Watching Donald Trump's Inauguration In A West Virginia Bar
Male Strippers and Norman Rockwell
“Anyone kill Trump today?” asked a customer as he stepped foot in Raw II, a local bar, during Friday’s ceremonies.
“I give him one year,” responded a patron at the bar.
“They didn’t kill Obama,” said Trish, the bartender, “they’re not going to kill Trump.”
So it went in Sissonville, West Virginia, a close-knit town of 4,000 people about twenty minutes north of Charleston. Four years ago, Trish watched former President Obama’s second inaugural address at her old watering hole down the street. She had lamented her sexual inactivity — “I leave the door unlocked and the lights on, and I still can’t get anyone to come in and rape me” — and the nation’s economic inequality — “The people who are raising this country, making it what it is, are the people making the least.”
Now, as the newly sworn-in President promised to “make America great again,” Trish praised the outgoing administration and heaped scorn on the new one.
On Barack: “I ended up liking him as much as the next person.”
On Michelle: “A fine representative for the United States.”
On Trump: “Did anyone else see that hand motion at the end of the speech? It was Hitleristic.”
On Pence: “That motherfucker is crazy.”
Yet Trish voted for Trump. With two children in the military, Trish votes Republican since they’re the party less likely to reduce military spending, she says.
Trish isn’t alone — West Virginia was tied with Wyoming for having the greatest percentage of its vote go to Trump, adding that superlative to the state’s long list: lowest percentage of residents with bachelor’s degree or advanced degrees, second-lowest median household income, one of the five lowest rates of passport possession, highest rate of hypertension, second-highest rate of diabetes, third-highest rate of obesity. The number of miners working in the state is at its lowest point in a century.
Neither candidate inspired Trish, 54. “I’m so tired of having to pick between the lesser of two evils.”
But the main thing that makes Trish tired is working seventeen-hour days. She frequently works double shifts — 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. — and spends those days smoking two packs of cigarillos and alternating between Henry’s Hard Soda, hard alcohol, and frozen pizza.
She also talks, a lot. Trish says she knows “ninety-nine percent” of the people who drop in to the bar, and she talks to all of them. One customer compared Trish’s mouth to a laxative.
For example, when a male customer complained after she beat him five consecutive times in pool, Trish said, “His vagina is hurting today. He’s bloating and puffy from his period.”
In response to an accusation of sacrilege at the bar’s Halloween party for wearing a nun costume while pregnant (she went in to labor during the party): “My God has a sense of humor.”
On her wholesome childhood: “I grew up so Norman Rockwell, it’d kill you.”
On the death of her husband eight years ago: “Life goes on. At least for me it does.”
Down the street at Trish’s old bar, the Village Café, Donald J. Trump had been president for forty-five minutes when two women walked in. They sidled up to the bar, alone except for Bear, a regular who’d watched an episode of Columbo throughout Trump’s inaugural address. They ordered two Jägerbombs and, focusing intently on the smartphone in front of them, and began comparing photos of different male strippers.
Eventually talk turned to Prince, and then 1999 came up, which was the year one of the women was pregnant with her son. She recalled drinking champagne during her pregnancy. “That’s probably why he’s dyslexic.
“I saw him at the Dollar Store the other day, after he bought 32-gallon trash bags instead of 13-gallon trash bags, and I looked at him and said, ‘You dyslexic fuck.’” Their conversation hurdled forward, with momentary pauses for the inauguration scenes captured on the TV, which was perched above a confederate flag. The mother of the dyslexic teenager said she voted. “That’s the price of bitching. You don’t vote, you can’t bitch.” She chose Trump over Clinton.
“Call me prejudiced,” she continued, “but I think there are some things women shouldn’t do. Women shouldn’t be preachers, and they shouldn’t be president. And there are some things men shouldn’t do. They shouldn’t be shaving hoo-has.”
The current bartender at Village Café, Carmela, felt cautiously optimistic about the election results. After being born in West Virginia, she’d grown up in Detroit. Her father worked for General Motors, as did her eventual father-in-law. After her husband, a machinist for the Big Three auto companies, was laid off, the couple moved to West Virginia, where their taxes are just $350 a year. Even so, Carmela works a second job at McDonald’s. At home, her husband and her have neither TV nor Internet access. During the inaugural address, Trump’s line about how the Washington establishment’s “triumphs were not our triumphs” felt particularly resonant. “Hopefully he does what he says,” she said.
At Rollin Smoke BBQ down the street, a West Virginia Department of Highway employee had more cosmetic concerns. “The only thing that concerns me about [Trump] is that it takes him three hours to get his hair done,” said the burly man who did not appear to have trimmed his beard since Obama’s first term. “There’s gonna be an emergency at 3:00 a.m., and he’s not going to come on TV to talk to us about it until 6:00 a.m. because he’s gonna be getting his hair done.”
Jill, whose family owns Rollin Smoke, knows the mayor of the nearby town who resigned recently after posting Facebook messages that agreed with a resident who referred to Michelle Obama as an “ape in heels.” Jill reluctantly supported the mayor’s resignation. “I think she took the high road on that one.”
Over at Raw Bar II, where the jukebox ranged from Chingy to Dean Martin, Trish was less amused by the incident, which garnered international coverage. “There’s nothing worse in this world than idiots going online and letting everyone know that they’re idiots,” she said.
At that point, Trish’s daughter, Brook, piped up. Trish and Brook are close — Trish said she “had the honor and the privilege to stay home with my kids.” “We moved in to a lesser house and drove used cars. Kids don’t remember what you had; they remember if you were there.”
But they also remember which candidates you support. Brook rolled her eyes when she heard her mom’s remark about idiots online.
Said Brook, “Ask her who she voted for.”
Brendan Lowe is a freelance journalist. He has previously written for Time magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Baltimore Sun.