<\/p>\n
Authentic Pho<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n May, suburban Washington.\u00a0 Peter Willingham\u2019s favorite time of year. The sticky heat of DC\u2019s summer wasn\u2019t yet a worry, and the dreary winter months had rapidly become a faded memory in the green, blooming face of nature and the spring thunderstorms that rolled in like freight trains.<\/p>\n Peter was between jobs, though he had no concerns that moved him beyond the confines of his house in Bethesda, or the warm, sunny patio of Authentic Pho on Georgia Avenue, overlooking the train bridge in south Silver Spring. A campaign fixer, he came at a high price and invested his money well. As with so many folks steeped in the politics of DC and the nation, he knew that the waves could only break one of two ways.\u00a0 He\u2019d be a lifer, doddering around on a cane dispensing wit and outdated wisdom, or he would freak out and go live in a cabin in Idaho.\u00a0 Either way, it would be best to build a nest egg as soon as possible and be ready for the collapse\u2026or the long, grinding, scotch-fueled health problems of age.<\/p>\n Though the last 20 years had been interesting. He\u2019d worked on the campaign for President Bob Webb.\u00a0 Both terms.\u00a0 A president who presided over the rise of the Old Gods.\u00a0 And who allowed them to become citizens.\u00a0 Something that didn\u2019t sit well with Peter \u2013 or with most of the world.\u00a0 But Peter\u2019s job was to get them into office.\u00a0 After that, if they blew up the planet, well\u2026 It wasn\u2019t really on his hands.\u00a0 A job\u2019s a job and it ends with the last paycheck. That\u2019s what his grandfather had taught him when he was a kid and, even in his complicated world of political shenanigans, he tried to apply the simplistic rules of that old America.<\/p>\n So why was he here?\u00a0 Meeting Karl Bauer at a dive restaurant in Silver Spring?\u00a0 Of all people to call\u2026 The man who spoke for Mithras.\u00a0 He even called himself a high priest and dressed in period costume.\u00a0 Of course, more and more people were doing so these days. Where Karl and his ilk would have been laughed at once, now they had serious backing.\u00a0 The Old Gods loved their gold.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s why he took the call.\u00a0 It was an easy paycheck.\u00a0 And he was bored.\u00a0 No better solution than to see what the Mithras campaign had on offer.<\/p>\n The Authentic Pho restaurant was one of the eccentric holdovers in the now-redefined Silver Spring.\u00a0 One of the few remaining old train town buildings, now surrounded by new high-rises and glittering towers.\u00a0 Where once freight and passenger trains rumbled by on aging tracks, a high-speed modern train now screamed by every half hour.\u00a0 President Webb had done some things right.\u00a0 Realizing the bare bones of a goal set forward by his predecessors, the 2030\u2019s looked to be a new golden age. Half the buildings in new Silver Spring produced their own power, and the streets were filled with walkers, bikers, and sleek new electric cars.\u00a0 Peter remembered his childhood in the area.\u00a0 The 90\u2019s and early part of the century. All those images were long gone \u2013 the old buildings of a faintly run-down Silver Spring, cars belching gasoline, people fat and rarely on foot.\u00a0 A dead America.<\/p>\n And he hung his head at that though.\u00a0 He\u2019d become the equivalent of his grandfather pointing at an office park and saying, \u201cThat was all fields when I was a kid.\u201d\u00a0 Authentic Pho used to be 391 Saigon, and, before that, the Lotus Caf\u00e9 and, back when he was born, My Le.\u00a0 His mother\u2019s favorite spot. Always a Vietnamese restaurant\u2026 Maybe the place was a fixed point in time or something.\u00a0 The building had a 200 year lease, held by a major Washingtonian family since 1932. It was a holdout because that family refused to sell out.<\/p>\n Peter scribbled a note on his cocktail napkin.\u00a0 He was planning to write a book on Silver Spring, and the changes that the last 30 years had seen.\u00a0 Authentic Pho would be chapter one.\u00a0 Mainly because it was the only place left standing where he could comfortably get drunk.\u00a0 It was always mysteriously empty, and always had the same bartender \u2013 a woman now about ten years older than Peter who had worked the bar since he was 20.\u00a0 She never measured her pours and was aggressively anti-social to the pencil-necks or frat boys who wandered in looking to infect yet another bar with their expectations.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t go to Authentic Pho to eat.\u00a0 You go to drink.\u00a0 Sitting in their miserable bar, fans playing lazily overhead, feeling as if you travelled back to 1968 Saigon. Or, in the finer months, out on their multi-tiered deck watching the bullet trains and the people.