Interface

by Neal Stephenson

  He squatted down against the left front tire of the ambulance, unfolded the small blade of his pocketknife, which he always kept sharp as a scalpel, and paused for a moment to ponder his next move.

  As Socrates had pointed out, the highest reach of injustice was, like Gyges, to be deemed just when you were not. Karl Fort was Gyges. He went to White House dinners, gave money to charities, spent half his life at various testimonial dinners where the most important people in the country stood in line to gush about what a wonderful man he was. No one ever said a word about the ax handles.

  But did that justify slashing the tires of his ambulance? McLane continued to thumb his way mentally through Plato’s Republic, looking for guidance.

  Plato advocated dividing the republic into three categories: rulers, warriors, and tradesmen. Tradesmen were allowed to become rich. Rulers and warriors were to live simply and to receive the best possible education, in the hopes of producing philosopher kings.

  Tip McLane was a philosopher king. Karl Fort was a tradesman. And according to Plato, the worst form of injustice occurred when people tried to force their way into a class where they did not belong - e.g., when warriors tried to seize political power (the Soviet coup), or politicians meddled in military campaigns (Vietnam War), or in the affairs of private enterprise (burdensome government regulation).

  Or when tradesmen tried to use their wealth to gain political power, which could lead to the degenerate form of government known as oligarchy.

  Representative Nimrod T. (“Tip”) McLane inserted the blade of his pocketknife deep into one of the treads. The rubber was tough, but so was Tip McLane, and eventually it gave way and he felt the blade penetrate into the tire. Then all he had to do was twist, and air began to hiss out, feeling cold and wet as it flowed over his hand.

  The ambulance settled, almost as if it were going to roll over on top of him. He was startled by a popping noise that came from the flaccid tire as its bead popped loose from the rim. That was extra good; it would make the tire much more difficult to reinflate.

  He withdrew the knife, folded it back into his pocket, and then strolled back through the roses to the backyard.

  The EMTs transferred Karl Fort on to a gurney and wheeled him across the yard, through the Markhams’ house, and out to the ambulance, chased the whole way by journalists who left a trail of baked-bean footprints across the polished-granite floors and the oriental rugs. The ambulance traveled about ten feet down the drive, veering uncontrollably to the left, and then stopped.

  Someone ran inside and called another ambulance. Two of the EMTs jumped out and began to change the tire. Shooting through the rear windows of the van, the media were able to get beautiful shots of another EMT, on his knees next to Fort, holding up the electric paddles, preparing to administer the sacrament of defibrillation.

  Karl Fort lingered in the hospital for five days. According to tracking polls commissioned by the McLane campaign, the Rev. Sweigel’s support climbed all the way up to the 20 percent mark when Fort’s condition was upgraded from critical to serious. But when Fort’s kidneys went, on the Saturday before the big vote, the voters began to show disillusionment, and when he finally died on Sunday evening, just in time for the eleven p.m. news, the Reverend’s standing collapsed like a popped balloon.

  Tip McLane and his crew had already gotten the news, through private channels. He and Zorn and Drasher went down to their hotel bar for a drink and watched the coverage of Fort’s death, and then of the day’s campaign events. They were joined by a couple of writers for major East Coast newspapers, men who had been assigned to the McLane campaign for the last few months and whom they had gotten to know well. They bought each other drinks and talked off the record late into the night. Though no one came out and said it, they all knew that the primary campaign was over.

  34

  Eleanor Richmond rented a town house in the Rosemont neighborhood of Alexandria. It had actually been part of D.C. at one point and had been ceded back to the state of Virginia in 1846, so she could weakly maintain that she was back living in her hometown once more.

  This historical argument was completely lost on all of her relatives in the District, who had been delighted when she announced she was coming home, and then hurt and angry when she chose to live in Virginia. But Eleanor had already seen her son get shot in the back, and as far as she was concerned, D.C. didn’t have anything to offer her kids except for a few museums and a whole lot of ways to get shot.

