James leaned close to my ear:\u00a0 \u201cFifteen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBuchanan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPenn State.\u00a0 Single.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSingles club?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u00a0 Please.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPennsylvania Avenue?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c701.\u00a0 Mo\u2019s Bar.\u201d<\/p>\n
James leaned back.\u00a0 \u201cExpensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYep.\u00a0 You\u2019re paying.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He opened his wallet and drunkenly peered at the neatly ordered bills, \u201cAh, the house that Microsoft made.\u201d<\/p>\n
My next memory was on the Circulator Bus heading for Georgetown and James touching my ear with his harsh whisper, \u201cSixteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDuh,\u201d I replied, \u201cObama the First.\u201d<\/p>\n
David snapped his fingers.\u00a0 \u201cMad Dog at Lincoln Memorial!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWow.\u00a0 High school flashback.\u00a0 Are we allowed to fall twenty feet into the shrubbery?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s only something you can do when you\u2019re 16.\u201d<\/p>\n
We popped into a liquor store on M Street and each grabbed our poison.\u00a0 James went for some sort of sour apple drink, David picked up two bottles of Thunderbird, and I went for the Blue Nun.\u00a0 We found ourselves, transported as if by magic, at the Lincoln Memorial, sipping from brown bags in the rising dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames balanced precariously on the edge of a step, ready to fall to his death, and called, \u201cSeventeen!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJohnson.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we need something Kennedy related\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u00a0 Andrew Johnson.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAndrew\u2019s a strong name,\u201d James whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAndrew is the first called!\u00a0 The first apostle of Obama!\u201d<\/p>\n
I glanced around at the roving bands of black thugs and park police officers.\u00a0 \u201cReally, James.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReconstruction!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA gentrified area of DC?\u201d David suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh.\u00a0 Maybe.\u201d\u00a0 James grinned.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething near the black Civil War memorial on U Street?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter dark?\u201d James muttered.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight.\u00a0 Gentrification, then.\u00a0 Columbia Heights?\u00a0 The Raven?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToo cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGallery Place?\u00a0 Fado?\u201d<\/p>\n
James looked troubled.\u00a0 \u201cUm\u2026 It\u2019s not right, but yes, please.\u00a0 Yummy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of us washed down a full Irish Breakfast with coffee and water in a desperate attempt to sober up, then we moved into Guinness and Harp and black and tans and scotch and burst out of Fado into the glittering lights and bustling streets of Gallery Place.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighteen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. Motherfucking Grant.\u201d<\/p>\n
David shrugged, \u201cSo drink anywhere, then?\u201d<\/p>\n
James barked false laughter, \u201cAmen, Army veteran and baby killer, drink anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBourbon Bar,\u201d I said, but James grabbed my shoulder and led me right back into Fado.<\/p>\n
\u201cNineteen.\u201d James asked the bartender after three Boddingtons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d the bartender asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cRutherford B. Hayes.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe comedy president!\u201d James replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you guys doing?\u00a0 The bartender handed us each a free Heineken, thanks to David talking up his tour in Iraq.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrinking for each president.\u201d\u00a0 I replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019re on Hayes?\u201d<\/p>\n
James nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck\u2026 You\u2019re stuck, then.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waved my hands defensively, \u201cIt can be anything.\u00a0 Hayes\u2026 Ohio.\u00a0 Fought for the Union in West Virginia.\u00a0 Ended Reconstruction.\u00a0 Railroads…\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he have to do with Railroads?\u201d the bartender asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrike or something.\u00a0 Fucked up with the B&O.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of Fells Point bars come into mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t say take a train to Baltimore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no.\u00a0 Chadwick\u2019s, Georgetown.\u00a0 Cramped, faux-wood, under an overpass, in a refurbished industrial building, weird and horrible.\u00a0 Very Baltimore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI like you,\u201d James said, \u201cI\u2019m going to tip you a quarter so you can get your kids an education and they don\u2019t have to tend bar!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u2026your friends an asshole?\u201d<\/p>\n
I glared at James, \u201cAnd here I thought he was one of Santa\u2019s elves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we get three more free soldier Heinekens?\u201d David asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot now.\u00a0 No.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James leaned close to my ear:\u00a0 \u201cFifteen?\u201d \u201cBuchanan.\u201d \u201cPenn State.\u00a0 Single.\u201d \u201cYep.\u201d \u201cSingles club?\u201d \u201cNo.\u00a0 Please.\u201d \u201cPennsylvania Avenue?\u201d \u201c701.\u00a0 Mo\u2019s Bar.\u201d James leaned back.\u00a0 \u201cExpensive.\u201d \u201cYep.\u00a0 You\u2019re paying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[111,179,173,41,178],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lush","tag-commentary","tag-james","tag-obama","tag-politics","tag-presidency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","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=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2983,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/2983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}