\u00a0 Drinking beneath the brutal sun and getting that Mediterranean sun-crazed drunk after just a handful of beers.\u00a0 Which is just about where Peter was when Karl Bauer swept into the bar area, stumbled back in surprise as the bartender jumped and brandished a knife, then saw Peter through the side door.\u00a0 He started to head out, but the diminutive bartender was standing in front of him before he could cross the threshold.<\/p>\n \u201cNo drink, no patio!\u201d she screamed.<\/p>\n Peter shook his head, then called down to Karl, \u201cGet us a couple of beers, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUh\u2026\u201d Karl looked from Peter to the bartender.<\/p>\n \u201cActually,\u201d Peter said, \u201cget four or five beers.\u00a0 There\u2019s no service out here.\u201d<\/p>\n The bartender narrowed her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat sort of beer?\u201d Karl called back.<\/p>\n \u201cYou buy?\u201d the bartender hissed.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2026 Well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes or no!\u00a0 Is yes or no question!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod\u2026yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood! Cash up front. No tab!\u201d she pointed at a sign written in Vietnamese.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly shit.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter watched another train go by, jotted down a few notes, and then turned as a dazed Karl walked out with six bottles of beer, holding each one by the neck between his fingers.\u00a0 He liked the lunatic straight away.<\/p>\n \u201cHave fun in there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis place is looped.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, Karl, I think it\u2019s charming. Especially on a day like this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeen here long?\u201d Karl nodded to the eight empty bottles in front of Peter.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing like a good Tuesday afternoon drunk, Karl.\u00a0 It makes the world go around.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot quite the sort of image one would like to present to one\u2019s employer, though\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne might not care what one\u2019s potential employer thought if one thought one\u2019s potential employer was a crackpot and one didn\u2019t have anything to lose.\u00a0 Would one?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs that what you think?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Karl, it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo why agree to meet me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy complain about my drinking just after you bought six bottles of beer?\u201d<\/p>\n Karl smiled and put the bottles on the table, sitting down opposite Peter. \u201cBecause that woman in there scared me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat may also explain why I\u2019ve drunk so much today.\u00a0 She comes out every half hour with another beer and a skinning knife.\u00a0 I just sit here silently and try not to make eye contact.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a wonder she keeps her job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s always been here.\u00a0 She was beautiful once\u2026before the Red Shift that brought the Martian moons into Earth orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n Peter rolled his eyes.\u00a0 \u201cOh, that hasn\u2019t happened yet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe insanity thing is also a questionable tactic.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter grinned, \u201cKarl, you\u2019re dressed like hippie Jesus at a Victorian beach and you\u2019re working for a horned half-beast god. I think we need to approach today\u2019s interview as if we\u2019re not in a board room, and, instead, plan to embrace our brave, new world.\u00a0 Or\u2026brave, new, ancient world, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n Karl nodded, sipped at a beer, then sighed.\u00a0 \u201cIt is nice out here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNice.\u201d Peter sneered at the word, then turned his head towards the sky, the thin white clouds and brilliant blue reflecting in his green-tinted sunglasses.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll cut to it, then.\u00a0 Can you get Mithras into the White House?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[405,260],"class_list":["post-1379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serials","tag-serials","tag-vote-for-mithras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}