babel except all the babble was Barack-talk.
Someone brushed against me as I made my way to the girls. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Rodney Skinner Turner parting the crowd as if he were a Coast Guard cutter assigned to escort the royal vessel Regina into port. Wait ‘til Kanesha sees this guy. Light-brown skin, tall and built like the former college all-star quarterback that he was, Rodney was our new intern. Having rejected a career in pro ball for a Harvard law degree and a future saving the people in Chicago’s South Side, Barack’s old beat, Rodney was, like Chloe, working on his Ph.D. in political science. (Why stop at just one advanced degree when the next generation of presidents will surely need two or more?) More to the point, he matched Kanesha’s criteria for the ideal mate/sperm donor except for his age, 26, five years her junior. She was classic WASP girl in her thinking about the ideal man: a little older, taller, smarter, richer.
“Wait ‘til Kanesha sees this one,” Chloe said, subtly inclining her head in his direction. “Her ideal Baby Daddy, yes?”
I laughed and so did Caroline despite being on the verge of tears. We stood together, a reunited trio of friends, watching Regina work the healing magic of beauty and charm on a staff battered not so much by the twin losses as the ugliness in Nevada and South Carolina. Clinton associates took out ads on Spanish-speaking radio stations saying that Barack “does not speak for our people.” They twisted his comment that Ronald Reagan effected change, helping the Republicans become the party of ideas, into something that sounded like he was praising Reagan and his ilk for their good ideas. A Clinton campaign advisor tried to exploit Barack’s routine teenage drug use--never such a problem that his grades were affected or he neglected his activism against Apartheid in South Africa. Barack acknowledged “making some bad decisions involving drugs and drinking as a teenager” in his autobiography Dreams From My Father. These were typical dirty tricks from the crowd who put the “I didn’t inhale!” candidate into the White House where he, of course, became the “I didn’t have sex with that woman!” President. But they were painful to endure by a staff mandated not to play trick for trick.
“Barack will always take the high road,” Regina said reassuringly on her way out the door in a wispy cloud of a white floral fragrance, just the right amount of expensive scent because she had impeccable taste. “And he will prevail.”
“That’s what Reggie says too,” Caroline said softly, her eyes shining with the light of purpose once again.
Chloe and I exchanged our understated “how nauseating” look behind her back. We were supposed to get on board the Reggie train now. Right. That wasn’t going to happen. Even after Caroline confessed she’d seen the copy of the police report with my post-it note attached, Kanesha and I stuck to our story: No, of course, we didn’t suspect Reggie of theft; we merely said the investigation had to start with him because he had the ring in his possession before it went missing.
“Reggie shares Barack’s ideals,” she said, twisting the diamond ring off her finger and cupping it carefully in her palm, a treasure that did not belong to her but was her temporary responsibility. “I think he could be president someday.”
“Yeah,” Chloe said, not asked. “He’ll need a proper black wife then, won’t he?” She grinned like a mean elf. “Kanesha!”
Caroline’s tears started to flow; and I read the instant chagrin on Chloe‘s face. Now that she was Evan’s revenge rebound lover, she was experiencing an oddly unfamiliar feeling associated with her sex life: guilt. (Her parents failed to instill the basic American sexual values: shame, guilt, judgment.) Feeling guilty about sleeping with her BBF’s ex, she’d instinctively done what most of us have at one time or another: treated very badly the one person in the equation who had the least power over her.
“Hillary insists she does not want the campaign to be about race or gender,” Michael Westwood said as I slid into the booth next to Chloe across from him and Caroline. Michael is a smart and savvy baby-faced white boy, a Harvard grad. (If you haven’t figured out yet that Harvard grads are this country’s elite rulers, attend a Harvard graduation. The “go forth and run the country” message is part of every valedictory speech.) He also spent three years working at Burson-Marsteller, the big PR firm headed by the Clintons’ first pollster and close advisor Mark Penn - the man generally credited with determining their campaign style and the guy who will be the hero or the goat this time around. Like Reggie, he‘d worked in the enemy camp. “And then, of course, she accused Barack in so many words of playing to black people,” he said, his upper lip curling slightly in a sneer that can only be described as cute on that face.
I was late joining them for lunch because I had to call Kanesha in South Carolina with the Regina-and-the-ring story. Omigod, Omigod, Omigod she shrieked. She was still wailing something about having blown her chance to become part of the black bourgeoisie (or maybe even get to know Oprah) when I told her I’d get back to her later.
“That’s why Bill does her race baiting for her. It’s one of those things that he does to keep her pure, like ejaculating in the mouths and on the dresses of White House interns,” Caroline said; and everyone cheered and held up their wineglasses in salute.
