We were in Chadwick\u2019s, Georgetown, and still on Heineken.\u00a0 Like every bar in Georgetown, there was a pervasive atmosphere of evil and inhumanity.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty.\u201d James said into his bottle.<\/p>\n
\u201cUm\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh-oh!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, Garfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHmm\u2026 Notable points?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u2026only two months in office.\u00a0 Assassinated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy whom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome fruity anarchist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the National Gallery.\u00a0 Well, it wasn\u2019t then.\u00a0 It was the Sixth Street train station.\u201d<\/p>\n
James rubbed his hands together, \u201cSixth Street bars, then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRNR.\u00a0 Muse.\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cRNR\u2019s supposed to be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere the hell is Sixth Street?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, back at Gallery Place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck these presidents! God.\u00a0 We\u2019re not coming back to Georgetown tonight, okay?\u00a0 This is like going to another country.\u201d<\/p>\n
At RNR, on vodka, James was chatting up a waitress.\u00a0 He held her eyes with his mesmera-stare and said, \u201cTwenty-one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChester Arthur!\u201d David shouted, jumping up and down and driving off the waitress, \u201cHah!\u00a0 I know that one!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cComedy president number two,\u201d James grinned.\u00a0 \u201cNotable points?\u201d<\/p>\n
I ordered vodka on the rocks.\u00a0 \u201cGarfield\u2019s VP, so he became president thanks to the shooting.\u00a0 So we can stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFeels like cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he also get shot?\u201d David asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u00a0 So victory shots!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJager bomb!\u201d David screamed.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck.\u201d James muttered.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-two.\u201d James said at some point during a cab ride to suburban Maryland.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrover Cleveland.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the cabbie Bethesda.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLinks?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone.\u00a0 Um\u2026Gold standard, Pullman strike.\u00a0 Depression\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRock Bottom!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat a bar?\u201d David asked, clearly at a loss as we left the blurred line of the DC city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cYep.\u00a0 We should also note that Cleveland is also the 24th.\u00a0 Do we need a separate bar?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm\u2026no.\u201d\u00a0 David looked pretty serious as he rolled down the window and sucked in air.<\/p>\n
James tried to discuss gold versus silver standards with the waitress at Rock Bottom, then gave up and leaned into me, nearly knocking me from my stool.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are we at?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-three.\u00a0 Harrison.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, good.\u00a0 Notable points?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLegal shit.\u00a0 Mind-numbing antitrust stuff.\u00a0 Spent all of Cleveland\u2019s surplus.\u00a0 Sucked so much that Cleveland was elected again after just one term.\u201d<\/p>\n
David shrugged, \u201cStay here, then.\u00a0 Twenty-three and four.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, no.\u201d James sat up straight, \u201cWe go right to twenty-five.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMcKinley.\u00a0 Last vet from the Civil War to be elected.\u00a0 We could drink at Fort Totten or something\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
James shook his head, \u201cSomething else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSpanish American War.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJaleo!\u201d David said, \u201cSaw it coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBad tapas and overpriced beer?\u201d<\/p>\n
James grabbed my shoulders, \u201cObama will save us.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We were in Chadwick\u2019s, Georgetown, and still on Heineken.\u00a0 Like every bar in Georgetown, there was a pervasive atmosphere of evil and inhumanity. \u201cTwenty.\u201d James said into his bottle. \u201cUm\u2026\u201d \u201cUh-oh!\u201d \u201cOh, Garfield.\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-289","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\/289","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=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2982,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/2982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}