DC is Decadent and Depraved

Boredom. Repetitiveness. While cancer and the plague wipe out people everywhere, I swear that someday these two things are going to be my undoing.

The days of nonstop parties had come to a temporary close. The excessive lifestyle coupled with excess units mostly to stick it to the doubting Thomas's that pervaded my life had burned me out. I felt I was over the hill, gassed, and I found myself working as a bellhop at a Nevada casino. On its surface, this job seemed like it'd be somewhat entertaining. Talk with guests who flocked to this neon oasis in the middle of the desert for the sole purpose of throwing their money away, drinking themselves into a stupor, and unplugging themselves from the harsh reality of their boring, flaccid everyday existence. But that was never the case.

The job wasn't all bad. One time I found myself seduced by two thirty-somethings that were out here to hide from their repressive controlling father-husbands, and another I got well tipped by the guy who played Harry Reid in “Casino”. Times like those were enjoyable, they made the job pretty good. But it was still boring. Most of my job consisted of sitting around a chair in a blue monkey suit, waiting. Getting paid to wait wasn't the worst thing in the world, but when they assume tips and take that out of your salary, it's a problem, especially considering there usually aren't any tips. The octogenarian who's out here on his death trip probably isn't going to give much more than the typical Depression stipend for hauling his oxygen tanks up to his room.

It's not like I was the only one. SPH had found himself stuck at a gig as a night auditor for a hotel with two tyrannical obese sweathogs as bosses. That had to be a living hell. Hell, you might find yourself stuck between two pieces of bread one night if one rolled in with a mad case of the munchies if you weren't lucky. I shudder thinking about it. Here, my bosses were kind of odd. I dealt with an aloof blonde who got the job undoubtedly based on her fellatio prowess as well as a combustible ex-con who had several children and several dings with the law. He obviously had something going on in his life I didn't want to know about.

I had become bored and depressed. It was too snowy to wander through the desert, and all I had in this god-forsaken shithole was this job. I needed to do something, anything to get out of here.

Before I had really known it, the change had come. SPH and I were invited by an old friend of ours, Lamar Cheeserock, to come see a Miami Hurricanes game in Maryland. The Canes were having a bad year, but it was never a bad idea to attend a game. On the road or in the Orange Bowl, it was always at the least entertaining. And it gave a chance to hang out with Lamar as well.

Lamar could definitely be classified as crazy. Rumor has it he was banned off of every college campus in Boston, his picture still plastered on every security wall, and his midget-tossing prowess around the halcyon days of Wall Street is legendary.

I'd never been to that part of the country, and I'd never had any real desire to go. Why would I want to go pal around with politicians and crackheads? It never seemed like a palatable mix. But, this opportunity arose at a time where I'd go anywhere, even some hellhole like Great Falls, or even Orange County, just to get out of here.

There was a need to get out of work for the weekend. I concocted some story up about a dying relative and an urgent need to get back east to see them. It worked. For future reference, the dead/dying relative excuse is good for getting out of some engagement at least once or twice per employer. More than that, and you'll have to convince them you're a really outgoing type, which is hard when at work you'd rather stare at the cascading images adorning the walls than actually help people.

Soon we were on a plane descending into Baltimore/Washington Airport shrouded in darkness.

The airport was glassy and most things were closed up, making the hour seem a lot later than it was. It seemed as if we'd gotten off a Vegas party flight at 4 AM, but it was in reality about 6:30 PM. We were to meet Lamar at a Metro Station, and to get there, we needed to hop on the bus. Trying to find that was almost as impossible as trying to find comedy in a room full of teachers, trying to get blood from a turnip. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, the bus was located and we barely made it aboard, narrowly avoiding being left at the altar of the pick-up/drop-off zone.

We looked entirely out of place. The bus was full of sour looking airport workers, many looking to be janitors off their nightly shift, and all had the look of apathetic disgust. Nobody was happy. I suppose it'd be rather unnatural for someone to be happy riding a bus through the outskirts of Baltimore; these people were making no bones about that.

The bus eventually rumbled into the Greenbelt stop. A short walk under a bridge and past the tunnel gave us a glimpse of the man of the hour. Perched on the 2^nd or 3^rd floor of the car park was Mr. Cheeserock himself. We made our way over to where he was.

“Hey, boys, nice to see you,” he greeted us. “How about we get the night started right?”

