A tale from Sutter Lane NW

I once lived with an important person in an incredible house. It made me feel special. He owned many things, a vintage car, a mansion in Upper Georgetown, a collection of old books. He also had an original vintage poster hanging in one of the walls and used to say that the lady in the poster turned him on.

This important person accumulated many things but he was all by himself. In the house, we were three, the important person and owner of everything, Usman and me. Usman was brought up in Pakistan and as a son of a general he used to call our third roomie 'Sir'. And so did I.

Sir Maguire died yesterday. He was the first American I ever really met and the one that taught me most of the few things I know about the US today. Sir Maguire was a mix of an intellectual version of Mr. Scrooge and Bart Simpson. It was the best white, posh, racist, septuagenarian roommate one could wish for.

Kentucky Derby Mint Juleps, Irak's invasion, the death of his ex-wife, the fact that his son and daughter would not marry and have kids, we shared the bittersweetness of life during the year I rented a room at his Georgetown house. He had everything but he had lost the important things. One after the other.

The vintage car was rotting in the garage, the expensive poster had lost the lively tonality due to direct exposure to the sun, the book collection was being devoured by the thousands of bugs populating the house's carpet. Like his friendships and family, when he tried to repair all those...it was too late.

Today, I left a message in his answering machine and listening to his recorded message I felt a truly unique individual is gone.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/27/AR2009042703395.html