05 December 2006

D-Day

It is a day like all others around here, even though it is one where I had to make up my mind and decide what to do. Decision day. No one else seemed to notice, except maybe the members of the Senate Armed Services committee, who are probably going to give Robert Gates a pass to become the new Secretary of Defense.

The steel anaconda lines the right-hand side of Route 50 in front of Big Pink. Somewhere the Beltway is closed, all the lanes, and there is doubtless madness abroad in that quadrant of the City.

I wouldn't go that way on a bet this morning, and thankfully, I don't have to.

Out West, my brother is being marked by a birthday, even as the darkness remains deep under the mountains.

He does not have the discretion to change the day, or the year. With the astonishing breakthroughs in medical technology, there are whispers that this could be the last generation in which the rich will actually die.

I'm OK with that, at least being on the south side of the latest tectonic shift in evolution. I tend toward attention deficit anyway and don't know what I would do with eternity even if someone could give it to me.

I have enough problems with short-term stuff. I was standing with the other candidate day-laborers down by the Hispanic Market on Pershing Street yesterday. It was cold, and the unofficial employment agency was still crowded. Short powerful men stood patiently in hooded sweatshirts and gloves, hoping one of the men in the trucks could use his services.

The line of consultants was fairly short, but you still have to be there early to get picked. There are another couple national security experts in the neighborhood, and there can be some sharp elbows thrown getting close to the work-vans from the larger contracting firms.

I thought I saw John Bolton, the soon-to-be former UN Ambassador, who is out of a job now, too. I have patterned my moustache on his, but maybe that wasn't a good idea. Someone got the word to him up in New York that a Senator had made up his mind about his qualifications and he was never going to get a public hearing.

I don't know if he got on the first bus or not.

I missed the Lockheed bus just by inches, and almost got on the Boeing bus that was headed for the big DHS Border Patrol project. A lot of the other folks in line, the roofers and plumbers seemed to melt away when it slowly approached.

I was standing by myself when the big blue vehicle rumbled up with a familiar logo. The window on the passenger's side came down and a man with a stern gaze looked out.

“Information Technology consultants? Anyone out there qualified to make sensitive recommendations on advanced technology to national security customers?”

I shuffled my feet. “I used to work for the Phone Company,” I said nervously.

“Close enough. Get in.”

The door on the side of the van slid back to reveal some other laborers they had picked up down the block. Scuffed briefcases were nestled at their feet, and badges hung from lanyards around their necks. Clouds of steam emerged from inside.

“Hurry up. You are wasting heat.”

I scrambled in, awkwardly squeezing past the second seat to a place in the very back. The door slid shut and the van lurched off. This was one of those days when I had to make a decision, and what the decision actually meant was getting on a bus with an unknown destination, hoping things would work out.

I leaned forward and whispered to one of the men in the middle seat. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“Don't know, but they say there is a fine package and unlimited potential.”

“That is what they said about Iraq,” I said.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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