The Cave Dwellers

by Christina McDowell

  His work phone lights up. A text message. His heart falls to his feet.

  He opens the text. It’s the agriculture commissioner from North Carolina confirming dinner next week. Relief. As Doug wipes the sweat from his upper lip, his personal cell phone lights up.

  Naughty texting from your work phone. Asking for trouble, Mr. Senator?

  Doug chuckles at the screen—he loves it! He knew she was smart; it’s why he hired her! Good girl, he thinks. He throws his head back, laughs louder to himself again. It’s overwhelmingly jolly. Good girl.

  * * *

  Cate sits at her wooden desk wearing a mischievous, blushing smile, when her work phone lights up. A text message, Senator Wallace’s Phone. She opens it: Oh, I’m so embarrassed, that was meant for my wife Betsy, my sincere apologies.

  No worries Cate replies.

  * * *

  Doug swivels a bit more in his seat, taps his fingers compulsively atop the leather on his desk. Picks up his phone. Puts it down, taps, then picks it up again, texting: I forgot something, can you come back in my office for a minute? He drops his phone again.

  * * *

  Cate looks over at her screen. Her heart pounds exceedingly hard when she sees that Doug has asked her to step back into his office.

  Cate swoops her hair over to the side and knocks while opening the door, smiles. “You wanted to see me again?”

  Doug gets up from his seat, puts his hands in his pockets, and walks around his desk as Cate steps in, closing the door behind her. Doug perches himself on the edge of his desk, crosses his arms and his ankles. “You know I have daughters…” he says.

  “Yes. Two, right?”

  “Fox has invited me to come on-air tonight to discuss the domestic violence issue, but I think you should do it in my place. Be the face of our team.”

  Cate feigns simultaneous surprise and humility. “Oh, wow, thank you.… Yes, I would be happy to—honored to.”

  “From a strategy standpoint as well, I think it looks good to show people that I work closely with women and will not tolerate abusive behavior—not just in the home, but in the office.”

  “Oh, absolutely. Would you like me to reiterate that you have daughters as well? And God forbid this should ever happen to one of them?”

  “Yes,” Doug says, then inhales, puffing up his chest. “And in the office…”

  “Of course,” Cate says, smiling, confirming their little secret.

  CHAPTER NINE

  An army of black Suburbans with government tags is parked beneath the five American flags waving above the National Press Club building. Before Carol and Billy, the general’s wife and son, make it to the elevators, they are bombarded by a dozen television screens on the wall in the lobby, each with its volume turned up, a talking head debating another talking head, sometimes a third talking head, occasionally a fourth talking head, even a fifth talking head—a legion of heads, as if an art curator had come from the Met to do a television installation providing the sensation of disorientation complete with a warning label for those prone to seizures, panic attacks, and possible brain aneurysms. CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, C-SPAN: “The White House today / by the FBI, the attorney general, and / domestic violence found / the mass shooting yesterday / dozens dead including children/ good news for gun owners as gun stocks rise / more shakeups in the White House administration / Russian intelligence officials have not / the family murdered in a DC mansion…”

  Inside the elevator, a security guard pulls a key fob out of his pocket and places it against the panel next to the thirteenth floor. Carol adjusts Billy’s navy striped tie, and he pushes her away. “Mom, it’s fine.”

  “We’re going to be on-camera, just making sure it’s tight.” Carol’s hands are a little shaky. “Make your father proud.” She’s wearing a modest charcoal knee-length dress from Anne Klein she found on sale at Macy’s. Trailed by three security guards, they step out of the elevator onto a blue and gold carpet. A security desk stands in front of them with two more security guards.

  “May I help you?” the receptionist asks.

  “The Montgomery family,” the head of security replies.

  “Come right through.” She motions to the clear glass doors, which open electronically. “They’re in the Zenger Room today.”

