Chapter Two. They talk about Bunning and go meet Karen at the Four Arms

"So, I mean, what did you do, did you get a car? Do you even have a car?"

"No," said Freddie. "I don't have a car."

"So what were you doing there?"

"I went to see Jim Bunning."

"Who is that?"

"He's a senator, like for Kentucky. He is a creep. He made some crack about Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying of cancer."

"Oh, I remember that guy. When was that, like last year?"

"I think it was a few months ago."

"So why did you want to go see him?"

"I wanted his autograph. He used to be a baseball player."

Adam scratched again at the spackle. He looked at his hand - some spackle had come dislodged from the apartment wall - frowned, furrowed his brow. "So wait, you don't like the guy but-"

Freddie put his hands in the air and waved them around as though he just didn't care. "I know, I know. It's a guilty pleasure. I can't pass up a chance to meet the guy. He threw a 1976!"

Adam blinked. "Wait. What?"

"He threw a 1976, in 1976," Freddie said.

"Umm," Adam said. "Look, Freddie, I don't know that much about baseball, but that sounds wrong to me."

"No, it's true," Freddie said. "He was the relief pitcher for the Mariners."

"What the hell - the Mariners are not even a damn baseball team," Adam said.

They were both silent for a minute.

"Well anyway," Freddie said. "Look, I don't want to get into an argument. This is what they make like, baseball almanacs for. We could look it up on google or something."

"No, never mind," Adam said. "So Bunning was a speaker at this new stimulus thing. Wait a minute. Bunning is a big conservative. I am really confused. I would expect he would be making sour grapes about Obama's stuff, not going down to be a special guest. And what is he doing in California anyhow?"

"I know," Freddie said. "I don't understand it any better than you do. Maybe he was bribed. Maybe his constituency has some weird little eddy of latte liberals. It doesn't seem that way though, does it."

"Yeah, I don't know," Adam said. "So did you get his autograph."

"No," Freddie said. "The line was too long."

"I'm kind of surprised that some random pitcher was that popular."

"Yeah. I don't know why. Maybe the event just like.."

Freddie paused.

"Wait a minute, it's probably because the audiences were mutually exclusive. They picked Bunning specifically because he would draw in people who WEREN'T already coming to the Cash for Clunkers thing."

"I guess that's possible," Adam said.

"Yeah," Freddie said. He took another glug.

"Something about it bothers me though."

"I mean, do you think there was foul play?"

"Well look at these other guys. Rick Perry from Texas started making rhetoric about secession. Jindal and Sanford."

Freddie got a big grin on his face.

"Huh." said Adam questioningly.

"They are in deep, deep shit. I just have to get a little happy how bad off they are all doing these days. I mean, Michael Steele!"

Adam didn't smile. "I don't know. I know what you mean, but I feel like you have to take one extra step out in time. Things change a lot faster than you think they are going to. You know, enjoy it now. I would be surprised if we go progressive for twelve months."

"That's possible," Freddie said. "But I have to enjoy it."

"I just worry that it's a little like 'those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.' It's a conceit. We think the whole concept of cycles has ended just in our lifetimes. It's like aging research. I catch myself on this one. It would be cool if our generation got to live forever or something. But it's a way of blessing your time, more than all the other times, this is like the *real* special age."

"Hmm," Freddie said. "I see where you're coming from. But the axes of how the times are judged ... also changes. So isn't it possible that every age actually does get its corroborating events that says, you were the ones, I mean, just relative to what they had known about previously?"

Adam blinked. "Umm... would you mind elaborating a little? Or actually, alternately we could quit talking and go out ... I was supposed to meet Karen later."

"Well, that's fine," Freddie said. "We could -" he swished his beer bottle. "I'm halfway done with this - we can talk for another fifteen minutes and then go."

"Okay," said Adam.

"So yeah," Freddie said. "Let's say you're in the year 1900, and there's someone you think is a crank, talking about human flight, like the Wright Brothers. You think they're a crank because it makes it sound too much like the people living today are somehow anointed by god, because the vision that the person is describing ... ummm... there are certain boosters or multipliers in the way he's talking, that make the language sparkly, when actually, there is also a prosaic or a mundane way of portraying that human invention of the airplane. It always just reveals the next bottleneck and problem."

"Interesting, "Adam said. "Look, do you want to keep this going while we walk over?"

"Yeah," Freddie said. He grabbed his green windbreaker. Adam locked the door and they were off. "It's no wonder I didn't get a car in that program," Freddie said. "I barely leave my neighborhood. I never go anywhere besides The Four Arms."

