Dampening Blagojevich's Spirits

Illinois citizens’ high spirits over the election of our Senator Barack Obama as President - have been somewhat dampened by the disgrace of our Governor Rod Blagojevich. Have we gone from the sublime to the ridiculous? We are the laughing stock of the world. And the Governor’s recent appearances on TV shows haven’t helped.

Although Governor Blagojevich lives only a couple miles from me, I’ve never met him. However I have met his father-in-law, Richard Mell, the powerful Chicago Alderman whose influence helped get Rod Blagojevich in office in the first place. Shortly after Blagojevich was elected, the two men had a falling out over who had unfairly profited from granting control over a large landfill acreage in the State. There has been a strained silence between the two men ever since, with Alderman Mell’s daughter left awkwardly in the middle between father and husband.

However Rod Blagojevich was re-elected for a second term as Governor, and Alderman Mell remains one of the most influential senior members of Chicago’s City Council. Mell has his big ward offices just down the street from me. I occasionally drop in there when I have a comment or question about ward services. Then there was that time Alderman Mell dropped into my residence. The visit had some very unpleasant consequences – for Alderman Mell.

I’d always had my living quarters adjacent to and actually mixed in with my family printing business. When I finally phased out my business, I rented space in the building to a young man bursting with enthusiasm over launching his own printing business. I’d assumed he would enlist his wife and two children to help him occasionally run the office, in the same sort of let’s-pull-together family conviviality that I had enjoyed growing up. But that didn’t materialize. Roberto was clear about not wanting his children to have to participate in what he considered the menial tasks connected with printing and mailing. His wife also kept generally absent from the operation. So I didn’t get to see any home-learning, family business perpetuated on my premises, as I’d hoped.

Nevertheless, Roberto jumped in by himself with gusto. He was very charming, so he was successful at getting a stream of people to come in here with their business. He would schmooze with them, gleam joviality and brightness, and give them confidence that he would execute their work orders with dispatch. He was in fact so charming, that people hardly ever seemed to notice when their jobs came out either horribly botched, or else never came out at all. The people would still flock to Roberto and his beaming glad-handing – again and again. I had thought to sort of casually keep my hand in the printing trade vicariously through his energy. I had thought I might circle on the periphery of his business, learning some of the new computer techniques being applied to graphic design and printing. However, all too often, I got drawn into the vortex of Roberto’s ineptitude.

In due course, Aldermen Mel came in here as one of Roberto’s customers, and he also fell into the vortex of continuous mishap. Mell probably wanted to throw some work to a local minority business. Whatever brought him in here, I was impressed to see Alderman Mell standing at the office counter one day, being schmoozed by Roberto. Mell was asking if Roberto could do a special job for him. He wanted some invitations to a Democratic fundraiser printed. He would supply his own paper, some very expensive gilt, deckle-edged linen cards. Roberto of course assured Mell he was the man for the job. And as Mell looked into Roberto’s eager, intelligent eyes – he became sure too. Mell proceeded to haul in boxes of the special stock. The two men parted in beaming mutual reassurance of the wonderful gold filigree invitations that would soon emerge.

But it was not to be. Robert was Roberto. He was a master at raking in the business. But when it came to actually doing a job, he was out and away and nowhere to be found.

Roberto could think up no end of distractions to defer actually having to start doing any work. He always wanted to add services to his basic printing operation. He asked me if he could install gumball machines and maybe even some video game machines on the premises. One minute, he entertained “diversifying” into printing T-shirts, and then on into tie-dying fabric. The next minute he thought he might sell money orders and telephone cards. He considered adding a translating service to his business. He would translate letters and telephone calls for those of his Hispanic customers who didn’t know much English.

Most of these mushrooming dreams never took root. They went up in a powder puff of dispersed spores. However Roberto did succeed in foisting one adjunct business onto my premises. Not long after he’d established himself here, he decided to breed dogs as a sideline. He brought a bouncy male boxer appropriately named “Rocky” into the building, to be available for round-the-clock stud service. However, Roberto was rarely around to train or feed or walk Rocky. When I couldn’t take up the slack, the dung and disarray would start building up around the printing presses.

Roberto’s legitimate customers naturally got lost in this rain of distraction that Roberto precipitated on the scene. Their jobs were neglected. Most particularly, Alderman Mell’s guilt-edged paper languished in a corner. As the days wore on, I kept reminding Roberto that he HAD to get busy with Mel’s order. Mell’s deadline was approaching. If Roberto would just make good on this account, he would no doubt get loads of additional work from the ward offices and from the Chicago Democratic machine in general. He’d be made in the shade.

But Roberto postponed and postponed, as he always did – running out and about soliciting yet more business over lengthy lunches around town. Finally, the night before Mell was scheduled to come in and pick up his printed invitations, Roberto grudgingly came in here late and set to work. He fell into the usual foul mood that overtook him whenever he was forced to actually execute any of the jobs he’d netted. In this case though, I could tell there was some additional frustration eating at Roberto as he revved up the press and started slapping ink onto its rollers.

When Mell arrived the next day to pick up his presumably dazzling gold-filigreed invitations – I heard what had happened. Roberto sheepishly confessed that his dog, Rocky, had urinated all over Mell’s cartons of paper. But ever one to turn a negative into a positive, Roberto immediately perked up. He assured Mel that he had rescued at least a quarter (maybe even a full half!) of the paper. He had gone ahead and run the slightly damp paper through his machines, risking damage to his press feed rollers in the process. But he had done it - as a special favor to Mell. I melted away anonymously into the background – so Mell could never connect me with this disaster, with this patently absurd reframing of who was damaging whom.

Mell took it in good part. He didn’t let his practiced politician’s smile crack even a splinter. He and Roberto joked in the vein of “dogs will be dogs.” Mell said it would be all right – that he might have enough invitations to go around. Or else he could make up any deficit in some makeshift fashion. They parted amiably. But of course Mell never came back.

I sighed with infinite regret. There went Roberto’s big chance. There went my big chance – to have a going business on my property again – or even just to have a tenant who could pay his rent.

Roberto finally folded and moved out in abject failure – leaving all sorts of corruption in his wake. Rocky’s stains are still in evidence here and there, permanent reminders of the whole sodden episode.

Now all these allegations of corruption have been leveled against Alderman Mell’s son-in-law – Rod Blagojevich. I get the feeling that a high percentage of the Illinois electorate would like to resurrect Rocky – to do to Blagojevich what he did to Mell’s gilt-edged paper.