We Were Had

My sister and I expected our trip to Washington DC for our mom’s memorial service to be bittersweet. We didn’t expect it to be an adventure.

Rosemary and I, our cousin Margaret, and her husband Bill were representing the family at this gathering of friends with whom our mother had lived and worked during her 35-year sojourn in northern Virginia. We wanted them not to have to travel all the way to Cleveland, her home for the last seven years, to pay their respects.

Mom’s dear friend and lay pastor Carol made arrangements for a room and refreshments at the Festival Center, the Church of the Saviour’s center for servant leadership and social justice in Adams Morgan, a once seedy but now trendy part of town where Mom had a long history. Debi furnished the room with lush bouquets of blue and white flowers. Carol et al. had selected thoughtful readings and hymns, Carol’s musician husband Kent provided the music, and Kurt offered up prayers. These were Mom’s people from her spiritual home, and they delivered a lovely service.

Through her Church of the Saviour mission groups, Mom had worked dilligently to house the homeless and families of recovering drug addicts in DC and neighboring Anacostia. So it was no surprise that, along with the expected church friends, two such people whose lives she had touched were present to honor her memory and offer testimony.

During the reception afterward, one of them, the lady with long stringy hair, wizened face, and badly fitting clothes, pulled me aside. She needed busfare to get home, she whispered, and could I spare a few dollars? In the spirit of Mom’s life of good deeds, I said sure and reached into my purse. I had just a twenty-dollar bill left, but I knew Rosemary had some cash on her, so I handed it over with my best wishes.

My sister and I said our goodbyes to Mom’s people and hitched a ride with our cousin as far as Georgetown, where we planned to visit the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks before heading back to Baltimore Washington International Airport for our respective flights home. Before hopping out, we wanted to reimburse Bill for the fee he had paid at the parking garage in Adams Morgan.

Unfortunately, Rosemary no longer had any cash either—she had given her last $20 to the lady with the long hair and mismatched clothing! Pretty slick operator, we agreed, and had a good laugh. Now it was our turn to require busfare, and Margaret kindly bailed us out with a $20 from her pocket.

No Dumbarton Oaks for us—the gardens were closed, as they seem to be every time I try to visit. It was a beautiful May Saturday, so we chose instead to wander the tree-lined streets of Georgetown, pulling our suitcases behind us, in the direction of a metro stop where we would begin our trip to BWI. And presently we encountered the first installment of our adventure.

One of the grand homes on R Street was mobbed with classy looking people and limousines. We had to find out what was going on! A familiar face greeted us along the way there, offering our first clue. That’s somebody, we agreed, and finally came up with a name—David Gregory of Meet the Press. Arriving at the scene, we loitered outside the fence watching people come and go and asking questions. Turns out this was the customary Editorial Briefing Breakfast the morning before the annual Whitehouse Correspondents dinner, and we were standing before the home of former Washington Post editor Katherine Graham. In the backyard, the correspondents were sipping mimosas, being briefed on LGBT issues in the media, and using portable toilets because the house had stood empty for some time and the plumbing wasn’t working. Porta-Potties—that struck me as funny, bringing all these fancy people to a common level.

Someone said all the stars of Scandal were there, so we craned our necks to catch any glimpse of our favorite characters. Hey, that guy was murdered, I said, spotting the journalist husband of Fitz’s chief of staff Cyrus, very much alive, taking over the wheel of his car from a parking valet. We missed seeing the lovely Lupita Nyong'o from Twelve Years a Slave, but we saw another young starlet whom we couldn’t place, though we knew she was somebody.

We finally dragged ourselves away as the party broke up and continued our meander through Georgetown’s shady streets. We traversed Rock Creek Park on the Q-Street Bridge, flanked on both sides by enormous bronze buffalo, and entered the City, which was mobbed with tourists strolling, consulting guidebooks, and taking pictures. We found our metro stop at DuPont Circle and hopped on the Red Line which, with one transfer to the Green Line, took us to the Greenbelt, where we would take the B30 bus to BWI—we had committed to using public transportation all through this trip, for principled reasons. 

  

Arriving at Greenbelt, we pulled our suitcases through the station and out into the sun to join a group of similarly minded travelers at the bus shelter. We waited and waited, but the B30 didn’t come. Presently someone spotted a bus parked way down the road and walked down there to find out what was up. It was indeed our bus; it had broken down, and another was coming in 40 minutes. Hmmmm. Too late for most of us to catch our flights.

So we all hustled over to the nearby taxi stand and made up quick groupings to fill the waiting vehicles. Rosemary and I paired up with a lady on crutches who worked at the airport. The cab ride would cost us fifty dollars. Then we heard the bad news, spoken in heavily accented English—cash only, no credit cards. Between us we had only thirty dollars, crutch lady contributing ten. What to do?! A man who seemed to be in charge went down the line of cabs and beckoned us to one near the back—credit card okay, he said. Whew!

We piled in with our bags and urged the cabbie to drive with all deliberate speed to the airport. Turns out that “credit card okay” meant that he was taking us to the nearby Marriott to use their ATM machine to get cash. Frantic with this delay, I grabbed my card as we pulled up at the hotel, sped into the lobby, located the machine, slipped the card in the slot, wracked my brain to remember my PIN, and…the machine didn’t like my card! No way, uh-uh, no matter how many times I tried. Sweat beaded on my forehead as a sense of doom descended.

But wait! I had my checkbook.

As I climbed back into the taxi, I explained to the cabbie that we had only thirty dollars among the three of us and begged him to take a check for the remaining twenty. The cabbie appeared confused and apprehensive. He didn’t know about checks. I explained that he could take my check to his bank, sign the back of it, and it was as good as cash. He must have heard the desperation in my voice for he stoicly agreed to the plan. Whew! I wrote out a check to Yohannes Merkuria—Slovak? Russian? Ethiopian?—with some extra for his trouble.

Yohannes, our new best friend, sped competently to BWI and dropped us off with just minutes to spare. Rosemary and I used those minutes to grab a beer at a bar near our gate. (They took credit cards!)  The pale, foamy liquid soothed our frazzled nerves, and, as we guzzled, we had a good laugh over how we’d been had by one of Mom’s homeless, and what an excellent adventure had ensued.