“Not about gender!’ Chloe snorted. “She puts on her Commander-in-Chief persona when she pulls on her pants every morning. Tell me she would have voted for war in Iraq if she weren‘t already projecting her strong military commander image!”
The ensuing banter kept everyone amused except Chloe who was sneaking glances and smiles at the handsome young black executive sitting an arm’s length from her at the next table. Chin down, eyes up, she flirted effortlessly, effectively - and daily, like a Southern belle, quite an accomplishment from a girl raised in the North by a Jewish mother who didn‘t wear makeup or shave her legs. (Kanesha once remarked about Chloe: “She will be 99 and still be the nursing home’s resident flirt.” Yes. And everyone’s grandsons will love her.) Unfortunately, the object of her attentions had a lunch companion, one of those skinny black women with straight (a.k.a. Caucasian style) hair, good clothes with edgy style, longer nails than a white woman of similar social status would have - and that “I’ve just smelled/eaten something distasteful” facial expression worn most frequently when white women are around. A general rule of race relations between white and black women: White women pay scant attention to black women as a group even if they have black women friends, but black women are always checking out the white women in the room and they are tough graders on everything from wardrobe through mannerisms.
“Excuse me. We’re having a conversation here,” she said sharply to Chloe while she gave her lunch companion a knuckle-rapping look.
“Oh, no, excuse me,” Chloe replied, in her “shug-ah” voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice you sitting there.”
Have I mentioned that Chloe is not the most popular white girl with the black girls back at the office? Kanesha once told me that she didn’t consider either Caroline or Chloe “real friends.” When I protested that they considered her a real friend, she said with that annoyingly superior look she always has lecturing the white folks on the ways of black folks: “Oh, I know they do. White girls all want to have a black friend now.”
I wonder what Michelle says to Barack about white women when nobody is listening.
“I like tweaking those hostile bitches,” Chloe said as we were walking back to the office, lagging behind Caroline and Michael. Those boots had four inch heels; and Caroline was in little leopard print flats. “Who is more racist than black women?”
“Redneck men,” I offered, but she ignored me.
“I’m horny,” she said. “I need to get my pussy pounded. A vibrator won’t do the job today.”
In her make-up bag, Chloe carried a pocket rocket vibrator--about the length of a cigarette and the thickness of a thin cigar - and a lipstick vibe - a vibe cleverly disguised as a tube of lipstick - and wasn’t shy about using one of them in a restroom stall whenever she needed quick release - at least once or twice a week. A political campaign is a tense business. In fact, I was feeling the sexual tension myself that day. Everybody in the office seemed to be in need of a sex fix to take the edge off.
“I’m really horny,” she said; and I imagined those red lips going down on Evan’s big dick. My mind wandered to possibilities for myself, none of them good, but, on the other hand… “I need to get laid,” she said.
“Yes, yes, I get that!” I yelled.
We almost bumped into Caroline and Michael who’d slowed down for us. Her cell phone pressed to her ear, she wore the look of rapture on her face that I had previously only seen in ancient oil paintings of saints about to ascend to the heavens. (Standing in front of one of those paintings in the Uffizi museum in Florence I had an epiphany: extreme religious passion is indistinguishable from sexual passion.) Reggie, of course.
“He says it’s another bitter day on the campaign trail,” Michael whispered.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I read that on MSN before we left for lunch. Who let The Dog out?”
“Ugh,” Chloe said, nodding at Caroline. “You know who’s a hero now.”
Michael seemed confused but I knew what she was talking about--and when I thought about it later, I was pretty sure his confusion was feigned. The ring had been found. Reggie was cleared - by no less than Regina; and that elevated him to a higher plane.
“What?” Michael asked, his big blue eyes as blue as the Chicago sky. “Is Reggie feeding stories to MSN?”
“Maybe he is,” I said; and for the first time it occurred to me that maybe he was.
Back in the cubicle I shared with whatever regular volunteer happened to be on scheduled duty, I went online to peruse the news from MSN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Without calling them liars, Barack was asserting that the Clintons were “making false assertions” and promised he would “aggressively set the record straight.” Downplaying the nastiness, he said, “This is good practice for me, so when I take on those Republicans I'll be accustomed to it."
But a petulant Bill, who’d created the racial tension that now existed in the South Carolina Democratic electorate, whined to the media according to this AP report on MSN:
Hillary had waited too long to try “likable” in Iowa, cried to good effect in New Hampshire, turned mean in Nevada and let the Big Dog out in South Carolina. For someone who owed a lot to the African American community, Bill wasn’t treating them with respect. I groaned. On the phone arranging an assignation with Evan, her new carnal companion, Chloe made a quizzical face. Bill Clinton, I whispered. She nodded in understanding. Were the Republicans right about him? Some of the women I know, including my Aunt Sally, a typical Hillary supporter right down to her sensible shoes, have predicted that Bill would sabotage his wife eventually because he doesn’t want to see her win. Ah, marriage, the three-legged race.