  As Billy and Carol pass through the halls of this journalism bastion, it is rather evident that this is an old boys’ club that has gone sorely out of style. It is nothing but dull to Billy, who isn’t entirely sure what he and his mother are doing there. Where are the modern tech rooms with Ping-Pong tables and food trucks waiting outside? Instead, these halls are flooded by old white men, many now retired, yet still they show up each morning in a suit and tie, plant themselves in the exclusive bar area on the tufted oxblood leather couches, amid burgundy velvet pillows and matching curtains, burled wood, brass and silver trinkets on shelves laden with musty donated books, watching multiple television screens as bow-tied Black and Hispanic servers come to take their orders.

  Passing several framed historical newspaper headlines—

  TERRORISTS HIJACK FOUR AIRLINERS, DESTROY WORLD TRADE CENTER, HIT PENTAGON; HUNDREDS DEAD

  UP TO 25 DIE IN COLORADO SCHOOL SHOOTING

  JOHN LENNON SHOT!

  —Billy and Carol arrive at the Zenger Room where a press coordinator and the president of the club descend upon them. All of the famous faces of prime-time television news are sitting in the front row; a few stand holding a microphone, sound-checking, in full makeup, scrolling their Slack channels. An empty podium before them stands in front of a backdrop declaring THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB in blue letters. Billy and Carol are led in by a woman wearing an earpiece, the beads of sweat on her forehead and her frantic gestures indicating that she is under extreme pressure to not fuck up one moment of her job. The nation is waiting. All eyes fix quickly on mother and son, particularly Billy, who is noticeably being groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps.

  Billy, seated, turns around to the back of the room to see a row of cameras, so many that they bleed into the aisle next to him. He notices one cameraman—slightly overweight, kind of burly, his beard hasn’t been trimmed in weeks—who’s got earbuds in and his head buried in a copy of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Billy wonders whether the book is a shield to protect him from the constant news cycle, or a symptom of how numb he has become to it.

  * * *

  A prime-time face stands in front of his cameraman, waiting, begins to read his phone when he gets the alert.

  “Just in: General Edward Montgomery has been nominated as secretary of defense.… This is unprecedented.” LIVE! In the back of the room, several television screens show the president at a rally: “… I have decided to nominate General Edward Montgomery as secretary of defense!” The crowd somewhere in the Midwest roars on the television screen. The volume goes dead.

  Another prime-time face: “Let’s go, you rolling?”

  “They’ll be here in three minutes, they have entered the building, three minutes!” a PA yells to the back of the room.

  * * *

  Billy turns, searching for a reaction from his mother. Carol just sits with her hands folded in her lap; she turns her head slightly and smiles at him, a closed-mouth smile. Carol isn’t comfortable in the spotlight. She swallows. She waits. The room gets quiet, and the president of the National Press Club steps over to the podium.

  “Good morning. Just a few minutes ago the president announced that General Edward Montgomery will be nominated as secretary of defense. General Montgomery is certainly no stranger to this administration and to the Senate Armed Services Committee. We’ve known him as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a commander in Afghanistan, and in many posts before that. He is a warrior and a leader of the highest quality of our great nation, with twenty-five years of distinguished service, and we are grateful to have him here with us today. General…”

  Billy watches his father walk through the doo
rs and around the PAs strapped with wires and walkie-talkies, earbuds and clipboards; it feels more like a production set in Hollywood than a political press conference. His father wears his decorated costume: his four stars pinned to the large shoulder pads of his uniform, his jump wings, his colorful badges of honor and courage. Assistants and bodyguards trail behind him.

  Billy sits with his ankles crossed, his knees spread, his arms in his lap, stiff posture, his head slightly cocked back, aware that people are watching him. He knows he will never live up to who his father is and who, in this moment, he has just become. His eyes trail his father’s as he makes his way to the podium; Billy hopes he will make eye contact, smile in his direction even, just for being there. The general is poised, proud, confident, his head held high. He walks past Billy without any acknowledgment, climbs the towering podium, and looks straight in the direction of the cameras that are surely entering the living rooms and offices of millions upon millions of Americans, and perhaps countries all over the world.