  She was in a nice, mixed-race neighborhood near Alexandria’s eighteenth-century waterfront. If she went uphill she got into an aristocratic neighborhood of big houses, bordering on mansions. If she went downhill, toward the Potomac, she got to the proverbial other side of the tracks in just a few minutes. Straddling the boundary, on the tracks themselves, was the Braddock Metro station, from which she could ride into D.C. in about ten minutes. Braddock’s modest parking lot was ringed by nice new yuppie condos, shops, and office buildings. Beyond that was a floodplain between the tracks and the river, filled with dingy town houses and projects, bounded by the outskirts of National Airport on the north and the swank cobblestones of Old Town on the south. Compared to the bad parts of D.C., it didn’t deserve the description of ghetto; it was just a lower-middle-class neighborhood. It was something Eleanor could point to when her relatives in D.C. made catty remarks to the effect that she had sold out and fled to white suburbia.

  She still hadn’t gotten used to being respectable again. When she looked at real estate, she kept expecting people to glare at her suspiciously and say, “Have you ever been a bag lady?” But all she had to do was say that she was senate staff and all the doors were open to her: nice new apartments, charge accounts at Pentagon Plaza, auto loans. It astounded her when she was able to go into a Toyota dealership and drive out an hour later with a brand-new Camry.

  Harmon, Jr., and Clarice stayed behind in Denver long enough to finish out the school year and then followed her out to Alexandria. In the fall they would go to T.C. Williams High School, just a mile or two up the street. In the meantime, over the summer, there was a lot for them to do. The nearby Metro station meant that they could get around town easily (which they liked) and safely (which Eleanor liked). And, after a bit of looking around, Eleanor found a nice extended-care facility (what used to be called a nursing home) where she could put Mother.

  Mother had no idea, really, that she was back home, but as she looked out the windows of the car on her way in from the airport and smelled the air of the late Virginia spring, Eleanor imagined that, at some level, she knew where she was, and that she was glad to be back where she belonged, not out in the middle of Colorado sharing a room with some rancher’s widow. Whether or not Mother knew what was going on, bringing her back here was good for Eleanor’s heart, and made her feel that she was doing right by her mom.

  When Eleanor showed up for her first day of work, a week before Memorial Day, she had no idea what she was doing; Senator Marshall still had not defined her responsibilities or even provided her with a job title. She was both excited and intensely curious. She walked to the Braddock Metro station at seven. Her neighbor­hood’s sidewalks were filled with commuters headed for the Metro station. As Eleanor entered this stream of suit-and-tie-wearing, newspaper-reading professionals, carrying her very proper attache case, wearing her Reeboks, and holding on to her Washington Post, she felt like a spy testing out a new undercover identity.

  From the raised platform of the Metro station she looked across the public housing toward National Airport, the 727s plunging in at forty-second intervals, and across the Potomac to D.C. The pleasant, scented spring air was still cool, and as she looked through the haze, she could see the monumental structures that were now part of her world. The Metro glided into the station, eerily clean and hightech compared to The Ride. She boarded, found a place to stand where she could look out the window, and watched the progression through Crystal City, Pentagon City, Pentagon, and then out into day
light across the Potomac. She saw the National Cathedral drawing the light of the sun, peeked in at Thomas Jefferson, and got to L’Enfant Plaza, where she transferred to the Orange Line for two stops over to the Capitol. Since she was a few minutes early, she chose to be a tourist, and strolled through the Capitol on her way over to the Russell Senate Office Building.

  She was greeted at the gate of the Russell Building by a handsome, very young-looking black man from Senate Security. “If you’ll follow me, Mrs. Richmond, we’ll get your credentials in order.”

  Eleanor was still new enough at this that she was surprised when people recognized her. “Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t expect someone to meet me at the door. I thought I’d be standing in lines all day.”

  “When Senator Marshall speaks, we move,” the man said. “We’re taught that all senators are equal, but we love Senator Marshall. He’s not one of your blow-dry wonders, if you get my drift.”

