Chapter 102: The Westminster Diner

Wednesday, October 3, 1990

Political campaigns, at least in America, are designed to produce winners by wearing the participants down to a nub. The survivor gets elected. There comes a point where you have to wonder just how many hands can be shook, how many rubber chicken dinners do you have to eat, how many old people do you have to make nice to? It really helps to be rich, since doing all those things and actually trying to earn a living are impossible. Early on you start wondering whether it’s all worth it. You start saying there just must be a better way to pick a government!

America made a big mistake way back when we revolted against the British. Most people think it was in allowing slavery, but considering that half the colonies were slave states, we’d never have broken loose fighting that battle, then. The big mistake was that in our desire to rid ourselves of all things British, we got rid of a parliamentary system of government, and saddled ourselves with the mess we have now. Most Europeans look at how we elect our government and shake their heads in disbelief. When they hold elections, they just announce them and then everybody has six or eight weeks to make their bets and vote. Congressional and Senate races in America go for about a year, and Presidential races typically run at least two years, regardless of what the rule books state. It’s a miracle anything gets accomplished!

As you go through it, you really start thinking there has to be a better way to do things, because there can’t possibly be a worse way!

Wednesday, October 3, was supposed to be a normal day. It was a long day. I started out with a few hours over at the office, mostly answering and returning phone calls and emails. The Sun had sent Fletcher Donaldson out to trail me around for a day, a day-in-the-life type of exercise. Brew and I shrugged our shoulders. The Sun still hadn’t gotten around to endorsing anybody and we didn’t dare to chance pissing them off. The Sun is a Baltimore City paper, but it’s read across the state.

It was going to be a long day, with a radio interview in Westminster, two visits to old folks’ homes in Reisterstown (known as ‘senile silos’ in the business), a visit to a ladies’ book club in Taneytown, and then finishing up with a rubber chicken dinner and a speech at the American Legion hall in Westminster. Thursday and Friday I would get to repeat the process in Baltimore County. I just kept repeating to myself that I only had another month to go. We were still in a dead heat with Stewart.

Donaldson got to campaign headquarters mid-morning and spent some time chatting with some worker bees. I got there about eleven. Then I took off with Donaldson riding with me. Brew had a cold and was under the weather, so it was just me. It shouldn’t be a problem. By now I had the stump speech ingrained on my DNA, even with the changes we made from time to time to answer Stewart’s latest nonsense. We had taken to using a line from the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which wouldn’t be made for many more years to come. Whenever somebody started spouting something pro-Stewart and patently false about me, I would just hit back with, “I’ll make you a deal. “When Andy Stewart stops telling lies about me, I’ll stop telling the truth about him.”

In the meantime, you smile a lot, shake hands, and pray to God they remember to pull the lever next to the big ‘R’ on November 6, if they remember to get out of bed and go vote. There has to be a better way!

We finished around 8:30 in the evening, and I just wanted to go home, but as we drove through Westminster, I felt my stomach rumble. The rubber chicken dinner had been especially rubbery tonight, and I just pushed it around the plate some, all the while thanking them for my delicious meal. I began to wonder which circle of Hell I was going to end up in, and settled on the Eighth Circle, for Fraud. I only had one more to go before I was hopelessly doomed.

I saw a light up ahead, near the corner of Manchester and Baltimore, near the mall. “You hungry?” I asked Fletcher.

“Not really.”

I smiled and shrugged at him. “Well, I need something to forget about that delicious chicken dinner. You can have coffee if you want.”

“Sure, why not!”

I nodded and pulled into the diner’s parking lot. It was getting late, and it was after the evening rush. I had been here any number of times over the years. It’s a nice place owned by a Greek immigrant and usually staffed by members of his innumerable family. We parked and went inside.

I held the door open for Fletcher and then followed him inside. At that hour there was a man at the cash register near the door, and I recognized him as the owner, Nick Papandreas, although he didn’t recognize me. He greeted us and showed us to a booth about four down from the door and said a waitress would be out in a moment. As we followed him, I noticed a woman, a young woman, sitting huddled up in the first booth inside the door, sipping a cup of coffee. We sat down, and it was just by chance that I had the seat facing the door, and Fletcher took the seat opposite me, so that his back was to the door.

A girl who looked like she was college age came out from the back of the restaurant and saw Nick pointing at us. She said something to him and smiled, and then grabbed a couple of menus. She approached and flashed a big smile at both of us. “Hi there, fellas! Can I start you off with some coffee?”

I smiled back. “Coffee for my friend, and I’d like some tea, please.”

“Sweet tea?”

I shook my head. “Hot tea, please.”

“Sure thing!” She gave us the menus and said, “Back in a jiffy!”

Fletcher twisted his head to watch her leave. “Cute kid.”

“They’re all cute at that age. I think I was born older than that,” I replied with a smile.

When the young lady returned with our coffee and tea, I asked, “So, are you Nick’s daughter or niece?”

She laughed. “Neither. I’m a second cousin, but we all call him Uncle Nick. Care to order?”

“Well, I’m not up for a meal, but if you have any pie left...”

“Best pie in the county! We have apple, cherry, blueberry, and strawberry still available.”

I set my menu down and looked at Fletcher. “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a nice slice of pie.”

He nodded and agreed. “Apple for me, a la mode, please.” He set his menu on top of mine.

“Sure thing, sugar,” she said to him. She turned to me.

“Cherry, a la mode, too.”

“Nothing like cherry pie on a night like tonight,” she replied, winking at me.

I chuckled and waved her on her way.

Fletcher smiled. “I think she’s flirting with you.”