Barack never said any of that about Hillary or put out a “hit job” on Bill. That is Clinton style politics, not Obama style. The “Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab” memo was our campaign blunder - costing a staffer his job. A dumb kid fresh out of Yale sent a memo, leaked to the press, citing the Clintons’ strong personal and professional ties to India that supposedly led to favorable government concessions to India‘s big industrialists. Not exactly true. Off with the offending Yalie head. I wasn’t in the office when Barack dealt with the situation but Kanesha said it was the only time she’d ever seen him angry - and she didn’t want to see it again.
“He called all of us together and said that he would not run a campaign without integrity,” she told me, her face suddenly vulnerable and exposed. That‘s when I understood how much Barack‘s candidacy meant to her personally, not just as a stepping-stone to D.C. “I will never forget him saying, If I cannot win honorably, I will lose. That’s not something he says publicly to build image. That‘s what he says in private. And he means it.”
But nobody called her Senator Punjab - that is, nobody but Bill.
“Are you working tonight?” Chloe asked.
“No. I’m teaching.”
“Oh, good,” she said, her brown eyes so delighted that the golden flecks stood out in them. “I can use the desk.”
Right. She and Evan would want to do it in the office as a way of letting Caroline know they were doing it. And maybe Reggie would walk past at the right moment too. He and Kanesha and several others were flying back from South Carolina that night for a series of Super Tuesday meetings over the next few days. David Axelrod was rumored to be returning on the same plane--with a New York magazine writer doing a story on the two campaigns.
Tomorrow, I thought, really is another day.
The polls were closed in South Carolina by the time I got back to the office the next day; and I brought cameras in the hopes of catching Axelrod in a mood, pensive or jubilant. The general mood of the office, however, was easy to read: Randy. Was it my imagination or did everyone seem to be giving off pheromones? Chloe was sitting on the edge of my desk, her groin connected to Evan’s leg where it meets the thigh, her outer leg moving up and down against his as if she were doing some kind of leg stretches. She was wearing a cream silk shirt and short black skirt, 4” black peek-toed platforms with red reptilian heels, shoes that looked like Christian Laboutin or a good copy and lace-topped black thigh-high stockings. Very 1940s glamour in the legs and shoes department. Evan’s erection was visible as she moved that leg.
“Thomas!” she said enthusiastically, leaning over to hug me just as he and I were exchanging man hugs so that she brought us all together like a knotted challah bread. Oh, yes, nice big erection. “The polls just closed!”
Untangled, we made our way into the larger space with the big TV. Reggie and Caroline stood close but not touching, out of deference to Evan, no doubt - but any fool could see the electricity between them. Dressed down in big blue sweater, tight jeans and Ugg boots, Kanesha was deep in conversation with Michael Westwood with whom she liked to analyze Clinton campaign strategy. His three years with Penn’s firm made him our expert in that area. In a corner of the room lounged the delicious Rodney Skinner Turner, or RST as I dubbed him on the spot. Gay or straight? (My gay-dar fails me when I see a man I could really get into vs. a guy like Reggie whom I could just do; hope overcomes analytical reasoning.) Wearing a beautifully tailored dark gray suit that set him well apart from the rest of us, he seemed to consider all of us in the same vaguely interested but uninvolved way. Our eyes met. He smiled a lazy smile.
The first cheer went up in the room. Our man was ahead in the exit polls. It was looking good for him, very good. Within minutes the early prediction that he would take 55% of the vote was made; and it held up through the night. In a three-way race that broke voter turnout records - 55%. Four out of five African Americans voted for Barack and women came out in big numbers. We could thank Bill for some of that.
“We’re fired up!” Reggie yelled.
“Fired up!“ one of the campaign workers in South Carolina yelled out on CNN. An African American woman in a rural South Carolina church gave Barack the “Fired up!” slogan, used in the Civil rights movement. “Fired up!’ Caroline called out in a clear melodious voice as if she were on the college stage again. Soon we were all chanting and didn’t stop until Barack walked onto the stage at the victory rally.
He said:
Ten days to Super Tuesday. Amid speculation about whether or not John Edwards would drop out of the race, I sauntered over to RST. Ready with what could be taken as a friendly gesture or a pick-up line, I was about to ask him if he’d like to go down to the bar and get a drink when he asked in that rich baritone voice I felt all the way down in my balls, “Are you and your friends - Caroline and the others - going out for a drink?”
