Kwame and the WTF Group

As happened with Martin Luther King, Jr. and G.G. Allin, jail had only made former Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, stronger. While inside, Kwame attempted to text his memoirs, but lost interest when he found he got more channels than expected on the TV in his "VIP" cell. He also developed a new fondness and facility for masturbation while incarcerated. And he experienced a hunger, bordering on lust, for his mother's famous rattlesnake pie. Sure, his 120 days of imprisonment -- less time off for good behavior -- had caused him to miss Christmas and the inauguration of the first black president, but Kwame Kilpatrick knew all would fall into place after he devoured one of his mother's rattlesnake pies.

With his release date nearing, he began receiving responses from the resumes Carlita sent out on his behalf. Kwame was surprised and disappointed that the Detroit Lions didn't ask him to be their new head coach. After all, Kwame had once played football. But a few good surprises came in the mail. The most promising came from Wheeler Terrell Financial Group who were seeking "your kind of counsel," as their letter read. They acknowledged Kwame's long list of accomplishments in Detroit, from beautifying the waterfront to bringing the Super Bowl to the Motor City. The letter referred to him as the "Coleman A. Young of the Twenty First Century." It also informed him that a job interview was scheduled for him a week after his release from jail.

The only catch in all of the good news was when Kwame looked again to see where WTF Group were located: Texas. Under his release conditions he wouldn't be permitted to leave Michigan. But a slow, cocky smile crossed Kwame's face in that jail cell when he pondered how easily he would get special dispensation from a Detroit judge. Working the soft, warm manure of local law and bureaucracy had been a joy that bordered on fetish for him.

The next day, Kwame got his way with the court. He was almost disappointed how easily it came together.

The first week of February, Kwame enjoyed his final wank in the institutional shower and then was reacquainted with his pimp suit, watch and wallet upon his release from jail. That evening he ate two of his mother's rattlesnake pies and then hit some bars and strip clubs with his friends. Everywhere they went, Kwame's supporters called out to him and pounded their chests over their hearts. Although he was guilty of the crimes that landed him in jail -- and many other, as-yet-unknown, transgressions -- Kwame knew he had an innocent heart. Like Jesus. And Jesus was no criminal. So, Kwame was no criminal. Kwame may not have been able to heal the blind as Jesus had, but he still had a magic way with strippers who heartily serviced him in the club's VIP lounge.

* * *

Three days later, Carlita and the boys met him at the airport in Dallas, Texas. Kwame complained about being unable to get an earlier flight, but actually he had made a quiet stop in Florida two days before to retrieve a couple bricks of cash that had been plastered into the wall of a church. Then he spent a night out with friends at local strip clubs "flexin' his stripper muscles" as he phrased it. By the time Carlita the boys saw him, Kwame was all buttoned-up and contrite -- remorseful father; penitent husband. He couldn't say how sorry he was about putting his family through the public humiliation of the past year -- so he didn't.

That night, Kwame left the home Carlita had set up for the family, saying he was off to see his lawyer in preparation with his WTF interview the next day. Carlita gave him her usual disbelieving cocked eyebrow, but Kwame assured her he had mended his ways. And he did meet with his lawyer that night -- in the VIP lounge of a strip club.

* * *

One look at the WTF offices and Kwame started to think that some place other than Detroit could be home. The forty-seven story building was extravagant beyond extravagance: marble everywhere, a gratuitously large main lobby atrium, a live jazz band playing by the golden fountain; glassed-in elevators, expensive art every five feet, and even more expensive plants every four feet.

Senior vice president Conrad Fennel interviewed Kwame. This was a break in normal procedure, but as Fennel poured Kwame a triple scotch, he pointed out that Kwame was not the usual job candidate. "You got that!" Kwame grinned and slurped his drink.

"I'll be candid," Fennel said in his eastern establishment newscaster's stentorian, "we find ourselves in possession of a ridiculous amount of federal government bail-out money."

