On The Road With Danny Concannon 04-05: The District of Columbia
"The Boy is Back in Town"Companion Piece: The Hubbert Peak
Tuesday Afternoon
Maisy made her way into the Washington Post bullpen. With out a beat, her hair still damp, she walked through Danny's open office door-- leaving the door open to the outside. She set her Starbucks coffee cup on the desk. If she had looked where she'd set the cup, and not gone directly to the remote control, she would have seen Danny sleeping on the couch. She directed the remote at the television, futzing with the buttons, running through the channels as they hit the middle of sentences and the ends of words, all the while walking backwards toward the couch.
"And the Dow is down ---The White House is still playing defense in the whole Joshua Lyman—I find this completely irrelevant---tell me, Big Bird what makes you so---the weather will be---Oh, Walter don't leave, don't go away." Maisy found the movie channel and felt content as she leaned back to sit down on the couch.
"Ahh, What the..!" Danny yelled as he was woken from his sleep. Maisy screamed and turned around, holding the remote as if it was a lethal weapon. Danny rolled off the couch, entangled in his blanket and hitting the ground with a thud. He leaned against the front of the couch and looked up at Maisy.
"What are you doing here!?"
"I work here! This is my office!" He looked up at Maisy wielding the remote like a dagger above her head. "Hey, Lady Mac Beth, unless you plan to wound me with bad television I'd put that thing away."
Maisy looked up at what she was doing, "Sorry." She lowered the remote and held it in front of her with both hands. "What are you doing here?"
"Aww." Danny held his hand to his head and started to lift himself. "This is still my office right?!" Maisy offered Danny her hand and helped him rise to the floor.
"I know, I just don't know if I've ever seen you actually in it." Maisy looked at him strangely as he untangled himself from the blanket.
"Yeah, well I'm back." Danny stretched his arms and lifted his suspenders back onto his shoulders. "Messages?" He looked over his desk for anything of note.
"Tons. You're back? Like back for good? Just like that, you're back?"
"Yeah." Danny felt the stale taste of sleepiness in his mouth, still in half sleep.
"You just fall off the face of the earth and now you're just back!"
"For now." He grumbled.
"For now?
"Yeah. For know---I'm back."
"You're back?"
"I'm back!"
"He's back!" She said with glee up to the heavens.
"So where are those messages?" He smiled at her.
"On my desk." She said with glee.
"Well...Go get 'um." Danny said with a smile, knowing how much Maisy loved doing her job.
"Yes, sir." She smiled and ran past the door and back to her desk.
Danny tried to wake up further and shook his head. Maisy ran back into the office and handed him a grouping of pink messages from her message pad. Danny took his reading glasses out of his right hand pocket and leafed through the messages, his head down, studying each, deciding which he wanted to keep and which to discard.
"I can't believe you're back?" Maisy was agog.
"I came back for my laptop." Danny sent his hands through his pockets looking for something as if it was extremely important. "You got it?"
"Yeah." Maisy quickly ran out of the room. Danny took a zip disk from his bag and leaned down under the television set, opening a cabinet to reveal a safe.
Maisy walked in as she saw Danny unlock his safe and throw the disk in.
"What's that?" Maisy asked as the door of the safe was closed.
"Nothing." Danny said, for it was none of Maisy's business.
"How'd you type something without this?" She said handing Danny his laptop.
"I borrowed a friend's," he said, trying to stop the questioning.
"It's in perfect shape, I checked. I didn't look at anything. I just made sure it was safe—I kept it safe for ya." Danny started to maneuver his laptop in his overnight bag that was hanging off the arm of the couch.
"I'm sure ya did Maisy." Danny set the laptop down safely and zipped the bag closed.
"Where were you?"
"I needed some time alone, Maisy." Danny looked up at her. Maisy felt he was being way too vague.
"I know, but where were you? You had me worried." Danny stood as Maisy talked.
"I'm fine." Danny started to look around his office for something.
"You fell off the planet, Danny."
"I didn't fall of the planet, I was in Montana." Danny folded his pink slips into his back pocket, still looking around his office. For what, Maisy had no idea.