“Yeah, and a married candidate for Congress is going to try something with a reporter across from him. Right!”

He laughed at this. “Still...”

“Fletcher, of course she’s flirting with me. Waitresses flirt with their customers. That’s like saying birds fly in the air. It gets them good tips. Aside from that? I’m damn near twenty years older than she is and married to boot.” I waved my ring finger at him. “If she didn’t kill me one way, Marilyn would kill me another way!” He just laughed at that.

As I talked to him, I had one eye vaguely on the young woman in the booth by the front door. I had taken my glasses off after sitting down, and didn’t bother putting them back on, but something about her seemed a bit off. Maybe it was the way she had her jacket wrapped around her, or the way she seemed to be holding her left arm, or the sunglasses she was wearing when it was dark out. She just seemed a bit off to me, but I didn’t pay her all that much attention. I couldn’t see what she was eating, but she was dawdling over it. Then again, maybe I was just seeing something that wasn’t there.

Nick’s second cousin returned with our pie and flirted a little more with us. At that point I stopped paying attention to the girl at the front, and Fletcher and I just talked politics while we ate. It was a quiet night. Nick said something to the waitress, and he went back into the kitchen. That was when things changed.

A big guy pushed through the front door to the diner and started looking around. He was dressed in what looked like mechanic’s coveralls, but torn and greasy. He looked dirty and disheveled. He was very tall and fat, but the kind that had some muscle underneath. I saw the waitress go up to him and say something that I couldn’t quite make out. He ignored her, pushed past her, and kept looking around. She protested, and he shoved her aside, startling her. She staggered against the counter, and then ran back into the kitchen.

That was when I noticed the woman sitting at the booth near the door trying to slide down in the bankette seat and slip under the table. The big guy saw her out of the edge of his vision and turned towards her. “WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING, YOU STUPID CUNT?” he roared. Then he reached out and grabbed her arm, causing her to cry out.

Fletcher and I stopped talking, and he turned around in his seat to see what was going on. “What the hell?” he commented.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s good,” I replied.

“GET UP, BITCH! WE’RE GOING HOME! MOVE YOUR FAT ASS, YOU STUPID FUCKING CUNT!”

At that point Nick came hustling out of the swinging doors to the kitchen, followed closely by his cousin. He looked angry; she looked nervous. “What going on? You get out of here!” I don’t know how long Nick had been in the country, but he still had his heavy Greek accent.

“FUCK YOU!” The newcomer swung and connected with Nick’s chest. It wasn’t much of a contest. Nick looked like he was in his early fifties, and it was obvious he had eaten too much of his fine cooking. The big guy was bigger, at least a foot taller, and a lot heavier. Nick went back on his ass.

“Uncle Nick!” screamed the waitress, who went running towards Nick.

The big guy roared and grabbed a carafe of coffee and swung it at her. He caught her on the side of the head and the carafe shattered. She went down like a sack of potatoes. Then he turned back to the young woman in the booth and grabbed for her again. She began to fight against him, but when he grabbed her arm, she cried out again and slumped in the booth. “GET UP, BITCH!”

“Oh, shit!” I said, as much to myself as anyone else. I reached across the table and tapped Fletcher on the arm. He turned back to me, and I reached into my coat pocket. I pulled out my cell phone and pushed it across the table. It was a Motorola MicroTAC which I got last year to replace my original DynaTAC ‘brick.’ “You stay here and call the cops.” Then I stood up and slipped off my suit coat; I had pulled off my tie in the car on the drive over. Fletcher was watching the big guy, so I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “Stay here and call the cops.” Then I turned and went towards the big asshole at the front of the diner.

“Time to go, buddy. Get lost,” I said. “The cops are on the way.”

Behind him, I could see Nick scrambling on the floor to get to his feet. I couldn’t focus on that, though, because the big guy roared at me and swung his right fist at me in a wild roundhouse swing. Now that I was closer to him, I could smell a delightful aroma of four days of body odor, overlaid with enough beer to cause a contact buzz. Great! The roundhouse right missed me by a mile, and as I stepped closer, he threw a left at me. I focused on his timing, and he came back with another right.

It was my turn. I let the right swing past and then stepped behind his swing. My right hand grabbed his wrist, and my left grabbed his elbow. Then I twisted and pushed him forward as hard as I could. Never counter power with power. Instead let the attacker’s power work against him. He went face forward and I put my weight into the move and slammed his face down into one of the booth tables. There was a satisfying crunch and he almost bounced off the table. This time I pulled him back up and twisted his arm so that he went backwards. I kept twisting and kicked his legs out from under him. I put my weight into it again, and he went down on his back all the way to the floor, with his head bouncing twice on the tile. He was out like a light.

I doubt it took fifteen seconds, including the swings he took at me, and I wasn’t even breathing all that hard. My first reaction was how angry Marilyn would be with me, but I smiled at the thought and shook it off. She’d get over it.

I found Nick on the floor next to his waitress, who was sitting upright on the floor, although she was bleeding from a cut on the side of the head. I knelt next to them both, just as a couple of men came through the swinging doors from the kitchen. They were dressed in white t-shirts and had aprons on, so they must have been cooks or dishwashers. They stared in disbelief, and I yelled at them to call the cops. They scurried into the back again. I looked over my shoulder and saw Fletcher talking to somebody on the phone, so maybe he got through already. A second call couldn’t hurt.

The girl was showing signs of coming around, so Nick and I lifted her up and set her on one of the seats at the counter. Her eyes fluttered open, and she mumbled, “Wha ... what...”