Fallen Angels, Season 1

Jane and Dick allowed themselves a mental health day.

They debated where to go for breakfast. Jane held out for beignets.

Around noon they climbed out of the Smithsonian Metro station and strolled arm-in-arm through the National Mall.

They sang calliope tunes on the carousel that was a rendezvous point when they first fell in love. Food trucks were parked exactly where they were supposed to be.

As they worked their way back to Columbia Heights, they flirted with a hopeful Japanese Chin at a rescue shelter and made silly faces for toddlers at a playground (other people’s kids are so cute).

They bought tequila and limes, and as they watched night came on they downed a pitcher of margaritas between them.

Not long ago the evening would have turned physical but things have changed since Dick and Jane lost their White House jobs. Gone is that incredibly powerful aphrodisiac rush they got from inventing fictions that were repeated on Fox News.

Nothing good ever comes from being in a laundromat during the workweek.

Dick and Jane had been banished, and were condemned to spend eternity waiting for a functioning dryer at the Petwork Laundromat.

It’s their particular hell to know that beautiful, young people have taken their jobs at the White House. Using the same desks, scheduling the same meetings with same lunches ordered-in at taxpayer expense, working on the same policies (but in reverse), and flashing the same IDs Jane and Dick had been forced to surrender.

No one at the Petworth appreciates how special Dick and Jane are. And absolutely no one at the Petworth has anything interesting to say.

“I feel like we’re being punished, Dicky.” Jane said.

“Punished for what?” Dick asked.

“That’s the thing, Dicky,” Jane said, “I don’t know.”

Humidity and the smell of curries have always made Jane nauseous.

Dick and Jane quietly stopped attending a suburban megachurch which preaches the gospel of personal prosperity. They were falling behind with their contribution pledge.

They’ve been visiting various congregations since they moved to a more affordable part of town.

Yesterday they sat in on the Easter service celebrated down the street from their new place.

Dick picked up a rosary left behind in his pew and wrapped it around his fingers, imitating the woman in front of him. He recalled wearing yamakas at friends’ bar mitvahs years earlier.

He and Jane ignored the donations basket as it was passed down the pew. They were just window-shopping and besides they didn’t stay for the whole service because they had brunch reservations near Dupont Circle.

Judging by cars they saw in the church lot, they figured that if the parishioners at St. Martin’s were praying for wealth and influence, they were saying the wrong prayers and singing the wrong songs.

Dick remarked on how well Kamal speaks English, without the kind of accent so many immigrants struggle to shake.

Kamal burst out into that big, professional storekeeper’s laugh that serves him so well.

“The hat fools certain folks,” he said.

“I was born and raised in Bloomfield Hills and mastered in comparative languages at Ann Arbor.”

Kamal had worked summers in his “jid’s” store. Years later his grandfather, his jid, asked if he’d care to take over the mini-mart. Since then he’s been surrounded by dialects from around the world.

Kamal made a diplomatic show of welcoming Dick to his establishment and to the neighborhood of ungentrified row-houses.

“You don’t happen to own the BMW 3 Series I’ve seen parked out on the street, do you?” Kamal asked.

“Half of it,” Dick said.

A man came in for lottery tickets. A woman came in for her daily purchase of three Salem Golds at fifty cents apiece.

“I’m curious,” Dick said, “what made you think the 3 Series out there belongs to me?”

“I could tell by your accent,” Kamal said.

Jane and Dick are jobless, still, and renting in a neighborhood whose better days are behind it.

Career opportunities are all but certain to come their way but until then it’s strictly by-the-bootstraps.

Jane suggested they take up dog walking – zero capital requirements, minimal wardrobe demands, exercise and fresh air. They’d work for cash and still get unemployment.

Their old neighbors in Georgetown shelled out as much as $25 an hour.

“Except for one problem,” Dick said, “our new neighborhood’s full of people who cut their own hair, scrub their own bathrooms and walk their own dogs.

“Maybe it’s time,” he said, “that we explore the pings we’ve been getting from those unregistered domains in Eastern Europe”

”No fucking way, Dicky.” Jane replied. “We agreed to walk away from all that when we left the White House.”