It started one evening in an apartment building on Connecticut Avenue just south of the bridge that spans Rock Creek Park. A stately old place where Douglas MacArthur had resided after President Truman fired him, pissed off a whole lot of Republicans, and assured the narcissistic genius his place in history.

John Carothers and Harold Levy were both brand new second lieutenants in Korea when the old man had been summoned back to Washington. Today they were sipping expensive scotch as they gazed out at the oaks beginning to turn as the blanket of Washington humidity headed off for winter storage.

Although well into their seventies, both were fit from regular squash matches at the University Club and hiking treks in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. A year earlier they had started out in mid-March in Georgia and walked to Maine on the Appalachian Trail. Did it in less than four months. A good clip for men half their age.

“Been turning something over in my mind the last few days,” said Carothers in his Alabama drawl that relatives back home claimed had all but disappeared. It hadn’t.

“What would that be?” asked Levy. His accent was distinctly Brooklyn.

“Hell, it s older ‘n the hills. It’s how most people, especially big shots, try to duck out of taking responsibility when they fuck up.”

Levy chuckled. “Geese, John, why not pick an easy problem. Curing cancer? Climate change? Terrorism?”

Carothers slowly shook his head. “‘Swhat I was thinking.”

“Let’s go up on the roof and watch the sun set,” said Levy. “Bring your drink.”

**********************

The two old friends had enjoyed successful careers, Carothers as an economist at George Washington University, Levy as a litigator in a sprawling firm on K Street. Both had been offered cabinet appointments when the Democrats had prevailed but had always politely declined.

When people they trusted asked why, Carothers usually said, “Don’t think I could hold back from telling some horse’s ass senator to go piss up a rope if he had me in front of a mike at a committee hearing.”

Levy said, “I used to have tea with Ernst Nagel when I was at Columbia Law. He knew I was a Jewish combat veteran. Never came right out and said it, but I think he knew the anti-Semitic shit I’d had to put up with in the service. Told me I’d always be a happier man if I never kissed anybody’s tukas. Not richer, not more powerful, just happier.”

******************

Stretched out on one of the all-weather couches that would not be there a week later, Carothers said, “Not sure why this has got me so riled up. Like I said, nothing new about it.”

“No, there isn’t. But with all the ways we have of getting the news these days, the lying and bullshit is hard to get away from.”

“For damn sure. Can’t get away from it ‘less you go someplace way off in the boonies. But I’m not sure that’s what’s eating at me.

“Truth be told, it seems we got famous people just about every day who do fess up to some bad shit they did and apologize for it.”

“Okay. But think for a moment about why they own up to their mistakes.”

“That may be it, Harold. Sumbitches fess up because they get caught and there’s no way they can wiggle out of it. It’s the technology that trips ’em up.”

“Like that congressman from my home town? What’s his name?

“Weiner.”

“Yeah, him. Starts out he’s talking all this bullshit that his Twitter account got hacked. That lasted maybe a week, and then this whole flood of tweets he sent with graphic pictures comes spewing out.”

“And his ass is cooked like Aunt Molly’s Christmas goose.”

“I think Clinton is another example?”

“Slick Willy? Dead on. That lying sack of shit. Wasn’t for DNA, old boy’d still be claiming he didn’t have sexual relations with ‘that woman.’”

“Hell, John, go all the way back to Nixon. Nazi prick. If it wasn’t for those tapes, he might never have resigned.”

“Good chance, buddy. Good chance.”

Carothers went quiet for a few minutes.

“Whadya thinking, John”

“This all makes me think about my dad. He was a Presbyterian minister who tried to practice what he preached. If he stumbled, and he did like we all do, he owned up to it straightaway.

“I was maybe 15 and he and Momma were going through a rough patch. Not sure what the problem was, but the tension between ’em was palpable. Anyway, he ended up having a dalliance with a younger woman.

“Hard to keep something like that a secret in a small town. Church ladies feed off that stuff. Plenty of men folk, too.

“Soon as Momma got wind of it, she called Daddy out on it. The old boy didn’t duck it. Owned up to it on the spot, said it was over, and begged her to forgive him.”

Levy reached over and tousled his old friend’s hair.

“She didn’t give him any kind of answer at all for the longest time. Didn’t blame her one bit. He’d wounded a woman I worshipped, and he deserved to pay for the pain he’d caused all of us.

“As time passed, I could see the hardness and the hurt in her eyes start to melt. All the while, Daddy tiptoed around her like she was a coiled up old copperhead ready to strike at the teensiest provocation.”

Levy was trying not to chuckle.

“Yeah, I took some enjoyment from it, too. Then one day all of a sudden she summoned Daddy and me and my two younger sisters into the parlor.

“She sat there and never once looked at Daddy, just at Bertha and Mildred and me. She said, ‘Your father made a very bad mistake, and he has asked for my forgiveness. And I have decided to give it to him.’ Then she stood up and strode out of the room without another word.

“Then me and the girls went over and hugged him while he cried his heart out.”

***********