“I came over to see if you’d like to help me round them up,” I said. Smooth transition. Let him think I was including him in the group. Caroline - hah! In your dreams, man. You‘ll never lay hand or dick on that creamy white skin. “It’s time to move the Super Tuesday prognosticating to a place where a man can get a glass of good scotch.”
But we didn’t make it out for drinks that night. One impassioned conversation or debate led to another and another and when I looked up bleary-eyed from the computer screen where I had been following Barack‘s every words that night, it was after 2 a.m. and the office was silent except for the money counters way up front and the soft sounds of – yes - sex. I couldn’t help myself. I tiptoed down the corridor to identify the sources.
Behind one door, I heard Caroline’s throaty gurgle and the muffled sounds of Reggie, face surely in her pussy. (Who says black men don’t go down?) Pink tongue on pink flesh. Their rule is: No intercourse in public places. And behind another door, Chloe’s louder moans, Evan’s heavy groans that made me imagine I could feel his balls slapping against my ass - and the sound of the desk thumping rhythmically beneath the force of their banging. I guessed Chloe was bent over the desk with Evan entering from behind. My dick grew hard at the thought of his member, thick and hard, pulling out, thrusting in, glistening, gleaming like polished marble.
“Yes!” Chloe screamed.
“Oh!” A different voice. Or was it No? Kanesha’s voice was coming from behind door number three. A muffled male voice sounded commanding but I couldn’t make out the command.
I wanted to stay there long enough to hear her partner’s voice, but instead I heard the sounds of Reggie and Caroline collecting themselves, preparing to leave. I scampered on tiptoe like some damned fairy back to my cubicle, picked up my coat and ran out of there ahead of the lovers, all of them. Kanesha - fucking in the office! Now that shocked me. With her mind always on the ultimate prize, a great job in D.C., she was too careful to behave like this. And with whom?
He had to be black, of course. Kanesha considered interracial sex politically incorrect. Anyway, I’m sure you all have dicks that look like fat white slugs, she once told me. As I ran to the bus, headed home to the South Side and my big shabby fourth floor walk-up apartment, I went through the list of possible contenders for the royal black pussy. My cell phone went off as I took my seat.
“Thomas!” Caroline cried. “Something’s happened to Kanesha. You need to get back here now!”
To Be Continued Next Week!
Copyright © 2008 by Carla Dickens. All rights reserved. Please do not re-publish the entirety of this chapter or novel without the prior written consent of E-Reads.
DISCLAIMER
This is a work of fiction that takes place during the Democratic Primary and Presidential Campaign of 2008. With the exception of casual references to certain living public persons, places, and events, and of speeches, news commentaries or statements that are public record, all characters, names and places used in The Faithful are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The work contains adult themes, language and content and describes sexual situations.
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Chapter Three
Yes, We Can!
Yes, We Can!
SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY
Obama 55%
Clinton 27%
Edwards 18%
Chicago‘s only resident supermodel and rumored to be a friend of Oprah‘s, the stunning Regina Dean personally returned Caroline’s ring that had been found between the jet’s seats. (My guess is that it slipped out of Reggie’s coat pocket while he lay on his side giving Caroline a hand job.) Whether she was Oprah’s friend or not, Regina was born into a wealthy African American family, had created more wealth for herself and was generally regarded as the city’s most beautiful woman-- as well as one of its most influential people. An early Obama backer, she was also a big fan of his wife Michelle. (I don’t know if she was here on an errand for Oprah or if the jet was her own. Where there is even a possibility that Oprah is involved in a story, we Chicagoans don‘t really want to ferret out the truth. We‘d rather keep her in the script and bask in her presumed closeness which translates into our insider status.) Over six feet tall in heels and wearing a red cashmere sweater and white pants, mink coat casually thrown over one shoulder like a scarf, Regina swept into campaign headquarters, rendering the staff immobilized and slack-jawed. She held the ring aloft.
“Where’s the bride-to-be with the naked ring finger on her left hand?” she called out gaily as if she were announcing we‘d all won the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes. Walking forward, however, Caroline could surely read the lack of joy in her eyes. With sweat beads furiously forming above my upper lip, I saw the cold dead center of Regina’s eyes from where I was standing, a little further away from her than Caroline. “Well, here she is! Come get this ring the cleaning crew found on the jet!” Her eyes narrowed and she said more quietly so that I barely heard her, “I hear you reported it missing to the police.”
