By Silent Majority

by Robert Buschel

  The cheers of victory were still ringing in Daniel Carlson’s ears. Senator Carlson from Florida. Daniel took the morning to think about some of the people he would bring on the staff and who would be his advisors during the next six years.

  Elana Goldstein wouldn’t be on staff with Daniel in Washington. Surely, she would remain a confidant. Her guidance was accurate. Her understanding of him was deep. She was his friend. A friend that didn’t give him lip service. She would pump his ego when he was down, but always demonstrated her honesty when she was asked, or wasn’t asked her opinion.

  “So, are you going to remember us small people in Washington?” Elana Goldstein asked.

  “Maybe as small as you, but no smaller,” Daniel said sarcastically.

  “Another politician who can’t relate,” she snapped back. Daniel sensed she was somewhat serious.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying don’t forget the reason why you did this. Go to Washington and fight for the good guy. You’ll see big business interests are going to jump all over you because you’re a freshman Senator. Take you out to dinner, give you gifts. And the people are going to make passes at you all day long—they’re called lobbyists.”

  “Elana, I’ll remember. I can resist. I’m not a virgin to all of this.”

  Daniel threw himself into the chair at his desk and put his feet up on his desk. He was sad to be leaving his job at the Department of Justice, after a leave of absence. The fact that he had to leave his favorite chair behind triggered a feeling of nostalgia.

  Elana stood at the other side of the desk. She stopped packing Daniel’s belongings away and listened to what he had to say. “My father of all people, probably inadvertently, made me empathize with the working man when I was in high school. One weekend he asked me to type something for him—something work related. I forgot to do it. I was a kid and had better things to do than that. Well, he yells at me like I’ve never been yelled at. He made Peter look like a concerned educator.”

  Daniel likened his father to the evil aspect of the Silent Majority. Do what we know is best, not what you think is right. You’re logic fails because you have no experience. Sympathizing with others is no way to live. Daniel was young. He was stubborn.

  “He decided to teach me responsibility. If I say I’m going to do something, damn it, I’m going to do it. My father decided that life was too easy for me, so he cut me off. And I don’t mean just my allowance. He took away all spending money. Wouldn’t let me withdraw from my savings account. No credit cards in those days for a kid my age. I couldn’t drive my car, which included going to school. A friend wasn’t allowed to drive me either. I had to walk. He forbade my mother from making my lunch. My mother would slip me a couple of dollars so I could buy something at school. I considered that welfare. I had to stay away from the house until six o’clock, when dinner was served. Then I had to leave and couldn’t come home until ten o’clock at night. This included weekends.”

  “So what happened? Did you rebel?” Elana asked.

  “But I didn’t eat dinner. I either sat there or didn’t come home. It was a war of wills.” Daniel secretly wished he had such clarity today. He was scared that he would not be able to fight the current of the Silent Majority in the Senate. He had some power. But, would he have to get along with the Silent Majority?

  “I didn’t care after awhile. I started an afterschool program and tutored kids in the neighborhood. I had a couple of kids whose parents couldn’t afford my fee, so I gave them a scholarship. It turned out I like teaching and I was good at it. That was one of my happiest times. I learned that not everyone learns the same way. So, I would come up with different ways of teaching the same thing. It helped me and them. My hope was to be able to do that during the campaign—teach. But that didn’t happen much. What it turned out to be was advertising. I’m hoping things will be different.”

  “When did the standoff with your father end?”

  “My mother couldn’t handle it anymore. He was punishing her. She told my father she wouldn’t allow him to cut me off anymore. It was six months before the whole thing ended. Then my father didn’t want me to tutor anymore. I did. We didn’t speak my entire senior year of high school,” he said.

  Daniel harkened back as a victorious warrior. He beat his father’s will. But will he be able to defeat the new father in his life? The father that didn’t know best. The father that was a petulant child.

  “It was then you discovered you had remarkable powers of understanding,” she said. “And now you taught me that so do I.” Elana then tossed a thick edition of “Corpus Juris Secundum” that hit Daniel dead on his chest. He yelled out in pain. Elana answered, “For instance, I know that hurt like hell.”

  “Very funny. Now get back to work.”

  Daniel was ushered into the ballroom as the sound of his name bellowed through a microphone. He didn’t know the man who announced his presence but the man pretended to be a close friend of Daniel’s when he entered the room with June.

  “I would like to thank you all. I want to thank everyone in the campaign who helped me.” Daniel adjusted the microphone. “Immigration reform is critical to the foreign policy issue of this country. Lady liberty proclaims the words of freedom. To accept the tired and the weary—the huddled masses longing to breathe free. On my agenda is to have sound immigration reform. If we do not, one day we will have people from oppressed lands perishing on rafts and climbing ladders to travel to this land. Let’s be prepared. Imagine the horror if we had to turn freedom seekers away. To come here with a yearning for freedom and a will to succeed only to have freedom’s doors be closed. Join me in support of a homeland in America for all those who want freedom.”

