The Old Dominion

Adam is fully prepared to speak when he sees Walt coming in through the door. Something about the man grinds him - a brusqueness in his personality - but he gets along with his fellow Senator well enough, and sometimes - sometimes - they see eye to eye, but that seems to simply be about what’s best for Virginia. That’s usually how these talks go down.

So he’s fully prepared to speak, but he’s distracted when he sees the newspaper that Walt drops on the desk, eyeing it with a little distaste and breezing past his question. “You don’t actually believe any of the shit they put in here, right?” He’s stuck to the party line as far as the press is concerned, and it’s ridiculously clear that the Post, like most of them, lean Democrat - something that leaves a little bitter taste in his mouth. He picks up the paper - true to his fellow Senator’s assertion, he’s made himself at home - and scans the front page before he looks back at Walt again, like he’s just now remembering he’s here for a reason.

“I figured we ought to start talking about the energy bill.” He offers, setting the paper down again and not really waiting for a reply before he moves ahead. “More specifically, what a disaster it is. My office has gotten a million calls in opposition. The damage it’d do to coal and to oil are catastrophic.” He knows jobs are Walt’s pet project, chasing that intentionally. “I think Wright is absolutely out of her mind.”

So this is the tone Connelly wants to set for their impromptu meeting.

“It seemed to have enough of a finger on the pulse to predict that your party’s pharma bill wouldn’t make it past the senate floor.” It may be a bit gratuitous to lump one Republican senator’s failed bill in with the rest of the GOP, but he doesn’t have the mind to debate the merits of the free press, not when he knows that his fellow senator is likely here on other business. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, about knowing thy enemy,  but he’d learned that one himself long ago. As irritating as they can be to stomach, he’s read enough scathing op-eds about himself to know how useful they can be  — know where your opponent is going to swing before they even try and land the first blow.

Speaking of, there’s a leftist editor of a paper in Richmond who’s taken to wondering how long he can sit on the fence before a picket goes up his ass. He’ll have to give that one a read when he’s done here. 

“You’re not wrong,” he agrees. “The midterms are less than a year away — the President knows that if she loses the majority in Congress, most of her administration’s agenda is dead in the water.” And this is likely where their agreement will come to an end. “I don’t plan on voting in favor of this bill, but I think it’s remarkably short-sighted to write off this initiative when it’s possible if done gradually.” Very gradually, if Virginia’s economy is anything to go by. But the Democrats want instantaneous change, and the Republicans want virtually none at all. 

“I understand what this will will do to our job market  — believe me, this damn thing is all I’ve been able to hear about on the campaign trail. But I’m curious to know why you’re so personally opposed to any clean energy initiatives.” There’s a larger, unspoken question hidden within his words  — why choose to cling so firmly to the party line when it failed the GOP so spectacularly in 2016?  — but whether or not Connelly chooses to read too deeply into his inquiry is out of his hands. He has a feeling that he could easily ask it when the next major bill comes around, whatever that happens to be.

She found that even though her job had fixed hours, that no one else in the capital seemed to follow that schedule. It was probably her own decision to consistently ignore work in favor of a lunch break or something else that had little to do with anything the White House needed. While she might not have been working at the moment, there was little to do for a few hours, and so she found herself occupying the office of her brother’s coworker. She knew little about Senator Walter Corrigan, not from lack of information, just from her own inability to pay attention to anything that involved Virginia politics. McLean was her hometown, but it had always really meant D.C.

Though there was no time like the present to start learning about him, as she sat in his office, scrolling through her instagram feed with feet propped up on his desk. She’d sat politely for all of a minute before realizing it was going to be a little while longer before the esteemed Senator showed up. It was her own boredom that made her finally want to seek out her brother’s colleague, no real angle of conversation simple curiosity finally caught up with her. It wasn’t that Senator Corrigan hadn’t ever been around, it was that he had yet to cross the younger Connellys’ radar.

“No reason.” She continued scrolling through her phone for a moment before locking it and looking up at the man sitting across from her. Her eyes flickered across the newspaper that he’d thrown down but any comment escaped her; the real world always was so depressing. “Well- one, what’s your middle name?”

It’s certainly not the answer he’s expecting, though his path has not had cause to cross the younger Connelly’s aside from professional business with her brother. All the same, there’s little about this picture that he finds ingratiating, least of all the way her feet take up space as unwanted decor on his desk. The senator sits with his hands folded neatly on the polished surface of his desk, his gaze unwavering and his back ramrod-straight. They couldn’t be more juxtaposed if they tried.

Still that doesn’t answer his question, so he momentarily relents and answers hers instead. He has a half a mind to simply take his degree down off the wall behind him and hand it to her so she can read his full name for herself, but such cheek requires more energy than he feels like devoting at the moment. “Lee,” he finally replies, a terseness slipping into his tone that his wife would chide him for. One would think that having teenage daughters would leave him better equipped to deal with situations like these, but even that thought exhausts him — all week they had been going on about how they were going to teach him to “meme” on Twitter over the holiday break, whatever the hell that means. 

Yes, in fact— Hans had made himself at home, in the thirty or so minutes in which he’d been left alone (and therefore unsupervised) at Senator Corrigan’s office. His posture on the chair was less than presentable — he’d dropped the gentleman act only five minutes in, and swore to pick it back up once needed), his leg crossed lazily over his knee; phone drawn out in one hand, glass of whiskey in the other. Even Hans had the sensibility as to not drink on the job, but when Corrigan’s secretary had so kindly offered, it’d just be rude to refuse.

