“ ‘Common ground’ is a phrase usually reserved for people who don’t quote white supremacists in speeches,” said Tom.
“Oh, fuck off, Tom,” groused his chief of staff. Dave Montreff was a slick cardboard College Republican, who made sure to lounge with his hands in the pockets of his Dockers. “That story was bullshit—”
“Okay, children!” said Fitzpatrick, calmly pushing the air down. “How ’bout we get some facts on the table? First, Mary Randall is going to win. If the numbers hold, she’ll be governing with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House. Maybe a recipe for four more years of fuckery, but maybe an opportunity to actually pass something big. Second, this Climate X nonsense you”—he nodded at Kate—“have been plugging on the talk-show circuit, that’s not going to happen without a hell of a lot of ball-busting and backdoor dealing.”
Kate twisted a pen in her large, rough hands; she never wrote notes but liked to fiddle with the tool while she listened, the notepad on her lap so pristine it could be resold.
“All Climate X means is we treat the most important issue in the world like it’s actually the most fucking important issue in the world. And we’re not settling for anything less than the whole package. Shock collar, tough new regs, Just Transition, and a big helping of investment and redistribution. You’re going to love it, Senator,” she said, teeth shining in Mackowski’s direction.
“Sure, and the rainbows will break through the clouds and the nymphets will start feeding me grapes. Ha!” Fitzpatrick barked at his own joke. Behind him, his aide took a pen and pad from his breast pocket and began furiously scribbling notes. His concentration was so intense, I couldn’t help but be distracted by it. “Point is, legislation is coming down the pike. These kids made sure of that.”
“And there’ll be resistance,” said Montreff.
“And we’re ready,” I added, and felt sweat on my brow as all eyes briefly found me. Kate threw me a smile, and I could tell she was happy with that line. Nevertheless, I settled into holding my tongue.
Mackowski expelled a condescending snort. “What did you call me?” He smiled big at Kate. “The oil industry’s meat puppet?”
“Sounds like me,” said Kate.
He scratched his eyebrows and bits of dandruff flaked off. I could smell his aftershave from five feet. “That a good idea? Making enemies of those who might be holding an awful lot of power someday?”
“You got, what? Thirty-seven delegates in your lame bid for the Republican nomination?” said Tom.
“He entered the race late,” said Montreff.
“Yeah, as an alternative nobody wanted. The Trump years are history, Senator.” Tom adjusted thick black glasses. From where I was sitting, I could see little spouts of AR information—his meeting notes most likely—glowing dimly within the lens. I didn’t understand how people focused with those things on their faces. “Look at Tracy Aamanzaihou in Houston. Oil and gas districts are flipping to renewable-energy labor leaders. My professional political opinion is that you and your whole coalition are about to be deeply fucked.”
Tom crossed muscular arms over his chest and sat back, very satisfied. He was a good enough guy, but also enthralled with himself. Montreff looked like he wanted to kill Tom, which meant they’d likely been in some kind of political knife fight previously. He looked at us the way many staffers did these days, with disdain, fear, and often envy. We were the upstarts. Every room we entered, eyes darted, and I felt like I had some bold new haircut. All through the mid-2020s one could feel the momentum shifting. Randall’s win in the Republican primary cemented it. Still, what happened next took us all by surprise.
“Aren’t you even curious about what I want?” said Mackowski.
Coral, Kate, and Fitzpatrick simultaneously replied: “We are, Senator,” “So let’s hear it,” “Batten down the hatches!”
Mackowski cracked his knuckles. He motioned to Fitzpatrick. “We want A Fierce Blue Fire to endorse Randall for president. Right now. In the eleventh hour.”
We all sat there for a minute, stunned. Coral said it first: “What?”
Mackowski shrugged, big boulder shoulders lifting his suit. “We all have our reasons.”
I looked to Fitzpatrick. “You want us to endorse the Republican running to unseat your party’s president?”
Fitzpatrick tilted his big head back and forth in a gesture of indifference, his wheelchair creaking as he did so. “Let’s just say, I’m a team player, but sometimes you get a quarterback who keeps tossing passes into the bleachers. Jo is not a bad person, but she is a bad president. For reasons I’m sure you’re familiar with and a few you probably aren’t.”
“Oooh! Palace intrigue! I’ve got the shivers,” cried Kate.
“Look, my sweet darlings,” said Fitzpatrick, swiveling in his wheelchair and then rolling to his desk. “You turned this into a one-issue election. Climate, climate, climate. Biospheric crisis this, ocean acid bath that. Set your hair on fire, start screaming, grab the first gal you see, and ask her to dance—and I’ll tell you something: I’m not far from the finish line here. And I don’t work for the Democratic Party, I work for the American goddamn people, fucking lunatics though they may be. A Republican president, a Black woman no less, can get the glory for finally turning the dime on the climate issue. She’s captured the folks’ imagination, and we need to ride that wave to a better world. Meanwhile, Jo Hogan…” He let out a slow whistle. “All she really cares about is slaughtering uppity A-rabs half a world away because she knows it gets the Blob, the press, everyone in this town, hard as a rock.”
I looked to the quiet man behind Fitzpatrick who’d not lifted his eyes from his notepad even once. He was making a strange shadow puppet gesture with his pen. At the mention of “A-rabs” he quickly scribbled another line or two, and like me, Mackowski watched him.
“This meeting is off the record,” Mackowski told him. I thought of how he’d won his Senate seat promising the mass surveillance of mosques and an end to all Muslim immigration.
“Don’t mind him,” said Fitzpatrick. “He’s just a thinker.”
When I later came to know Ashir al-Hasan, I’d learn this was quite the understatement.
“What’s your angle, Senator Mackowski?” Coral asked, always about the bottom line.
Mackowski blew a long breath and seemed to contemplate how much he should share. “I like to gamble. Mostly craps, some slots, and I can’t get enough Texas hold ’em. I’ll sit in a casino for a day without blinking, swear to Christ. My thinking is gambler’s thinking. You endorse Randall, she probably still wins, but the base hates her even more than they already do. Then in four years, eight years, whatever it might be, a lane opens up for me again. Simple as that.”
“You want us to torpedo Randall with the right wing for you?” asked Tom. “Even by D.C.’s rat-fuck standards, that seems weird.”
“Look, I can’t promise you I’ll vote for your socialist superbill when it comes down the pike, because I won’t. Ryan Doup and the rest of the RINOs will do what their president says, and I’ll resist. But I can promise that I’ll make strategic choices about who I’m pressuring. I can offer you breathing room. Hell, if a Green New Deal passes, it’ll give me something to run against in ’32 or ’36.”
We all sat there for a minute, stunned. In all the years I’d been in D.C. I’d never been surprised by the cold calculations people made, but they rarely phrased them so overtly.
Finally, Kate oozed forward in her chair and looked Mackowski dead in the eye, almost seductively.
“Senator, you’re never going to be president.”
“Oh no?”
“I’d never let it happen,” she said, nonchalant, like she was the actual puppeteer of the universe and really did hold that power. “If it came to it, I’d drive every swing-state voter to the polls myself. And please. You’re a total phony anyway. Little prep school kid with a fake drawl playing at right-wing populist.” She was smiling so happily, her eyes locked on his.