"What did you do in Montana?" Maisy asked as Danny made his way toward the closet.
"I rented a cabin—have you seen my---my-- Notre Dame sweatshirt?" Danny had his head in his closet looking around.
"In the box under your desk—what were you doing in a cabin in Montana?" Maisy asked as Danny made his way under his desk.
"Seceding from the union."
"What?"
"Nothing"
"I still don't understand, Danny?"
"I just needed a place to reflect—I have a friend—has a cabin in Montana-- writers just need a place to, ya know—get things together—"Danny stood and started walking toward the door.
"Kind of like your own Camp David?"
"Exactly."
"Camp Danny." Maisy said reflectively. Danny paused and made a grimacing look.
"Yeah...Maisy." Danny turned back toward her as he reached the door.
"I found a few more messages." Maisy handed Danny another set of pink slips. Danny started to pace as he looked at the messages.
"PBS called they're doing a documentary on the First Ladies—so they wanna interview all the biographers---"
"Yeah, it's that time of year, isn't it." He looked up at Maisy. "Call' um. See when they want it and if they're willing to send a remote if I'm in the field."
"Check." Maisy made a note in her note pad from the pen around her neck. She recapped the pen and looked up just in time to see Danny's face change. He looked concerned.
"Pen?" Danny asked, waving his hand at her. Maisy took the pen from around her neck and threw it to Danny who caught it like a championship first base man. He ripped the cap off with his mouth and slammed one of the pink messages down on the glass desk and began writing furiously. "Maisy, I need a plane ticket." He put the pink message in his pocket and found another piece of paper and wrote something down quickly before handing it to her. "Here's the info. I need the late night flight"
"I thought you were back?"
"I am—and now I have to go outta town for a few days." He walked toward the door.
"A few days—you said that last time."
"This impression of my mother you're doing is quite flawless" He smiled sheepishly at her.
"Is there anything else, sir?" She said with sarcasm followed by a small curtsy.
"Yeah," Danny motioned toward his bag. "I got notes—can you transcribe them to disk—they're in the back flap of the bag?"
"Yeah." Maisy said as if she always knew where they were. She took Danny's workbag and walked toward the door, holding the bag in the air by its strap. "Anything else?" She said framed in the doorway.
"Yeah." Danny laid himself back on the couch. "Turn off the light, I'm takin' a nap."
"Yeah." Maisy turned off the light while Danny made himself comfortable.
"And Maisy?"
"Yeah." she said as the outside light made her only a shadow in the background.
Danny turned his head out from the couch so he could catch her eyes.
"I want you to know I appreciate everything you do for me? You know that right?"
Maisy paused and smiled, "Yeah. I know that." She shut the door and went on to her work.
On the other side of the door, Danny took from his carry-on a small vodka bottle he had taken from one of his many plane trips. Opening the bottle with a quick twist he downed the shot with a small wince and an "ahh." Nothing but a social drinker, he found himself drinking more on the road. Perhaps it was the fate of an aging bulldog reporter, looking most days like he's slept in his own skin, as the miles of the road piled on his leather flesh; or perhaps it was something else.
Danny leaned into the couch, a large window behind him, and slept the night on his own couch in his own office, knowing it was an oddity in it's own right and he would soon be back on the road. Just a lay-over in his journey for the truth, his journey to forget, a journey that seemed no different than when he first started it almost a year before. A journey he knew had an end, but what kind of man would he be at the end of it? Some say the hardest journey is the last leg, the final mile of the marathon is the hardest. And it was beginning to seem like that as a new Presidential season was stampeding toward him. For now, he slept.
--
--
Danny told the driver to stop as they quickly passed along Pennsylvania Ave.
"Stop here," he told the driver, reaching his hand across the back seat divider.
--
It was late, very, very late. Lights were on dim as Danny made his slow way down the hallway of the West Wing. He hadn't intended on going to see her, it was really the last thing on his mind. It was just all too complicated. Distance had to be the key for now. It had not been his intention, but he soon found himself looking for her office. The first thing he noticed was Gail was gone from her desk-side spot. "She took Gail." He remarked to himself. Perhaps she had taken a little of Danny with her.