Lamar pulled out a bottle of Crown and opened it. He took a huge swig, and passed it to SPH, who did the same, passing it to me. All in all, the bottle made the rounds a few times as we caught up and talked about the usual depravities of a domestic flight post-9/11. Whiskey tends to flow and it always makes the night pretty raucous, which usually leads to chaos or enjoyment, or both, so it definitely set the table for a nocturnal feast to take place in the near future of the evening.

We were flying pretty high by the time we made it onto the Metro station. We were heading into Washington, DC to have dinner at a restaurant a stone's throw from the Treasury, an establishment for the establishment if there ever was one. We went in and the place had the aristocratic aura one would expect at such a place. The ambiance was dark and classy, the wait staff all adorned in suspenders, wealthy, connected types fiddling while Rome burned, the dates may change, the characters too, but the song has remained the same since the inception of government.

We took our seats. All feeling a bit buzzed, we laughed as Lamar started referring to the waiter, a large, hulking black man who looked like he spent the last season playing for the Redskins as “Charlie Suspenders.” I don't think Charlie appreciated it much, but we found it hilarious. It became like standup at the Apollo or something, and we were rolling. The booze was giving way to being loud too, and soon the whole section was in on it. The gallery included the table next to us, where a man who's head resembled a dick with ears was roaring with laughter.

“That's funny!” Dick-with-Ears exclaimed in a drawl, “I'll tell you what, that's damn funny!”

We were rolling. The night was getting great!

Lamar hadn't stopped there though. He started a new, highly dangerous activity; he started snapping the suspenders of the workers! As they'd walk by, he'd reach out, grab the suspenders, and snap them. Most kind of played it off as if it were accepted that “drunken revelers gon' drunken revel”, but Lamar . Once or twice may have slid, but when you're doing it to everyone, it's probably going to incite something.

Charlie walked by. Lamar grabbed his suspenders and pulled them way back, and snapped them so that they flew up and over Charlie's huge head. He stopped in mid-step, and pivoted around.

He looked at Lamar.

“Hey man, I don't play that fuckin' game,” he growled.

“What game are we talking about, monopoly?” Lamar retorted.

“Hey, I...I..what the fuck? Suspenders man, I don't play games with the fuckin' suspenders!”

Lamar then channeled his inner Schwab and paraphrased Iverson, “Suspenders, we're talking about Suspenders?”

Charlie was about to lose it. We may have been sitting here on the edge of watching Lamar being ripped apart by a fuming banshee. Never had I seen such potential carnage so close, the tension was exploding!

And then, it got diffused. A short Chinese or something girl all of about 4 foot 2 and 55 pounds came over and squeaked, “Sir, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

He'd become a fallen star, collapsing epically; nebulizing. Lamar's Commodus, a drunken Hercules, had found himself slain on the Colosseum floor by a 4'2 Asian. Was nothing sacred in this world?

They let us finish though. We were about as loaded as he was, but us just kind of laughing along with it didn't do much. We didn't snap any suspenders, after all. The service was definitely cold though. The food was good, probably a bit overpriced, but we paid and left.

Using some sort of back channels of communication, we located Lamar's place of exile, a dark cigar bar a few streets over. Walking through the streets of DC was somewhat filthy, even worse than San Francisco. The homeless were scattered about in droves, and carts full of cans were docked in every doorway and nook around the streets. The cigar bar was an oasis of light amidst the grey, drab decay and despair that adorned the streets around it.

Going inside, it was clear Lamar was here without even looking.

“SUSPENDERS!,” a loud voice boomed. “WE'RE TALKIN' ABOUT SUSPENDERS!”

And for a good five to ten minutes, that's what continued. We'd say something like “Can you fuckin' believe it man, suspenders, really?” and he'd retort with his loud bellowing roar. It was hilarious, drunken fun. It seemed that way anyway.

We got to talking with Lamar about his exile.

“Man, you got tossed out by that little Asian, what's up with that?”

“Yeah, that was shitty,” he said, “but I got those pricks back.”

“How man, you got thrown out of the restaurant, you hella went out with a whimper, dude.” SPH said.

“You didn't see the whole thing.”

“I didn't see the whole thing? Explain, man.”

Lamar elaborated, “Yeah, well, once I had gotten 86'd, I was on my way out when I asked if I could use the bathroom one last time. For some dumb fuckin' reason they let me. I still have no idea how, or why they were that idiotic to do something like that. So I went downstairs, into the bathroom, and did a piss pinwheel.”