"I never go anywhere besides The Four Arms either," Adam said.

The Four Arms was a dry, all-ages tavern which was an unsettling mixture of historical signfication with jokey. "Is it a crest or isn't it?" Karen Grammer was asking the bartender for the benefit of her tourist friends.

Shaun the bartender rolled his eyes. You could tell when there were unfamiliar or new people in the scene, because there was a layer of common jokes that the insiders would always already know. Like stupid puns. They were funny for about a day, and then they became part of the furniture. Like people looking at "Mind the Gap" or "Men at Work." Really dumb, low humor. But he wasn't going to snarl at visitors.

"I have to say," Shaun said. "No one's asked me about that for a while." He pointed up at a yellowed, typewriter-written legend, encased in glass. "You can read about it up there." It was next to a typical whimsical wall sign that read, "DO NOT CALL IT A BAR OR YOU MAY BE EJECTED."

Karen grinned at her brood. They were a boy and a girl who looked to be roughly in their junior year of high school.

"So yeah, " Shaun said. "We were founded by the prohibitionists. They wanted to fight fire with fire by starting up their own little public house, which wouldn't serve any alcohol. That's how come you kids are allowed in here."

"Oh," said Kirstie with a shy air. Her eyes were just over the wooden platform behind which Shaun worked.

"Hmm," Shaun said. "You're looking a little low."

"I feel a little low," Kirstie said.

"Would you like a phone book?" Shaun scanned the place. "Uh.. we don't have any phone books because we don't have any phones anymore."

Karen reached into her messenger bag. "Wait a second," she said. She pulled out a copy of the Princeton Review's Guide to The Best Party Schools, 2010 edition.

"Here, Kirstie," she said. "Why don't you sit on this." It was the size of a phonebook, a typical guide to colleges.

"So wait," Shaun said. "Is that any relation to why you guys are here in Gadsden in the first place?"

"Yes," Karen said. "It's a college program. We tour the country looking at schools."

"Oh," Shaun said. "Are these your children?"

Karen gave Shaun an odd look. "No, I work for the Princeton Review, and I'm going around with Kirstie and Otty. We just got our new car today!"

"Oh," Shaun nodded. "From the clunkers thing."

"Yeah!" Karen said excitedly. "Princeton Review was.. uh, let's just say there was some fiat happening in our decisionmaking for about the last decade. So we finally booted a few people who shall remain nameless, and the doors are wide open to finally upgrade our fleet."

"Hmm," Shaun said. "It seems like a funny time to be doing that, with the bad economy and all."

"I know," Karen nodded. "I know, I know. It's not my decision .. it's the powers-that-be."

The saloon-style swinging wooden doors made a creak. It was Adam and Freddie.

"Woo hoo!' said Freddie. "Karen Grammer!"

The three of them had a succession of big hugs. Karen introduced them to the kids. "Adam, Freddie, these are the kids on my college tour, this is Kirstie and this is Otty."

Otty waved- he had said even less than Kirstie had.

"They seem like good kids," Freddie said.

"We are having a blast," Karen said.

"It kinda sounds like the life of Riley," Adam said. "You get paid, you travel around.."

"Yeah," Karen said. "Well it depends on the kids. It's not all that awesome if you're stuck in a car or a bus with a bunch of brats. Not like these two!" She threw her arms around Kirstie and Otty who grinned. It did actually seem to Freddie that he had a stereotyped idea of teen behavior, but these guys were really quiet and well-behaved.

"But wait a minute," Shaun said. "What's up with the Party School directory?"

"Well," Kirstie said. "They have really good Chem programs."

"What, all of them?"

"It's a strange little correlation," Karen said. "The top ten in the party school book and the top ten rated Chem departments happen to be the same schools."

"I don't like the sound of that," Shaun said. He was extra sensitized to underage drinking, because he had worked at the Four Arms for four years and the boss hammered it into everyone on a daily basis to follow the rules or else.

"How come?" Karen said uneasily.

Shaun blinked. "It makes you think that .. .you know. There is some illicit stuff being made in the labs, like if they have the facilities."

Karen's rate of blinking decreased. It looked as though she was angry with only very subtle changes. "Yes," she said. "But my kids are good kids. They're science majors."

There was silence.

"Otty has a 4.0," she added.

Shaun nodded. "I'm really sorry, Karen. I know they are good kids. Let's all have a 7-Up on the house!"