  “Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity for me to be here before you today. I am truly honored by the nomination as the United States secretary of defense. Our department—the strongest military department in the world—stands as the guardian of this great country, and I want to thank the president for his confidence in me. I look forward to my confirmation hearing and continuing to serve our nation. Thank you, and God bless America.”

  Billy doesn’t realize that his jaw is clenched and his right hand is curled into a fist. He feels a sense of conscious pride, and yet the kind of guilt that isn’t available to feel at such a young age, the kind of guilt that insidiously bleeds into resentment and, later, raw and violent misplaced rage—that his father will always, no matter what, put country before family; that the world only sees a sacrificial warrior, whose family is constantly thanked for their support, they’re so supportive. And yet, were they ever given a choice?

  But Billy isn’t thinking about this at all; in fact, Billy isn’t fazed, the same way a kid in the Midwest isn’t fazed by his orthopedic surgeon father’s conference at the Courtyard Marriott. He’s more conscious of how he is being perceived than anything else. It’s only in quiet moments, or obliterated drunken moments, when he feels it.

  The general steps off the stage, swarmed by security detail and a White House aide. Billy doesn’t yet understand the new level of scrutiny his family is about to endure from the media. He watches. He forces a half-smile for the cameras when his phone buzzes. A text message from Bunny:

  Did you hear the news? Audrey Banks is fucking dead.

  Washington National Cathedral

  The construction of the National Cathedral began under President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. It was modeled after many of the eighteenth-century Gothic cathedrals with pointed arches, flying buttresses, and stained glass windows (there’s also a Darth Vader gargoyle). Located on the highest hill in Washington, it’s where many of the political and social elite often pray, marry, and are laid to rest. President Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller, and Matthew Shepard are among those interred here. In 1953, the United Daughters of the Confederacy lobbied for two stained glass windows commemorating Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, commanders of the Confederate Army. They prevailed and the windows were installed.I A recent task force report states, “The windows provide a catalyst for honest discussions about race and the legacy of slavery and for addressing the uncomfortable and too often avoided issues of race in America. Moreover, the windows serve as a profound witness to the cathedral’s own complex history in relationship to race.”II One window depicts Jackson kneeling with a Bible in his hands; the other is of Lee, his back to us, arms spread like an eagle, with the words: “So he passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him.” In 2017, the stained glass windows were removed; however, they have yet to be replaced, as a private donor must be found to pay for it. Not one community member has offered to make the donation.

  I. Colbert I. King, “The Removal of Confederate Windows at National Cathedral Was No Cause for Celebration,”Washington Post, September 8, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-removal-of-confederate-windows-at-national-cathedral-was-no-cause-for-celebration/2017/09/08/0d75b59e-9406-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html.

  II. Washington National Cathedral website, https://cathedral.org/press-room/cathedral-to-explore-racial-justice-through-public-forums-arts-worship/.

  CHAPTER TEN

  St. Peter’s Academy is a college preparatory school planted like a Gothic dome on the highest hill in Washington. Shadows of the National Cathedral—looming towers, flying buttresses, gargoyles, and stained glass windows of dead Confederates and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—cloak the brick plantation like a holy veil.

  The faint synchronized rhythm of young aristocratic blood flows through the reverend, his eyes closed as he begins the Lord’s Prayer:

  “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

  The reverend’s eyes open. He raises his hands. “May the Lord be with you.”

  “And also with you.”

  Completely unaware of the way in which they’re being groomed, institutionalized, these children—stuffed with American fairy tales, verses of scripture capturing the pathways of their brains; funneled into the superior life of ambassadors, CIA agents, financiers, Kennedys, lobbyists, congressmen, presidents, for the only choice they have is up, up, up! The children who will never grow up outside of make-believe, invisible boundaries keeping them separate and apart from the inevitable leaking whispers of failure—deaf to the screams of financial suffocation.

