since she's gone she will not be able to tattle on us for leaving early to the boss, who's back in the district. four of us head out to a minor league ballpark in suburban maryland to watch some AA ball - don made plans earlier in the week to go since today is $1 ticket day. my fellow coworkers "sven" and "nadia" take nadia's car, leaving me to travel in don's lexus.
in the car, don leans back in the seat with one arm on the wheel and istens to hip-hop of the most feculent variety. it's one of the radio stations where the dickless d.j. cuts in every few seconds to regale the audience with "oooooh! feel that groove!", "this is my joint!", et al. don is working it - his head is bobbing and moving with a 'soulful' dip from left to right in time with the music. he is totally serious about this and every so often he glares at me as if i should be joining in the lexus dance. it's clear this is meant to intimidate the cracka sitting to his right. i am surprised at my ability to hold in hysterical laughter.
don asks about the old office - he knows most of the staff members that i worked with from his days there, about three years prior to my arrival. he asks about our mutual friend the office manager, whom he calls "mama". mama's fine, i tell him. she's good. he asks about one of the legislative assistants whom he calls "fat boy". fat boy is not remotely fat. i respond that fat boy is the same as usual- gabs it up on the phone, gets the appropriations done, never writes a letter so i wrote them all for him. he nods in approval - always good to have more vindication for ol' don's hatred.
we cycle through the staff members and eventually come to our mutual ex-boss, the MC. like all members, she's nuts; on this we agree. has little connection to humanity, is fully concentrated on the political arena, etc. i ask don why he left - his answer is two-fold:
1. "i hate the bitch"
2. "she's afraid of homies"
i ask for some elaboration on the second point. don says she never really spoke to him directly except on four or five occasions in his seven or eight years of employment there. she asked intermediaries to ask him. she was also upset, he says, that he tended to come in late and stay late. because after hours was when she liked to snoop around her staffers' desks (this is true). she did have a way of skirting around sensitive issues and, true, her midwest district had less than its share of non-white folk. i bought the story, which was later substantiated-in-part in a recent run-in on the floor of the house -- brief digression:
my current employer had been in a car accident and was in a wheelchair. the bill on the floor of the house her first week back was my issue so it was my job to wheel her down and make sure she votes right. so i'm on the floor, just the cowboy and the MCs (staffers are normally not allowed). i'm standing with her after she votes and naturally the MCs come up, one after another, asking what happened. she explains the story a thousand times. finally my old MC comes up (refusing to acknowledge her former employee of nine months i might add) and nervously asks for the story. so my boss lays down the same spiel. and old MC sits there at the end, gears turning but taking a long ass time to produce some product. finally, she settles on this as a closing remark, and keep in mind my boss is black: "well... you go, girl!"
my boss looks back at me and rolls her eyes. amazing.
moral of the chapter is: yes, i buy the "she's afraid of homies" line. but the issue of why he left the office is opened anew several months later when i explain this story to my old legislative director, still in the old MC's office, who doesn't agree. quoth the LD:
"yeah, he would say she's afraid of homies. she would say he's a crook."
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