“A piss pinwheel,” I said, “what in the hell is a piss pinwheel?”

“Simple,” he said, “its where you stand and start pissing and turn in a circle and piss all over the room you're in. It's great at getting back at bosses, exes, and well, I guess pissed off restauranteurs. I came out, and some fruit with glasses was looking at me and said, 'Have a nice evening, SIR' and I left.”.

He let off with another laugh. The dude was out of control. Which made this trip all the more enjoyable.

I always found it amazing that if you hung out with a group of crazy people and went into bars, you wouldn't get carded. It wouldn't matter if they just caught you the night before sneaking in, they're not going to make a stink since you're in a party of the plastered, and plastered people tend to pay well. So despite being under 21, I was ordering and pounding back Kamikazes, SPH was knocking back Harvey Wallbangers, and Lamar whatever sounded good whenever.

We were smashed by the time closing time came along. We spilled out into the streets, looking for the Metro station to take us back out to the Maryland suburbs. As we scavenged the streets for the stop, we came upon a homeless encampment against a building. There were audible noises coming out of this “tent”, which was a tarp slumped over two shopping carts making a little encampment. These two homeless were definitely making love under a tarp in the cold streets of Washington.

We all started laughing coming onto this. Lamar took initiative, and walked and grabbed one of the shopping carts, pushing it down the street, and collapsing the tarp on the two lovebirds inside. We walked off, laughing as we heard the homeless scream obscenities at us. The male one stuck his bearded trustafarian head out and shouted, “The cans man, you're stealing my fuckin' cans! I'll kill you!”

Cans were valuable on the streets of DC apparently. What drugs are worth in prison, and stone money on Yap, cans are on the alleyways and avenues of our Nation's capital. A shopping cart full of cans here are worth at least the equivalent of a few grams of heroin smuggled in your ass into the big house. At least that. We were lucky we weren't maimed and mauled by the grizzly bear looking homeless who's cart we “stole”.

This voyage of the damned continued deeper into the jungle of DC. We eventually found the beckoning sign of the Metro, and headed downstairs. We were able to get through the gates of the station of the DC Metro, which strongly resembled an east coast doppelganger of the BART system. Once on the platform, we saw we had a bit of a wait. The game had just gotten over at the MCI Center, people were heading home from drinking, and there were all sorts of creatures slinking along the surface of the platform.

One such one, a chick who apparently liked GI Jane so much she shaved her head, approached us. This was kind of bizarre, as we don't really look like the type that would associate with skinhead chicks. Or interest them anyway.

“Where are you guys from?” she inquired, “are you from Miami?”

It probably had something to do with the fact we all had Hurricanes sweatshirts or jackets on. We were here for a game after all.

“Well, yeah, I guess you could say that.” All of us had taken refuge there at one point or another in our lives, so it wasn't totally untrue.

“Well,” she replied, “the Metro doesn't go all the way to Miami.”

“No shit, who would have guessed that,” Lamar was allowed to retort, “who'd have guessed the Washington Metro doesn't go to fucking Miami?”

SPH interjected, “Hey, what the fuck's wrong with your head anyway? It looks, off.”

The fuming shaved head stormed off, probably to ride off the roofie high she was on in some seclusion.

It wasn't another minute before the next contestant showed up, this time it was a kid who looked like he'd spent all of his time in a sterile box. A bowl-cut, sweatervest wearing preppy type. He started raving on and on about how terrible Miami was, and what thugs they were, and we started making fun of his sweater vest and his appearance. He ran to the other side of the platform where we couldn't get him and yelled, “Fuck you assholes!” over and over. Real tough guy, that dude.

We finally got our train. We had to connect once, but this would take us to our spot. We settled into our chairs. What a bizarre night. Crazy metro riders, restaurant hijinks, Crown, and, a loud booming voice cut the reminiscence.

“I AM THE ONLY HETEROSEXUAL MAN ON THIS TRAIN!”

It stated with authority. I turned around. Here, walking down the aisle of the metro car, was a dissheveled black man with a patchy afro, wearing tattered rags and carrying a sack of cans. He continued to make his statement emphatically over and over. He got to the front of the car, where we were, turned around and shouted,

“THE REST OF Y'ALL IS....TUTTI FRUTTI!” he started shaking his hand in a back and forth motion, “TUTTI FRUTTI”

He saw our Miami stuff.