  They took an elevator down two levels and entered an office where Eleanor was photographed, finger-printed, asked to sign her official signature, and then take the oath as an employee of the United States. A petite, perhaps sixty-year-old woman read the oath.

  She proceeded into the next office and was given her holo­graphic badge, complete with innumerable codes implanted in the strips on the back of the badge. She wondered what she was going to do with a Top-Secret Alpha clearance.

  “That’s it,” her guide said. “Now you have one very cranky senator waiting to put you to work.”

  The Russell was the oldest and most prestigious of the three senate office buildings. It had the aura of fine old wood, penetrated by decades of good tobacco smoke. It was the building of choice and Marshall had the office of choice, with a commanding view of the Capitol out one window and down the Mall and Constitution Avenue down the other. Entering the office, Eleanor was struck by the profusion of Native American art, mission decor, and numerous watercolors painted by Marshall before his arthritis had made it impossible for him to hold a brush. His secretary of thirty years, Patty McCormick, turned and said, “Hello darlin’, welcome to the last frontier.”

  From around the corner, the familiar husky voice shouted, “Goddamn it Patty, don’t scare her away. Come on in, Eleanor.”

  Eleanor edged into the Senator’s office and found him working his way through a breakfast sent up from the cafeteria. “Have a seat,” he said, waving at one of the heavy leather chairs.

  “Good morning, Senator, how are you feeling?”

  “Shitty, as usual, but that’s nothing new. I’ll be goddamned if I’ll take pain medication. I haven’t got an awful lot of brain cells left and I want them to work.”

  They made a little small talk about her move to Alexandria. Caleb seemed surprisingly unhurried, for a senator. Eleanor kept wondering when he was going to tell her why she’d been hired. Finally she came out and asked.

  “Should we talk about what you want me to do?’

  “Sure, why not. What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know, I’m still slightly overwhelmed to be here.”

  “How’d you like to be my spokesperson?”

  Eleanor couldn’t help laughing. At first she chuckled politely because she assumed it was a joke. Then she laughed out loud in shock, realizing he was serious. “Senator, you are one crazy fool.”

  “You ever see one of those stupid old Westerns where the bad guys come riding into town and they just start shooting at everything? They shoot out all the windows, they shoot holes in the water barrels, they pick off people on the balconies. I always thought that looked like fun. Well, I’m out of here soon and I have a lot to say and I want to have somebody to say it who will make an impression, not one of these generic press mavens who keep massaging messages and doing sound bites. You and I, young lady, are going to shoot a few holes in this goddamn town before I end this ride.”

  As he talked, Marshall was unable to hide his extreme pain. He became so angry about the pain and so intense in his conversation that he accidentally knocked over his coffee, spilling the contents all over the top of the desk. “Goddamned son of a bitch,” he screamed.

  Patty poked her head around the corner and said, “Did it again, Your Grace?”

  “Bitch,” he said, throwing the coffee drenched Washington Times at her. Then he grimaced, doubled over in his chair, and rested his forehead against the desktop for a moment, his shoulders heaving.

  Eleanor, horrified, looked at Patty for a cue. Patty didn’t seem to notice. She winked at Eleanor and said, “We have a very formal office.”

  While Patty cleaned up the mess, Eleanor helped Caleb to a small conference room next door and let him collapse in a chair. Then she sat down across the table from him.

  Marshall, slumped down low in his chair, said, “In all seriousness, Eleanor, I thought long and hard about this appointment. I have very little time left. My problem is not arthritis. It’s galloping bone cancer. I have, maximum, three months of useful activity left.”

  “Oh, god, Senator, I’m so sorry-‘

  “Spare me. And call me Caleb.”

  “Is there anything-”

  “Yes. Shut up and listen for a second.”

  “Okay,” Eleanor said.

  “I’m stuck in a party that was once for the individual, and now it’s dedicated to controlling the individual. The Bible thumpers and the single-issue people and all of those other control freaks have no idea of what the United States is all about. And they are going to win. But I will make my contribution. And here it is.”

