Fortune and Men's Eyes

In my not so humble opinion, the two of us moved to another level at that moment. My acknowledging that reciprocal restraint was an integral part of our relationship, let Karen know that I understood the importance of our mutual pledge. It also let her know how I felt about either of us breaking it.

I didn't go out of my way to test our understanding. But stuff will inevitably happen.

The one thing that mainframes did a lot back in the good old days was crash. We suffered a fatal stack overflow and the only way to get the thing working again was a cold start. So, we researchers found ourselves at liberty while, the system staff beat on the CPU with the proverbial monkey wrench.

I drifted over to the law school to see if my lady love was free for the day. The kid at the desk in the law-library said that the second-year students were all at Dominik's. So, I moseyed in that direction. As I walked up the street, I could see Karen sitting at the same table on the patio.

As she'd gotten older, Karen's beauty had developed into something special. She'd cut her thick blond hair down to shoulder length with bangs that made her look sleek and sophisticated. Her round face had lengthened a bit and it now featured two superbly proportioned cheekbones and a distinctively pointed chin. Include her big blue eyes and wide sensual mouth in the picture and my wife was a stunningly attractive woman.

There were about a dozen students sitting around the table with books and yellow legal pads. Douchebag was sitting next to Karen. I didn't like the proprietary look on his face.

He would occasionally lean in to talk to her. I could tell that bothered my wife by the way she would lean away. I was just crossing the street when she jumped to her feet and began to animatedly yell at the piece of shit. The other students were staring at the two of them in amazement.

Then Karen went stomping out of the place in the direction of the parking lot, which was in front of me and to my left. I had just gotten to the restaurant as she crossed the street marching in the opposite direction. So, I hustled to catch up.

I came up behind her as she marched along, radiating pissed-off. Karen is tiny compared to me. But she was intimidatingly angry. When I caught up to her, I asked her the obvious question, "What happened back there?"

At the sound of my voice, she stopped and turned startled. She said, "What are you doing here Chris!!"

I said, "The system croaked. So, I'm done for the day. What happened to make you so mad?"

She said angrily, "That asshole tried to grope me under the table. What did he expect me to do, clear off all the books and fuck him right there?"

As we continued to walk toward the car Karen was muttering under her breath, "Touch-touch-touch, it's all you men ever do."

I said, "Do you want me to have a little heart-to-heart with him?"

She sputtered, "I can fight my own battles. I'm done with that study group and I'm going to talk to the Dean about him!!"

I don't know why the whole incident made me feel so good. Maybe it was the reaffirmation of my wife's commitment and common sense. Or maybe it was the amazing jungle fucking that happened when we got home. Karen had some serious anger issues to work out.

*****

There are a lot of neat cities that a newly minted lawyer can end up in, New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas. But we chose Washington DC.

It made sense. I had an offer at Georgetown, and Karen had gotten a position as a staff legal advisor for the Senate Armed Services Committee. That was no coincidence. Karen's parents were big contributors to the Chairman's re-election committee.

We didn't have much money, so we rented a place in New Carrollton near the Metro station. We could commute in on the Orange Line. Karen would get off at Capitol South and walk over to the Russell Building. I'd continue on to Foggy Bottom.

I'd parked a bike at GWU. From there, it was a relatively hassle-free ride down Pennsylvania and up M to the Georgetown campus.

Karen had enough ambition for both of us. Hence, locating herself where all of the levers get pulled was just another step in her climb to self-actualization. Me? I kinda fell into the situation at Georgetown. I wish I could say that it was due to good planning. But it was more a matter of talking to the right guy at the right conference.

But it was a perfect job for a guy who marched to a different drummer; not the one frantically beating out the cadence for his wife.

I taught and researched data mining. No, that doesn't involve a hardhat and a canary. Every loyalty card and digital device gathers and reports data about you. That's your digital footprint.

All that personal information is kept in virtual warehouses where people like me run sophisticated analytics on it. That's data mining.

