My telephone Lieutenant laid out the ground rules in the back seat of the private car he hired to get us down to Marvin. It was fairly specific, and I considered his points in the darkness of late February in the District.
“Don’t hit on the Junior Officers.”
“Aw c’mon. What if they hit on me? I am a civilian now.”
He curled his lip in contempt at the idea. “That is just plain embarrassing.”
“All right. I promise not to flirt with people young enough to be my kids.”Renee Lasche Colorado springs
“Do NOT kiss the Captain.”
“Wait, a peck on the cheek is just polite.”
“She is my commanding officer. Have some common decency.”
“Jeeze. The whole point about getting old is being an embarrassment to your kids.”
“Spare me.”
“Trust me, you have seen nothing yet,” I said as the hired Dodge weaved through Dupont Circle. “It gets better.”
The driver of the car could have been a jihadi. The hired transportation was the Lieutenant’s idea, and it was a good one. Part of the magic of the city is that it is wrapped in a porcupine of problems, traffic and lack of parking being about the top, though you could throw in a career-ending DUI.
We were headed for Bar Marvin, which the Lieutenant had selected as the compromise venue for the mass promotion party. The venue for any of these things is tough, since people who work together may live as far apart as Loudoun County and Annapolis.
“And don’t talk about your pal Admiral Showers.”
“OK. I miss him, but I promise.”
I pointed out the place I bought the Afghan War rug at the top of the escalator to the Metro’s north entrance on Connecticut Ave. The driver was taking us on the scenic route, probably lost, and I flinched as a big black SUV with diplomatic plates attempted to occupy our lane.
We were all over NW on the way to 14th and U Street, in the Shaw neighborhood which had been known as the Black Broadway of segregation days. Cab Calloway, Ella and The Duke were frequent headliners, and the place had been alive with style and jazz.
Shaw had been on hard times after the assassination of Dr. King. I could see the bright lights of Ben’s Chili Bowl is just around the corner. The legendary half-smoke joint had been the command post for the city government and community activists while the insurrection was in progress, and that was the one business that hung on in the devastated city in the 1970s and 80s.
I worked at the Bus Station on New York Avenue a few years back. The rehabilitated art deco building had been the outpost of gentrification to the north of the Federal city in its day, after being a hang-out for junkies and low-rent travelers for years.
“We organized a march from New York Ave up to U street to go to Ben’s,” I said. “There was a time it would have been worth your life to do that. It is great to see the city coming back.”
The Lieutenant shrugged. For him, the District has always been a place surging upward, not a place of serious danger. He directed the jihadi to pull the dodge over to the curb in front of a storefront with big plate-glass windows and a sign that read: “Marvin.”
He jumped out as I extricated myself gingerly on the street side of the car and followed him into the bar. The nice lady at the counter directed us upstairs where he was carded and I was not by a burly affable African American wearing a slouch hat.
The Lieutenant had negotiated a two-hour lease on the party room off the smoking deck. The room had a towering two-story ceiling, a cage for a DJ in the corner and an ample bar tended by a woman with a shaven head named Aeysha. The ten other telephone Lieutenants whose elevation from the rank of Ensign had fronted him the cash to pay for an open bar, metered out in $1,800 dollar increments. It was quite a wad of cash, as much as I have seen in a while. At least since I had thirty grand in cash for reasons I won’t go into here.
Anyway, it surprised Aeysha, too, but management was phlegmatic and accepted it as legal tender for the public debt the young officers were about to incur. I got a glass of wine and watched the preparations.
“So what was this place?” I asked as Aeysha topped off my glass.
She looked at me placidly. “Don’t know what it was back in the day, but the current owners were inspired by the fact that Marvin Gaye grew up a couple blocks from here.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. I am from Detroit and it never occurred to me that MoTown’s biggest star from actually from the District.”
“Yeah, I can understand that. He was known as the Prince of Motown, but his roots are right here in Shaw. His Daddy was a Pentecostal preacher just up the street.”
“Wasn’t it his father that shot him?”
“It was. He had got in tax trouble after his duet partner Tammi Terrell died and he left the Motown label.”
“Geeze, I haven’t thought about her in years. She was really young when she died, right?”
“Just 24,” said Aeysha. “Sad, really. Then Marvin got in tax trouble and exiled himself to London. He got himself all fucked up there, and finally washed up in Ostend to get himself straight.”
“I have been there. Odd place for a soul star.” She shrugged. “Is there a place to smoke or do you have to go downstairs.
“Check the deck out back,” she said waving toward a glass door in the back of the room. “It is the best deck in the city.”
“And one of the reasons this is my favorite bar in town,” said the Lieutenant.
I wandered out that way as servers started bringing in platters of fried chicken and Belgian waffles and moulles-frites. It smelled wonderful.
The deck was chilly but the gas heaters around the perimeter kept things tolerable and the overhang kept the drizzle off. By the time I walked back the room was filling up with young people, who being mostly military were prompt and timely in their arrival. There were a couple grown ups who I refrained from kissing and several young officers with whom I did not flirt. The energy of the crowd was palpable. I don’t think I have been out after nine o’clock at night in a long time.
Someone started banging a glass with a fork and attention was drawn to one of the grown ups, who explained the ritual of the Wetting Down, which is to say the obligation of a newly promoted officer to spend the equivalent of one month’s raise to buy drinks for the wardroom. The eleven new 02s were introduced in turn, and then the music returned, throbbing and driving.
I elbowed my way up to the bar and told the Lieutenant I was going to grab a cab back to Arlington before I broke any ground rules. He looked relaxed now that the money was spent and the affair had come off without a hitch.
“I am very proud of you, Son,” I said.
“What?” he said, leaning over to try to hear me over the voices and the music.
“I said I am very proud of you.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks.”
“See you round the campus, Lieutenant.”
“Night, Old Man.” I walked down the stairs, listening to the rich full sound of Marvin Gaye singing “What’s Going On.”
It was appropriate. The kids are, I thought. They definitely are. Then I walked out the front door and hailed a cab and was hauled off into the night.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
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