I was twenty-six years old, and hadn't really planned on charting the course of human history until I was at least forty or forty-five. The six of us were crowded into the booth. Too many. I stared into my beer.
Wes' girlfriend and and Matt's girlfriend sat at the end, engaging in the smallest talk I had ever heard, as always happens when friends introduce their girlfriends to each other. Perkins and I would start trying to get down to business, and either Wes or Matt would derail us and open the door back up to the girls so they could start going on again about how they were in big trouble now because they had just gotten used to writing "2002" and it was already 2003. We asked the waiter for a sheet of paper, tore it up, and made a paper football. It wasn't long before the girls expressed annoyance and the guys feigned it. We crumpled it up and listened to some more talk about forgetting their own cell phone numbers because, after all, they never call themselves.
I looked out the window. A middle-aged man trudged through the snow across the street and began to rip the Christmas lights off his shop's awning. I was a Florida State alum who hadn't yet adapted to winters in Washington. My typical inattentive self had volunteered to sit at the window, and the condensation was getting all over the left arm of my jacket. The cold light from the streetlamp outside dimmed, and somehow quieted, everything inside. We worked in skyscrapers on the good end of downtown. Across the street from them were some of the nicest clubs in D.C., but we unanimously preferred it here. The bar/restaurant didn't have a name, the service was slow and unfriendly, nobody knew your name. We liked each other well enough; we didn't really feel the need for anyone else to like.
The girls left, Wes and Matt walking them to the door. "All right, so here's the thing." Perkins centered himself at the painted wood table. "Who's your client right now?"
"Motorola."
"You're shitting me. You're fucking shitting me. I got 3Com."
I grinned. "This is going to be sweet, man. What did we decide this was? Putting $1000 on the Skins winning the Super Bowl, right?"
"Ha, yeah. I mean, basically. If it doesn't happen, hell, it was a bust. But if it ever did--
I slapped the table with my palm. "Haha, but it won't."
"I know, I know, I know, dude. But if it does, we're famous forever."
We were having the time of our lives. Matt and Wes sat back down. Perkins sat up in his chair, as much as you can in a booth, and pointed at Matt first.
"RCA."
"FUCK YEAH!" I patted Matt on the back. Perkins, the look on his face growing somehow more excited, turned his finger to Wes.
"Cisco." The table erupted again. Old men from nearby tables craned their necks.