It's a form of weird science. We use what you reveal to us through your past behavior, to shape your future actions. I was researching subliminal ways to make you vote for the candidate of MY choice. That might sound like something Doctor Evil might do. But really... I'm just a nerd. And nerds don't care what other people do with their research. Think Werner Von Braun for instance.

Of course, all my tinkering was taking place on academic time, which isn't exactly real time. Karen worked lawyers hours. Her average week was twice mine. So, I was alone a lot. I didn't mind. I was perfectly comfortable puttering around in my head.

And let me make one thing perfectly clear. I wasn't remotely concerned about Karen playing patty-cake during the long hours apart. She rarely had time for bathroom breaks let alone afternoon delights.

Still, the outrageous hours that she put in didn't faze her. They energized her. She was doing important work, the stuff that you read about in the Post.

Most days, my wife would appear for our seven o'clock dinner with tales of Byzantine maneuvering and outrageous largesse, all wrapped in intrigue and backstabbing. Like most DC hands she viewed that carnage with the macabre cynicism that passes for humor.

Actually, Karen started to lean on me MORE as time passed. Her job was stressful, and her work environment wasn't exactly laid back; what with the fine collection of partisan warriors that inhabited it. Consequently, Karen viewed me and our little home as a safe harbor where she could relax and re-center herself after an invigorating day of swine-wrestling.

Our life went along beautifully for nine years. We had plenty of happy, relaxed and loving moments. Karen rocked my world on a regular basis. We talked and bantered, and our connection grew.

The two of us were well-established by that point. So, we bought a townhome in Greenbelt. It was a bit longer commute on the Green Line. But the price was affordable, and the place was brand new. Plus, you could literally walk next door to the Metro.

We had just celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary when the serpent slithered into the Garden.

I'd recently completed the tenure rat-race. It's an agonizing, slow-motion process. But it's the critical hurdle. Since, outside of the Vatican; there are very few people who know that they'll have a job for life. Now, I was tenured and short of getting caught doing unnatural things to farm animals, they couldn't fire me.

Karen took time off to celebrate. Normally she wasn't even out of the office at 5:30. But I had leapt over the single biggest barrier for an academic. It was a major triumph. So, she met me at Clyde's for a rare early evening dinner.

We were sharing a platter of their legendary steak tips when we were approached by Robert - don't call me Bob -- Hazelton, one of the political hacks who infest the Hill. He looked like a Labrador Retriever with a bird in his mouth.

Karen stood up, did the cheek kissing that passes for another part of the anatomy and said, "Robert, what a pleasant surprise!"

It wasn't.

Robert-don't-call-me-Bob was a congressional power player and a fellow who was the quintessential essence of the term, "Arrogant Asshole." Hazelton said, pointedly ignoring me, "I'm glad I spotted you here Karen. I was just talking about you."

He added inquiringly, "You work for Senate Armed Services, right?"

Karen said, "Yes, I'm on the legal staff, why?"

Hazelton said, "Missy Pleasants is retiring as Chief of Staff for Lawton McGhee." That made sense. The old bat must have begun her career during the Johnson administration. That's Andrew, not Lyndon.

McGhee was the Majority Leader. He was also an absolute master of narcissistic, self-promoting political stunts and king of the dirty tricks and bullying that we have all come to fondly associate with twenty-first century governance.

Karen said puzzled, "What does that have to do with me?"

Hazelton said, "We're wrapping up some important legislation and we need an energetic chick to push it. Lawton thinks that you're just the girl." That statement had so many things wrong with it that I thought Karen wouldn't even reply.

She surprised me by saying, "Go ahead -- I'm listening."

Hazelton got the same look that a boa constrictor gets when it begins to wrap its coils around a hapless victim. He said, still not acknowledging my presence, "I need an answer by tomorrow. This is very time sensitive."

So, Hazelton was trying to stuff my wife into the proverbial barrel before she realized what "headed over the waterfall" really meant. She looked at me and said, "My husband and I will have to talk about it. But I'm interested."

That was a surprise. Karen normally has nothing good to say about the denizens of Capitol Hill and now she was considering joining the club.