“I….I…I” Carolyn tried to speak, but it sounded like her throat kept closing up, producing gurgles between the “I"s. Dressed casually in a white shirt, slim jeans and flats, she looked like a college girl. What could she say? No, Kanesha filed that report. Regina wouldn’t like that. Kanesha--could there be a blacker name? So the white girl who’s playing around with the brother blames the sister for calling the cops? Caroline flashed a quick sideways glance at me, imploring me with this big luminous blue eyes to help. I noticed that she was sweating above her upper lip too. We were speaking again. I sympathized. I really did. But I wasn’t going to throw myself under the bus for her. So Reggie didn‘t steal that ring. But he might have. I wasn‘t going to offer her a defense regarding the police report. “Thank you,” Caroline managed to say in a humble voice, bowing her head as Regina--who surely knew it didn’t belong there-- ceremoniously put the ring back on her finger.
Looking nearly as glamorous as Regina in her black wrap dress and sexy red suede boots, Chloe broke the tension by rushing forward in the general direction of Regina though she veered off at the last minute before hug contact range, wrapped an arm around Caroline‘s shoulder and led her off to the side. Within seconds, Regina was surrounded by chattering campaign staff following in Chloe‘s wake. It was the day before the South Carolina primary and nothing, not even the return of Caroline’s ring, could distract us from politics. (As soon as the exit poll dust settled the next night, however, we were all over this little human interest story, the general consensus being that Caroline‘s shaming by Regina was tantamount to a pilgrim placed in the stocks of a New England town square.)
Hillary had followed her win in New Hampshire by taking a share of the Nevada caucuses though Barack was up in that state by one delegate. She was wearing the cocky smile of the anointed one that even the more strident feminists among us wanted to see melt off her face along with her mascara when the South Carolina results came in. Regina asked about the latest numbers; and a half dozen people bombarded her with statistics. It was a mad scene, the Tower of Babel except all the babble was Barack-talk.
Someone brushed against me as I made my way to the girls. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Rodney Skinner Turner parting the crowd as if he were a Coast Guard cutter assigned to escort the royal vessel Regina into port. Wait ‘til Kanesha sees this guy. Light-brown skin, tall and built like the former college all-star quarterback that he was, Rodney was our new intern. Having rejected a career in pro ball for a Harvard law degree and a future saving the people in Chicago’s South Side, Barack’s old beat, Rodney was, like Chloe, working on his Ph.D. in political science. (Why stop at just one advanced degree when the next generation of presidents will surely need two or more?) More to the point, he matched Kanesha’s criteria for the ideal mate/sperm donor except for his age, 26, five years her junior. She was classic WASP girl in her thinking about the ideal man: a little older, taller, smarter, richer.
“Wait ‘til Kanesha sees this one,” Chloe said, subtly inclining her head in his direction. “Her ideal Baby Daddy, yes?”
I laughed and so did Caroline despite being on the verge of tears. We stood together, a reunited trio of friends, watching Regina work the healing magic of beauty and charm on a staff battered not so much by the twin losses as the ugliness in Nevada and South Carolina. Clinton associates took out ads on Spanish-speaking radio stations saying that Barack “does not speak for our people.” They twisted his comment that Ronald Reagan effected change, helping the Republicans become the party of ideas, into something that sounded like he was praising Reagan and his ilk for their good ideas. A Clinton campaign advisor tried to exploit Barack’s routine teenage drug use--never such a problem that his grades were affected or he neglected his activism against Apartheid in South Africa. Barack acknowledged “making some bad decisions involving drugs and drinking as a teenager” in his autobiography Dreams From My Father. These were typical dirty tricks from the crowd who put the “I didn’t inhale!” candidate into the White House where he, of course, became the “I didn’t have sex with that woman!” President. But they were painful to endure by a staff mandated not to play trick for trick.
“Barack will always take the high road,” Regina said reassuringly on her way out the door in a wispy cloud of a white floral fragrance, just the right amount of expensive scent because she had impeccable taste. “And he will prevail.”
“That’s what Reggie says too,” Caroline said softly, her eyes shining with the light of purpose once again.
Chloe and I exchanged our understated “how nauseating” look behind her back. We were supposed to get on board the Reggie train now. Right. That wasn’t going to happen. Even after Caroline confessed she’d seen the copy of the police report with my post-it note attached, Kanesha and I stuck to our story: No, of course, we didn’t suspect Reggie of theft; we merely said the investigation had to start with him because he had the ring in his possession before it went missing.
“Reggie shares Barack’s ideals,” she said, twisting the diamond ring off her finger and cupping it carefully in her palm, a treasure that did not belong to her but was her temporary responsibility. “I think he could be president someday.”
“Yeah,” Chloe said, not asked. “He’ll need a proper black wife then, won’t he?” She grinned like a mean elf. “Kanesha!”