  With loud applause he stepped down from the podium and began to shake hands. He dared not give out a comprehension test to anyone on his remarks. They would fail miserably. This was a victory party. All those present had their own agenda to be pressed. Perhaps they would throw support for Daniel’s bill if he supported theirs. Daniel’s power account had no credits.

  He thought that the word power he commanded was an act of courtesy. It was not. It was on an account to be paid at a later date. As a freshman Senator he was owed very little on his power account. In six years a Senator can run up a tab.

  On the Senator floor, a visitor, Elana Goldstein, spied the able freshman Senator Daniel Carlson speaking. Two minutes were yielded to the Gentleman from Florida. Daniel spoke: “. . . My colleagues. Whenever a bill like this is introduced, it threatens a system that we all know very well. Something Americans all over the country expect, either as supplemental income or in some cases—some very sad cases—as sole support in our later years. Yes, Social Security is a pillar, an establishment in our American system of government.” The Senate chamber boomed with Daniel’s resoundingly energetic voice. It echoed sweetly—slightly off the top domed ceiling.

  “Even to entertain any alternatives to a system so accepted . . . a system that is America, in good times and bad. We must not vote for this bill—the domino that sets a momentum against the very established economic pride of our country. Thank you.” Daniel turned to the President of the Senate and said, “I yield the rest of my time to the gentleman from Iowa.”

  Senator Carlson overcame his fear of speaking in front of the Senate. He was so adept at speaking, yet feared that once he was a Senator, he would be considered a fraud. He saw the podium as all his fears erected into one symbol, one revealing symbol: that he was an imposter. That he was nothing but a school teacher. The best he could do is teach an occasional civics lesson. Ironic that his fear was the one thing that could’ve made Daniel live in happiness.

  The first time he had spoken on the floor of the Senate, Daniel quoted Andrew Jackson. The quote was about courage. Really, the quote was for himself, but it worked in quite well with his speech. This is the first time he had a chance to over
come what was developing as the inner demon of the Silent Majority. And it appeared that the vote before the speeches were going one way, however, when the votes were counted at the end of the day, it mysteriously went Daniel’s way. He didn’t really go out on any political limb. A Senator from Florida giving a speech about protecting social security was predictable. A real challenge would have been a speech about proposed reform to social security. But Daniel Carlson knew that he couldn’t even bring up the subject or risk being thrown out of the party. Was it just political reality, or reality? Or was it something more insidious. Something that would make Daniel spring up from his sound sleep to wonder if he is selling out his spirit’s purpose.

  Daniel quickly glanced up and felt Elana’s presence. He loved his friend quietly and from afar.

  CHAPTER 10

  Secondary School

  Daniel was numb after a long day of walking and lobbying for his free trade/immigration to Cuba bill. A bill he was trying desperately to get through Congress. The fear of being ahead of his time has Daniel motivated to work harder to communicate his ideas. The novelty of being a freshman Senator has worn off. Work was starting to feel like work. Yet, Daniel took pleasure in knowing that he was firmly in place in his job for the next six years. After the first election, the second is much easier and so on. Each time out was much easier, unless you fell into scandal or lost favor with the Silent Majority.

  Daniel entered the Florida home and the house was quiet and empty. It was a welcome change. The quiet made it seem like there was an end to the contained nuclear reaction, which was the schedule he kept for the past three weeks. Three weeks of constant meetings and receptions, and luncheons. He felt like he didn’t get a blessed thing done.

  Daniel was depressed. The visit to his mother’s grave wasn’t the best exercise for his mental health, but he felt he had to. It was the only way he could get away from his aides. No one wanted to go to a cemetery unless absolutely necessary. Besides the only voters that were there were the voters that helped put Eisenhower in office. It was the only way Daniel could commune with his increasingly vocal minority. The little voice inside his head that said go ahead and do the right thing. Be who you are. Comfort is correctness, in logic, and certitude.

  As Daniel turned up the stairs he heard a noise coming from Connie’s room. He couldn’t figure out what type of noise it was. It sounded like a wail or whine. He heard the phone slam down.

  He knocked on her door. “Who is it?” Connie sounded annoyed.

  “It’s your father.”

  “Oh,” she replied. Daniel opened the door slowly. He saw Connie was crying. Her hair was messy.

  “Who’d you think it would be?”

  “I thought it would be Mom—making a big deal about something.”

  “Well, it’s me. What’s going on? You want to talk? I think this is the first time we can in a long time. Poor kids are growing up not even in front of my eyes.” Daniel embraced Connie. Then they both sat on her bed.

  “I just got into a fight with a friend. It wasn’t really a fight. And it isn’t just a friend,” she said crying into her hands. The number sixteen popped into Daniel’s mind and he realized that’s how old Connie was. He hoped it was something important only to a teenager that she was crying about.

  “Was this friend sort of a boy?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes,” she said with a sigh of embarrassment.

  “You got into a fight with a boyfriend?”