We should have been thrilled. Working for a Congressman used to be the pinnacle of success. You made the laws. People saw you as a person of respect. Now, you were part of a group that eight out of ten people view as lying varmintitos.

Naturally, with the unseemly, partisan bickering, self-important political posturing and all of the obvious efforts to peddle influence it's hard to fault the American people for their attitude.

We talked on the way back. I said, "Do you really want to do this? You're going to change the dynamics of your life if you get out of the executive side and onto the political side."

Karen gave me a grim smile and said, "I know what you're talking about. But nothing is ever going to change if good people don't step up. So, I see it as my civic duty."

Of course, the road to hell is paved with those kind of intentions and almost every conversation that begins with, "Whatever were you thinking?" ends with, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

*****

Thanks to the Twentieth Amendment; Karen showed up at the Cannon Office Building bright and early on January the third. That's the day they swear in the new Congress.

Because all of the Reps are elected to two-year terms McGhee had to go through the same swearing in ceremony as the freshmen. Even though it was the fifteenth time he promised to, "Support and defend the Constitution of the United States," blah-blah-blah.

Following that sham event, my wife found herself the "girl-Friday" to a very important dude. Even better, at least from Karen's perspective; she was the one who was actually steering the ship.

I hate to disillusion you. But most of the esteemed members of Congress spend their time politicking rather than actually tending to business. It's the staff who sweat the details. In fact, the Member rarely reads what he's pushing. His job is to do the public posturing and get re-elected.

You see pictures on Politico of the "great man" striding the halls of Congress and you don't notice the herd of people surrounding him. Those are his staffers. They're the ones putting the words in his mouth.

Karen was McGhee's Chief of Staff. The chief of staff is supposedly the single point of contact between the "great man" and the rest of his people. At least that's the idea. But Karen had a room full of old hands and they had no problem walking right past her to bang on McGhee's door.

So, the very first thing my wife did was hold a come-to-Jesus, where she laid down the law about who got to talk to McGhee and when. Following her little sermon, she established her own office in the glassed-in space behind the receptionist. That's the public area. Hence, Karen was the only person sitting between the staff offices on her right and the Member's private office on her left.

Then, the first staffer who crossed the reception area without checking with her got a royal reaming about chain of command. Karen didn't need to provide any more illustrations after that public horse whipping.

It was a gutsy move. Since my wife was the "new girl" and also, with the exception of the interns, the youngest person on the staff. Of course, she was also the smartest, toughest and by far the most attractive woman in an office full of ancient warhorses -- both male and female.

McGhee might be sixty-eight years old. But everybody in the whole-wide-world knew that he had an eye for the ladies. Karen had a brilliant and well-honed legal mind and she had a reputation for hard work. But she is also flat-out gorgeous. I'm sure that was the main distinction between her and any of the other eager-beaver candidates for the job.

And, don't get me wrong. DC might be a den of iniquity. But the Seventh is NOT the commandment that's most frequently broken. It's the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth; and if money's a graven image, then you can throw in the First and Second.

In fact, anybody who thinks there's a constant flow of illicit nookie on Capitol Hill doesn't understand how modern politics works. In this "gottcha!!" culture of 24-hour electoral discourse, everybody who is worth watching is stalked by a ravening pack of newsies. Thus, fucking a staffer is a crazy risky thing to do. Ask Bill Clinton how that worked for him.

On the other hand, given the reality of the Hill, Karen was clearly McGhee's work wife. In fact, he saw a lot more of her than I did. That really wasn't an issue as long as the two of us still had some time together, and I'm not talking about the sex.

Couples choose each other for intangible reasons. In fact, unless your relationship is fucked up from the git-go there is always something special that connects the two of you. Those are the little nuances that are uniquely personal; and they keep you genuinely satisfied with each other.

No matter what those factors might be, there's the feeling of safety and comfort when you're around each other. It's the only time that you are unreservedly content.

When Karen and I were alone it was like the two of us were back together sitting in the library. There was genuine simple affection, without any need to pose, or preen. We could both be ourselves, not the facade that we put on for the rest of the world. THOSE were the times that kept us both loving and sane

The shields drain your psychic energy. So, the ability to lower them is critical to a person's mental health. And Karen and I had always been able to compartmentalize our special moments together. I think all successful couples do that.

