And here’s where that starts.
Just before the transition period, after winning the mayoral election, we started acquiring books and documents from Dennis Archer’s administration and began to go over the vast nature of City government. It was the very first time that I really looked at the massive organization that was City government.
We were suddenly administrators of a company consisting of about 17,000 employees, more than forty departments, an incredible amount of appointees, and a $3 billion budget. Just to grasp it, I had to study it with the intensity of my bar exam preparation. The job required that I dedicate all of my time to it, and I felt there was no room for negotiation. That’s what I mean when I say my stress started right away. I refused to be an unprepared mayor. People thought I had energy, and some ideas. I knew that. But I felt the bigger issue I faced was how to manage this organization. I needed to know it inside and out. I wanted to meet with employees, and I wanted to see everyone face-to-face. That became an overwhelming prospect. But to get it done, I immersed myself in the work.
It was late 2001. Jonas was born during this time and, though I was probably the most doting father in the world when his older brothers were born, I hardly did anything to help Carlita with Jonas. I believe her depression and loneliness was deepest at that time. I was completely absent, heading to the transition office at 7:30 a.m. and returning home well after midnight. I hadn’t even been inaugurated yet. I’d promised Carlita a trip, but we cancelled it due to her pregnancy. We just went right from the campaign, to the transition, to the inauguration, to the heat of public office.
At the inauguration, Carlita had Jonas in a stroller, at less than a month old. She gave birth to him through an emergency Caesarian, and she had not yet properly healed. I was pushing myself in multiple directions, trying to be a good father, husband, and a good new mayor. But all of my attention started moving toward being the latter. Christine and I hopped planes and took trips around the country trying to find a police chief and a chief operating officer. If I needed someone to stay until 2 a.m., she was the first person I asked. We just became each other’s everything.
The stress was incredible, and we all suffered under it. Zeke’s hair began falling out. He gained twenty pounds and had to see a doctor. Christine became anemic. She’d later develop cancer. The strain was nothing short of incredible. And I don’t think anyone can understand it unless they’ve been through it, but I do believe the people in Detroit can truly see and feel the effects of people in office who are not working as hard as we were. It takes a tremendous amount of energy, persistence and tenacity to move anything in Detroit. No one wants to go there. No one wants to spend money for the City. There’s no one knocking on doors to participate. Everything you get, you have to wrangle it by the sweat of your brow. And it’s a hard… ass… job. When nationally-syndicated radio host Tom Joyner interviewed me two years ago, I told him that it’s the second-hardest job in the United States, behind the presidency.
But it’s no excuse for being absent from marriage and family. The Bible says that when a man marries, he leaves his father and mother, and cleaves to his wife. Well, I didn’t heed the wisdom of the inspired word of God. I cleaved to Christine. It wasn’t a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am relationship. It started with us trying to prevent sex; taking time to calm each other’s nerves due to the frenzied work environment. The discussions and reminders about our aspirations deepened our professional interdependence, and our friendship felt even more significant because neither Lou nor Carlita were prepared to provide the kind of support we needed. And how could they? I didn’t know how to support Carlita, either. None of us had any inkling what we were getting into.
Christine and I wrestled with this frustration together. We lifted one another up and reminded ourselves why we had aggressively sought these positions. We felt that God truly wanted us to be there to serve His people. Through it all, though, we lost our focus on the anointing that had been placed on us, and turned our attention toward each other.
We were in the transition office late one night, talking. The holidays were approaching, as was the inauguration. We’d submitted our transition report and hired our police chief, and we decided to take a break for Christmas. After doing some cleanup work, we were standing by a window when the moment grew emotional. From the third-floor windows of the small building on the corner of Larned and Washington Boulevard in Downtown Detroit, we could see the dazzling Christmas lights in front of the Cobo Hall Convention Center. A fresh layer of snow coated the ground, and reflections of the Canadian skyline danced on the surface of the Detroit River. It was serene and awesome. I had what I’d wanted since age nine. I was proud, excited and extremely thankful.
Key cliché’s apply here, from lives flashing before our eyes, to feeling like we had our backs against the wall. The moment was revelatory, and it seemed to hit Chris and me simultaneously. We turned to each other and hugged. And then we kissed. And then, we looked at each other.
“What the hell are we doing?” we said.
chapter 14
Forsaking All Others
I DON’T REMEMBER who said it, but we had to acknowledge what had just happened. We both admitted that we loved one another, and always had. We acknowledged our underlying feelings. And then we both said, aloud, that we couldn’t go to that place. It wasn’t our path.
But we did. The kiss ignited something, and it wouldn’t go away. It lurked as we tried to settle for intimate conversation, but we eventually had sex.
I know my actions were absolutely wrong. There are no excuses for it. My grandfather used to say, “When you point your finger at someone, there are three more pointing right back at you.” I reflect now on the moment I could have stopped it. I could have stood firm and listened to the still voice in my spirit. I just didn’t.