"No shit," Kwame said, wishing there was a bartender in the room who could mix him a triple zombie.

"Oh yes, our friends in Washington were very generous to us -- more than generous."

"Like, crazy gennerus?" Kwame said and laughed.

Fennel laughed along with him. "Yes, crazy gennerus, indeed. Quite crazy, in fact."

Kwame finished his drink and dropped the crystal glass on the carpeted floor next to his chair. "Now, I gotta be up front witchyou," he said. "I ain't no financial gooroo or nothing. Fact, I'm not too good playing by Washington's rules."

"That's why you're here," Fennel cut in.

"Shit, I only got my law degree cuz some Asian guy took a hunnerd bucks to write 'xam for me."

"None of that matters," Fennel said. "We want you because you're you."

"You sound like I already got the job."

"Oh, you had the job the moment we drafted your offer letter."

"Well, ah'ight!" Kwame said, grinning. "How much I get? And what I gotta do?"

"Simply put -- do what you do."

"What I do?"

"You hide money exceedingly well."

Kwame frowned. "I ain't know nothing about that."

"Of course you don't," Fennel chuckled. "You see, the tax payers are getting their panties in a knot over the TARP monies."

"The who?"

"The federal bailout money. And with the execrable Democrats holding power, there's the smallest chance that we may, ultimately, have to give back a small bit of the money."

"Give back? Nah uh," Kwame said. "Giving don' go but in one di-rection -- to me."

They both laughed.

"Exactly," Fennel said. "As it should be. We feel the same way. And that's why we're looking for new ways to hide our money. Every one of our two hundred executives will receive bonuses between ten and twenty million dollars --"

"Ima 'xecutive?" Kwame cut in.

Fennel paused. "Sure. Why not?"

"Then ah'ight."

"And we're seeking new avenues for sheltering that money."

"I still don' unnerstand why me. I'm just a poor black man from Detroit who been railroaded into the criminal justice system."

Fennel offered a knowing smile. "Let's just say we have a fair idea of how much money you took from your benefactor, Detroit, before being, uh, railroaded."

Kwame eyed Fennel suspiciously.

"We employ some of the best forensic accountants in the known universe," Fennel continued, "and none of them could figure out where you put that money. It's almost as though it ceased to exist. That's what we want you to do for us."

Kwame frowned. "But you jus' said you gettin' TARPilated fundings --"

"No, no, we don't want your money. We want your expertise in hiding money."

"You wan' me to hide your monies for you?" Kwame said. He thought about it. He was barely a week out of jail and somebody wanted him to hide their money? He looked at Conrad Fennel who had the same dull, delusional look in his eyes as the judge who allowed Kwame to go to Texas in the first place. The look of a man who so firmly believed he had power over another, he didn't entertain for a second the idea that he wasn't in control. Those were the best people to work with -- so convinced about the shirt on their backs, you could steal the pants off their ass without them even knowing.

"Do we have a deal?" Fennel said.

"Why in fuck not?" Kwame said, grinning. He'd only just gotten himself a job and already he was thinking of places to hide money where Jesus himself would never think to look.

"This calls for a celebration!" Fennel said, rising from his chair and shaking Kwame's hand. "What do you say to a steak in the executive dining room? We have the best chefs in the country on staff."

"Sure, sure," Kwame said, not all that enthused. He looked at Fennel. "You got a strip club in this building?"

"We sure do!" Fennel laughed.

"Well, ah'ight! Then we really got us a deal!"

* * *

And a good time was had in the corporate strip club. Kwame showed off his "stripper muslces" and the bartender made a goddamned good zombie.

Kwame had thought he'd "made it" back when he was first elected mayor of Detroit, but that sense was doubled, and then some, when he looked across the dimly lit VIP lounge and saw George W. Bush over there with a drink in each hand and a stripper kneeling between his legs. At that moment, Bush looked up and caught Kwame staring. "They got the best goddamned rattlesnake pie, here! You be sure and try it!"

Good times, Kwame thought. Good times.