Health Care Chronicles Part I

Push Comes To Shove

Cornelius Shove hustled through the lobby of the gleaming K Street building to the waiting private elevator and punched the button for Five, fidgeting nervously as the doors closed and the ascent began. When the doors opened on the bronze letters Shove Associates -Washington, DC he didn’t allow the usual pause of self-satisfaction, hurrying instead straight to his office.

The big office.

In the corner.

The one with staff already there, all chirping morning greetings he ignored as he entered his sanctum and tried for the 2009^th time to slam a counter-weighted, leather-padded, $30,000 door, which closed instead with a barely perceptible hiss.

The Comm light began blinking as he slid into his chair.

“Yes?” he snarled as he thumbed the audio switch.

“Good morning, Sir, you have a visitor waiting in the public reception area on Four. He doesn’t appear to have an appointment. Shall I send him away?”

Shove sighed. It could only be. . .”Did he give a name, Miss Allbright?”

“Yes, Sir, he did, although it sounded a bit…”

“Strange?” prompted Shove.

“Well, Sir, it was ‘A. Big Pu…”

“Push!” Shove snapped, cutting her off. “A seedy fellow, looks bad and smells worse!”

“Sir! Well, far be it from me, Sir, but, yes Sir, now that you mention it. Shall I call the guards?”

“No, Miss Allbright,” Shove said in a tone of resignation. “Guards won’t be necessary. Please send him up.” He thumbed the Comm off and waited, watching the door.

Why was it always like this? So many ways to settle disputes – good ways, easy ways, and not incidentally, profitable ways. Why couldn’t reasonable men..?

And then the door opened and his guest was there, striding past a flustered Miss Allbright.

“Morning, Shove,” the man said with a smile that was really a sneer with a makeover. “We need to talk, I expect,” he added, arching his eyebrows towards the advancing Miss Allbright.

“Yes, yes, I suppose we do,” Shove muttered is a barely audible hiss, then raised his head toward the advancing secretary and barked “That will be all, Miss Allbright. Hold all calls and visitors.”

As the secretary withdrew, the man named A. Big Push looked around the corner office as if appraising an estate sale, finally drawing a chair uncomfortably close to Shove’s massive oak desk and setting his wrinkled, greasy frame all a-tilt on the expensive brocade seats. “Shove, old buddy, it certainly’s been a long while of whiles,” he grinned through yellowed, snaggled teeth. “We got to do this more often!”

“We most certainly do not!” Shove almost shouted. “And you’ve absolutely no reason to be here, you uncouth pile of..”

“Effective?” finished Push. “Well, I guess you got me on that couth stuff, but your ass is grass when it comes to being effective. So how about we stop being nice to each other and get it on?”

Shove’s disgust almost overwhelmed him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, you sick..”

“Well I’ll be a pig in a barbeque, he’s got a clue!” Push crowed. “Shove, you old ass-upper, you’re knowing more than you’re lettin’ on. ‘Course it’s about sick! But you gotta show some more skin, man! Sick ain’t enough!”

He rose and leaned into Shove’s face. “More! Why are we here?” he thundered, as Shove wrinkled his nose in disgust. “It’s about?”

Pulling back from the stench of bad breath Shove muttered “Health” as quietly as he could.

“HEALTH? HEALTH WHAT?” roared Push as he grabbed Shove’s $600 bespoke tie and half-lifted him from his chair. “HEALTH WHAT?”

“Health Care Reform,” Shove gurgled weakly, which brought a gaped-tooth smile from his captor and the release of his tie.

“You done it!” Push said. “You figured why we’re here! Shove, old dog, it takes you some time to find the spot, but you know to squat when you get there!”

“I…” Shove started, but Push silenced him with a wave.

“None of that! You knows it as well as I knows it and it’s plain right here for all to see – Push has come to Shove on Health Care Reform.”

Tomorrow: Pushing and Shoving Ideas

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