The Capitol was a meat grinder, a soulless machine that swallowed men whole and spat out whatever was left in the shape of a press release. I was drunk—dangerously drunk—on whiskey, bad Eastern European speed, and what I hoped was mescaline but might’ve been rat poison from a back alley in Georgetown. My heart was hammering, my pupils the size of dimes, and I had exactly one question on my mind: Romania.
The world was spinning sideways, democracy was in freefall, and the best I could do was chase Mike Johnson down the halls like a rabid dog, trying to get a straight answer out of a man who spoke exclusively in committee-approved riddles.
I cornered him outside the chamber, staggering forward as I mashed the record button on my sweat-slicked tape recorder.
“Johnson!” I bellowed, voice hoarse from cigarettes and screaming at the walls of my hotel room. “Romania! Democracy! What the hell is happening over there?!”
Johnson turned, blinking like a man who had been expecting this but hoping to avoid it. His face was unreadable, the expression of a politician who could watch a nation implode and still make it home in time for dinner.
“I haven’t had a chance to review it yet,” he said, voice measured, calm—too calm for a man witnessing the slow-motion collapse of Western civilization.
I twitched, grinding my molars so hard I thought my teeth might explode. Didn’t have a chance to review it?! The annulment of an election, the blacklisting of a candidate, the open-air burial of democracy, and this man had not reviewed it yet?!
I swayed, my veins thrumming with illicit chemistry. “Right, right, sure, sure,” I muttered, nodding furiously. “But you have had a chance to review the plan to abolish the Department of Education?”
Johnson saw his opening and took it. He pivoted so fast I almost admired it.
“I’ll tell you that the more we push control of education down to parents and local school boards and authorities, the better off we are, and I think it’s important innovation.”
I laughed—a high, unhinged cackle that made the security guards step closer.
“Important innovation? Jesus Christ, man!” I ran a hand through my sweat-drenched hair. “You’re telling me you’re fine abolishing an entire department of the U.S. government, but you can’t spare five minutes to figure out whether Romania just executed democracy in broad daylight?”
Johnson blinked again. The expression didn’t change. The words had already been filed and stamped.
“How do you feel?” I demanded. “How do you feel about all of this?”
“I feel confident,” he said, nodding like a man closing a sale. “I think we’ll get it done.”
My vision blurred. I felt my knees buckle, my grip on reality slipping. This isn’t real. None of it is real. We’re living in a theater of the absurd, and the audience left years ago.
Somewhere, deep inside my skull, a voice whispered:
We are so completely fucked.
