The area was Bohemian and mostly gay, with dark bars like The Fireplace and Mr. P’s that were always crowded with well-built, body-pierced men. I knew, because I had been here many times in the past to visit my niece, and I noted that the lesbian bookstore had moved and there seemed to be a new health food store not too far from Burger King.

“You can let us out here,” I said to the driver.

He slammed on the brakes again and swerved near the curb.

“Shit,” Marino said as the blue cab raced away. “You think there’re any Americans in this town?”

“If it wasn’t for non-Americans in towns like this, you and I wouldn’t be here,” I reminded him.

“Being Italian’s different.”

“Really? Different from what?” I asked at the two thousand block of P Street, where we entered the D.C. Cafe.

“From them,” he said. “For one thing, when our people got off the boat on Ellis Island, they learned to speak English. And they didn’t drive taxi cabs without knowing where the hell they was going. Hey, this place looks pretty good.”

The cafe was open twenty-four hours a day, and the air was heavy with sautéing onions and beef. On the walls were posters of gyros, green teas, and Lebanese beer, and a framed newspaper article boasted that the Rolling Stones had once eaten here. A woman was slowly sweeping as if it were her mission in life. She paid us no mind.

“You relax,” I said to Marino. “This shouldn’t take but a minute.”

He found a table to smoke while I went up to the counter and studied the yellow lit-up menu over the grill.

“Yes,” said the cook as he pressed sizzling beef and slapped and cut and tossed browning chopped onions.

“One Greek salad,” I said. “And a chicken gyro in pita and, let me see.” I perused. “I guess a Kefte Kabob Sandwesh. I guess that’s how you say it.”

“To go?”

“Yes.”

“I call you,” he said as the woman swept.

I sat down with Marino. There was a TV, and he was watching Star Trek through a swarm of loud static.

“It’s not going to be the same when she’s in Philly,” he said.

“It won’t be.”

I stared numbly at the fuzzy form of Captain Kirk as he pointed his phaser at a Klingon or something.

“I don’t know,” he said, resting his chin in his hand as he blew out smoke. “Somehow it just don’t seem right, Doc. She had everything all figured out and had worked hard to get it that way. I don’t care what she says about her transferring, I don’t think she wants to go. She just doesn’t believe she’s got a choice.”

“I’m not sure she does if she wants to stay on the track she’s chosen.”