The House of Mine Enemy
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It only occurred to me as we were walking away that I'd probably gained myself an FBI profile. That is, if I didn't have one already.
Friday night, we'd walked from Georgetown along the Potomac, passed by watergate, toured the Lincoln Memorial, touched the wall, and watched the sun set over the reflecting pool. Feeling oversaturated in patriotism, I snapped photos of the full moon behind a billowing American flag and suggested we go to the Whitehouse.
It was cold, and very dark, and we weren't really sure where we were going or how close we could really get to the Big Man's mansion without being shot. As it turned out, we far overshot the lawn and ended up walking through an empty park that seemed to be, but really wasn't restricted access.
At the fence, a jovial (and hugely loud) black family tossed jokes and jibes back and forth about Whitehouse trivia. The amused security guard on duty fielded their questions about the House's original location and could neither confirm nor deny that what we were taking pictures of was actually the technical BACK of the House. Droves of stupid tourists snapped flash photos into the darkness, and even those with digital cameras wondered why what they were seeing didn't come out. I wanted to hang them all.
I was contemplating the idiocy of most novice photographers, watching them crane through the bars of the fence, when Justin commented that security must have a lot of problems with people dropping cameras, purses and worse onto the lawn. Taking a second look at the fence, we realized that it wasn't very big or very imposing, and it certainly wasn't "live" (electrified) as there were people leaning their fat cheeks right into it. Now, given that this fence is in direct line of sight of the White House, we also guessed there must be some kind of hardcore invisible security in place. What could it be?
Justin and I strolled back along the sidewalk, imagining lasers, ninjas, and spikes that impaled jumpers from beneath fake turf. As we came to the street, I turned to him, Why don't you just ask the guard?
"What, are you kidding?" he said.
"No, it's just a question," said I, and then, without thinking about it, "fine, I'm cute and innocent. I'll do it." And I sauntered up to the guard.
"Now, if someone were to, say, climb this here fence and jump over to the other side, what exactly would happen to them?" I continued, as if to remind him of the possibilities in case he'd forgotten, "I mean, do you have dogs? Because they aren't here NOW. Are there snipers? Lasers? Something mean and nasty?"
The guard looked at me.
"Uh. Well. I can't exactly tell you that," he said. I was about to interject my disappointment when he carried on. "But," he said, "if you were to jump over right now, I suppose we'd all find out, wouldn't we?"
"Oh," I said, "How about I just pretend to jump over and you signal to them just so we can see it?"
Yes, I was beginning to feel like a dork right about then.
"Let's just say there are security measures in place," said the guard smiling. We wished him a good night and walked away, convinced that pictures of our faces, probably taken with some kind of lapel camera, had been paired with recorded audio and already on the way to the "code yellow" vault in the FBI building, only blocks away.
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