Caroline’s tears started to flow; and I read the instant chagrin on Chloe‘s face. Now that she was Evan’s revenge rebound lover, she was experiencing an oddly unfamiliar feeling associated with her sex life: guilt. (Her parents failed to instill the basic American sexual values: shame, guilt, judgment.) Feeling guilty about sleeping with her BBF’s ex, she’d instinctively done what most of us have at one time or another: treated very badly the one person in the equation who had the least power over her.
“Hillary insists she does not want the campaign to be about race or gender,” Michael Westwood said as I slid into the booth next to Chloe across from him and Caroline. Michael is a smart and savvy baby-faced white boy, a Harvard grad. (If you haven’t figured out yet that Harvard grads are this country’s elite rulers, attend a Harvard graduation. The “go forth and run the country” message is part of every valedictory speech.) He also spent three years working at Burson-Marsteller, the big PR firm headed by the Clintons’ first pollster and close advisor Mark Penn - the man generally credited with determining their campaign style and the guy who will be the hero or the goat this time around. Like Reggie, he‘d worked in the enemy camp. “And then, of course, she accused Barack in so many words of playing to black people,” he said, his upper lip curling slightly in a sneer that can only be described as cute on that face.
I was late joining them for lunch because I had to call Kanesha in South Carolina with the Regina-and-the-ring story. Omigod, Omigod, Omigod she shrieked. She was still wailing something about having blown her chance to become part of the black bourgeoisie (or maybe even get to know Oprah) when I told her I’d get back to her later.
“That’s why Bill does her race baiting for her. It’s one of those things that he does to keep her pure, like ejaculating in the mouths and on the dresses of White House interns,” Caroline said; and everyone cheered and held up their wineglasses in salute.
“Not about gender!’ Chloe snorted. “She puts on her Commander-in-Chief persona when she pulls on her pants every morning. Tell me she would have voted for war in Iraq if she weren‘t already projecting her strong military commander image!”
The ensuing banter kept everyone amused except Chloe who was sneaking glances and smiles at the handsome young black executive sitting an arm’s length from her at the next table. Chin down, eyes up, she flirted effortlessly, effectively - and daily, like a Southern belle, quite an accomplishment from a girl raised in the North by a Jewish mother who didn‘t wear makeup or shave her legs. (Kanesha once remarked about Chloe: “She will be 99 and still be the nursing home’s resident flirt.” Yes. And everyone’s grandsons will love her.) Unfortunately, the object of her attentions had a lunch companion, one of those skinny black women with straight (a.k.a. Caucasian style) hair, good clothes with edgy style, longer nails than a white woman of similar social status would have - and that “I’ve just smelled/eaten something distasteful” facial expression worn most frequently when white women are around. A general rule of race relations between white and black women: White women pay scant attention to black women as a group even if they have black women friends, but black women are always checking out the white women in the room and they are tough graders on everything from wardrobe through mannerisms.
“Excuse me. We’re having a conversation here,” she said sharply to Chloe while she gave her lunch companion a knuckle-rapping look.
“Oh, no, excuse me,” Chloe replied, in her “shug-ah” voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice you sitting there.”
Have I mentioned that Chloe is not the most popular white girl with the black girls back at the office? Kanesha once told me that she didn’t consider either Caroline or Chloe “real friends.” When I protested that they considered her a real friend, she said with that annoyingly superior look she always has lecturing the white folks on the ways of black folks: “Oh, I know they do. White girls all want to have a black friend now.”
I wonder what Michelle says to Barack about white women when nobody is listening.
“I like tweaking those hostile bitches,” Chloe said as we were walking back to the office, lagging behind Caroline and Michael. Those boots had four inch heels; and Caroline was in little leopard print flats. “Who is more racist than black women?”
“Redneck men,” I offered, but she ignored me.
“I’m horny,” she said. “I need to get my pussy pounded. A vibrator won’t do the job today.”
In her make-up bag, Chloe carried a pocket rocket vibrator--about the length of a cigarette and the thickness of a thin cigar - and a lipstick vibe - a vibe cleverly disguised as a tube of lipstick - and wasn’t shy about using one of them in a restroom stall whenever she needed quick release - at least once or twice a week. A political campaign is a tense business. In fact, I was feeling the sexual tension myself that day. Everybody in the office seemed to be in need of a sex fix to take the edge off.
“I’m really horny,” she said; and I imagined those red lips going down on Evan’s big dick. My mind wandered to possibilities for myself, none of them good, but, on the other hand… “I need to get laid,” she said.
“Yes, yes, I get that!” I yelled.
We almost bumped into Caroline and Michael who’d slowed down for us. Her cell phone pressed to her ear, she wore the look of rapture on her face that I had previously only seen in ancient oil paintings of saints about to ascend to the heavens. (Standing in front of one of those paintings in the Uffizi museum in Florence I had an epiphany: extreme religious passion is indistinguishable from sexual passion.) Reggie, of course.