  “Sort of.” Connie fidgeted with her hands in her mouth. “You see when you, Mom, and Alan were away in Washington last week and I was here by myself...”

  “You had a party?” Daniel tried to make light.

  “No, Dad!” she whined. “I kind of went out with this guy Jeff. He wasn’t really my boyfriend but we went to the movies and then we came back here.” She paused to check if her father was catching on and getting angry. She couldn’t detect anything so she continued. “We came in and sat down by the couch and started kissing. Then we went upstairs,” she held her breath for a moment. So did Daniel. “And we had sex.” Connie released her breath with a sigh. She glanced up waiting to see her father’s reaction to what she had just told him.

  Daniel thought for a moment. He wasn’t shocked. He hoped that Connie wouldn’t be so open to her mother. He came up with an outline of what he wanted to say. There was no point in shaming his daughter, but he wanted certain values inculcated into her head. When he thought inculcated he meant beaten. He understood what had happened. She slept with a boy while getting carried away on a date when the parents weren’t home. Now the boy wants nothing to do with her.

  Daniel took a deep breath. He wasn’t comfortable discussing sex with Connie but knew that she could never go to June.

  “Do you know if you’re pregnant?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Daniel sat, leaned his back against the bed post and put his feet up on the bed.

  “Girls and sex are a mystery to boys. Kids your age have been interested in the opposite sex for quite some time by your age, but haven’t been able to do anything about it. It’s hard to kiss a girl goodnight if your parents are in the front seat, right?” Connie listened.

  “Now that boys have cars, and parents let children stay home by themselves, opportunity sometimes comes faster than the children are ready.”

  “I didn’t mean to take advantage of the situation, Dad. It just happened.”

  “I don’t mean to say you took advantage of me. But were you fair to yourself? You slept with a boy you didn’t know very well, and entered into a risky relationship, and now this boy doesn’t want to remember your name, right?”

  “He won’t even talk to me on the phone anymore,” she said.

  “Do you deserve that kind of treatment? That boy was to some point interested in you, but unfortunately you could’ve been almost any girl. A lot of boys get pressure to have sex even before they’re ready. Most of the time it is from their fathers who live vicariously through their sons’ conquests.”

  “You mean he told his father!” Connie realized.

  “Maybe.”

  “How can I get him to talk to me again?”

  “Forget, Jeff. Write him off. He doesn’t want to show you respect for whatever happened; he doesn’t deserve you.” For a split second Daniel heard himself speak in the voice of his mother. “You are gorgeous. And high school is a tough age to believe that you’re wonderful. But trust me, send this guy Jeff a cool breeze his way, and he’ll do one of two things: go away, or not leave you alone. Either way you’ll get over him.” Connie started to cheer up.

  “You really think so?”

  “It’s politics. Just like I do every day. You don’t have to be ashamed of what you did. Just realize that you got what every boy wants. And I don’t just mean sex. You can offer the real you. And that guy will be very lucky.”

  “Why is there so much pressure to do it? I mean when did you do it, the first time?”

  “Well, I was older than most, but it’s a different type of pressure for boys. And there is a double standard. Boys become men, but it’s not the same for girls. I think girls are probably ready at an older age than boys. It’s a complicated emotional issue even as an adult.”

  Connie hugged her father. He thanked God he had a relationship with June’s children. He was wondering whether to tell her not to have sex again until she was older. He felt guilty for going away, and not being at home. How could he have let this happen?

  “Do you know for sure you’re not pregnant?” He couldn’t help but ask again.

  “I had my period,” Connie answered. “I know getting pregnant would hurt your career in politics.” Daniel was hurt by that comment.

  “I think it would hurt you. Would you want to raise a baby at your age? Worse, would you want to have to have an abortion?” Daniel was inspired to walk away fr
om politics for life, if it meant being there for his family. Why he didn’t say that to Connie he regretted moments later.

  “I don’t think it will happen again,” Connie offered.

  “It’s not like promising never to stay out late again. It’s a heat of the moment thing. It could happen again, and you need to know that. So you’re better prepared to deal with it using your brain instead of your emotions.”

  Connie appreciated this sage advice as best as she could for someone who was lying about what was the real problem. She couldn’t even tell her father what was eating at her. Connie laid out some facts that would distract and explain why she wouldn’t be herself in the weeks to come. Connie was protecting Daniel from a political nightmare, which he would have to live with if the press ever found out what she did. Connie thought Daniel, her father, was worth the protection.

  Suddenly the telephone rang and delivered even more news. Doctor John Carlson was dead of a heart attack.

  Daniel began dealing with his father’s death. It was always in the back of his mind, creeping to frontal consciousness from moment to moment. A man who was an adequate father. Whose best thing he ever did in life, and didn’t know it, was to marry Daniel’s mother. He’s gone and Daniel was morose for different reasons. He wished they could’ve been closer. Probably like every child, regardless of how a father has treated him. Children are programmed by some instincts to seek the love of his parents, even the bad ones. Daniel knew he never could get closer to his father.