“FUCK MIAMI!” he yelled.

Our stop appeared. We got off the train, the crazed homeless stayed on to preach his sermon to those headed home.

We walked down an escalator onto the lower platform where our train would take us out of this place. This particular spot was a real shitshow. There were starving-artist types cavorting around with their junkie looking girlfriends and just acting really, well, odd. I had to piss so I just went on the side of an escalator, and looked up to see one of them getting physical with his old lady. It was really miserable. They stopped before too long and came back down. Then, they all started to just leave at once. The new Bon Iver album must have dropped.

As they were leaving, I shouted, “Hey, you look like the Hanson brothers!”

They all started screaming obscenities from above. They went wild. It was like a bunch of rabid monkeys jumping up and down, waving their arms and shrieking all sorts of things. They were livid, but not livid enough to come back downstairs. They melted away.

We waited. And we waited. And it seemed like 2 hours had gone by, though it probably wasn't that long. Finally, some lady came over and said, “Hey, what train are you guys waiting for?”

“Greenbelt”

“Oh, well, um, you know it's been coming over there the whole time?” she pointed to the other side of the platform.

“Oh yeah, of course we knew that, we were just, enjoying the uh, scenery, that's right, scenery.”

“Well, ok, but if you want to get on the train, it's there.”

We walked over to the other side, and got on the train. It took us back to the station without incident. Soon, we were there. And soon we were walking back to the garage to Lamar's auto. For normal people on a normal trip, this'd be where we'd laugh about some of the stuff, not talk about other stuff, and get ready to call it a night. Not here, not with this group.

“You boys up for some more shots?”

Of course we were. The trusty bottle of crown was busted out one more time and we started pounding it Really pounding it. The garage was somewhat empty, so it wasn't as if we were making too big of a ruckus. Noticeable? Of course, but it was a big city, and people tended to ignore noticeable more than acknowledge it and interact with it. It was easier.

I was exceptionally warm, nearly hysterical with laughter, and excited to be a part of this craziness. SPH was beaming, and Lamar was yucking it up. We got in the car and started to drive out, we needed to find an exit. It proved elusive though. Why would they build a place like this without an exit?

I looked off to the side, there was a gap, it looked like it could be an exit.

“Hey, I think that's the exit over there,” I pointed and said.

Lamar turned the wheel and gunned it and we went out. It worked as an exit, to be sure, and we were most definitely out of the garage, but it wasn't really an officially sanctioned exit. You see, this was really the pedestrian entrance into the garage. We were heading down the sidewalk, hurtling toward a huge crowd of at least 75 spooked and confused onlookers. We turned at the last second. They lept back almost in unison, screaming hysterically. We were peeling down a roadway, but the roadway was the wrong way on a one-way bus entrance. It was very apparent that we definitely could be on the verge of ending up as flat as smashed mailboxes, reduced pathetically to a pile of mush under a commuter bus' undercarriage.

But that wasn't to be today and we sped out onto the streets. We were lost, and driving around in circles somewhere in Maryland. I knew some dudes from Maryland and they had some really crazy stories about this place. Surely we could end up engulfed by the pure viciousness, the pure evil that permeates places like this. But given our antics, it should have happened already at least once. We continued trying to navigate the dark straights of this foreign waterway, seeking to find our way out of the labyrinth.

We finally made a breakthrough and found a landmark Lamar recognized. He wasn't clear to go left or right, so we went left. He should have taken the advice of the Merry Pranksters, “No left turn unstoned.” We weren't stoned, definitely decimated in capacity, but not stoned. We shouldn't have gone left. As we went down the road, we passed by what looked like a sea of police cars, their lights all flashing. Paranoia set in. My ass puckered up. This could be a disaster. Nobody said a word. We rolled by. Nothing happened.

“Hey man, we avoided the cops, that was...”

“Don't fucking jinx it man!”

We rolled on indefinitely, and we ended up realizing that we'd gone the wrong way down this street. We had to go back, and by all those cops again! Whatever deity there is that governs this place really hates us.

We turned around, and when we got to the spot of the Great Sea of Police, there were none there. And within minutes we'd found our hotel, our refuge from this barrage of insanity we'd been mired in. It was if something had shone down on us. What kind of message is that meant to say? That being an asshole will most certainly pay?

It did settle one thing for me. When I grow up, I want to be a politician.