The press would later use words like “torrid,” “salacious” and “steamy” to describe what happened between Christine and me. Had those simple adjectives adequately described it, however, it might have been easier for us and our spouses to confront. But it was, by all measures of the word, a love affair. We began handling our business differently. We might take a trip to recruit a possible new hire or appointee, and we’d make it an overnight trip. We went to movies, clearly indicating to each other that ours had moved from a working relationship to something deeper. We discussed our children, and talked about our homes, compromising the sanctity of our households. We began to share everything with one another—our hopes and dreams, our deepest fears, our bodies. We scheduled time to be with one another, away from our families, the job and Detroit. We shared secrets of our past, and had profound moments in which we genuinely released past hurts, pains and demons. We grew closer and closer, all the while knowing we were wrong. We crossed the line long before sex became a factor. We built up that passion through our mutual respect, and our shared atmosphere until our emotional maturity escaped us.
The spiritual growth, maturation and girding that had protected me through a hard-fought election was damaged. My relationship with Christine broke the vital spiritual foundation of both our households. We had conversations about the pain we were causing our families, and the further pain we’d cause if they knew, and I felt tremendous guilt.
At this point, I believe you should know that my wife is not a shrinking violet by any stretch of the imagination. Her spirit told her that I was no longer the man she had married, and she didn’t know what to do. But she didn’t remain quiet. You’ve got to come home sometimes. You haven’t been here for dinner in a month. You have to take time to do some things with us! Go to a movie with us!
“What the hell?” I’d respond. “I ain’t got no time for no movies! I’m trying to make some revolutionary changes in the city! This city’s been down on its blah-blah-blah… !” I still hedged on the lack of support, and started making speeches to her. I turned her into a constituent to be won over.
It’s amazing how early in my administration this all happene
d. Looking back, I realize that Carlita tried to get involved on several occasions. She’d offer advice at times, and I would disregard it. I decided that she just wasn’t going to be involved. She still knocked, but I shunned her. The job became my personal life, my hobby and my identity. And I hated it! I woke up unhappy every day, feeling burdened, in danger, and fretful in my mission. Between the mayorship and my home life, I was in a war of wills, and worked as if I were surrounded by enemies. My age. Racism. The press. The city’s depressed spirit. Principalities. They were all enemies to me, devils to fight daily.
But I wasn’t equipped to wage those battles. I didn’t have the spiritual and familial balance. Sure, I knew politics. I had tenacity and energy. And I had pride. But the Bible says that “pride goeth before the fall.” It would take a few years before I realized that the pursuit of wisdom should be every person’s constant act, especially for a leader.
I love my wife, and I love my sons. I never stopped loving them. And I regret that they became a separate entity from the job, a group of people I needed for occasional photo ops. I’ve learned since that fatherhood and being a husband is so much more than purchased happiness through an occasional vacation, toy or gift. I would, at some point, come back to myself, realizing that I couldn’t do this whole life thing without my family. It would be years, however, before I truly saw how much I needed Carlita to be by my side and with me in my career. By then, I’d let some things go too far.
That shift occurred within Christine’s household, as well, but the dynamic was different because she was a mother. She spent most of her time learning to be chief of staff, learning about the city, the budget and helping hire people. This thrust her husband into the caretaker’s role. I’m sure there were some ego and manhood issues that her husband had to deal with behind the scenes. It can be hard on men when they are not the ones with the more “important” occupations, or the ones bringing the most money home. I believe that started to be a problem for Lou. It strained them. Neither of their daughters had even reached age four, and they weren’t ready to be away from their mother so much.
On top of that, Chris was hanging around me 24/7. She was supporting my every need, professionally. And soon after that, as Lou suspected, we had an affair. Neither he nor Carlita were ever comfortable with our relationship. They tolerated it, and we’d even vacationed together in the past. But they never developed a comfort level about it because at the time, Christine and I were closer to each other than we were to them.
Those vacations stopped when I became mayor. We also stopped hanging around each other as couples. At events, I’d try to avoid them, and Christine would try to avoid us. The tension was obvious, and we knew that suspicion was a contributing factor.
I’ve been asked why, after evaluating the city’s needs during the transition, we didn’t just step back and tell the people of Detroit that we could only handle so much at a time without jeopardizing our households. All I knew, in my spirit, was that I didn’t like to fail at anything, and to me, that kind of announcement would have signified failure. FAMU’s Alpha Phi Alpha chapter, Beta Nu, has a motto: “Tenacity, above all, tenacity.” My football coach in college would always say, “If you make a mistake, make an aggressive mistake. If you jump off sides, damn it, kill the guy on the other side. Don’t jump off sides and stand up and look around you. Hit that MF in front of you!” That’s how I learned. If I’m gonna make a mistake, it’s going to be an aggressive one. I won’t fail for lack of trying.
The other reason I didn’t step back and say, “Hey, enough for now” is the pride that comes from believing your own speeches. I really believed that we could bring change to Detroit. I believed in a rebirth, a renaissance. I believed we had the right people at the right time to create the city that God had intended. I was, and still am, a true believer. But I had to learn patience, and that comes from wisdom and experience. I’ve learned more about those qualities in the past three years, by experiencing a purification process by fire, than in my first three years as mayor.
