So around 9pm tonight, I felt a gnawing hunger and suddenly regretted not taking my aunt up on her offer to load me down with leftovers after the Thanksgiving lunch. I decided to go out, out into the cool city night, out onto DC's rain-slicked, empty streets. I marveled at the lack of traffic and the ample parking spaces, the lack of all but a few shadowy figures moving between the street lamps, and wondered if that is what DC was like before there were so many people.
My objective was simple: find a place that was open, and get a quick bite to eat, and then come home and watch "The Great Escape." I walked to Chipotle first. A chain restaurant. Gotta be open on Thanksgiving, right? No such luck... Connecticut Avenue was as empty as the back streets I'd just walked through, and Chipotle was dark. I turned around, and tripped over a pair of empty shoes that were just sitting on the sidewalk, and wondered if this was an omen. On the other side of the otherwise empty street, a procession of 6 or 7 people in long coats were walking. Where were they going?
I decided to try Alberto's, which I'd been thinking about since last night. A slice would do me some good. Walked over to 20th and P. Dark. The Subway, upstairs, dark. Everything dark.
At this point I knew I had no other choice. I walked back up 20th, back toward the Childe Harold. The Childe wouldn't let me down. Sure enough, it was open and advertising a "Thanskgiving special." Last thing I wanted was Thanksgiving food, but I figured I'd have a pint and something off the regular menu.
As I walked in, the Redskins were on the TV above the bar, and somebody had played a bunch of Grateful Dead songs on the jukebox. I'm not going to lie, I'm not a fan of either football or the Grateful Dead, but it seemed right for this place. There was something reassuring in the familiarity and timelessness of it all. As I sat down, the barmaid, a friendly Russian girl named Susha, began chatting like a long-lost friend, and let me know exactly what it felt like to be working on a holiday, and how I should have my burger cooked. I took her advice, and sure enough the burger came back perfect.
Meanwhile, the music had moved on to Wilson Pickett's "In The Midnight Hour." It brought back memories of the funnest gig I ever played, a New Year's Eve party up on Columbia Road, Michelle's place. Although everyone in the band knew each other, we had never played together in that configuration before, we'd never rehearsed. Al, who had put the whole thing together, called out the songs as we went along, and called out the chord changes, and we all either went along or improvised, and when we messed up, everyone was having too much fun to notice. At the stroke of midnight, the champagne flowed and we launched into that Pickett song. By the time we finished playing around two, we were all sweaty and exhausted and the pristine white guitar I'd borrowed from Kumar was splattered with blood because without even knowing it I'd torn apart my fingers on the steel strings. As a suitably sloppy ending to this chaotic evening, as people were starting to head home, or onto wherever, and the room was clearing out, we started to notice there was this drunk guy there that nobody seemed to know, and we all became certain we didn't know him when he peed in the corner of the living room in front of all of us. He was ejected after that.
Back to the Childe Harold, the Rolling Stones were on now -- Jumpin' Jack Flash followed by Sympathy for the Devil -- and Keith Richards' snarky guitar made me miss playing electric in a band. I noticed that a couple of guys had bought Susha a shot, which I hoped took the edge off having to work on Thanksgiving. It was hard to say no to another drink, but I decided it was time to go home, paid the tab, and walked out, into the cool misty evening.
Labels: bars, childe harold, dining, holidays, nightlife, thanksgiving