  Resting on the table was a book, bound in leather, Western-style. Imprinted on the cover in gold leaf was:

  POLITICAL WILL AND TESTAMENT

  SEN. CALEB ROOSEVELT MARSHALL

  Marshall put his hand on the book and shoved it across the table at Eleanor. She caught it before it tumbled into her lap. “I have a press secretary, of course,” Marshall said. “And he has a whole goddamn staff of flacks. I’ll continue to use them for the run-of-the-mill announcements and contacts with local bubble heads. I want you to work on this and wait for the phone to ring.”

  “Senator, I thought you were going to bury me in a corner of your staff somewhere.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “But your constituents are going to hate you.”

  “Eleanor, I don’t give a good fuck. Get to work.”

  Eleanor carried the book into an adjoining office, a small but nice one with a view of the Capitol. Patty was already in there, straightening a few things up. Eleanor’s stuff had been moved in and unpacked. Her personal things all looked humble and shabby in the magnificent building.

  Patty was sniffling. “I love that man, Eleanor,” she said. “He’s the most decent person in this town, and he’s dying.”

  “How many people know?”

  “Most of the Hill.”

  Eleanor settled into her leather chair behind the immense wooden desk and looked at the walls, decorated with Hopi and Navajo art. On one corner of the desk was a recent photo of both their kids, and on the other corner, from Ray del Valle, a dozen roses with the note, “Knock ‘em dead, tiger.”

  Before she could open the Senator’s book, the phone rang. It was Patty.

  “Dr. Hunter P. Lawrence on the line for you, Eleanor.”

  “Okay, put him through.”

  Eleanor heartily disliked the professor. He was one of the new breed of talking heads who had turned civilized shows like Meet the Press into the intellectual equivalent of the World Wrestling Federation. The format of Lawrence’s show was simple: a victim would be invited to sit in the center chair and then two commentators from the alleged left wing and two from the alleged right wing would abuse them. If they weren’t abusive enough, the Professor would step in and stir them up. It got great ratings.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Ms. Richmond, this is Dr. Lawrence of Washington Hot Seat. Welcome to town.”

  It was strange to hear that famous voice coming
out of her telephone. She felt as if she knew the man, even though she didn’t. “Thank you Dr. Lawrence. How may I be of service to you?”

  “We’d like you to appear on our show next week,” he said cheerily.

  “Oh, that’s very flattering, but I’m sure that I wouldn’t be of much interest.”

  “Oh, on the contrary. You gained great visibility when you took the neo-Nazi apart. Your advocacy for the Hispanics also was impressive. Your relationship with that troglodyte Marshall is a subject of conversation. And let’s be blunt, there aren’t that many highly visible black women. We’re so tired of the usual suspects.”

  Eleanor had come to work in a state of new-job euphoria. If Dr. Lawrence had reached her a few minutes earlier, she might not have taken offense. But hearing about the bone cancer had changed her mood. She hadn’t even had time to process the bad news yet; she felt edgy and deranged.

  “What’s the matter, Dr. Lawrence? Did Aunt Jemima cancel at the last minute?”

  A long silence. “Uh-”

  “If all you want is a black female, why don’t you just go east of Rock Creek Park for once in your life, and just pick one off the street? Some of those girls clean up real nice.”

  “We don’t really want just anyone.”

  “I could recommend a few nuns from my old school who might be able to give you some pointers on treating other people with common courtesy. Once you’ve learned all about that, why don’t you call my token black female ass back up and talk to me again.” Eleanor hung up so hard that the telephone bounced.

  Marshall, in the conference room next door, howled and wheezed with agonized laughter.

  “You have a problem, Caleb?” Eleanor shouted.

  “You’re some P.R. whiz,” he shouted. “He even called you personally - he usually has one of his munchkins do the scheduling.”

  “You got me in a bad mood.”

  “It was perfect. This story will spread all over town and you’ll be even more in demand than you are now. You couldn’t have done better.”