What Was It Really Like?
A couple weeks ago, I was waiting outside of Busboys and Poets for a friend who was very late. His cell was cut off, so we had to revert to the old days, when people either showed up when they said they were going to or waited around a whole lot more.
I was leaning up against the wall, just checking out the action on 14th Street when Cindy Sheehan walked out of the restaurant. She sighed and pulled out her cell phone, made a call, left a message, then sighed some more.
I had to speak to her. I thanked her for all her efforts, and her face lit right up again. I asked if she was alright.
"Yeah," she said, "I'm fine, just tired. I was calling my boyfriend to say goodnight, but I had to leave a voicemail."
For some reason it never occurred to me that Cindy Sheehan, leader of the international movement to stop this ridiculous war, would have a boyfriend.
"He lives in (a midwestern state I forget)," she explained. "He could live right next door to me in California, and it would be a long distance relationship, though. I travel so much, I'm only home in Calfornia a few days a month." Here, her face sagged. She has an infectious smile, but it dropped for a second, and I could see an exhausted middle-aged woman stretched way beyond her limits.
Trying to cheer her up, I asked about the fun side of the travel. "Surely you get to go to some awesome places, though," I said. "What's the most interesting place you've been recently?"
It turns out she'd been the guest of America's favorite Texan for a few days that week: Willie Nelson!
"What," I said, "You stayed at this house in Texas?"
"No, MAUI!" she replied. "It was gorgeous!"
"What's Willie Nelson's guest room like," I begged. I had to know.
"Oh, you wouldn't believe it. It's beautiful, and twenty feet past the end of the bed is a sliding glass door. You walk out that door, go fifty yards, and your toes are in the ocean!"
It blew my mind. I had another question, but I couldn't bring myself to ask it. It just seemed wrong at the time, and now I'm kicking myself.
"So what are you guys up to tonight?"
"Well," the leader of the peace movement said, "we're supposed to go dancing at Cafe Citron, but I really want to go to sleep. My friends want me up in the club, but I've been through so many time zones this week I just need to lay down."
Cafe Citron. Cindy Sheehan was going to go with her international peace activist friends to shake that ass at DC's biggest Eurotrash NoVa bridge-and-tunnel club. This was a revelation.
Not as big a revelation, though, as the answer to my unasked question would have been. We chatted for a little more, and then she left. On the tip of my tongue the whole time was "So did Willie Nelson get you baked back into the stone age or what? Was there pot in a small dish by the guest bed?"
Maybe a better question would have been: "So what was it LIKE getting high with Willie Nelson?"
Because you KNOW they did...
posted by Jeff Simmermon @ 8:39 PM
9 Comments:
That's great you were able to talk to her. I probably would have said something lame like 'Good job' or 'sorry about your son.'
Did you get around to asking her why she hasn't bought a marker for her dead son's grave, or did that not come up either?
Whatever is resting above Casey Sheehan's grave, I'm sure he's rolling over with embarrassment at the behavior of his attention-starved, unhinged mother.
How would you know? I think her son is proud as hell his mom challenged this sack-of-manure so-called president about what he got us into in Iraq.
That's an interesting person to meet! I won't put my beliefs here, but I wish you would of asked her about Willie Nelson, that's great!
It's easy to forget that these individuals who get elevated to celebrities -- in her case I'm sure she'd rather have a son than fame, no matter what some apologists for Bush's boondoggle might say -- get frail and exhausted just like the rest of us.
Wow...definately a story for the ages. :-) Glad you went up to her...a lot of people would have just stared and wondered what she was like. Cafe Citron-who would have guessed?
I looked up her picture-I would NEVER recognize her in person. Cool you said hi though.
What a cool story! I love how there are still people amongst us that are trying to assassinate the character of anyone who stands up and questions the intentions of this regime. I want to ask them what they are proud of. If she has not bought a headstone for him, as sighted by herself on the "gossip" website that he got it from, there are personal reasons, that none of us need dip our noses in. What IS our business is the men of our Armed Forces, and when we ask them to fight and defend, to serve and protect, it ALWAYS should be for the best of possible reasons, and should be done with the best of possible plans.
Sorry to preach...I didn't intend to. I just sometimes wonder what the 32% are smoking.
I just had to reply to the comment about the lack of headstone more so than the story...
When my Grandma died we got her a simple bronze plaque that is embedded in the earth. It isn't veiwable unless you look straight down at it from above. Some of us think headstones are ass-tacky.
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