The next morning, he expected to be fired or worse, but he left his room after getting ready, seeing Lee’s doors open and watching one of the maids dusting his furniture.
He hurried down to the dining room, finding that empty too, so he went next to the kitchen. Mars was there, the cook too, and Eli went to Mars and asked, “Where is he?”
“He rose before the sun and went into his office, shutting the doors except for refills on coffee. He’s been in there hours.”
Eli felt the creeping of the worry down his spine, and he went to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup. “Mars, please tell me he’s done this before.”
“Never.”
“Damn. Maybe it’s a good thing?”
The look Mars gave him…well, skeptical would be a nice way to put it.
An hour later, Eli was in the kitchen, drinking his sixth cup of coffee while waiting for Lee to come out of his home office. A ruckus sounded from deeper in the house and Mars and Eli both went running.
They were in time to watch Lee’s father stomping through the house on his way to the office. “Oh shit,” Eli whispered.
“You have no idea,” Mars breathed next to him before he ran ahead to try to stop the senior Madison. “Sir, may I announce your visit.”
“Fuck off, Mars.”
They stood outside the doors of the home office, close, maybe to keep the other from crumbling to the floor.
Even though the walls were thick and doors solid, they heard the screaming like they were in the same room.
“What the fuck were you thinking, boy?”
“I talked to some people! It’s not like I ran to vote on the other side of the aisle!”
“This is bad,” Eli whispered to Mars.
“You have no idea. Cleveland Madison still holds more power than Lee. He doesn’t have to be in office.”
“You’re not one of those bleeding hearts, ready to hand over the hard-earned money of our donors to those nobodies!”
Mars plucked at Eli’s jacket, and they moved into the kitchen. “He’s going to reverse the tiny bit of progress I made.”
“Likely. Cleveland is old school rich. He listened to stories from his father and grandfather of all the ways the rich were better off back before unions and child labor laws.”
“Wait, wait…child labor?”
“I’ve heard Cleveland say, at the Thanksgiving dinner table no less, that China would beat us financially unless we got rid of OSHA and child labor laws. If we could pack the factories with younger people, they could give us an edge or at least make us stiffer competition.”
Eli couldn’t believe people could ever think that way, but there it was. “That’s sick.”
“The rich want to stay that way, Eli. You can’t blame them. They have no worries about money, more than making more and keeping what they have. They don’t have to worry about being sick and unable to afford the health care.”
He said hard at the table, huffing, “It’s so ridiculous.”
Mars sat with him. “It’s true, it’s terrible, but what is worse is that they use things and people that just go against so much. I’m afraid even I have become numb to most of it.”
“Lee has for sure.”
Another hour went by before Lee came into the kitchen, his eyes bright with fury. “Mars, call the pilot. Eli, cancel everything for today and tomorrow then call the driver. We’re leaving for the weekend.”
“Where are we going?”
Finally, a smile came to him. “Mexico.”