Academic life gives people insane amounts of money for very little actual work. But it's like running with a pack of wild dogs. Your survival depends on your ability to project total dominance and your peers will tear you to pieces if they sense even a shred of doubt. Hence, there is probably no profession that depends more on sheer arrogance than the professoriate.

That might be a horribly cynical way to portray major-league higher education. But that's the way it works. It's just a necessary part of doing business. Still, the haughty and intimidating armor that I strap on every morning is there to protect the real me and I'm just as geeky and clueless as I ever was.

The same's true with Karen. My wife's public persona isn't anybody you'd EVER want to mess with. Political life's a bitch. People are constantly trying to take a piece off you, and you constantly have to protect yourself. Because nobody else will.

So, at work Karen's polk-salad Annie; Lord have mercy!! A straight razor totin' woman!! Even the gators are afraid of her!!

Of course, that was just the face that she had to wear to survive and prosper in the blood-thirsty world of big-stakes politics. At home my wife was still the sweet, funny, and overly affectionate little woman I fell in love with lo-those-many years ago.

The problem was that our alone time was coming less and less. At first, I thought that it was due to the stress of Karen's new life. During the slack times the demands were merely crazy. When they were building the budget or planning the next campaign, she would be home perhaps six hours a night to sleep.

I didn't get the sense Karen's relationship with McGhee was the cause. Most of her intimate conversations with him were along the lines of how to manipulate situations for political gain. There simply wasn't any chemistry.

In fact, Karen had the same attitude toward McGhee as she had toward the guy who was after her in law-school. It ranged from dismissive to a little pissed off, especially if the old goat's wife was in the room.

But Karen was willing to provide the arm candy for the privilege of being in charge. McGhee didn't seem to care that the whole wide world knew that Karen wasn't fucking him. He was at that stage in life where just having a beautiful woman at his beck and call fed his ego.

That's a true fact of life with the DC elite. Just swing by the DC Army-Navy club on any given evening and you'll see a lot of geriatric whiteboys taking their granddaughters to dinner.

The distance Karen put between her boss and herself was an added bonus for him. Since it didn't give the bottom feeders like Drudge, Breitbart, or the Enquirer any red meat. The only thing those rags could do was speculate about who McGhee's beautiful new Chief of Staff was.

Naturally, there were the usual paparazzi. I even had a reporter stand up in the back of one of my lectures and ask me what I thought about my wife being seen so often with Lawton McGhee. I told him the truth, "It's her job."

Besides convincing the student body that their prof was a closet stud, Karen spent the weekend trying to fuck me to death. She said that she was grateful to have a husband who, "Got it."

The excitement of Karen hitting the Washington a-list eventually died down. So, she could get back to the business of running the Country; or at least the part that fell under her bosses purview. That was the House Armed Services Committee, which was pretty heady stuff since it oversaw every element of the U.S. military except the Coast Guard.

Karen also spent time on the road because of McGhee's need to get re-elected. When you think of Michigan, you usually conjure up Motown, or maybe Wolverine football. But the slogan that describes the northern part of that State is, "Paddle faster I hear banjos!!"

That's particularly true for McGhee's district, which was waaaay up north. In McGhee's district; men are men, women are subservient, Eisenhower is in the White House and federal assistance is every citizen's God-given right. So, McGhee kept himself in office by fighting to keep his constituent's disability money out of the hands of "furinners," and upholding the freedom to bear high-capacity magazine AR-15s.

Still, once in a while Karen's boss would have to take off his four thousand-dollar suit, jump in his private jet and sit around a greasy spoon in Cheboygan, just to remind the voters of his efforts on their behalf.

Karen had to be on those trips. Like I said, it was her job. I wasn't worried about her fucking anybody. The Congressman's toadies and advance men were masters of the fine art of backstabbing. Karen knew that as well as I did, and she was way too smart to end up on TMZ because she wandered off the reservation.