East Room Waltz

I couldn’t give a damn about the new East Room ballroom of the Capitol, no matter who paid for what.

They said it was “a symbol,” but all I saw was a chandelier worth more than a working man’s lifetime. Meanwhile, we were circling a national debt north of $38 billion and counting, like a drunk watching his last dollar swirl down the bar drain.

I was on assignment, supposedly. A reporter for a third-rate paper nobody read unless they were too broke for the Post.

They sent me because my editor said I “had a knack for cutting through the bullshit.” That’s code for “you look like you don’t belong anywhere else.”

So there I was, a man in a rumpled suit with whiskey breath, rubbing elbows with men who’d sold their souls so many times they forgot what it felt like to have one.

The new ballroom gleamed like a lie: floors polished to blindness, gold trim on everything, mirrors to remind you how small you really were. The women wore gowns like smoke, the men wore smiles like knives.

The Senator found me by the buffet. He was the kind of man who could shake your hand and rob you at the same time.

“You enjoying the new digs?” he asked. His teeth gleamed.

“I’ve seen worse,” I said. “Prisons usually have better food, though.”

He laughed, but his eyes didn’t. “We have to show strength, my friend. Pride. The people need to see their government thriving.”

“Thriving?” I said. “You mean decorating the Titanic?”

He didn’t like that. His smile faded, just a little, before he spotted someone more useful to flatter. He left me standing there, staring at the chandelier, a glittering, spinning galaxy of debt.

I drifted toward the bar, my safer ground. The bartender poured gin as if he wanted to forget, too. Next to me, a woman in a green dress was smoking a cigarette that probably cost more than my rent. She looked bored in the way only rich people can afford to be.

“You a reporter?” she asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“You’re the only one here who looks like he’s thinking about leaving.”

“Maybe I’m just sober enough to know better.”

She smiled. “Then you’re already smarter than half the room.”

We talked, or rather, she did, about art, politics, charity, and all the little words people use to make corruption sound civilized. She said her husband was a contractor for the Capitol renovations.

“That chandelier? He’d imported it from Italy. It cost a cool million, easy. Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said.

“It’s obscene,” I said.

She didn’t argue. She just exhaled smoke and said, “Everything is, if you look long enough.”

Then she reminded me that Obama’s White House renovations cost taxpayers around $276 million. By then, the band had started playing.

People danced, gliding across the floor like ghosts who’d forgotten they were dead. I finished my drink, left a tip I couldn’t afford, and walked out.

Outside, sirens wailed in the distance, maybe another bombing scare. The Capitol dome glowed against the night sky, proud, distant, and hollow.

A homeless man was sleeping on the steps. I gave him my last cigarette.

Inside, they were still dancing. Out here, the music didn’t reach.

And maybe that was the only honest thing left in this city.