I’ve often thought about what I would say to Lou, now Christine’s ex-husband, if I had a chance to speak to him. I’ve wanted to reach out and tell him that I’m sorry. But I didn’t because if he wanted to hit me, I would have to let him. I completely disrespected that man and his household. I disrespected his daughters. Early on, a friend asked me to look at this from Lou’s perspective. He came to me when the affair was still going on and said that while he wasn’t sure about what I was doing, I was clearly disrespecting Lou. He pushed me to look at things from his point of view. And when I did, I saw that I broke up their marriage. Though one single thing doesn’t always ruin a union between two people, it can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’ve wanted to write to him, to speak to him, but I stopped because, if I were him, I wouldn’t want to hear anything from me. And though an apology may not be enough, I want him to know that I am sorry. I loved his wife, but I had no business occupying that air, taking her away from home and husband. I, as the man in that relationship, had the responsibility to do the right thing. And I didn’t. And I’m sorry. And I’m suffering for it. And so is he.
Only time heals those kinds of wounds. I’ve sat on the jailhouse floor and asked for Lou’s forgiveness, and asked God to help heal his heart, because he’s one of the people I truly feel guilty about hurting. Lou’s grandfather and uncles were close to my grandfather and great-uncles. His parents are pretty close to my parents. His aunt’s house is a few doors away from my sister Ayanna’s home. I’ve known the Beatty family my whole life, and I knew Lou Beatty before I even knew Christine. He and Ayanna graduated together, and it’s only recently that they’ve begun to talk again, but I really screwed up their relationship. Lou would hang out at my house a lot when we were growing up. We’d shoot hoops in my backyard. He took Christine to his prom, and they came to my house to take pictures with Ayanna and her date. I was there, too, home for the summer, acting silly. The family relationships alone should have drawn a thick enough line between Christine and me.
Christine and I have discussed the reasons that we drifted away from our spouses. I won’t go into those details. I’ll just say that everyone has his or her own reasons to explain why things don’t work out in a marriage. But it’s even more difficult when that marriage has to stand against negative outside forces and distractions, particularly when said forces—emotions, urges, relationships—appear to be safe, secure provisions. It’s a constant illusion that makes it easy to avoid dealing with serious issues in your own marriage. And I was the distraction. I was the safety and comfort for Christine. Knowing that still sickens me, and I still atone for it.
chapter 15
Controlled Chaos
BY JANUARY 2005, I was at my lowest point emotionally, physically and mentally during my tenure as mayor. Too much work. Too many problems and lies. Too much on my mind. I was completely unhappy and devoid of energy. No one cared, and I wanted to quit.
The press was feasting on the Navigator story, the City’s budget deficit climbed over $100 million, and all the prognosticators were preaching gloom and doom for any re-election bid that I would inevitably seek. For the record, I never believed that I could lose an election to anyone at any time. I just have that much confidence. But I and those closest to me knew we had serious problems.
I decided not to focus on re-election at all, and just try to be the best mayor I possibly could. I wasn’t even certain that I’d seek re-election. It would take months, and the media’s anointing of Freman Hendrix as mayor apparent, to spark enough ego, competition and pride to fuel another run. I would run, but first, I had to repair some things in my life.
I had to speak with Christine first, and tell her that it was time to stop. Honestly, this was at least the fifth time we had had this conversation, and I don’t know why this time was any different, except that I cared less about my job then than at any other time in our relationship. I wanted Kwame back.
Next, I had to tal
k with Carlita. Whew! This was surely the most difficult thing that I had to do. I was prepared to be honest, but not completely transparent. Not yet. Still, I was going to try, because I couldn’t be me without her. Renewing my commitment to her was non-negotiable.
Finally, I had to figure out how to fix a $100 million deficit in the City’s budget, while keeping the City moving forward. The Super Bowl was right around the corner. My options were to lay off cops and firefighters, close recreation centers, eliminate bulk trash pickup, or do nothing and let the next mayor handle it. If you don’t get me by now, though, you never will. Shifting responsibility, passing the buck or cowering under harsh decisions and circumstances is not my style. Decision made, I went to work after speaking with Christine. I went to her house in February 2005, after the Navigator fiasco began to subside. We were in her basement. Her daughters were sleeping upstairs. I sat down next to her.
“Oh, boy,” she immediately said. “I guess this is ‘the talk,’ huh?”
“The Talk” is what we’d come to call our inevitable break-up conversation. I told her that I felt like a complete mess, that my life was in turmoil, and that I needed to focus on my family first. What we were doing had clearly taken a heavy toll on both of our lives and our families. Nothing good would ever come from it. The affair was dishonest and whimsical at best, and we owed each other more than that. She cried, and I cried a little, too. We hugged and I left her house. I felt saddened, but lighter. I was ready for the second conversation. Or so I thought.
A few days later, in early March, I found myself alone with Carlita in the kitchen of the Manoogian Mansion. She was finishing dinner and was still wearing her workout clothes. I watched her for a few seconds as she walked around the kitchen making her final preparations for the evening meal. Although my 310-pound self was in the room, she moved around the area as if no one were there but her.
Surrendered: The Rise, Fall & Revolution of Kwame Kilpatrick Page 14