-----
Danny found himself stopping at the cross path between the exit and the White House Chief of staff's office. It would be strange not seeing her on television everyday. Danny took a look toward her new office and turned toward the exit.
-----
Danny walked past the briefing room on his way out and couldn't help but go in. His old haunt, so to speak, was a place he missed most of all. And an old haunt was just what it looked like. Dark and lightless, the only light came in from the hallway and the outdoor lights coming in from the window.
Danny moseyed down the stairs and looked around, feeling nostalgic. Maybe it was good CJ was no longer the Press Secretary. It all seemed like perfect timing with his state of mind. He really would be closing the door on CJ. Out of his mind, hidden in his heart, and off his television set.
He took one more step past the chairs and then something made him pause. On the other side of the wall, CJ was walking back from her office. She didn't mean to go there herself, but much like a car that seems to go home on autopilot she found herself on her way to the pressroom. Her eyes lit up as she found herself making her way back to her old home. She would miss them, too, she thought to herself, but as she reached the doorway she stopped and felt unsure whether to enter. Something was stopping her.
There they were, the two of them, unknown to each other, after two years of not seeing each other, standing next to each other with the wall between them. Both frozen, both standing there, and both not knowing why they had stopped. Just that they both felt something in the pit of their gut.
Maybe he should go forward—see her—say hello, but Danny just couldn't do it, not yet. And on the other side of the wall was CJ. CJ also felt she should enter, look around, but she just couldn't do it. It would be too hard.
After a moment, Danny turned around toward the back entrance of the Press Room. Neither, of course, knowing what had just happened. CJ was left with the same feeling in the pit of her stomach Danny always felt these days. It just wasn't the right time. Not the right time for both of them. She needed to be more settled before she changed her office, before she set foot in her pressroom again, before she did anything.
"CJ?" Margaret came from behind CJ in the dark, desolate hallway. "CJ?."
"Yeah?" CJ was taken out of her reverie. She still had that look of sleepiness on her face.
"You okay there? You're kinda freakin' me out."
"Yeah, I'm fine." She looked at Margaret. "Please don't tell me you have more reading for me?" She spoke with sarcasm, but knew it was just a fact of life for her now. Margaret was silent and CJ had a feeling as to why.
"Margaret, you can say it." She stressed.
"I have more reading for you." She said with the driest voice she had. She even looked a little frightened. "I think it's best you follow me now."
"Yeah." CJ lowered her head and followed. "You don't think there's a way I can soak my eyeballs in hot water."
"No." Margaret walked on ahead. CJ took one more fond look toward her old haunt—the Press Room. She would miss it. Being around it right now was just too hard.
------
Danny made his way out of the White House and into the cab.
"You ready?" The cabbie asked.
"Yeah." Danny said and slunk back into the back of the seat. The driver drove off.
Maisy turned off all the lights in Danny's office after having cleaned up the leftovers of his stay. All marks of him passing through were now gone and it looked as if he had never been there in the first place. Maisy gave one last look at the room. She felt something was missing. She knew she'd be alone again. At least Danny was back, but she had a feeling he hadn't vanquished all of his demons in Montana; even as much as he told Maisy or even himself. Maisy walked over to the small standing light next to the couch and decided to leave the light on. The light hit the window and out the door into her area of the office. Strangely, to her, it didn't make her feel so alone anymore.
CJ finally got herself home, not even sure if it was morning or night. It was a whirlwind of strange days and ideas. Her brain finally able to rest, she thought of him for the first time in weeks or was it months? She set her things down and sat on the couch, motionless for a moment. She looked down at her phone she had set on the coffee table. She looked at the phone with longing. After a moment she pick herself off the couch and started into her bedroom, already unbuttoned her blouse. Without realizing it, CJ had left the light on.
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Pack my bag and let's get movin', 'cause I'm bound to drift a while.
When I'm gone, gone, you don't have to worry long,
'Long as I can see the light.
Guess I've got that old trav'lin' bone, 'cause this feelin' won't leave me alone.
But I won't, won't be losin' my way, no, no
'Long as I can see the light.
---Long as I can see the Light CCR