"A designer?", I asked. I looked over at Marilyn, and she seemed as clueless as me.
"Yes, to coordinate your décor and space, of course."
"Oh, like an interior decorator?", asked Marilyn.
"Something like that.", she replied.
"Well, my Aunt Peg offered to let me have the furniture in the basement until I could cash my first paycheck and get over to IKEA. Still, I guess we could get a designer. What do you think, honey?", I asked Marilyn.
"Will you behave!? You're as bad as the kids!" She turned to Jacqueline and said, "Never mind him. Do you know a decorator?"
The woman dug a business card out of her briefcase and passed it along. I gave her John's business card, and also one for Andrea. Andrea had agreed to review everything with John, to make sure it was all okay. I wanted a quick closing, which should make everybody happy. We retrieved the kids from the back yard, along with Dum-Dum, and loaded them back up. We drove around the neighborhood a bit, and then we took the kids home. I really needed to look into a better method of commuting. This took two hours each way, and was not realistic.
The solution to this presented itself in mid-December. I made an appointment to talk to Lloyd Jarrett of Executive Charters and drove out to see him at the Westminster Airport. "Carl, what's up? By the way, congrats on winning the election. I would have voted for you, but I actually live down below Reisterstown."
"Thank you. I appreciate the thought. That's sort of why I'm here, actually, in a roundabout fashion.", I replied.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. We're still living here, over in Hereford, and it's crazy to drive back and forth. What I was wondering is, well, what if I buy a helo and commute? Can I do that?"
He blinked in surprise, but shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, sure, it can be done. When did you get a pilot's license?"
It was my turn to look surprised. "No, no, not me! I mean, I'd buy the helo and base it either here or there, and go back and forth as the passenger, like a limo, sort of."
Lloyd looked at me curiously. "Carl, do you have any idea what that would involve? This would not be cheap!"
"Tell me."
"Well, there's the chopper itself. A new Jet Ranger, which would do the trick nicely, will probably run you close to a mill on its own. Then you'll need a pilot and you'll need a mechanic, because helicopters break down real fucking easy! You've got to park it someplace, which means you'll need to pay pad fees and hangar rental, probably both here and there. Fuel and parts ... Carl, you have to be looking at close to a million or two to set this up, and at least a million a year to keep it going."
I nodded to myself. I could afford that. "What about airplanes? What would a G-3 cost me?"
He stared in disbelief. "A Gulfstream III to commute between here and Washington?! That's crazy!"
I smiled and nodded. "No, that's crazy! I agree! No, I'm just curious, how much would that run?"
"Good Lord! Okay, the plane will be a few million. You can probably pick up one just a few years old for a reasonable figure. A lot of them have come on the market as owners trade up to the new G4 model. You'll need two pilots for that, as well as the same sort of hangar space and fees and parts and fuel. If you want both, you'll be paying two to three mill a year, at least."
"But it could be done?"
"Yeah, sure. With enough cash anything can be done. Hell, we made it to the moon, didn't we? D.C. should be a piece of cake." Then he scratched his head and asked, "Are you serious about this?"
"Yeah, I think so. Can it be done?"
"Okay, but here's another approach. What do you know about planes and helos, really? Why not pay me to handle this. We can put the birds under Executive Charters' name and certificates, use our facilities, our pilots, our mechanics and offices and hangars. We handle everything and you get either exclusive use or preferred use on everything. If you aren't using them, we can use them for rental or charter, to offset the costs."
I opened my mouth to argue but stopped halfway. This might actually make sense. I didn't really want to own airplanes; I just wanted to use them whenever I could. Why in the world did I want to run an airline? Even the airlines lost money doing that, and they were the ones who were supposed to know how to do it! I closed my mouth and thought about it, and gave Lloyd a wry smile. "Listen, do me a favor and look into this. Come up with a proposal. I just want to be able to hop back and forth when I want to, and use the airplane for longer trips and vacations and such."
"You want to go into National, or College Park?"
"College Park?" That was where the University of Maryland was, just outside of D.C.
"There's a small airport there, be good for small stuff, easier to fly into and out of than National. A Gulfstream would be too big for it, but a helo would be fine. Further out, though."
"Work it up both ways. I might have to drive from our home to both to time them."
Lloyd nodded. "Where's the house?"
"Northwest. Near the Naval Observatory and Rock Creek Park."
He nodded again. "Give me a few days. Let me make some calls and work something up."
We shook hands on it. Maybe we could make this work.
The day after my offices in Longworth were emptied out, I moved in. It was bare bones, but habitable. Sherry Longbottom, my new Legislative Director, commented, "Not much to look at, is it?"
"You'd prefer a spot over in the Cages?", I asked.
"Been there, done that! It's really quite lovely here, isn't it?"
"That's the winning attitude!", I answered, smiling. "Okay, seriously, let's make this habitable. Figure out what we're going to need and let's get it ordered. I don't need a matching mahogany and gold suite, but we need something decent, computers for everybody, printers, copiers, all that stuff. If we don't have it, get it. Beg, borrow, or steal, I don't care. If you need me to run interference, fine, but you guys probably know how to get it done better than I do."
Mindy McIlroy, my Executive Assistant, smiled and commented, "I am guessing your watchword will be plausible deniability?"
"You have hit upon my next campaign slogan! Write that down!" I motioned for her and Chuck to follow me into my personal office, which was also fairly bare. I glanced around and said, "The same goes here. I'm not all that picky on décor, but we need to do something. In the meantime, let's go over my schedule." The three of us sorted things out. The lame duck session was finished, and wouldn't reconvene until January 3rd, early for Congress. Then we would be out again for almost two weeks in February, almost three weeks in March/April, and another week in May, two weeks in June/July, six weeks in August/September, and then another six or seven weeks from November until January in '92. I started adding things up, and I counted out about 26 weeks when Congress wasn't in session, half the year! It gets worse - most work weeks are only four days long!
It's not quite as inefficient as that makes it seem. The worker bees on the staff work Monday through Friday, and through recesses. It's the elected officials who spend most of their time doing anything other than the nation's business. I had already heard about the informally named 'Tuesday-Thursday Club'. These were the Congressmen who would fly home on Thursday night and fly back to Washington on Tuesday morning, cramming four days of fundraisers or junkets into the weekend, and then forcing themselves to put in three days in Washington - usually at fundraisers.