“He says it’s another bitter day on the campaign trail,” Michael whispered.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I read that on MSN before we left for lunch. Who let The Dog out?”
“Ugh,” Chloe said, nodding at Caroline. “You know who’s a hero now.”
Michael seemed confused but I knew what she was talking about--and when I thought about it later, I was pretty sure his confusion was feigned. The ring had been found. Reggie was cleared - by no less than Regina; and that elevated him to a higher plane.
“What?” Michael asked, his big blue eyes as blue as the Chicago sky. “Is Reggie feeding stories to MSN?”
“Maybe he is,” I said; and for the first time it occurred to me that maybe he was.
Back in the cubicle I shared with whatever regular volunteer happened to be on scheduled duty, I went online to peruse the news from MSN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Without calling them liars, Barack was asserting that the Clintons were “making false assertions” and promised he would “aggressively set the record straight.” Downplaying the nastiness, he said, “This is good practice for me, so when I take on those Republicans I'll be accustomed to it."
But a petulant Bill, who’d created the racial tension that now existed in the South Carolina Democratic electorate, whined to the media according to this AP report on MSN:
"‘I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful and had no character and was poll-driven. He had more pollsters than she did," the ex-president said in a heated exchange with CNN reporter. ‘When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the Senator Punjab I never said a word.’ Neither Clinton nor his wife said what he meant by ‘hit job.’"
Hillary had waited too long to try “likable” in Iowa, cried to good effect in New Hampshire, turned mean in Nevada and let the Big Dog out in South Carolina. For someone who owed a lot to the African American community, Bill wasn’t treating them with respect. I groaned. On the phone arranging an assignation with Evan, her new carnal companion, Chloe made a quizzical face. Bill Clinton, I whispered. She nodded in understanding. Were the Republicans right about him? Some of the women I know, including my Aunt Sally, a typical Hillary supporter right down to her sensible shoes, have predicted that Bill would sabotage his wife eventually because he doesn’t want to see her win. Ah, marriage, the three-legged race.
Barack never said any of that about Hillary or put out a “hit job” on Bill. That is Clinton style politics, not Obama style. The “Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab” memo was our campaign blunder - costing a staffer his job. A dumb kid fresh out of Yale sent a memo, leaked to the press, citing the Clintons’ strong personal and professional ties to India that supposedly led to favorable government concessions to India‘s big industrialists. Not exactly true. Off with the offending Yalie head. I wasn’t in the office when Barack dealt with the situation but Kanesha said it was the only time she’d ever seen him angry - and she didn’t want to see it again.
“He called all of us together and said that he would not run a campaign without integrity,” she told me, her face suddenly vulnerable and exposed. That‘s when I understood how much Barack‘s candidacy meant to her personally, not just as a stepping-stone to D.C. “I will never forget him saying, If I cannot win honorably, I will lose. That’s not something he says publicly to build image. That‘s what he says in private. And he means it.”
But nobody called her Senator Punjab - that is, nobody but Bill.
“Are you working tonight?” Chloe asked.
“No. I’m teaching.”
“Oh, good,” she said, her brown eyes so delighted that the golden flecks stood out in them. “I can use the desk.”
Right. She and Evan would want to do it in the office as a way of letting Caroline know they were doing it. And maybe Reggie would walk past at the right moment too. He and Kanesha and several others were flying back from South Carolina that night for a series of Super Tuesday meetings over the next few days. David Axelrod was rumored to be returning on the same plane--with a New York magazine writer doing a story on the two campaigns.
Tomorrow, I thought, really is another day.
The polls were closed in South Carolina by the time I got back to the office the next day; and I brought cameras in the hopes of catching Axelrod in a mood, pensive or jubilant. The general mood of the office, however, was easy to read: Randy. Was it my imagination or did everyone seem to be giving off pheromones? Chloe was sitting on the edge of my desk, her groin connected to Evan’s leg where it meets the thigh, her outer leg moving up and down against his as if she were doing some kind of leg stretches. She was wearing a cream silk shirt and short black skirt, 4” black peek-toed platforms with red reptilian heels, shoes that looked like Christian Laboutin or a good copy and lace-topped black thigh-high stockings. Very 1940s glamour in the legs and shoes department. Evan’s erection was visible as she moved that leg.
“Thomas!” she said enthusiastically, leaning over to hug me just as he and I were exchanging man hugs so that she brought us all together like a knotted challah bread. Oh, yes, nice big erection. “The polls just closed!”
