Barbara Callahan - The Day After

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If I took a survey of victims of various calamities and asked, “What was the best day of your life?” I believe their answers might be “the day before I was viciously mugged in the park” or “the day before my lab test came back positive” or “the day before the flood waters ravaged my home.”

The day before might have been filled with mundane chores like cleaning out the garage, catching up on paperwork, or shopping at the super-market. Yet in its ordinariness the day before glows with a luminosity that outshines every other day of one’s life, a wonderful but unappreciated time before the calamity occurred.

I spent my day before in my office tidying up, a euphemism for routine chores like the dispensing of documents that had successfully shredded the political career of Josephine Klymer, a former candidate for governor from the New Visions party. Into the machine went legal records affirming her as a corespondent in a nasty divorce suit, as well as data on a fifteen-year-old shoplifting conviction. Since I would be taking my first real vacation in years, aside from an occasional overnight at my cabin in the mountains, it was essential that I not leave any evidence that might compromise my sources — the paralegals, administrative assistants, disgruntled employees, and computer hackers who feed the voracious appetites of those who thrive on holding on to political power.

As an “oppo,” an opposition researcher for the Reliance Party in my state, I provided a catering service, so to speak, for the mighty. For fifteen years, I compiled information on candidates from the opposition party. The dossiers I created successfully blocked New Vision-ers from any significant offices. From my humble beginnings as an envelope-stuffing college volunteer in the senatorial reelection campaign of Will Stafford, I graduated into the exciting and well-paying world of oppos. Will Stafford himself spotted my talent after I passed along to his campaign manager the gossip that jump-started my career.

“So you’re the pretty little thing who discovered my unworthy opponent’s sleazy activities, which just happened to get leaked to the press,” Will said.

Blushing, I told the senator that on a date, I saw the candidate and a young woman sipping wine at Rosie’s, an out-of-the-way bar. When they left, I thought we could have some fun by following them, which we did, to Rendez-Vous, a bar/motel favored by those whose trysts do not require romantic ambience.

After my recitation, Will ran his index finger across his lips, a now too-familiar gesture, zippering his smile as a prelude to serious scrutiny. At that moment, I knew I was being assessed by a master appraiser, but I had to wait until after his landslide victory to know why.

At the celebration of his win he deftly maneuvered past the crowd of the party faithful, shaking hands only when necessary to part the seas of well-wishers, and came to me.

“Outside,” he said, nodding toward the exit leading to the parking lot and then turning toward the celebrants and selecting a recipient for a bear hug.

Too nervous to get my coat, I obeyed and waited, shivering, next to the building, wondering why I had been jettisoned from the celebration. Thoroughly chilled after five minutes and regretting not having driven to the event, I sidled over to the nearest car, praying that it would be unlocked. As I touched its handle, a high-pitched alarm lacerated the stillness of the night. I charged back to my wall and crouched behind a trash can as light flooded the parking lot.

Will Stafford himself strolled casually toward the Lexus and deactivated the alarm. Of all the cars in the lot, I had chosen his to break into.

“You can come out now,” he said, “and legitimately get into my car.”

Grateful for potential warmth, I climbed in.

He drove about a mile to the duck pond in Stenton Park before speaking. “Well, now I know three things about you,” he said. “One is that you follow orders immediately no matter how uncomfortable you might get. Two, you are not above a little lawbreaking to get what you need, like seeking shelter in my car. And three, you have a nose for sniffing out garbage, like who is cheating on whom.”

That night those three qualifications landed me the high-paying job of Director of Research for the Reliance Party.

“Just tell your friends, Anne,” he ordered, “that you oversee research on legislation that I’ll have to vote on.”

I never saw a piece of legislation, but I did see documents removed from the offices of psychiatrists, lawyers, and commissioners of various state departments, as well as reports submitted by our private investigators. Not all my research material, however, arrived via paper. Eve Granahan, our crack computer hacker, transferred e-mail files from unsophisticated users into my computer under the file she named Karaoke after “the amateurs that croak their hearts out to us eager hackers.”

The amateurs skewered by Eve’s scorn were those who didn’t realize that their e-mail messages, as well as photos appended to them, did not disappear into the ether when they hit the delete key. Her latest contribution to Karaoke featured J. Robert Banning’s romp in the surf with two bikini-clad teenage boys. No matter that J. Robert was only twenty-one years old and his only elected office was that of senior class president of Masterson College. He came from a socially prominent family who had retired from New Visions state politics before Will Stafford arrived. Quite possibly, the good-looking scion might cast his political genes upon the scene in the near future. Preparing well in advance for that eventuality, we were collecting data to smudge the family album. No matter that J. Robert’s surf buddies were his nephews visiting from Ibiza. If J. Robert ever did decide to toss his hat into the ring, we would toss the photo to the media. Taken by surprise, and before he could sputter an explanation, J. Robert’s campaign volunteers would be drawing Groucho moustaches on his posters.

Compiling dossiers on potential candidates is essential for effective, timely opposition response. It would be foolhardy for an oppo like myself to wait until a candidate is announced and thereby lose precious time scrambling for damaging material. Professionals must anticipate. In a sense, I was like obituary writers who for the sake of timeliness have researched and written up the entire lives and careers of celebrities months and years before they die.

Although not as well endowed as our winning team, New Visions does fund a part-time oppo of their own, a high-school music teacher, a clarinetist, actually, whom I had dubbed the oppo-tune-ist. Between directing the band and teaching classes, Jeffrey Cobb didn’t have too much time to research our slate. An expensive lunch at the Salle de Fleur for his ex-girlfriend netted me the information that Jeff’s oppo dossier consisted only of a portfolio of newspaper clippings.

Over créme brulée, Jeffrey’s ex confirmed something I had long suspected — New Visions had a dossier on me.

Feigning shock, I watched as she removed a folder from her handbag. Expecting a meager newspaper clipping or two, I was not disappointed. I flipped past them but frowned at the single sheet of paper in the folder.

“Read it in the privacy of your home.” She grinned. “And thanks for the lunch.”

On the way to my condo, I thought about the possible revelations on that sheet of paper. The five parking tickets accumulated in the course of my work, paid for, of course, by the party? The time before I proved my worth to the party when I bought a three-hundred-dollar dress, tucked the tags inside, and wore it to a formal occasion before returning it to the store? My several library fines? Merely peccadilloes. I live such a blameless life that Will Stafford refers to me as Mother Superior.