At Jaleo, the next president was easy for James.\u00a0 Twenty-six was Teddy Roosevelt, and as soon as I said the name James was on his feet.\u00a0 \u201cParks!\u00a0 Woodley Park!\u00a0 The Zoo Bar!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s\u2026in no way related.\u201d<\/p>\n
All the joy left James.\u00a0 The lopsided, mischievous grin faded into a scowl, his eyes deadened, his shoulders slackened, and he leaned towards me, \u201cWe,\u201d he said, gripping my shoulders, \u201cwill make it related.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure the zoo has a bull moose.\u201d David added helpfully.<\/p>\n
James snapped up straight, pointing at David.\u00a0 \u201cDavid!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm\u2026yeah?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2026are my number one.\u201d<\/p>\n
From Bethesda to Woodley Park.\u00a0 The Zoo bar was our Teddy Roosevelt stop, and I was slowing down.\u00a0 I asked for a Bloody Mary, James asked for something in French that looked like it had been dug out from beneath my apartment\u2019s bathtub, and David wanted to hug a bottle of JD.\u00a0 A sad trio working through American history.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know Nacho ruined my life, right?\u201d\u00a0 James asked David.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u00a0 How?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA card game.\u00a0 With the devil.\u00a0 Nacho ran out of money, because he sucks, and he started bitching about being poor, but I had just bought a house, so I was like, hey, walk a mile in my shoes buddy!\u00a0 And the Devil, he asked what I meant by that, and I told the Devil that Nacho couldn’t live a day of my life and survive.\u00a0 And then Nacho said sure he could.\u00a0 So the Devil said, okay, that’s the bet.\u00a0 Whoever looses the next hand has to live the other’s life for a day.\u00a0 Well, Nacho lost, because he sucks, and he had to live my life for a day.\u00a0 So I quit my job, I got hooked on heroin, and I murdered a twelve year old Thai hooker.\u00a0 A boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can be anyone for a day.\u201d\u00a0 I replied.\u00a0 \u201cWant me to try with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
David shook his head.<\/p>\n
James finished off his drink, then clapped his hands.\u00a0 \u201cSo, twenty-seven\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTaft.\u201d<\/p>\n
James stared at me.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2026know nothing about Taft.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWalrus with a moustache.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight!\u201d\u00a0 David said, \u201cThat guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u2026what bar fits Taft?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCap City, Union Station.\u00a0 Taft was a big Post Office man.\u201d\u00a0 The Cap City franchise in Union Station was located in the old Post Office building, above the Postal Museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTeddy R. hated him.\u201d\u00a0 David added.<\/p>\n
I nodded, which almost sent me off my stool, so I steadied myself on the bar, \u201cYep, big GOP freakout.\u00a0 Old Teddy thought Taft was a big old civil liberties freakpuppy.\u00a0 Made Teddy leave the GOP, which cost him yet another term after Taft bombed out \u2013 \u201c<\/p>\n
James waved his hands in the air, \u201cJesus, whatever.\u00a0 Cap City it is.\u00a0 Though, let me tell you, you\u2019re paying for that fucking swill.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather drink from the gutter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re actually going to drink their beer, okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m not paying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you actually paid for anything today, Nacho?\u201d<\/p>\n
I took a calculated sip of my Bloody Mary and focused on a point in middle space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At Jaleo, the next president was easy for James.\u00a0 Twenty-six was Teddy Roosevelt, and as soon as I said the name James was on his feet.\u00a0 \u201cParks!\u00a0 Woodley Park!\u00a0 The Zoo Bar!\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-290","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\/290","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=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2981,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/2981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}