On his phone, the online page of The Washington Post— and the piling up of comments under the subject of an underwhelming subway bombing. Underwhelming it had been — no fatalities, come on —, and over exaggerated the reactions as such. Hans’ face shows just as much indignation and he scrolls past.

Just then the door clicks open and Hans keeps his promise— just barely. He readjusts his position on the chair only so he’s sitting straight up, back flat against the lining, but the crossed legs and whiskey still give him away. The phone he clicks back into a black screen. 

“Senator Corrigan,” Hans greets him, in the kind of worn casualty that no longer feels honest. And a smile that says, I’ve been here forever— and I hate you for it. “Sarah insisted I come in and wait here.” He shakes his glass to Walter, making the liquid swirl on the bottom. “Also Sarah." 

"I’m here representing Big Oil,” he says then. “So I think you can answer that question yourself.”

There’s a clock that hangs above the door to his office, its face never more than a quick glance away from where he sits behind his desk; currently it reads half-past eight, forty-five minutes later than when he customarily arrives on the Hill. Judging by how much — or rather, how little — whiskey is left in the other man’s glass, it’s safe to assume that Starke has been waiting for almost that same length of time. Walter almost feels bad for delaying their unexpected meeting. 

Almost.

“Seems she’s taken care of you, then,” the senator replies, the unspoken So your wait wasn’t all that bad, then, was it? hanging somewhere in the space between them. Sarah had been his wife’s idea, back when he had been an enterprising statesman with a bad leg and virtually no government experience past what little the Arlington Police Department could offer him. Lynn had been insistent that if he won, he should pick a secretary who would bring some southern hospitality to the capitol — and nothing says hospitality quite like top-shelf liquor from Lynchburg. 

“I don’t ask rhetorical questions, Mr. Starke, so I don’t appreciate rhetorical answers.” His drawl is as even as his gaze, smooth as sweet tea and with a bite to match the whiskey pooled at the bottom of the other man’s glass. During his first election he had been asked extensively about his service as a police officer, and often he highlighted how his role as a crisis negotiator would serve him well in Washington. He had been half-right; for some on the Hill, all they want is to be told what’s best for them and relish in the the relief of having the burden of choice removed from their shoulders. 

Which is ultimately an irrelevant fact at the present moment, because Hans Starke sure as hell isn’t one of those saps. 

“If you’re here to discuss February’s energy reform bill, then I’ll save you the trouble: unless the democrats decide to give it an extensive overhaul, I have no intention of voting in favor of it. You and I may not agree on green energy, but I think we can both agree that this bill is just an attempt to push as much of the administration’s agenda as it can while the Democrats still hold a majority in Congress.” 

That could be the end of the conversation — could be. But nothing in Washington is ever as simple as a five-minute exchange, and it chafes him too much to cut corners now. “That said, if the bill gets brought back later on, I can’t say I won’t vote for it. Virginia’s already been adopting a gradual clean energy initiative since 2010.” And this is too goddamn much all at once. Starke doesn’t need to explain to him that any money the coal and oil companies use to transition to solar energy will come directly from cut salaries and massive layoffs — he’s been hearing it from every voter in Appalachian Virginia since November 2016.

“Truth be told, I don’t know them well enough to have a strong opinion one way or another. We’ve only ever encountered each other professionally, and even then only a handful of times.”

There’s always a morbid bit of amusement that comes with indulging in The Washington Post when a major story breaks, to see lines of bullshit and conjecture be replaced with the slow trickle of facts twenty-four hours later. Scanning over Tuesday’s front page as he passes through security into the Hart Building, he can practically feel the entirety of the GOP salivating at the most recent security crisis. He hasn’t bothered to turn on Fox News yet, but it doesn’t take a brilliant political strategist to imagine how Sean Hannity and the rest of the right-wing media circus would be working themselves into a frothy lather, lambasting Wright’s administration and the rest of the left for being “weak” on the issue of terror. Nothing like choice fodder for the masses to distract from the ongoing fallout of homosexual scandals and marital affairs. 

And a failed bid for the presidency.

He had been departing from Richmond for D.C. when the news broke the previous day — sitting on the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, he’d had to make a statement before leaving Virginia. Re-election season means everything he does is under a goddamn microscope, reactions to events falling under his area of expertise especially. Stack it up with the president’s energy reform bill and his life could become especially hellish when Congress breaks for Christmas. Whoever said the first race is the hardest was a damn liar.

Right, left, left  — the Hart Building is nothing more than a featureless polygon with windows, a true testament to the sterile, ruthless efficiency of ‘80s architecture. Walter Corrigan could find his way to his office with his eyes closed  — practically is, still going over the paper as he crosses the threshold, pausing only when he notices the unannounced visitor sitting in the seat across from his desk. It only gives him pause for a brief moment; surprise visits are things you come to expect after twelve years on the Hill. “Looks like you’ve made yourself at home,” he greets, rounding the edge of his desk and letting the folded copy of the Post fall onto its polished surface as he drops down into his chair. Back on the Hill  — time to hit the ground running. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

RACE FOR THE VIRGINIA SENATE 2018

On November 6, 2018, citizens across Virginia will go to the polls and choose two candidates to represent them on the floor of the Senate. We encourage conscientious voters to consider re-electing Senator Walter L. Corrigan, an incumbent Independent and the state’s senior senator on Capitol Hill. A former police officer with a decade of service protecting the people of Arlington County, he has served two successful terms in the Senate and has enjoyed bipartisan cooperation under three presidents. Please visit his campaign website and review his platform at to see how Walt works for Virginia.