2
I usually hate September. With the end of the August recess, the halls are once again crowded, the Members are frozen in preelection bad moods, and worst of all, with the October 1st deadline that’s imposed on all Appropriations bills, we’re clocking hours twice as grueling as any other time of the year. This September, though, I barely notice.
“Who wants to taste a food item less healthy than bacon?” I ask as I leave the polished institutional hallways of the Rayburn House Office Building and shove open the door to room B-308. The clocks on the wall shout back with two loud electronic buzzes. The signal for a vote on the House Floor. The vote’s on. And so am I…
Wasting no time, I make a quick left at the hand-woven Sioux quilt that hangs on the wall and head straight for our receptionist, a black woman who always has at least one pencil sticking in the bun of her prematurely gray hair. “Here you go, Roxanne — lunch is served,” I call out as I drop two wrapped hot dogs onto her paperwork- covered desk. As a professional staffer for the Appropriations Committee, I’m one of four people assigned to the subcommittee on Interior. And the only one, besides Roxanne, who eats meat.
“Where’d you get these?” she asks.
“Meat Association event. Didn’t you say you were hungry?”
She looks down at the dogs, then up at me. “What’s up with you lately? You on
I shrug my shoulders and stare at the small TV behind her desk. Like most TVs in the building, it’s on C-SPAN for the vote. My eyes check the tally. Too early. No yeas, no nays.
Following my gaze, Roxanne turns around to the TV. I stop right there. No… there’s no way. She can’t possibly know.
“You okay?” she asks, reading my now-pale complexion.
“With all this dead cow in my gut? Absolutely,” I say, patting my stomach. “So, is Trish here yet?”
“In the hearing room,” Roxanne says. “But before you go in, someone’s at your desk.”
Crossing into the large suite that houses four separate desks, I’m thoroughly confused. Roxanne knows the rules: With all the paperwork lying around, no one’s allowed in back, especially when we’re in preconference — which means, whoever’s back here is someone big…
“Matthew?” a voice calls out with a salty North Carolina tinge.
… or someone I know.
“Come give your favorite lobbyist a juicy hug,” Barry Holcomb says from the chair next to my desk. As always, his blond hair is as perfectly cut as his pinstriped suit — both of which come courtesy of bigshot clients like the music industry, the big telecom boys, and, if I remember correctly, the Meat Association.
“I smell hot dogs,” Barry teases, already one step ahead. “I’m telling you, free food always works.”
In the world of Capitol Hill, there’re two kinds of lobbyists: those who swoop in from the top and those who burrow in from below. If you swoop in from the top, it’s because you have direct connections to the Members. If you burrow from below, it’s because you’re connected to staff — or in this case, because you went to the same college, celebrated your last two birthdays together, and tend to see each other out for a beer at least once a month. The odd thing is, since he’s a few years older, Barry’s always been more Harris’s friend than mine — which means this call is more business than social.
“So what’s happening?” he asks. There it is. As a lobbyist at Pasternak & Associates, Barry knows he’s got two things to offer his clients: access and information. Access is why he’s sitting here. Now he’s focused on the latter.
“Everything’s fine,” I tell him.
“Any idea when you’ll have the bill done?”
I look around at the three other desks in the room. All empty. It’s a good thing. My other three office mates already have their own reasons to hate me — ever since Cordell took over the Interior Approps subcommittee and replaced their former colleague with me, I’ve been the odd man out. I don’t need to add to it by letting them catch me back here with a lobbyist. Of course, Barry may be the sole exception.
Sitting just below the Grand Canyon lithograph that hangs on my wall, Barry leans an elbow on my desk, which is packed with volcanoes of paperwork, including my Conference notes of all the projects we’ve funded so far. Barry’s clients would pay thousands, maybe millions, for those. It’s sitting four inches to Barry’s left.
But Barry doesn’t see it. He doesn’t see anything. Justice is blind. And due to a case of congenital glaucoma, so is one of the Hill’s best-known young lobbyists.
As I cross around to my desk, Barry’s vacant blue eyes stare into the distance, but his head turns as he traces my steps. Trained since birth, he absorbs the sounds. My arms swinging against my body. The in-and-out of my breath. Even the crushed hush as my foot hits the carpet. In college, he had a golden retriever named Reagan, which was great for meeting girls. But on the Hill, after being slowed down by strangers who were constantly asking to pet the dog, Barry branched out on his own. These days, if it weren’t for the white cane, he’d be just another guy in a snazzy suit. Or, as Barry likes to put it: Political vision has nothing to do with eyesight.
“We’re hoping October first,” I tell him. “We’re almost done with the Park Service.”
“How ’bout your office mates? They moving as happily along?”
What he really wants to know is, are the negotiations going just as well? Barry’s no fool. The four of us who share this office divvy up all the accounts — or sections — of the Interior bill, each doing our own specialty. At last count, the bill had a budget of twenty-one
It’s one of the dirtiest little secrets on Capitol Hill: Congressmen can pass a bill, but if it needs funding, it’s not going anywhere without an Appropriator. Case in point: Last year, the President signed a bill that allows free immunizations for low-income children. But unless Appropriations sets aside money to pay for the vaccines, the President may’ve gotten a great media event, but no one’s getting a single shot. And that, as the old joke goes, is why there’re actually three parties in Congress: Democrats, Republicans, and Appropriators. Like I said, it’s a dirty secret — but one Barry is all too aware of right about now.
“So everyone’s good?” he asks.
“Why complain, right?”
Realizing the clock’s ticking, I flip on the TV that sits on my filing cabinet. As C-SPAN blooms into view, Barry turns at the sound. I once again check the vote count.
“What’s the tally?” he asks.
I spin around at the question. “
Barry pauses. His left eye is glass; his right one is pale blue and completely foggy. The combination makes it near impossible to read his expression. But the tone in his voice is innocent enough. “The tally,” he repeats. “What’s the vote count?”
I smile to myself, still watching him closely. To be honest, if he were playing the game, I wouldn’t be surprised. I take that back. I would be. Harris said you can only invite one other person in. Harris invited me. If Barry’s in, someone else invited him.
Convinced it’s just my imagination, I check the totals on C-SPAN. All I care about are the yeas and nays. On- screen, the white letters are superimposed over a shot of the still mostly empty House Floor: thirty-one yeas, eight nays.
“Thirteen minutes left. Thirty-one to eight,” I tell Barry. “It’ll be a slaughter.”
“No surprise,” he says, focused on the TV. “Even a blind man could’ve seen that.”
I laugh at the joke — one of Barry’s old favorites. But I can’t stop thinking about what Harris said.
“Listen, Barry, can we catch up later?” I ask as I grab my conference notes. “I’ve got Trish waiting…”
“No stress,” he says, never wanting to push. Good lobbyists know better than that. “I’ll call you in an hour or so.”