Untangled, we made our way into the larger space with the big TV. Reggie and Caroline stood close but not touching, out of deference to Evan, no doubt - but any fool could see the electricity between them. Dressed down in big blue sweater, tight jeans and Ugg boots, Kanesha was deep in conversation with Michael Westwood with whom she liked to analyze Clinton campaign strategy. His three years with Penn’s firm made him our expert in that area. In a corner of the room lounged the delicious Rodney Skinner Turner, or RST as I dubbed him on the spot. Gay or straight? (My gay-dar fails me when I see a man I could really get into vs. a guy like Reggie whom I could just do; hope overcomes analytical reasoning.) Wearing a beautifully tailored dark gray suit that set him well apart from the rest of us, he seemed to consider all of us in the same vaguely interested but uninvolved way. Our eyes met. He smiled a lazy smile.
The first cheer went up in the room. Our man was ahead in the exit polls. It was looking good for him, very good. Within minutes the early prediction that he would take 55% of the vote was made; and it held up through the night. In a three-way race that broke voter turnout records - 55%. Four out of five African Americans voted for Barack and women came out in big numbers. We could thank Bill for some of that.
“We’re fired up!” Reggie yelled.
“Fired up!“ one of the campaign workers in South Carolina yelled out on CNN. An African American woman in a rural South Carolina church gave Barack the “Fired up!” slogan, used in the Civil rights movement. “Fired up!’ Caroline called out in a clear melodious voice as if she were on the college stage again. Soon we were all chanting and didn’t stop until Barack walked onto the stage at the victory rally.
He said:
"The choice in this election is not about regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future…We are up against conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose."
Ten days to Super Tuesday. Amid speculation about whether or not John Edwards would drop out of the race, I sauntered over to RST. Ready with what could be taken as a friendly gesture or a pick-up line, I was about to ask him if he’d like to go down to the bar and get a drink when he asked in that rich baritone voice I felt all the way down in my balls, “Are you and your friends - Caroline and the others - going out for a drink?”
“I came over to see if you’d like to help me round them up,” I said. Smooth transition. Let him think I was including him in the group. Caroline - hah! In your dreams, man. You‘ll never lay hand or dick on that creamy white skin. “It’s time to move the Super Tuesday prognosticating to a place where a man can get a glass of good scotch.”
But we didn’t make it out for drinks that night. One impassioned conversation or debate led to another and another and when I looked up bleary-eyed from the computer screen where I had been following Barack‘s every words that night, it was after 2 a.m. and the office was silent except for the money counters way up front and the soft sounds of – yes - sex. I couldn’t help myself. I tiptoed down the corridor to identify the sources.
Behind one door, I heard Caroline’s throaty gurgle and the muffled sounds of Reggie, face surely in her pussy. (Who says black men don’t go down?) Pink tongue on pink flesh. Their rule is: No intercourse in public places. And behind another door, Chloe’s louder moans, Evan’s heavy groans that made me imagine I could feel his balls slapping against my ass - and the sound of the desk thumping rhythmically beneath the force of their banging. I guessed Chloe was bent over the desk with Evan entering from behind. My dick grew hard at the thought of his member, thick and hard, pulling out, thrusting in, glistening, gleaming like polished marble.
“Yes!” Chloe screamed.
“Oh!” A different voice. Or was it No? Kanesha’s voice was coming from behind door number three. A muffled male voice sounded commanding but I couldn’t make out the command.
I wanted to stay there long enough to hear her partner’s voice, but instead I heard the sounds of Reggie and Caroline collecting themselves, preparing to leave. I scampered on tiptoe like some damned fairy back to my cubicle, picked up my coat and ran out of there ahead of the lovers, all of them. Kanesha - fucking in the office! Now that shocked me. With her mind always on the ultimate prize, a great job in D.C., she was too careful to behave like this. And with whom?
He had to be black, of course. Kanesha considered interracial sex politically incorrect. Anyway, I’m sure you all have dicks that look like fat white slugs, she once told me. As I ran to the bus, headed home to the South Side and my big shabby fourth floor walk-up apartment, I went through the list of possible contenders for the royal black pussy. My cell phone went off as I took my seat.
“Thomas!” Caroline cried. “Something’s happened to Kanesha. You need to get back here now!”
To Be Continued Next Week!
Copyright © 2008 by Carla Dickens. All rights reserved. Please do not re-publish the entirety of this chapter or novel without the prior written consent of E-Reads.
DISCLAIMER
This is a work of fiction that takes place during the Democratic Primary and Presidential Campaign of 2008. With the exception of casual references to certain living public persons, places, and events, and of speeches, news commentaries or statements that are public record, all characters, names and places used in The Faithful are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The work contains adult themes, language and content and describes sexual situations.
Labels: Barack Obama, Carla Dickens, Romance, Serial, The Faithful
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