  The students of St. Peter’s Academy scurry out of the nave in dramatic heaps of tears at the news of the deaths of Audrey Banks and her family. They are devastated. So much so that they can’t help but talk about how it’s affecting them. Particularly the popular girls, they’re leaning their heads on their crushes like perpetual twists and turns of such adversity, giving the boys total hard-ons.

  * * *

  Before third period begins, Bunny sits on a stone neoclassical swan garden bench in a secluded section of Bishop’s Garden, home to student recess where virginity is lost and drugs are sold just beyond the cathedral. Ivy trails up and around like a snake behind her head; green moss covers what looks to be some kind of cenotaph. She lights a cigarette. Over her uniform—green plaid skirt, navy collared shirt with the school’s crest and motto, Fidelitas et Integritas (Fidelity and Integrity), sewn on the pocket—she’s wrapped in a red hooded jacket lined in Burberry check. She hears the clip-clop of dress shoes coming down the stone steps. Stan Stopinksi, the Russian ambassador’s son, wild, gregarious, and a ladies’ man. Bunny, Billy, and their friends nicknamed him Putin 2.0 for his eerily similar look to a young Vladimir Putin: Aryan blond hair parted to the side, plump lips, round tip of the nose, deep eye sockets slanted upward, and high cheekbones. All of seventeen, he has an Eastern European swagger that none of the other boys have and a sharp wit. A polka-dotted silk handkerchief is tucked in the pocket of his navy blazer.

  Stan calls Bunny Elizabeth (Lizbet) because he decided freshman year when he arrived in the States that the name Bunny was a joke played on him by his other classmates, “ridiculous” (“vidiculus”), he would say, swatting them away like flies. Today, years later, he still calls her Lizbet, though the Russian accent has waned into a more interesting transatlantic one, perhaps with more flare. Stan wanted to know who this strikingly interesting-looking girl was, with her strawberry blond hair, translucent skin, wide eyes, and fair freckles, her skinny legs and bony knees. There was an emotional curiosity at the root of her conversations, sprinkled with a sarcastic sense of humor but not annoyingly so. When Stan saw she belonged t
o Billy Montgomery, the musician, the academic, the gorgeous jock—the kid who could do anything right and nothing wrong—he backed off. Instead, he befriended them, and the trio inevitably became best friends because Stan was fun and different and mischievous and supplied the vodka at parties. Billy and Bunny inducted him into their circle of exclusivity almost instantaneously.

  But Bunny hadn’t always been part of an exclusive circle at school. It wasn’t until Bunny started dating Billy that the popular girls, like Audrey Banks, noticed her. Though Audrey and Bunny had known each other since nursery school—some of Bunny’s happiest memories: playing with Audrey’s potbelly pig in the back garden when the Bankses once lived in Georgetown, and their matching Corolle Mon Premier Poupon Bebes when they played house together. Yet once they reached middle school and Audrey began shaving her legs, she formed a little “cashmere mafia,” the beginning of her clique of cool girls who bragged about their periods before anyone else, leaving Bunny behind in her prepuberty existence. It was the summer before junior year when Bunny’s legs grew long, her breasts filled out, her wit became charming and funny, a new kind of confidence marked the way she walked down the hallway of lockers, and Billy was the first to notice her—to fall in love with her. And all the popular girls followed, including Audrey. But Bunny would always remain skeptical of the friendship—of the way Audrey circled back to her.

  Stan sits next to Bunny, who stares into a maze of headless pink roses.

  “Wanna know how she died?” Bunny asks, setting the tone for gossip more than grief. “She was chopped up, then they burned—”

  “No, no, no, Lizbet, I can’t…” Stan shakes his head to extinguish the gruesome thoughts; he grabs the cigarettes from Bunny’s hand, pulls one out for himself. “Who would do something like that?”