The Cultmaster

Chapter 8: In Washington

"Jacob, this sounds really good," said Chester on the morning of January 3, 1985, as they both stood at the Hudson Waterfront waiting for inauguration time.
"Thank you, Ches, I-"
"We both worked really hard on it," Chuck suddenly butted in, to Jacob's deep disdain, visible across his face.
"We're sure it'll really rile the crowd up, maybe cause a revolution. Wouldn't it be cool to cause a revolution?" Both Jacob and Chester just stood there, dumbfounded, not quite knowing exactly how to respond to this tone deaf comment.
"Chuck, um... would you please go to the corner store real quick and fetch us a pack of cigars? Now, I don't mean to steal, but to buy them, you know, with money."
"Well," Chuck responded to Chester," Don't expect me to buy them out of my own pocket. I'm practically broke. I sleep on benches at the train station in Edison when my friends won't let me crash with them." Again, another long pause of silence followed this comment. No wonder he smelled like shit, thought Jacob.
"Right... well, here's some cash." Chuck looked at the money as if it were the largest amount he had ever held in his life.
"Thanks, but you can't guarantee that I won't pocket it. After all, I do need the money." Chuck began to laugh loudly, but neither of the other two shared in his sentiments.
"I'm kidding, of course! I'll go."
"None for me," Jacob called out.
"Oh, don't worry, I know that you, of all people, would never smoke. Your daddy must have taught you right, huh, Jacob?" Chuck was taunting Jacob, and he knew it.
"Don't mention my father. Please," he responded more seriously.
"And with that, I'm off. Bye, boys!" As Chuck walked away, Chester stared intently at Jacob's face, almost as though he were studying him.
"You know, son, your father was my best friend. I'm still sad that he's gone, even though it's been so long. But I guess I have you to remind me, because you're practically him standing here. Your features are so...
uncanny. You have the same brown hair as him, but that might just be because the Anglo blood is so strong." Jacob was not listening at all to what Chester was saying, for he had only one thought on his mind.
"Can you believe that Chuck was your speechwriter?"
"Oh, yeah, it was terrible," Chester responded in a quick second, "not only was he a virulent racist, but his work was also so bad. Like, really fucking bad. Don't tell him I said that, or he'll beat my ass."
"You have my trust," said Jacob, "but out of curiosity, what was his work like?" With that, Chester went behind the campaign stage for a few moments and emerged with a box filled with papers. Jacob picked one up and began reading an excerpt:
There comes a time in our history when change is needed. Now, I'm not trying to say that the change should be peaceful, like Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or Martin Luther, but, you know, you gotta have something to wake the guys up down in Washington. As the great Karl Marx once stated, great guy by the way, history is a history of class struggles. If you want to build a perfect society, you've gotta stand up and make it happen. Eventually everyone will be happy. Doesn't that sound good?

Sincerely, your new house rep Chester Colfax

Jacob felt his brain being actively numbed by Chuck's tone deaf writing and rampant historical innacuracies. Maybe this was all a result of some passive aggression he had from something that happened to him earlier in life.
"I know, right?" said Chester.
"You... you can just improvise a little bit of my speech. I know it's not perfect."
"And you," continued Chester,"can throw that piece of shit in the trash. Along with the rest."
But just as he said this, Chuck returned with seven packs of cigars, eliminating all chances of doing that.
Chester gave his speech, and maybe to Chuck's delight, the crowd did become riled up. On January 21st, Jacob arrived in the nation's capitol via train during the great blizzard of discontent. As he stepped onto the Amtrak platform, he thought of Doctor Zentsvo's words at the bar. Maybe Washington was not such an intoxicating place after all. But as Jacob walked the streets near the Smithsonian Museum, he saw signs galore that read "Fuck the pres" and signs that read "fuck" someone else, but he just ignored it. The discontent clearly reached further than just a mere blizzard. As he spent more and more time in the hallowed halls of Congress, he began to catch more and more glimpses of what moral deploralism looks like. On one very memorable day, he caught a glimpse of Rep. Victor Ravinian(D), California's 34th, laundering money from the hands of a lobbyist in plain daylight. When the next day came for the congressmen to deliberate border policy in the committee, Jacob punched himself in the gut, figuratively, for neglecting to speak up. He merely delivered the papers that he was supposed to deliver to the hands of Chester, and then sat in Chester's office and punched himself some more. He thought some more to himself about whether to say something, but knowing that he was merely a newcomer to the political institution, he convinced himself that it was merely a part of the practice, as outlandish as that explanation may have seemed. Chester was not free from any of Jacob's criticisms either; on many occasions, he could overhear conversations between him and Chuck in the lobby, where they shared in their distaste of certain groups of people. Jacob's young mind was racing from all of these experiences. Chester, for the first time ever, had proven himself to be a hypocrite. Zentsvo's words were unproven in the span of almost six months; there was almost nothing good in Washington. How could I have been so gullible?
These sentiments, however, took a turn for the better the day Jacob was introduced by Chris to Joseph Grantham. On the surface, Grantham seemed like the utmost individual from a level of virtue. Jacob would have even gone so far as to say that he was more upstanding, in fact, than his own personal role model Chester Colfax. Grantham presented himself, on the floors of Congress, so eloquently as a rhetor, so that he could convince those leaning on the complete opposite side of the aisle of his position. Jacob looked up to this man so much so that he could never work up the nerve to speak to him personally, citing, mentally, his greatness as a figure of power and humblety as well as his own insecurity. By watching the greatness of a man like him, compiled with his position as a high leader of government, Jacob began to downgrade his own self worth. Even though his mind was heavy with things to say at the dinner table, he never could say anything while surrounded by such superior men. He was just The Speechwriter, and Grantham was the Master in Charge of the Committees.